Serpents and Descendants

Chapter 1

"Let me out!" the voice bellowed.

She was closer this time. The heat coming off of her was palpable.

"I can't. You're too dangerous."

Clank. Clank.

"Not yet. But the longer you keep me here, the more dangerous I'll be once I'm free. You know that," she taunted. "You can feel it. You can feel me."

"No, I can't!"

CLANK. CLANK.

"RELEASE ME."

"Andromeda!"

Andi snapped her gray eyes up from her notebook, her dark brown curls dancing around her sharp cheek bones.

"I trust you were taking more notes for the mid-term review than that doodling." Mrs. Markham glared at her coldly through her square wire frames.

Andi's cheeks burned as she felt every pair of her classmates' eyes boring into her. She gave Mrs. Markham a cheeky smile.

"Yes...?"

Mrs. Markham rolled her tired eyes. It wasn't even time for lunch yet, and Andi could feel the teacher's midlife crisis from her seat by window.

"Your confidence is inspiring, Ms. Stern-De Leon."

Andi slouched into her desk and held her breath before glancing back at her ratty notebook. She knew what was there, but she was hopeful that holding her breath would make them go away this time.

But it didn't. It was still there. That symbol. Slapped all over her history notes. She didn't have to flip through her notebook to know that the same scribble was scattered on all of them.

She sighed at the doodles framing her paper. It looked like a fancy 'G', only the top curve of it was facing the opposite direction and its hook ran straight through its spine. Andi wasn't sure what it meant or where it came from, but she had been drawing it anywhere she could for as long as she could remember. On her notes, with her hair on the shower walls, even in the dirt at soccer practice when she was little... It was odd, but it wasn't even the absentminded drawing that bothered her that much. No. What bothered her most was the voice.

It sounded like her own, but it spoke with much more authority than Andi could have personally known at the ripe age of seventeen. It was raspy and spoke in layers, as if several versions of it were talking over one another. And it was always angry - an emotion that Andi always tried to keep a tight hold on.

It had always come easy to her - the anger. Not that she liked it or anything. She wasn't sure why, but there was always something...normal about it. Something comfortable. She tried not to dwell on it long. For her family's sake.

When the bell finally rung, Andi swept her belongings into her backpack and shuffled from Mrs. Markham's classroom, thanking the stars that the old hag didn't keep her behind. She was so focused on watching her back, that Andi didn't even notice her best friend waiting for her right outside.

"You got in trouble again, didn't you?" Eron smirked, their hazel eyes twinkling.

Andi's lips couldn't help but curl into a small smile. "Not really! It's just doodles." She cracked her knuckles distractedly. "I can't help it that Mrs. Markham has the most boring class in the history of Wellspring." She really did.

As the pair began to weave through the scattered Wellspring High School students, Eron readjusted the straps on their faded hunter green backpack. "Fair. Did you hear the voice again, too?"