Chapter 1, Part 2

Being as this chapter has something I'd like to call a "flash" To keep it from being too long, I'm breaking this chapter in 2 parts. This is the second part after part 1.

Casi woke up the next morning thinking about the dream she had that night. She gently rubbed her eyes after slowly sitting up on her bed, and stretched her arms. She moved, and let her legs dangle off the edge of her bed when she paused.

Something wasn’t right.

She looked around the room for something to have been moved, or misplaced. She saw nothing, until she looked over at her dresser. On top of the dresser was a weird hovering blue crystal. Casi got up off her bed and walked over to it. Around the eight smooth and shiny surfaces, there was a thin ring, or what looked like white gold. On one of the sides, there was a bright glowing light from somewhere in the middle of it. It was the size of her wrist to elbow, and it hovered about two inches above the dresser. Casi had no clue what it was, but she knew someone who just might.

She walked over to her phone, turned it on, and spoke clearly into its microphone. “Uncle Dalor.” She said to it. It dialed up some numbers, and began to ring.

“Hello?” He said as his face popped up on the screen. His face of about fifty looked up at her with a growing smile. His hair was a dark brown color, with grey streaks in it. His eyes were kind and caring, but had a lot of power inside them also.

“Hey Uncle Dalor! I have a question for you.” She paused.  “I have this really weird blue crystal thing hovering up in my room. Part of its glowing. I don’t know what it is, so I figured you might.”

“Show it to me.” He told her.

Casi flipped the screen around to it, showed it to him for a moment, and then brought the screen back to show her face. When she saw him, he had a stunned look on his face. Once she moved it though, he looked up at her confused for a long moment.

“Well?” She asked him, getting impatient.

He came back to himself with a scratch of his head. “Umm... Well if it is what I think it is, then I have no clue why it would be in your possession.” He paused. “Casi, do you have any way at all you can bring it to me?” He seemed to be worried at the times he didn’t try to hide his expression.

“Maybe. I don’t have a lot of money right now. I keep spending it all on gas for that bike you got me. I will look around and see if I can try to come up with enough money.” she paused. “Hey, is it safe to touch?”

He smiled a little. “Yeah, it is. Once you get here, I will pay you back for your troubles. Oh, and you know your grandpa?”  He asked, but meaning it more as a statement. Casi wondered what he had anything to do with this.

“Yeah, why?” She asked him right back.

He looked down for a second. “Listen, whatever you do, don’t go to him for help. Got that?” He looked back up with her, and with a nod, he hung up his end of the line.

No, but whatever you say. She thought to herself.

She walked over to her steel safe she kept underneath her desk. She placed her thumb on a tiny sensor and the locks undid themselves. She took out a black wallet that had an eagle pendent on it, and opened it up. She took out the money and started to flip through it. A one-way ticket, three hundred miles away to Culteso, would cost her fifty-five dollars. Casi only had twenty. She placed the money on her bed, and closed her safe, hearing the locks close to the door.

Her uncle had bought her the safe, motorcycle, and anything else “cool” she could want. He had a ton of money. So did her grandpa, but he, for some strange reason, was out of the question. That is why she knew her uncle would pay her back. Where he got it all from, she didn’t know. All she figured, was if he gave her things, she would be happy. Since her mom had gone out of town, there was no way of asking her. She always took her money with her, and didn’t leave any at the house. The chance of Casi getting anything out of her sister, Elle, was low; she wouldn’t even bother to ask. She would probably ask what the money would be for, and since her uncle paid the most attention to Casi, she would probably think of the whole thing as being stupid.

She figured a 2-hour trip to Culteso would be extremely boring, she figured she would bring a Pocket Game Mode, and probably get some snacks for the ride. That would probably be five more bucks. How she could get this money, she still didn’t know. Thinking about snacks, she realized she hadn’t had breakfast yet that morning. Eating might take her mind off the whole thing for a while, or just give her the energy to think about it more.

She finished with her French toast, and took her plate over to the sink. She balanced it on a few other dirty dishes that were in the sink. Once she turned away form the sink, she leaned up against a counter that was behind her, and realized she didn’t feel any better than before. She lightly kicked the counter with the back of her foot, and left to go upstairs from the counter she was leaning against. She walked over to her window and looked out through the blinds. The weather was perfect. No clouds, rain, or even wind. There wasn’t even a sign that any of that had happened. The streets were dry, and there was no dirt, or leafs on the streets from all the wind.

Confused, she shook her head, and walked over to her television to put in a movie. She sat on her bed, and while the starting previews started to play, she got into a comfortable position. Once all the pillows were all arranged behind her how she wanted them, she picked up the remote, and skipped all the previews.

The action movie played, but she couldn’t stop glancing over at the crystal. Forty minutes the movie played, when she got up and walked over to the crystal. She reached her hand up, and slowly brought it closer to it. Her hand was shaking, and it got worse as she got closer to it. No matter what her uncle had said about it, she was still worried that something would happen to her if she touched it. When she was about two inches away from it, she quickly placed her hand on it. She seemed to black out with a bright flash of light that filled the room, but no more than about a millisecond. Casi looked around the room dazed. Other than the weird feeling in her head, everything seemed fine. No fire, no bomb, no nothing. She could only hear the conversation with her mom, trying to explaining how the house blew up. With that though, she could only wish she would blow with the house. It would certainly seem to solve most of her problems.

With her hand still on it, it seemed to be warmer than her own body heat. When she took her hand off, she realized the reason she blacked out was from some kind of shock she got. There was a small red spot, right in the middle of her hand that hurt when she touched it. Surprised she looked up at the crystal really wondering what it was, and what it did to her.

Casi turned around and walked over to her closet while rubbing her hand. She opened the door, and felt around for her extra backpack. She found it and took it down. She opened it up and took out a book, and a few papers that were in it. She walked over to the diamond, carefully picked it up expecting another shock, and slowly placed it into her bag.

As the day went on, Casi couldn’t seem to get her hands on any more money. She figured there was only one way to be able to get the money.

“Grandpa.” She said with a regrettable slight nod of her head. “It’s the best chance I’ve got. He loves me, and if I ask, I’m sure he would lend me the money.” She wasn’t sure why her uncle told her not to go to him for help, but as long as she had the money, which would care.

Right?

Once night had hit the skies for a couple hours, she got her keys off a hook next to her door, and headed out to the garage. There, she grabbed her helmet, and gloves and put them on. The engine roared with a turn of the key. She pushed a button on the bike and the garage door came open. She backed out of the garage, and directly as she made it on the street, she closed the garage, and put down her visor.

Only one time of the day would guarantee her grandpa being home, and that was at night. She would normally choose not to go out at night, but she wanted to know what this thing was. She looked behind her to look for any cars coming, and as soon as one passed to go into a housing circle, she sped down to the end of her street. At the end of the street, there was a stop sign, which she did a rolling stop, and pulled quickly onto the main road that would get her to her grandpa’s house the quickest. She fixed her backpack strap on her shoulder, to keep it from falling off. Than she looked down at her Meladitor Detector, or MD, and saw that the roads were clear of cops for about two miles, and there were no stoplights on the way to worry about. Like usual, she got that from her uncle also for the bike.

She saw his housing development a bit ahead of her. It was still fairly new, and you had to have not only a ton of connections, but even more money to even be considered an applicant for purchasing one. They all had a huge outside look to them, and most of them had a dark grey or brown outside look to the fancy walls. You could choose any kind of landscaping to go in the front of the house, anywhere from desert, to forest, to a mountain look if you wanted it. Casi’s grandpa selected the mountain look. He seemed to love the mountains. He spent his holidays, and vacations there.

Once you picked out what you wanted the outside to look like, the inside was also customizable too. From a safe room, to a giant kitchen, a pool on the second level, or all three if you desired to pay for them.

Casi just made it off the main road onto the road in front of the houses when some kind of new high-tech sports car also started to pull into the same place. She quickly cut him off with a smile. He turned out to be some dumb, but very cute, teenage boy of what looked to be about seventeen. He held his patience nicely, but she didn’t feel even a little bad for him. From the looks of his car, and looks, he was probably just one of those stuck up rich kids.

That’s when she turned back to the front of the road and realized they had just put in a new gate with two guards blocking it. She quickly switched gears, and pulled up next to the sidewalk and set her head on her glove. She laughed embarrassedly to herself, and shook her head.

The car slowly pulled up next to the guards, and the guy said something to them as they emotionlessly looked over at her. They both nodded as she bit her lip. The boy drove in between both the gates and stopped in between them. She looked up at him to see what he was doing. He looked at her, and waved at her to go. She passed slowly this time, and gave him a nod of thanks. Once she had passed him, she laughed at herself again.

She made it around the last corner that led to his house and parked in front of a neighbor’s house because someone had parked in front of her grandpa’s house. She got up off her bike and took off her gloves, which she placed in her helmet, and set it on her seat. Then she took off her bag and placed it down next to her bike on the ground closest to the sidewalk.

Casi always though of her grandpa as being a smart, strong man. Which she should. His hair was nearly all grey, and he looked a bit like the older version of her uncle. He was a lot more athletic than many men his age. In his younger years, he was always at the top of his game. Casi figured that was how he got most of his money. He had a fairly nice car, but not the nicest of the new top models now of days. He spent the greatest deal of his money on his house.

As Casi walked closer to his house, she looked back and saw the boy slowly driving by. She hoped he wouldn’t go and turn her in for reckless driving now that he knew where she was. Even worse, he could do something to her bike. She glared at him as he continued driving. If he did turn her in, it would be the first ticket on her record.

She was just about to knock on the door when she caught the sound of a conversation going on it the house through a slightly cracked window.

“...the only bad thing about it, is its location.” The unknown man said.

“Why? Where is it?” Her grandpa replied.

A short pause. “Well, when it showed up, it was at your granddaughters’ house. It’s been there ever since. I even drove past there this morning, and that only confirmed it.”

There was a long pause before her Grandfather replied to that. “Hmm... that can’t be. My granddaughter’s house?” He paused again. “Go check the tracer again. That couldn’t be, and if it is, then we have no choice to take care of her before taking it away.” He said as Casi started to panic. “By now I am sure she had found it, and has probably already touched it. No matter how awful it is going to hurt, there is no way the Drial Forces will let her go freely. If we do, then they will take care of both her, and us.”

Casi heard the other man walk away from them for a minute. Within the next moment though, which seemed to go by too quickly to do something, she heard running footsteps rushing closer.

“It’s right outside your house!” The unknown, freaky man yelled.

She quickly turned around and ran as fast as she could down the rocky steps. She didn’t even try to start up her bike, she wasn’t thinking, and she figured it would take too long to start. She just kept running and running.

She could not believe what she had heard. He wants to kill me? She thought to herself. As she ran down the extremely long cul-de-sac, she saw a small truck parked out on the street. She turned towards it and hopped in as she heard the front door crash in place onto the doorframe. Although it only took seconds to run from the house to the truck, it felt like ages. The short burst of energy made her lack a bit of her breath. She stayed as close as she could to the truck bed as they ran past her. They suddenly stopped a little past the truck. It grew silent. Her heart should have given out by now with how hard it was beating. She heard slow creeping footsteps itching closer, and they got louder as they made their way closer. She closed her eyes. She hoped this would all end. She hoped she would wake up from this nightmare. When she opened her eyes, there was the weird man staring down at her. A huge loud scream escaped from down inside her out her lungs and right up into that mans face.

The man smiled. “Hello.” He said through all her screaming.

Quickly she bailed out of the truck. She collapsed on the ground when she landed, but she didn’t know if she had ever gotten up and running again in such a short time. She quickly looked back. He was nearly on her now. She yelled around anywhere, “Help! Help!” and continued to run down to the end of the road. She hoped someone would have heard her, but no one came out. She realized she should try to get back to her bike, and started to head back towards that direction. She heard them pull out what sounded like two swords. She quickly looked back and saw the man had two throwing daggers. She ran even faster, and made a huge half circle to her bike to try to avoid becoming a target. Her grandpa tried to chase after her when a flying knife thudded into his chest. Casi screamed again. The knife originally aimed for Casi, thankfully missed her, and hit her grandpa. For the time being, she wasn’t even close to going back to him to see if he needed help, or even going to start to think about missing him. She just kept running.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man make a swift movement, and his second knife flew right past her face. She was too frightened to scream this time. She hesitated, and it took her a while to realize that he was out of things to throw at her. She ran over to the sidewalk, and continued running in a strait path.

Her chest burned. Her legs felt like burning rubber, and she knew if she stopped now, she would get dizzy, and wouldn’t be able to go on. Finally, her legs gave out, and couldn’t keep up with her. Her feet got caught in a crack in the street, and she collapsed face first into the cement. She quickly put her hands out in front of her to save her from knocking herself out.

She tried to get up and keep running, but once she got to her hands and knees, the man kicked her down harshly. Once her face had gotten its share of tar, dirt, and cement the man grabbed her right shoulder, and flipped her onto her back. Her shoulder throbbed in pain. He grabbed at something underneath his coat while sitting on her to keep her from moving, and pulled out a sword. Where he kept getting all these weapons she didn’t know. People don’t even use these things now of days.

She quickly tried to cover as much of her stomach, and head as she could with her free arms, and tried to huddle up into a ball, which wasn’t an easy task, because the man was sitting on her. Once again she covered her eyes, but this time waiting to be sliced open. She felt him move on top of her, and a hard “bang” on her head, and in the next second, she was out cold.

 

“Hey, wake up. Hello, wake up.” The strange voices in her head seemed to shake her whole body. Casi didn’t remember what had happened, or where she was. She was feeling hot, but cold at the same time. She was laying on something hard, and she didn’t know why. Slowly she opened her eyes to the voice. She was focusing her eyes, and looking around when she remembered where she was, and why. She started to panic. She tried to get up to get away, but the man held her down. “Calm down. What’s wrong? What happened?” The man said. She saw the shadow of part of his face from the inside of his cape. She stayed still. At this rate, the man could easily kill her if he wanted to, so there was no need to fight back.

The man did nothing. He just slowly got up with his hand in front of Casi’s face meaning, “It’s okay, stay.” He didn’t even take his eyes off her for a second. Once he was completely up, he flipped his hand over to help her up. Casi only looked up at it like he was crazy.

“It’s alright.” He nodded a slight nod at her, but still did not take his eye off her. She looked up where his eyes would be, and figured if he was going to kill her, he would have done it already. She shook her head a little, and looked back down at his hand while grasping it in hers with all the weak strength in it she had left. He slowly lifted her up, and held her there for a second for her to get her balance.

He lifted his head to her, and although everything was still spinning, and a bit blurry, she was now able to get a good look at this guy’s face. He was fairly young, and cute, and he had the neatest amber eyes Casi had ever seen, and he had a gentle look. That’s when she knew.

“You’re that boy!” She got a quick disgusted look on her face, and quickly released her hands from his. She quickly shook her head, but got dizzy from doing so. She lost her balance, and she would have fallen over if it wasn’t for the boy who kept her upright. She looked away for a second and shook her head more carefully this time, and looked up once again into his amber eyes. “I’m fine, just leave me alone!” She said quickly, not really realizing what she was doing.

            He looked down into her eyes and laughed. “You’re fine? I found you passed out, on the sidewalk of all places, and I come over to help you. After what you did to me I shouldn’t have, but you say you’re fine? That’s not cool!” He paused, and looked over towards her grandpa’s house. “Besides, weren’t you the one who sent off the rocket?” He asked her in a gentle tone which seemed to calm her down a bit. He had a feeling now though, it wasn’t her.

“What rocket?” She knew she didn’t send off any rocket, and she wondered if the strange man had gotten away in one. She remembered what all happened, and turned around. There was a bit of blood on the ground where her grandpa fell but his body was gone, and slightly felt sick. “Wait.” She murmured to herself. She looked over at her backpack, and rushed over to it. It looked just about the same, but instead of being up against the bike, it was on the ground. She picked it up, and realized that it felt a bit lighter than it did earlier. She looked at it confused for a second, and then quickly opened it up. She looked inside at the rolled up newspaper that replaced her crystal.

“Dang it!” She yelled as she threw the backpack on the ground.

“What is it?” He asked as he started to walk over to Casi.

She sighed, and kicked the bag angrily. “They took my diamond, sapphire, crystal thing. I was supposed to bring it to my uncle so he could tell me what the thing was. Then it turned out, that these guys wanted it also, and they were willing to kill me for it.” Casi paused and shook her head. Then she looked at him impatiently. “What are you still doing here?” She asked him rudely.

“A crystal that someone would kill for?” He said quietly to himself, but she was able to get what he said. She gave him an annoyed look. He looked up at her. He threw his hands up in the air. “Fine, I’ll go.” He said getting annoyed himself. He shook his head, pivoted and walked away from her.

Once he had made it all the way around the corner, she heard a noise behind her. At breakneck speed she turned around. Her heart stopped when she saw that same man trying to kill her running up the street towards her. Casi took a deep breath, and tried to turn around and make a run for it. He was right on top of her. He hastily grabbed her hard by the neck. She yelped in pain.

“Sleeping beauty has awakened! Yay, time to play.” He said with an evil looking smile growing on his face. He squeezed her neck harder for a second, then let her go as he threw her roughly onto the ground. Her landing twisted her ankle a bit while she tried to stay standing. She fell back, and let out another scream. She saw him looking at her, and tried to crawl back as fast as she could with a throbbing ankle. He walked over to her, smiled again, and kicked her brutally back down to the ground, her breath knocked out of her chest. The man reached back into his jacket, and pulled out his sword again. Casi, knowing she was finished, looked back where the boy had left, hoping he would be running back to save her, or possibly laughing at her for being so stupid. She noticed he was standing right behind a street pole, not doing either of the above.   

“I’m sorry.” She mouthed to him. The other man raised his sword. Slowly, it seemed, the sword came flying down. Casi closed her eyes, waiting for him to take her life. She heard another sword being pulled out as rapid footsteps came nearer. The sword must have been three feet from her face now. Her heart was pounding harder than it ever had in her life. She felt a little dizzy. The time was now.

Then suddenly, a thunderous “Clang!” pierced through her head, and made her jump. Her eyes flying open. The boy, somehow, had a sword also and was standing blocking her from the man’s sword. She quickly rolled out of reach of the two swords. Once safe, she stared at her rescuer strangely. They studied each other in the eyes. The strange looking man broke the connection first. He wheeled around and flung his sword towards the boy’s neck, but the boy blocked it. He nearly lost his balance at first from the man’s heavy weight under the force of the sword.

The man looked weird, different in a way. When his face was lit by moonlight, or the occasional street light, it looked scary. It was a brownish, blue color. He had on a dark brown leather jacket. His eyes seemed evil, and smaller than the normal eyes. He wasn’t too fast, but he was strong, and he had a lot of force with his hits. His face looked rough, and not just the mean, demonic look. It had a tough leather appearance also, but it wasn’t in any way shiny.

When the boy saw an opening, he kicked the man back with all the force he could possibly manage. The man stared back at him, looking at him like he wanted to rip the kid to pieces. His lips tightly twitched with anger. The boy, oddly enough seemed calm, and he just stared back at the man, studying him.

“What is that guy?” She asked the boy through her fear and anger, not really wanting to say it out loud, it just slipped out.

The boy shifted his weight a bit, but still not taking his eyes off the man. The man savagely looked over at Casi. The boy looked worriedly at Casi for a moment, and then back at the man.

“He’s a Water Tresket!” He yelled to take the man’s attention off Casi, and back over towards himself. He smiled with a happy, evil grin back at the man now known as a Water Tresket. The Tresket turned all his attention back to the boy and turned on him with even more rage than before.

They started in a huge all-out battle, and as much as the boy tried to stop them from getting too close to Casi, they continued to drift closer. As the boy swung at the Tresket, the man blocked, and with full force, he pushed the boy back. He turned around to Casi, and slowly walked towards her. She slowly started to walk backwards in shock. He smiled a little, and let out a quiet laugh. He brought his hands up next to his chest, jumped up, and kicked her right below her neck. She flew backwards, as he landed and caught himself. For about the twentieth time, it felt to her, the breath in her lungs escaped, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe again. She coughed, and though she tasted blood in her mouth. She gasped, her chest stung. She looked up at the boy as he came running over from where he was.

“No!” She heard the scream of the boy under his quick footsteps approached. She sat up on her elbows, and watched as the boy roughly grabbed the man by the back of his jacket, and wheeled him away from Casi with a grunt of his own. The man turned to him, as the boy threw up his sword. He leaped at the man, and made two fast slashes through the man’s body. As the sword flew through the man’s jacket and his body, there was a screeching metal sound as the sword slid past the man’s zipper, and the blood-covered sword went flying away from the man’s body. The man gasped and fell sideways down to his knees, then down to the ground.

While the boy caught his breath, he walked towards Casi. She was frozen with shock. Once he was directly in front of her, he knelt down. “Are you hurt?” He asked, while looking her over for any obvious scratches.

She came to it, and looked from his worried face, to her ankle. “I think I’m fine, but my ankle hurts pretty badly.” She tried to get up. He gently grasped her below her elbow, and helped her up. After she had gotten her balance, they started to head back over to her bike.

“You know,” He paused, “It’s a good thing you didn’t pass out on me, because I wouldn’t know what to do with you if you did.” He said with a kind smile.

“Yeah.” Casi replied with a smile of her own. She wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing when she replied, and stepped down on her hurt foot. She nearly collapsed, but he caught her and brought her back up quickly. Too quickly. Her head got dizzy, and she realized she couldn’t focus correctly. She felt hands go under her, to catch her. Then everything went black.

 

 

 

Author's Note

I'll gladly take any advice you can give!