Chapter 1: Why are They Chasing Us?
It's happening more frequently each day. I thought I was losing my mind when I started seeing my eye color changing every so often to dark blue at random points of the day. It all started happening when I was at the party for my twelfth birthday. I had to wash off the stain of ketchup on my shirt after Alex, my friend, splattered ketchup all over the table trying to get it open to put on his hamburger. While I was washing the stain on my shirt I felt this pressure and irritation in my eyes. Thinking there was something in my eye, I blinked and scratched my eyes, and for a split second, I thought I saw my eyes turn blue. Thinking this was just my mind playing tricks, on me I just went on my day, not thinking it will happen again.
"LUKE!"
"HERE!" I was so caught up with remembering what happened that day, that I didn't hear Mr. Calvin yelling at me from across the school bus. Mr. Calvin was our grade's social studies teacher. He was a middle aged man with grey hair and a pointy nose. He is usually a nice guy if you are on his good side, but when you are on his bad side, he yells at you for hours until he gets tired of you and walks away.
"I CALLED YOU 3 TIMES LUKE! WHY DIDN'T YOU RESPOND!"?
"I bet he was thinking of Jasmine." Joked the class bully, David. David always bullied other people ever since I can remember coming to this school, but he always used to bully me more for some reason. Everyone laughed at David's remark except for me and Jasmine. I looked at the front of the bus to see Jasmine's reaction but her face was buried in her backpack. Her dark brown hair was the only thing I could see from her from where I was sitting at. I felt my cheeks get very hot fast, so I blocked my face away with my sweater so no one will notice that I was blushing. Yes, I have to admit, I have a crush on Jasmine, but I hate when people talk about it in front of a whole crowd.
"QUITE YOU GUYS, OR IT'S DETNTION FOR ALL OF YOU!" The class then fell silent. Mr. Calvin finally calmed down when he saw that everyone was quiet. "Ok everyone, don't forget to fill out your notes once we head inside the Museum and stay within the group we assigned you. We don't need any lawsuits from someone's parents saying we lost their child."
It was a long and boring ride to the Museum. The only interesting thing that happened was when Alex got yelled at by Mr. Calvin because he was talking too loudly and was supposedly disrupting the bus driver. Alex was always the loud one in the class when it came to field trips, especially the ones that we use buses for transportation. When we finally arrived at the museum, we arranged in four groups, one for every parent helping out on the field trip. Our group was composed of 4 people, which were me, David, Alex, and Jasmine. Great, me and David in the same group? This will be a fun trip. Everyone walked into the Museum after everyone was head counted. The museum had a huge lobby plus a reception desk in the middle of the lobby. It was rather noisy for a museum, but what do you expect from a lobby full of 8th graders. We were met by a rather slim and tall person once we entered the museum. He introduced himself as Jason and he would be our tour guide for the field trip.
"Alright people! Lets head down to our first exhibit!" The groups were then lead to the first exhibit after following Jason down a hallway which had the entrances for all the exhibits. The class was walking down the hallway so we can have our first lesson when I noticed Jason kept staring at me every so often, but every time I stared back at him, he would just look at me in the eye almost confused. After feeling uncomfortable of Jason staring at me for two minutes I finally spoke up, "Why you keep staring at me?"
Jason was quite for a moment, and then he slowly responded, "It's nothing, it's just something about you is different. I apologize for making you uncomfortable."
How did he know that I was feeling uncomfortable? Maybe it was just a coincidence. Instantly, I stopped all of my thinking. I had this really distinctive feeling that I had to immediately move to the right. Surprisingly, David tried to push me but he fell because of me moving to the right.
"LUKE TRIPPED ME!" David yelled with a bloody nose.
Still shocked of me knowing that David was about to push me, Jason spoke up for me.
"I bet you it was just an accident. Here can someone take him to the first aid room? It's just at the entrance, on the right of the front desk" Alex volunteered to take him to the first aid room so he can have an excuse to not finish the notes.
"But it wasn't an accident! Luke tripped me!"
"Stop whining and go." I chuckled at what I said while David headed to the first aid room cursing under his breath.
Jasmine who was next to me after the incident whispered, "How did you know that David was about to push you?" Surprisingly, Jason heard what Jasmine whispered to me from all the noise from the other groups and called a nearby worker to take his spot as tour guide.
"Luke I have to talk to you privately, please" Crap, what have I done now. Jason led me to a nearby wall while the groups walked off to the exhibits with the new tour guide. "Can you tell me what happened back there?"
"Well, I don't really know actually. I had this sudden feeling I had to move to the right but then I realized David tripped when I moved. I guess he wanted to push me or something."
"I see. Was it an urge or was it a coincidence that you moved to the right?"
"I don't know how to explain it in detail but it was like an urge like you said. It was almost like if I actually felt him running towards me."
Jason looked over my head and suddenly I saw Jason's face go from thinking, to fear.
"We have to go now!" Jason grabbed my arm and started speed walking towards the entrance.
"What are you doing!"? I turned behind me to see what Jason was so trying to get away from and saw two tall people with black clothing speed walking towards us. I couldn't see their faces; it was like it was covered or shadowed of.
Jason quickly said, "Just keep on walking!" When we got outside, Jason started running towards the half empty parking building at the side of the museum. I was surprised at how fast Jason can run without any running shoes. Shortly after we ran out the museum, the people chasing us ran out in a hurry trying to catch up to us.
"Why are we running from them?"
"They are…" Jason paused, " friends."
When we reached the top floor of the parking building, we started heading towards a black car at the end of the floor. We were almost near the car when a third person came out from behind a car and stood right in front of the black car. The two people chasing us finally caught up to us once we stopped in front of the third person. We both stood there silently, while the three people were staring at us. Then I finally decided to break the silence.
"Why were you guys chasing us?"
The man blocking the car responded in a raspy, loud voice, "We want you, Luke."
Startled, I responded in a shaky voice, "How do you know my name?"
"We know everything about you Luke. Your name, birthday, address, friends, everything." Realizing that these people were following me everywhere I go and know everything about me feared and angered me.
"Luke, don't pay attention to them." Jason said in a calming voice, "They are trying to make you fear them. Be calm."
One of the people chasing us at the museum started speaking, "Luke, remember that time you fell of the stage at the school play? Remember all the laughter from everyone around you." I remember that play like if it was yesterday. Our class was doing a class play of Romeo and Juliet an I was Romeo. I was so caught up with my role that I didn't notice I was slowly walking toward the end of the stage. When I noticed I was at the end of the stage, it was too late. I fell flat on my face in front of everyone. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life until I changed schools.
The last person who didn't talk finally spoke, "Remember when David got you suspended for something he did and not you?" I remember that day clearly.
It was a hot summer day at my new school. It was around 95 degrees and it was the most humid day of my life. There were no clouds in the sky to block out the burning sun. Everyone wanted something to drink except the milk from the cafeteria and the one dollar water the school sold. Knowing David, he sneaked into the teacher's lounge and stole some soda and other flavored drinks. Apparently, a teacher saw David steal the sodas, but the teacher suspended me, because David planted the sodas in my backpack making it look like I stole them.
I was filled with hate and embarrassment remembering these memories. My eyes started to irritate, just like the time when I noticed my eyes turned blue at the party. Jason turned to me noticing that my eyes were twitching.
"No, no, no, NO! LUKE CALM DOWN!" Right after Jason yelled, my body was in immense pain. My chest and arms had major pain, I had a major headache, and my whole body felt like it was going to collapse at any moment. Then I felt if something was growing out of my chest and arms. I saw a huge bulge growing out of my arms. Huge, steel spikes came out of my arms and chest. The major headache I had started to get worse and worse. I was noticing my whole body growing hair at a fast rate. My whole chest, where a giant steel spike laid, started growing white fur and black fur was growing at the rest of my body. Right after that I felt a sharp pain at my tail bone. I looked behind me and saw I had grown a white long tail. After many seconds of yelling in pain, the pain was slowly going away. After a while, the pain finally stopped. I slowly stood up from the ground to make sure I won't fall down because of another pain strike. I looked up and down my new transformed body and noticed I had large pointy ears from on top of my head. Then I looked at my legs noticing that I had long, black legs, which were standing on their toes. While looking at my legs, I also noticed that I had black paws and, astonishingly, pants that are made of fur and part of me?
Slowly I gained the will to talk, "What..wh..WHAT HAPPENED TO-"I stopped midway in my sentence because I felt three cold fingers poke me on the neck roughly. I suddenly felt drained out and relaxed after the fingers poked the back of my neck.
I collapsed to the floor, half ways to blacking out, just barely recognizing the raspy voice of the third person saying, "So, the rumors are true," and the bright flash of red and blue.