X-Team

Chapter 1

Three-and-a-Half Years Later...

I open my eyes after a long sleep to see my dog, a Golden Retriever named Rex, licking my face. I might want to stop leaving my door open at night.

"Hey, Rex. What are you doing in here?" I ask him. He's still a puppy, but either way, he wouldn't understand. My name is Ryan Blaze. I love to draw, and my parents continuously nag me to cut my hair, but I like it this way. I lean over and look at my clock. 5:54 am.

"Ugh," I groan and lean back over and look at Rex.
"Why did you wake me up so early?" I ask him. I roll out of my bed and walk over to my dresser. Rex leaps off the bed and follows me. I pull out another red shirt and throw it on. I continue on with my dressing routine and when I'm done I walk back to my bed. I scavenge for the book I fell asleep reading, and when I find it I throw it into my backpack. I zip it up and whip it up and over my back.

Then I turn to my phone that's charging by my bed. I turn it on and see that the friend that I've had since kindergarten, Nick Turner, has texted me. It says, "Hey, Ryan, Aaron says to meet him at our tree this morning."

Our tree is a tree up in the top corner of Zerkin Elementary, our school. Aaron Jett is also one of my friends. My phone alerts me that I have another text. I quickly respond, "Got it!" to the first message and see who else texted me. It's Joey Storm, who also happens to be a friend. It says,

I reply and shove my phone into my pocket, turn off the lights, and shut the door. I go downstairs, eat breakfast with my twin brother Elliot, who is also friends with the majority of my friends. Elliot is actually older than me, but only by seventeen minutes. He's pretty nerdy at times and can be adventurous. The two of us are fraternal twins, but we both have a lot in common.

Soon we finish getting ready for school, and Nick arrives at my door, right on time. He lives across the street and always comes to my house to walk with me and Elliot to school every day. Unless he's sick, or there's some other condition. He decided with me that we would grow our hair out so the two of us have around the same size hair, but his hair is a dark shade of black. He dyes it black all of the time, ignoring its normal brown color. He likes to take charge of a lot of situations, and sometimes that can make him stubborn, but I like that about him.

"Hey, how's it going?" He asks me.

"Oh, pretty good. The only bad thing is that it's a Monday," I inform him. He chuckles and Rex runs up to us, trying to get past me and to Nick. He probably smells Petey, Nick's dog, and he sometimes brings him over.

Nick praises Rex and as soon as Elliot is ready, we decide to head out.

"Hey, Elliot. Ready for another week of school?" Nick asks him.

"I suppose so," Elliot says. Nick laughs and the three of us begin the half-block walk to school.