Chapter One
A Stranger
Her eyes were gold. They seemed kind enough, and something inside me told me that she was trustworthy. Curly brown hair fell in long streams from her head. She looked... I don't know, I'm usually able to describe people pretty well. It was just something I was born with, it came naturally to me. She wasn't tall, but she wasn't short either, she seemed to be right in the middle. A leather belt hung at her side carrying a lengthy sword that nearly touched the ground. From my tense, crouched position in between the ground and the red brick wall of the alleyway behind me, the sun was directly behind her head. It shone through her curls, and created a sort of halo.
I didn't know her. And I knew everybody, even people I had never seen or talked to. But this girl, I didn't know her. I couldn't know her... But still, she was talking to me, reaching for me, telling me to come with her. To a safe place.
Nothing was safe. I knew from experience. Constant experience. Monsters, unexplainable creatures, I could sense their presence miles away. Even when they were around regular people, I say regular because it was evident to me that I was different... Different in a good way, or bad I can't make it out, but anyway, even around regular people, it seemed that no one paid them any notice. But to me, their disguises were stripped away, and underneath, they were inhuman, grotesque, some benevolent, some malevolent, always roaming, searching, sometimes finding. I knew them all by name. Not that I had ever encountered them. I just simply knew.
I could sometimes hear the screams of children at night, wild and crazed, frightful in the darkness of alleys and lightless roads. I knew that many of them were like me... Different in some way or other. It was as if every scream that echoed through the maze of back roads tore something from inside my heart... They had died, and the knowledge of this weighed upon me heavily, I say knowledge, for it was knowledge, it came to me, more through emotion than through conscious thought. The children had been devoured by the monsters... I wondered if the same thing would happen to me someday.
But as the girl spoke, I knew she was telling the truth. "I'm not going to hurt you." She said, her lips curving into a soft smile. "I can take you to a safe place." She knelt down besides me, and put her hand on my shoulder. "Who are you?" I whispered back. I hadn't spoken for so long. My voice was hoarse, and cracked with every word. "Hazel Levesque, and yours?" She had a slight southern accent, and her voice was smooth as marble. "I⎯I, don't know"
"You don't know? Not even a nickname?"
"I've lived on the streets my entire life. I don't remember anything else, I've never given myself a name."
"Why not?"
"I don't need one. I will not give myself a name. I have to remember!"
"What do you need to remember?" Her voice was soothing, and I whispered hoarsely back, "I don't want to talk about it. Please?" She nodded reluctantly. "Do you have any parents or relations that you know of?"
"Not that I can remember." She looked at me strangely, her mind digesting what I had just said. "You must have been raised by someone, can you really not remember?"
"No." I replied. Her dark brows furrowed in thought."Well, I think we can discuss this at the camp." She muttered.
"The camp?" I inquired.
"A place for people like us."
I was dumbstruck.
Like us?
Like me?
She was NOT like me.
I would know it if she was. I would have felt something, a sensation, a tug at my consciousness.
But then again. She was different, in some special way, but the difference was my adversary. She was the only person I had met whom I couldn't read. I say read, because people are like open books to me. As soon as I hear their voices, I know who they are, I know every fault, every lie they have ever told, every dream they have ever aspired to achieve, and everything they had ever done. I was able to know their full existence, I felt like I had known the person for my entire life.
The desperate screams at midnight. With each sound of pain, and terror, entire lives would blossom into my mind, and as their shouts for help faded into the stars, I would be unable to move for grief, as I would mourn the loss of a friend...
It happened that I lost a friend quite often, although I had never spoken to them. Each human life, brief, like a short fuse would spark into my mind, and glow bright and magnificent. Only to be put out, and stomped upon by the cruel foot of death. Night after night I hoped that it would become routine, that I wouldn't have to care for the lives that were lost, that they would fade into a harmless montage of voices in the background. But they never did. Every night I was subject to an unbearable torture. Each passing moonless night would present a life, beautiful, precious, a unique story, a human being, before my mind, strong, vivacious. Wrenched from this world quickly and utterly. Their names were the only remnant of their existence, and so it was my duty to remember.
This girl, whoever she was, wasn't like me. She might be able to block me somehow, but she could never understand me. I then came to the evident conclusion.
"You are NOT like me. You would be scared if you were like me." She stared for a moment, and smiled. "I know it feels like no one could ever understand you, but we all felt that way at first⎯⎯"
"Stop saying we."
"You're in danger." She said, cutting to the chase. I quickly snapped back, "From what? The monsters?"
"Good, you've noticed them." She said. "So you should know we don't have much time. Their most likely already aware we're here."
"Good, you've noticed, they're currently 3 blocks away, heading straight for this alley."
Hazel stared. Perplexed. "How do you know?" She whispered. Her eyes were wide, and her gold iris captivated my gaze. "You wouldn't understand." I said quietly. My eyes downcast. "I can try." She said, her resolute gaze penetrating my own "But not now. Right now, let's get you to the camp." I then decided against all my better judgement that it was probably a good idea to go with her. My instincts usually never failed me, and besides, anything was better than alleys and garbage dumps. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to worry about screams in the night.
"Well, I think I'm ready for a change in scenery."
"So you'll come?" She asked, "Thank the gods."
"I guess."
"Well, we haven't got time to waste. Come on." She composed her face determinedly, and gripped my hand firmly in her own. Her long sword made a horrible scraping sound as she pulled me up from my spot on the ground. We started off, to wherever this camp was. Our feet pounded against the concrete as we ran through the streets of San-Francisco. We had turned a couple corners when in the middle of an alleyway, Hazel stopped in her tracks, and consequently yanked me to a halt. "Jeez! A warning next time?" I yelped. "Step back a little, please." She said, her tone urgent.
From behind us came the sound of half a dozen footsteps. Hazel looked a little panicked. She closed her eyes, and held her hands over the ground. After a few seconds a tremor ran across the pavement, and a large section fell inwards and down, great billows of dust shooting up from the crevasse and streaming through the alley, revealing a dark tunnel leading into what looked like the sewer system. Just as the spectacle came to a close, the footsteps came to a halt.
We looked behind us, and Hazel's eyes narrowed. There in the middle of the cloud of dust were a crowd of humanoid creatures, their skin gray and leathery. Their eyes, black, and bloodthirsty, were sunk far back in their sockets, and from their hands pointed three claws that glinted sharply in the sunlight. From the top of their skulls protruded a row of razor sharp spikes, each one crimson as blood. Just then Hazel laughed."What in Pluto!? What's with the hairdo?" Somehow, I knew that she saw something else, and judging by her exclamation, I could guess that what she was seeing was a group of kids with mohawks. (probably goth). The creatures left much to the imagination. Much that I would rather not discover. Unfortunately, their gangs had been roaming the streets for a while, so I knew what disguises they preferred.
One of the creatures stepped out from the middle of the gang, and smiled menacingly. It took a quick glance at the gaping hole behind us and chuckled. "Now, now why are you running away? The party's only just begun!"
