They couldn't possibly find me here!

I faltered as I reached a dead end. I was gasping for air...

It took me a moment to realise that I was being silly, letting my human instincts get in the way.

I rolled my eyes, 'duh.' I didn't need to breathe and I could walk through walls.

Failing to see why I should wait around any longer—I could hear shouting now—I ran straight through the wall…

…And stopped breathing.

What I saw wasn't what I expected, but then again I didn't know really what I had been expecting.

Well, even so, it definitely wasn't this!

And everything swirled and the floor disappeared beneath me feet...

Worse… I think I screamed…

I woke up with a jolt; these dreams were getting worse… more frequent, more freaky… and far too familiar.

Maybe it was just my nerves playing up again. After all, we'd just moved to a supposedly haunted town... yippee.

I sighed as I slipped out of bed, looking out the window at my new neighbourhood. Amity Park, I think it was called?

And why did someone have a huge pile of junk on their roof anyway? I mean, who needs sixty-four billion satellite devices on their roof? I doubted that I was off by much. It really did look like they had a lot of junk up there...

According to the, err, great big sign it was the "Fenton Works".

Not that I cared. I looked up into the sky with a yawn. It was barely daybreak.

Grumbling about… something—I don't really remember—I headed to the bathroom and quickly showered. I was just glad my dad slept through everything, so I didn't have to worry about waking him up with the water running through the too-long pipes.

I quickly dried off and opened my wardrobe. It was my first day of school so I wanted to leave an impression, not be just another kid. Individuality... I could handle that.

I just picked out a pair of comfy underwear, not like I cared about that. After all, nobody but me was going to see it. Or at least I freaking hoped so.

I grabbed a pair of greying and slightly torn skin-tight black jeans. They had six pockets but it wasn't like I would use them anyway... and how they figured you needed six pockets was beyond me.

With very little thought, I grabbed a light olive-teal tank top and slipped it on. It was covered in coffee and tea stains, each bringing back memories. All of them treasured...

Next up was a rich sky blue tunic of sorts, it had long sleeves that passed my thumbs and the torso went down to just a couple of inches above my knees. The neck was bunched purposefully around my shoulders, showing just my neck and where it joined my collar bone.

I felt it would go well with my grey-blue eyes... Fine. That was a lie, I was bored. So there.

Then I slipped on a pair of old, but comfortable grey socks and a pair of black, grey and blue heavily worn running shoes. It was either those or some hardly touched black 'devil heels' as I called them. High heels give me sore feet and hurt my spine like someone was sticking a spear into the small of my back. Odd analogy, I know, but it serves its purpose.

I then shut the second largest piece of furniture in my room—still referring to the wardrobe—and grabbed a small chain off my desk. It was s silver necklace with two charms on it.

At first glance one might mistake it for an army dog tag, but it was anything but. It had a silver crescent moon charm, with a flip-able sun/star charm set within it; one side representing a solar eclipse, the other the midmorning sun. The other was a small, flat piece of silver about the size of a standard zipper... thing—the piece that you open/close the zip with—with the word 'Dee' engraved on it in a flowing, simple font.

You see, this charm is very special to me...

"MITCHY! YOU UP?" shouted a voice from downstairs as I fastened the chain around my neck, quickly hiding it away from sight. I'll tell ya later... I have business to attend to.

"YEAH I AM," I shouted back. My dad was not, shall we say, a quiet person.

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE SOON!"

Duh. I already knew what he was going to say next...

"AND WE HAVEN'T HAD BREAKFAST YET!"

More accurately, he was just pointing out he hadn't had breakfast yet. I was the only one in the house who could cook... well, without setting the house on fire and causing very, very bad things to happen.

Believe me, if my dad starts to cook, head in the other direction. Very quickly.

I quickly looked in my mirror and realised I hadn't dried my hair yet. I sighed at the dark brown-black mess of hair limply dangling around my head and face. I didn't bother with the towel part. I just placed my hands firmly on the table and shook my head in a way that would have made most people dizzy. I was skilled in the art of air-drying my hair.

In the mirror, now covered in water droplets there was little improvement in my hair's condition. It wasn't limp… it was the exact opposite. All my hair stood up in that gravity-defying way, aside from the hair at the very top and my fringe, which was just contrary to the status quo of my hair world.

My hair is wild, and I hate it. I can't comb it, I can't tame it. The only time it even vaguely seems to pay attention is when it's soaking wet!

But I wasn't going to let my day be ruined my hair, but then again... maybe worrying about hair would take my mind off the nerves slowly but surely threatening to attack.

I rushed downstairs before dad could yell at me again, and quickly made him breakfast. It consisted of four eggs, four pieces of toast and eight pieces of bacon. I just ate an apple thoughtfully. I'd packed my bag the day before and had very little idea on what to expect.

Dad and I talked very little, he was pretty much too busy wolfing his breakfast down. After he finished he drove me to school and took me into the principal's office. I felt very... strange starting at a new school. All over again, it seemed I would have to earn my place. Or let my rep in this town die trying.

Ah well, that's high school for you.

This was the first time I'd actually met the principal of Casper High, she was thankfully not as bad as I had feared. She just asked me a few questions about my interests and such, noted I had good grades in art, history and science and bad grades in math. I had been to a school where creative arts were held in pretty high esteem, and that was how I had kept myself safely in the middle of the Social Food Chain, see?

She then seemed to nod off, thinking. It was for barely a second and I knew dad would have missed it.

She then smiled. "Ok, Ms. Mortis. I think I know who I can buddy you up with for the time being."

And deep down I hoped it wouldn't be someone who thought more about glamour and shopping for shoes than anything else. My dad then smiled, "Great!" He slurred the 'Gr' making it sound like a growl of sorts. "I'll see you later then Mitchy!"

"See you this afternoon, Mr. Mortis," said the Principal in farewell. She then turned to me. "Ok, if you'll just follow me, Ms. Mortis."

"Please, just call me Manna," I said taking a deep breath and closing my eyes for a second, fighting back the growing unease in my stomach.

She smiled kindly, and led me out of the office. And for some reason I really, really felt like tacking on the words 'to my doom.'

We reached a classroom filled with bored students, most not listening to the teacher reading out Shakespeare and telling them to pay attention. The Principal knocked on the door... I can't remember her name, sorry...

The teacher stopped in his tracks and a few of the students even took notice.

The Principal cleared her throat and the mind-wandering students snapped hastily to attention with looks on their faces like 'yes I was listening this whole time'.

"This," she said gesturing to me, "is Michanna Mortis. She's a new student-" Obviously, I thought "-starting today in your class." She was speaking mainly to the students than the teacher and I was certain he had been given some forewarning. But by the looks on th- uhh, I mean, my new classmates, I was someone who had appeared out of the blue.

I knew they were already forming their own first impressions of me, and I them. I noticed that a few didn't seem so surprised on my appearance, or even interested.

The principal also continued and added, "I assigned Samantha to show her around the school and it's grounds. But I want you all to make her feel welcome here." The last part was said with a fire I had no idea the lady possessed. I felt a certain respect for the lady. She then turned to me and told me to go and sit in the empty seat, quietly adding in hushed tones, "The Goth is Samantha by the way. And come to my office if you have any troubles. Have fun!"

She said the last line to the class and departed, leaving me to wander to the spare seat next to Samantha. The teacher said, "I am Mr. Lancer, and welcome aboard," before continuing on with reading to the class.

All the buzz in the air dulled and the whole class slipped into the bored and uninterested state. As I sat next to her, I saw she was sitting next to a scruffy-looking kid with blue eyes and next to him a dark-skinned kid with a glasses and a red hat.

"I'm Sam," she said in hushed tones.

"Call me Manna," I said back, just as quiet.

"Not going to pay attention to your very first lesson," asked the black-haired scruff. He seemed mildly miffed and I couldn't help but wonder why.

I stretched my neck and shrugged, "Nah, I know every word off by heart."

They looked at me with raised eyebrows. "What? My... mom used to read it to me all the time... and thoroughly telling me not to get myself in a situation like that."

I smirked at the last part and stared at my hands. "She could be pretty strange at times... but she always had a good reason for everything."

I frowned and went quiet. Those wounds still hurt...

"My name is Danny," said Scruffs, uhh, Danny.

The other boy obviously decided this was his queue to speak, "And I am Tucker Foley-"

But I cut him off, "Wait."

He looked like he was about to object, but at that moment the teacher stopped reading and looked up at his class. He closed the book deftly and placed it on the table. "For a bit of revision I want you to try and correctly answer the questions on this sheet," he said holding up a multiple-question worksheet. "The revision is on the story of Romeo and Juliet, and I've only read it to you, say, four or five times by now, so let's see what you've absorbed."

He pointed to a geeky red-head and told him to pass out the sheets to everyone. He noted that he would test me as well, just to see what I knew. I didn't object.

After all, it was a breeze. I was the first to finish but I didn't want to hand it in first... Call it what you want, I just didn't want to be the class's freaky Shakespeare-know-it-all-kid. One test I can pass off to everyone else as just a really, really lucky guess. Twice and either I'm lying or a really, really good guesser.

I'll admit I dozed off a bit after I finished the test and handed it in. It wasn't long until class finished and we were moving along. Next was maths class, and to be quite honest I was not very good. I was ok at mental arithmetic but everything else was pretty much just dots and lines to me.

To my complete and utter relief Sam was nice enough to help me with it. "So our Shakespeare Guru is not so good at real world matters and maths?" teased Danny in a very fake posh tone.

"Shut it, Scruffs," I said between gritted teeth, however this just made him grin.

Tucker Foley snickered though, "That's gotta be the first time I've heard someone call you Scruffs."

"Nah, you're forgetting that time in fourth grade..." he said.

"Aah, I remember," said Foley with a knowing smile.

Sam raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about?"

But they just nodded knowingly and she rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

I bit my lip to stop myself from giggling. Maybe this day wasn't turning out so bad after all.

The rest of the day was kind of dull, up until lunch when I found out Danny had an older sister named Jazz.

"So, what's your name?" she asked me.

"Michanna Mortis," I said. "But you can call me Manna."

"Ok, Manna." The then paused, "Mortis... that's odd I think I've heard that word somewhere before..."

I sighed, "Probably. Mortis... Mort."

"Oh! I get it now. Mort, death," said Sam, suddenly getting it.

"Yeah," I said. "You got it..."

Then, without really thinking, I decided upon asking my newfound friends, "Hey, did you know that there's an ancient legend tied to the Mortis family name?"

BEWARE!
~A.S.