The first time he saw it…

It was dark. Quiet. Untouchable. It was always watching, yet never truly there.

But that would all change.

Ruka usually spent Friday nights tending to the nocturnal animals in the Northern Forest. Since the Middle School Division was so far east, it usually took a handful of minutes just to get there. It was around midnight when he left the dormitories, but now he had no idea how long he'd been out.

For once, the animals weren't demanding his attention. Usually, they'd crowding him so much he couldn't move without stepping on a squirrel's tail. But now it was different.

Any tremble in the shadows would be followed by a critter fleeing for its life. When Ruka tried using his Alice on them, the stench of fear swamped him, but he couldn't bring himself to force them to obey his pheromones. What if he was in their shoes? It would be too cruel.

That was why he'd been spending the last however-many hours wandering the Northern Forest in the dead of night without anyone knowing where he was. He was looking for answers.

The darkness oozed fear, but he ignored it. The scent of pinecones was enough comfort to keep him going. Gravel crunched underneath his shoes, too harsh against the deathly silence, like iron grating against steel. Every footstep was an explosion.

Was he too loud? Was that why he couldn't find any more animals? Maybe it wasn't. In that case, he'd run into the thing scaring them all off in the first place.

He wasn't scared… well, not really. Ruka had been teased about his Alice more than once, but he knew how to use it. Years of practice only strengthened his power. With his best pheromones, no animal would turn against him.

Ruka frowned. The path had ended. There was no more gravel to follow. Just him and the uneven earth.

And then, light.

It wasn't the moon—no, not at all. It was a quick flicker of light—white shining light, just at the edge of his vision. Well, there went his train of thought.

Maybe they were scales, Ruka thought. But it looked really large. He didn't know anything with scales that was that big. Maybe it was some sort of large lizard? A crocodile or an alligator? No, there wasn't any lakes or rivers nearby. A python or boa? It couldn't be that. The lights were too far from the ground.

Whatever it was, Ruka hoped that it wasn't eating any other animals. His heart skipped a beat for some reason. What was that… fear? No, it couldn't be. He had no reason to be afraid. Right?

Seconds passed. The thing caught his eye once more. This time he was disturbed. Was the thing following him? Yes, it had to be. The back of his neck itched. He had the vague image of eyes. Eyes, two eyes boring into him as he looked away. Their color? Shape? He had no idea.

There was definitely something there. Just out of reach, barely out of sight, teasing him with its presence. But he could fix that, right? He had his Alice. That would solve everything. Then maybe his heart would stop thudding so much. It was starting to hurt. Really, it should stop that.

Ruka sent out a handful of pheromones. Peace, they said. Come on out. It's okay.

Nothing happened.

His heart stumbled. Ice settled in his veins. Why wasn't it working? His effort went to shambles. He didn't even feel the thing. His pheromones just floated out, then… gone. Shaken off like nothing.

He broke into a half-run, part confident that he was safe, part frightened of the thought that he was being hunted. He was nearly fourteen now. For half of his life, he'd been practicing his ability. At a certain point, almost no animal had tried to hurt him.

It was alright. He was okay. He was safe. Nothing would go wrong. He just had to keep dishing out the pheromones. The thing would eventually give up. Yes, everything would be fine.

Right?

The light flicked again, closer this time. Too close.

Ruka threw himself into a run. His imagination burst into fireworks. A titanic snake with the mind of a murderer? A wolf, his back plated with metal, hungry for flesh? A low-flying raptor with shimmering talons, ready to rip at his throat?

It was ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Why was he thinking about this? There was no reason to be afraid. But he couldn't help the images that swarmed into his head.

Sweat trickled down Ruka's forehead. His eyes were heavy from fatigue, and his forehead was tight from worry. Too tired… this was taking too much energy. It had to stop now. But what could he do? His Alice wasn't working. He could only run faster.

He broke into a full sprint. The rustle of leaves followed his wake, but it wasn't him. He knew how to keep quiet in forests. It was too loud. Whatever this thing was, it didn't know how to move between the trees.

Despite that, it never slowed. The sound of feet and scrapes and breaths were always regulated. Always constant. Always the same. Like a shadow. It was always behind him, always at a perfect pace, just a step away. Never far enough to lose him, but not close enough to pounce. Like cat and mouse. Eagle and sparrow.

Predator and prey.

The branches loomed out at him. The leaves tangled in his hair. The roots grabbed at his ankles. The trees grew grinning faces, carved by his terrified mind.

Ruka's lungs had enough. His foot caught on a root. He crashed, stomach slamming against the ground. He floundered blindly, arms bruising against the earth, but it was no use. His legs trembled from weakness. He couldn't even stand.

No voices, human or animal. No owl hooting in the night. Not even a cricket. Nothing to save him. Nothing to help. Ruka lay there frozen, waiting for the thing-in-the-dark to strike.

It didn't.

He lay there until the adrenaline had seeped out of his system. He lay there until his breathing evened out. He lay there until he was relaxed enough to feel tired.

He never heard the thing even budge.

And yet, he knew it was still there. He could hear its breathing, faint but prominent in the unnatural silence. He could feel its eyes fixed on him. Always watching. Invisible.

Slowly, Ruka pulled himself up. His knees trembled. He clutched at the evergreen bark. The trees no longer laughed at him. They were just a delusion created by his mind. A frightening delusion, but still an delusion.

But the scales weren't a delusion.

The eyes on him all the way, Ruka staggered towards the dormitories. He knew the way by heart better than a bird knew how to fly south. But his heart was smarting. His fingers and toes trembled, and not because of cold.

Glimpses of scales followed his every movement.

Seconds were minutes. Minutes were hours. Then Ruka's feet hit the gravel path. Like a checkpoint, he was safe. The feathery breathing ceased. The fleeting light disappeared. The scales were gone.

He didn't stop walking until he had crossed the road that lead to the other schools, until the dormitories were in sight, until he had walked up the stairs and opened the door and locked it tight and shut the window and checked the closet so that he knew nothing could get in, nothing at all. Only when he fell on his bed sheets, clothes dirty and unchanged, did he allow himself to collapse.

Last updated 1/13/13.

This is technically a prologue, yet I'm classifying it as the first chapter. So, hope you liked it, and expect more because it's already mostly prewritten besides edits. Check my profile for information. Updates are loosely planned to come out one week or less within each other. Depends.

Ruka and Hotaru are the main characters of this story. This is a mixed universe. I think. I'm not entirely sure if it matters.