I sighed happily as I packed. Two days ago had been my birthday and my best friend Shara had thrown a surprise party. It was a great party. Shara always throws the best parties. Somehow she got my little sis to come. I haven't seen her in years. It was great. I also came away with some really cool presents. The best one was my sister coming though. Then I flew to my parent's house in Ohio and had a family party. And guess what? I got four plane tickets to New York!

See I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't leave the U.S. until I visited every state in it. I am dying to go outside of the U.S. but I could never seem to get tickets to New York. NY is the last state that I have to go to! Yay! I've never been to "The Big City:" I glanced at my watch. "Oh no! I'm gonna be late!" I stuffed the last of my stuff into the suitcase and ran down to my car. "Eeeep! I still have to pick up my friends." I used a bungee cord to tie down my stuff. I had an old jeep. You know the ones that are all open.

I giggled nervously as we settled down in the airplane seats. We took all the seats across on our row. Shara and I sat on one side and Cleo and Disa sat on the other side. There was one of those airplane movies on that no one has heard of. It was something like The Little Won Elve. Some jerks behind us kept telling us to shush so they could actually hear the music. Of course Shara had to open her big mouth and she got in a verbal fight with the people behind us. There was some name calling so I had to jump in. Then of course Cleo and Disa had to jump in to. Then we found out the jerks behind us had friends to. So there was a bunch of us yelling. Of course that's going to attract attention and about ten attendants had to come out to shut us all up. They were in the middle of lecturing us all, because we all happened to be teenagers, when the gun shot went off.

There were a couple screams. People were praying to God to help them or about how this was unfair. Even the attendants freaked out. Cleo was screaming bloody murder, Shara had grabbed on to me and started screaming, while Disa had started whimpering and hugging Cleo. I looked around to see if anyone was hurt. And the lights went out. Amazingly, over everyone's screams and whines and whimpers you could hear someone speaking on the airplane intercom. "Everyone SHUT UP! We are taking over! If you have a problem about this come to the front to be shot!" Then the voice started cackling and the intercom was abruptly shut off.

I woke up sweating. Phew, it was just a bad dream. I looked over at my friends who were soundly sleeping. Everyone was okay. I dug a book out of my pack. I planned on reading the rest of the trip, which was thankfully uneventful. Everyone woke up about twenty minutes before landing. We talked till then. We were all excited! NY was gonna be so awesome. I couldn't wait to land so we could go, well, do stuff! All right! We all smiled as the plane started to land. This vacation was finally going to get started! As we touched the ground we put our hands together and raised them up, while yelling "Alright!"

We sat up on the roof of a skyscraper, talking and looking below at the city that never sleeps. "What are we going to do tomorrow Yaniz?" Yaniz was the name I liked to be called. I was just about to answer when I felt like we were being watched. I guess I wasn't the only one because in unison we turned our heads. I heard Shara let out a small gasp. Cleo screamed. Disa gave out a whimper. I glared, this didn't look right. There were a bunch of people dressed in a weird black suit that covered everything. One pulled out a sword. "Uhh. Do I know you? Are, are we not allowed to be up here?" I tried to reason. The rest all pulled out weapons. "Guess not." I said.

They closed in. "RUN!" I screamed to my friends. I kicked a guy down in his special place and followed my friends. I heard Shara scream something fowl. I turned and punched a guy behind me and ran towards Shara's voice. The men in black (not intended) had blocked our path. Cleo was sobbing. Shara was yelling for the MIB to back off, but not as nice. Disa was trying to be funny, .like she always is. This made me mad. No one messes with me or my friends. These guys had weapons. This was serious. I was in gymnastics and knew some self-defense from karate classes.

I took a deep breath and let out a war scream, and charged. I just saw red. See I used to have a really bad temper. Everything used to blow me up until I grew up. I didn't show my temper unless it was serious. Like people making fun of other's. Or attacking me and my friends. I don't know what happened. I didn't even realize what I was doing. "Yaniz? Yaniz, are you all right?" I blinked at Shara. It looked like she was the only one brave enough to go near me. I looked around. The MIB were all lying around moaning. My friends looked okay. I checked myself. Just some small cuts and bruises. I looked up at my friends. "Yeah, I'm okay. Guess my temper's still there, huh?" "Uh, yeah. Don't want to mess with you still." Disa smiled.

A clank made us turn around. There were tons more of the MIB! "I don't think we can handle this. When I give the sign, run down the ladder." I murmured to my friends. To the MIB I said: "Hey jerks. Nice night huh? Well we got more important stuff to do than hang around talking to you. So, uh, guess we'll be going now." I head my friends clamber down the ladder. I turned and jumped down the first part of the ladder. I could hear the MIB starting to come after us. I yelled down to my friends, "Jump the ladder sections, climbing is too slow!" I hopped over the rail to catch up to them. I landed hard on my ankle. I winced and ignored it. "Hurry!"

"Where do we go from here?" That was Cleo. "Where are we?" That was Disa. Before Shara could add her bit, I jumped in. "Doesn't look like we'll get much help here." We ended up in a bad place. It was dark and lonely. My friends looked around and realized I was right. They looked to me, their eye's asking "Where now?" I glanced around and spotted my answer.

"Down there! Hey don't give me that look! It's the only place! Unh! You want to live don't you?" I said quickly, while pointing up at the MIB's process. They were almost there, but something was holding them up. Like they were taking their time, because they were cocky they would catch us. That made me mad. I growled. My friend's minds were changed when they saw how close the MIB were. Cleo groaned, "How grooooss!" But she followed us to the manhole cover anyway. "Uhhhh!" I groaned. The thing was very heavy and felt stuck! "I could use some help here!" They hurried to help, except Cleo who hesitated. "Cleo!" I growled. She helped and just in time we got the cover up. I went last and closed the cover.

I hopped down. I glanced around us. There were a couple tunnels branching off. "Split up, it will be harder to catch us that way. But be careful, we'll try and meet back at the hotel room." They nodded. Cleo gulped and Shara frowned. Disa didn't seem to care. The manhole cover rattled not giving anyone a chance to argue. I gave my 'look' and we all turned and ran in separate directions.

I felt bad for leaving my friend's and making us split up. But it was better if they couldn't kill us all together. We had a better chance of surviving if we split up. "Oof. Ow." I wasn't watching where I was going and had fallen. "Ewwww!" I was all wet with sewer water. "I don't want to even think about what I just fell in!" I tried to stand. My knee was scraped and sore. I pushed it out of my mind. I had just had a worse beam bite two weeks ago. I heard something that sounded like footsteps. They were close. I didn't have time to run. I scurried back into the shadows and held my breath.

A small brown rat ran past. I groaned. Me, the brave one thought a rat was going to hurt me. "I'm losing my touch. Gee, how can I be so young and so old? I'm only seventeen, how can I be losing my touch. Do I even have a touch?" Oops. I shouldn't be talking, they could hear me. I jogged a little further down the tunnel. "Whoa." I whispered. I was in a big place where the tunnels met. About maybe twenty tunnels branched off from here. There was a big whirlpool like thing in the middle and a bridge above it. I glanced around wondering where I should go next. I heard the sound of something whiling.

I spun around. About a hundred MIB's stood there. One was twirling 'chucks. There were also some guys in some really weird drobe. "Nice hat." I laughed nervously and backed up. I held my hands up. "What do you want? I didn't do anything to you guys." One of the guys with a hat on held up a weapon with blades on both ends and advanced towards me. I narrowed my eyes. These guys were gonna get it, cause they had been pissing me off for long enough. "Prepare to go down!"

The guy swung his weapon at me. Goddess was he fast. I didn't get out of the way quick enough. My arm got slashed. I growled and lunged forward but got hit in the back of the head. I dropped to my knees and head butted the guy in front of me. My head is really hard, so they were gonna have to be better than that to knock me out. It made me angry that they were so good, like ninja's. I defiantly didn't want to lose to the likes of them. I looked up and smiled evilly as my temper took control.

It was no surprise when they started winning. I only noticed when I got cracked on the forehead. "Whoa. Uhhnn. That hurt jerks!" That's when I noticed I was losing. They had back-up. I didn't even realize help had arrived. The guy with the double blades glared at me evilly. I moaned. The blood from my head seeped into my eyes. I couldn't see. I wasn't going to give up that easily. I started screaming and thrashing. I didn't want to be killed and I wanted to attract attention. My head pounded against the concrete. I gasped and shuddered. Then every thing went black.

End Chapter one