Becoming

Chapter #1: Ember

A shadow with black eyes stands before a woman, reaching deep into her soul. There is nothing unusual about her, her black hair is unkempt and long, her green eyes are glazed and milky. Her jeans are baggy, and boast several holes. The look on her face tells me she knows who the shadow is, all she has to do is ask. All she has to do is seal the deal. The demon's fingers curl towards her, she can feel that they aren't friendly fingers. They are fingers that do not like waiting, fingers that can kill. The shadow smiles, his eyes are completely black now, even the whites of his eyes have turned. They ask what words never could, they ask her something that is too blood-chilling to think about. They tell her that he must give up her soul and become one of them to save her daughter, one of the demons, doomed to kill. She agrees, the demon's fingers reach into her chest until they find her heart and squeeze. It only hurts for a second. Then she's dragged into depths of the underworld that even hellhounds won't cross, the realm of demons.

I am jolted awake by a knock on the door, hair matted to my face by the sweat that covers my whole body.

"Another nightmare?" Someone asks. I jump and pull the covers over my head. My grandmother smiles at me and leans on the doorframe. Her silver-gray hair is in an off-puttingly trendy pixie cut and her shirt sports a variety of animals and flowers, she smiles at me with straight white teeth and looks down. She mutters something underneath her breath, looking distressed for someone like her. She composes herself, then crosses her arms and smiles again. This is more than my sleep that she's worried about.

"Whatever you think I did," I say, "I don't know what you're talking about." She laughs and taps her watch, telling me that it is time to get up. I don't want to worry her even more than she is, so I don't put up the usual fight for more sleep. I squint my eyes and get out of bed, ruffling my short hair. Sighing, I prepare for my first day of ninth grade. I instinctively head towards the closet door, but all my clothes are still in the truck that's supposed to come tomorrow. We moved last month and the moving truck did a really bad job getting from Washington to California. Luckily I brought a suitcase full of everything I needed. I saunter to the bathroom in my purple pajamas to brush my teeth and shut the door. Once I'm done, I root through my clothes, pull on my jeans and purple T-shirt. Looking in the mirror, I trace my fingers around a bump that formed on my forehead overnight and examine my manhole-sized pores. Other than that I look okay, my short neon green hair is definitely going to need some fixing. It's sticking up at every possible angle, like one of those anime people with gravity-defying locks. I colored my hair two summers ago, and I've been re-doing it every year. Grabbing the brush, I attempt to flatten my untamable hair. I settle for a baseball cap and a backup comb in my pocket instead. I'm just about to put my contacts in when an aggressive knock sounds on the door.

"Be right down, Gigi!" I rush out of the bathroom and find my bag. I don't have any binders, so I take a few pencils with me, hoping we don't do much. I head out the door to catch the bus. As I launch myself out of the house, the bus arrives, the driver sees me and waits.

He reluctantly lets me on, obviously frustrated with my tardiness. I sit in my seat thinking about the impression I want to make at this new school. I don't want to do what I did at my old school. I was expelled because I started a fight with somebody and accidentally put them in the hospital. I don't know how it happened, but if you can imagine, that excuse didn't go over very well. Luckily, he was in a full body cast for fourteen weeks. In my new school, the kids did not like me and in turn, I didn't like them. Is that wrong to think it was lucky that they got hurt, that they got what they deserved? I mean he was the one who slammed me into his locker and broke my arm, but he doesn't deserve to be hurt, wait. No. Karma right? Yeah. He got what was coming to him. The next time, I was expelled because I caused a small explosion in the science lab. I think they were looking for excuses to kick me out.