(In between these-**- is Japanese)

A cold breeze blows over me. I shiver and open my eyes to a dark room. I shove the blanket off of me and sit up, rubbing my eyes.

I groggily look around and wake up a little more when I see that the balcony door is swinging open. Groaning, I slide out of bed and trudge over to the doors and grab onto one.

I'm so sleepy...

Sighing, I straighten up and stretch, hearing many, very satisfying pops. I move to close the door, but a distant noise catches my attention.

*"What...? What was that?"* I mutter sluggishly. I'm still a little bit asleep, but quickly waking up.

The noise sounds again, this time far closer. I jump backwards and land on my butt, now very much awake. It's a piercing screech that sounds like a great reptile screamed. Not even a second after it sounds, I see a dark shadow diving into the forest about half a mile away.

I don't know how long I lay there before I realize that I'm shivering. I stumble to my feet and I'm not sure if I'm shivering from the cold or shaking from the fear.

Either way, I rush to close the door, and then sit down with my back to the bed. My eyes are wide from the short minute that the event occurred in.

For several long hours after that, I sit there, staring through the glass of the balcony doors, my eyes locked onto the forest. Soon enough, the sun begins to peek over the horizon and I finally start moving again.

I drag myself to my feet and get dressed in comfy sweatpants and a hoodie. Then I go downstairs and start cooking breakfast in a trance.

I finish breakfast about an hour later and I clean up before sitting down on the living room couch and just stare st the door, lost in my own thoughts.

All of a sudden, I jolt to life again and regain some liveliness as I jog softly up the stairs and go to my parents' room. I silently enter and creep to the edge of the bed. I've always loved scaring my dad awake when I cook breakfast. Every single time, and he never knows when I'll do it because he's always asleep if I decide to cook.

I grin evilly and jump half-way onto the bed, letting loose a guttural yell. My mom never wakes up to loud noises. But the smell of food, however, is a different story.

My dad flails his arms and screams, trying his best to drag himself away. In the process, he somehow manages to get himself on the very edge of the bed and falls off, causing a very loud BANG! to ring through the house.

As he mutters about something like *"The doves... What were the doves doing to me...?"* and pulls himself off the floor, I'm holding my sides, screaming with laughter. I'm laughing so hard this morning that I'm struggling to stay on my feet. I usually never laugh this much. Probably because it's a sudden change from the shock I received when that noise reached me and that... thing fell into the woods.

*"Is breakfast ready, or did you decide to scare me earlier today?"* Dad grumbled, picking out clothes to wear.

*"Yep. Once you're dressed, can you wake Mom up and get her downstairs before the food gets cold?"* I ask, still chuckling a little and half-way out the door.

*"Yeah, I will."* He said, still picking out his clothes for the day.

*"Okay."*

I leave and make my way back to the kitchen to make sure the food is still hot. As I come closer again, I smell the scent of sausage and bacon and I can tell that it's making its way up the stairs. I can hear shuffling around in two places in my parents' room. That means Mom is up now, too.

After a couple of minutes of waiting around, soft footsteps start to come down the stairs. I immediately run to the foot of the steps and, as I usually do, see Mom creeping down with a hungry look on her face. It looks like the faces you see in anime when a character is glaring at someone with a smile on their face, except Mom's face doesn't have a smile on it. She is giving off that threatening feeling with drool slowly dripping down her chin.

I snicker. *"Hey Mom, the food's on the table."*

I leap out of the way when I say that and just in time, too. Mom rockets past me and nearly barrels into the table. She finds her plate and begins scarfing down the food.

Mom is not a morning person unless she has food.

Dad comes down then and laughs when he sees Mom. *"Looks like shes really hungry today."*

He and I sit down and start eating, talking abut stuff at random, Mom joining in when she gets a second plate in her belly. I try to keep the conversation off of any late night adventures. When we finish eating, I take the dishes and wash them, then go up to my room.

As soon as I close my door, I run to the balcony and stare at the forest, trying to see any sign of the creature that I saw fall last night.

Making a decision, I grab a windbreaker I have that's laying on the floor near my door and fill it up with a couple of things, like rope, some metal sticks, and a pocket knife I bought when I was 8.(With my Dad's permission, of course.) Then I go back downstairs and make myself a small sandwich and grab a large water bottle that is sitting, fresh, on the counter.

Dad appears from nowhere, wiping his hands. *"Oh, what are you doing, Za?"*

*"I'm going exploring. I wanna see what the forest is like."* I say with a smile, internally screaming and hoping he didn't press for more information.

He gave me a grin instead. *"Alright, but you better check in at around noon. Make sure you're wearing your panic whistle. And don't forget to have fun."*

I nod and give him a hug before running outside and beginning the trek to the forest. It isn't that far away, but the land between my house and the forest is a little bumpy, going up and down, giving the illusion of the forest being farther away.

Hmmm... I look back to the house as I walk and see Dad standing in the doorway, a small smile on his face. Looks like he's happy that I'm exploring already.

I smile ruefully and turn back to the forest. He wouldn't be very happy about me going to the forest if he knew what happened last night. I wonder how he would react if he knew...

From that point, I walk without thinking much abut it, just looking around and listening to the birds.