Darkening Abyss

The sky was the same deep, dark abyss as the sea beneath it. As the waves crashed on the menacing shore, I swore I could hear the deepening howls of someone in rage and someone in pain, the slice of a blade, and the silence of bloodlust being satisfied. I couldn't looked down from the ledge…

for I was frightened by what might show itself from miles below.

The Beginning-

They say ever story starts somewhere. Mine starts on a cold August afternoon. I was just getting home from work and my head hurt from dealing with middle school kids all day.

My roommate, Iggy Griffiths, smiled as I walked through the door of our apartment. Iggy had been my friend for many years so deciding where to stay after I finished getting my teaching degree and got my first job wasn't hard.

He had a girlfriend, who was there at the moment, her name was Krystal Lupus (AKA Nudge) and she had mocha colored skin and pretty brown hair. She was very different from Iggy, with his fair skin, blue eyes, and strawberry blond hair.

I have nicely tanned skin, brown/blond hair, and chocolate brown eyes. My name is Maximum Ride, and, throughout this story, I change a lot. But at the start I was a nice, but strict, middle school teacher. I taught language arts and my favorite students were a girl named Artiglio Venom and a boy name Zephyr Griffiths.

Zephyr (AKA The Gasman (you can guess why)) is Iggy's younger brother. He was thirteen (twelve years younger than Nudge and I, fourteen years younger than Iggy) and looked like an exact replica of Iggy.

Artiglio was twelve, about to turn thirteen, and she had gorgeous black hair, olive skin, and obsidian eyes. She was supposed to have a brother Iggy's age, but he went missing along with a couple of his friends seven years back.

That's the years the kidnappings started. Everyone believed that they were the first to go missing and Artiglio still had trouble when the subject 'siblings' came up.

Anyway, back to the kidnappings- first they thought it was just a couple, not-related incidents; but then it turned into more. It started out just two or three kidnappings a year, then it went to two or three every four months, then every month…

And then every week.

But it had died down in the past few years. It seemed as if whoever was doing it had found all they wanted.

But, surprisingly, no one had been killed. None at all. Whoever had done the kidnappings had always demanded ransom and were returned, almost everyone (see missing siblings mentioned earlier). And no one had been caught. You would think, after so many kidnappings, that they would've been arrested. But only once (one year ago) had they ever come close.

The news had reported that a father had hired a guard to watch his teenage daughter because he had a hunch that something would happen. And, in the middle of the first night on the job, someone snuck into the girls room.

It had been a male figure, dressed all in black. He had been very tall and medium toned. And he was wearing a mask. The guard explained that the masked looked somewhat like that blue spirit guy off of Avatar The Last Air Bender.

And, as soon as he saw the guard, he was gone. Its was said by both the guard and the girl that he had disappeared into thin air, but shock could make something seem like that.

Though I didn't say I didn't believe such powers were possible, because I know very well powers are real.

Iggy, Nudge, and I aren't exactly normal, and neither is Gazzy. Nudge can attract and move around metal, Iggy can create sonic blast, Gazzy can mimic people perfectly and can make things explode by just looking at them. And me…

I can run at the speed of light.

Yeah… we don't know how it happened, but it did. We've kept it secret from everyone, even our parents.

So maybe this guy did have powers, maybe he didn't. All I knew was that they still hadn't caught him or anyone else.

Nudge was sitting on Iggy's lap, watching the shopping channel, while Iggy zoned in and out of her constant ramblings. I sat my bag down before walking to the kitchen and getting a glass of Dr Pepper. I walked back into the living room and sat next to them on the couch, sighing as I relaxed.

I grabbed the remote, changing the channel to something actually interesting. Iggy let out a laugh at Nudge's tiny shriek in protest then stood up, letting her slip closer to me on the couch, leaving to go make dinner. Nudge looked at me, "So, Maxi."

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, "What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Sure."

"Fine," she took a deep breath and scooted away from me a bit, "I set up a date for you. Before you say anything: he's really nice, hot, sweet, hot, funny, hot, oh, and did I mention-"

I cut her off, "Hot."

She nodded. "Oh please, Max. Please, please, please, please, please. You haven't been on a date for so long." "Okay!" I said, loudly, "Fine." And I was glad Iggy interrupted us on that note to tell us dinner was ready.

^~:..:~^

I finished drying myself before throwing the towel into the hamper. I started to get dressed into my pajamas, a huge nightgown like t-shirt, and walked into my room.

I went over to the light switch that turned on the light outside my window that showed the middle of a very tall tree. The light wouldn't turn on. That's odd, I thought, It worked this morning.

I laid down into my bed that night thinking that, if nothing has happen yet, nothing should. After I relaxed a bit, my eyes closed and curled up under my quilt, there was a flash in front of my eyes and I heard the click of a camera.

My eyes shot open and I looked outside my window where the flash probably came from. But the black abyss of night didn't show anything and all was quite.

Too quite…