I was sprinting down a mountain, attempting to flee from a ravenous gorilla with teeth as sharp as a shark's. I ran a considerable distance, pushing myself to the limit. As I glanced behind me, I stumbled over a rock and fell. The last thing I witnessed was the sight of the gorilla's mouth filled with a thousand teeth, ready to consume me whole.
And I woke up
My heart was beating so fast, that I could hear it. Sweat was running down my forehead, I walked over to my table and crossed yesterday's date on the calendar. It was summer vacation, though only 4 days were left of it. I walked out of my room and immediately started running down the stairs. I could smell my favorite breakfast in the kitchen.
"What's for breakfast?", I asked, trying to sit down
"Go brush your teeth first!", My mom yelled at me
By the time I was back, she had finished setting up the table.
I soon finished eating and was going back to my room when
Mom shouted at me, "We are going to clean the attic today, be ready I will come to call you once I am done eating."
I hated cleaning, And the attic hadn't been cleaned for 3 years. It was going to be lots of hard work and I hated it. I went into my room, laid down on my bed, and started reading a manga.
"Cleaning time!!", My mom proclaimed
I kept the manga on the table and got out of my room. Mom was standing there with a broom, gloves, and masks in her hand. She passed me a pair of gloves and a mask.
I wore the gloves, "Remind me of the last time we cleaned the attic", I said
"Maybe a year or something?", she replied trying to act like she didn't know.
"3 years", I answered
"Well, It doesn't matter!", she cried, "we are going to clean it today"
My mom opened the hatched door to the attic, and the rope ladder came down.
My mom pointed at it and said, "You first"
I was sure that she was scared of the cockroaches.
I climbed up the ladder it was a little hard since it wasn't still and kept swinging. The attic was pitch black. I tried to walk towards the light switch, If I remembered the location correctly that is.
Just when I thought I had reached the switch,
THUD!!
I stumbled upon something and fell,
"You fine?", My mom shouted
"Yea!", I yelled back trying to stand back up
I finally found the switch and turned it on. The cockroaches and rats were all running behind the boxes into the dark corners to escape from the light. The boxes and items had all accumulated a ton of dust on them, I swiped a finger at one of them and the dirt came off like a piece of paper.
I looked back to see what had made me fall, it was a small box with the label 'OLD THINGS'. I crouched down to open it. It had a lot of things in it, but the things that caught my interest were only 4 things.
A camera, a note, some keys and a book.
The book was a dark green color, with black embedded patterns on it, the paper had turned to a yellowish orange color which showed just how old the book was.
"Those are Grandpa's items.", my mom said trying to climb up the ladder
She was correct, I remembered seeing this book in his hands, He always kept it around even when the day he died, he had this book in his hands.
"You can check those later, first help me clean." " she said
"This a lot of dust, I expected more considering it hasn't been cleaned for 3 years", I teased her
"Now stop talking, and start cleaning or I will beat you with this broom", She raised her broom
"Alright", I said (I certainly didn't want to get beat with a broom)
After what seemed like a ton of rat feces, dead cockroaches, and spider webs, along with hours of backbreaking work we finally finished cleaning the attic. It looked completely different from then when we had started, all the boxes were kept in order and looked good, and there was not even a bit of dirt to be seen anywhere.
Mom said that she would treat me to Ice cream later, but she never keeps such promises. I kept the 'OLD THINGS' box in my room before going to take a bath.
After I got fresh, the first thing I did was check out the items in the old box.
I kept the note aside to read it later, I couldn't think of anything to do with the keys so I kept it aside too.
The camera was in bad condition, its lens was broken and its buttons were falling apart, I decided that I would repair it later.
The last thing was the book, I admired the design and feel of the cover for several minutes. I finally decided to open it, it had no title so I didn't know what kind of book it would be, It might even be Grandpa's diary or something.
I still remember that day as clearly,
I had just come back from school, and I ran into Grandpa's room to go meet him but he was just lying in his armchair, with his eyes closed. I tried to wake him up, but he didn't. So I ran to Mom and told her that Grandpa wasn't waking up, she ran to his room and called his name several times, when he didn't wake up she took her hand to his nose and fell on her knees crying. I still remember asking her why Grandpa wasn't waking up.
I didn't understand what happened at that time but now I do.
I gathered the courage to open the book.
I opened the book and I felt a strong gust of wind, I went and checked the windows but they were all closed. The first page contained a yin-yang sign on it, d
Just when I was going to flip the page, I heard my phone ring.
I picked it up, it was Charles', my childhood friend.
"What is it?", I asked
"Have you done the projects?"
"What projects?"
"You don't know?"
"No, I don't. What is the project, tell m-", and he cut the call before I finished my sentence.
The rest of my days of summer vacation were spent trying to figure out what the projects were and doing them.
With no time to think about anything else, I completely forgot about the Book.
-----------------
By the time I was putting on my shoes, it was already 7:45 AM and the school was supposed to start at 8.
The only way I would be able to reach school on time was by running, I had a piece of toast in my mouth.
"I'm off", I shouted before leaving
"Don't wander anywhere. Come back home right after school", I could hear her saying the same thing she had told me more than a thousand times.
I hadn't even put on my shoes properly. I was running at full speed when I saw Charles running.
"Rare to see you late", I mumbled, trying to eat my piece of toast while running
"Forgot to set up the alarm", He replied
"Too bad, It doesn't matter if I set up an alarm or not, I never wake up."
"We are gonna be late at this rate."
"How much till 8?"
"10 mins to go."
"I know a shortcut. Follow me!!", I turned left into an alleyway.
"Alright!"
We soon ran into a short wall that led to a house.
"You sure you know the way?", Charles asked
I pulled my shoes up and climbed over the small wall.
"BRO!! That's someone's house.", Charles shouted
"I know the owner. Now jump over!!", I caught my breath, "Come on!!"
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I am!!!"
"Alright", He climbed over as well and we both jumped down.
I ran through the garden and Charles followed,
"You shouldn't be late on the first day of school.", said the owner of the house from the window. He was around 60 years old and lived alone, So I dropped by from time to time.
"Can't avoid it, Gramps.', I stopped for a second before leaving through the front entrance and looked back, "I will drop by after school."
And turned left, It was a sprint towards the school now.
"You weren't lying.", Charles said, catching up to me.
"I do that quite often, yet people are always surprised.", I replied, gasping for air.
We finally reached the school, "We made it.", Charles said, and the moment he did the bell rang.
"Maybe we didn't?", I said sarcastically, "Now run!!"
We were running through the corridor and up the stairs as fast as possible. Just when we reached our class. (we were in the same class)
We saw our homeroom teacher standing in front of the door talking to a student."It's over.", Charles said in a sad voice.
"What are the windows for?" (For context, My school had windows in the wall to the corridor)
The windows were open so I jumped in, found a free seat put my bag there, and sat down just in time before the teacher came in. Luckily Charles made it on time too.
"Nice Clutch", I heard Cassie say
I hadn't paid attention to where I was sitting, so I was surprised when I heard her voice. I have known her since 5th grade(I am in 9th grade now), and she was always at the top of the class. She has always helped me with my studies. She was one of the most intelligent as well as the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.
She had brown hair, beautiful hazel brown eyes, and a fair skin tone.
Our teacher was taking attendance and I was looking out the window into the school grounds (My seat was near the window and luckily Charles was sitting just ahead of me), I looking out of the window when I saw something weird. A ball of fur with wings was zooming here and there in the air.
"Hey, Can you see that?", I asked Charles pointing toward the ball of fur
"I can see what?"
"Can't you see that ball of fur flying around"
"There is nothing like that out there. You sure you are fine?"
When I looked back the Ball of Fur was gone, I tried to look for it but it was nowhere to be found.
"Eien!! EIEN IKE!!" I heard sir shout my name and I stood up quickly
And said, "Yes, mam", and the whole class started laughing
"You should pay a little more attention to what's going on in the class rather than looking outside. Now sit down"
It was the P.E. class after that and we were playing football when the ground suddenly started shaking, "Everyone get down it's an earthquake!!", Our P.E. sir instructed us
But something told me that this wasn't an earthquake, I was looking at the forest near the school but saw something move, something big, bigger than those trees and strong enough to break them just by walking.
It was coming closer by each second. I could now see exactly what it was, It was about 30 feet tall and had rocks all over his body like armor. It had something glowing in the middle of its chest and had weeds growing in the cracks and gaps among the rocks.
Something dangerous-something otherworldly was coming towards us.