Jack's P.O.V

Chapter One

"Promise me Jazz, don't follow." I pleaded with my 'sister'. "Ugh! Fine! But I hateit when you do this! I'm not a kid anymore Jack."

I smiled sadly "I can't lose you Jazz, I won't." I said the last part more to myself than her.

It was just us now, me and Jasmine, my 'sister' even though we weren't really related I felt like she was my sister, I loved her like sister and I couldn't live with myself if I lost her to those monsters.

Jazz's sigh broke me from my thoughts "Your not goingto lose me Jack, stop freaking out! Just go, the sooner you go the sooner you'll be back." She mumbled grumpily.

I laughed, "Yea just don't go anywhere okay? I'll be back as soon as I can." I said as I stood up behind the tree we were both hiding behind and looked at the house I was about to break into.

It was about a mile away, but it was secluded and our cave was about 7 miles in the other direction, the 'souls' were out for the night, we had seen them leave, so now I was going to go get food and water for the two of us.

Jasmine was only fifteen and I was nineteen and I wouldn't let Jazz come with me on the raids, it was too dangerous!

I don't care what she says she is tooyoung to come with me, if I get caught on my own then she is safe, but if we are both together then we both get caught, simple answer, only I go.

I hugged her and started walking away in a low crouch towards the house. I didn't look back just kept my eyes on the empty house.

The backpack I was carrying wasn't heavy but that was because it was empty, as soon as it's full it'll be extremely heavy, making it harder to run with, but if it came to running I was dead, I'd still try to run of course just not towards Jazz, I'd run in the opposite direction of Jazz.

I had made a silent vow to myself when we had first escaped from the 'souls' to never lead them to Jazz, even if it meant I would get caught, Jazz couldn'tget caught.

I thought about the night we first realized what was happening to the world…

"Jack!" Mom called from the kitchen, I sighed and stopped concentrating on what move I was going to make next, I was playing chess with Jazz, and was losing, badly, I never beat Jazz in chess, no one ever beat her.

We were over Jazz's house for dinner and so were a heap of other families I didn't know and neither did Jazz for that matter.

"Jack, have you been noticing something different about your Mom and Dad lately? Like have they been too nice?" Jazz whispered to me getting up too.

I thought about it for a minute, I had been noticing that, my Mom and Dad and brother were all acting very nice to me, so nice it was getting weird. I nodded.

We were at the door to the kitchen when Jazz whispered in my ear, "Look into their eyes, something is going on, we need to get out of here." She opened the door and walked in, I just stood there shocked that she would come up with something like that.

What was she talking about? Jazz turned to look at me with questioning eyes and gave a short twitch of her head toward my Mom's direction, I looked at my Mum in the eyes and gasped her eyes were reflecting!

I knew what Jazz meant, I smiled at my smiling Mom and walked over to her, trying to act normal and not freak out about the fact that my Mom's eyes were reflecting, real easy to do.

"Can you please go and get your brother from upstairs sweetie?" my 'Mom' asked me in an oddly pleasant voice.

I nodded, and turned around heading for the stairs, Jazz following behind me.

We reached the top of the stairs and instead of going into Jazz's brother's room where I knew my brother would be I turned straight into Jazz's room and turned around to look at her.

She closed the door and without saying anything went straight to her closet and pulled out a backpack.

"What are you doing?" I asked, "We are getting out of here, everyone has been acting strange and their eyes…they scare me. We need to leave Jack, go downstairs and get all the food you can smuggle, I'll get the water and everything else we are going to need."

She walked out of the room carrying the backpack, leaving me standing alone in her room. We were really going to do this, we were running away.

It was happening too fast! A second ago I was losing horribly to a Jazz in a chess game and now we are planning to run away???

There was no doubt that my whole family had been acting weird for the last week but running away?

I walked slowly out of the room and met my 'brother' at the stairs, looking into his eyes I could see they were the same as my Mom's "Mom said you need to go down" I said in a low voice, I looked at the ground.

His eyes were scaring me. He nodded smiling at me and went down stairs.

I followed, now determined to listen to what Jazz told me to do, even though she was younger, she was very observant and very smart for her age.

I went to the kitchen, nobody was in there. I looked out the window and saw that everybody was outside talking in their different groups.

I went to the fridge and got all the fruit I could and put it into a plastic bag lying on the counter.

Next I went to the cupboard and pulled out everything I could see. I put all the food into the plastic bag, took another look out the window and went back upstairs.

I walked into Jazz's room and found her on her bed shoving what looked like a blanket into the now overflowing backpack.

She looked at me as I closed the door and gave me a grim looking smile, zipped the bag up and said "I'm going to take my brother's backpack from his room, you can carry that one, we'll put the food and water in it." and walked out.

I walked over to the bed and put the plastic bag down onto it. I sat down and waited for her to come back.

The door opened and I jumped, Jazz laughed shakily when she saw me and closed the door. "Don't be such a girl, I'm younger, I'm the one who should be wetting their pants with fear, not you." She said to me jokingly.

I stuck out my tongue, took the bag from her and started packing the food and water into it while she explained her plan to me.

"We are going to have to go into the forest, I packed a map and a compass into my bag so we know where we are going, after we are out of town I reckon we should head away from civilization, look for caves and stuff that we can hid in. The more secluded the area, the longer we get to stay."

I nodded and zipped up my now full backpack. We looked at each other for a minute then hugged, it was a long hug, but not a romantic one, we loved each other like brother and sister, we had known each other since she was born and had been best friends since then.

Just like our Dads, or what used to be our Dads.

Jazz pulled away from me and looked up at me with tears in her eyes, I wiped them away from her face and turned away from her, not wanting her to see that I was crying as well.

I saw a blurry Jazz with a backpack on walk past me and out the door, not looking back at her room. I quickly wiped my eyes and followed her, down the stairs and quietly out the front door.

I shook my head bringing myself back to the present.

That was six years ago, so long to be alone. I had reached the house. I took a look around, turning in a circle, seeing nothing I headed for the back door.

I turned the handle I clicked open, it wasn't locked, stupid parasites, I walked quietly in, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness of the indoors, I walked into the room off from the hallway, the kitchen and went straight for the sink.

I was so thirsty. Dropping my bag I turned the tap on and put my head under it, gulping the lifesaving water down.

After a minute I stood up, turning off the tap and reached for my backpack. I felt a hand clamp over my mouth.

I froze. NO! The hand came away but was replaced again, this time with a cloth in it, I held my breath and struggled but strong arms held me.

I couldn't hold my breath much longer, surrendering I breathed in and let the darkness take over, my last thought was of Jazz. What would happen to her?