Shadow Flame

Chapter 1- Aura

"Get her!"

I could hear the voices catching up to me. I needed to get away. I'm not sure why, and as crazy as it is...I could hear a hushed voice inside my head telling me where to run. I turn a corner and find myself facing a corridor of rooms. Hiding seems to be the best plan right now... I run towards the closest door and try the doorknob.........Closed. Second door. Closed too. Damn! Are none of these open?! I keep trying all the doors with no luck. The men behind me sound closer. I'm screwed!!!

"There she is! Get her! Quick!" I heard the dark skinned man yell. I assumed he was the leader of this group of men. He had dark hair; it looked grown out, and he looked no more than 25. My encounter with him was strange, considering that now he wants to take me.

~one hour ago~ "Here's your soda, sweetie" the waitress told me. I could feel the sun on my back, the wind lightly picking up speed then slowing down as if pushed back by some invisible force. As I sat at the cafe table I started thinking about what a good day today had been... I found out that I was made student of the year, and I got to eat lunch with the mayor. It was great. We chatted about how everything had gone in school, and he congratulated me; obviously impressed that as a 16 year kid, I was a senior at the school, winning an award that only the AP students could get. But the best part of the day had yet to come.

Once I had left the mayor, and said my goodbyes, I went back to my next scheduled class. It was chemistry. My class was performing an experiment on chemical energy, and a way of being able to tell how much energy it took for electrons to make the shift to the highest level of energy; with colors in the fire. It was a partner lab, so I looked around for someone to work with, over at the corner of the room sat Pat, a guy I had dated over a year ago. A musician. He was sitting next to a girl with blonde hair, with an emo haircut, and tons of make-up. That's his girlfriend. Not a good couple at all but it's none of my business. "Hey". Someone pokes my shoulder and continues saying, "I see the fine lady doesn't have a partner. Can I offer?" It was one of my good friends, one of my best friends. His name is Al. Well, it's actually a longer name, but he never bothered to tell me. I've known him since middle school, and we went to a martial arts class together as well.

As I'm about to say "sure", my other best friend, and not-blood sister, pulls me by the arm and loudly says, "Nope, she's mine. Go find yourself one of your gamer friends to work with". She looks over at me as she finishes speaking and she bursts our laughing. "That wasn't very nice sis, he did offer first, Oh why do I still hold on to you Em?" I told her with a slightly serious but 'I'm joking' face. She starts to laugh even harder and almost trips over the desks. I feel bad so I look bad over to apologize to Al, and catch him grasping something on his neck and glaring over at Em. He also looks like he's saying something but I can't tell. I try to walk forward to see if I can tell what he's saying, and as I do so, I hear a loud "Thump!" behind me and I quickly turn.

What I saw scared the life out of me. I saw Em on the floor with her shirt on fire. A blue fire to be exact. The look on her face was shocked and afraid. Apparently, nobody else in the room could see the flame; or just didn't care; except Em and I. I closed my eyes yielding it to go away, thinking of a plan to make that thought a reality. I opened my eyes, in mid-turn, and ran to the closest sink and got water. When I turned to throw it over the fire, it was no longer there. Em was sitting up, touching her shirt, looking for any burn marks or something I help her get up and can hear chuckling behind me. I see Al through my peripheral vision smirking at Em, and I turn to tell him to stop but is face changes and for a moment all I see is a black and gray cape over him, covering everything. A gray hood was over his head, the only visible thing were his eyes which glowed the same hue of blue that the fire had been. In less than a second it faded, and I see Al smiling and shrugging, mouthing "Guess next time we'll be partners." He turned and left to his lab table.

"Okay students, if you can write down everything that you just saw, and make it into a 2 page essay to put in your lab, you are good to go." The teacher had said. The bell rang and we were dismissed. Al came up from behind me, turned me around to face him and handed me a small box. He smiled and simply said, "Don't open it until you are at home". And he left. I ended up walking to the cafe at the corner of the street next to the school, and asking for soda. I contemplated opening Al's little box, even though I wasn't home yet. That had been the best part of today. 'Maybe it's like a Christmas gift' I thought... Should I open it? Maybe a tiny peek. It won't hurt anyone if I see it....

I look around to see if anyone -like Al or his friends- are around and open the box. What's inside looks like a pendant? A dragon is on it, its eyes are emerald green and its body is coiled around itself. I put it on. I feel it get warm against my chest, and go to take it off, when a man with dark-colored skin sits in front of me and ask me my name. "Um, it's Aura. Why?" I tell him. I'm told not to talk to strangers, but I don't want to be rude. The man keeps asking me questions, and gets to a point where he asks about a master. I give him a 'what the hell are you talking about' look, and get up to leave. He grabs my wrist, and the pendant starts to heat up even more, now causing me to start sweating. I reach and take the pendant out of my shirt, and see that the dragon's eyes are now blood-red. The place where this man had me grabbed burned. Like alcohol on an open wound. I turned, kicked him, punched him in the face, did a roundhouse kick to his side and pushed him back to the table.

"You have the Drakon! You have to come with me". He started to get up and I ran for my car. I ran to the school parking lot, and out of breath, started the car and left. While I was driving, starting to calm my heartbeat down, I turn and find out I'm not braking. I press harder on the brake pedal, but it won't make a difference. An uphill starts to form on the road. Luckily no other drivers are here. I hit the gas but remember that the slope gets pretty steep downhill. I try to reach for the brakes again. Still nothing. The car starts to go backwards, gaining speed because I was already more than halfway up the hill. I took the seatbelt off as fast as I could, grabbed my bag, hung it unto my arm, and opened the door, ready to jump. The houses were blurry already from the speed of the car, and the ground looked like a bottomless pit with fog surrounding it. I took a breath and jumped out, hitting myself against a tree, that I could swear wasn't there a second ago. Everything went black.

In the darkness I stood. Everything felt real but it couldn't have been. I couldn't feel my own body. I look around. I'm surrounded by nothing but darkness. Then I hear a voice. It said, " Aura, you have to run Do not let them catch you. Go to Hollow street, and go into the mansion that's close to the cave" I tried to ask who was speaking to me, but a second later I woke up. The sky was clouded, now looking as gray as ashes. I looked down the hill, and saw a light post, and under it, well I should say in between the light and the floor was my car, up in flames. I ran into a giant parking lot as fast as I could.

The pendant started to heat up again over my shirt, and I could see the emerald change to scarlet. I ran faster, through the parking lot until I reached Hollow Street. What I see puts me in minor shock. There are four cars; that look like FBI cars; parked at a house across the mansion. I run as quick as I can, but the men spot me, and follow me into the mansion. The dark-skinned man is behind me once again. 'Why is this no surprise to me' I think. I can hear him screaming and I can hear the other men's voices as well. To me it seems like they scream 'bloody murder' but in reality they are screaming back the orders they received.

Every door in this corridor is locked. I get to the last floor and 'clack', it opens. I step inside and shut the door, I stand behind it, listening to see if they had followed and knew where I went. It appeared not, so I relaxed and sat down in front of the door. I kept thinking about Al for some reason. The way his image had changed into something different and his eyes had changed to the color of the 'fake' fire on Em's shirt. Distracted with thinking about how it seemed to relate to what had happened to Em, I didn't notice the dark silhouette in front of me, before it was too late.

He grabbed me by the neck, and sprayed my face with something that made me dizzy. Before long I felt his grip loosen and my body fall to the ground. My body started to tingle, as if it had 'fallen asleep' like my legs usually do when I'm sitting in my room writing, or listening to music. My vision blurs, and I see the rest of the men come into the room, and grab me. The last thing I saw was a violet flame that someone was leaning towards me. Such a pretty color. It was so soothing that I let go and got swallowed by darkness once more.