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Chapter 12: Real or Myth?

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October used the alien first aid kit to patch me up. I was crying out in pain from the burning feeling, but then immediately stopped when the pain stopped hurting. I looked down at where he fixed the bullet wound. A dark scar was formed there. My skin was whiter then the white scar color.

He told me how his people were allies with these other aliens who gave them a gift that's a more advanced version of a first aid kit. October's people dont really need them since they heal faster on their own but the technology is very helpful when you need something to get healed quicker. They taught October's people how to use them before a war against an evil alien race was invading their planets. They were able to heal soldiers who got wounded in battle and go back out to keep fighting.

October helped me to my feet. "How do you feel?" He asked me. I looked down at the dark star shaped mark, hesitant to run my fingers over it. I looked back to him. "I don't feel pain anymore...Thank you," I said, pulling my lower shirt down. He nodded.

I looked at my phone and saw that it was very late. I told October that we could talk about what just happened later. He nodded silently, then handed me the alien first aid kit. I thanked him and told him I'd see him tomorrow. He responded by turning into an owl and flying away. I unfurled my wings and took off as best as I could into the night, back to the base.

...

The next morning I was super exhausted. I got up very late. Apparently I slept through my first alarm. I moved around like a sluggish zombie. Got a tshirt on backwards, and the makeup I put on to hide my white skin looked horrid.

"Uh oh, here she comes. Miss Zombie girl," Link joked as I came into the cafeteria and made a drunken beeline to the fruit section. I grabbed an apple and an orange and left.

Patrick drove a little over the speed limit to get me to school, bit it didn't really matter. I was already late to class. My teacher gave me a warning before continuing the lesson. I pretended I was listening while taking notes, but I ended up falling asleep. The teacher slammed a book down on my desk, causing me to jolt awake. I was given detention again.

October met up with me as his human teenage self during lunch. He talked about last night in a low voice. He was very concerned about what was going on and didn't want me investigating anymore. He said he would keep tabs on it and report back to me about it. Just then Hunter appeared and October didn't have time to disappear and shape shift into a bird.

"Hey-Oh!...Who's your friend?" Hunter asked. I could hear the jealousy in his voice. I felt my face burn. "Hey, Hunter. This is Oct...oby..." I stumbled over. Hunter gave me a confused look behind his large thick rimmed glasses. His blonde hair sticking up from bed head.

"Octoby?" He asked. October, not understanding what was going on, said his nickname. "I go by October. My real name is apparently too hard to say for hum...people of this...learning facility."

Before Hunter could make another confused face, I quickly jumped in. "He also goes by Toby. He's new to the school. He's from another country. I offered to show him around while hes visiting," I lied. Hunter was quiet for a moment before nodding. "Oh ok...cool.

After school I headed to detention. Hunter was already there picking up trash. He said hi to me as I began collecting bottles with him. Surprisingly he wasn't all that talkative. I asked if everything was ok. He said he was ok, but I could tell by his racing heart that he wasn't. I wondered if it was because I was talking to October in his teen form and he thought I liked him. The thought made me blush.

After detention, Patrick picked me up and I headed back to the base...

...

Days slowly passed. September rolled by and became October. The school started to gradually decorate for Halloween. There was going to be a dance on Halloween. I knew no one was gonna ask me, the weird new kid, but I imagined asking Link to the dance and dancing with him. I sighed a heavy sad sigh, knowing it was just a fantasy.

During break, October came by where I was sitting and joined me. He was wearing the same clothes he conjured up for his human teen persona. I was mainly surprised he was getting more comfortable being amongst the teenagers. He looked around before speaking. "I see there is a festive event going on," October points at the Halloween decorations. I nodded. "It's October."

October gives me a confused look. "What? What is October? Am I not named this October?" he asked. I had almost forgotten that October was also the name for the month. I smiled at the confused alien and started to explain.

"This month is called October."

"I'm nicknamed after a month?"

"No...the first part of your name sounds like October, which ironically is the tenth month in our year...and these decorations are part of our festivities we call Halloween." I explained to him. he blinked in surprise. "I see," he said. "So that is what October is." I nodded my head again.

"Hope you don't mind. It's a little hard to say your actual name," I said.

He waved off my words. "I like my human name. I like what it brings." he stares at the black and orange streamers and paper skeletons in the windows.

"Halloween."

I smiled. "Yeah, Halloween is my favorite holiday. You get to dress up as whatever you want and get candy," I explained. October was fascinated and wanted to learn more. I told him as much as I could about Halloween.

My voice faded when I saw Mirror and her gang walk by. October turned and saw well. We all stared at each other. Mirror glared at me. Joker passed by right after Mirror. He gave me a look of disgust, then a look of confusion at October. I'm guessing he was trying to figure out if October was familiar and if he even went to this school.

Once the gang was gone, I continued talking to October about Halloween. October seemed interested in dressing up. "What do you plan on dressing up as for Halloween?" He asked me. I truthfully had no idea. I mean, over the summer, I became a monster and lost my family. I didn't even think about what I was going to be dressing up this year. I didn't think I would even be able to dress up at all...ever...

Before I could respond, Hunter appeared and sat at our table.

"Did you guys see the newspapers this morning!?" Hunter asked excitedly. October and I exchanged glances. The base never got newspapers since it was a secret organization; and October...well I doubt he knew what a newspaper was.

"What's-?" October started to ask. Thankfully Hunter interrupted him and pulled out a newspaper from his backpack. "My photos got accepted in the local newspaper!" He said excitedly. If I could blanch even more, I would've.

Right there, smack dab in the middle, front page, was Hunter's photo of me. Bat Girl! Myth or Real? The front page read. October made a surprised sound. "That's-!" He stopped himself. "...Er...Brisk," he said. Hunter and I gave him a confused look. October tried explaining what he meant. Then I realized he was confused with the word 'cool.'

"He means cool, Hunter," I said. "...I think he's trying to make that word into another way of calling something awesome or great," I lied, helping the alien not look weird. Hunter bought my lies as usual and grinned. "Thanks, Toby! I am so happy this happened to me. I've been waiting so long to get my photos I have taken of cryptids into the newspapers ever since I was little."

October gave me a look. His eyes were wide and were changing colors. This wasn't good. I gave him a I Know But I Don't Know What To Do look. Hunter kept staring down at the newspaper happily. Then his smile faded a bit and his head tilted a bit. "Hm..." he said.

"What's wrong, Hunsman?" asked October. Again, using words wrong. I was about to correct the alien but Hunter didn't seem to hear it. "Something seems weird about my photos." I turned to Hunter. "What do you mean?" I asked him. Hunter pointed to the front page. "The bat girl I saw before school started, and the one I saw flying around here. She looks...different."

"Different how?"

Hunter shook his head. "I dont know."

"You said it was the same bat girl."

"I mean, yeah. It looked like it was. She had the same bat wings and all...but I dunno. I'm starting to think that there are two. Two bat girls. A younger one and an older one or something."

October and I exchanged glances. We remembered the bat girl we encountered several nights ago. She had to be another experiment. Of course neither of us could get a good look at her to be sure. She was a mystery.

The bell rang, indicating the break was over. I said goodbye to Hunter and started walking towards my class. October followed next to me. I glanced behind me and saw Hunter staring at us as we walked away from him. He lowered his head sadly and kicked a piece of trash on the ground. He slowly turned, shoving his hands in his pockets. The newspaper tucked under his arm as he walked to his other class. The tips of my ears burned.

"So what are you gonna do about that rolled up collection of paper in his arm? You gonna steal it and destroy the evidence?" asked October next to me. I turned back to shook my head. "I can't. Theres multiple copies all around this town. All I have to do is hope the story doesn't interest people. If they just think its bogus and move on with their life, it wont be a big deal and I don't have to tell Monger about it." Deep down I was panicking.

October nodded and was quiet for a while. "I'm gonna try and figure out what's going on with that Bat girl again." I just nodded. I know he has tried before, but she always seemed two steps ahead of us. I got to my class and waved goodbye to the disguised alien. October walked off. At the corner of my eye he flickered into a cabbage butterfly and fluttered away.

...

I sat there at my desk with my head resting on my crossed arms. My ears twitched in my beanie to every sound. My teacher announced that we were going to have a test. I raised my hand and asked if I could do the test outside. I couldn't concentrate with all the little beating hearts beating in different patterns and all these annoying sounds of papers rustling and pencils tapping on desks. The teacher gave me a look like I was crazy or something. The kids looked at me and some snickered.

"I can't really have any students leave the class," he said. I hesitated. Should I really even bother at this point? I was just getting tired of this school. The bullies, the detentions, the homework. I was losing my mind hearing all these heartbeats constantly. I knew who liked who, and which guy hated the other guy. It was annoying. Bad enough, I was the weird new girl everyone knew about. No one besides Hunter, wanted to hang with me. I sighed. Maybe I should get cotton for my ears next time, and just endure the sounds for now. Before I could decide on what to say, there was a faint, but loud explosion outside. Everyone immediately ran to the windows.

A giant metal alien UFO thing appeared in the distance and was destroying a city several miles away from the school. Everyone started making excited noises and taking pictures of the creature on their phones. While the teacher was occupied, I went outside.

Crowds of students and teachers were already out and looking across the fields to where the giant alien robot was attacking the city. I started to walk backwards from the kids as they all walked closer to get a better look. I could go into the bathroom and quickly wipe the make up off, and take off to fight the alien robot. If the whole school has stopped because of this distraction, there's no point in being stuck here and not able to help fight.

I turned and bolted to the bathroom. Thankfully no one was in there and in less than five minutes, I was my pale faced bat winged monster self. No more awkward human teenager. Now I was Bat. Super monster. Ok maybe not that. Sounds kind of weird. My heart skipped a beat when the bathroom door opened.

My body went cold, then flushed back to warm in relief when I saw it was only October. He stared at me in confusion. "What are you doing in here?" He asked me. I walked up to him and tried to go past him. "I'm going to fight the robot," I said. October grabbed my arm. "What? You can't go out there," he said with concern in his voice.

I stopped and turned to him. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. I stared at the alien for several seconds, enough to make him uncomfortable. The alien gave me a confused look. "What?" he asked. I smirked at him.

"Could you do a favor for me, October? Please?" October was still confused. I pointed to myself. "Could you shape shift yourself to look like me and take my place?" October's eyes widened, then shook his head. "No, no no. Absolutely not," he said. My ears went down in the black beanie on my head. This is gonna take some more persuasion.

"Oh come on, October. I'll be back before the next period. I promise. I just want to fight for a few minutes," I said. October still shook his head. "What if I get caught? Your instructors will call the men who caught me before and take me back," he said.

I chuckled and shook my head. "It doesn't work like that. All you have to do is sit in a chair and pretend you are listening. You are just pretending to be me till I get back." October still wasn't convinced. I sighed.

"I want to be of use. I'm tired of pretending to be normal. I'm not normal anymore..." October was quiet. He showed no emotion. I looked to the door to make sure no one was heading this way before looking back at the alien. "John took that away from me...away from you too...being normal. You feel so out of place in this world..."

October winced. He kept his eyes away from me. He looked out the door and over to the alien robot out in the distance before turning to me. He hesitated for a moment before responding. "I dont want you getting hurt."

I smiled a small smile. I didn't think October cared for me. I reached out to give him a hug. He pulled away. "What are you doing?" He asked me. I stopped, then hesitated. "Um...I was gonna give you a hug, but...nevermind." My face burned a little for even thinking of hugging the alien. October stared at me for what felt like a long time to where I got uncomfortable.

October looked around before shifting into my "human" self. Outside, the principal was heard talking into a microphone on the stone stage out in the quad for all the students to head back into class. Me and October quickly ran out of the bathroom and towards one of the exits of the school.

I unfurled my wings. It felt so good to stretch my wings out again. October watched as I flapped my wings and then taking off.

"Don't be gone for too long...and be careful," he said. I smiled and waved goodbye to him as I took to the skies towards the UFO.