Chapter 1

One year later

It was a calm Autumn day in Wichita. Daniel Blake had just returned from school. He took off his shoes and walked downstairs to his room. He flopped down on his bed, sighing out loud.

(God today sucked, and I still have four more years of this!)

He rolled over and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, then he heard the phone ring. Daniel sprang up and ran full sprint upstairs.

(Watch this not be for me...)

He answered the phone

"Roadkill cafe, you kill em we grill em"

"Daniel?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"It's Riley"

"HEY, whats up? I havn't heard from you in like a year!"

"I went to this advanced placement school in California last year"

"Thats cool, so what'd you want?"

"I dunno, wanna come over and hang out?"

"Sure."

After about a 10 minute jog, Daniel finally made it to his friends house. He knocked on the door.

"C'mon in, it's unlocked."

Daniel opened the door and walked in. He looked around, it was a fairly normal house, a little smaller than his. He walked around until he heard Riley shout. "I'm in here!"

Daniel walked into what he guesses was Riley's bedroom. Riley was sitting on the floor tinkering with some computer components

"Hey, whats up?"

"Not much."

"How was California."

"Sucked."

"So, what'd you call me over for?"

"I dunno."

Daniel slapped his palm to his forehead.

"So, where are you going to school at now?"

"North High, you?"

"Heights"

"Cool."

"Not really, it's overcrowded with stupid people who smell bad."

"It's like that everwhere."

Daniel sighed and sat down.

"I tell you, they should set traps in those places."

Riley chuckled.

"Why?"

"Why not? Most of them act like animals anyways!"

Riley laughed.

"Would traps be considered humane?"

Riley laughed and muttered under his breath,

"Only if they're lethal..."

Daniel laughed.

"So, are you taking any good classes?"

"The words 'good' and 'class' have no place at Heights."

Riley chuckled.

"I'm taking a ton of advanced computer classes."

"That's cool."

"Yeah, I know way more about computers than any of the teachers at North, so I'm just gonna hack the server and screw with people."

"I guess that means you're getting straight 'A's."

"No, A's."

"That wont work, you have to give yourself at least one B."

"Maybe YOU do, but for me, it would be easily believable."

Daniel smirked.

"You magnificent, evil bastard!"

Riley grinned.

"Yes, and your point is?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

"Good, so what do you want to do?"

"I dunno... Lets go for a walk or something..."

"Ok, theres this really deep forest not far from here we can go through, its got' Keep Out' signs, but I really don't care."

Daniel nodded his head.

"Yeah, nobody cares about private property this day and age anyways..."

"Exactly."

About twenty minutes later, the two teens had reached the 'keep out' signs that Riley had mentioned. Daniel looked around, everything looked normal to him, but he couldn't shake a strange feeling he was having about this place, he couldn't quite grasp it, but he knew that there was something special about this place...

"Hey Riley, who owns this place?"

Riley turned and looked at Daniel.

"I dont know, probably some crazy old hobo who lives in a shack deep in the woods who shoots at trespassers with his boomstick while he drinks moonshine."

"Oh, so in other words, it's your place."

Riley laughed.

"No, but I wish my life was like that."

Daniel shrugged, "At least you wouldn't have to go to school."

"They should totally allow us to take moonshine and boomsticks to school."

They both laughed.

Daniel stopped laughing just long enough to say.

"Yeah, but ONLY us, I wouldn't trust those low grade morons with anything more dangerous than a rubber band and a paper clip."

They laughed again.

"Yeah, and that seems to be their weapon of choice."

"I'll admit, I use them too, but thats until I convince them that I should be allowed my drunken shotgun antics on school grounds."

"Hey, they say learning should be fun."

"Exactly."

Daniel walked into the woods. "Well, lets go find our hobo and try to make friends. Maybe then he'll share his moonshine."

Riley laughed.

"Excellent."

Daniel and Riley had been walking for nearly an hour when Daniel suddenly dropped to one knee and held his hands over his head.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"I dunno, I just felt this sudden chill. I've had them before, but this was... overwhelming."

Riley knelt in front of him.

"Lemme see your face."

Riley looked into Daniel's eyes for a second. Then stood up

"Yep, exactly what I thought."

"What?"

Riley walked away from Daniel

"You've got the brainworms, you have about 6 seconds to live, use them as you see fit."

"Ok."

Daniel picked up a rock and threw it at Riley. It bounced off his chest.

Then he laid down on his back.

"Now I can die with no regrets."

Riley walked back over to Daniel.

"Good, then that means it's ok if I kill you now."

Daniel sprang to his feet and ran away, laughing.

Riley chased after him.

"You're gonna have to run a lot faster than that if you want to be a good hacker, Riley." Daniel yelled to Riley, who was trailing him by several yards.

"Why's that?" Riley shouted back.

"So you can flee on foot when the cops come to get you."

Riley laughed, "They'll never find my deep woods shack, and even if they do, I'll get them with my boomstick!"

Daniel laughed. "And here I thought you'd do the decent thing and douse them with moonshine and light them on fire."

"Are you kidding? That's a huge waste of some good moonshine!"

Daniel stopped running and leaned against a tree, he was laughing too hard to run anymore.

He looked at Riley, Riley was slowly walking towards him, slightly hunched forward, panting.

Daniel was out of breath too and slouched against the tree.

Suddenly the ground gave way and Daniel fell into an underground cavern.

"Ouch! Where the hell..."

He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit it. he was in a small cave with pictures on the walls.

"...am I?"

He looked around a little more and noticed a small rectangular slab in front of him. There were six small circular coins sitting on it. Each had a different creature's face embedded on it.

"Wow."

Daniel touched one and instantly regreted it, as the coin shocked him.

"Ow! Dammit!"

"Feeling a little anger flush inside him Daniel reached for and grabbed a different coin. It began glowing green in his hand. He could make out the picture of what appeared to be a dragon on it.

"What the..."

Suddenly, the world began to spin around Daniel. He fell to his knees and lost consciousness.