Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Still deciding the name, because all the ones I've come up with stink! This is the beginning chapter; if you post up a comment or opinion, I'd really like to hear a suggestion or constructive critizism please!!!))

Rath woke up in a dark, dank hotel room not knowing why she was there. The sheets smelled like mildew and water spots mottled the ceiling; she didn’t even want to know what kind of state the bathroom was in. Rubbing her eyes, she glanced around at her mates. Selena was sleeping soundly on the queen bed next to her, Toby and Greldon sleeping in the other. Toby was lying on his back, snoring softly; Greldon, on the other hand, was tossing and turning, bunching up the sheets and clenching his fists.

Yawning, she rolled her shoulders and rubbed where her wings connected with her shoulder blades. The soft, black feathers helped to sooth her confusion; she knew them so well, unlike the hotel room. Surprisingly, her wings were extremely stiff, which never happened unless she over-used them the following day. Rath quietly got out of bed and shuffled over to Greldon.

“Greldon, hey, Greldon,” she whispered, leaning close to him. He bolted upright so fast, his head hit hers. His snake hissed and jumped out from where it was snuggling beneath the covers; luckily, it was smart enough not to strike her. “Ouch!” she breathed, stifling her surprise and rubbing the top of her long, dark hair.

“Sorry,” he breathed back, “Nightmare.”

“You, too, huh? Tell your tail to shut up before it wakes the others.”

Calming the green snake by rubbing its head, he replied, “I can’t remember what it was about though. But there was a lot of darkness. I remember that much.” He shuddered, his matted hair now sticking out everywhere like porquepine quills.

“Actually, mine wasn’t that bad. It was more like a dream than a nightmare,” Rath said.

“Well, aren’t you special?” he said in a mocking tone of voice.

With a smirk, she said, “Yes I am.” She put her hands on her narrow hips and tried to look like she thought very highly of herself, which she knew would annoy him.

“Special people don’t usually…” he was looking up at her but now his eyes darted around the room. “Wait, where are we?”

“In a hotel, or should I say trash bin. The place is a dump!” Rath said, still whispering.

He shook his golden hair and pushed it out of his face with his hand, which made it stand up even straighter. “I don’t remember checking in, how late did we stay up last night?” He groaned softly and rolled his muscular shoulders and threw his arms back behind his burly frame a few times. “I’m really stiff!”

“Dunno,” Rath said, “I don’t remember either.” She glanced at the clock, it read 2:13 PM. “Probably very late, check it out. We’ve slept in past two in the afternoon.”

“We should wake the others,” Greldon suggested, stretching his sore arms with a grimace. He reached over and tousled Toby’s dark brown hair and plugged his straight nose, “Yo, wake up. You slept through half of the afternoon!”

Rath walked back over to Serena and touched her shoulder very softly; her heart-shaped face was perfectly surrounded by her long, strawberry-blonde curls. She seemed so content Rath almost regretted waking her. “Serena,” she purred, “Serena.”

“You’re never going to wake her up like that, Rath. Try this: Ay Serena! Times a’ wastin’!” Greldon shouted. She gasped and flinched, covering her eyes when he yanked open the curtains of the window above her. Greldon loved messing with everyone in the morning; it seemed he was the only morning person.

Toby quickly pulled his head under the blanket, “Dude! Too much sunlight for me! If you keep this up, one of these days, you’ll kill me! Close the curtains!” He groaned and thought, what a great way to wake up in the morning- one of your best friends exposing you to pure pain. Greldon just laughed.

“Would you quit it? The light is too bright!” Serena scolded in a scratchy I-just-woke-up tone of voice.

He pulled his hand away from the window as if the curtains caught fire. “Alright, I’m sorry.” Rath giggled and Toby cracked a half smile, peeking his face out from underneath the sheets.

“There’s Serena for you,” Toby joked; but Rath knew it was a true statement. He sat up in bed. “Ugh, do yourselves a favor and never stick your nose near the covers unless you like the smell of mildew. Have they even washed these sheets in the past decade?”

“How did we pick a shabby hotel like this?” Serena asked, wrinkling her nose at the disgusting state of the cheap, cheesy décor. “I don’t even remember taking one step inside this disgraceful place!”

“Me neither!” Toby, Greldon, and Rath said in unison.

“Does anyone remember what happened last night?” Toby asked, stretching his long legs.

Just as before, everyone shook their heads at the same time. They took turns glancing at each other’s confused faces. Serena noticed they were all wearing street clothes- jeans and t-shirts. Even their shoes were still on. It seemed to her they just rolled into bed without getting pajamas on first.

Rath moved towards the window. “Toby, I’m pulling back the curtain again.”

“Oh, no. I get the wonderful opportunity to experience mildew up close again,” he groaned. He dove under the covers again and she pulled back the curtain.

“Hmm,” she said, “I think we are in a small town near the coast. We’re still in the human’s land, but we are close to Xander Island- your home, Serena.”

“Interesting,” Serena replied, a confused expression on her face. “But that doesn’t really help us remember what happened last night.”

“We’d better find out!” Greldon announced. “There’s my backpack; let’s see if we can get some answers.” He tromped over to it, turned it upside down, and shook it until all of its contents spewed onto the stained, dark grey carpet. “Here’s my wallet!” He held it close to his face and opened it triumphantly; he slapped it back onto the pile and dejectedly announced, “No money.”

Serena spoke up, “Wait, there’s a slip of paper sticking out of it, hand it over.” Greldon sprang up and gingerly placed the wallet into Serena’s hands, she gave a smug smile. She loved it when he cooperated. “It’s a receipt,” she announced, “Apparently, we bought a pair of sunglasses, a notepad, a twenty-four pack of crayons, a compass, string, and two bags of powdered donuts at a mini-mart yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah,” Greldon held up the notepad and the crayons for everyone to see. “It’s all here except for the sunglasses and there’s only one bag of donuts.”

Toby knew something was in his pocket while stretching; he reached a hand inside his pocket and pulled out the sunglasses. “Got ‘em here.” He realized they must have gotten them for him; living in the Underworld most of his life, Toby was extremely sensitive to the sun.

“Then we must’ve eaten the other bag of donuts yesterday,” Greldon deduced.

“Why did we buy string? Are we gonna dress up a Thanksgiving turkey with it or something?” Rath asked, joking but still as confused as ever.

Serena scoffed, “It’s not that kind of string, Rath. It’s more like twine.”

“Yeah, and there’s about two miles worth on the roll,” Greldon added, “Unless you managed to get a huge turkey, I doubt anyone would buy this much string for Thanksgiving.”

“Besides, it’s the end of January. November is a long way away,” Serena added.

“Guys!” Toby yelled out to get everyone’s attention. “Focus.”

“There’s a business card in the wallet, too. For some psychic named Rodolfo Hughes. Says he can tell you almost anything you want to know, ‘for a small fee.’”

“You think we went to see him last night?” Toby asked.

“It’s a good lead, if any. Greldon, is there anything else in that backpack?” Rath said.

“Hmm. Not much else in here except this first aid kit and my bag with a vial of snake poison inside of it. But I already knew that was in there.” Having a snake for a tail, he sometimes had to extract some venom from it so it wasn’t a danger to his friends. Of course, he also had the anti-venom in the bag as well. He flipped through the notepad and stopped at a page written on with a violet crayon. “Hey, this might be something, check it out.”

They all crowded around the notepad, which couldn’t have been bigger than Greldon’s hand. Scribbled in sloppy, sideways writing, almost too difficult to read, it said, ‘Early to bed, early to rise. Doesn’t look like you are waking up anytime soon. Have fun trying to remember now. Hope you all die. See you soon, Demi.’

Thank you! And, yes, I think I should, too. I added a little bit of description, but I wasn't sure it was enough.
Could you tell that all of the characters knew each other really well and were friends, or not? I want to make that established from the beginning.

((I edited the last chapter... thought I'd put up the next one! If there are any suggestions about certain sentences or paragraphs, feel free to quote them and talk about any specific changes that would make it flow more easily!!!))

They stayed crowded around the notepad, speechless for several moments until Greldon said, “What’s that part she crossed out?”

Serena squinted at the two words that were crossed out between ‘remember’ and ‘now’. “It looks like ‘the key’?”

“This note is really weird,” Rath commented.

“More like threatening,” Toby added.

“Do you guys remember someone named Demi? I don’t think I do; and I never forget a face,” Serena commented. “And what about a key? I didn’t even bring a key chain with me… at least I don’t think I did.”

“I say, we start with that Rudolph guy.” Toby said, starting to shove everything back into Greldon’s backpack.

“Rodolfo Hughes,” Serena corrected him.

“Whatever.”

Rath wanted to see if they had brought anything else with them to the hotel. Looking around, she didn’t see anything; she shuddered at the idea of peering into the possibly disgusting bathroom. “Greldon, could you check to see if we left anything inside the bathroom?”

He wrinkled his nose, “Aww, why do I have to do it?”

“Just go look, dimwit!” Serena ordered him. Greldon stood up straight and, with an indignant look on his face, started heading over to the grime-covered door that lead to the bathroom. Serena smiled, always loving ordering Greldon around. Like he had a choice. She was a Siren, and when she ordered a boy to do something, they did it- whether they wanted to or not.

“Our coats are hanging up on hooks in here!” He announced in a funny-sounding voice. When he appeared again with the coats folded over one arm, Rath could see why- he was plugging his nose. “Ugh! A Port-O-Potty is cleaner than that wreck of a bathroom!”

He placed all the coats on a bed and they all grabbed theirs- or at least which one they thought was theirs. Obviously the pale pink one belonged to Serena, seeing that it was her favorite color. Rath took a very long dark gray sweater, which she knew was hers- it concealed her wings underneath it perfectly. They were sticking out of her t-shirt because she cut holes in the back for easy take-offs. Toby held up the two remaining coats, one black and one green army camouflage. He took the black, seeing that Greldon was more muscular and two sizes larger than him.

“Wait! I need to milk Jeff before we leave.” Greldon opened his backpack and took out the bag with the vial in it.

“Tell me exactly why you named your tail Jeff again?” Rath narrowed her eyes at him; he could be so strange at times.

“Would you rather I say I need to milk my tail? Or I need to milk Jeff? And besides, he likes that name.” He stroked the green-scaled snake as he coaxed it to open its mouth- Jeff always hated getting most of his poison removed. But it was for safety purposes, and a vial of sealed poison was better than a fang full of it.

“When you ‘milk Jeff,’ what exactly does that mean? He has no poison?” Toby asked out of curiosity.

“Well, right now, his sacs of venom are filled to the brim,” Greldon had Jeff’s mouth open and he showed Toby that his fangs already had venom dripping off of them. “See how it is already coming out of his fangs? When I milk out the poison, Jeff has to work harder to get venom to come out,” he had already started to rid Jeff of his excess poison, the jar filled up with a clear liquid. “So if he accidentally bites you, there’s less of a chance that you will have poison injected into your bloodstream.”

As Greldon was cleaning up his kit, Toby zipped up his black coat as far as it would go, pulled up the hood, donned on his newly-bought sunglasses, and headed for the door. He didn’t want any chance of sunlight hitting his face; it was almost painful for him. He wasn’t exactly all human, yet most people believed he was a ghost just for living in the Underworld- which wasn’t true. “We all ready to go?”

“Let’s do it,” Rath answered. She pulled her coat on and fluffed it out, so there were no traces of her wings in the back of it. Serena ran her fingers through her hair to make sure she got out any knots that might have formed from sleeping on it, although her hair was already perfect and any trace of knots was nonexistent. Greldon had Jeff curl up and he tucked him into the back of his t-shirt- right in the small of his back. He pulled down the t-shirt and put the camo jacket over that.

They eagerly checked out and exited the dingy place. Apparently, the human running the front desk said they paid in advance the day before. Glad to be out of the grimy hotel that looked just as bad on the outside as it had inside, the four of them found a man that gave them directions to the address on the business card.

The small town was pretty much straight forward; one main street had a few other streets branching off of it, and that was basically the whole town. Greldon pointed out the small mini-mart where they bought their supplies from the night before. “Do you think they’ll remember us if we asked?”

“I doubt it,” came the muffled reply from Toby- his dark hood covering most of his face.

“Usually stores have more than one clerk running, the chances of it being the same one are pretty slim; even in a small town such as this one,” Serena said.

They finally reached their destination. The house that matched the address was extremely small, and it wasn’t even in a neighborhood. In fact, it was the only house that occupied the tiny dirt road. The door was black with glow-in-the-dark stars glued in patterns on it. The mismatched adornments hung on the ceiling gave it an eccentric look- a Chinese paper lantern, a Native American dream catcher, wind chimes, various flags, and not to mention wind mills shoved into any crack found in the wooden porch floor or railing.

Rath rolled her eyes at everyone’s deer-in-headlights expressions as they tried to take in so many decorations on such a tiny house; she went ahead and rang the door bell. Serena noticed a delivery bag of groceries sitting next to the door; it seemed bland in comparison to all the other objects crowding around it. They stared at the door as the bell played a strange and slightly annoying melody.

Toby heard something hiss at them from around the side of the house and averted his gaze from the door. He couldn’t make out any animal hiding behind all of the ornaments, so he ignored it and looked towards the door again.

A man, about in his thirties, answered it. He had ash blonde hair and the most peculiar color of eyes- they seemed to change color the longer you looked at them.

“Rodolfo Hughes, at your service. Needing some answers, I presume?” He asked, looking at each of them in turn, his eyes seeming to bore into their souls.

“Yes,” Toby answered, “Did we come to see you yester-”

“Uh, uh,” he interrupted, shaking his finger at him. “First I need payment.”

Greldon opened his backpack and searched for his wallet, “I’m afraid we have no mon-”

“Ah!” Rodolfo interrupted again, “Powdered donuts again? You must know it is my weakness! I just love these miniature, sugary delights!” Smiling delightfully at his newly-claimed bag of store-bought donuts, his eyes changed from hazel to a beautiful blue. “Come in, everyone, come in!” He turned towards the side of the house and called, “Daphyne! Come in darling, it’s quite alright.” Opening the bag of donuts, he explained, “Daphyne’s my cat. A very protective one, I might add!” The cat ran so fast through the door, Rath could hardly see her.

“That’s no cat,” Greldon whispered to them. “It had scales and wings. A serpent, maybe?” He had no interest in pursuing the strange cat/serpent, so he just shrugged his shoulders.

Serena raised her eyebrows, “I wouldn’t doubt it,” she said.

Hahaha! Never thought about it that way... I just thought that if he had a deadly poisonous snake for a tail, and it almost struck Rath, he had to do something to keep it from killing people! You can actually milk the poison out of snake's fangs... I looked it up to know what Greldon had to carry in order to do it.

((Sorry it has taken this long to post! I had to wait for my dad to update an old laptop. At least now it has a new harddrive! smile ))

If Rath thought the outside of Rodolfo’s house looked weird, the inside looked completely wacko! There were unusual paintings depicting chariot races, plagues, and clouds hung on the walls- most of them being crooked. Random jars of preserved animals were everywhere. Books with titles such as ‘Taxidermy for Dummies’ and ‘The Lifespan of a Whale’ spewed off of every table. Wilted daisies in vases were found on every shelf, and there were so many different colored and patterned throw pillows on the couches and chairs it didn’t even look like there were even cushions under them.

“Feel free to sit anywhere,” he called over his shoulder, choosing a lone high-backed arm chair to sit on.

Greldon muttered under his breath, “Where’re the chairs, all I see are pillows!” Serena elbowed him and he gave a muffled cry, more out of protest than pain. She gave him a look that probably meant ‘be nice.’

Rath chose one side of a couch and almost got engulfed by the wave of pillows. “So we were here yesterday?” She asked, finally getting adjusted to the setting.

“Oh, yes. You were in quite a rush and only wanted me to answer one very specific question. In fact, I only caught Ms. Serena’s name yesterday, and you are?”

“Rath.”

“Quite an unusual name, is it Chimeran?” he asked.

Rath smirked at his remark, “Its Furian. Greldon over there, though, he’s Chimeran”

“A Fury among my midst? That’s very rare. Usually they don’t come to me for help; they find that my ability to see the future is unsettling and wrong.” His eyes bored into her as they did when he answered the door, turning a chocolate brown as he seemed to peer into her soul.

“That is true. It’s in our nature to judge things as right and wrong, but I’m making an exception now, considering I don’t remember anything that happened yesterday.”

“And what was that very specific question we asked yesterday?” Toby asked, his arms folded against his chest, staring at him intently.

“Just something about finding a key, which I couldn’t answer.”

“Why couldn’t you answer it?” Greldon replied.

He answered in a stage whisper, putting his right hand next to his mouth, “It would affect the outcome of the future.”

Serena spoke up, “My! How did you get that bruise on your wrist?”

His red coat had fallen down from his wrist when he lifted his arm up, and an ugly black-and-blue bruise could be seen before he quickly pulled the coat back down. “That? Oh it was nothing, just an unsatisfied customer.”

Rath was afraid they were the ones that gave the bruise to him. It wouldn’t have been right for them to hurt him, just because he couldn’t answer their question. “We didn’t give it to you, did we?” she asked with a shocked tone.

Rodolfo chuckled, “Oh no, just someone who visited shortly after you left.”

“Do you know why we were in a rush yesterday? We’ve all seemed to have lost our short-term memory.” Toby asked stiffly, changing the subject.

“I’m not sure, but this is all old news! Don’t you want to know about the future?” He leaned forward in his seat. “That is my specialty!”

“Umm, sure.” Greldon replied. “Will we see Demi again?” He wasn’t sure who Demi was, but she seemed like quite a formidable person from the note she had left.

“Too easy! Of course you will. Something harder, something you are dying to know!” Rath felt uneasy; the ‘cat’ Daphyne was sitting in the shadows behind Rodolfo’s chair. The only thing Rath could see were her yellow eyes, which were staring at her intently as if to say, ‘Watch it, fury girl.’

“Where will we go next?” Selena asked him with a curious smile.

“That all depends on what you decide to do. The future can change with each decision that is made. I’m foggy on where you will be going to next, but I can tell you no decision can change the fact that you all will soon face a foe that is vying for the same item you are seeking in a place of extreme power.”

Greldon scoffed. “Like that makes any sense! I could have just broke open a fortune cookie and read the same exact thing!”

Rodolfo held up his hands, “I don’t make the rules of what I am allowed to tell you; I just follow them. I can’t say anything that would affect the future, or everything would be thrown off-balance.”

Toby broke his stupor he always went into when he was thinking hard about something, “Is the item a key?” He unfolded his arms and grabbed the arms of his chair.

Rodolfo quickly glanced at one of five cuckoo clocks lining a wall above a fireplace with startling purplish-pink eyes. “Oh, would you look at the time! I really must see you out the door, I have an appointment!” He stood, nervously popping a powdered donut into his mouth before following the four to the front door.

In the foyer, Rath noticed Toby looking at a decorative water fountain; he seemed very intrigued by it. It was probably made of iron, because it was as black as night. It had patterns of tiny skulls on it; to Rath it almost looked like a display you put onto your porch for Halloween. Something very unusual about the fountain was the fact that it spewed black water, it wasn’t dirty- it was as if the water was merely a shadow.

Toby felt drawn towards the fountain. No, not the fountain; the peculiar black water inside. He stepped forwards as if in a trance and ran a hand under the flowing water. Its coolness gave him a sense of power, and he breathed in heavily as if he had been holding his breath all that time. The feeling of power suddenly turned into a sense of dread, like all of the negative emotions in the world were flowing from the shadowy water into him. Toby jerked his hand out of the water so fast, he almost splashed the water on everybody.

Rodolfo started acting very panicked. Daphyne hissed somewhere behind him. “Oh my! Let’s not touch my things! They are very valuable! Now get a move on, I’m going to be late for that appointment!”



He practically pushed them out the door. Serena looked into his now pitch black eyes and managed to get out “Thank-“ before he slammed the door in her face. “Well,” Serena fixed her coat and flipped her hair, “How rude!”

“That’s what you get for trusting a psychic,” Greldon announced.

“I agree,” Rath said sighing, “Always consequences. For everything.”

“That guy was totally lying to us!” Serena exclaimed.

“You think? Everything he said was total bologna!” Greldon lifted his arms and let his hands hit his sides.

Rath gave a little laugh as Toby made an imaginary bologna sandwich and pretended to eat it, even though his mouth was covered by his hood. It was an inside joke of theirs, going way back to when they were kids, and soon even the upset Serena was laughing.

“No, the part about going to an appointment,” Serena said, “He wasn’t going anywhere, and I doubt he could! He didn’t seem to have a car, or even a garage to hide one in. And obviously he has his groceries delivered to him, so he doesn’t leave the house!”

“So where to now?” Rath asked, summarizing the conversation they had with Rodolfo and discovering they barely found out anything from him. They had almost walked to the end of the road.

Toby had a strange feeling in his gut. Something was pulling him towards somewhere… somewhere in the south. “We go south. How far, I don’t know. But I think I’ll know when we get there.”

“Oh, Serena. Do you want to go back home?” Rath asked her, “I know we are close to it and you don’t like being away from it for too long.”

She waved a hand like it was no big deal, “Oh no, I’d rather go with you guys. Sirens don’t usually care for adventure; and I’m certainly not missing my eleven sisters right now! Probably drooling over some unsuspecting human boy… or several.”

Greldon sighed, “I miss your sisters… especially Crystal. She’s so pretty!” His eyes took on a distant, dreamy look.

Serena giggled at him, “Don’t you remember? She took advantage of you! You lent her over five-hundred dollars in three days!”

“Best three days of my life!”

Serena rolled her eyes, “You did nothing but dote on her hand-and-foot the whole time. Because she made you do it.”

“Alrighty, then,” Rath interrupted before Greldon could disagree. “South it is.” They walked back to the main road, where they found a small bus station. Serena checked the bus schedule and Rath asked someone for the time. The next bus headed south down the main road would be there in about ten minutes. They carefully sat down on the partially dilapidated wooden bench and waited.

As the bus pulled up, Greldon was the first to reach its doors. He suddenly tensed up and turned around to face them.

“Uh, guys,” he said, “We don’t have any money to give the bus driver.”

“That reminds me! You have a bus pass in your wallet!” Serena bounced up to him to help him find his wallet in the backpack. She then pranced up the steps and handed it eagerly to the old, grouchy, and plump bus driver, whose sour face was distorted with a frown and squinting, evil-looking eyes.

“This pass is only valid for one passenger only,” he spat at her.

“Surely you’d let us all on. You won’t let us walk up the road.” Serena told him matter-of-factly. She gave him a calculating stare. Hopefully her power would change his mind.

Wrinkled lines on his face disappeared as he smoothed his facial expression, “Well I can’t just leave three of you to walk, and seeing I can’t just kick you all out, you might as well just come aboard,” he angrily furrowed his eyebrows, “but no horseplay; you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Toby said quietly as he passed the bus driver on the way to the middle of the bus, where Greldon had already taken a chair.

“So where are we going, tour guide Toby?” Greldon asked, grinning.

“Not sure; but this bus has stops in a few small towns south of here, so I’m guessing one of those.” He then stared out the window, completely silent. Serena noticed his eyes glazing over; he was in his usual stupor when he was concentrating. She took his lead and looked out the window also. Rath played with her fingers and Greldon played silently with ‘Jeff’. Seeing no one else besides the mean bus driver, Serena didn’t scold him.

‘I’m hungry,’ came the reply Jeff mentally said to Greldon. He replied back in the same way Jeff had, through their mental connection. ‘Oh, all the attention I give you and you only complain back to me.’ Jeff looked straight into Greldon’s eyes; they both had the same yellowish color to them. ‘We spent the whole night in that nasssty hotel and you didn’t even let me have one rat!’ Greldon rolled his eyes. ‘Well, you should have told me that before we left! So now, you can deal with it.’ Jeff’s tongue flicked out of his mouth with a hiss. ‘Always the leader, you have to be. Always the leader.’ Greldon rolled his eyes again. ‘And you, always the complainer.’

A couple of minutes passed by, and Rath finally got up the courage to ask Toby something. “Uh, Toby?” He broke out of his stupor and looked at her. “What happened back there? You know, with that strange fountain and all. It has something to do with the Underworld, doesn’t it?”

Greldon and Serena looked over, suddenly interested in the conversation. It didn’t bother Toby that they were eavesdropping, seeing as they were all friends and they practically told each other everything. He slowly nodded.

“Yes, it did. That water… it wasn’t pure water. It was from the river Styx. I’ve never seen that water before, never been outside of the palace there, really. I… I just needed to touch it. And I saw what people always talked about when they say they’ve touched that water.”

“What do they talk about?” Serena asked, staring into his dark eyes peering over his sunglasses, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“They just say that it’s like nothing they’ve ever experienced in their entire life. And that’s true… because you don’t touch that water when you’re living. You touch it after you're dead.”

“I thought you said you were a Shadow-walker, not dead!” Greldon said.

“I know, I am. Shadow-walkers can touch it, too. That’s why Rodolfo got upset when I shook the water off of my hand. If it had touched you… you could have died.”

Rath had only one more thing to say to Toby, and she couldn’t stop herself from saying it. “Well, you have to be more careful.” Her friends didn’t really react to this comment. They all knew Toby didn’t mean to; and they all knew she didn’t mean to make this comment. Sometimes, just her fury-instincts kicked in before she stopped them- she always had to judge people’s actions.

No more than an hour of silence had passed when Toby stood up suddenly and said, “Right here, we need to get off.” Greldon pulled a rope connected to the ceiling to let the bus driver know that that was their stop.

“Right here? There’s barely anything!” Rath protested. She was right- only a bus stop and a shed were visible to them through the fingerprint-covered windows.

“Yes, here. I don’t know how I know, but I do. We need to get off.”

The four of them filed off the bus and started heading up to the shed. It sat on a rise, and they thought it would give them a better focal point to see the town. Serena was the first up the hill; she looked down below and gasped. Toby and Rath caught up with her and they all just stood there motionlessly. It made Greldon nervous and he could feel a knot form in his stomach. Jeff twitched nervously in his coat. ‘It doesn’t sssmell friendly here, it’sss in the air. I taste it with my tongue. We should leave ASsssAP.’ During his time mentally talking with Greldon, he had slithered his way up to rest his head on his shoulder to peek out of his coat. ‘Get down!’ Greldon said, trying to push Jeff back. ‘Can’t you sssmell it?’ He replied, as if he didn’t realize what Greldon had just done. ‘Smell what? All I smell is some barbeque, maybe.’ Jeff hissed. ‘Exactly.’

The town was deserted; not only deserted, but a complete wreck. It looked as if it was ravaged by something. It was then that they heard an extremely loud roar from a little past the tree line to the right of them- near a pile of smoldering rubble.

And that was when the bus exploded.

One minute, it was rolling across the asphalt of the road; the next minute, it was a flaming fireball catapulted across the opposite sidewalk.

“Uh, guys? Just one thing you should know about this town, it’s called Salamis.” Toby said, seeming to ignore the fact that the bus driver went up in a column of flames along with his bus.

“So what does that have to do with the scary roar and the fact that the bus just was shot up in some fiery explosion?” Greldon retorted.

“Salamis is attacked by a dragon known as Cycherides.”