Halflings: Book 1: Journey
Chapter 1

It all started on a Monday. I remember it was a Monday, because I always had trouble getting out of bed on Monday mornings.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Yelled my alarm clock loudly, waking me out of my wonderful sleep.

I groaned and hit the snooze button. I fell back asleep for awhile, and then my alarm clock beeped again, more loudly.  

I looked at the clock screen, where the glowing green numbers said 7:40

‘Damnit’ I thought to myself.  I had five minutes to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and catch the bus.

I still didn’t want to get up, because it was November, and cold. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice. It would be colder to have to walk to school.  I braced myself, and rolled sideways, toppling off the bed and hitting the floor with an audible thunk.

Groaning, I got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I took the stairs two at a time and practically ran down the hall to the kitchen.

I checked my cell phone’s clock, and noticed I now had only three minutes. I grabbed my backpack, and bolted out the door. I forgot to lock it, but that didn’t matter, Dad would be back in a minute.

I got to the front of the neighborhood just as the bus did, and when the driver opened the door, I was panting.

“Cutting it a little close today, eh?” he said in a Canadian accent.

I nodded, still taking in great lungfuls of air.

“I never understood why alarm clocks had snooze buttons.” The bus driver said, disengaging the parking break and entering traffic.

“Yeah.” I said, wondering vaguely how he knew why I was almost late.

I stared out of the window as the bus moved closer to Laelow High. It was colder than normal this year. Frost flecked the window, and the grass outside was speckled with ice.

Several minutes later, I arrived at school, and headed to my first period. Which was math class.

I hated math class. And my annoying teacher didn’t help. The only reason I was passing was because he gave credit for trying. He never helped anyone learn. It was just like 'here have a seat now do these problems'. Of course, ‘these problems’ were usually a group of problems from what my adoptive mother assumed was calculus.

Despite this, I was happy because I was going to my friend Greg’s house to play a new first person shooter video game. Essentially, I breezed through classes, barely paying attention, and got on a different bus, and went home with Greg.

We spent a few hours playing the video game, and then Greg’s home phone rang.

“It’s your Mom!” called Greg, from the other room.

“Do I have to go?” I called back

“Does he have to go?” Greg said to the phone.

“Yep.” He said.

I leaned back on the couch with a sigh.

“We can drive you.” Said Greg’s mother.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t live far.” I lied. “See ya Greg!”

“Bye!” yelled Greg from the television.

I shut the door behind me, and shivered in the cool air for a moment, before heading off at a brisque pace towards my house. I made a few detours, like to get coffee at Starbucks, and to browse through some pocket knives at a hardware store.

After those stops, I walked at a slower pace, flicking the blade of my new pocket knife out, and then closing it, only to open it again. About halfway between the hardware store and my house, I heard a twig snap approximately twenty feet behind me. I’d always had sharp hearing, so much so that once I had heard the number of times Greg twisted the number lock on his locker at school. I knew the combination by ear.

I spun around, feeling quite lucky that I had purchased a pocket knife. There was no one behind me. Just my shadow and the shadows of the trees.

I looked up at the sky, it was almost black. The moon was full, and like all nights when the moon was full, I felt strangely alive. Well, more alive than normal.

Anyway, I turned back, and continued walking, and taking a sip of my coffee. After about thirty paces, I heard another twig snap. I spun around again to see nothing.

I continued walking. When I reached the front of my neighborhood, I heard a series of snapping twigs and crunching leaves.

I spun around much faster this time, and saw a blur of movement as a group animals or people, I wasn’t quite sure which, hid in the cover of the trees.

I threw my coffee cup towards where I saw on of them go, and it splattered all over the tree. Something gave a loud yowl of pain, and I saw a pair of glowing red eyes for a moment.   

I drew the pocket knife, and after a moments hesitation, I sent it hurtling into the tree, to land point first into where the red eyes I had seen were. There was a loud sound of pain, and I looked carefully, and eight things stepped out of the trees.

They were immense, at least ten feet tall, with glowing red eyes, and demonic smiles.

Their bodies were covered in what looked like ink, and I felt a pit of fear in my stomach.

One of the things, pulled my pocket knife out of its eye, and stabbed it into the tree behind it.

I ran for it, sprinting down the road as fast as I could, hoping the things weren’t following. I made it to my house, and saw my mother in the door.
She pulled me inside, and I fainted.

When I woke up, I was in my bed, and my mother was walking in.  When she noticed I was awake she said

“What were you thinking walking home while it was raining?”

I blinked in confusion. It hadn’t been raining. What was she talking about?

“It wasn’t raining.” I said. “And, you’ll never believe what happened! I was attacked by these weird things! They were like moving shadows!”

My mother looked surprised for a moment. Then, she looked very concerned. She put her hand on my forehead.

“You have a fever, you’re imagining things.”

I felt angry.

“I am not imagining things!” I snapped. “I threw my pocket knife at it, and one of the things stuck it into a tree!”

My mother just looked at me like I had totally lost it. She told me to get some rest, and then left the room.

A few days later, after the weekend was over, I was waiting for the bus to school. I checked my watch, the bus was late.

I accidentally dropped my keys. Walking backwards, I picked them up. Then, I stumbled and fell backwards into the trees.

Looking up, I saw the tree that the shadow creature had been hiding in. There, in the middle of the tree trunk was a deep puncture mark. My pocket knife however wasn’t there.

Weeks passed, and the monsters and uncontrollable feeling that I was been watched eventually faded to the back of my mind.

It was the last day of school before winter break when everything changed. And school was almost out for today. Just one class left, Language Arts. This happened to be my favorite class, which was taught by my favorite teacher.

“Alright class, it’s the last day of school” said Mrs. Taylor, standing in the front of the room.
The class cheered loudly.

“We also have…..ICE CREAM!” she yelled.

    The rest of class was a blur to me, I remember vague things, such as participating in a spit ball war (I think my team lost), and telling several girls to stop playing with my hair, but otherwise, I lost track of everything.

Then the bell rang and I got out of my desk and left the room.

As we left the class my friend Greg invited me to a pizza party after school.

I caught the bus and sat in the back, listening to my Mp3 player for the ten minutes until I got home.

When I got there I noticed the Christmas tree was up, and all the presents were unwrapped under it.  This was because ever since I was able to walk more than eight feet, I have had the ability to find wrapping paper wherever it hid.  

There was a Gibson Les Paul under the tree resting on a guitar stand.

“Oh look you’ve found the presents.” My mother’s voice said dryly from behind me. My mother was in her forties and had light brown hair and dark blue eyes.

“Again?” said my dad from behind the tree, in mock surprise. He was also about forty, and had brown hair and brown eyes.

Unlike my father, I had dark hair, a shade lighter than black and grayish blue eyes.

“Thanks for the guitar.” I said, half joking, half serious.

I told them about the pizza party at Greg’s and my mom decided to drive me there. I ran the doorbell and Greg’s father opened the door and I walked into the hall.

“Hi, Mr.Loor”

“Good afternoon Brandon” he said.

Mr. Loor was a very formal man in his early forties. He had a salt and pepper beard that seemed to change every time I saw him. As for formalities, He didn't mind if you said "hi” to him, but he would never say anything but 'hello' or 'good afternoon' to anyone else.
      
"Hey Brandon!” my friend Greg said, as I walked into the room. He handed me a slice of pizza.

“What’s up?” I replied, sitting down on the sofa.

“You’re the first one here.” He said
  
“Who else is coming?”

“Oh just Ali, Cole, Rob, Alice, and Mallory”

“Oh please tell me you didn’t.” I said.

Greg nodded.

“Not Mallory…” I complained. See, Mallory attacked me on a regular basis. Usually, these incidents ended in me having a black eye.

“Yeah.” He said looking down.

I put my hand to my face in despair. “You’re paying the hospital bill.” I said, insanely angry.

Loud talking came from the hall way. The door bell rang and five people walked in. I enjoyed the party mostly. Until Mallory began to hit me with large pieces of cardboard, paper, food, and everything else she could get her hands on, at me. Everyone snickered. Apparently, no one noticed that I didn’t find it as amusing as they did.
     
I was angry. Really angry. And the world tinted blue….

Then, I didn’t know how it happened. Suddenly, Mallory was flying backwards, as though propelled by some invisible force. She hit the wall behind her and slumped forward, smoking trailing off her.

My eyesight had gone normal the instant she hit the wall, and I noticed that the floor had a large slash in it leading straight to where Mallory had landed. Everyone was staring at me. I could see the fear in their eyes as if they had said ‘what kind of freak is this guy?’

I ran like hell out of there.

I ran to my house (which was a long run, almost 5 miles) and opened the door. I checked the whole house, but no one was home.

I got on my computer. On Google, I typed in “anger, destruction, accidental, help”

Surprisingly, there were only two results. One was an ad for an old vacuum. The other said Department of Mythological Sciences. I clicked the later.

The background was a plain white and the text was underlined

it read:

Vampires

Vampires are described as mythological or folkloric creatures. Usually described as fearsome or evil. Vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures. Some cultures say that they are immortal others attribute them with extremely long life. Multiple myths propose they die in sunlight, and have extreme allergic reactions to garlic. However, multiple other tales of Vampires claim they do not suffer from either affliction. Several accounts claim that vampires are a race of powerful elemental beings, specifically of the wind and sky.

Though the article was much longer than that I skipped most of it and then read the related links

Related Articles:

Dragons
Werewolves
Naiads
Angels
Wizards
Seers
The Sight
Demons

I walked to my room and waited for my parents to get home. I was only dimly aware that everything in my room was hovering a foot off the ground.  I landed on my bed in a heap, and closed my eyes, and waited.