Chapter 1

The Trail

The sun was shining brightly with hardly a cloud in the sky on the last day of school. Everyone ran home with the excitement of the summer vacation that lay before them, except for one. Rend, a 16 year old boy who has had great injustice done to him, lay in the tall grass at the top of the hill, small pieces of pollen floating softly up and down in front of his face, a deep silence enveloping him as he lay relaxed in the grass, his eyes closed and the grass rising up over his head. He didn't enjoy dwelling on the past, but that was indeed what he was doing. His past was what scared him the most, for he had been betrayed. His friend's gone in the blink of an eye, 11 years of loneliness has filled his life, and he was not proud of it.

Around 5:00 pm Rend got up and slowly walked down the hill towards his house, he slowly made his way back, deep in thought. He's walked the path so many times that he instinctively knew the way home.

The path went through the woods for 15 minuets and ends up in a field that he just has to cross to get back to his house. In fact, he made the path himself. One weekend, tired of getting home late all the time, he'd picked up an axe and a shovel and started to work on it. He had finished it in the 6th grade, and now always took that path out of habit.

The woods were spaced perfectly if someone needed to run through them quickly, the odd tree every now and then with bushes littering the ground. The tall tree's letting in no light as the leaves on the top of the tree's completely shut out the sky and the sun. Rend, so used to walking his own path took out his flash-light and turned it on. The creaking of the moving trees filled the air, and the smell of ash and oak filled his nose. The trip through the woods passed without event and soon he stood at the edge of the woods looking out at the stretch of field that was filled with hills and wild flowers, a sea of tall grass and small yellow, blue, and purple spots littered the ground. Still in deep thought he walked across the field, hardly noticing the family of rabbits that ran across his path, or the 4 blue jays that stood on a fallen log.

That's why Rend liked it so much here; it was close to the only thing left in this world that wasn't tainted by the power of man-kind. There was still life everywhere you looked. In-fact his mom had just found a hole in their house wall near the ceiling that a family of robins had gotten through and built a nest in. It was so peaceful; one could forget all his troubles just by sitting in silence and watching the scenery.

Getting to the other side of the field he could plainly see his house from where he stood, and again he thought about his past. He started to walk across the street and was hardly looking where he was going when he heard a shout and a felt a violent shove from behind. There was the sound of screeching tires, and quickly looking back he saw a truck parked right was he had stood a second ago. Behind it was 6 feet of black rubber burnt into the street from where it had started to skid. "Holy shit! Kid you alright?" the driver of the truck said as he started down at the boy in astonishment.

"Yah, I'm fine" Rend said, standing up and brushing off the dirk on his clothes and the rocks imbedded in his hands. "What the hell happened?" Rend said, looking around for the person who saved his life.

"I lost control of the car on some oil back there on the street; I would have hit you if you didn't jump out of the way like that!" the man giving a deep long sigh of relief. Rend looked around him, the streets were blank, no sign of anyone other then himself and the man, a dogs on the other side of the street looking at the two of them but other then the dog there was no sign of life in the neighborhood.

"But who pushed me out of the way? And who shouted? Rend said giving another look around.

"Nobody pushed you, and nobody yelled out either... hey kid, are you sure your ok?" the man said, looking down suspiciously and Rend.

"Yah..." giving one last look around him, "I'm fine" with that Rend got up and restarted his walk down the street to his house.

Distracted from his thoughts about his past with what just happened, he reached his house walked in and went up to his room without even realizing it. "What just happened?" he asked himself out loud thinking about the violent shove and the shout when the truck had almost hit him. "Rend!" his mother called from downstairs.

"What!" Rend called back, being jolted out of his thoughts.

"I'm going out for the night; I got to go to a meeting. Ill be back around 1:00." His mother explained.

"Fine... have fun!" Rend called back down with sarcasm. Though he didn't admit it he despised his mother, ever since his father had died that night in the car accident, she's been avoiding Rend, or at least he thought.

Hearing the door close and the sound of a car being driven down the drive way he slowly lay down in his bed and fell into deep thoughts once again. "Something pushed me! I know it; I could plainly feel the impact and feel the hands on my back! Turning over he felt a sharp intake of pain in his back, "what the hell?" he asked himself as he walked down to the bathroom to check his back. Pulling off his shirt revealed two hand prints on his back, with little red puncture marks at the end of each finger. "Whoa it looks like... claws!" he said in astonishment. It couldn't be possible but there they were, claw marks as visible as the palm prints on his back. "What the fuck is going on!?" running to the door down the stairs he quickly grabbed his shoes and a jacket and ran out the door. He needed to be somewhere to think, and the house with a thousand bad memories wasn't going to be a very good place to think, and the only place he could think of on the spot was the trail.

He ran as fast as he could from his house down the street where he was almost run over by a truck, he could still see and smell the burning rubber and shuddered at what almost happened to himself, across the road, through the field where wildlife seemed to blossom from to the tree line, and complete darkness. "Ah you friggin idiot Rend! You forgot the flashlight!" he yelled at himself as he slapped himself in the head. With that he stepped into darkness, it only took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness that was surrounding him, walking for seven minutes until he was near the middle of the trail he found a log and sat down on it and was soon lost in thought.

He couldn't remember how long he was there for and he couldn't tell. It must have been at least two hours since he sat down on that log which would have made it ten o-clock pm. He had to get home and he hadn't made any progress on the problem that filled his head. Giving a deep sigh he looked up at the moon and stopped. Something had just shined above his head and he caught it in the corner of his eye. "Hey" someone called from above. Looking up he could see the outline of a girl sitting on a branch just above him.

"Hey" Rend called back, wondering how long she's been sitting there.

"It's a beautiful night isn't it?" she said looking up at the moon.

"Yah... umm, who are you?" Rend said getting more amazed with every second.

"Oh I'm sorry, I'm Minna" she said looking down and smiling at Rend "what's your name?" her smile suddenly turning into interest.

"Rend" he replied looking back down at the ground.

"What are you thinking about?" Minna asked looking down at him.

"Oh, nothing much..." Rend said standing up and getting ready to leave.

"Hey, I saw what happened earlier today! Are you alright?" a concerned look was pasted onto her face. Rend didn't know what it was, but there was something strange about her, a kind of feeling like she was protecting everything around her with her life.

"Yah, I'm fine" Rend finally having enough talking to this stranger got up and left to go back home, and he could still feel her eyes looking at him as he walked slowly back to his house.