There was darkness everywhere. And coldness. Darkness and coldness everywhere. It made me feel scared and insecure. Like I couldn't do anything and I was useless. Something laughed. Come, it whispered. Come join me and you will not have to endure this. You will have her back. A ball of golden light burst into my sight. In the middle my mom stood, her eyes closed, her face looking scared and calm at the same time. The voice spoke again. Or else... A giant fist came out of the darkness and smashed it. When it opened up, all there was was the broken body of my mother. Think. Think about what I just showed you. If you refuse, you will be next. Be careful. I'll be watching you. One more ripple of cold laughter, and it vanished.

I shot up and looked around my bedroom. Everything was normal, but I couldn't get rid of the voice in my head. It was reptilian and seemed to petrify me.

"Honey," my mom said as she knocked on the door. Her voice was fragile. "Honey, get ready for school. Today's the last day. Don't want to miss it." Then she poked her head through the door. "Hi. How did you sleep? Any nightmares?" I shook my head, even though that was a lie. For some reason, my mom has been asking the same questions about nightmares, and every time I lied. The past few dreams had been about the same thing, with the same creature. Every single night. It was driving me crazy.

"Okay then, Brooke, hurry up. Taylor is coming over after school! Remember!"

I couldn't help it. I groaned. Taylor has been my best friend for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if my mom told me our friendship began the second we were born. She comes over almost everyday,and even though she's an awesome friend, it sometimes gets annoying because I seem to never be alone.

But instead of saying this out loud, I yelled back, "Okay, Mom!"

I slid out of bed, changed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and went out to eat my breakfast of waffles and sausage. Then I yelled, "Bye, Mom! See you after school!"

"Bye!"

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked out, waiting for the bus. I think it should be a crime taking the bus in middle school while living in San Francisco. Right after you sit down and the bus starts moving, all the older kids sneak up behind you and steal your jacket or hit you and hide or pour milk from their lunch on your head. But the creepiest of all, this one girl in my grade, 7th, is always staring at me. Always. Whenever I pass her, she's just looking, not even blinking. Once I asked her what her name was but she just looked up at me and said,"Names have power. I will not tell you." Then she faced the front again, playing with her auburn hair. Her gray eyes still remained unblinking.

Okay, back to today. So I sat down in my usual seat and looked over at the girl. She looked so calm, but I was really mad at her, though I don't know why. Maybe because she's always been ignoring me. Or possibly because she looked like she had absolutely no worries, where as in my life I worry about everything. I didn't know. But I got angry at her, and stood up, causing one of the older kids to pour milk onto the seat I was sitting on, and one of his friends pushed him and he fell face forward into the beverage. I ignored them, walked towards the girl, and plopped myself right next to her. For a minute we didn't say anything. Then I burst. I whipped around and said, or more like yelled," What is your problem? Can you just talk to me? I try to say something and say some sort of mysterious thing about names having power! What are you?"

She turned to face me and said calmly,"You want to talk to me and know my name, correct?"

"Yes!"

"Okay. Then I shall not tell you."

That's what caught me off guard. I yelled at the top of my lungs,"WHAT? WHY NOT? IF YOU WANT ME TO LEAVE YOU ALONE, TELL ME YOUR NAME!"

Everybody stopped and stared. I blushed and slumped down in my seat and mumbled,"What are you looking at?"

A kid replied back,"Maybe someone who needs anger management?" and the whole bus erupted with laughter.

Just then, the bus lurched to a stop and our bus driver, Dan, yelled,"Everybody out! You little punks are the reason I wake up in the middle of the night screaming!"

Everybody got up, grabbed their stuff, and left.

On my way out, I smiled at him. "Nice one, Dan," I told him.

He returned my grin. " Thanks, Brooke. And don't worry, I'll cover up your little incident."

I sighed. "I don't know how I ever survived without you."

"Don't worry. Now go. Class is going to start soon."

§ § §

The beginning of the day was just plain out boring, so I'll skip to where everything always happens: gym. I changed into our gym clothes, which were crisp red shorts and a matching shirt with a moose on both of them. And was that bad enough? No. Just to step it up a level, our school decided that, maybe, they should get a former football player. Let me tell you, he is the worst. His real name is David McCornick, but he makes us call him The King of Football; that was his nickname the other team members used to call him during his career.

That time period did not do him that well. "The King of Football" ended up being a plump and grumpy old man with exactly one gray hair on his head, but he still believes that he's fit and young. Once he caught James Adams trying to eat a small bag of Hot Cheetos before gym, and yelled,"You! Young man! Throw those away, unless you want to end up being fatter than a stuffed pig! Do you want to look like a stuffed pig, or look athletic like me? You want to look like me! So throw those things away!" Then he ended up running the whole period.

Anyways, you get the idea. So today, he barked out,"Okay, shrimps! Today's gonna be fun, 'cause we're doing wrestling! If you're too wimpy, you're free to do three miles and 100 push ups! Your choice! For the rest of you shrimps, I'll sort you out right now, so make up your mind in ten seconds!"

That's when it happened. The thing that will change my life forever.

One kid in my class sneaked around our gym teacher and pulled down his pants. I couldn't believe my eyes.

While everybody was laughing, I was gaping. His legs... his legs... they were just so disturbing. I blinked. Nothing happened. I blinked again. Nothing. I blinked another time. And another. And another. I blinked until I felt like my eyes were going to shrivel up and fall out of their sockets.

"Hey, Brooke, catch!"

In surprise, my hands fumbled until they found the orange cap that "The King of Football" always wore. My head shot up.

"Stop hogging!" someone yelled. I threw it blindly into the crowd that was screaming and cheering, as if this were a party. I tried to ignore all the commotion and concentrate on Mr. McCornick. His head was almost as disturbing as his legs.

While I was staring, three other kids were too. James Smith, Taylor Adams, and even though I didn't know, the mysterious girl. She was smiling. But we were all looking at the same thing at the same time.

Our gym teacher's furry legs and curved horns.

Okay, that was horrible. Anyway, first chapter!