Guardians

Chapter 1: Welcome To Melody Bay City

I stared out the window, gazing at the star-lit sky. I look over to Mum and she smiles back. We had bought some fast food for dinner, the food wafted over to me and I could smell the delicious chicken and chips that were inside the bag. Everything was fine.

"So where are we going, Mum?" I asked, she focused back on the road and sighed as I noticed that we weren't heading in the direction of where home is.

"We're going to go visit Uncle Bruce and Aunty Cassie, so we're gonna need some dinner before we get on the plane." She answered back, street lamps passing by as we travelled in the small car. The lights danced around the car making it look like shooting stars were flying past.

"Where's Dad? Why isn't he coming with us?" I questioned and she fell silent for a moment.

"Because he's meeting us there, Dad's just finishing up at work." She stated I didn't ask any more questions as I could feel her getting annoyed. I decided to stay quiet for the rest of the ride to the airport. When he had reached Serpent Bridge, I could begin to hear car horns honking at something in front of us. Cars were piled up and weren't moving. Mum slammed the brakes, I felt myself being slightly flung forward in my seat from the abrupt stop.

"What is it, Mum?" I asked as I tried to peer over the dashboard at the commotion. Before I knew it something landed on top of the hood of the car, and we screamed in unison. It was hard to see from how dark it was but I could tell whatever it was had scales. The shadowy creature then punched through the glass of the windshield and connected its fist against Mum's head.

"Mum!" I shouted, my eyes darted around the car to try and find something sharp to use. I noticed that there were glass shards everywhere. I picked one up and drove it into the creature's arm. It roared in pain from the shard piercing its scaly skin. With a loud screeching of metal, the creature almost instantly pulled its arm back and ran away not before landing one last good swing at mum's shoulder. I felt tears running down my face as I tried to take my seatbelt off and check on Mum.

"Mum?" I rasped, feeling my throat close up as I saw that she was in excruciating pain. Her light green shirt was covered with glass along with 4 deep gashes oozing out blood. I tried to wake her but she wasn't moving.

"Mum! MUM! WAKE UP!" I cried out, suddenly her eyes shot open and she started coughing. Blood splattered onto the shattered windshield.

"Honey?" She groaned as she reached out her hand to hold mine. I immediately grabbed onto it, holding it firmly.

"Mum, you're hurt. We need to call the hospital!" I exclaimed as I felt more tears roll down my face. She smiled at me and wiped my tears away.

"It's okay, it's going to be okay." She reassured me. Suddenly, we were interrupted by the creature again. Its glowing golden eyes pierced through the darkness. The sharp claws slashed through my t-shirt, their talons digging into my chest.

"Grrrrr," the creature ripped me from the car and tossed me aside on the road. The gravel scraped the skin of my face, making it sting from the impact.

"No!" I tried to scream as it tore into my mum.

Crash! I shot up in my seat. "Crap," I said to myself as I awoke from the loud noise. A flight attendant had dropped a serving tray with a plastic cup full of water.

"I'm so sorry mam, I'll clean that right up for you." She apologised as she immediately began wiping down the water with a towel.

"It's alright, it was the turbulence after all." The elderly woman replied with empathy as she too helped to clean up the mess.

"Are you alright? Sir, do you need anything?" Another flight attendant asked, noticing I was now awake.

"No thanks, but thank you." I let out a sigh of relief that I didn't know I was holding in. I checked my watch, I still had 30 minutes left on the flight. I looked over to the seat on the left of me, Belle sat up and smiled at me. Belle is a Border Collie, her fur being consistent with blue-grey, white, beige and black. I patted her on the head and gave her some water out of the bowl I had prepared for her. She carefully licked it and drank as much as she could. I then put the bowl away and decided to do some reading, which always seemed to wake me up. I was surprised that I had fallen asleep as I would normally find it difficult to sleep. I'd always have nightmares. Nightmare's about the night that my life had changed. The night that my mother had died. My nightmares replay that night over and over again. Most nights I decide not to sleep to get rid of the nightmares. But after a while of not sleeping it sure does get to ya.