Hybrid: The Awakening

Chapter 7-Asher

Date on Earth: Tuesday, October 3

"Asher? Asher!"

"Oh sh-"

"Is he dead?"

"He's still breathing, so no."

"What the-"

I groaned, putting my hands to my head. I was met with a pounding headache that made my brain feel like it was going to explode.

"Thank goodness you're alive. I thought we would have to explain to the authorities why there was a lifeless corpse with us."

A boy that I vaguely made out as Tristen had kneeled next to me with frantic eyes. "You alright?"

I tried shaking off some of the dizziness. "What happened?" I tried asking, but it slurred together, sounding more like "Whahabened?" Tristen gave a sympathetic look and shrugged. "Don't know."

"What the heck did you do?" Diana exclaimed, a pinch of panic in her voice. "We came back from searching for sticks and stuff to find you pale and unconscious with the grass all full of these scary markings-"

"Asher," Tristen said with a serious undertone. His eyes flashed to the strange symbols marked on the ground, which I realized were the same ones that I had seen glowing from the cube. "I need you to tell me exactly what you did."

"I didn't do anything," Instinctively I tried to defend myself. "I just touched this weird cube thing-"

Tristen grabbed me by my shoulders, stopping me mid sentence. "It had weird symbols, didn't it? Same as the ones on the ground right now?"

My eyes widened. "How did you know that?"

Diana walked over with her eyes closed, shaking her head. "Hold up, so after you touched...whatever it was...did it, I don't know, hurt? Like really really bad? Like-"

"Like something was burning you up from the inside." Tristen's face had turned green, like he was about to puke.

"How do you guys know about that?" The confusion just added to my pulsing headache.

"Asher, show us your wrist," Tristen's voice shook.

"What?"

"Just wanna check something. Flip your wrist over."

Diana glanced at Tristen, her face also gaining a greenish tint.

Hesitantly, I turned over my wrist. There was a collective gasp.

"Woah, okay. That was definitely not there before." On my wrist was a tattoo with symbols that also seemed to mimic the ones on the cube. I ran my fingers over it, surprised to find it cold and hard to the touch.

Tristen and Diana stared at the tattoo, mouths gawking. Slowly, Tristen lifted up his sleeve, revealing his own tattoo that was imprinted on his wrist. I blinked before looking him in the eye. "How-" for the first time ever I was speechless. Tristen looked just as confused as I felt. And Diana-

She started to shake, wrapping her hands around herself. Taking deep breaths, she too lifted up her oversized sleeve. She had strange markings on her wrist as well. But that wasn't what caught my attention. Her arm was covered in bandaids, but it failed to cover the three large gashes that ran down her arm. Dry blood stuck to her arm like paint. The wound looked fresh.

Tristen sucked in a breath. "Who did that to you?"

Closing her eyes and shaking her head, Diana pulled her arm back. "So it didn't come after you guys too?" We both shook our heads. Diana took a few deep breaths to steady herself. "Last night when I touched...the thing you guys apparently touched, there was this monster. When I woke up, it was dragging me. It was pitch black with long sharp claws and when I tried to fly away it suddenly sprouted wings and-"