Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Gregor concentrated on putting each foot in front of the other. It seemed like such a labor these days. He just wanted to curl up and die. He let out a pent up sigh and kept walking. Wanting to die wouldn't solve anything.

He walked out of his middle school. He looked around to see all the other kids that went to his school. He had made a couple of friends. Angelia and Larry were over by a tree, making out. Gregor allowed himself a small smile. He had known they would get together.

He saw sister on the other side of the lawn. His middle school and her elementary school were connected, so they met up every day after school to walk home. She was talking to one of her friends. What is his name? It's George. Or Geogio. I know. It's Julio. Julio was his sister's best friend. They always hung out together after school. Gregor thought she hung out with him because he was like Ripred.

No, thought Gregor. Don't think about that place. You can't go back. So just forget about it. Gregor remembered when he had said a similar thing every day about his dad. Just don't think about it. Live in the present. Not the future.

Gregor liked Julio because his dad was arms dealer. He mostly did guns, but he had some swords and knives. Gregor sometimes went to his shop. He had a whole wall covered with swords and knives. Granted, the rest of the walls were covered with guns. But he probably had 200 knives and swords.

"Hey Lizzie," said Gregor. "Hey Julio. How's it going?"

"Not bad," replied Julio. "Yourself?"

"Pretty good," replied Gregor. But it wasn't "pretty good." It was terrible. It hadn't been "pretty good" for six months when he had last seen Lu-

Don't do it Gregor, he told himself. Don't kill yourself.

"Cool," said Julio. A car honked from the parking lot. The three of them turned and looked at who it was. "Oh. I've got to go." He turned to Lizzie. "Do you want to come over later? I made this cool program I wanna show you."

Gregor chuckled to himself. Julio and Lizzie were both nerds. They both knew it. "I can't," replied Lizzie. "I've got a project I've got to work on."

Julio's face fell. "Oh well. I'll see ya tomorrow." He turned and ran to his mom's car. Gregor smiled at Lizzie and said, "You ready to go get Boots?"

"Yup," she said. They started off towards Boots' school. Boots' school was just down the street from theirs. In between their schools was a gas station. Gregor and Lizzie would stop there maybe once a week. Lizzie would get a bag of chips while Gregor would get a Gatorade. Then they would try to decide what to get Boots. Most of the time it ended up being a candy bar. But sometimes, like today, they would get her one of those four packs of tiny donuts. Today they were covered in white sugar. They bought the stuff and walked it of the store, towards Boots' school.

When they got to Boots' school, they found her sitting quietly with her backpack already packed up. When she saw them, she gave off a little squeal and ran up to Gregor, hugging his leg. Gregor smiled. She could grow bigger and taller, but she would always be the cute little girl who spoke crawler.

"Hey Boots," said Gregor. "How was school?"

Boots smiled. "I have fun. But you forget me lunch," she said.

"Oops," replied Gregor. "Here. I'll make it up to you." He pulled the doughnuts out of his backpack and handed them to Boots. Her face lit up as she took the doughnuts and tore open the package.

"So what did you do at school today?" asked Gregor realizing an instant too late that that was a bad idea.

"Today we made a...," Boots said. Gregor sighed. Boots was a talker. No doubt about it. She could talk for hours. She talked the whole way back home, in between mouthfuls of doughnut of course. Sometimes Boots' would accidently speak crawler. Boots still had a tendency to throw a word of crawler in her speech. The crawlers reminded him of the Underland where Luxa lived. Gregor smiled, remembering his time with Luxa in the museum. They were playing with the camera. Then he turned toward her and leaned in and-

NO! NO! NO!, Gregor reprimanded himself. He couldn't do this to himself.

Gregor was still angry with himself when they walked up to their home. They had bought the house three months ago after his mom had gotten a job as banker. Even though she had a pretty good job, his family was still poor. The first thing he noticed was that his mom's old station wagon was still in driveway. Usually she'd be at work from 9 o'clock in the morning to 5 o'clock in the afternoon. She shouldn't be home. The next thing Gregor noticed was that their door was kicked in. Gregor started to panic a little bit. He turned to his sisters. "Hey you guys stay here alright?" They just nodded in response. Why would anyone want to rob our house? he thought. Can't they tell by the state of my Mom's car that we are poor?

Gregor pulled Ares' claw out of his pocket. He kept it with him where ever he went. At first he had kept it to remember his friend and bond. But it had turned into more of a weapon. He had used it to stop a couple of people from assaulting Angelina at school. The claw was just as razor sharp as it was when it had been connected to Ares. He grasped it tightly as he walked up the steps to his house.

As he entered his house, he saw that it was in disarray. Chairs were overturned. Pictures were cracked and lay on the floor. But the most horrifying part was the blood on the walls and floor.

Please review. I hope you like it. :)