Hunting Monsters

Hydra

Chapter One

 It was a clear, hot, dry, summer’s day. Everything was as normal as normal could get. I was about to get through the first year at my new school, Edgewood High. I was so exited, the day was beautiful, I had plans for the afternoon, and my first year in this town was finally over. This just goes to show you don’t know when the world as you know it is about to crash around you.

Unlike most people my age, I know who I am, Clara Atwood. I’m a sophomore at Edgewood High School. I like to read and hang out with my two (new) best friends Lily and Leila. My mom’s name is Beatrice Atwood. I never knew my father. My mother told me, in the few brief conversations we had, that she had gotten pregnant when she was eighteen and my father had run off one day for no reason at all. She never told me his name.

Thankfully my grandparents, now dead from a horrific car crash, had accepted her into the house and she had successfully finished college with a degree in geography and mountain climbing. My mother raised me on her own until I was six, and then she married a man named Vincenzo Paulo. They then had my two half-siblings Rosa and Ronald. My life is average, and nothing can change that.

 It was Friday, the Friday before summer break, and I was leading my two unruly siblings to the bus stop. They never stopped fighting the entire way. But what else does one expect from elementary students? In the middle of their argument, my sister threw her lunchbox at my brother’s head. It missed, unfortunately, and landed in front of me. As I bent down to pick it up for her, I noticed the first strange thing in my life.

It was an animal track. And not just a regular track, like a deer or a dog, it was like a dinosaur track with three toes and was about as big as a dictionary. It was bizarre to look at, but since I could see the bus in the distance I shrugged it off and soon forgot about it.

As soon as I stepped off my bus, I felt strange. Not sick strange, but the kind of strange where you know someone is watching you. The hairs on my neck were standing up, but I couldn’t see anyone looking at me. Not that I am all that interesting to look at. I brushed off the feeling when I saw my two friends. “Hey guys,” I said to Lily and Leila. “ Are you ready for the last day of school?”

“Not really”, said Lily, “I don’t really want to face the summer since there are no sports camps this year.” Lily was an obsessive runner. She had run before she could stand and hadn’t stopped since.

“I’m not either,” said Leila “I have no burning desire to go home and deal with my mother right now.” Leila had a step mother and she never got along with her.

“Great”, I said sarcastically. “How about instead of having a pity party, we go the movies after school. Then we could head back to my house.”

“I thought that was the plan in the first place,” said Leila. “That’s why we brought our stuff with us today. We were sleeping over.”

“Thank goodness you remembered,” I said, “I was going to ask last night, you know how forgetful some people are.” We both turned to Lily.

“What?” she said glaring at us, “it’s not my fault I have the memory of a goldfish.” Suddenly, her face paled and she shivered. The second strange thing.

“What is it?” I asked noticing her hugging her arms to her chest. “Are you cold?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, “I just got this really creepy feeling, like something was watching me.”

I frowned, was there actually someone watching us?

 “Great Lily, now I feel all weird,” said Leila. She glanced around the courtyard. “Come on let’s get inside before someone tries to scare us.”