I've been writing a book for some time now, and I wanna' share the first chapter with you guys! And if you think it's good, please leave a comment!!
Chapter 1
This could’ve been anybody. But no, it had to be me. It’s been a whole year, and it’s still fresh in my memory. But, I suppose you don’t want to hear me complain about it, without you even knowing what I’m talking about. It’s really quite a strange story, you might not believe me, and I won’t blame you if you don’t. But who knows, maybe it’ll happen again in a thousand years. And if it does… I really hope that person has an insane amount of luck, because they’re going to need it.
“Honey, can you go shopping please?” Mom asked. She never went herself. I rolled my eyes, but resentfully said, “Yes, what do we need?” Delcotia, my sister, replied, “Uh, duh, food.” I rolled my eyes again and got up.
“Do you think you can get a Tootsie Pop for me Sake? Please?” begged Pazze, my little brother. I told myself I’d probably never find another in New York (since last time I got one, I got it from a homeless guy who wanted to get rid of everything he had before he died). “I can certainly try little kid.” I told him. At least it was the truth.
I got my jacket, hat, umbrella, and dagger before I went outside. Not that the umbrella would do any good if I lost my dagger. As usual, my family told me good luck, don’t die, and all that stuff. No one goes outside at night, but that’s usually when I go out… but in this case, it would be better to go out in the daytime.
I open the door and the first thing I see is people through their windows staring at me like I was a dead man. But some people were praying not to see another gory scene. Although I always go outside, I still have to take major precautions.
I start walking very slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements or noises. It was a warm summer day, I glance toward the forest. All the flowers are blooming; the trees are alive and green, but no birds. There haven’t been any birds in at least ten years. No one knows what happened to them, but all we know is that they’re gone.
I get my senses back, and keep walking. I hear a screech in the distance, but keep going. I finally get to the closest broken down Wal*Mart. The doors open a quarter of the way, and I have to squeeze through the door to get in. There are only two people in the whole store. One of them looks like they were kicked out of their house, and is hiding from the outside. The other person is very dirty and skinny (as most people here) and is going as quickly as they can to get out of the store.
As for the store, a lot of shelves are empty, or dented. Some are completely torn out of the aisles. One of the shelves really grabs my attention every time I see it. It has huge claw marks on it, and dried blood. I study it all the time, trying to figure out what made the claw marks, and whose blood it is.
I walk to the canned food aisle, and start looking for the chicken noodle soup. I look for soups, microwavable pizza, lasagna, and other random things. I took at least an hour for a Tootsie Pop, but to no avail. I knew Pazze would be sad if I didn’t get him anything, so I picked up a Twinkie before I checked out.
When I’m just about to walk out the door, I hear clicks on the floor. It was almost as if a horse was walking on the floor, but I knew this was no horse. I unsheathed my dagger and started walking toward the noise.
I’m just about to walk around the corner when a blood curdling scream sounded across the store. I had to plug my ears for a moment so my ears wouldn’t pop. The man who was shopping was trying to run out of the store, but something lunged at him.
I knew the first thing not to do; run out and try to fight it. I stood there, trying to think of what to do, but all I could do was watch. The creature was tearing at the man. I assumed it was eating him, but it looked as though he was looking for something (even though all he would find was blood and organs).
It finished, and looked for the other man. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him scrambling on the floor towards the exit in the back of the store. The creature flew at him and I assume he was doing the same thing it did to the other man.
When he was done, he walked toward the exit as I started tip-toeing to the emergency exit. But I slipped, and the creature heard me. I got my first good look at it as it was facing me. It was as big as a full grown horse, and had a long tail, like a lion. It was covered in brown, white, black, and tan feathers. It had huge white wings, and a head with a huge beak. It had black eyes that seemed to bore into my soul. There were only two words in my head at that moment: Griffin, and run. The first one took over my mouth, and the second one took over my body. “Griffin!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. But as I said that I stood up and started running. I swear I would never stop running. I couldn’t stop running. I could hear flapping behind me as I ran out the door. I still had the dagger clenched in my hand, ready for action.
I could feel the stares of at least a hundred people watching me in horror. I didn’t think of it until I was twenty yards away from my house, when I figured out that I couldn’t endanger my whole family. So I swerved to the left, and headed for the lake. I figured (since it was covered in feathers) it couldn’t swim very well, if it could at all.
I saw the lake in range, and I was about to dive in when I realized something; I couldn’t hear the Griffins wings flapping anymore. I stopped, exhausted, and took a breath. Once I went on my way back home, the Griffin landed two feet away from me. I turned around, and dove into the lake. I saw it on the shore, glaring at me. I swan deeper into the lake, not wanting to stay in the shallows.
The Griffin suddenly jumped into the lake. I panicked, and went under the water. I swam deeper, and deeper, not wanting the Griffin to follow me. When I stopped, I saw a pair of bright green eyes looking at me. I started to wonder if this day could get any weirder, when the eyes started coming closer. Then I saw a face, and dark blonde hair, and a body. I thought it was a girl going for a swim, but then I saw a tail. A bright green tail that, when it moved, it seemed to make my legs look clumsy.
I had to decide right then: Mermaid, or Griffin, Mermaid, or Griffin. I picked Griffin since I needed air. I swam up to the surface of the lake. Fresh air felt good, I must’ve been under the water for a pretty long time. The Griffin was nowhere to be seen, and I realized I lost my dagger. Great, the last thing I needed was to lose my families only weapon.
I walked out of the lake, and made my way home. I was bruised and scratched and aching all over, and still out of breath. I remembered I’d left my groceries in the store. Perfect, I have to go back to the store, where there’s two dead, ripped apart bodies waiting for me.
“Why are you wet? Why are you hurt? And why were you gone for four hours!” yelled my mother. “Were there any Tootsie Pops?” was the first thing my dear little brother said to me after I almost got killed. Delcotia didn’t say a thing. She just sat there, watching reruns of House.
We only had three channels on our TV, so I guess that was the best thing on. My mother got me a towel, and dried me off, and asked what happened. Pazze interrupted me when I was in mid-sentence, so I gave him the Twinkie.
I told my mom every little detail, because if I lied to her, she could tell, and gave me puppy dog eyes. Delcotia didn’t even say a word, but I couldn’t help feeling like she was listening to me. My mom’s eyes portrayed horror as I talked about the guys being ripped apart, but she didn’t say anything. When I was finished, she got up and grabbed a huge book off of what used to be our fathers book shelf. She told me to read as much as I could of it tonight. I asked why but she just said, “Just read it, I think you’ll find it interesting.”
So that night, I spent two hours reading the book, and the rest wondering what the heck happened to me that day.
Subject: In the World of the Unknowns 
Sat Jul 30, 2011 12:33 pm
