by T. E. Joshua
“Let’s get some sleep,” I said as I walked into the backroom and laid my head down. No one followed me, not even Alope.
The next day, I awoke around noon and traveled black to the Blackfalls campus. There I waited outside of my car and posed as a normal student. For nearly an hour, I glanced around, hoping the Awakened Reborn would walk past me. Then again, the fearful part of me wished not to see her. Maybe it was the fear of another sure defeat.
“Come on … Tristan,” I whispered. “She’s just a girl, a nonthreatening girl.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. Without thought, I turned quickly and prepared to defend myself. Was it her?
“It’s just me, Tris,” said a girly voice. I halted my fist from punching and recognized the image of the one girl whom I trusted: Alope Manwolf. There she was, as pretty as ever, having appeared out of nowhere. I hadn’t sensed her approaching me.
“Alope Manwolf, don’t ever do that again!” I exclaimed.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but I found her.”
“You found her? Where is she?” I questioned vehemently.
“Well, Liyah and I went to the mall but found nothing. She left early to meet up with Aaron and I stayed behind. Sometime later, Natalie showed up with some friends. They’re handing out flyers in the Castleton Park Mall just north of here.”
The Castleton Park Mall, that’s in public. We can’t attack her in the open, especially with her friends surrounding her. There definitely would be casualties if we did. What other choice did I have?
“Tristan!” Alope said loudly, growing a bit impatient.
“Okay, let’s go check it out. We’ll remain in the shadows of the public—I don’t want her to see me. There is a small chance that she might still recognize my face.”
“Should we tell the others?”
“No, if anything we can follow her from the mall and study her more,” I said.
Alope and I got into my car and drove north. The mall was close to campus. We entered the mall from the south entrance.
“Where did you see her?”
“This way,” Alope instructed. We walked into the center with a gigantic fountain with crystal clear water dripping from two turtle dove statues. A small crowd had gathered in the middle, and there among the masses was Natalie. Her scent traveled throughout the center of the mall, yet Alope and I were the only ones who could smell it. It started to drive us mad; it was hard to control my inner rage. But I did, for now.
“Over there,” Alope pointed out. We hid behind a clothing kiosk and watched her for the next five minutes. Luckily, she hadn’t looked our direction.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Looks like she is handing out some pieces of paper, promoting something?” Alope wondered aloud. She began to peek closer, walking into Natalie’s line of vision. The Awakened Reborn had nothing to fear; besides, Alope was unknown to her.
Suddenly, my body began to boil from within. Oh no! There it was—my innate hatred had begun to rise. I could smell the intense fragrance of perfume around me. My spiteful feelings toward her rose. Nothing but superficial emotions roamed about my heart. I felt cold, and then I realized that I hated her more than ever. I had no reason to dislike someone I didn’t know, but she was my hunt, and that was all the reason I needed.
Alope nudged me in the stomach. “Tristan, I can feel your dark energy rising. What’s wrong?”
“Her presence angers me,” I muttered lowly.
Then a voice spoke to me. It wasn’t loud, just a low, deep, violent tone repeating, “Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.”
It was the voice of the demons, the dark spirits who granted us our paranormal powers.
Rarely would they interfere with our affairs—only in certain situations, this apparently being one of them. Since the Reborn wasn’t normal but Awakened, they sought to raise my energy level past the maximum required. This was useful, but each time they supplied us with additional energy, we would lose a bit of ourselves by becoming possessed. Essentially, we went from maximizing our dark energy and began to use our demon energy, also known as dema. It was dangerous but rarely necessary.
“Tristan, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“My—dema—is—rising,” I stuttered vehemently.
The dark rage within boiled inside me as I began to breathe heavily, my eyes on the floor. The kiosk woman walked over to see if I was okay. Alope leaned over and patted me on the back. I spat up saliva. It dribbled onto the white tiles. I felt sick, sicker than I ever had before.
“Shut your mouth!” I snarled. The kiosk woman backed away, and Alope then realized what was going on with me.
“Tristan, relax. Calm yourself. Think of something else.”
“Does he need help?” the kiosk woman asked Alope.
“No, he’s just a bit sick,” she lied.
The rage kicked in, but I had to relax. It was only the beginning stages of the five pillars of awakening. First our eyes shifted, and then our skin boiled, our teeth sharpened, veins popped out of our skin, our muscle mass increased, and our tone of voice became raspier. For me, I had never practiced using my demon powers, not once. The Spirit Whispers forbid younger and inexperienced warriors to use their demon energy lest we awakened into a more sinister monster.
I continued to breathe heavily with Alope’s arm around my neck. If there was one thing I lacked with my powers, it was control of the dark spirits.
Then, suddenly, the Reborn’s fragrance, looks, eyes, pale skin, and kindhearted soul got the best of me. All I could think about was harming her, possibly blasting her with an energy wave or a wave of fire. My innate hatred for her overtook my will, and my helplessness was evident. Alope continued to speak to me, but I couldn’t hear the words; my mind was focused upon Natalie, the Awakened One.
“Kill her!” a raspy voice demanded. The order echoed in my mind. It was a dark spirit named Ravinski, the same entity who had granted me my powers from the Covenant.
“Tristan, what’s wrong?” Alope asked as I tried to calm down.
“I can’t help myself. The aroma was so seductive to think about. The dark spirits are begging me to slaughter the Awakened Reborn,” I uttered.
“Now isn’t the time to act. We need the others to take her down,” Alope whispered into my ear. “I care about you. You have control over the dark spirits. They will to us; we don’t will to them. Take control.”
Then suddenly, as fast as the demon had arisen within me, it was gone. My blood stopped boiling with hatred, and I was calm once again. I felt my eyes return to normal, the blurriness having vanished. If I had to guess, I would say I had reached the second pillar of awakening. Honestly, I had never gone past the first pillar, the shifting of the eyes.
“Better?”
“Yes, much better. Thanks, Alope.” The kiosk woman, still a bit scared, was on the phone with mall security.
“Ma’am, my friend is all right. You don’t have to call for help,” Alope said softly to the kiosk woman. She put the phone down.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I shouted. The kiosk woman jolted from my loud voice.
“I think we should go. We can get James, Liyah, or Aaron to follow her. I don’t you to awaken and begin to murder random people.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”
Alope wrapped her arm around my waist. We had taken no more than three steps before I heard the voice of someone else. I glanced back. A large boy stood close to Natalie and another group of guys joined him. He looked like a pretty good-size young man, weighing well over 250 pounds.
“What’s wrong now?” Alope asked.
“Wait, who’s the guy?”
“It looks like some pigheaded jerk talking to her, nothing important.”
Then we
began to take a few more steps. Once again, I halted. The tone of the guy’s voice was barbaric and idiotic. I didn’t want to leave just yet. I looked back again, and this time he stepped closer to Natalie.
“Now what?”
“Wait! Something’s up!” I said coldly.
The boy had five other guys with him, mostly about the same size. I zoned in onto their conversation as I started to walk back into Natalie’s direction.
I heard the Awakened Reborn tell the boy, “Leave us alone. Go away before we call mall security.”
Alope whispered, “Tristan, are you—”
“Shush,” I interrupted her, placing my index finger over her soft lips.
The boy seemed to be hitting on Natalie. Either way I disliked his aggressive actions. At the moment, he boiled my blood—but not for Natalie’s sake, for my own. She was my territory, where I could do as I pleased. The boy, who looked older than me, struck a mad nerve. I couldn’t explain it—not that I necessarily wanted to reevaluate my intentions. All I knew was that he must be dealt with by my hand.
By now, spectators had stopped to watch this boy harass Natalie Schultz with his words of perversion. I overheard her friends telling him to back off and leave, but he refused. His lackeys pushed another boy back while he moved in on Natalie. She yelled back at him, “Jake, leave me alone! For the last time, I don’t want to go out with you. You’re disgusting.”
His name was Jake. He needed to be taught a lesson of territory. She was mine.
“Listen, Natalie, I just think that since you’ve never been with a real man, I could be your first. Trust me, you won’t regret it,” he insisted as his friends started laughing and making inappropriate sounds and hand gestures.
Not too long after that, another boy ran up to Jake. He was shorter than I was and looked timid. He demanded that he and his friends leave Natalie and her friends alone.
“Who is this guy?” Jake said to Natalie.
The boy replied, “You need to leave right now before things get ugly.”
Natalie grabbed the boy’s shoulder and uttered, “Seth, just leave. I don’t want you to get hurt. I can take care of myself.”
“Move,” Jake hollered. He shoved Seth aside. Seth fell into nearby grayish plastic table, spilling condiments all over the white marble mall floor. The boy known as Seth struggled to get back up; he appeared to be hurt.
“This boy needs to be killed,” I uttered coldly. At once, I glared into Alope’s eyes and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t take much more of this. I have to do something. She belongs to me.”
Alope stared me down, face-to-face. She shoved me back a few inches. “You aren’t going to help her.”
Alope was right. I couldn’t defy the Covenant or the hunt. But there Natalie was, in need of someone to help her. Was I wrong? I didn’t think so. Either way, by the end of our encounter, her head would be mine.
“She might recognize you, Tristan. Let’s leave,” she said. Alope wrapped her arm around my neck, kissed it, and whispered, “Please, we can hunt her later. We accomplished what we came here to do. Leave it be.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
Then I heard Jake speak again. “Natalie—so I hear you got yourself a new stalker in town.” I froze. Alope glared at me but I listened intently. “Listen, Natalie, I can protect you from this stalker. He sounds like a creep to me, probably a pervert. He made headline news when he broke into your house and tried to rape you.”
Then I saw Natalie roll her eyes, cross her arms, and begin to walk away from Jake. He grabbed her arm and pulled her small body back toward him and sneered, “Stop running from me. When are you going to get it through your thick head? You—are—my—girl.”
Natalie wasn’t his girl, she was mine!
“That’s it,” I lashed out.
“No! Don’t!” Alope pleaded.
Quickly, I vanished from Alope and appeared directly behind this Jake character. My speed was unbelievably fast and no one saw me move, not even Alope. “Is there a problem here?” I asked in a deep voice.
He quickly turned around, his eyes bulging. “No problem here, officer …” he slurred, pausing suddenly when he realized that I wasn’t a security guard or a police officer. “You’re not mall security. Get lost.” Then he turned back around, completely ignoring me.
“I would run if I were you.”
“I told you to leave,” he said, his voice rising.
As soon as he finished speaking, the demon within me instantly rose to speak. The dark spirit refused to be taken lightly. I felt my eyes flare as my body began to boil; I couldn’t stop it. I unleashed a small dosage of my dema, shifting my pupils into catlike slits with the first pillar of awakening.
“Run,” I muttered. Jake and his lackeys laughed as I squinted my eyes in hopes that no one had seen my eyes shift colors and shape.
“Now!” I commanded. Natalie had taken several steps back. I quickly glanced at her. Judging from her shocked reaction, I believed she knew I was the one who had broken into her house.
Instantly, I balled my fist, and his lackeys stepped in to fight me. Jake was about to throw a punch or at least attempt to.
“You dark-haired punk, you just crossed the line.” He scowled. Then his eyes widened; I knew he had seen the monster within. I could feel the fear rushing out of his flesh. The demons fed off of negative emotions. “Your eyes,” he said softly.
As anticipated, one of them placed his arm around my neck, trying to push me onto the marble floor. He couldn’t move me; the dark energy floating through my body kept me strong as a statue, almost like concrete.
“What the heck?” the other lackey asked.
“I warned you,” I said hoarsely.
I elbowed the guy behind me with brutal force; he flew back, crashing into the concrete wall along an unused department store. Another guy tried to jump kick me in the head. He sadly missed; I grabbed his leg in midair and tossed him into a nearby table. Like Seth, he crumbled underneath a pile of fallen chairs. The third guy threw a punch toward my stomach, and I quickly moved out of the way; he ended up hitting the fourth guy, who had been trying to clobber me from behind. He knocked his friend out cold. The third guy fell to the ground as I pushed my foot onto his head. Jake then tried to punch me head-on. I didn’t move. I allowed the attack to happen because of my incredible amounts of energy.
Whack! I heard his knuckle bones crack as he cried out in pain. “Ouch!” His hand was broken, and he grabbed his wrist with the other hand to comfort it.
Then I grabbed the fifth guy by the shirt and pushed him into Jake, both of whom ended up falling through the glass windows of a nearby clothing store. The glass shattered into thousands of pieces, falling heavily onto the white marble floors and sliding in all directions. Pieces of the glass stuck in Jake’s thick, gelled hair.
Meanwhile, the spectators sprinted for cover, and others ran off to get mall security. One of the lackeys had passed out, but Jake stumbled to his feet. His face was cut up and lines of blood flowed down it, dripping onto the floor. The look in his eye gave me the impression that he wasn’t about to throw in the towel.
“You stupid son of a—” he yelled angrily with one eye open. The other eye was bloody, probably from the contact with the shattering glass windows. Jake turned desperate and pulled a hunting knife from his pocket as he attempted to charge me. I ran behind him with rapid speed, like a phantom. He stood there and asked himself, “Where did he go?”
“Behind you,” the demon said.
All the while, I pulled out my lighter and lit a small flame. As he tried to stab me, I shot a wave of fire in his direction, blowing his entire body back across the long mall hallway and into a stone wall. He hit his head as the blistering flames lightly burned his tan skin. He seemed to be unconscious. The flames vanished as I put away my lighter. Before I knew it, everyone around me
had hid behind tables, walls, and even the fountain, seeking protection from my wrath of dark energy.
I finally calmed down as Alope Manwolf stood in awe and wonder. Red-faced and flabbergasted, she yelled, “Let’s go—now!” I didn’t hesitate one bit. The two of us ran toward the nearest exit. As we sprinted, I didn’t see Natalie Schultz. She must have escaped the area, I thought.
Alope wildly shoved the emergency exit door open. We ran down the Castleton Park Mall backroom hallway and came across the red exit door that led to the outside. I didn’t have time to push it open; instead, I blew the door open with an energy wave. The rays of light pierced the thin bleach door and exploded into the street.
We leapt out from the walls of flames and into the parking lot. I noticed five or six police cars in the distance. Luckily, they were parked; if they hadn’t been, then I was afraid I would have to blow the pursuing police cars into pieces of burnt metal.
An amplified voice called out in the distance. “Hold it right there,” an officer commanded through a megaphone. Soon two more officers appeared from behind a few cars and withdrew their pistols.
Alope and I looked at each other; we knew. Instantly, we both turned around and dashed away. I noticed two more officers running toward us, and one of them opened fire. Gunshots went off as we ran through the parking lot and in between cars.
I saw the highway about hundred yards from us; I knew we could lose them if we jumped the freeway and vanished into the mask of the dark woods.
“Head for the woods,” I ordered.
As the officers scrambled around us, I darted into oncoming traffic at dangerous speeds. My body was accompanied by a red aura of light as the officers fired their pistols at me. Alope followed, a purple aura surrounding her.
We leapt over the highway with a trail of smoky light fading behind us—the trademark of the dark spirits. We landed on the opposite side and continued east, disappearing into the Blackfalls woods.
6
The Blackfalls Woods
SIRENS ECHOED INTO THE WILD depths of the woods, which were crowded with clusters of thick trees and razor-sharp thickets of thorns. The thick, nasty, tall grass masked our physical presence. The wooded area was deserted and a perfect place to hide out. As I dodged bushes and fallen logs, Alope ran past me. After only a few minutes, we lost the police. We both began to slow down; Alope went from running to walking.
