Rise of the Seven

Chapter 1:

My Life Takes a Strange Turn

My name is Alex. Alex Bowmen. Technically Alexander Bowmen, but if you call me that I may slap you upside your head.

Why my mother chose Alexander…

But I can't be too mad. It's just me and her living in a tiny apartment in the Midtown West district in New York City, so there really isn't a lot of room to hold a grudge because the name "Alexander" just happened to be stuck in her head from her classes earlier in the day.

Oh, my mothers job… She teaches Western Civilization at New York City Community College. So yes I am named after the Greek guy who managed to conquer most of the known world.

Sue me.

But enough background. That's all the past anyway; long gone and done.

Guess I should just go ahead and tell you how I even got caught up in this crazy mess in the first place…

A warning before we go any farther though. If you, the reader of these pages have felt similar feelings to the ones I am about to describe; if you've ever seen crazy things and have questioned your sanity on many occasions, STOP READING NOW!

I suggest you go on with your life, believing what ever you need to get through the rest of your time here on earth. Believe me when I tell you, ignorance is bliss.

If you've already had an experience similar to the one I'm about to describe, then I have something else for you.

Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141Long Island, New York 11954 .

Get going. Chop, chop, before something else comes through your door.

Alright now that the warning has been issued, all you normal people can read on.

My day started out completely normal. Because really there was no reason for it to be abnormal.

I groggily sat down at my small kitchen table, a bowl of cereal already awaiting me.

"Good morning sweetheart. Ready for school today?" my mother greeted me.

My mother, Clair Bowmen, is a morning person to put it lightly. She would have to be, to be a teacher…

I however, do not enjoy being rudely woken up by my alarm clock, so I simply grunted in content.

"I'll take that as a yes then," my mother said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

I munched contently at my cereal, letting the sunlight shining through the curtains slowly filling me with my fourteen year old boy energy.

"Should I walk to school?" I asked my mom, placing the finished bowl in our tiny sink.

"Well I could give you a ride if you wanted- Ouch!"

We collided head to head as we failed to navigate our too small kitchen space. It wasn't the first time we had done this song and dance…

See, I can imagine my mother, living off a meager teachers salary, in what might as well be a house for a vertically challenged person, and raising a menace to society like myself (I'll explain later), getting quite fed up with life all around. Maybe running away and doing something less hectic. Like the circus…

But Clair Bowmen is quite the trooper.

"It's alright honey, luckily we share the same hard head," she laughed, rubbing the spot on her temple. "Though I don't remember you quite growing so much…"

My mother didn't try to hide her disappointment that I had outgrown her this year (YES!). Now I stood an awesome 5 foot 10, and she can no longer kiss the top of my shaggy blond haired head.

"What about just a few days ago?" I mumbled, rubbing the my own thick skull.

"Oh shut up," she said and gave me another kiss. "Brush your teeth so you don't kill anyone at school, and then I'll hurry up and drop you off."

I followed my mother to our ride we kept chained up out in front of our apartment building.

"Yo, Bowmen!" came a grisly shout from above our heads as we made it to the ground floor.

"Yes Mr. Pasho?" replied my mom.

Mr. Pasho, our ugly annoying land lord stuck his head over the stairwell. He really was an ugly sight. Strands of greasy hair hung of his skull and his bulbous nose was covered with some bandages that had not been there yesterday.

I made a mental note to find out who broke his nose and to send them flowers.

"You got my rent coming?" he demanded, his yellowing teeth looking like they could fall out of his mouth and onto me and my poor mother at any second.

"It will be here before the end of the month," promised my mother. "Don't worry about it."

"Right…," muttered Mr. Pasho. "Well you better not be late again. No excuses."

"Yes sir," said my mom, showing off her dazzling smile. With that she made her way out the door.

Mr. Pasho now turned his beady eyes to me.

"How about you go pester someone else now?" I said angrily. This guy could ruin a good morning just by breathing in the same air space as me.

"Watch it kid," he growled. "I could make you homeless you know?"

I decided to ignore that jibe and followed my mom out of the complex. Looking back, I wish I would've kicked him where it hurts before I left.

Now our "ride" isn't really a car. We are in no position what-so-ever to have a car. But we do have a powder blue Vespa, and well…. It gets us from point A to point B.

My mother revved up our speed machine and with a whine from the engine, we took off down the crowded New York streets.

As we weaved in and out of the cars stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, I couldn't help to laugh with my mom.

The sun light seemed to bounce off her face, making her radiate with a kind of new life that she didn't seem to have in that too small apartment.

We arrived at my school, Boyer Middle School, without a hitch and I climbed off the back of the Vespa.

"Good-bye sweetie," said my mom, throwing up her visor on her helmet. "I'll try to be home at a decent hour. Maybe we can grab something to eat…"

"Yeah, I'd like that mom," I smiled. "See ya." I waved as my mom threw her visor back down and sped in-between traffic.

I turned around and jumped right into a cop.

Now I know you're thinking, Is there a reason a cop would be right there waiting for you?

Well the answer is…maybe.

See, remember I mentioned I was a menace to society. Over the years of my short life I've managed to cause quite a bit of chaos. But not intentionally!

Things around me…they just naturally seem to go wrong. I get in a fight and hurt the person when I was really just trying to get him to leave me alone…Or the jar of spider in our sixth grade science lab… well I didn't mean for it to fall over.

The big thing with me though is fire. I can't seem to look at a match without the building coming down around everyone. I think the police had a nice fat file on me. Most were probably convinced I was some pyromaniac.

Luckily I knew the cop I ran into.

"Oh, hey Joe," I said, looking into Joe's hard lined face.

"Officer Verel around here,' he grinned, slapping my arm. "How you holdin' up Alex?"

"Not too bad," I said, looking behind him at the gray cement that was my prison for seven hours Monday through Friday. "Only two more days here."

"Betcha' can't wait to get out can ya?" Joe said, turning to face the building. "I'll be glad myself really. It'll be nice to have a bit more free time."

"Oh yeah. Summertime."

"How's your mom doin'?" asked Joe.

"She's alright," I said, glancing back up the street to where my mother had disappeared. "Been working late a lot. I wish she could find a better place to teach then that community college."

"Yeah, she does deserve better. Such a nice lady," Joe said, looking up at the sky, thinking…well whatever Joe thought about. "Well you look after her now you hear? And yourself too for that matter."

"Alright Joe, I'll see you around," I said. With that I made my way into my prison.

I went strait to my locker and grabbed the only books I would really be needing and slammed it shut as the warning bell rang, telling us to get our butts to class in five minutes or else.

My friend, Peter Meadows fell in step with me as we made our way to class.

"How's it going Pete," I said, slapping him on his back.

"Hey Alex," he said, fixing the straps on his backpack. "Ready for this English final?"

"If Mrs. Kettle doesn't kill us for being late first. You gonna move any faster?"

Maybe it was mean, but I always gave Pete trouble about how slow he walked. It really wasn't his fault he was so slow, seeing as he had some muscle dystrophy problem where he couldn't walk very well. That and the fact that he was shaped like a potato topped with curly red hair, but that's my best friend for you.

"Oh, I'm comin, I'm comin," Pete said, picking up the speed slightly. Now we were moving faster than turtles. Awesome.

However, we did make it to class just before the start bell rang so I couldn't give him too much crap.

"Take your seats class, we're going to begin the final immediately," said our teacher, Mrs. Kettle. "Oh and class, this is Emy," Mrs. Kettle, motioned to a girl with long brown hair standing next to her. "She's going to be going here next year and has decided to sit in on class for today."

"She does know there's only two days of school left right?" I muttered to Pete.

"That is strange…," muttered Pete. He was looking at this Emy girl kind of strangely. Like he expected her to pull out a gun all of the sudden and start shooting. She looked normal to me though, so I just ignored her.

"Mr. Meadows, move up here next to me and allow Miss Emy to have the back seat," Mrs. Kettles suddenly barked.

Pete looked at me uneasily but did as he was told. I thought it was a strange request but otherwise, I didn't pay much attention to it.

This Emy girl sat down next to me and gave me a dazzling smile. I mean dazzling. This girls teeth were the whitest teeth I had ever seen in my life.

I gave her a half smile and looked back up front. This girl didn't take here eyes off me though.

The finals were handed out and I bunkered down for the long run.

See, I'm dyslexic. And I have ADHD. So sitting still and taking a rather important English final so I don't fail is quite a challenge. Then add that fact that this Emy girl will not stop staring at me!

I glanced at her a few times, wondering if she was going to say something or if I could maybe embarrass her into looking away. But I had no luck there. She just continued to stare and smile with her brilliant white teeth.

Finally, feeling like I was about to explode from the headache I was getting and having this girl watching me like a hawk, I asked if I could leave to use the restroom.

Surprisingly, Mrs. Kettle said yes.

I went to the john and did my business, and then splashed some cold water on my face, taking in deep breaths.

I stood up and did a check of myself in the mirror. A short kid, with messed up sandy blond hair, and a fairly built body looked back at me. Good.

My mother always told me I looked a lot like my father. My father who I've never met actually…

Apparently when I was born, my father had to go off on a trip. So he had flown off into the sunset, and never come back.

Great dad right?

Still I wish I had gotten to know him. It always put me out that I looked like a guy I would never get to meet.

I shook myself out of my self pity eventually and took a sip from the water fountain. As I turned….that's when the day took a wrong turn.

Emy was standing there in the middle of the hallway, in a blue shirt with a blood red skirt, here dazzling smile still plastered on her face. But something was off. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Hello," she said. Her voice was high pitched and kind of scratchy. I imagined it was what nails on a chalkboard sounded like.

"Hey," I said, grinning half-heartedly.

"Your different," she said, still smiling like some demented overly happy schoolgirl.

I really didn't know how to respond to that. That and the fact that I was fairly certain her hair was turning red had thrown me for a loop.

"But your different is not good for your health Alexander," hissed Emy.

That snapped me out of it. No one knows my full name. Not the school board, not my teachers, not Joe, not Pete. Nobody.

"What the-," I muttered.

Suddenly Emy's hair was a nice little flame cascading around her head. Her skin was now paper white and I could see her white teeth were razor sharp.

She started moving towards me, for some reason clopping and clanking. I looked down and saw she had a donkey's leg and a metal leg.

"I'm not sure which of your legs is weirder," I said stupidly. Real smart of me. Insult the demon girl.

Emy let out a snarl of rage.

"You boys have no manners! DIE!"

She lunged at me and reacting on instincts I didn't know I had, I snapped my head back from her talon like fingernails.

She hissed and continued moving slowly towards me. So I decided to react on a instinct I did know I had.

I ran.

Now, I was a pretty fast kid. I ran track and field for our school and had actually set two school records. But I had done no running like the running I did now. I really did not want to be eaten today.

I probably ran the mile and a half it takes to get to my house from my school in five and a half minutes. I was flying!

When I did get to the front door to the apartment complex, I glanced a chance back down the street. To my surprise, the demon girl was clanking her way down the sidewalk pretty fast herself. She was only maybe three blocks behind me.

I threw open the door and ran up the steps, skipping two at a time till I got to the fifth floor. I shoved a shaking and into my pocked and pulled out my key, hurrying down the hallway.

When I got to 5D, I tried to shove the key into the slot. It took me four tries, I couldn't get my hand to stop shaking at all!

When I did get it in, I hear clanking on the steps.

"What the hell is all this racket?" I heard Mr. Pasho's voice demand.

"Where is the Bowmen's?" I heard my demon tormenter hiss.

I silently prayed Mr. Pasho would tell her to get lost. Or maybe run away screaming like a little girl and get the police. Or a priest. Something!

"Fifth floor. Letter d," was all he said gruffly.

I cursed that lard in in my head and turned the lock as the clanking continued up the steps.

I threw open my door and looked around desperately for something that could help me out. Could knives hurt demons…?

I made my way to the counters and stopped, looking at something that was not on our kitchen table this morning.

It was a flashlight, that looked like is was painted gold. It sparkled brilliantly in the light shining through our curtains. I picked it up gingerly and looked at the note stuck to it.

Click it. That's all it said.

I looked over the flashlight, completely perplexed why it was here. And why I needed to click it.

"Hello lovely," snarled a voice from the door way behind me.

I whipped around to face Emy, hair still flaming, skin still paper white, one leg still a donkeys and one still mechanical. I started to guess I wasn't hallucinating all of this.

"Time to die now," she growled and charged at me.

Reacting quickly, I clicked the power button on my flashlight.

Contrary to what flashlights do, it didn't light up. It expanded in my hand, suddenly nearly as big as my whole body. It curved inwards slightly, I heard a tiny twap sound and suddenly I was holding a solid gold bow.

Yes. Like a bow and arrow, bow. Of solid gold.

This didn't seem to face Emy though; she snarled and somehow managed to get her mismatched legs to catapult herself at me.

I yelled in fear, and did the only thing I thought natural to do with a bow. I pulled the thin nylon string back.

Now maybe I was an idiot for doing it. After all, it wasn't like I had an arrows notched in. Or any arrows close by to grab for that matter. But I was freaked out! I just reacted!

Weirdly enough, when I pulled back there was a shimmer and suddenly, an arrow was indeed notched in bow, an arrow made of some kind of bronze I might add. I blinked once in surprise, and let the arrow fly.

There was a thunk as the arrow embedded itself in my door frame across the room.

I thought Well this is it. I missed. I'm dead. Crap, I don't wanna be dead!

Then I looked a little closer. There was a think line in the middle of Emy's shocked face. Right between the eyes actually. I had shot the arrow through her.

Slowly, with a withered scream, Emy blew away into a column of sand, scattering all over my tiny apartment.

I, however, could only stand there dumbfounded, a bow held loosely in my hands, my mouth hanging open. Then I began hacking and gagging as some of the sand that was once Emy got into my mouth.

"Gross," I muttered.