Chapter One
"Damn alarm clock," Erika Ericson wanted to mumble, but didn't. She never used profanity, well at least not that often. She rolled out of the bottom of the three bed bunk bed she shared with her sisters and staggered trying to regain her balance as she turned off her alarm clock.
Erika was the eldest of four siblings. She had short strawberry blonde locks for hair, but she intended to get them cut in a more boyish fashion as soon as she could; blue eyes that were usually framed by a pair of purple glass; and a face that had just barely been freed from acne. She was sixteen years of age, and would rather be sleeping.
But what choice did she have if she wanted to catch the bus; she had to get up at five in the morning.
The house was quiet as she showered. No one was up at this time. That was also another reason she got up so early, to have time to herself - something she rarely got.
Once thoroughly cleaned, Erika heated up leftovers for breakfast and turned on the computer to entertain herself in the hour she had to herself.
As usual, she watched the news about superheroes; it was the most interesting thing to do then. Secretly, she longed to have a life full of adventure like those heroes, but Erika was stuck in rural America. She wondered why there weren't more female heroes.
By her count, there was Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Hawkgirl, Rocket, the female archer whose name she did not know yet, and probably a few others. Seriously, the male heroes severely outnumbered the females, why was that?
Time slowly crawled on and eventually she checked her e-mail, which was rather consistent of late considering that hardly anyone ever used e-mail what with the invention of Facebook and all. So it was met with much delight when there was a new mesage in her in-box.
Surprisingly, it was not from her friends in Colorado, but her Uncle Barry.
"Hey Erika,
"Tell your folks we'll be there in time for dinner,
"Love,
"Uncle Bear."
Erika face palmed herself, she'd nearly forgotten that her Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris were coming to visit for her littler sisters' birthday. She had a lot on her plate, especially on this Friday morning. Today her school was hosting the Fine Arts Festival and, while she would not be performing, she would be assisting those performing back stage.
Slowly, she surveyed the living room after depositing her dishes in the kitchen sink, and she did not like what she saw.
Mom's gonna blow a gasket when she sees this mess, she thought. As per usual, the living room looked like a tornado had ripped through it, leaving a disaster area in it's wake. Best see if I can't improve this a little.
In what little time Erika had, she succeeded in lessening the pig sty that was the living room. If she had had more time, it could have been cleaned, but she didn't.
Soon the house was alive with sleepy activity. Her only brother - Hayden - had gone to the showers, the eldest of her two younger sisters - Elizabeth - had gone to the restroom the evict the morning breath from her mouth, and Samantha - the youngest of the four siblings - was inquiring about the weather in order to determine what she was going to wear.
"You almost done in there, Liz?" Erika asked. She wanted to brush her teeth before heading out the door.
"Can't you wait?" responded Elizabeth in her usually morning grouchy mood.
"If I do that, I'm gonna be late," Erika snapped back.
"Just wait, jeez, you're so impatient," her sister replied.
Once Erika had brushed her teeth and changed into a pair of skinny jean (well, at least by her definition they were skinny), she was ready to head out towards the bus stop, but just like always Erika was running a little - no, a lot – late.
"See you later," she called, closing the door behind her.
"Erika, did you take your pill?" her father called after her, but she was already headed for the bus stop, so she didn't hear him.
Immediately upon arriving at school, Erika reported to the building that had both the auditorium and the gymnasium in it. The day had barely started for their small town school, but bands from all over the surrounding areas had already arrived.
She signed in at the music room located between the gym and auditorium, and got the shirt that everyone who was in some way participating in the festival got.
"Erika," said Ms. Brady, the art teacher, "Ms. Rose is looking for you."
Before she knew exactly what was happening to everyone else, Erika found herself leading a group of students and their director to the back stage area to deposit their instruments.
And so began the most hectic day of Erika's life.
By lunch time, Erika had built up what felt like an insatiable appetite.
Unfortunately, the school lunch was incapable of satisfying the hunger she now felt, but she didn't have time to find anything else. She didn't want to miss a minute of the festival.
Though, she was having a few problems, such as having trouble paying attention to everything and anything around her. The cause of this was her ADD was acting up. That only meant that she hadn't taken her pill that morning. The pill was meant to suppress her ADD to where it wouldn't be a problem, but without her medication she was going to have trouble.
Oh well, skipping one day never hurt me before, she thought to herself while jogging leisurely back to the auditorium. Unfortunately, she was dead wrong about her assumption this time.
Erika let out a sigh of relief as she took her usual seat on the bus. She felt tired, more accurately she felt extremely hungry, but all the same she felt content and pleased with herself.
She had done her job well and had been given instructions from her teacher to rest all weekend, and that was exactly what she intended to do.
The school day was done and the weekend was about to begin. She was going to relax, read, and enjoy her free time.
Well, she would be able to when the house was clean and when the dishes were done and when her mother deemed to house clean. In other words, she wasn't done yet. In fact, if she knew her mother's habits, Erika was far from done.
The living room, the kitchen, the computer room, the dining room, and every other room would probably need cleaning. If things were to go as they usually did, Erika would end up cleaning the mess by herself with very little help from her siblings.
"Finally, it's done." Erika sighed as she plopped down on the couch with The Lord of the Rings in her hands.
The house had been cleaned in half the time it usually took, and surprisingly it was without much help from her sisters or brother. Mostly, her siblings had been hiding in their rooms from their general of a mother, who'd given them orders to clean.
The three of them would probably claim they were cleaning their rooms, well Hayden might claim he was practicing his French horn from what she had been hearing for part of the afternoon.
Though, the only claim that would be ligament would be Hayden's, from what she'd last seen of her room it was light-years away from being clean.
Samantha and Elizabeth were really just staring out the window, watching for their Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris's car. All three of her siblings were waiting impatiently for them to arrive.
Erika was impatient too, but not her relations to arrive. What she was waiting for was dinner.
She felt so hungry at the moment that she could hardly keep her focus on Frodo's conversation with Gandalf. Unfortunately, she couldn't eat anything until Barry and Iris arrived, and it felt like torture.
As it started to feel unbearable, Samantha and Elizabeth came charging out of their room and declared louder than necessary, "They're here! they're here!"
Not a moment later, Hayden joined into the fray and raced out the door. Slowly, Erika got up from the couch and followed the younglings out.
As should have been expected by Hayden, their black furred mutt - Dasha - was attempting to escape. Thankfully, their puppy - Ace - did not follow Dasha's example.
"Dasha, no!" Hayden said trying to stop the dog but to no avail. As soon as she got the chance, the dog was out the gate and sprinting as fast as she could.
Erika sighed. "I'll get her."
With that she took off sprinting. Within milliseconds, Erika had caught up with Dasha, but over shot her by a hundred miles, literally.
No … way, Erika thought, as the scenery she passed by at an impossible speed blurred together. This couldn't be happening.
She was running, actually running, and she wasn't feeling the usual pain in her calf muscles. Erika had never been able to run for a long time, she could only really sprint. She just couldn't keep up the speed it took to run. But now, much to her shock and surprise, she was running as fast as the Flash.
Suddenly, two things happened at once that forced her to stop, more or less. First, her purple glasses flew off her face. Without her glasses, anything at a distance of five feet away from her was a blur. She could still see the general shape of objects, but they looked fuzzy. Second, a tremendous hunger cramp formed in her stomach. Never in her life had she felt as hungry as she did then.
With her focus split between pain and trying to dodge blurry trees and other hazardous objects, Erika wasn't able to keep up her speed for long. But before she could come to a stop, or even get close to normal running speed, her body collided with a very solid object and her mind went blank.
When she came to her sense again, Erika found she was in a hospital bed with an I.V. in her arm, and near at hand she heard people talking in low voices. Where she was or who the people were Erika did not know.
"What the heck happened?" Erika asked no one in particular.