Chereads / The Things That Lurk Here / Chapter 4 - Chapter IV

Chapter 4 - Chapter IV

I walked outside and picked it up off the ground with my one hand I had available, but struggled.

I slowly pulled the blanket along the ground in one hand, and had my plate of cake in the other.

I remember I somehow accidentally put my right foot on the blanket, causing myself to trip and lunge forward onto the ground.

I helped myself up to find my cake had fallen onto my blanket and made a mess. Better hope there is another blanket...

Then, a ruckus from the weeds.

"Hey no! Bad boy! Down! NO!" Someone from the bushes yelled. It sounded some-what like Dan's voice.

"Dan?" I asked. Nobody awnsered.

Suddenly a brown wolf came raging out of the woods towards me. I screamed for my life and put my hands in front of me to protect myself.

"Aiden no!" The voice screamed again.

To my surprise, the wolf had ran past me. It went for the cake that was on my blanket and gobbled it down, licking the blanket clean, while wagging its tail vigorously.

Dan came stumbling out of the woods yelling for the dog. I looked down at it.

It's face was covered in frosting as it wagged its tail, trying to lick it off.

"Aiden get back here"

Dan ran and caught up to the dog, who looked back at him, with a look that was almost like it was smiling.

"Aiden! You can't go running around doing this" Dan screeched.

The wolf growled and stood up on two legs as it transformed into a human.

"AWWW!" I let out, unable to hold myself.

A werewolf. If this was who Dan hung out with, I want to too.

He had triangular, brown-ish red ears and a tail, even in his human form. I ran to wrap my arms around it.

He jerked and pushed me off himself in a frenzy. "No hugs! Dangerous!" He pawed away and ran towards Dan.

"Gaurdian!" He yelled at Dan, "Gaurdian!" Dan waved at me as Aiden and him ran back into the woods.

Great. Where do I begin? My parents died mysteriously and now I live with my aunt where nothing I think about is secret and now people are hunting after me for my...powers?

I unclipped the pin from my hair and examined it. I had never really payed much attention to it.

It was a beautiful, pastel green tint with a white flower on top of it. It was a daisy. Mom's favorite flower. What I was named after. I wore it every day only because I loved it so much.

Now, I would have to. I fiddled around with it in my hands.

Knife. Bow. Dagger. Sword. Spear. What else could it turn into?

I studied hard onto the pin. A mask. A random medical mask. I wanted a mask. I got what looked like a mask covered gracefully layered from front-to-back in black feathers.

I flipped it over and continued examining it. This isnt what I wanted. Then I noticed the writing on the feathers in the back. "Black Swan Gaurdian" it said.

It all clicked. I remembered everytime Dan said guardian... all these people after me... how I was valuable. Like these thoughts had been shoved into my head, and I just now realized what they mean.

There was beings that I would have to face to save these people. I really was special. But, I could be on either side...

I bit my nails thinking about it. One side was powerful, and would accept me for who I am, and the other, weak and helpless and need someone to fight for them but would still end up hating me in the end.

This was a life-deciding question.

I knew what I had to do. I went back into the house and upstairs, where I struggled to sleep the rest of the night.

By the morning, I had decided. I would destroy every last one of those evil beasts. It would make mom and dad proud if only they could see.

I got up and grabbed toast from the kitchen, quickly ate it, and went back outside.

"Dan?" I yelled " Dan? You here?"

I figure started to walk out of the bushes.

"Dan?" I thought.

It wasn't Dan. It was a young boy in a dark hoodie with discolored eyes. I jumped backwards in fear. Dark hoodies meant trouble. I could sense something in him. I got goosebumps. He wasn't normal.

"Last try gaurdian" He said " Join us or die."

I shook my head and unclipped my pin from my hair.

"Tch"  He continued " So be it".

I shifted it into a spear but...

Something happened. I was covered in a dark cloak of feathers and armour.

What?! This had never surprised me like this before. A new..power? My pin was now a jet black spear, much like the rest of my inventory, as I faced the boy, ready to fight for and with my life.

"Found your true form huh?" He sighed.

He grabbed his own sleeve and threw his hoodie off of himself to reveal a pair of giant, purple, bat-like wings a strange pair of blue horns hiding beneath them.

A dragon! I had never seen one before. They were supposed to be extremely powerful beasts. What was I to do?

I stomped my foot against the ground and held my spear closely to my chest as I prepared for the worst. What was I getting myself into?

He ran at me, but I deflected his punch with my spear at the last second, and threw him off me. He slid backwards, and took another run-and-go at me, but I pushed him back with the long side of the spear, once again. He still stood his ground.

"This all you've got?" I taunted.

Then his wings started to flap with great force.

The winds were so powerful, I had to spike my spear into the ground and hold on with both hands so I wouldn't get swept away.

He slowly rose into the air with his wings still carrying great force.

"This isn't hardly a tenth of my power!" He screeched.

I held on and hoped he was bluffing as he rose up like a hawk and used the sun to cover himself.

"Where did he go?!" I thought.

Then, he swooped down from the sky and tackled me. My spear flung and stuck against a tree. We rolled a couple of times before I ended up hitting my head on a tree, with his knees on mine, on top of me. I was badly scraped up and his knees were digging into mine from his weight.

"It's not worth it being a hero" He said "This will teach you. Teach everybody."

He put his hand on my shoulders as he had formed claws from them and scraped the surface of my skin, roughly, over and over. It gave a burning a sensation.

He stopped scraping my arms and slowly moved them up to my neck. I started to cry, and nearly hyperventilated.

"Liam! There is somebody here! We gotta go!" A voice from behind the dragon yelled.

Liam jerked his head around and I assume it was one of the people from his group. He took himself off my knees and headed forest bound.

I sat there crying with my hands wrapped around my head trying to comprehend what had just happened. Then I saw a familiar face.

Dan.

He looked down at me with a worried look on his face and looked back to keep following his group.

I was too sore and scared to get up. I tried to relax myself up against the tree, but the bark was too rough. I sighed and laid myself on the soft pine needles on the ground, hoping someone could find me, and went to sleep.

After several hours, I figured nobody was even going to search for me. I used the tree to push my still slightly sore self off the ground to go and search for my spear. The Cape was the only thing that remained of my armour.

I slowly crept around and found my spear. It would change into other things, but not back into a pin. I transformed it into a simple dagger and limped my way back into the house where I was greeted by aunt Theresa.

"Oh dear.." She mumbled. She wrapped my arms in bandages and I gritted my teeth at the pain. She then sent me off to bed, telling me about how I had to attend school tomorrow.

School? I wouldn't know nobody there or anything. Possibly Dan?

I sighed, setting my dagger on the bedside table, and prepared an outfit for tomorrow.

The next day, I woke up and got ready. The previous day, I had prepared a white crop top and blue jeans to wear today. My first day of highschool.

Wait! My pin! It had transformed back overnight, so I clipped it to my hair.

I was almost ready, so I got my backpack.

The same one... I wore that day.

The world around me started spinning and I soon found myself in a dark room.

I heard mom's voice speaking along with dad. It was simple conversations like how their day was. Then they asked where I was. Their voices slowly distorted into something incoherent.

I saw their figures. Their exact looks. I teared up and went to give mom a hug, but her figure melted in my arms.

A army of people surrounded me. Each their own group of two. They each melted into puddles of an unknown substance.

One pair remained. I had never saw them before. A girl stood in the middle between them. I felt like I knew her before. The pair beside her melted and she collapsed. I gasped.

I held out my hand to help her up, and she gladly took it.

I heard her speak as she looked at me. I couldn't understand what she was fully saying either, however.

I snapped back into what I thought was reality to find myself leaning up against the front door.

"AH!" I scared myself out of my trance-like state.

Aunt Theresa looked up from her dish-washing duty to ask me if I was okay. I nodded.

I sighed as I pulled the doorknob open. Bad memories lie in the depths of my mind, but if i wanna conquer my fears, I got to start with why I'm scared.

I twisted the doorknob and pulled open the old door, looking out of it. I snapped back out of another daze realizing that the road to this house was treacherous and no bus would be picking me up.

I ran down the path, my backpack slinging every which way.

Uh- where was the school?

"This way Daisy, honey" Dan yelped, appearing in front of me out of nowhere.

He speed-walked in a certain direction along the path, and I followed him.

He had a backpack on too.

"Do you go to my highschool?" I asked.

I couldnt see his face but I saw him nod from the back of his head.

I ran to catch up with his fast-walking pace. He turned his head away from me in embarrassment.

"I-" He stuttered " Don't mind what happened yesterday. With...the guy"

"How do you know about that?" I asked.

"I was there. Sorry" He turned to face me and looked down at my arms. He bit his lip and grabbed a water bottle out of his backpack.

I look at him, confused, and tilted my head.

"I can heal more than myself" He quoted, grabbing my arm.

I blushed. He unwrapped the bandages from my arm, cracking open the water bottle, and continued to pour water into his palm.

Then he splashed it on my arm where I had been cut. Where the skin had been cut open had closed and was no longer burning.

He smirked and returned the water bottle back into the side pocket of his backpack.

"Better?" He asked.

I nodded and gave him a smile.

"If.. if you need me... just call for me" Dan said.

"Okay"

"And..um... I....", He gave an annoyed look, " if someone asks if you know about the drownings and murders. Dont say anything"

"For me alright?" He continued, smiling.

"Haha...yeah.." I replied nervously.

I had almost forgot...what he was..

The thought of what could have happened already made me nauseous. How many people had he killed?

Then another person come stumbling out of the woods. He fell on his hands and knees, before he managed to push himself back up. I got goosebumps.

"Hey Dan!" He yelled excitedly.

Me and Dan both stopped in our tracks. Then I realised it. The person that came out of the woods had ears and a tail that was wagging.