The fancy blue sports car pulled up to the student drop off and every eye was instantly drawn to it. The girl in the front passenger seat sunk down as far as she could go, holding onto her backpack tightly, the dangling ice skates clinking together.

"Of course we had to come in the nice car," she muttered under her breath. Her brother, the driver, chuckled.

"Take a look at it this way Julie, everyone will think you're cool! I would have killed to be dropped off in a fancy car when I started high school."

Julie Stewart rolled her eyes.

"You were 12 when you started high school Mr. Big Brain," she replied. "This is just embarrassing."

Her brother rolled his eyes back at her. "Come on Little Pain, it won't be bad. I know Reefside wasn't where you wanted to live, but-"

"But it's where I have to," she finished. Flashbacks of falling and camera flashes and news articles and doctors appointments ran through her mind. "Wish me luck Big Brain."

"You don't need luck," he replied with a smile. "You're heading to the rink after, right? I wish I'd get off work in time to pick you up but-"

Julie opened the door and smiled at her brother, pulling her sunglasses over her eyes. "I know you would Jay. Yes, I'll be at the rink."

"And you'll let me know if anything changes?"

Julie snorted, "Sure yeah. Of course. I'll let you know if I somehow make friends and not go to the rink which will never happen."

"Never say never, Little Pain!"

As soon as she slammed the door, her brother revved his engine (causing her to want to sink into the sidewalk as everyone stared again) and drove off, leaving her all alone at the front steps of a new school, in a new town.

Julie tried to shrink as far into herself as she could in her first period class. Everyone was going crazy, throwing things and shouting. Was this how it was in public school? She hadn't been in an actual classroom since she was in elementary school and, even surrounded by other seven-year olds, she didn't remember it quite like this.

"Guys, settle down! Take your seats please."

She looked up and caught sight of a man wearing glasses and a lab coat as he came into the room. He walked up to the front of the classroom and addressed the class.

"I'm Dr. Oliver, and this is first period science. Before we start, are there any questions?"

Julie had hoped that nobody would say anything so they could get the show on the road, but a girl in the front row with a super tight ponytail raised her hand and she let out a sigh, right as the rest of the class let out a loud groan. The guy sitting next to her snorted.

"Not a fan of Cassidy?" he whispered. "Me either."

"Dr. Oliver," the girl started. "As you know I'm the anchor and field reporter for our school TV station." The entire class let out a laugh. "Anyway, I'm sure our viewers are wondering, well, you don't really look old enough to be a teacher."

"Oh gag," Julie couldn't resist saying out loud. The guy beside her let out a laugh. "Seriously? Flirting with him? In front of all of us?"

Her table partner smirked, "That's Cassidy. She has absolutely no shame." He held out his hand and Julie reluctantly shook it. "I'm Ethan. Ethan James."

"Julie Stewart," she replied with a smile. "Nice to meet you."

"You're new here, aren't you?" Ethan asked. Julie blushed and ran a hand down her face.

"That obvious?"

"You only mildly stick out."

Great.

"Let's put the camera down," Dr. Oliver said. Julie startled, only to see that the guy sitting next to Cassidy was holding a camcorder in her hand. "For now, let's talk about you guys and what you expect of yourselves in this class. Because that's what's really important."

He was quiet for a minute as he looked around the room, only to come to a stop on the empty seat at the table Julie was at.

"Is someone missing?"

As soon as class ended, Ethan waved at her and walked off with his friend in an honest to God bucket hat and Julie was, once again, alone.

She sat next to a group of girls in cheerleading uniforms in her next class and they looked down their nose at her and she resisted the urge to hit them.

If they only knew.

Julie managed to restrain most of her violent urges all day, biting her tongue and dealing with being the 'spectacle' of the new person. Her brother had warned her that Reefside was a small town and new people stuck out like sore thumbs. Thankfully, the new principal and Dr. Oliver drew most of the skepticism away from her.

But that didn't mean that she still didn't get some.

"January, right? I'm Cassidy Cornell, the anchor and field reporter for the school's TV station. This is my camera man, Devin. Everyone wants the scoop on the new girl."

"It's Julie," she corrected while rolling her eyes. "And I'm afraid that they're just going to have to get over it."

Cassidy looked taken aback and even the camera guy's jaw dropped a bit.

"No no, you see. Everyone wants to know who you are. The flashy car you rolled up in the morning made a lot of people veeeeery interested. Surely you can answer a couple of questions?"

"Surely, you understand the word 'no'. Should I phrase it in a way that journalists understand? 'No. Comment.'" Julie smiled, showing all her teeth in a way that she knew was terrifying because she had practiced it herself. "Now, can I please go?"

Cassidy let out a gasp and turned around, storming off in a huff. She grabbed Devin's arm and drug him with her and Julie let out a laugh at the way he swung around. She turned to keep moving towards her next class but was stopped by a woman wearing glasses and an ascot.

"Those blades constitute as a weapon, Miss Stewart," she said.

"They're skates," Julie replied, confused. "They even have the guards on them. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Well of course you wouldn't," the woman replied. "You've knocked yourself in the head a few too many times."

Julie's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to start cursing the lady out – how dare she talk about her as if she knows her – but she was interrupted by the sprinklers going off. The girl that was walking with the woman, that Julie hadn't seen yet because she had on her Anger Blinders as her mother had called them once, let out a shriek and tried to cover her guitar.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," she said.

Julie looked up, dripping, as the boy she had sat next to in first period walked by with a giant, blue umbrella and a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Julie fell into step with the girl with the guitar, Ethan, and a guy wearing a red soccer uniform as the woman – who Julie realized had to be the new principal – led them inside the building to what she assumed was her office.

"Sit!" she demanded. The three soaked (and one dry) teenagers squished together onto the small bench.

"Principal Randall," Julie had guessed right, "I'd just like to mention the fact that there's absolutely no hard evidence linking me to that unfortunate sprinkler incident."

"Save it for Judge Judy, Mr. James," she then turned to you and the others. "The four of you have detention, for one week starting today. Now if there are no further questions-"

"Excuse me?" Julie replied.

"What? I have computer club!" Ethan said.

Principal Randall practically spit as she replied, "I didn't think so" and stormed into her office.

Julie let out a groan and leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.

"Okay, somebody seriously needs a hug," the girl said. Julie snorted and leaned forward.

"My brother is going to kill me," she muttered into her hands.

The last guy leaned forward and snarked, "Dude. Computer club?" And Ethan just shook his head.

Her first day and she was in trouble.

"-Perfect, bring them with you. That should be sufficient torture for them," Julie groaned as Principal Randall came around the corner, followed by Dr. Oliver from science class.

The rest of the day had drug on, she had missed part of her third block because she was drying her clothes off with the bathroom dryer but her history teacher had just turned on a movie and gone to sleep so she didn't think she had been missed.

Still, at the end of the day, instead of going to the ice rink as soon as the last bell rang, she was leaning up against the walls with the three others from earlier, waiting for their detention.

"You've all met, I trust?" Randall said. She turned to them with a smirk. "Well, enjoy your little outing" and walked away, leaving the five of them standing in her wake.

Dr. Oliver sighed and took off his glasses. "So, you guys like museums?"

The five of them squeezed themselves into Dr. Oliver's jeep as he headed out of town. Julie sent a brief text to her brother explaining the situation and that she would call him when she could, and another to her coach who had grudgingly transferred rinks with her to Reefside who was Not Happy about her having to miss practice.

"Woah look at that T-rex!" Ethan exclaimed as they drove past a giant statue of a dinosaur that marked the apparent entrance to the museum.

They all piled out of the vehicle and started walking up, but there was a chain with a sign reading "Sorry, we're closed" blocking off the entrance.

"That's weird," Dr. Oliver said.

"Oh well," the soccer guy, who Julie learned was named Conner, said. "No museum for us."

The other girl, Kira, replied. "Great. Let's go home."

"I'll tell you what," Dr. Oliver said, interrupting. "Why don't you guys have a look around the grounds? If any of you guys find anything prehistoric, I'll cancel detention for the rest of the week."

"Sweet," Ethan replied.

"I'm down," Julie said with a smile.

Dr. Oliver nodded. "I'm going to see if I can find somebody who can tell us when they're opening up." He turned towards the building and they took that as the cue to turn around themselves and walk away.

"So let me get this straight," Conner started. "They have a club, just for computers?"

"Hey did you guys ever hear the story of the guy who was hiking up here and fell in a giant sinkhole?"

Julie turned to Ethan very slowly, "I'm sorry a what now?"

"Must have missed that one," Kira said as she rolled her eyes.

"Come on, it was all the urban legend web sites," Ethan added. "Julie, surely you saw it?"

She snorted, "Ethan, I'm not from here. I've been in Reefside for two weeks – I don't even know where the movie theater is, much less knowing a bunch of random urban legends."

"Dude, you know this isn't computer club, right?" Conner said, his hands in his pockets.

"Oh I guess you're too big and bad to surf the web," Ethan snarked at him. "Well, what do you do in your spare time?" Julie made eye contact with Kira and they both rolled their eyes.

Boys are always the same, no matter where they are.

"Me?" Conner replied. "I go out with girls. You know, they're the ones at school that smell really good with the long hair and the makeup."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Ethan said angrily, putting a hand on his arm as if to stop him and square up.

"Yeah. It's like that," Conner said. "Isn't it Ice Princess?"

Julie startled as he looked directly at her. "That's Ice Queen to you, Ball Boy." She flipped her 'long, nice smelling hair' or, whatever it was he said, and pushed to the front of the group.

"Whatever," Kira said as she started walking forward.

Ethan sighed. "All I'm trying to do is give you guys the heads-up. Stuff happens out here. Just don't come crying to me when you fall in a giant sinkhole-"

The earth fell out from beneath their feet and they landed in a pile in a cave system beneath the ground.

Julie slowly pushed herself up, groaning and praying that the fall didn't aggravate old injuries that had just finished healing. "Where are we?"

"Underground, obviously," Kira replied snarkily. "Did you hit your head again?"

"Who do you think-" she started, pushing herself up and about to lunge for the other girl before Conner grabbed her shoulder and held her back.

"You guys stay here where it's safe," he said. "I'll climb up and come back with help."

"I'm not staying here with her," Julie spit, but Conner didn't pay her any attention as he pushed them aside and started trying to scale the cave walls, only to fall and land on his back when a rock crumbled under his hand.

Ethan snorted, "Back already?" but bent down to help him up.

"Maybe there's another way out," Kira suggested.

"What do you want us to? Walk through these apparently unstable caves underneath Reefside and hope we don't die?" Julie asked.

Kira rolled her eyes and started walking forward, "Do you have a better idea, Princess?"

Ethan held her back from attacking the other girl this time, but started pulling her forward with them all the same. He and Conner stood between the two girls to keep them separated.

It wasn't long before Kira started to sing, her voice echoing through the cave.

"Freak you out, freak you out, freak you out-"

"Babe, can you keep it down? I'm trying to stay focused here." Conner interrupted.

Julie snorted as she thought Kira was about to come unglued. "Did you just call me 'babe?'"

She turned to her and Ethan, "Did he just call me 'babe?'"

Ethan shrugged quickly, "I don't know. I wasn't listening. I'm still grooving to your tune."

Kira stormed to the front of the pack, leaving Ethan and Julie in the back, looking at the rocks for any sign of anything that could possibly get them out.

"This is ridiculous," Julie muttered. "I just want to go home." Screw Reefside, screw detention, screw her mother saying 'it's for the best.' She just wanted to go back home.

They continued to walk, trying not to step over each other as the cave kept getting tighter and tighter. Julie took up the back of the line and tried not to constantly look over her shoulder, she only thought that there was something behind her there couldn't actually be-

"This screams 'Jurassic Park' to me," she heard Kira say. The four of them gathered around an entire dinosaur skeleton just chilling against the cave walls.

"This will get us out of detention forever," Conner said with a laugh. He went to grab it to bring it back to Dr. Oliver.

"Do you think you should-"

"How else are we going to prove that we saw it?"

"Girls, please, just-"

Conner pulled on the jaw of the dinosaur and the wall opened up.

"Oh God," Julie muttered. "This is some murderer's hide away and this is where we die."

"Woah!" Ethan exclaimed, walking in. The others followed and her only choice was to follow them into the creepy Murder Cave or say out in the Murder Cave Hallway so Julie stuck with the numbers and followed.

The room that the wall opened into was well lit. The walls themselves were smooth stone, not like the cave walls that they had been using to navigate. The lights that were placed throughout the room had a three-pronged foot decorating them.

"I could do a crazy music video in here," Kira said looking around.

"Whoa," Connor started. "This must be, like, the mother ship for you, dude." He patted Ethan on the shoulder.

The other guy was looking around in awe. "Normally, I'd be insulted," he said. "But when you're right, you're right."

"Okay great. Love it. The Murder Cave is cool. Can we please get out of here?" Julie asked, holding her arms tightly to herself.

"What, scared?" Kira retorted.

"No, I'm perfectly happy with the fact that we fell into a sinkhole into a series of caves that run who knows how far under this stupid town and we don't know how we're going to out," Julie snarked. "Yes I'm scared. Someone obviously spends a lot of time here and-"

"Yo, don't touch that!"

Julie jolted out of her diatribe and looked over to see Conner about to touch a stone inside of a smoking rock sitting on a table in the middle of the room.

"Why not?" He replied to Ethan.

"You really are taking this 'dumb jock' thing to a whole new level," Ethan said. Kira and Julie walked over to see what they were arguing about.

Inside the smoking rock were four stones, a red, a blue, a yellow, and a pink. The pink one was actually really pretty and Julie's fingers twitched towards it.

"Look," Connor started. "I have sat through enough lame science classes to know that thing looks fully prehistoric, and if I don't have to miss practice-"

"I hate to agree with him," Kira added, "really, I do, but I already missed one rehearsal."

Julie shuddered, "Oh great we're talking about taking someone's murder rocks or something to get out of detention this is insane."

"Look Princess you don't have to take one," Conner said. "But while you're stuck in detention doing who knows what, we'll be living our lives."

Julie bit her lip but joined the other three as they slowly reached into the smoking rock. Her hands closed around the pink stone just as it started to glow."

"Well," Kira said the yellow stone she was holding to started to glow as well. "What are they?"

"I can go online later and see if I can find out," Ethan said as he turned the glowing blue rock in his hands.

Conner snorted, the red rock illuminating his face. "You? In front of a computer? Wait, let me put on my surprised face."

Ethan looked up at him, "You know, ten years from now, when your hairline's receding and you're playing pickup soccer in the park because your dreams of turning pro never quite worked out, I'll have my own multibillion-dollar software business. Yeah."

Julie smiled, "Remind me to introduce you to my brother – I think you'd get along." Ethan smiled back at her.

Kira, still holding her rock, turned away and started walked towards the entrance to the creepy cave room.

"Where are you going?" Ethan asked.

"I don't want to think about what kind of a freak lives in a place like this and-"

"So now you want to acknowledge the fact that this is definitely a Murder Cave and we're basically stealing something from a psychopath who-"

"-I sure don't want to be here when it gets home," Kira said and completely ignored Julie's interruption. The other girl gripped the pink rock tighter in her hand thought about chucking it at the other girl hard enough to give her a brain injury.

"Right behind ya," Conner said, pocketing the stone. Ethan grabbed onto Julie's arm and started pulling her behind them.

"Come on Princess you can complain later."

"Don't call me Princess."

Surprisingly, they only had to walk for about fifteen more minutes until natural light started to filter in through the cave.

"This way!" Ethan exclaimed taking off at a run.

The others followed him and emerged out of a cliff face that was surrounded by dead moss and green ferns.

"Finally," Julie said as the sunlight filtered through the tree canopy. She took a deep breath of non-recycled cave air and let it out before followed the three other teenagers as they traipsed up the hill.

"Does anyone have a compass?" Ethan asked as he looked around.

Connor sighed, "Well, I was going to bring one." Ethan turned to look at him and he immediately shut up.

Suddenly, Julie heard a roar and felt her hair blow back. She started looking around, panicked.

"What was that?" Ethan asked. So she hadn't imagined it. Great.

"The wind?" Kira suggested.

"That ain't the wind," Ethan answered. There was another roar. "As much as we'd like it to be, it ain't."

A green light followed by bolts of thunder dropped down right in front of them. Julie let out a scream as, when it cleared, there were monstrous looking creatures with talons for hands surrounded them on all sides.

"Don't. Move," Conner said as he stood very still.

"Great idea," Kira said through clenched teeth. "Make it easy for them."

"New plan-" Ethan started.

"RUN!" Julie screamed as she took off towards one of the gaps that the monsters had left. She didn't look to see if the others OR the monsters started following her – she wasn't going to take that chance.

Conner and Ethan ran in front of her and she watched them jump over a crevice in the ground. She pushed on her back legs just as if she were doing a jump on her skates and cleared it easily, but Kira who was behind her, crashed into the side of it and rolled down.

"Kira!" Julie shouted. The boys ran back over to them and between the three of them they were able to pull her out of the ravine just in time as a monster landed right where she had been.

They kept running and Julie watched from the corner of her eye as Kira tripped, she stopped, ready to turn back to help the other girl when she opened her mouth and let out a terrifyingly loud scream that blew the approaching monsters back.

"Quick help her up."

"What was that?" Ethan asked. Julie was gobsmacked too, still hearing the residual ringing in her ears from the girl's scream.

"I have no idea," Kira answered. The yellow stone she had been holding earlier started to glow again and she took it out of her pocket – right as the monsters started to run for them again.

Without thinking, they took off in four different directions.

Julie ran through the trees as fast as she could, but it didn't take long until six of the monsters surrounded her. One started forward as if to grab her, but she ran forward and started to slide underneath it's legs, but suddenly appeared five feet away from them as if by magic.

The pink rock in her hand started to glow again and the vision of some robotic creature surrounded by lava popped into her mind.

She was jolted out of her reverie as another monster came running straight at her.

"Hopefully watching all of those karate movies with Jay sunk in," she muttered as she punched out and knocked one back, before immediately ducking a punch another one sent her.

An idea came to mind and she spun around as if she were on the ice and her kick swept three of the monsters off of their feet. She hurriedly stood up, just to lunge out of the way as a monster started to punch her, only for it to punch it's friend.

While they were down, Julie started running in the directions where the others were starting to gather.

"Over here!" Conner called out. All four of them joined back up, holding their rocks that were still slightly glowing in their hands.

"How much do I love detention?" Ethan asked.

The four of them were extremely out of breath and suddenly-

"Hey!" Julie looked up and saw Dr. Oliver running at them. She quickly shoved her stone in the pocket of her jacket and watched at the others did the same just as their teacher got up to them.

"Are you guys all right?"

She thought about literally telling him everything that had happened since he sent them off to 'find something prehistoric' and how they were almost murdered except for the shiny rocks they had found in a random Murder Cave underneath Reefside, but Ethan beat her to the punch.

"Yeah. Couldn't be better."

"Nothing out of the ordinary happened?"

Again, the magical glowing rocks, the monsters with talons for hands, Julie suddenly teleporting out of the way-

"Nah," Ethan started. "Just your routine hike in the woods. Lots of furry little creatures."

"And a few scaly ones," Kira muttered under her breath.

"So-" Conner said, drawing attention away from Kira. "Did you get into the dino exhibit?"

Dr. Oliver sighed, "No, uh, they're still working the kinks out. We better get you guys back, come on." He turned around and started leading the four of them out of the woods and back to what was hopefully civilization.

"Don't you guys think we should tell him?" Kira asked, stressed.

"I don't know about you," Ethan started, "but I've got over a thousand sci-fi DVDs. You want to know how many times the dude with the superpowers ends up in some freaky government lab lying on a table with wires in his head?"

"Even I know that," Conner added.

"Are you guys coming?" Asked Dr. Oliver as they had fallen back. The four of them looked at each other before following him out and back to his jeep.

They made it back to the school and grabbed their bags. Dr. Oliver declared detention over and that they were done for the week.

Honestly, Julie didn't think he believed them even for a second, but she wasn't about to look a gift house in the mouth.

"Okay," Conner said. "So we all agree. No one talks about this to anyone, no matter what."

"I can do better than that," Kira said, moving to stand in front of them. She pulled the yellow rock out of her pocked and thrusted it into Conner's hand. "Just forget I was here, and I'll do the same."

"Wait, how come he gets it?" Ethan asked.

Kira rolled her eyes. "Well, here." She plucked it out of Conner's hand and placed it in Ethan's. "Happy now?"

"Do you really think you should-"

"What do you mean, Princess?"

Julie sighed. "If you'd let me finish- do you really think you should walk away? What if this was something big? What if the rocks like, did something to us?"

"Like what?" Ethan asked.

"Well you said it in the woods," Julie said. "What if we got superpowers or something? It's either that or those monsters were a group hallucination and-"

"You know what? I give up!" Kira let out, interrupting Julie again. She turned and started to storm away.

Julie started to go after her, but Conner grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. "Let her go, she'll cool down."

"Yeah, besides. I think your ride is here," Ethan said. Julie looked around and saw her brother's fancy car sitting in the parking lot, thankfully he had not seen her yet.

"Wait no-," Conner started. The three of them turned to see those same monsters from before surround Kira. They started to run towards them, only for the monsters and Kira to disappear into a flash of green light, leaving behind nothing but her backpack.

"She's gone!"

Julie hopped into the back of Conner's car after telling her brother she was going to hang out with some friends. He was too stunned by her quick "Hi, gotta go, bye" to really say anything but hopefully he'd assume that everything was okay.

"Okay, so where are we going," Conner asked as he peeled around a turn.

"Dr. Oliver's!" Ethan replied.

"What's he gonna do?" Julie yelled. "He's a teacher!"

"He's a dinosaur guy," Ethan said. "These things are dinosaurs, sort of."

Conner sighed, "Alright. So where does he live?"

Ethan pecked around on his sidekick a bit before coming up with an answer. "1992 Valencia Road."

Conner nodded. "Valencia Road, wait, that's like, way out in the middle of the woods."

"Just go!"

Julie held on tightly as Conner stepped on the gas and started driving even faster.

It didn't take long before they had reached Valencia Road and even less time after that before Conner parked in front of a nice, two story house literally in the middle of the forest.

They got out and ran up to the front door, passing a wooden tableful of archeological equipment and crates of tarps and shovels. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Conner and Julie started looking in the windows, seeing if they could see anybody throughout the house as Ethan knocked on the door.

"Knock again," Conner said. Ethan did, but still no one came.

"Now what?" Julie asked. Conner walked up and pushed on the door and it slowly opened, revealing the inside of the house. "Well that's creepy."

"What are you doing?" Ethan asked as Conner made to walk inside.

"Why would he leave it unlocked?"

"It's not like he has neighbors," Julie added.

Conner snorted, "What, you never heard of the three bears?" He pushed past them and walked inside the house.

"Is that the last book you read?" Ethan asked after him before looking at Julie and following him in.

Julie took a deep breath and followed inside after them.

"Wow it looks… frighteningly normal in here," she said as they walked through the hallway.

Conner poked his head into a room with wood-paneled walls and a lot of books and old pictures hanging on the walls.

"Dr. Oliver!" he called.

"Hello?" Ethan asked.

"Man check it out," Julie turned as Conner started walking over to a model of a T-rex. He went to grab onto its jaw, but she slapped his hand away.

"Hey, remember what happened the last time you did that?" Ethan said.

Conner continued to reach for it, "Dude, the guy's a teacher, not-," he pulled on the jaw and what had looked like an ornamental rug lifted up and revealed a staircase. "-Batman."

The boys made to go down it, but Julie reached out to grab them.

"I don't think this is a good idea guys," she said.

"Come on Julie, we need to find him and maybe he can help us find Kira," Ethan urged. Julie sighed and nodded, following down the stairs after them.

Back into the creepy murder basement they had left only a couple of hours before.

"This is the same place," Ethan said.

"Are you freaking out?" Conner asked.

"How is that even a question?" Julie added. "The entrance to the secret Murder Cave where we got our Magic Rocks is in our science teacher's house."

"What she said," Ethan said. "I'd have to say I am."

The three of them looked around, really realizing it was the same place.

"If you're looking for extra credit," Julie let out a shriek as she jumped and turned around to see Dr. Oliver staring at them. "You're in the wrong place."