Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Prologue: The Beast Within
Years later, the events leading up to what shaped me as part of society, are mere, depressing moments, I realize. The words love, lost and glory, all explain my junior year of high school. Yes, at points, I was riding on top of the world, but the other moments, I was in the deep abyss of sadness and depression.
When I was seventeen, I never thought my life would be shaped by something that I thought was a work of fiction, a tall tale, or folk lore of forgotten times.
Nor did he ever think the same thing I am thinking now- the love story of the god falling in love with the mortal, the hero falling for the victim. From what I had been told, we were never meant to fall in love, but we did.
But somehow, we came together, even though no one thought it was possible. They ‘loved’ me as a friend, but never as a family member. But that was never meant to happen.
In a world of mythical creatures and unselfish humans, I bring you the true history of my hometown. Founded over hundreds of years ago, Radcliffe Heights was home to many races of beings. Vampires, werewolves, elementals, witches, shifters, all existed.
The dominate race until the time of the humans were the noble vampires. Tall and pale, these bloodsuckers were of high society positions, the formers of great cities of the ages. Unless provoked, these beings were almost harmless.
Werewolves are the only creatures that need aide in order to shift between their human and animal counterparts- with a full moon; they can change, but only by that and nothing more. They also cannot reproduce like any of the other beings, but have to bite someone in order to pass on their genes.
Elementals, or the free spirits, are the earth’s guardians. They roam the earth when they can and tend not to stay in one place for too long, even though the modern ancestors have the tendency to do so. Not much is known, besides what I document in my learning of these beings.
Witches are the true pest of the world. Selfish and daring, these beings once ruled the world, until the time of the vampires. Like the elementals, little is known about the witches, besides that they had to sell their souls for their power, but not to Satan. Far few exist and tend to use their powers in their own best interest and to the highest bidder.
The smallest beings of them all are the shifters. Able to transform themselves into one counter animal, these people keep to themselves in their own, little communities, not too far away from the cities. Intelligent and witty, they are now the most common being out there, next to the humans.
There are other creators in this world, but I will let you figure them out.
Now that you know you’re reading a novel of a grim underworld ran by these beings, I’m going to turn the table on you and introduce you to my world and how I was introduced to the people that somehow changed my life, going all the way back, to the first day I met them.
My Story
It was almost a staring contest between us. I didn’t like what he was saying and he didn’t like my ideas. He knew what he was getting himself into when he asked me to be his co-editor. During our little contest, the room slowly became silent, when I realized what they were doing- they were waiting to see who had the last word.
At the moment, I did. Nothing felt better than that- the fight over when our print date was, when the deadlines were. I was in favor of pushing it out, not wasting time. He wanted to wait a little while.
“If they’re rushed, they won’t put effort into it,” he said when I went to turn away, switching the table as I turned my body back around to face him.
“If we hold out as long as you want to, they grow bored and restless. When we went by your deadlines, there were people sitting around, doing nothing. When they went by mine, no one was sitting around,” I said, my blood pressure going up. “We need to have as many articles that we can.”
“Then we should extend the deadlines,” he said, my teeth gradating as I looked around the room, everyone watching. “Get to work…” he called, the room bustling back to life.
“You want to get this paper out by break?” I asked, my voice dropped, trying to figure out how we could end this fighting. He nodded. “Move these days up by two. That gives my team time to look over it before we send it off to print,” I said, knowing that my ‘team,’ was sitting there, watching us, waiting to jump in, if Elijah would talk.
“I guess we’ll do that this time,” he said, signaling that I had won this fight. “Next time, it’ll be a civilized conversation,” he said before getting up and walking away from me.
“Right, I would like to see that happen,” I said, knowing that I had gotten the last word in. It felt great, even though it was in poor taste.
Walking to my two computers, Elijah looked at me and exchanged the look to strangle with me. Sitting down, I woke up my computer and pulled up my share of the work and got lost in what I was doing, the background noise the talking of everyone in the room, the silent Elijah doing what he did.
Suddenly, the background noise disappeared, causing me to look around. Finally twisting around in my seat, I saw that this silence was caused by a rakish young man that had just walked into the room. He looked thrown off as I turned to go back to work, but couldn’t.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that was taken aback, the other girls not looking away, from what my glance around the room told me. Someone coughed and it sent everyone back into working mode as I hit the print button, this visitor speaking to our advisor, Mr. Carol.
Getting up and walking across the room, I didn’t realize that it would put me close to where they were talking, the visitor showing Carol his schedule, pointing to something. I sorted through the papers, standing to the side, so I could watch what he was doing with one eye.
Finding nothing interesting, I turned around and found myself face to face with the editor, Stephen staring down at me, Elijah standing behind him, looking upset. I didn’t even want to know what happened as I listened to his rant about Elijah not saying anything when he was asked.
“Do you something against socially awkward people?” I asked, not even sure why he was ranting. “Elijah is socially unstable and cannot handle talking to people he doesn’t really know,” I said, wondering how he had became comfortable talking to me.
“He has…” he started as I threw a hand up in the air and gave him a look to shut up.
“He doesn’t interview people; he sits in here and works on what I tell him to. You don’t need to worry about him,” I said, Elijah making eye contact with me. At this point, people were staring again, including Carol and this new student.
Before Stephen, who I just decided needed a name in my memoir, could say something else, Carol told him that he needed to see him in his other office, the hallway. But before he left, Carol told me to take Evan to my bank of computers and give him something to do.
Nodding, I led him with no further ado, to the tables sitting behind me and made sure my computer was ready for someone else to use it. I needed to know where his strengths and weaknesses were before I assigned him something to do.
“I’m Kristy, design editor,” I said, unsure if I should offer him my hand. “New student,” I said, saying it more in a statement, he nodded. “Ever work on a newspaper before?”
“I was homeschooled before my parents transferred me here,” he said, voice low and soft. I nodded, wanting to hear more before I made a decision. “But I have experience with writing and I had a study hall this period. I would rather be doing something useful instead of sitting around,” he said, my head bobbing.
“What do you prefer writing about?” I asked different things that we could improve coming to mind. He shrugged, not expected to be put in this situation, all of these questions.
“Anything, I don’t have experience with this style of writing,” he said, looking away. Like everyone else I’ve ever spoken to, he was socially awkward, even though this kid had something burning deep inside of him.
“Do you mind just being thrown into a random section?” I asked, realizing that the student life was short a writer or two, their editor catching my eye when Elijah walked up and nod at Evan, then look down at me. He shook his head; Elijah made eye contact with me, letting me know he was done with what he was working on, Jean coming up.
“Kristy, I need your help with my page,” she said, her dark hair hanging over her face. “I doubt I’ll have enough to fill two pages, much less four,” she said, not looking happy about it.
“I’ll be there in a second, after I check out what Elijah has. You know what? Jean, meet Evan, he’s the newest staff writer, assign him something,” I said, hoping that no one thought I was being rude. “Yes Elijah?”
He nodded to his computer, I went and looked, impressed with what he had done. Giving him a high five, I had him save it and gave him something else to work on, before going to where Jean’s design document was opened. Glancing at it, I sat down and waited for her to finish talking to Evan.
He seemed to be able to take the ideas from them and work on with it. Feeling useless sitting there, I looked at the computer and fixed a few things, a hand on my shoulder causing me to jump. Turning my head, it was Stephen, not looking happy.
About to ask him what, I didn’t get that chance. The bell rang, ending class. Giving him a quick smile, I found my bag and took off, not giving him a chance to say anything- it was my lunch time, I’m not going to waste this time.
Every day, my lunch was filled with crude jokes, mean, uplifting and sarcastic comments made without much thought. We share our experiences from class, with teachers and other students, our cheeks hurting by the time lunch was over.
The four of us that always sat together were Hannah, Amanda and Brittany. Amanda and Hannah are the heads of our class, putting Brittany and I to shame, even though we were ranked pretty well in our class. But that didn’t stop our conversations.
“What do you mean?” I asked, walking so I was leaning close to Amanda, who was up to something. She smiled and looked away, making me sigh before my insides turned to mush when I saw him.
“I can’t explain it with all of these people around,” she said, making me roll my eyes and throw my bag on the table, wondering where Hannah and Brittany were, even though my mind was still busy with something else they didn’t know about.
Sitting down, I rummaged through my bag of random items to find my meager lunch. I couldn’t figure out where dad had hid my lunch money for the week still, so I had to pull together a quick lunch. Amanda muttered something about the lines being too long and not having enough patience to stand in them. I shrugged and nodded, not sure what to say.
In no time, Hannah and Brittany showed up, Amanda going to the lines while I sat back in my chair and waited for the conversation to start.
“Why haven’t we gone out to lunch all week?” Hannah asked as I ate a few raisins and shrugged. I was the only one that drove to school every day, because the stupid district didn’t bus the kids that live in town. The times we went out, was when someone else had a car.
“No one’s had a car and I’m lucky to afford to put gas in my car,” I said, flipping my hair over my shoulder and looking around, Evan and three other people walking into the cafeteria at the same time, in a close group.
Close to him were people that I had never seen before- a bigger guy that could have been on the football team, a very petite girl with short blonde hair spiked everywhere. And a guy that was bigger than Evan, but not as big as the football player.
They all looked around, struggling to find a place to sit, almost all of the tables full, but for ours and a few others. Brittany shoved all of our book bags around so that they filled up the last two seats at our table, raising her eyebrows when I gave her a look.
“They could have pulled up a third chair, we’ve done it before,” I said, remembering the many times that someone would invite other people to join us for our strange conversations.
“I don’t like the girl- there’s something about her,” she said, shrugging her shoulders while I shook my head, watching them put their things down and go to the cash-only line. “She’s in my Algebra class.”
“You’ve said that about many people that are now your friends,” I said, knowing that she judged people too quick. I hadn’t met the other three yet, but they didn’t seem that bad. “They found a table…” I said, wondering why I wanted them to sit with us.
“Have you met any of them?” Hannah asked, sitting back down. I nodded, eating. “I haven’t had any of them in my classes.”
“Evan, the one dressed for a prep school, is in newspaper,” I said, wondering more about them. “I don’t know much besides they must have all been homeschooled,” I added, wondering why I was now gossiping.
I thought I was better than that. Gossip was something you did in middle school and as a freshman.
Then again, there were some pretty harsh rumors floating around our school.
“The big guy is in my drama class,” Amanda said, shrugging. She didn’t have taste for this, much like I did. “Who really cares? What do we do in English?”
That spawned a new conversation that I listened to, watching Evan’s group go from that line, to the table. I knew a little something about all of them, besides the one that was wearing the leather jacket and the mad look, even though the tall, brunette boy was also appealing and sat facing me, while leather jacket had his back to me.
“…What are you doing this weekend?” someone asked me, my head turning to look at my friends. I shrugged, nothing coming to mind. They were use to not knowing what I could do and couldn’t do- from going to our lake house in Indiana when I couldn’t stand being at home, to wanting to hang out.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. This week feels like one of those weeks that send me up to the house,” I said, knowing that they hated it when I did it. They don’t know what I do and they fret over it for some reason. School was getting to me, mom was getting to me and so was everything else.
“It’s supposed to snow pretty bad this weekend,” Brittany said, her way of telling me it would be a bad idea for me to go. I gave her the look, the one that told her I didn’t give a crap. “Just saying…”
“Mom’s on the ‘I’m stopping kick’ again. Tonight, she’ll start drinking again and fall into her depression stage,” I said, wishing that someone could understand what I was going through. Picking up my trash, I felt moody and fed up with them.
Knowing it wasn’t right for me to do this to them, I stood up and gathered my things, everyone watching me while I mumbled an excuse that I know they wouldn’t want to go along with- talking to one of my evil teachers about a disputed test score.
Simple enough, I thought.
None of my friends followed me, but I left the cafeteria the same time as him and Evan’s crew. Hearing my name be called, I felt my heart drop when Rian walked by, the voice not his- he was too busy talking to his friends about something- computers, it sounded like. It was Evan, asking me when we were supposed to get to class.
I told him, smiling over my shoulder before taking the long way to my Spanish class, not wanting to wind up talking to anybody. I was wanting the time alone, people sitting in the hallway, talking.
Knowing that they didn’t hear me, I kept down the stairs, listening to their conversation.
It was the popular girl in our grade- a cheerleader, on the well to do community service deal, the one that joined all of the clubs just to look good on her college applications. She and her friend were talking about the party that she was throwing and who they wanted to show up.
From what I heard before I passed where they were sitting, was that she knew most of our soccer team had said they were going to show up, even though the intelligent kids like them, separated themselves from the stupid, whores of the cheerleading squad.
As I put it.
But Jessica, that’s her name, was worried about a certain soccer player, instead of the stereotypical football player you would figure she wanted.
I walked by, talking like I hadn’t existed. Fine with that, I tried to talk myself out of this whole problem that was bringing me down, a lot.
I had other things to deal with- keeping my senses. Making sure mom didn’t drink herself into a stupor; make sure dad came home once in awhile.
But I wanted to go to this party. It was tomorrow night, so I could crash it for awhile, then leave and do my normal Friday night stuff at home- sleep. Thinking about it now, going up to the house didn’t feel like the right thing to do. And I think dad had said something about going up there by himself.
Coming up to my right was my Spanish class. She better be there, was my sudden thought. I hadn’t considered her not being in her room.
Pausing at her door, it was shut. She was gone as I backed away and looked around, no one walking down the hallway, when I saw that my old English teacher’s door was opened.
I could talk to him, I guess. There was nothing wrong with talking to him again- if I could keep my wit with me, since he was that attractive. It wasn’t the first time I had gone off in my mind and realized what I was doing- rating the guy on his attractive levels. That always happened when I didn’t have the opportunity to doodle on a piece of paper.
Walking up to the room, I could see kids sitting in there, talking. Passing it up, I realized it wasn’t worth it, when I gave up trying to find somewhere to go.
Leaning against the wall next to my fifth period, the hallways slowly became busy. The teacher walked up and opened the door, letting me in for class.
Sitting down, it was a few minutes before other people walked in and took their seats. Staring at my bag, the room atmosphere changed slightly, everything suddenly becoming tense.
Turning my head, the source of this feeling was the girl with Evan’s crew. Somehow, I made eye contact with her, the energy in the room shattering into tiny pieces. The tense atmosphere disappeared when she smiled, the teacher taking notice to her.
Turning back to the board, I was slightly confused, wondering what had happened. That wasn’t normal.
Zoning out, this girl was now sitting next to me, sorting through papers. I pulled my legs up underneath me and noticed a few things. Her name was Addison, last name Michaels. She was a senior, but didn’t look like it, the bell ringing for class.
Neither of us participated in class. All we did was listen to the personal finance teacher talk about budgeting and other things as I twisted around some, feeling slightly awkward.
No one knew this about me. Not even my friends realized that I had enough money stored away for after graduation, everything tied up until I started college, but that was just the funding. When I graduated from college, I get the rest.
But, I don’t know how much money there is. See, my mother came from a wealthy family. She was also an only child, much like me. When my grandmother died, she left me over half of the family money, the rest going to my parents or charities.
For some reason, I didn’t think this class was a waste of time- I knew how to control my money. A portion of it every week went to gas, the other portion food and the left over money into a savings. But most weeks, I ran short and had to dip into that money.
Stretching in my seat, I caught Addison looking at me. Raising my eyebrow, I smirked and held up two fingers to my jaw and bent my thumb, acting like I was shooting myself. She smiled and nodded, a bell ringing, Addison looking confused.
“That’s the other lunch,” I said, the only thing I said the whole period, my mind and hand drifting, doodles appearing on a blank page of notebook paper I had pulled out. In no time, the blank piece of paper turned into what had been floating around my head.
A Christmas tree, a dog in a knit hat and scarf, a house and lake, many things were sketched onto the paper. After I drew hearts, stars, peace signs and music notes for some of the borders.
Putting my pencil down, I considered inking everything. But I came up with more to draw- a pair of shoes, someone looking over a ridge and more things, before I put my paper up and waited for the bell to ring, to send me to that dreaded Spanish class.
I never had a problem with Spanish, until it came time for me to leave the teacher I had for two years. Right off, I knew her teaching style wasn’t suitable for my learning skills. I tried to talk my councilor into changing it for me, but he refused to.
So now, it’s one of the only grades I have below an A- along with Algebra. Even frustrated with just those problems, I kept telling myself that I just had half of a year left of that class to deal with.
But could my sanity hold it that long?
Walking down the main hallway, I could hear the salsa music playing, my jaw tensing up. Frustration, not understanding, clouded my judgment while I made a quick stop to my locker and gathered what I needed for the last few periods of the day.
With no further ado, I went to class.