Chapter 1
October 14th, 2010
The suburb of Grand Forest seems to be shining thanks to the evening rain. Despite the name, Grand Forest is actually a middle class suburb located not far from the city of Denver. The town is fairly large in size, with its own Courthouse, Library, and Public Schools. Apart from the ordinary, Grand Forest has a mall, snowboarding school, and wilderness resort.
Grand Forest also includes its own local amusement park where families have spent generations having fun. Ferris wheels, Carousels, and many other attractions are included inside Paradise Plaza. It attracts many families and teenagers every day. For almost twelve hours the staff works nonstop to keep all the attendees happy. After a long day of fun, the families start crowding out from the amusement park gates. Meanwhile the staff files out from the back entrance towards the employee parking. One of the teenagers leaving work pulls out a cell phone from his coat
pocket and makes a call.
The caller sits down on a nearby bench as he waits for the phone to be answered, “Come on Eden, don’t tell me you lost your phone again.” The guy thinks to himself. Almost a minute passes before he decides to call again later. Right before he can end the call a voice calls out from the phone “Travis?”
Travis smirks and brings the phone to his ear, “You are really lucky, I was just about to hang up.” He laughed to himself.
“I’m sorry Travis, I couldn’t find my phone again.” Eden replied
“Hah, well where was it?” Travis said as he pulled off his work cap. His shaggy brown hair falling down just above his eyes.
“I left it in the kitchen” She said embarrassingly. “It was my mom who brought it up for me. I hate that I always tend to leave things everywhere. But anyways how was work?”
“It was okay. Had some little girl ask me where the bathroom was, and then she decided to throw up on my shoes.”
“Awhhh that sucks!” She exclaimed. “And on your birthday too.”
”My night didn’t go so badly after that though. Garret and Shawn decided to tell everyone it was my birthday. So I got some bonus money from my boss, plus a cake from the crew.” Travis said.
“That’s awesome.” She said. Travis could just imagine her smiling in a way that he loved. “How did it taste?” Eden added.
“I didn’t really taste it much though.”
“Why not?” She said curiously.
“After we all got our pieces Shawn decided to smash his piece into my face, followed by a full on cake fight.” Travis chuckled as he thinks of pieces of cake on the ceiling.
“Haha and I was going to ask if there was any pieces leftover.” She said disappointingly.
“Actually I think there’s still some cake in my hair” Travis said, Picking at the yellow frosting in his bangs.
The lights from the park were being shut off. Mainly everyone had gone home now. Only Travis and the janitors were left inside the park grounds. “Well then get your butt over here silly, I will help you wash it out.”
“Are you sure I can come over? It’s almost eleven. I don’t want you to get in trouble” He says, getting up and walking to his car.
“The house is empty and my parents are out again so it’s fine for you to come over”
“Alright then, I’ll be there soon. Love you” He said happily.
“And I love you. Now hurry up because I’m freezing and we both know you are warmer than any heater. And oh yeah, Happy birthday” Eden Said with a warm tone.
“Thanks love. See you soon” Travis says as he pulls out of the parking lot. He hangs up the phone and thinks to himself how his life is going great. He also thinks of how much he doesn’t want it to change. “Happy seventeenth birthday” Travis says to himself.
~~~~
Meanwhile, a hooded man steps into an open white room. He glances towards the middle of the room where there is a table and two seats. One of them is occupied by a man with emerald hair and an eye patch. The man at the door takes of his hood and lets his scarlet hair hang down. He walks forward and pulls out the chair in front of him.
The man at the table says “You’re late, as usual” His dark green hair seemed to shine more thanks to the white walls surrounding him.
The man across from him takes off his coat and casually says “Sorry Braig, I got caught up” He smiles “Can’t you give an old friend a break?”
“I don’t care if you’ve been with me for almost seventeen years. It still doesn’t give you the right to be one hour late. You are lucky you’re general level now, if you were still my apprentice you would have been punished.” Braig said.
“Oh relax. It was just that the blizzard outside caught me up. It’s hard to fly in that kind of weather.” The man said, stomping off some snow from his boots “And besides, what could be that important that I needed to come in now? I have stuff to do today you know.”
Braig straightened up and brought out a folder from underneath his chair. “I have an order for you, from one of the Holy Seers. I was directed to read this message to you.”
The man paused. “A message from one of the ancients eh? Now you got my full attention”
Braig opened the folder and read aloud “
Antonello Cortez, last night at roughly around three in the morning, the Grand Hunter picked up traces of holy power from the United States. The traces of power were zeroed in to a small suburb in Colorado. It is your mission to find the holder of this power and bring us a full report on what you find.”
Antonello interrupted “So, we get another brother or sister in on this place. I understand that. But why didn’t I hear this in front of the council? Why am I getting this mission from old dust and bones?”
Braig paused “There is more” He cleared his voice. “
The rumored holder of this power is named Travis Emery Rowen. You know the significance of this name firsthand, as does everyone else in the order. That is why you will conduct this mission in absolute discretion. Do not tell your brothers and sisters of this mission, we do not want an incident to happen before the boy gets here. Good luck, and be quick with getting to the boy. We don’t want The Corrupt to get to him before we do.”
After Braig finished reading it he gave Antonello a card, on it described Travis’s hometown information. “Remember, this mission is absolutely,” He pressed his palm to the folder, it instantly set ablaze in a flurry of flames “Confidential” He stood up and walked out of the room, a look of disgust on his face.
Antonello sat there in shock. He never thought he would ever hear that dreadful name again. He didn’t want to do this mission, he would rather the kid get torn in two by The Corrupt.
~~~~
Travis drove down the dark suburban streets. The back roads of this town were dark and misty tonight. Travis always felt safe in this town no matter where he was but tonight was different. He felt as though something hid in the dark corners of every street, as if something stalked and watched him no matter where he turned.
He was so unsure of the night that he even turned to the main roads to keep away from the unlighted side streets. But that feeling still seemed to lurk towards him. Something seemed to watch him from atop the building to his right. No matter what speed he went it seemed to always catch up to him. It became so bad that he missed the turn to Eden’s house. “Damn” He said to himself.
He quickly turned on the next street. The stalking feeling seemed to dissipate as quickly as it appeared. When he reached Eden’s house Travis decided to park in the alleyway, just so he could make a quick escape if her parents came home early. As he rounded the corner he saw something flicker by in his rear view mirror. It was something fast, it looked like a person but he couldn’t tell thanks to how fast it moved. Even though it startled him Travis merely brushed off the anxiety and thought of it as an animal. He continued down the alleyway and reached the back of the house. He smiled to himself and stepped out of the car.
As Travis reached the back gate he heard a blood curdling shout from the end of the alleyway, followed by the hysterical barking of a dog. Travis turned on the spot and glanced down the alley. There was a middle age man with dark hair lying on the floor, his arm torn from his body. He was shouting in pain and fear at the thing that lurked above him.
A black figure was standing above the man. It looked human except that the figure had no eyes or nose and a mouth that had rows and rows of sharp teeth. The creature had no hair and had pointed ears that were jutting a few inches behind the creatures head. The figure was abysmally black. Its leathery skin was stained darker than the night. Its only exception was the massive metal claws that the creature possessed.
Each finger had hooked metal spikes that reached halfway down his legs. His right claw was soaked with blood, most likely the blood from the man lying on the floor. In its left claw laid the man’s Pomeranian. Barking and trying to fight its way out of the massive deathtrap.
In an instant the creature brought his right hand down and severed the man’s head from his body, stopping the cries of pain. The creature then brought the dog to his mouth and bit into the small dog’s neck, quickly quieting the small animal. As he silenced both creatures, Travis stood in absolute terror. “Oh my god” He said in a shaky voice.
To Travis’s dismay the creature seemed to have heard that small comment. Travis had no idea how but he now had the creature’s full attention. The horrid beast brought his claws back and lunged down the street, with Travis straight in its path.
