Fallen Stars

Chapter 49:The New Guy

Maddy-

I'm watching Television with Persi when there's a knock at the front door. Persi opens the door, revealing a teenaged boy with short reddish-brown hair and dressed in black clothes.

"Hey, I'm Pete." The boy tells me, shaking my hand.

"Maddy," I reply."Are you a neighbor or something?"

Pete shakes his head."I came here to Australia, to find you guys."

"Why us?" I ask him.

"I heard there were plenty of rumors of Shiners in Australia," Pete replies."Now are you going to let me in, or not?"

I move aside to let Pete in, then I shut the door.

"Wow, someone needs to lose some weight." Seth says, studying Pete. Pete glares at Seth.

"Dinner will be done in around five minutes. Hope you like steak and burgers." Seth tells Pete.

"Oh, I'm not hungry." Pete tells Seth.

"That's a shock." Seth says. Pete glares at him and clenches his fists.

"Be nice, Seth." I tell him. Seth sighs and heads to his room.

A phone rings in Pete's pocket and he answers it in the bathroom. He emerges from it a few minutes later. I watch as he accidentally bumps into Seth, causing Seth to glare and shove him. Pete falls on the ground, and he flies into Seth. Hank arrives, towering over to the two boys, he pulls them away from each other.

"Boys, you are not in kindergarten. So you better act like young men, dammit!" He says, looking even more scary than he usually does. Pete lets go of Seth. Seth is sneering at Pete, his olive-toned fists clenched.

"Maybe you should go to your room, Seth." Hank tells Seth, wary of him. He looks more enraged than Pete. For a moment, I start to wonder which of them will win in a fight. Seth starts to shake with anger as he enters his room that he shares with Persi.

Dinner is served after four minutes-we're all seated at the large dining room table. Persi is sitting to my right. Seth is sitting beside me, to my left. Lydia is across from me, Pete and Hank sitting beside her.

"Tell us about yourself," Hank says to Pete."Where have you been hiding and all that."

"We should tell him about ourselves, first," Persi says to Hank. Then he turns to Pete."I'm sixteen years old and I was born in Colorado. Also, I'm a Nitave."

I expect Pete to question the fact that Persi is a Nitave, but he says nothing. When Hank finishes telling us Lydia and his story, it's Seth's turn to speak.

"I was born in Saudi Arabia. Moved to America when I was seven. My family were Human, one day we were living in Wisconsin when I was hit by a Star. The next day I was killed by being ran over by a car, three minutes later I came back to life-fully healed and everything. Then I was able to open a black hole a few days after that, a Nitave seen it and murdered my family. After that, I lived on the streets. A few weeks ago, the Nitaves captured me and I met a Shiner named Mary. Shortly after that, a Shiner named Austin freed us, we fought this intense battle outside a kid's house named Cole. There I met Maddy and Alan-the Shiner King. Anyways the new army we created would only know us for a short time, because we all separated to different hotels because there were so many of us. Persi's sister was so bloodthirsty that she brought the Nitaves to our hotel just so she could kill them. Persi was kidnapped and we went to save him. We met a traitor named Kyle, then we all went to Hank's safe house in Ogden, Utah. The next day Kyle revealed to us that he was a traitor, this was after he brought Nitaves to attack us and took us to a hospital that doubled as a Nitave base. We escaped and Alan told us how he got most of Maddy and his friends killed because he made a deal with Mersidion, the Nitave leader at the time. Maddy attacked him and left him there to die. We fled here to Australia, because of the Government shutdown." Seth explains.

Now it's my turn.

"You already know me as Maddy. I was born a Shiner, not made. My parents were killed by Nitaves when I was five. My dad's best friend named Paul took care of me after that. When I was eleven, Paul recruited another orphan Shiner named Rico. Paul was a healer Shiner, his dream was to be the greatest battlefield healer during the war against Mersidion. A few weeks ago, Paul found out that the now deceased Shiner King, Conrad Will, was at a hotel near Seattle, Washington. We went to the hotel and met the king and his son-Alan. Then we all decided to head to the Nitave base in Michigan to fight Mersidion. We failed to kill Mersidion that night, anyways we headed to the mansion of a Shiner named Joe and his son-Jace. Alan arrived and since he made that deal with Mersidion-Nitaves attacked us. I was able to escape out the kitchen window, with Jace and a few others. Anyways we stayed at a hotel until we heard of a battle going on outside a kid's house. We fought outside the house, which turned out to be Cole's. We were at McDonalds when I met Persi, Lola, and Alan-Alan was literally kicked out of the battlefield outside Cole's house at a lake. So we were reunited with him. Anyways we went to the hotel where Lola got Persi captured. You know the rest. I was also born in Wisconsin, in the city of Milwaukee." I finish telling to Pete.

Hank turns to Pete and says,"Now you can finally talk."

"I was born a Shiner. My parents were also killed by Nitaves when I was four. My mom's dad took care of me after that. My grandfather and I lived in a small town in Kansas. We lived there until he died of a heart attack, he was a very old man, so it wasn't surprising that he would just did and abandon me like that. I was six when that happened. Anyways, he always told me stories of the Nitaves. He stressed it so much-he told me that their eyes glowed and he also told me about the Shiners. I always thought he was a crazy old guy who loved making up stories of people from a different dimension with glowing eyes who wanted to destroy the other beings from a different dimension called Shiners. Well, I thought he was lying until we were at a motel outside Denver, Colorado when I seen my first Nitave. His eyes glowed orange and my grandpa killed him with a pistol. We fled to Kansas after that," Pete explains."And I don't want to say anymore."

"He probably abandoned you because you ate up all the food." Seth says to Pete, cruelly.

Pete lunges for Seth, grabbing his steak knife and plunging it into Seth's heart. I watch in horror as Seth leans forward and his head lifelessly falls into his plate of food. Pete realizes that we're all staring at him.

He dashes outside the house and I follow him. I produce a icicle and make it razor-sharp. The floodlights of a Nitave ship is activated-bathing me in white light. Nitaves descend from the spaceship, as Pete climbs inside by use of a ladder.

Pete's a traitor, know wonder why he didn't tell us his entire life.

A Nitave knife is flung at me, I'm not fast enough and instead of me being hit-Persi dives in front of me and gets hit instead. He's dead before he can hit the ground. I scream as loudly as I can. The Nitaves are sent sailing in the air.

The spaceship is already retreating.

The last thing I see before passing out is Hank becoming a giant muscular, fox.