Well, I suppose I actually did it. I actually finished the start of my new project. I can't exactly guarantee that my updating will become more frequent and that I will be back permanently. But hey I'm back for now and that's all that matters I suppose. Well, get to reading folks! Hope Y'all enjoy!

Chapter 1: Past, Present, Future

Honestly, I didn't think I'd end up like this. I wanted to do so much less violent things when I was younger. But hey, you know how it goes right? You get into some serious crap when you are like me.

What exactly does 'like me' mean? Well, let me give you the rundown.

It all started about six years ago when I fell into a deep dark grate in the laundry room of my apartment, the 'nice' dwelling that my family and I had been living in. We had pretty much a normal life in the Big Apple or New York City. I think it was normal for a sort of a bit below average family. I lived with my mom, my dad, my two younger sisters, and my grandma. It stayed normal for quite a while until my dad disappeared one night.

Oh yeah, I'm sure you know this already but my name is Gregor. I'm a rager. "What is a rager?" Most ask but since you are here I'm guessing you already know what a rager is but just in case you don't I intend to explain it to you in a bit.

Ok... So let's see. A few months after my dad's disappearance, my littlest sister, Margaret (or Boots as we used to call her) and I fell into a grate in the laundry room. This grate was not just any grate you see. It was a gate to a whole new world below the surface of the earth. The residents of this underworld called themselves the Underlanders. The Underland was home to many oversized creatures the overlanders or surface dwellers see as small critters such as bats, rats, mice, cockroaches, moles, lightning bugs, spiders, scorpions, and such.

But the one truly amazing thing about these creatures is that THEY CAN TALK. I know amazing right? Yeah, they could talk to each other and give each species a cool nickname. But still, even with words the species still had fights with each other.

The humans that lived there had a prophet named Bartholomew Sandwich or something. He makes some pretty crazy prophecies that everyone seemed to believe. So hey when I got there they called me the Warrior which I wasn't too thrilled about. But meh whatever, I'm pretty much retired from that role now. The residents of the Underland also gave names to powers or talents you could say that were more common in the Underland than the overland such as seers, scentseers, and ragers. Seers can see the future I suppose. Scentseers can use their sense of smell to determine movement, landscape, color, etc. Ragers are natural born fighters as I am, although, ragers are very rarely humans.

I don't think I'll tell you all the details. That is for you to discover. This story is about the present and I'm sure none of you want to hear my great and amazing backstory of heroics. Now TO THE PRESENT!

What can I say? I see some shady dudes ganging up on a young lady in an alleyway in New York City and what do I do? Don't pay attention? Of course not. I rush in and beat the hell out of the dudes. Considering what I am, it was no problem at all taking them out. But hey the cop who saw me save the day wouldn't have it. Come on. A 17-year-old kid running to the rescue of a lady surrounded by three dudes didn't seem so smart or safe to the police. So guess what? Instead of him just taking the offenders in, he took me in too. Guess he didn't want a high schooler doing his job for him. Fair enough. But oh dang was my mom pissed. When she came to pick me up from the station she didn't look at all pleased with what I had accomplished.

"GREGOR! What in the hell is wrong with you?!" She barked at me angrily after she took me back to our apartment. "You should not just charge into a fight like that without thinking! Just think about what your dad would say!" I just shrugged and went to my room. I knew she was yelling at me but I couldn't care less what she was saying.

I should probably tell you what has happened since we got back from the Underland. Lemme tell you the gist of it.

After we got back my mom immediately called our relatives in Virginia and asked we could move there and live with them. They, of course, were ok with it on a few conditions. We would have to pay a portion of the property expenses, we would have to pay for transportation there, we would have to work out on the farm, and much to my displeasure I would have to take my cousin, Malinda, who was a month and a half younger than me to the school dance that year.

My mom reluctantly decided it wasn't worth it although she wouldn't mind letting me go to the school dance with Malinda because she just wanted me to forget Luxa, the girl I sort of fell in love with down in the Underland. She just couldn't afford it without income.

Well anyway, we stayed in the same apartment because it was still overall a nice place even though my mom made the laundry room off limits. In other words, NO UNDERLAND. My dad started teaching science again at the middle school when the next school year started.

Every time I see foul play, I immediately rush in and take care of the bastards much like the ones earlier today. My mom, of course, is never happy when I get in fights. That's pretty much all that's been happening for the past five years.

Ok, so I went to my room blah blah blah. I decided to sit down, read, a book, and then take a nap.

When I woke up I went back into the main room, poured some nice tea, and took a seat at the dinner table and waited for dinner time.

About half an hour later or so my family had all settled at the table and waited for my dad to get home after a teacher conference at the school. We then heard a key finding its way into the doorknob outside and then came in the big man.

"Good evening everyone," My dad said casually and took out a newspaper while taking his seat at the table. He became startled after he turned the page in the paper. "Grace, have you heard about the mysterious disappearances and appearances of random people every once and a while?" He said to my mom with curiosity, "Says hear that all over the city, many people end up disappearing for a day or two then reappearing without any memory of what happened to them over those days."

"No, I can't say that I have," Mom said contently, "It's all probably just some people getting drunk and getting on the wrong bus or something." Dad shook his head. We all then went back to eating. It was pretty much quiet for the rest of the meal. When I finished eating I got up, scraped the crumbs into the trash can, put my dishes in the sink, and walked away to my nice little cozy room.

I guess I haven't told you what I've been doing at all since I got out of the Underland except for, of course, not go back to the Underland. Right when I went back to school, I just wasn't into it. I had just missed so much time, it was a huge pain to catch up even when I was forced to go to tutorials before and after school. Eventually, I got back on track so it was fine.

I may have gotten my grades back on track but all my classmates were obviously still confused about why I was gone for so long. They didn't seem to believe the story that I had an extreme case of the flu. Instead, they came up with random assumptions that I had been hit by a car and was recuperating, or say I was kidnapped and tracked down by the FBI, or crazy stuff like that.

On top of all that, I just couldn't get into anything that I really liked. My interest in saxophone vanished and when I tried sports, they just all seemed so boring and pointless compared to what I had been through. So I ended up an outsider without many friends and whatnot. But whatever I'm still here and kicking.

My sisters seem to be doing quite better than me. Lizzie has been as she always was except that she has been able to make more friends. Boots or Maggie as we call her now, has probably been doing the best out of the three of us. She's made quite a lot of great friends whom she hangs out with very often. None of us really mention the Underland at all and we all know that we probably won't see it ever again. Anyway, I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. Before I knew it, I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, the time was 7:37 pm. About 40 minutes or so after dinner. I for some odd reason I felt the urge to go outside and get some fresh air so I put on some shoes and left my room. My mom was sitting down watching TV, my dad was going through papers, and my grandma was sitting in a rocking chair, knitting.

I began to speak. "I'm going out for a short walk," I said walking by. My mom looked up. "Okay, but be sure to be back before 8:30, we've got a game of cards to play," she said turning her head back to the TV.

I then walked up to the door, turned the knob, and walked outside. I took a deep breath and began walking down the hall towards the stairwell. Taking walks have always been a nice pass time for me. Although, this one felt like it was gonna be different. But you know, different isn't always bad. Different can be better too as some say. I walked down the stairs all the way down to the first floor. Then, I continued walking out of the building.

The streets of New York were packed as they usually were. It was just getting dark and the sky was covered in light orange clouds. The air was nice and cool. A faint breeze was whizzing by my ears. The sounds of people and cars were constantly heard throughout the city.

As I walked along the sidewalks, I got further and further away from home. I always go quite a distance away from home on my walks so nothing was really different for me just yet.

Continuing on and on, I watched as the sun went down over the shorter buildings. As I stopped to take in the last bit of sunlight from behind me, I was suddenly jerked forward from behind. I immediately turned and saw a young man with his hood knocked off. He was very pale and you could very clearly see his veins on his skin. He had yellow eyes and unnaturally blond hair. "Sorry sir, I didn't see you there. I'm kind of in a rush. Sorry again," he said with an odd accent and a sinister sounding tone. He put his hood back on and continued on walking.

I knew, without a doubt, this man was from the Underland and he was not to be trusted. And without thinking, I began to follow this man.

That was a great chapter. Right? It took me quite a while to get this like I had hoped. Hope Y'all enjoyed. See Y'all again next chapter.