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The teen stared into the golden eyes of his adversary. It had been several hours since he had first gotten there, but those damn birds still hadn't budged.

It all started when Raven had gone to get some water further down the creek. Curiosity got the better of him when he heard some seagulls squabbling like school children. Leaving his bucket where it was, he went to see what was going on.

The first of the two birds was lunging after some eggs in the water, while the second was pecking and shoving the first out of the way. It wasn't the bird-fight that intrigued Raven, but rather the eggs themselves. They were glowing. He blinked several times to make sure it wasn't a trick of the murky water they were floating in.

During his daze, the second seagull successfully warded off the first far enough so that he could make a lunge at the string of eggs. That snapped Raven out of it, but not quick enough to stop the seagull.

"Feathered bastards," Raven muttered as the seagull ran away, screeching bloody murder. The egg on the end of the string had been punctured, the fluids slowly spilling out onto the ground it was beached on. With a sigh, Raven sat down near the pool, preparing to wait out the seagulls if need be. After all, if he were to rescue the rest, he needed to go back and get his bucket, and he wasn't planning on doing that until the bird threat had flown away.

Raven was still sitting there two hours later. The defeated gull had receded to rest an hour ago, but the other one was still on it's feet, waiting for the human to leave. The deadlock was going nowhere fast. Raven's stomach suggested he spear the bird already and cook it, but he had tried that with disastrous results. When he wasn't looking, the gull tore off the punctured egg and feasted on its gelatinous shell.

He looked over his options. He still had the stick, but scaring off the birds would only provide temporary relief, one that would be far too short to get his bucket and bring it back before the birds came back. He couldn't just scoop the eggs up in his hands and run helter-skelter to the bucket, since the gull had proved that the shell was very jelly-like, and probably wouldn't last long out of water. To make matters worse, there didn't look to be much else laying around that could help him.

Raven swiped the stick over the water, causing the sneaking gull to squawk irritably and back up. Apparently the bird was tiring of this, too. Without warning, Raven stood up. He smacked the air in the gull's general direction, making the bird flee in terror. The sleeping gull's eyes popped open at the screeching of its comrade, and then it too ran away as Raven came for it. He kept doing so, watching as the birds went in the opposite direction of the stick's wrath, and closer towards his bucket.

He felt stupid for not realizing this before, but then again, he wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Whenever one of the gulls tried to sidestep the stick and double back towards the exotic feast of glowing eggs, Raven would sweep the stick in an arc, forcing it both back and in his line of sight. A metallic DING! resounded as Raven smacked the butt end of the branch against the empty bucket. This was too much for the scavenging gulls, who flew away to escape the horrid sound.

Grabbing the bucket in his other hand, Raven rushed back to the eggs. For a brief moment, it occurred to him that there seemed to be no reason for him to have stayed and save those eggs. However, when he came upon them once more, he forgot about the lack of reason, and was just glad that they were still there. He noted that the racket didn't draw any other predators, since the number was the same when he left. Scooping up the remaining spawn, he trundled home with a feeling of accomplishment.

On the outskirts of town stood a once mighty mansion, it's wooden exterior gleaming with a pure mauve coat. Sadly, those days ended long before the Great Quake. Abandonned and dilapidated, the rolling earth did the building a favor. Now, once more there was life. A most peculiar runaway called this skeleton, for however short a time, home.

***

Raven shoved the headband futher up his face. His hair was once more hindering his eyesight, but he dare not cut it for reasons unknown. Today's haul was looking good; he was right to come here after the 'quake hit. This whole place was like a giant scrapyard, minus the angry owner with a shotgun. He wasn't quite sure why no one came back, but he didn't really care.

The shopping cart refused to cross the increasingly bumpy landscape of the mansion's ruins, so the black-haired teen had to shove it the remaining several yards to his little patch of heaven. Grabbing a jar full of pretzels nubs that had remained intact, he went to check on his little 'pet'.

The egg's bucket was the only one one that was inside Raven's "tent". It was more of a plastic blue tarp held up by a few poles, but he was intitled to his own opinion. Munching on the nubs, Raven peered into the bucket.

The eggs were gone.

Dropping the jar, Raven shoved his face so close against the bucket that only a tiny shaft of light peeped into the water. No, the eggs were still there, but they had sunk; not to mention they had lost their glow. Raven backed out a little to see better. Each of the eggs also had a tiny rupture in their gelatinous exterior. It took a moment for Raven to process all of this.

"...Oh. They hatched." Now he felt stupid for getting so worried about it. The question now was What hatched? There was nothing else in the buck- Wait! Raven saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He focused on the tiny pink culprit. "The hell?" Raven blinked at the thing. It reminded him of a worm, had worms possesed legs and spines.

Blissfully unaware of a giant staring at him incredulously, the "worm" poked at a twig. It was no longer than Raven's index fingernail; only it's flambuoyant colouration made it noticable in its drab environment. Raven stared at the tiny creature's investigations for a few minutes more than he probably needed to. Retrieving his pretzels, he muttered to himself, "Where's the Lab Rat when you need him...."

The Saturday After Hatching

Raven blinked. There it was again: darkness. Moist darkness. He blinked a couple more times for good measure, and the world went back to the way it once was. He had the dream a few nights ago, and he was still seeing it when he blinked, on occasion. Rather, he could feel it. Tight, enclosed spaces were for cockroaches, not humans.

The weirdest part about the dreams was how normal it was. Normally Ravens' dreams were complete and absolute farce, full of pointless storylines, odd mishaps, and images that could rival a druggie's acid trip. Essentially, Raven's dreams were just that: dreams. This one, however, felt real. Despite the fact that there was little memorability to it, it clung to him like his shirt on a hot summer's day.

The glimpse was gone now, so he resumed chugging his half gallon of milk. There was no point in amassing all of that refuse if he didn't cash it in at some point. So he did what anyone would do with their useless, yet valuable, junk; he pawned it. Of course, he couldn't bring it all, since the journey to this town was at least twenty miles, give or take. Not only that, but he carried The Bucket with him as well.

While the pawn broker was calculating the value of Raven's various pilfered odds and ends, he asked, "What's with the bucket?'

Raven glanced at the murky brown water of The Bucket. (He had added some dirt to it after the eggs hatched, since he wasn't sure what else worms ate but dirt.) Feigning sickness, he feebly stated, "chuck bucket." The pawn broker didn't ask any more questions, and quickly gave Raven his money. It wasn't much, but it was enough to buy a half gallon of milk, some generic brand fish flakes for his little worm (just in case), beef jerkey, two cases of matches, a gallon of spring water, a baguette, and a local newspaper.

The fish flakes disintegrated in the murkey water of The Bucket as Raven glanced over the newspaper. He bought it more out of precaution than anything. Just in case anyone was to ask him a question about the news, Raven could answer, and therefore pass as at least a high school dropout. Well, that, and to make sure nobody was looking for him. That was another reason he came into any town only on weekends: to make sure the truancy officers didn't catch him, thinking him to be a high school dropout. If they ever did catch him, they would find out he was homeless, and....

Suffice to say, it would be bad.

LOCAL TEEN MISSING blared the headline on the front page. Pikaia's Children Suspected in Kidnapping

"Pikaia's Children?" Raven murmured aloud. Although sketchy on the details, Raven knew PC to be some group of whackjobs bent on destroying things that were not meant to be, or never were, or something along those lines.

The story went on to give the facts interlaced with the reporter's opinion. The gist of it was that a 16-year-old female never came home after school a few days ago. After several hours of waiting her return from high school, the family of the girl reported her to be missing. She was later reported as kidnapped after her boyfriend, some local "foot fairy" superstar, confessed to the police to have seen her leave school and confronted by somebody. The reporter tracked down this boy himself, and he admitted to see her last talking to a policewoman, or so he thought. He was nearsighted, so the evidence wasn't very valid.

The Pikaia's Children theory was spawnned by a report last week of a PC faction moving into a nearby area, supposedly tracking down some eggs of those Things That Were Not Meant To Be. Another reporter wrote about how, the policewoman, an increase in PC followers in the surrounding area, and the kidnapping were interconnected, throwing about many theories as to how. In all of them, the policewoman is a supporter of PC, and the girl had either found the eggs or knew who had them. However, none of the theories could be backed up, as the policewoman who was supposedly the kidnapper was not talking on the subject.

Something clicked in Raven's head that moment. Pikaia's Children... kidnapping... eggs... eggs?

"HO's**t." THEY WERE LOOKING FOR THE EGGS I FOUND!