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 Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:49 am
My Cast of Characters from Part One (: (Except for spoiler characters) Sorry if some images are cut off, I think it's something wrong with my scanner xP Kole:  Cam:  Scat (Teehee)/Jameson:  Bingo/Billie:  Ginny:  Piper:  Andrew:  Alice:  Pablo:  Lookalikes:  Scampers:  These are all the characters from part one that don't give anything away (:
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:50 am
Okay, lol to my drawings and I want to say sorry for paint spillage on some of them ><
Anyways~
This is my story Taken!
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:57 am
1
“Faster! Faster!” I cry. Ginny is near tears.
“Ahhh!” She wails. We’re outnumbered, and trapped. My Team is stuck to a wall, surrounded in a semi semicircle of Look-alikes and Scampers. Bingo and Scat are wide-eyed, but still determined to fight off as many enemies as possible. Cam is looking at me with his pure green eyes. It makes me want to cry. This can’t be the end. I won’t let it be.
Something inside me snaps and I turn into the invincible Kole. I charge into the crowd of Scampers (midget pet summoners) and start throwing them around before they can cast any weird pet spells. Cam smiles and urges The Team to follow in my lead. I look around and see Scat punching and mind-controlling people. Ginny and Bingo are doing their duo attacks against a couple of black haired Scat and Kole look-alikes (not very good clones). I giggle at how hopeless those things are. The look-alikes always have these errors that give them away, so they fail at their purpose to slowly kill off and replace The Team. Not to mention the huge gnarly teeth and the evil grins always plastered to their faces.
Then there’s Cam. The sad little puppy-dog who follows me around. I feel so horrible about it, his weird infatuation with silly old me. And the reason I feel weird is because I don’t feel the same way. But he knows that I don’t like him the same way, and he never gives up. He’s always been there for me, and I have been there for him, in the friend kind of way, or the family kind of way. But not in the love kind of way. It won’t ever be like that, I can promise.
We stand back to back and work on narrowing down the crowds of enemies. What are we fighting for? Well to stay alive, duh! But the reason those people are here in the first place, is because we are long time enemies of their creator, or, more like their creator’s boss.
“Kyah!” I screech as I side tackle a blind –but inhumanly strong- Bingo look-alike.
“Eeek!” it yelps. I look around and notice that there are only a few more enemies standing, and they’re being taken care of. I feel arms lock around my waist and lift me off the ground.
“We won! We won Kole!” Cam cheers. My eyes are still wide.
“Cam, put me down right now!” I laugh. But he’s right, we won. We should be happy and celebrate.
“Kole! Cam!” Ginny is smiling as she runs towards us, her silky pink sundress and brown hair floating after her. She leaps into my arms grinning and giggling. She’s looking at me with her chocolate brown eyes. “Let’s get out of here!” she squeaks.
“Agreed!” Bingo says, smirking. Scat is smiling and nodding.
“Alright,” I say. Then I nod at Cam. It takes a second but he starts growing a little bit bigger, or at least his muscles. He punches a large hole in the wall and gestures for us to come through. He couldn’t do it before though, because he didn’t have the time to build up his strength.
“Ladies first,” he jokes. Cam’s always been the joker. It can be so annoying, so I try to ignore him. Let’s see, descriptions, descriptions.
Cam has dark brown skin that looks as light as caramel in the sunlight. He had a genuine black afro, but he shaved it off since it took a lot of up-keep. Now he just has a little fuzz on his head. He has green eyes and lots of muscle. Not to mention his huge ego. He flirts with a lot of girls, but I think he just does it to try and make me jealous. I’m not jealous, more like ticked off he’s not concentrating on more important things, like, The Team’s safety for example. Cam almost always wears a brown shirt that sticks flat against his body to show off his muscular form, and black shorts with his black sneakers. He has powers, we all do. His are that he can grow back any limbs that get cut off and he can increase his strength ten times what it is normally.
Scat –real name is Jamie- named himself after the jazz skill he had (scatting). His original name was The Scatman, but we got lazy and just called him Scat. He has short blond hair that’s tangled and matted. It covers his forehead and barely touches his right eye. He has tan skin that almost looks dark in this warehouse’s poor lighting. He’s the quiet type, not mute, he talks sometimes but more often then not doesn’t. He always leans against something and just listens, with his hands in his jean pockets. When he talks his voice is smooth, not rough like people think it might be. He also has brown eyes that are so dark, they’re black. They chill you to the bone when he catches your gaze, only Cam and I have built a tolerance for it. He has the power of telepathy, which we all think is extremely cool. He also can read minds, but the readings are foggy and unclear. He’s working on it.
Bingo –real name is Billie- has platinum blonde hair which she always keeps in a high ponytail, though it always falls apart. She used to wear a peach colored shirt and a black skirt with her flats, but lately we’ve been getting attacked a lot, so she changed to a yellow tank-top, jeans, sneakers, and a jean jacket for more flexibility. She and Ginny are cousins so they both have pale skin. She claims she can talk to the dead –which I don’t really believe- and that she can piece together anyone’s memories to get an idea of what they’re doing and why. Her cousin, Ginny, only has one power so far (we all have two) which is that she can feel the emotions of people or things. It’s creepy and terrible, it’s what has made her hate violence and become a meditating freak. These battles are hard enough on her as it is.
My name is Kolida, but I prefer Kole. Cam calls me Kaleidoscope just to irritate me, but Ginny says that my changing hazel eyes with the orange ring around the center, fit with the nickname quite well. It still bothers me so I call Cam, Spam. I have blood red hair (yes it’s my natural color) and skin between sunburned and pale. Nature is my second home, if family and friends is a first home (we’re… wanderers), and for different reasons. The biggest reason is that I have this power to talk to nature. Yeah, kind of corny but it’s really helpful. I use it for directions and stuff. I also have a power I use more often which is, invisibility! I normally use it for pranks on Cam, but it’s awesome in battle. I wear a white tank-top with camouflage pants and black combat boots, not to mention my always present black headband. The headband is so lightweight, I forget all about it. I even sleep with it on, so I don’t think I’ve ever taken it off before.
The Team stalks off away from the warehouse and into a small town nearby. We pick out an abandoned home, farthest away from the warehouse and the town. Bingo, Scat, and Ginny settle down on a rickety couch while I walk into the kitchen to unload some canned food to eat. I hear Cam’s footsteps coming towards the kitchen so I use my power and turn invisible.
“Hey Kole I-“
“BOO!” I yell, appearing in front of him.
“Aaaah- aw, c’mon Kole,” Cam catches himself. He’s right, I have been doing it for awhile now, but it never gets old and, for some reason, he never stops getting scared.
“Well, at least I can scare you!” I tease.
“It’s not my fault that you’re not as skittish as me, but I still don’t understand how me cutting my freakin’ HAND off doesn’t scare you!” To be honest, it did scare me at first, but I’d had my share of fear and learned to control my composure.
“Like you said, I’m just not as skittish as you,” I shrug and open a can of beans with the can opener from my bag. “Besides, knowing that you’ll be fine in the end doesn’t exactly make me worried!”
“Toss it!” Cam says when I finish. I hand him the can opener and he frowns. “Kaleido, you’re no fun!” he whines. I grin and shrug again.
“What can I say?” Once the cans are open we light a small, contained fire in the center of the kitchen. The hole in the ceiling helps let out the rising smoke. Cam laughs and makes fun of me being able to cook, I just thwack him on the back of the head. “You’re a jerk Spam! Cooking is a talent that should be honored and respected,” I seethe.
We hear a thump and a shriek. “Cam! Kole! Help!” Ginny’s voice rings out. We exchange a glance, then leave our still cooking beans behind and race towards the sound of the voice.
Inside the living room is a gang of look-alikes ambushing the others.
“Hold on Ginny!” I wail, launching myself at the attackers. They stumble backwards, thank god they don’t share our powers, or smarts! It doesn’t take long to defeat them and they’re disposed of quickly and silently. The only one we keep is look-alike Kole. Her red hair is dull from dried blood and her face is shiny from perspiration.
“Cam! Cam! Where is Cam?!” This Kole has the weird obsession with look-alike Cam as her fault.
“Don’t worry you’ll be with him soon, but only if you answer a question of ours.” She looks up at me earnestly, it’s like watching a puppy stick his head out the window with glee, only to have the car pull into the vet, and then he goes in to get put down.
“Anything! Anything!” She squeals.
“Alright then, what is your boss up to?” I ask. Her eyes go wide.
“New experiments, big new! Perfect versions of us, better then us! Will be successful! But I can’t say no more, they’ll kill me-“ Just as she finishes speaking she freezes and makes a face of anguish and pain, then, in a single moment she turns to dust before us.
Ginny tears up, “She thought she was a real person with a life, and she died before she could understand everything… they, killed her…” she gasps.
“Don’t worry Ginny, she wasn’t a real person.” I reassure her. Ginny looks at me long and hard.
“Maybe not, but she thought she was.” her voice is strangely dark.
“Well, we know now that their boss is up to something.” I sigh, saddened by our failure at getting information.
“But what is it supposed to mean? New experiments, perfect versions of them, will be successful?” Bingo dissects the answer and tries to piece it together. “If only I could have checked out her memories in time! Maybe then I could have figured it out!”
Cam shrugs, “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” He looks around, “We should be safe for the night, but tomorrow it would be wise to pack up and head off.” I nod in agreement. We return to the now cooked beans and serve them on some paper plates that we packed. Ginny and Bingo sing the bean song while they eat, until they’re finished. Then Ginny gets up and looks at me.
“Kole! Tell us the story about when we all met and became The Team!” She gives me a puppy dog face and I laugh.
“Alright, alright! It was a rainy evening, real dank and humid. I was listening to an old police radio I found in a dumpster that had, with a little work, been describing a whole crime scene to me that night.
“I remember the voice on the radio crackling on and off asking for back-up at some abandoned warehouse on the west side of Wilmington (the country we live in). I decided to check it out for myself. Back then I had only just learned about my powers, and was trying to find places to practice them. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity!
“Making my way down the paved streets, I climbed up the fire escape of a nearby building. Then doing a bit of roof hopping, I reached the warehouse and snuck inside. I snooped around the upper floor until I came to the balcony looking down on the large two-story room. I crept up and down the railing keeping out of sight, trying to work on my invisibility skill. Down below large, bulky men were sitting around a table talking loudly about profits and trading, lots of drugs and vending junk. Most of them looked like dirty scumbags, except for one who had shiny black hair and a clean dark suit, Pablo. I kept sneaking around until I bumped into Scat and Cam, who I thought were some of the drug dealers at the time. I leaped on them and silently pummeled them without the drug dealers below even hearing.”
“Ow,” Cam groans, recalling the memory. I give him my innocent, lopsided smile and continue.
“Once I figured out that they were gifted teens too, we decided to team up and make a full report on the dealers together. So we recorded the information on Scat’s camcorder and fled from the scene, with a few dealers on our heels. Upon nearing the exit I heard the soft wail of a crying baby and the whimpering of a young girl. Now who was that?” I grin as Ginny and Bingo shoot up with their hands raised.
“It was us, it was us!” they howl. I laugh and nod.
“Yup, it was you guys. Bingo explained that you two had been abandoned and left in the warehouse with nowhere else to go, trapped by the dealers blocking the exits. We showed you a way out and together we escaped to the local police station where we turned in our evidence. That was the day we all decided to stick together and become The Team!” I cheer. Everyone woots and cheers at that ending. Then Ginny gets up and starts dancing and singing a song about happiness and enjoying it with those you love. I taught it to her a long time ago;
In the Parade the horses gallop,
people dance and sing,
making all kinds of wallop!
Stuff yourself with food galore,
laugh with friends,
while you go get more!
Bingo giggles and joins in. Ginny’s sundress twirls with her as her feet dance the parade jig. Her hair flies all over and in her face but she doesn’t care. Scat bounces his head side to side in the beat of the song and slaps his hands on an old table to make the beat louder;
In the parade the balloons fly,
in all kinds of colors,
as they go sky high!
Cam and I get up and dance with them, holding each other’s hands and dancing in a circle. We finish the final verse together;
In the parade there’s people to know,
fun to have,
so stay for the show!
We spend the rest of the night singing songs and dancing, forgetting our troubles.
“Look at us. Four years later! Kole, Scat, and I are 17. Bingo’s 12, and little Ginny is almost 9. It’s a happy thing to think about right?” Cam says as he lies on his sleeping bag, his head resting on his hands. We all agree, tired from our day. I love my team, my family. We’re together now, and forever I hope.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:58 am
2
The next day we pack up our things and head out, away from the town.
Wilmington is a small country on the outskirts of Sweeny, the large country that neighbors us. The Pacific Ocean spreads out on one side of our country, the other three sides being surrounded completely by Sweeny. Wilmington is very small and is mostly made up of different types of landforms. There’s desert, forests, fields, and even some cliffs near the beaches. It’s small 150 –by-150 mile area is super compact. There’s a large city near the coast that acts as the capital and other smaller towns spread out across the country. Sweeny is 6000 miles in length and 10000 in width. It’s been trying to invade Wilmington for a while, but overall has failed.
After a few hours I call for a rest in a small meadow, with soft grass for a nice, comfortable cushion.
“Where’s the nearest water source?” Bingo asks.
“I don’t know, let me check.” I sit down, close my eyes, and press the palm of my hand to the grassy ground of the meadow. My nature power kicks in. “We’re on the outskirts of a very, very large forest that leads into an open desert with an extremely large building, although I don’t know what it is. About a mile in the forest there’s a fresh water lake, about 30 feet deep at the most. There are a few empty campsites nearby that people might be heading to in a few hours, but if we steer clear of them, we’ll be all right,” I explain. “For now let’s just take a breather, we’ll head off in another hour.”
I head out to find some firewood so we can cook some food for lunch. When I return with the wood, to my surprise, everyone is calm and silent. I let the wood fall from my hands and Scat uses his telepathy to arrange them in a neat tee-pee shape before they even hit the ground. Then I take out my matches and set the wood on fire, careful to make sure it doesn’t make contact with the dry grass. I open a can of corn and Cam opens a can of peas and we cook them. Once they’re done we take out the paper plates and silently serve them.
The silence is nice. I’m not used to it, even with Scat around, but it’s calming and bone-chilling at the same time. No wonder he likes it.
Cam settles down next to me and starts going off about all the girls in town that he met. Breaking the silence.
“Rebecca was pretty, but Chelsea was HOT! She had a nice tan and slender-“
“I’m not biting Cam,” I interrupt.
“Why, what do you mean?” he asks innocently. I frown and roll my eyes.
“I mean, I don’t care about your little girlfriends, so if you don’t mind, quit provoking me and let’s move on to a more interesting topic. I’d rather watch you cut off your fingers for the 20th, time then listen to you drool over Rebecca.”
“Chelsea!” he corrects.
“Whoops, my bad!” I roll my eyes again. Cam opens his mouth to speak, but closes it. Smart move. He seems disappointed I didn’t say, “Oh Cam! Please stop talking about them, I can’t stand it! I love you! It’s too much for me to handle!” But he takes my response anyway and seems satisfied enough.
We reach the lake and go swimming in our clothes, washing off the layers of grime. Then we grab our canteens and fill hem with water and purify them. More swimming.
“EEEKK!” Bingo screeches as Scat splashes her. “Oh you asked for it!” she puffs angrily. She splashes him back, but overall he wins when he uses his powers to make a huge wave come and hit her dead on. Scat laughs, his laugh is light and smooth, just like his voice. I fantasize that one day, he’ll talk all the time, so I can hear his voice every day, but his silence nice too.
“Alright, let’s get to sleep!” I say. There are no arguments, everyone is too tired. I sit down to take first watch, looking at my team as they rest, all so peaceful looking. Around midnight I hear a scuffling noise nearby. My muscles tense, Cam shoots up, he’s been awake as well. We exchange a glance and slowly get up.
With our bodies wide-awake, we patrol the area. I’m about to head back when a girl swings down from a tree, head first like a spider.
“Hiya!” She says cheerfully.
“Hey! Watch it!” I say in surprise as I fall over.
“Kole! You okay?!” Cam races over with a frightened expression on his face.
“I’m fine,” I mutter.
“No worries, she just has a sore butt.” The girl laughs and swings down from the tree. Her laugh sounds like tinkling bells.
“Erm, who are you?” I ask, looking at her up and down. She is wearing a black shirt under a dark gray sweater with black shorts and what looks like ballerina shoes. The shoes have black ribbon that wraps around her leg and hangs a little, making her look graceful when she runs and jumps.
“Piper’s my name, piping is my game.” The girl, Piper, pulls out some piccolo pipes and starts playing. It’s a beautiful three-note tune.
“Uh,” my mind is racing and I find myself really only thinking three things over and over again. What. The. Heck.
The Piper chick is giggling and doing somersaults and cartwheels.
“Cam, Kole! Wh- where are you guys?” Ginny’s quiet voice says out of nowhere.
Bingo calls out, “You guys didn’t sneak off to kiss, did you?!” Mental face palm. She, Ginny, and Scat emerge from some bushes and look at us. It must be a weird sight. Me: on the ground covered in dirt with my hair all over the place. Cam: looking like he’s about to cry and laughing at the same time. Piper: a strange girl jumping around in the trees and playing pipes.
“Bingo. You know darn well I wouldn’t do that.” I set my jaw tight and glare at her. She just shrugs and looks up innocently.
“Oh, I did? Well I suppose I know now!” I narrow my eyes at her. Piper’s voice snaps me back to reality.
“Hey guys, y’all are a bit boring. Mind if I leave?” Bingo frowns.
“Um, no. You’re going to tell us why you’re here.” she says.
“Well, I could ask you guys the same thing. But if you reeaallly need to know, I’m a wanderer. My home is nature!” The only thing about Piper’s appearance that isn’t dark, is her pale skin and light blue eyes.
“Who are you?” I ask, getting up and wiping dirt off my pants.
Piper huffs and rolls her eyes, “I already told you, I’m Piper!”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Where did you come from?” There’s silence for a minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4, almost 5 when-
“No where,” she answers bitterly. Then she hops into a tree gracefully and disappears. I turn back to my team, they’re as confused as I am.
“What. The. Heck.” Bingo says. My thoughts exactly.
• • •
The day after Piper, we head deeper into the forest. We’re all quiet, knowing any loud noise might attract attention.
“C’mon Cam, we need to hunt!” I say eventually. With all our canned food gone it’s back to business. I haven’t hunted in awhile, but it was always fun and easy. I can hear Ginny’s stomach growling.
“’Kay,” Cam says casually. I turn to the rest of The Team.
“You guys set up camp and we’ll be back with some food to cook and eat.” The Team nods and I grab my Hunting Knife, Cam grabs his too. We walk about 30 feet away and I turn invisible.
“Let’s have a little competition and see who can get the most game!” he suggests with a grin.
“Sounds good!”
“I wouldn’t sound so confident darling, after all, I AM Cam the Great Hunter!” He flexes his biceps and kisses them, as if it had anything to do with hunting.
“Riiight, well, you better watch out!” I say playfully before scampering off. He knows what I mean when I say that. I’m saying, “When you least expect it, I’ll be there and you’ll find yourself handless.”
Using my knife I kill 2 rabbits and a shrew. I drop it off at the camp where Cam hasn’t returned and run off to find him. Invisible in a tree, I see him hiding in some bushes, trying to sneak up on a raccoon. In a quick blur of motion I jump in and slice, then duck as he tries to punch the air in surprise.
The alarmed Cam stares at his hand lying armless on the forest floor, then he comes to his senses.
“Kole,” he growls. I come from behind a tree, visible, laughing. “Kole!” he repeats. “You scared off my raccoon!” he shouts, shaking his handless arm angrily at me.
“Haha! I warned you! Well, it shouldn’t be too bad if you already have some game to bring back.” He looks at his shoes and kicks up some dirt. “You don’t have anything do you?!” I burst out laughing again. “What ever happened to ‘Cam the Great Hunter?’” He grimaces and shakes his head. I watch him grow back his hand.
“Don’t make fun of me!” he grumbles, “There’s a reason for it!” I put on my ‘Oh-Look-I’m-Interested’ face.
“What is that reason?”
“Well it’s weird, you probably won’t believe me…” I c**k my head to the side and give him my charming smile.
“You’re right, I probably won’t! But go ahead and tell me anyways! I could use a good laugh.” I settle down on the ground.
“Well I went to hunt by a river over there, and every time I almost got an animal, some weird high-pitched noise would lure them away. When I followed, I couldn’t find anything. I finally decided to move away from the river and found a raccoon. When I was ready to pounce, you appeared out of nowhere and that happened,” he points to his old hand, sinking into the ground.
“Aww c’mon, you know you love it when I cut off you hand. Besides, it’s good for the environment!” He smiles and nods.
“It does make my hand feel fresher.”
“Well I’m sorry to say this, but you were right.”
“Huh?” he peers at me cautiously.
“Yup, I don’t believe you.”
“Whatever,” he mutters, disappointed that I didn’t trust him.
“Don’t worry hunter, I got plenty of food for dinner,” I say reassuringly. Then with a little grin add, “Oh, and I think this means I win!”
I race ahead and he follows me, “That’s no fair! You interfered!”
We get back to camp where Scat has skillfully skinned the animals and started a fire. We sit down around the fire and eat in silence. After the meal is done, someone breaks it. And it’s not me, Cam, Ginny, or even Bingo. It’s Scat.
“That girl,” everyone stares at him. He so rarely talks, “Piper, she’s following us, I think.” He stumbles over his words a bit, but his voice doesn’t sound scratchy or hoarse, just beautiful, which makes up for it.
“What makes you say that?” I ask warily.
“I hear her thoughts, and her music, from far away. They’re quiet but I can hear and understand them. She’s always there, like I said, she’s following us.” Okay, creepy.
I stare out into the dark forest, calculating his words. Why would she be following us? It’s not like we’re in possession of anything valuable.
My team stares at me, wondering what’s on my mind.
“Maybe we should confront her,” Cam suggests, helping me out. Scat shakes his head.
“No no!” he says, frustrated.
“Why no? Is she too powerful? Is she going to trap us?” I press on.
“I- I don’t know, but it may not be safe. Her music is powerful, it- it can manipulate objects. Make them combust or move them around,” his voice trails off.
“You mean, like your mind can do?” Bingo joins in.
Scat grimaces, “My mind can do simple things quickly, her pipes can do powerful things over time, though her speed and agility buys her time to cast her music spells, or whatever.”
“Can she lure things with it?” Cam glances in my direction, a smug look on his face.
Scat shrugs, “I would presume she could.”
“Then it was her! She was the high-pitched sound luring all the animals away! Probably trying to get a meal too!”
I scowl, “We don’t know that, we have no evidence that your claim is true. If you’re right though, Cam, then maybe we can use it as a way to track her, or at least keep an eye on her!” I glance over at Scat who is smiling sadly.
“Oh, she’s very lonely, and she doesn’t belong here,” his eyes flicker for a moment, turning into a tawny color, but then they’re black again. No one else seems to hear his quiet murmurs through the noise of excitement at an oncoming battle.
“When we find her, I call dibs on her pipes!” Bingo shouts.
“Bingo! We aren’t going to kill and rob her!” Cam gasps.
Ginny is in a zen pose with her eyes closed and forehead wrinkled in concentration, “Cam is right Bingo! We should try to make peace with her, and maybe convince her to join us!”
I hear some rustling nearby. She’s here, but I can tell she was only here for a moment. Scat nods at me, he knows too.
“Quiet!” I scream. “We will not be killing ‘it,’ so calm down!” I put two fingers to my cheek, a signal of preparation. Slowly, one by one, they do the same to signal they understand.
“I’m going to try and sleep now,” I say, making my way to my sleeping bag. I crawl deep inside of it, careful not to let any part of me show. Then I turn invisible.
I creep out of my sleeping bag, and very carefully make my way to the place where the rustling came from. My team sits around making casual conversation to keep the charade going. Trying not to make any noise, I creep up the tree. As I slide onto her branch, she senses the extra weight and turns around. I stiffen.
When she doesn’t see anything, she relaxes and turns back to watch the Team.
Just as she notices my sleeping bag is empty, I grab her.
“Gotcha!” I grunt as I push myself off the branch with her. We are only three branches up, so the fall is not too bad.
“Eep,” Piper squeaks as she tumbles downwards. I land on my feet and reveal myself. She’s on her butt from landing less then gracefully. My team runs up and helps me tie her hands and feet up with some rope from my duffle bag.
The piccolo pipes fall out of Piper’s back pocket and Bingo picks them up, examining them thoroughly.
“Looks normal to me,” she announces. She tries playing them but nothing happens. “Ugh, what’s wrong with these things? Why won’t they make noise?”
“Duh! Only I can play him,” Piper hisses.
“Well, excuse me for not knowing they were enchanted,” Bingo counters. “I bet you can’t talk to dead people!” She toys with the pipes some more.
“Oh fer the love of- put Pip down! You’ll break him!” Piper snarls.
“Pip? Him? Is this thing alive?” Bingo’s eyes go wide and she drops the pipes in shock. Piper winces.
“Be careful! He’s like a part of me, if he hurts, I hurt! I named the pipes Pip, he’s not really alive, but he is to me!” she snaps. Bingo gives her a, ‘You’re-Mentally-Challenged’ look and picks up the pipes again.
“Wow. You named your pipes Pip, that’s really stupid.”
“Shut up!”
Bingo just sticks out her tongue and pokes the pipes some more. “If they really hurt you then-“
“Bingo!” I snap as she raises it to throw it on the ground. She pauses. I glare at her menacingly and she gulps, gently setting the pipes down next to her sleeping bag.
“We’ll let those two figure out their problems, meanwhile, I need some sleep,” Cam yawns. He has a point, it’s late.
“’Kay everyone, time to sleep! Someone set Piper down so she’s more comfortable!” I shout.
“I will!” Bingo snickers.
“I’m fine standing, “ Piper grumbles. I shake my head and crawl into my sleeping bag. Ginny adds some more fuel to the fire and takes first watch, our little trooper. In the dark, I hear a thump and Piper swearing, but I’m too tired to care. It can wait for tomorrow.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:59 am
3
I’m in a dark room, the kind of dark where you can’t tell if your eyes are opened or closed. I hear crying and snoring from my right and heavy breathing from my left. I’m not alone, and it’s almost more terrifying then being by myself.
Are these people going to hurt me? Are they in trouble? What’s going on? Why am I here?
There’s a loud creaking noise, like a heavy door being opened. I see a sliver of light on the ground ahead of me. I feel drawn to it, like a moth. I suck in the light, treasuring it and savoring it, trying to memorize it so I don’t forget it when the darkness comes again.
Other people bump into me, also crowding around the light, trying to break free.
“Hurry, they’re coming, they might get out! Get the lady and her infant!” A deep male voice calls from the other side of the door.
A figure steps into the doorway, and clicks on a flashlight. He finds what he’s looking for and grabs a lady holding a small girl, no older than two.
“Help! Please, no!” She cries, her voice so full of emotion it makes me tear up. The door closes and the light is gone. I lie down, trying to picture it in my mind, trying to remember it. I can’t ignore the shrieks and wails. The sound of the baby crying. They always put the noise of despair in the room so we hear it, so we fear it.
I don’t remember much, just being taken from a nice home with a nice family. The only clear things I can picture are waking up in the pitch black room and watching all that happened. I can’t measure time, but it certainly has been awhile since I woke up. People whisper about breaking free when the door opens again, and I wish they wouldn’t. If they tried to escape they’d get caught and tortured, and the noise from their pain would echo in the room through speakers to teach us a lesson.
I don’t know exactly what happens on the other side of the door, but the other people in the room have their ideas. They whisper stories about experiments and torture to kill off things called Element- Mortals. I don’t know what some of the things they say mean, my head feels empty, like my thoughts were completely emptied from my head and there is nothing left to fill my skull.
Even with the screaming and the scary stories, we still can’t help but crowd around the light. I feel so trapped, thinking that the light is the closest to feeling alive I’ll ever get.
Finally, they come for me. The door opens. We crowd around the light. The figure of the man steps into the doorway and the deep voice of another man tells him to grab the “other fire one.”
I’m dragged out of the room roughly and I kick and scream, trying to break free. The light is blinding now, and it makes me scared. I long for the darkness to soothe my aching eyes. I feel a p***k on my arm and I go limp, letting myself get placed onto an upright table.
I don’t stop yelling in protest and screaming nasty things.
“Kolida Fall, it’s about time we got to you! Boy am I looking forward to this!” The deep voice of the man says from somewhere. I groggily turn my head to the side to look around.
“Whut?” I groan, my words slurred and slow. The man does not respond and that’s when I notice the other girl, on a table beside me. She’s very young. Probably only nine or ten.
Her blood red hair is messy and her hazel eyes with an orange ring around the center are bloodshot. “Kole! Please don’t let them do this! Fight back! Fight back!” she wails, her voice cracking.
“Shut that child up!” The man growls. A large muscular man comes and hits her. This upsets me for some reason and I struggle to free myself from straps holding me down.
“Don’t touch her!” I screech, hearing a strap snap.
“Get more anesthesia and fix her table! She’s breaking loose!” The man orders frantically. I keep pushing and grunting, trying to break free. I feel a p***k on a different arm this time and another in my leg. I tire a bit, but don’t stop. I keep pushing.
“Get more and fast! She’s still conscious and- and strong!” another man gasps nearby.
The man with the deep voice mutters to himself, “This is fascinating! Imagine what we could do with her!”
“Kole! You can do it! Keep it up!” the small girl cheers, not stopping even after the strong man hits her again. I feel three more pricks and fall backwards on the table, trying very hard to pick myself up again.
“We need two more doses!”
“But she’s had enough to kill some one already!”
“No arguing with the boss! Get that anesthesia NOW!” The little girl beside me is struggling to break free too.
“C’mon Kole! You can do this! We can do this!” The strong man punches us both. Hard. I whimper just before I feel another 2 pricks in my arm.
“Megna,” I mutter before everything goes black again.
I bolt upright out of my sleeping bag, breathing heavily.
“Kole?” some one whispers behind me. I feel a hand on my shoulder and shriek in surprise. “Kole, be quiet!” Cam mutters, clamping my mouth shut.
I bite his hand and he pulls back, grasping it. “Sorry,” I say, then add, “About the shrieking thing, not the biting thing. You deserved that.”
Cam rolls his eyes and moves to sit next to me.
“Is something bothering you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Well, it’s just that, you look a lot more tired and you keep thrashing around in your sleep, screaming.”
“You watch me sleep?” I tease, half wanting to know.
He smiles and looks at the ground shyly, “Only when I’m on watch, which is, y’know, a lot.”
“Whatever, I guess I have been a little, confused, lately.”
“What are you confused about?”
I look up at the sky. It’s orangish, purplish from the occurring sunrise. “Just about where we all came from. We all had that same experience. Waking up in the room of some rich philanthropist’s home. Running away because we didn’t feel welcome. All trying to find some good use for our freaky powers. I don’t understand why I don’t have any real connection to anything here. I mean, don’t you feel it Cam? Don’t you feel it at all? There’s nothing here I can really communicate with except for you guys.”
He looks at me intently, as if trying to figure me out, “Kole, you’re one strange lady, but, I do know how you feel. Every time some one tells me, ‘Sweeny failed to take over Wilmington’, even though I know it’s alright, I feel like it’s none of my business what’s going on around me.”
I nod tiredly, “I guess it just takes some getting used to, huh.”
“So you had that dream again?” Cam guesses.
I smile a bit, “Yeah, you know me too well.”
“Eh, you always get a little deep after you’ve had that dream.” He stands up and offers me his hand, “C’mon, let’s wake up the others and question Peter Piper over there.”
“It’s just Piper, thank you,” she mutters bitterly.
Soon, we’re all in a circle around her. Bingo starts us off, eagerly waiting to see if her new enemy would be found guilty and punished for some sort of crime.
“Why were you following us?” she asks.
“I wasn’t,” Piper growls.
“Well, Kole pushing you out of that tree sure proved otherwise!” Bingo points out.
“Excuse me! Sorry if I found you guys slightly interesting!”
“Are you kidding? You just got done saying how boring we were the other night!”
“I know, I just needed an excuse to leave! I wanted to know what you guys were doing in the forest! Now, where’s Pip!” Piper’s voice gets shrill and frantic when she mentions her pipes.
“I have it, but why should I give it to you?” Bingo growls.
“I- he- he’s like my drug! I need to play him or I’ll be in a cranky mood and probably slip into depression.”
“Drugs aren’t good for you.” I roll my eyes as I watch them argue and glance at Scat who’s got his eyes narrowed at Piper.
“What are you looking at ‘Animal Poop?’ Got a problem?” Piper snarls at him.
“Hey! You don’t have any right to call him names girlie! That type of talk is inappropriate!” Cam yells angrily.
“Cam, calm down,” I say, holding him back with my arm. Then I face Piper, “He’s named Scat because he ran away from home and had to change his name to keep his adopted parents from finding him. When he ran away he made small money by performing in jazz clubs in the city. He got a good reputation from his scatting and had to come up with a different name to be known by so he wouldn’t get caught.”
“He told people to call him The Scatman. I met him in an alley and we became pretty close friends. After a little while, he stopped scatting and we went into business together catching criminals. All of us met in the same warehouse where the infamous Pablo Ricardo was planning out his dynasty. We caught it on tape and turned it in to the police station, deciding that we should stick together. That’s when we became the Team, and The Scatman became just Scat,” Cam finishes.
Piper stares at us, a bored expression on her face. “Oh what fun, a history lesson.” Then she sees Scat still narrowing his eyes at her, “Will you quit looking at me like that ‘Animal Poop?’”
“Alright! I’ve had enough of you! Shut yer trap or Pip gets it!” Bingo threatens.
“Set him down Bingo!” I warn.
“Yeah, listen to your leader! Set him down!”
“I’m not afraid to throw this down and smash it to pieces you emotionless piece of-“
“Bingo calm down! There is no need to fight with this girl-“
“I didn’t ask you for your opinion Ginny!”
“Hey guys! Let’s all relax here-“
“Give me Pip-“
“I’ll throw this down, I swear I will-“
“Stop it! Find your inner peace-“
I close my eyes in frustration, the noise of the bickering seeming to fill the entire clearing.
“ENOUGH!” I scream as loud as I can. Everyone freezes. “We’re going to give her back her pipes-“
“We are not!” Bingo wails, racing off towards the tree line.
“Bingo! Come back!” Ginny cries, running after her.
I face palm myself.
“Don’t worry, you know Bingo. She needs her time to freak out.” Cam is standing next to me, watching the two girls struggle with each other.
“Yeah, it’s just that I wish she would try to cooperate.” I glance at him sadly. He grimaces and nods. Then we both look Piper who’s lying on the ground looking at us.
“Give it back Ginny!” Bingo shrieks from across the clearing.
“No! Kole said we were giving it back to Piper so I’m giving it back to Piper!” Ginny says, sprinting back towards us. She hands Cam Pip and I nod at him. He cuts the rope on Piper’s hands and hands her the pipes while I grip Bingo’s arm tightly to keep her from attacking.
“Wanna see something cool?” She asks, obviously much more happy with her pipes. I nod slowly.
“Sure, why not?” She grins and plays an old song I’d never recalled hearing before, but knew the lyrics to. It’s an old song about happiness and freedom.
Come Along,
Come with me.
Don’t you wish that you could be,
Anything but lost,
Do you want to be free?
Then come along,
Come with me.
Piper looks at me expectantly, as if hoping I’ll sing. My teammates are looking at her anxiously.
“What’s the cool thing you wanted to show us?” Bingo asks boredly. I thwack her on the back of the head and she frowns, rubbing the spot where I hit her. “Ow.”
When Piper realizes I won’t sing, she looks down and changes the song. It’s two low notes played back and forth for one long continuous minute.
Something weird happens to the rope on her feet. It quivers and shakes, then suddenly snaps right off. I can barely react before she hops up and out of Cam’s reach. He lunges forward, but only the lace from her ballerina shoes touches him.
In a flash she’s on the other side of the clearing.
“Thanks my lovelies! I had a wonderful time! We really should do this again!” She catches my gaze before jumping into a tree and disappearing.
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