(Part 1 of 2)
Kaori’s Intro., Part 1
I crouch silently on top of a cinderblock wall that runs between two large empty barns. My left foot,
comfortable in my old black Vans sneakers, is flat on the wall’s top while my right knee and toes touch on it
on my right side. I hold myself steady with my right hand and let my left hand rest lightly on the handle of
my whip, my weapon. The harsh wind whips my black hair around my face and reveals the waxing moon
as it pushes a cloud off its front.
The moon’s light beams down and silhouettes me perfectly on the wall for an instant before I drop
quickly to the ground. Hidden in the shadow of one of the barns, I remove a crumpled print-out of a map
from the pocket of my cargo pants. It’s an arial view printed from Goolge Earth, and I squint at it for a
minute before looking up and comparing to the landscape that I can see in front of me. Large fields of grass
extending for about two miles span in front of me before meeting a range of hills that span seemingly
endlessly to the left and right. I walk around the barn and stop. “Okay, looks like the right place again,” I say
quietly, staring out across the fields. With the barn on my left I turn around and gaze back into the deep
night. In the distance the twinkling lights of a small Montana town are just visible in a dip in the landscape.
They don’t even know, I think to myself, almost bitterly.
All those people, so oblivious. Schoolmates, coworkers, friends... families.
I hold my hand up in front of me, obscuring all the lights.
Gone. With no one left to care.
A memory, unbidden, flashes.
A house. Panicked screams in another room of a boy, someone important, someone I love,
abruptly cut off. A woman lying absolutely still on the floor, her skin covered in little black stars. A man,
pulling me through the house. A house always safe before. Where love and fun flourished and were
cherished. His presence is a slight comfort, but the outrageousness of the night has stunned me, and I
don’t think I have the capacity to feel very comforted by anything. Downstairs. Bang! Falling off the last stair
into the dark celler, gouging my left arm deep on a protruding nail, scraping my knees on the rough cement.
Blood flowing, splattering the floor. I am pulled up, forward. Boxes shoved aside, hastily ducking into a dark
room I hadn’t known existed. The man shoves items this way and that, frantically moving to the back of the
small space. A long thin item falls to the floor. The man picks it up, whirls around.
“Hold this.”
I grab it, grip it for dear life, and wish for this nightmare to end. It doesn’t. A black safe. A hurried
combination entered. A click. The safe’s door is wrenched open. A soft glowing light spills out. Whatever is
giving this light off is seized, held carefully. The man’s eyes meet mine. His face, creepily illuminated by the
green light given off by the object in his hand, holds my gaze.
“Keep it safe.”
A glass sphere is placed in my hands. Inside it two crossed and unmoving gears seem to be giving
off the light.
“Come on, hurry!”
Back into the cellar. Up the steps, not into the house, but outside. One of two doors at the top of
the stairs is slowly opened. The man peers out. Overhead, a full moon shines down on us. My blue eyes
glint in the light as I take the second to look down at the long thin object in my hand. What is this? Braided
leather? A whip? What the heck?
“Quickly, quickly, let’s go!” the man says, startling me out of my thoughts. I warily exit the cellar.
Sprint after the man to the enticing though surely temporarily safe shadow of the shed. Pause. Double
over, breathing hard after the run. Still clutching the glowing glass sphere. And the long, rope-like object,
the leather whip. The man peers around the shed. Behind him, I look out across the yard. No nearby
houses. The woods, a 30-second sprint away across the barren field. Past the driveway where a small
compact car and a sturdy pickup truck sit next to the woodpile. The safety of the trees beckons.
“Ready to go?” the man quietly asks.
I can only nod.
“On my signal.” The man takes a deep breath. “One, two, now!”
We bolt from the shadow out across the field that doubles as the lawn. Get 1/3 of the way to the
woods. Tripping, falling. The glass sphere flung to the right, landing next to the cars. The man hurries back
to help me up. Blood that had run down my injured arm gets on his hands. I start again towards the trees,
only to be pulled roughly in the direction of the cars. “We need that.” Yanked, stumbling, to the fallen glass
sphere. Pick it up, safe in his hands. Turn around.
Stop.
Cold.
Because what nightmare isn’t complete without monsters? Around the side of the house. Huge,
grey, hulking floating monsters. Black and white horns protruding from grotesque faces. Guns pointing in all
angles from the bulk of their bodies. Guns suddenly leveled at me. Guns shooting pink lights. Bullets? My
arm and knees throb. The lights come closer. So pretty. So mesmerizing. So quiet. So close.
“Kaori!!!”
Shouting, loud sounds, break through my trance. Shooting from somewhere close. What? The man
slamming into me from the side. Propelling me away from the car, landing several feet away, just as the
bullets hit where I just was, just as the car explodes.
Fire. Caught on the woodpile. Caught on the grass. Caught on the man’s coat as he shielded me.
He rips it off, throws it down.
“Run.” A tense word.
Sprinting for the trees. The dry grass quickly catching on fire all around us. Lighting, burning,
burning, burning. Orange flames consume the grass, aid the monsters in chasing us across the field. The
pink light-bullets just keep barely missing us. The dark woods seem forever-away.
Run, run, run. Panting, breaths ragged. Almost there. Almost away from here. Almost to safety. We
almost made it. Almost.
I lean against the Montana barn, remembering in exact, excruciating detail. I remember in slow
motion, and tears prick behind my orange eyes, never spilling onto my cheeks.
We were several yards away from the underbrush of the woods when it happened. The monsters
finally found one of their marks. The man was hit in the back. He stumbled, fell.
“NO!!”
Black stars formed rapidly on his skin.
“Take this, protect it.”
With shaking hands, he handed me the glowing glass sphere. His eyes began to shut.
“Dad! Daddy! No you can’t die, get up, get up now!”
“I believe in you, and...” he met my gaze, took a shuddering breath.
“I love you. Always.” were his last words.
And his eyes closed.
I froze in shock for a long moment. The flames danced on the grass around me, closing in on the
kill, the monsters in pursuit. In the back of my mind, I knew that I should be sprinting that last gap to the
woods. But I stood stock-still. The smoke filled my out-of-breath lungs, and I began to cough hoarsely, but
still I stood, as if rooted to the ground. Holding the glowing glass sphere and the whip, my long black bangs
falling into my eyes. Who knows how long I would have stood there, but then the pink light-bullets hit the
ground at my feet.
I leaped backwards, then jumped sideways in order to avoid the ever-growing fire. I turned and
stumbled towards the woods. I coughed harshly again and picked up the pace, jogging. And then, I tripped.
And my world, as much as it had been abruptly changed in the last hour, was uprooted forever, and there
was no going back.
It seemed to happen in slow motion, defying the laws of time and space. I tripped on a root sticking
out of the ground at the edge of the field and fell at an angle, straight towards the ever-reaching fire.
“No!” I shouted into the night, or maybe in my head, or maybe not at all.
I raised my arms, in a weak attempt to shield my face from the flames. My sweaty hands held the
two objects. I was about to come into harsh contact with the ground, when my grip on the glowing glass
sphere slipped. I tried to catch it, but it was not to be. The capsule dropped to the burning ground, lying
against the whip that I still held.
I’m going to die.
I fell hard onto the lit grass, and the left side of my face slammed into the glass capsule, shattering
it. The pain was instantaneously so intense, I know I screamed. I felt like I was burning everywhere as the
flames ate my clothes and skin. Worst of all was the left side of my face. I was totally blinded from the
orange light that filled up my entire field of vision when the glass shattered. My eyes and bangs were
searing with heat. My heart beat wildly and my left hand felt as if it was being fused to the whip it held. My
whole body felt like it was burning, on fire, incinerating.
I’m dying. I’m burning to death.
Unbeknownst to me, as I lay in the field, an amazing transformation took place. The glowing gears
inside the glass capsule sank into the whip under the weight of my body, accompanied by a bright orange
flash. Fire along the length of the whip slid quickly along it’s length, sinking into the leather at the handle.
Soon, fire from around the field arched in thin strips to enter the whip and my body, leaving me physically
unburnt and obscuring me from the monster’s views. The movement of the fire continued and it’s speed
increased until it had all entered my body, leaving nothing but a blackened, smoldering field in it’s wake.
Time flowed by, like it always does and always will, and I remember opening my eyes. I lay still on
the ground, disoriented and confused. Bright orange spots flashed in the edges of my vision as I struggled
to sit up. I remember looking down, and the first thing I saw was the shattered glass sphere. The sight of it
caused a huge weight to slam onto my shoulders.
No! No!! He left this for me to protect, the last thing he ever asked me to do, and I’ve broken it!
Tears gathered in my eyes. It wasn’t until then that I noticed my left hand, holding the whip, was covered in
flame.
“Whoa!” I dropped the whip immediately and shook my hand in an attempt to oust the fire. But it
didn’t really go out, and after the first second of initial panic, I discovered that the fire wasn’t burning me. In
fact, quite oppositely, it felt warm and comforting as it burned softly in my palm and weaved around my
fingers in a peculiar way: twisting and turning instead of burning straight. I looked at the dropped whip and
saw thin tendrils of flame winding around it in a similar manner. The longer I looked at it, the more the
intense the desire inside me to pick it up increased.
So I did. The handle fit perfectly into my hand, and the fire on my skin merged with the fire on the
whip. When the two connected, I felt what I can only describe as a surge of energy jolt through my entire
body, and I looked around the field with renewed determination.
The sight that met my eyes made me gasp.
The fire... where did it all go?
The smoldering grass and charred woodpile lay silent, unyielding with any answer they could
possibly supply.
“The monsters, they’re gone too.”
I took one last look at my house before turning towards the woods, where I could stay safe in the
undercover and in high branches, and plan what to do next.
As I turned fully around, my eyes widened and my breath caught in my throat, and I remember that
I threw myself sideways just in time to avoid the pink light-bullets that were flying towards my head. I was
face-to-face with the two monsters for a second, before my left arm seemed to act almost on its own. I
raised my whip and heard myself say “level one, Spark Runner, activate,” in a clear voice. The strange
energy that I had felt before surged again, and this time I recognized that it came from the whip, as bright
yellow and orange sparks ignited along its length. I drew my arm back and quickly moved it forward,
snapping the whip across the side of the nearest monster, spreading sparks across it’s hulking body. The
sparks caught and started burning as I lashed out twice more, hitting the other monster with the same
attack. The monsters were stunned for a moment as the fires started to consume their bodies. A second
later though, their guns were leveled at me again, pink light charging in the barrels. I had backed more into
the field, but they simply left the shadows at edge of the woods and advanced on me.
What do I do, what do I do; this isn’t enough power to beat them.
Sweat dripped down my face and soaked into my dark T-shirt as my eyes darted from left to right,
looking for help, for a way out, for any possible advantage. Just before the light-bullets released, I heard
myself speak again.
“Level one, Flame Surge, activate.”
Orange flames blossomed along the length of the whip, burning in full force, but incredibly not
harming me at all. I grasped the handle tightly and began to rapidly spin it in a circle in front of me. The
spinning fire blurred together forming a disk as I spun the whip, just as the monsters released their bullets.
They hit the shield, but didn’t come through to hit me. I immediately stopped spinning and lashed
out again and again at the now-burning monsters. The whip sliced through the guns and tore at their sides
until their huge grey bulk shattered into indistinguishable pieces. Two blue lights streaking up to the sky
and were gone.
I heard myself utter the strange words, at least to me at the time, “Deactivate, all fire terminate”.
The flames went out, and I sunk to the ground, bent knees facing forward in the center of the field, and
almost in a sense of shock, cried. Cried for my brother, my mother, my father, dead because of the horribly
strange monsters. Cried because I knew my old life was gone forever. I cried until no more tears came.
Then I vowed that none would come, ever again.
Kaori’s Into., Part 1 - End-
~~
Yeah so that's by my friend who does not have an account on here! It's her character's intro~ Hope you all liked it
superawesomenessimeancomeonseriously
I will add the second part when she sends it to me! :D
