(A/N: HI EVERYONE! I am really, really sorry! Truly, I am! I have no wireless Internet on my desktop, my laptop is loaded with viruses (for no particular reason) and my iPad can't post stories on fanfiction, which really sucks for me because I wrote them all on there. After thinking I lost all my stories, I found them all in my email a couple days later. I quickly typed them on my computer before they deleted themselves again, and now I have them all! :D So I am very glad to say that I have them all and they are ready to be uploaded! Also, I have just started my second semester as a freshman (made straight A's last semester, yippee!) and I am loaded with homework. So, please don't get mad if I don't post regularly. One more thing. I don't like using this desktop (cause it doesn't have Internet on it, but I can sometimes wire it to get Internet) so if it takes me a while to write a chapter, just bear with me. Thanks so much for waiting, and I love you all so much! You mean everything to me! I feel horrible for making you sit and wonder for so long, but I'm so glad you did. I am so, so grateful! ~Nikki)

Monday came, and Troy had pushed through many states to get to Ohio.

The road felt like the road to his deadly fate.

As it rained, Troy drove down the winding roads of his town, dodging cars and mud puddles. His foot remained on the break constantly, but he kept pushing on without stopping.

Troy turned down Anderson Street, slowly looking around at a deteriorating, old neighborhood and looked back at Talon, who was silently sleeping in the back.

He never wanted to expose Talon to drugs, violence, or anything bad,

Talon was about to get two tons of it.

Troy rubbed his forehead as two silent tears fell down his cheek. No, those tears were not for Talon. They were not for his parents. They were not for Gabriella.

They were because he didn't want to see the druggies and gangsters he grew up with.

"Thank god I never got into that shit." He whispered to himself "I would still be here in this fucked up neighborhood with these fucked up people and my fucked up family."

Nothing could draw him back to this neighborhood. He hated it. It was torture to even be there.

Talon whined a little and rubbed his eyes, opening them only slightly to look out the window.

"Hey Tal." Troy glanced back at Talon with a slight smile. "You up, bud?"

"Suddenly, he started wailing and sobbing uncontrollably. Troy groaned.

"What's going on? You hungry? Thirsty?"

Talon continued to wail like Troy wasn't there.

"Awh, Talon… " Troy shook his head and pulled on to another street.

Suddenly, Talon's cries were shushed.

The car stopped in the middle of a black-topped driveway. The house in front of him looked off, not because it was hidden behind a couple cracks in the foundation or the chipped paint on the side of the house that a little boy probably picked at, and not even because it looked lonely, since it sat away from all the other houses. It was odd because it had a smell of fresh wood burning.

Why would an abandoned house smell like fresh burning wood?

The wind cursed a silent scream, mocking a human, but at the same time, being so inhuman that he could not decide whether it was human or not.

A couple of leaves posed as tumbleweeds and chugged across the blacktop, gently passing Troy's truck as they made their journey through the "hood".

The whisper of the wind caressed Troy's cheek through his open truck window and chuckled silently, scattering away, like children in the park. A whisper fell upon his left ear, very quiet, but still clear enough for him to make out the words.

The path of a leaf is unpredictable, like a teenager's footsteps and a teenager's actions.

His hands quivered as his fingernails dug into the steering wheel.

It was as if the wind was talking to him in a subscripting language.

He stared at the house as a peculiar feeling came over him. It was a place to familiar, so strangely familiar that he was raging to know what was so familiar about the house. He couldn't put his finger on it.

Thus, he pulled out of the driveway and continued on his way.

It would be a half hour until he arrived at his house. One thing lingered among him.

The voice.

The violently nature of the voice still sent shivers down his spine.

Troy glanced back at Talon, who was staring out the window, now perfectly content. He giggled a little and set his small hand on the window. Talon was known for his drastic mood swings, kind of like his mom.

But the only thing Gabriella was known for was being a nerd who wished desperately to be with the senior, Troy Bolton. Who saw her for herself? Only Troy.

Troy loved Gabriella. There was no doubt in that. Nobody around him saw it, but he felt it deeply in his heart. Even over a year after her death, he still felt butterflies thinking about her.

He searched the familiar driveway on the familiar roads around the familiar houses and the familiar neighborhood.

But, nothing.

He drove down a couple streets, turned a couple corners, and raised an eyebrow.

He knew he turned down the right street.

He turned down Hiking Street.

His house was on Dove Lane, and the only way to get to Dove Lane was to take a left at the end of Hiking Street.

He scratched his head.

He turned down Dove Lane.

Nothing.

A naked, brown, wormy earth stared back at him as he stopped his truck in the middle of the road.

Troy's eyes became wide.

"What the hell… " He shook his head, blinked a couples times, and looked at the spot in which his old house sat. "It's only been one god damn year that I've been gone… How much has changed?"

The smell in the air changed in a split second from the familiar smell of the hood to some foul, putrid, stomach-churning odor. It flew past Troy like a freight train. He covered his mouth, gagged, and rolled up his window up quickly.

Talon didn't seem to notice it.

Troy turned around toward Talon with wide eyes,

"Talon, can't you smell that?"

Talon shook his head.

"Jesus Christ, am I going crazy or something?"

He looked up at the neighborhood once again, noticing something even stranger than he had ever noticed.

There wasn't a drop of rain leaking from the single cloud floating along the crayon-colored blue horizon. The sidewalks were their normal colors, and the road was bone-dry, like it hadn't rained in years. But what was even weirder that on the side of the road, there was a blue sign with white reflectors on each of its squared sides. There was a picture of a very basic bus.

That was his old bus stop.

Even his name remained on the sign from when he was in fifth grade and thought it was cool to claim the sign as his own.

The sign stood lonely, drug into the earth with superior forces that Troy could not imagine. It was rusted and had been through two decades of hell, but still stood. It was silent, but still bursted with many words that filled Troy's head with memories.

Many, many memories…

And without any other thoughts, he sped out of there like a rocket.