Some Ideas and Characters Borrowed. Storeyline is Mine - DON'T COPY!

Chapter Two – Journey

I stayed in the dojo to train for around two weeks before I left with Alcide. Two weeks since my mother was slain. Our plan was to head through Europe, ultimately heading for America where I wanted to find some answers to my very confusing life. In each city that we went to, we would stay for around 3 - 4 months before moving on. First, we would go south to Kobe and then take a ferry to South Korea. We would then cross the boarder into North Korea and then make our way to Shenyang in China. From China, we would head into southeast Russia and take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Vladivostok to Moscow, where we would rest for about a year.

The next stage of the journey was to travel to Berlin in Germany, through Nuremberg and down to Munich. Then on to Milan in northern Italy and then north-west to Marseilles in France. We would then go to Paris, cross the English Channel and head for London where we would rest for around a year again.

After that, it would be a six-hour flight on a Boeing 737 to America, where we would travel from state to state, city to city, until we found any clue as to what my mother ran away from the USA all those years ago. What - or who.

In each country that we went to, I would learn to speak the main language fluently. Alcide already knew how to speak the languages so he taught me them. He was an excellent teacher and I was an apt pupil. My favourite language that I learned was Russian because it was so different and quite challenging.

The most memorable event during the first half of the journey was when Alcide took me to the Nuremberg Racetrack in Germany. By that time, I was only around 11 ½ years old, but going there sparked my interest of fast vehicles - especially motorbikes! There, Alcide promised me that when I was old enough, he would buy me a motorbike and teach my how to ride it.

Throughout the journey, it was one of the things that kept me going. The other was revenge.

We landed in Miami Airport, Florida at 10:00am. I was so tired! We hadn't had a chance to sleep the previous night, as we needed to set off for the airport at 10:30pm – there was no point in going to bed!

The flight had been uneventful and I hadn't been able to sleep on the plane. Neither had Alcide. There had been two in-flight films but they had been so boring that I just ignored them.

The first thing we did after we arrived at the airport was to get a car and drive to the first adequate hotel that we saw, book into a room and sleep until we felt the need to wake up and to explore this new place, with the exception of stopping at a drive-thru as that plane food was so horrible that I left it. Funnily enough, Alcide had done the same.

I woke up at around 3pm the next day, cleaned myself up and got dressed. I then told Alcide I was going sightseeing so he gave me some money and I set off. Even though I was only fourteen, I could knock a grown man flat out who was twice my size, I spoke more languages than the average teenager - let alone the average person - and outrun the fastest athlete (I hadn't actually tried this but Alcide had measured my speed in a timed race and compared it to a record book – guess who was faster), so Alcide trusted me to be able to take care of myself.

He still cared for me – don't get me wrong – but he gave me the freedom and space I needed, which I respected him for.

The first place I went to was to take a taxi to the famous 'Miami Beach'. It was fantastic! All that stretch of beautiful golden sand, which was perfect for running on. During the time I had been with Alcide, he had encouraged me to take up a sport that would use up all the extra energy I got from being a Furione. From time to time I would get restless so I chose running as I could do it when and where I wanted.

I could run flat out for around 1-2 miles and still be able to run some more before I got tired. It was great - sometimes being a sort of super human has its benefits. However, I couldn't race normal people, as I would obviously draw too much attention to myself. There always had to be a downside. It got very lonely sometimes, even if I didn't really see the point in friends. I grew up with no one to joke with, no one to play with and basically, no one to share my life with. And yes, that included any relationships with anyone and no boyfriends. That was sort of my choice, because what is the point of meeting someone and then after a few months moving onto a different city where I would never see them again. I didn't even have my first kiss until I was 20 years old – but that is another story you will find out about later...

At the beach, I ran at the pace of an average jog, making sure I didn't go too fast and give the game away. After about 20 minutes, I looked out to sea to notice that some people were doing some tricks on surfboards through some cool half-pipe waves. I could already skateboard and snowboard (due to our short stay near Milan, Italy where Alcide paid for me to have lessons), so I thought - why not expand my repertoire.

I walked back to the hotel, stopping at a snack-shop on the way to get some chocolate and a drink, and asked Alcide if I could have lessons. He promised that he would find someone to teach me the next day. Soon, I was as good as the locals in the area, which is not an easy thing – for normal people.

After a while, Alcide felt the need to set off again, so we packed our things and left for Tallahassee in the north of Florida. From there we would travel west through various cities in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and then to Seattle in Washington State. In Seattle, I found the Space Needle – an extremely tall tower – particularly interesting because it was so huge and I made sure that I took some pictures as souvenirs. I still have them now.

From Seattle we then travelled east through other large cities in South Dakota, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and then to where this long journey would end in New York. That, presumably, was the place that my mother had run from. She had briefly mentioned that she used to live in a place not far from Syracuse, but had been very vague. Maybe she didn't really want me to know. Wherever she might have been, it could hold clues to why she left and to who wanted her badly enough to kill her… maybe to get to me.

Speaking of the people supposedly after her, we had seen no sign of them throughout the journey. Maybe they didn't want me after all. Alcide thought that this was true, but if on the off chance that they did want me, Alcide suspected that they had lost our trail long ago. I hoped that he was right.

However, something strange did happen when Alcide and I were visiting St. Louis in Missouri State. I was around 19 ½ years old at the time, but I looked older. With a fake ID that Alcide had given me (which was necessary if we didn't want people to know who I really was) I went into a club. Alcide didn't mind be going to clubs because he knew that I thought it was pointless drinking until you got drunk and passed out. I rarely drunk alcohol and he knew I hated the thought of having no control over my actions, supposedly where anybody could do anything to me; not that this had ever happened before, it was like a phobia.

The club I went to was some sort of dance club in a busy area of St. Louis and I had been there once or twice before. I mainly went there because I could be around normal people - not that I mingled with them, but to see what someone with a normal life was like - and to listen to the loud, upbeat music when I was bored. I was sitting in a booth on my own, with my J20 as company, thinking to myself how funny the people looked when they 'danced', when a strange looking man walked through the crowd in my direction. Somehow, I just knew he was coming to me.

The man was about my height but he looked strange with hair the same colour as mine that was down to his waist and these extraordinarily dark blue eyes which you might expect to fall into, and keep falling forever with no escape. I think he actually expected me to be captured by his gaze as he stared directly into my eyes for a few minutes. I just stared back bemused and he started to frown, puzzled. What he said next came as a great shock.

'I have seen you here before but you seem strange, different somehow,' he lowered his voice and continued, 'but you smell human and yet you can meet my eyes and resist my gaze, so you are truly not. What are you?'

Now it was my turn to luck puzzled, because lets face it, what sort of a question was that? Come on! Not who are you but what are you - it was all too weird. Then I had a terrible idea. I panicked because I thought he might have realised that I was a Furione. He could also be one of the people looking for me. That in any situation could not be good. I got up, pushed past him and fled into the night.

As I was running, I couldn't shake off the feeling of being watched, so I ran as fast as I could - not bothering to slow down as it was around 2am, so who was around to see me - and headed in the direction of the hotel that we were staying in. I was pretty sure that I had lost whoever it was, but just in case, I entered the hotel through the back door.

I ran up the fire escape to our room and went straight to Alcide. I told him exactly what had happened. He decided that it would be best to leave immediately as it could actually be the people after me, so we packed our things and left to continue our journey - despite the strange hour at night.

We soon reached Syracuse in New York State, but there, disaster would strike and my life would fall apart. Everything I had come to know would turn out to be a lie.

Thanks for reading amd I hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully there will be more soon and it would be great if you could review it. Thankyou to everyone who already has. Tricky.