hey guys! i'm new. this is my first post. not my best piece of writing cuz i'm not very good at first person but it's really fun so i couldn't resist trying. tell me what you think. hope you like it. enjoy. :D
Prologue
Welcome to my life
“Blah blah blah,” I thought as I listened to the special guest speaker lecture my class and I about water safety. “Why do I need to learn this, again? We learned this in grade one. If the water touches you, you stop drop and roll. See? I know it. Can I go now?”
My best friend, Amara, was sitting next to me and giggled, reading my mind.
“Hey,” I thought towards Amara, “I am so ready to ditch this thing. You with me?”
“As always.”
“Then let’s bust this joint.”
We made sure no one was looking, then, using our pyrokenesis – our control over fire – we encased our bodies in fire, blending into our surroundings and making us invisible to those around us.
* * * * * * *
Maybe I should explain. Ok. My name’s Abigail. I’m seventeen – almost eighteen. I also happen to be a devil. Yes, you heard me right. Devil, demon, Satan, whatever. Whatever you wanna call it, it’s what I am. I’m not proud of it, but what can you do?
Anyways, we live in the underworld. Every building, every piece of furniture, every utensil – basically everything – is made out of fire. We’re all pyrokenetic, so we can make the fire take the form of anything.
We run on fire, it’s in our blood, so it doesn’t harm us. That’s also why we don’t like water. Even if a little water falls on us, we get sick. If we’re underwater too long, we die (and that’s not just because we can’t swim – which we can’t).
We basically, look like humans, aside from the red eyes, the spiked tail, and the fact that we’re supposedly unnaturally beautiful/handsome compared to humans (never seen a human yet but that’s what I heard). There’s also the fact that we’re pyrokenetics and telekinetics, but that’s another story all together. Anyways, back to my story….
* * * * * * *
Once outside, we nulled the flow of fire around us, and instead forced it into the shape of a skateboard (that’s what they call them on earth isn’t it?). They hardened, and we went off down the walkway.
Stopping in an alley, we grinned at eachother. Hearing someone come up behind us, we spun around.
“Yo, sis! ‘Sup?”
I rolled my eyes. It was my older brother, Rick. He’s nineteen but generally acts way less mature. But he’s a boy, so what else could I expect?
“What’s up with the language, Rick?” I asked.
“I’m just brushin’ up on my earthworld lingo, you know?”
“Most earthworlders don’t speak like that, yo,” I retorted, “just the weird ones.”
“Oh…….well that’s cool with me, yo!”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, whatchya doin’ here lil’ sis? Cuz,” he hesitated, “I don’t got university today, but you, on the other hand….you know, mother is gonna kill you if she finds out_”
“Shut up, Rick.” I pushed past him out of the alley, shouldering him I the process. I didn’t want to think about my mother. Amara looked from me to Rick, and then followed me.
“Yo, Abi, wait!” Rick yelled after me, running to catch up with my fast steps. He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. I yanked my arm out of his grip with a grunt of annoyance and glared at him in frustration. I threw a fireball at him and he stopped it and drew the power into him quickly. He and Amara both stared at me in fear and astonishment.
“What,” I yelled at him, my fury clear by my tone, “is your problem!?”
There were now tears streaming down my face. I was as shocked as they were that I was loosing control like this. Our kind is brought up being taught self-control. We are always calm and collected and in control of our emotions, which we never showed. And my family’s line was the most powerful, the strongest and most controlled of all the lines. My mother brought us up formally and with discipline. We were all extremely strong, emotionally and physically. We could lock our feelings away and keep them hidden. I had a few friends, yes, and family, but I didn’t really know any of them. I hated it. Now, it seemed, I had just completely forgotten all my trainings. I mean, I was crying. Most of my race didn’t even know what crying was. Nobody allowed themselves to cry. Ever. What was happening to me?
I turned back to the alley and slumped on the wall, hiding my face in my hands and trying to gain control over myself. Rick and Amara – the two people I was closest to, though no one in our race really got close – just stood there staring at me. It really got on my nerves. Our race was so stoic. No affection. No emotion. No trust. No nothing. I understand learning to take care of ourselves – not to need to depend anyone. I even understand not trusting anyone and only depending on yourself. I get protecting yourself and learning to be strong and not let stuff get to you. But to this extent – to the extent that no one knows each other and that people are shunned if they are not perfect all the time – that, I just didn’t get. It frustrated me. Not that I knew anything else. Not that I knew much of emotions. Of love and hate. But I had heard about it. About how humans were allowed to just show their emotions. To laugh and cry. To help each other. all we knew was black and white. Life or death. Strong or weak. But the humans saw a million shades of gray. They were allowed to think what they wanted, to dream, to live their own lives. The thought scared and awed me. What would it be like to be able to choose my own future? Could I get to know someone and let them know me? What would it be like to dream?
These thoughts had been running through my head for months, now. I had always been a little different. A little more naïve. A little more emotional. I had dreams that would be considered treason. We weren’t even supposed to think of being emotional. We weren’t supposed to think for ourselves at all. Just, listen to the adults, be a good fighter, be tough, be as strong as you can be, learn to posses, learn weaponry. That was all anyone cared about. That was all we were allowed to do. But that was the one thing that made me so different from everyone else. I didn’t like being told what to do. I didn’t like being told I wasn’t allowed to do what I wanted. I wanted to live my own life. I wanted to dream. I’d been like that for my whole life. All of a sudden, I knew what I wanted to do.
I wiped away the rest of my tears and turned on my heals to stalk past Rick and Amara.
“Abi! Abigail, where are you going?” I heard Amara running to catch up with me, Rick trailing right behind her.
“Away from here,” I answered. She could sense the determination in my voice.
“Well, yeah, but…..where?”
“Earth.”
I heard her stop in her tracks and Rick yelped almost walking into her. She gasped. “What?!”
“You heard me.”
“Well, yeah, but…….I mean…….that’s crazy!” She turned to my brother for help, “Rick, tell her that’s crazy!”
“That’s crazy,” he obliged.
I turned around to look at them. I saw Amara smile shyly at seeing Rick listen to her. Then she realized what she was doing and quickly hid it. I knew she’d been crushing on Rick for a long time. I could see it despite the fact that she hid it well. She felt weak for having those feelings. We weren’t allowed those feelings. Most people didn’t even know what love was. The only reason I knew anything about this stuff was because I stole books from my mother. Being the head of the strongest line of demons, she’d been to earth a few times and needed to research it’s inhabitants. She had books about them and a lot of novels written by them. I always stole them when she wasn’t looking. I was intrigued by them.
I studied the two people I was closest to. Both were always a little different. I thought they had dreams like mine, though they never showed it. Rick was always pretty funny and more emotional than most of us. Once, he also stole one of my mothers books but he got caught and got punished and he never did it again. Amara had always liked skipping school with me and breaking the rules. But if she ever got caught she would be ashamed and it would take months before I could convince her to come with me again. And she was always a little more emotional than most of us. She managed to hide it from everyone else, but I knew she was always a little different. Though, neither of them were anywhere near as different as I was. But, still, I wondered…..
“Do you guys want to come with me?”
“What!?” Amara exclaimed in surprise. “You know my parents would kill me!”
“Yeah, but don’t you want to risk that? Think about it. It’s not like they’re gonna come all the way to earth just to find us. Anyways, think of everything that you could put behind. You wouldn’t need to worry about what your parents or anyone else thought. You could be free. You could dream.” I walked over to whisper in her ear, “You could even love, if you wanted to.” She gasped but I saw her eyes dart towards Rick for a second. I grinned and she gave me a tentative smile.
“All right,” she said, “I’m in.”
I looked to Rick, who hadn’t spoken this whole time. I could see him contemplating the ideas and weighing the pros and cons. I knew he was trying to stay collected, like we’d been taught, but I caught the glimpse of a smile on his lips. “Well,” he said, and I could see the joke in his eyes, “I can’t, very well, let you girls go and get yourselves killed, can I?”
I mock shoved him. “I can take care of myself perfectly well. Better than you could. I can beat you up if I want to, and don’t you forget it.” Jokingly, I held up my fists.
He laughed, a strange sound to our ears. “Yes, but Amara on the other hand….”
She yelled in outrage, then turned to him with a sickly sweet smile on her face, and started walking towards him. “Why, thank you, Rick.” Her voice was as sweet as her smile as she ambled right up to him. “Well, since I’m such a girl…” she was right up close to him now and she batted her eyelashes at him.
“Uhhh…” Rick looked weirded out and confused. He nearly fell backwards. Amara smiled, and, using his confusion to her advantage, drew back her fist and punched him in the nose. He flew in the air, a couple feet back, and I heard his nose break. She turned and stalked back to me muttering under her breath, “Weak, my butt! He’s lucky I didn’t really want to hurt him.”
I couldn’t help laughing as I went to help Rick up. The sound was weird, ringing in my ears. In the last few minutes, the three of us had shown more emotion than we had showed in our whole lives. I didn’t know what was happening to us. It scared me but awed me too. I thought I liked it.
I helped Rick up and he looked from my laughing face to Amara’s angry one. She folded her arms across her chest and glared back at him. He turned back to me, confused. “She just broke my nose!”
“I wonder why,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
I walked over to Amara and put an arm around her shoulder. We started walking and Rick had to run to catch up with us. “Guys,” she grumbled, and I nodded knowingly.
“What’d I do?” He was still confused. I wondered how guys remained so ignorant.
“You were being a guy,” I explained.
“Oh,” he said, confused, “uh…..sorry?”
We both laughed to Rick’s udder confusion, but after a minute, he joined in and we headed together towards an indeterminable future.
Chapter 1
Pandemonium
I reached my hands up from the tunnel we had followed and pushed open the lid. Reaching out of the hole, I felt a solid rough ground which was shaking a little. I could hear a ton of noise emanating from outside, which killed our ears after so long in near silence. The only noise we had heard the whole time was the scurrying of rats on the moldy ground. We had all been too scared and stunned to talk. The three of us could feel the tunnel shaking from the pressure above it. Rick and Amara looked to me, their eyes asking if it was safe. I shrugged and turned to pull myself out of the tunnel.
Standing up on the new ground it took me a minute before I could see. The light was blinding after hours of trekking through dark musky tunnels. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. And looked up to see a big yellow monster careening towards me at an alarming speed. Shit.
I had about two seconds to react, reaching into the power within me and asking it to save me. Concentrating my power, I stretched my hand in front of me and threw a large fireball at the beast. It flew ten feet into the air, blowing up and crashing onto the horde of monsters behind it. Ha! That’ll show them to mess with me.
Then I heard the yelling. There were people screaming and pointing at me in fear. Oh, blah. Were the humans in league with the yellow monsters? That wouldn’t be good because the yellow monsters seemed out to get me.
Just then, another monster came skidding toward me. I ran onto a nearby walkway, and through myself to the ground, just barely missing getting crushed by the beast. Scared people edged away from me like I was the plague. Then, I looked up to see a bunch of humongous rectangle objects with moving images, hanging on the sides of some of the tallest buildings I had ever seen. One of them showed me.
Amongst all of the screaming, chatter and the noisy sound of more of those monsters, I could hear one voice yelling to be heard over the ruckus. I turned to see a blond woman in a crisp suit standing with her back towards me and yelling into something she was holding. There was someone manning a big device that was pointed at her. I could hear her speaking towards it.
“CTV news. This is Sandy Renaldo reporting live from Times Square. This may just be the strangest phenomenon in America since Area 51. A minute ago, I watched a young girl crawl out of a manhole onto the middle of the street. As a taxi skidded towards her, she stopped it by throwing a ball of fire from her hand and throwing it ten feet in the air, blowing it up and crushing a few other cars behind it. Yes, you heard me right. The girl threw a ball of fire from her hands….”
I looked to the big rectangles to see them, now, showing this woman. Then I turned back towards her to see her colleagues turning the large device to face me. I looked up to see my image projected on the rectangle things. I got it. Wherever that device pointed was what it showed up there. I could still hear Sandy speaking about me (“…and this is the source of the pandemonium…”). Well, I didn’t like it. I turned toward the big device, and, letting my anger fuel me, I threw a fireball at the device. I heard Sandy scream as she ducked, just missing the blaze. The device flew backwards and then combusted. The rectangle things went black.
I could hear more screaming as people ran to get as far away from me as possible. Someone stopped for long enough to get a closer look at me and screamed in shock and fear. “She……she……” he stuttered, “….she has red eyes!”
Oh. I’m guessing that wasn’t normal.
I heard shrieks of fear and people started screaming even louder. “Satan,” I heard someone cry. ”Creep!” “Monster!” “Vampire!” I ducked as someone threw a few cloves of garlic at me.
Humph. These people were so hospitable.