ECLIPSE

Jorja

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The first thing I felt was my heart steadily pumping in my chest. That was a good thing. But the next thing I felt was a harsh pounding in my head. That was probably a bad thing. I tried to shake the feeling away, but the severity of the pounding only increased. Opening my eyes did no good either, since every time I tried, the bright lights instinctively made me shut them again.

"Hey, she's moving!" Hurried footsteps sounded around me, and I tried to turn my head in the direction of the noise. "Take it easy, your head probably hurts a lot."

I tried to reply, but nothing intelligible came out.

"Here, drink this." A straw was put up to my lips and I took a long sip. My headache started to wan, and I greedily drank some more. It tasted like... like...

My eyes finally were able to open. A young boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen stared worriedly down at me. "Feeling better?"

I nodded. "Lots. What was that?"

"Uh, nectar," he replied.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, sitting up. "You gave me—"

The boy put his hand gently on my forehead and pushed me back down on the bed. "What do you remember?"

I thought hard. "I don't—"

And then it hit me.

***

It had been a normal enough day. I'd gone to school, then to my last jujitsu practice of the year, come home where my mom was doing Taco Tuesday on a Friday, and then gone to bed. Mostly normal, as usual. But somehow, the going to bed part was where everything went wrong.

I'd awoken to the sounds of things being knocked over in my room. I'd initially freaked out, thinking that it was the cops, but since there were no lights I assumed it was my mom. She was probably coming to scold me because I'd left my camera stuff all over the house, I moaned and told her to get out of my room.

Hearing no response and my things continuing to get pushed over, I turned on the lights to find the biggest, brightest  snake I'd ever seen just... in my room. I'll admit, I screamed. My mom had come in, but upon seeing the snake, told me to run.

"What?" I screeched. "Mom, that thing will kill you!"

"No, sweetie, it only wants you!" she yelled back. "You need to run, now."

Frustrated, I sighed and crossed my arms. "Just call animal control."

"Animal control can't help this." My mom waved her arms, getting the snake's attention off of me and on to her. "Run. Go to the road that I drive you past every Saturday."

"Why not animal control?" I ask petulantly. A bit too petulantly for the present situation, but it was a valid question.

"Go. Now." That was my mom's scary voice. "Out the window."

I went. My bare feet slapped against the sidewalk as I ran. I didn't want to look back; maybe the snake would just leave me alone. I came to the aforementioned road, and stopped. The road was empty. All I could see was the strawberry farm that was near here, but nothing else.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered. "And I left my camera." That's when I saw the snake. It had somehow caught up to me.

I screamed again.

From the hills, I saw a boy, around my age running down the hill. He had tan skin and dark, spiky hair and was holding a... a sword. Okay, yeah, makes sense.