I wanted to go to my room and get some things, but the instant I stepped through my door I knew there was nothing that I could take. It was all ruined. I reached into my new white pouch, which I had found was on a black sling across my hips, and pulled out the crinkled note. After I had calmed down, I had picked up the note and searched for somewhere to put it when I noticed all of my clothes had changed. It was now a tight black corset with a white right sleeve that bunched up over itself and a black left sleeve that was sagging and went to my wrist. The bottoms of it had white flames. I had nothing but what looked like black undergarments on at the bottom. Then the black sling with the white pouch. My shoes were a long flat black boot that went to my mid-thigh with white flames at the top on the right foot. The other was like a sock with a sole. The sole was black and the sock part was white.
With such less clothing I thought I would be freezing and uncomfortable, but I felt perfect comforted. What my main question was; how had I gotten these clothes?
I decided to pay no attention to that and look for food. Father told me to live, but I couldn't live without knowing I had something to eat. I don't know why I bothered checking in our kitchen because first; we had almost no food left and second; it had all been burned and blackened and completely uneatable.
I decided to try my neighbors. I walked out of the house but when the smell hit my nose I started vomiting whatever was in my stomach. I was wondering when that would happen. After the grotesque scene I had seen in my own home, I had to have puked at some point.
I walked to my next door neighbor's house and just walked in. I froze when I heard a high, maniacal laughing coming from the upstairs.
At first I was relieved and happy. There was someone else alive! But I stopped. On the couch of their house were the two parents of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jomillon. Mrs. Jomillon had the same face as Mother and Bianca and Mr. Jomillon's head was looking up, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. There was a complete hole right through his stomach.
Mr. and Mrs. Jomillon had two children. A boy as old as me and a young girl that was 12-years-old, and by the sound of that laugh, their daughter was alive.
That's what scared me. Their daughter had been a bit off. She liked the most mentally disgusting things I had ever known. Like the sight of her parents dead bodies on the couch would get her excited. The sound of a bone breaking made her shiver which is why she had been kicked out of so many schools that she was finally home schooled because she kept purposely breaking other kid's arms and legs. Even one time killed a boy by snapping his neck just to hear the sound. Because she was young no one ever pressed charges on her. Either that or the children who had gotten hurt were too frightened of her to not beg their parents not to press charges.
She was the definition of 'freak of nature.' She was…
What the hell? I can't remember her name. I know she's a Jomillon but what was her first name? What was it? Her brother was Jonah and Mr. and Mrs. Jomillon's names were Ann and Keith, but what was their daughter's name? This scared me. Why couldn't I think of it?
There was another loud laugh. I decided that I should at least see if she's alright. Even though she was laughing you could never know with… her. I still can't think of it!
I descended the stairs and paused in front of the first door. It was slightly opened so I peeked through the side to see in. My eyes widened at the sight.
There she was. But she was different. Not just her looks. There was a different gleam in her eye that actually said 'evil' in it.
She was standing in the middle of the black room… holding up the remains of her elder brother by the hair. Jonah has blond hair like his sister. One eye was missing with a full hole going right through his skull while the other was wide open in pure blue shock and terror. He had neither of his arms or… anything below his ribcage. He had been skinny because you could see the ribs through what skin he had on his torso. With his body being held in the air, any internal organs he had spilled out in a pool of blood on the black floor.
She was smiling. The girl now had even longer blond hair then she did before, going all the way down to her feet. She wore a long black dress that went to her ankles. It had puffy shoulders and white ribbons tied just under neither the shoulders on each arm. Her neck hole a designs of white on it and so did the sleeves and the trim of the end of the dress. She had plain black class shoes. Her family's regular eye color of pale blue was not there. Instead she had deep red eyes.
She laughed again. Long, loud, and evil.
"What a weak sibling I have, no wait, had! Your dead!" she laughed as if the fact that one of her closest family members was now dead, spilling out guts, was one of the funniest things in the world. It terrified me. How could anyone think that their own flesh and blood being dead was a happy, funny thing? I closed my eyes, not wanting to see, but I still listened.
"That was a quite well sixteen days," she giggled to herself. It was disgusting that such a horrible creature could make such an innocent sound, "It was quite annoying to have to kill every bird that came after me but I did get to break into other houses and feed those stupid idiots to those nice doggies outside." My eyes snapped open. Over those horrible days… she had snuck out of her house and kicked other people out of their homes just to settle her sick desire to see death!
Not wanting to even hear anymore, I went back downstairs, as quickly but as quietly as I could, not wanting such a sick creature to know I was in her territory.
She terrified me so much I just left the house, not even checking the kitchen for food. I didn't want to see what else was hidden in my other neighbor's houses so I walked down the street, keeping an eye out for any sign of life. I sighed when I reached the end of the street. This was horrible. What was I to do? Father, why must I live here? Why can't I just die and be with you and Mother and Bianca and Zane again.
A screech. A screaming, non-human sound came from above. It was loud, and like a monster. My head zipped to where it was coming from and saw what looked like a raven, but it was three times bigger than me with four wings, three eyes and sharp teeth in its pointed beak. Its talons were outstretched, ready to grab me right off the ground for its next meal. I ran. As fast as my feet could take me, I ran and didn't look back. There was a crash then the sound of flapping wings and a gust of wind blew behind me. It had landed and missed me by merely a few feet and was now trying to fly up and attack again. The raven creature had its own unique, but still disgusting smell to it. A mixture of wet dog, bird poop, vomit, and someone's bad breathe. I coughed on it. It was back in the air and coming at me again. I should have been wondering what it was but my mind was only concentrating on surviving right now.
But I couldn't out run it. I didn't have anything to protect myself with. What was I going to do?
I tripped. I stupidly tripped on one of the dead animal body that I hadn't seen while I was running. My knees dragged against the pavement, scrapping the one open knee and probably tearing my boot. Who cares about that, I was about to die! I looked back at the winged beast as it neared closer to my defenseless self. I closed my eyes a prepared to be ripped apart.
"Ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" was the next sound I heard. Then and ear splitting screech, more flapping, something liquid splashed on me. I opened my eyes. I was… saved. By another bird? No, it was a boy with bird wings. He a sword in his hand, the blade covered in violet liquid that must have been the raven's blood, for the raven was flipping and screeching as more blood came from the new gaping wound in his neck. The more it moved, the worse the wound got and the greater pain it felt. It was suffering. Even though it had just been about to eat me, I felt a bit sorry. Slowly it stopped moving, its eyes closing, and its chest no longer rising. It was dead.
"Geez, these Koraki are such annoying beasts," the boy said to the limp body but more to himself. He turned to me and a friendly look came to his face as he stretched his hand down to help me up, "Hey, you alright?" I took it and let him pull me up. When my weight hit my left leg I wobbled and pain traveled up and down my whole leg and I almost fell again when he caught me. Up close I saw he had light blue eyes and bluish-grey hair. He was wearing a tight black shirt, showing his muscles with a while overcoat with the sleeves bunched up. He had plain black jeans with black shoes and black gloves with finger holes.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," my voice sounded foreign to myself. It was quiet and shaky. I looked at my knee. It was scrapped and cut and was getting really bloody. Patches of my body was covered in the 'Koraki's' violet blood.
"Let me see," he said looking at my knee. He took the end of his coat and ripped two pieces off. Just after they came off, the coat somehow grew more and it looked as if nothing had been taken off of it. He wiped my knee with one piece, making it sting, causing me to wince then he threw that on the ground after getting all the gravel out of the would then wrapped my knee in the other piece. It was still painful but nothing I couldn't handle.
"You coat. How'd it…"
"Regenerate? Look at your boot." I looked at my right leg which should have had a huge hole in the boot but it looked perfectly fine and the skin underneath hadn't been touched.
"How does it do that?" I asked.
He didn't answer my question, but instead asked his own, "How long have you been awake?"
"I don't know, maybe two hours ago. I have no idea what's going on. Who are you? What was the raven thing you killed?"
"My named I guess is Theos. Funny since that means god in Greek, but I'm not even close to that. The thing I killed is what I called a Koraki since it means raven in Greek. What's your name?"
"I'm…" I… couldn't think of my name. This was even weirder then forgetting the Jomillon's daughter's name.
"I-I don't know. I can't remember." He chuckled.
"I guess you haven't been awake very long. Look at your sword." I looked at him strangely.
"What sword? I don't have any sword," I said in confusion. He laughed.
"You haven't noticed it?"
"Noticed what?"
"The five-foot sword strapped to your back!" What? I reached behind me and was surprised to feel the handle of something. I pulled it up over my head and held it out before my eyes. Where had this come from? How had I not noticed it this whole time on my back? It was red and brown, but the blade was shiny white. There were a lot of jagged curves that I couldn't describe, with no hilt, and a point at the end of the handle. Etched into the beginning of the black was the word 'Leipei'.
"Missing? Cool. Nice to meet you, Leipei," Theos held out his hand. I looked at him.
"What?"
"The name etched onto your sword is the new name you're given after you gain your power. You can't remember the name you had before this all happened, and if you knew someone before this happened and they're still alive you can't remember their name. That's how it works. All the names I've seen so far are all in Greek. I learned Greek language a while ago so I know that my name means 'god' and yours means 'missing'." Theos explained.
"How do you know all this?" I asked. Suddenly there were several other screeches like the one the Koraki made, but they were further away. Theos looked worriedly at the sky.
"I'll explain more to you later. We need to get out of here. When a Koraki dies, it sends out a single to the others in its pack, and the pack attacks anything close to the dead Koraki. Come here," I stepped closer to him. He quickly knocked me off my feet and picked me up in his arms.
"Hey! What're you-" I had forgotten he had those giant white wings because after the Koraki was slain they had bunched up behind him, practically hiding them. In a second after I was in his arms, his wings spread and started to flap and we were lifted into the air. I screamed and wrapped my arms around him as the ground got further and further from us.
We're… flying! I'm not one of those people to be excited about flying. I freak out.
"Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god," I repeated keeping my eyes closed.
"I wish I could do that," Theos said to himself but I still asked, "What?"
"Close my eyes. If I could fly before this happened I would have loved it, but now, the world looks even worse from above." I knew that was a warning not to look but I had to. I opened my eyes only a slit and looked down. At first the height scared me but then I saw what he had been talking about.
It was like a battlefield. Everything was in ruins. All blackened broken trees, houses, streets, and spread out where the bodies of animals, and even humans. I closed my eyes, but the image stayed in my head. What had happened to the world? Why had it happened? This just wasn't right.
We flew for awhile. The weightless feeling started to get to me and I started to drift to sleep but I tried to stay awake, not wanting to fall asleep on my savior.
"You don't have to stay awake, we have a while before we get where we're going," Theos said as if reading my mind.
"Can you read minds?" I said sleepily. He laughed.
"Nope, all I got is the giant wings." I laughed lightly then fell into unconsciousness.
