An Ankh Pendant.

Cody Nickolson: Goldfish.

Cody found he got on his nerves quite easily, but he was a good source of information when you needed it.

“ Is William showing up today?” Kelly asked, leaning back in her chair.

Cody just shrugged, “ he's a bit unpredictable when it comes to whether he's going to show up or not.” He was going to add something when the bell went off, signalling the first class. Mathew gathered his books, glancing back at the two of them.

“ You two coming or are you going to be late?” He asked. Kelly stood, pushing her seat in.

“ Yeah, yeah.” She said, “ I'll be dead if I'm late for math again.”

Cody followed behind as the two of them walked down the hall, his mind wondering off. No matter how many times he told himself, he couldn't shake that feeling.

Like something was just looming over the horizon.

“ You noticed something's up too?” Cody asked, stopping in his tracks. Kelly stopped walking, looking at him with a confused look on her face. They were walking home when Kelly had mentioned something that caught Cody's attention.

“ Well, it's a little odd.” Kelly said. “ It just hangs around my house, when I call to it, it just sits there, staring at me.”

“ A black cat?” Cody asked.

Kelly nodded, “ Yeah. It must be a stray or something.”

“ My fish keep dieing.” Cody stated, as if that fact was the answer to everything weird going on.

“ That's because you don't feed them.” Kelly pointed out.

“ I do feed them, that's the problem.”

“ You don't overfeed them?”

“ No.”

“ You change the water every week?”

“ Yes.”

“ Then your fish don't have a reason to be dieing!” Kelly exclaimed. Throwing her hands in the air in asperation.

“ But they do.” Cody stated.

Kelly sighed, “ I don't know, maybe you're just really bad with pets.”

Cody frowned, then turned and continued walking, leaving Kelly to jog to catch up with him.

“ Cody! Come on!” She sighed, “ I didn't mean to sound insensitive, but you might be blowing this whole fish thing out of proportion.”

Cody slowed his pace, “ how so?”

“ You're acting like the fact that you're fish keep dieing, it means that the world is going to end.” Kelly explained, raising an eyebrow at him. “ You might need to calm down a bit.”

“ What if it moves from my fish to the neighbour's dog?” Cody asked, “ what if it moves to my parents?”

“ Now you're just being irrational.” Kelly sighed, “ maybe you should go home and get some sleep.”

Cody sighed, looking down at the ground. “ Yeah. Okay, I can do that.” He started to walk again, Kelly glanced at him, worried, before quickly crossing the street to her own home.

“ What's this?” Cody muttered to himself, picking up the small object that was laying on his bed. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. He let the string slide through his fingers, it catching on the end of his pointer finger.

The small Ankh dangling in midair. The wooden carvings in it, he could tell it was hilogriphics.

He blinked, staring at it for a bit. Maybe his mother had bought it for him? He slipped it over his head before sitting down on his bed. He reached into his bag and started to study.

A few hours had passed when Cody glanced out the window, his eyes widening. There was a dog in his yard. But, it seemed a bit too big to be a dog, and it's ears were too wide to be a coyote. In the setting sun, he could easily see the red fur on the animal, it's back was covered in black fur, white flecks sticking out of the black fur.

The dog was staring up at his window, Cody could feel a sense of dread from the animal that made his skin crawl. There was something off about the dog, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The animal stared for a few more seconds before turning and running off into the woods behind the house.