Chapter 1
Alone in the night
I tossed and turned in my bed, not able to sleep. As I stared at the ceiling, I had the strange feeling that I should go outside for a walk. I tried to ignore this unusual urge and tried to go to sleep; I couldn't do either of these things. So I sighed, got out of bed, and walked downstairs to the front door. When I stepped out into the cool, autumn night, I wasn't sure where I should go. All of a sudden, I heard a yell. I ran toward the sound and stopped a block away from my house. There, in front of me was a boy about my age with a torn t-shirt, black jeans, dark, messy black hair, and really, really pale skin. He was on his knees and his head hung down. I knew I should turn around, run away, and forget what I saw. Because I had never seen anything like it: about twenty men wearing dark armor were standing before the poor kid. Well, I can't really call them men, because, well, they weren't. They looked like men, but they were these weird transparent….. things. You could see the creatures' bones and everything! I guess you could call them skeletons, because that's what they looked like, but let me tell you, if these things went trick-or-treating, they wouldn't be getting any candy, that's for sure. The things' started coming forward. The boy raised a sword, (yes; a sword) and some of the creatures fell asleep. More came forward.
I heard chattering sounds behind me and I turned around, seeing ten of the things were behind me. One of them reached out and grabbed my arm and I kicked it in the gut. Three more came and drew swords and took out guns. I swung my right leg and knocked the guns out of their hands. Reaching down, I grabbed a sword from the one I had kicked down and was soon sword fighting with the others. After a while, there were only a few skeletons left and they were all after the boy. He fought them off and I helped him. Once they were all dead, I looked over at the boy and he fainted, falling to the ground. My legs got weak and my knees gave in, I had to find strength to get the boy and myself to safety.
Grabbing the collar of his shirt, I stood up, pulling the boy up with me. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, I dragged him and myself back to my house. I went to our backyard and laid him in one of the hammocks and went inside. Stumbling back outside with a first aid kit and medicine, I bandaged the boy's arm where a sword had cut him and all the other wounds he had. After about a half an hour of him mumbling in his sleep, he started to move and come to. Standing up, I quickly grabbed his sword and held it up close to him. I watched as he opened his dark brown eyes and stared into mine in surprise.
"wha-" he said, reaching for his waist but realizing I had his sword. He tried to move away but fell sideways out of the hammock, with me moving right behind him with the blade close to his neck.
"Who are you?" I asked. His eyes looked at me in confusion. Now I was surprised. What was so confusing about 'who are you'? The boy stood up and said "Nico…di Angelo." trying to edge around the blade. I looked into his eyes and could tell he wasn't lying. I lowered the sword a bit, but still held it close to him.
"What were those things, and why were they trying to kill you?" he sighed and looked me straight in the eye. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." Oh, I bet I would buster. He had no idea what kind of things had happened to me in my lifetime. Monsters and weird creatures and strange things were always around me. Now that I knew he wasn't a threat or anything, I gave him back his sword.
"Thanks for… For helping me." He said, remembering the army we faced and seeing the bandages on him. "No problemo, dude." I replied. With that, he turned to leave, but I grabbed onto his shoulder and we flu into darkness. When it was over, I landed in the grass, a few yards from Nico. I didn't recognize where I was. We were in a woods somewhere and a little ways off, I could see some cabins. I think we were at a camp.