The Cave Creatures

Chapter 1

I felt so gloomy that even the bright rays of sunshine outside couldn't lighten my terrible mood. It all started today at school. The people of Trefora were required to attend until they came of age; at eighteen the sector they wished to live in for the rest of their life would be chosen. In first period, we received our science exams that we had tackled earlier that week. I glanced around the room nervously as my teacher, Mr. Cornswald, handed out exams to the rows of desks in front of me. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as I felt the large packet slide onto my desk, and when I was finally brave enough to sneak a peek, my heart sank. A big, fat T that stood for terrible stared in my face in the blood red ink. A sigh escaped from my mouth revealing my disappointment in myself.

"Nice job Emmeline!" Marissa said to me sarcastically while smuggly holding up her AA, above average, for the world to see. This wasn't anything new. Marissa always felt the need to rub everything in my face. Even though Marissa Webb was my adopted sister, she got on my nerves a lot. It either came from living with her for sixteen years, or the fact that she was just generally annoying. I rolled my eyes and placed the test in my purple, tattered science folder.

Before I had even been born, my father had died fighting in our nation's war against Collow, a country that lies just to the south of our homeland, Trefora. The war had been going on for a while; it used to scare me to live so close to the border with Collow. A lot of things scared me. Sixteen years ago, my mother had died giving birth to me, leaving me all alone in the world.

Without a will from my parents, I was put up for adoption. The Webb family was eagar to adopt me and made sure that I had had a place to stay. But, instead of treating me like a sister, Marissa would gang up with her friends and play mean jokes on me. She was never very close to me at all. If only Marissa could understand what it was like to have no one that truly cared about you. I was sick and tired of her 'fun and games'.

I sometimes wished I could do something back at her as revenge for sixteen years of torture. It seemed the only applicable solution when you added everything up was either life in the imperial prison or death. Maybe both. But, those were things that I would never do. I just wasn't that kind of person.

Secretly, I was praying that Phillip and Maria, Marissa's parents, would not get mad at me for doing so poorly on the science exam. Everything we learned in science could be applied to engineering new forms of transportation, the main occupation available in the Orange Sector. Although I attempted to listen attentively to Mr. Cornswald, I sort of slumped through the rest of the day hoping things would turn out alright.

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After school let out, I had cheer team tryouts. Most people would be surprised that I loved to cheer, but it is something that I had always been passionate about. I just loved to spread cheer and joy to everyone around me. I was determined even though I was about to set out to do the impossible.

All of the preps (popular girls) were deciding who would be an addition to the Orange Sector team. Those who made the team would get a chance to compete against the other five areas in the country. This meant that I needed to be ten times better than everyone else just to have a slight change of making the team. Of course their best friends were automatically admitted to the team, but they still had three spots to fill with ten of us left. I knew I had to give it my all.

"Alright!" said Penelope Richardson happily, "First, you girls need to repeat this cheer one at a time down the row. Repeat after me! 'Get out of those chairs and root for the Bears!'" Girl after girl copied the cheer the best that they could, and soon it was my turn.

"Get out of those chairs and root for the Bears!" I said in an energetic voice with as much pep as I could gather. I noticed Morghan Fletcher slightly nodding with approval, but immiediately, Penelope elbowed her in the gut. It made me wonder why Penelope disliked me so much. After all, I had always done my best to make sure I was friendly to everyone I met. I just shook my head and tried to ignore her the best I could.

After all ten of us had completed the cheer, the preps discussed our performances, and I began to stretch in case we did a pyramid or something like that. "Okay! Now we are going to do a pyramid!" Penelope exclaimed as if she'd read my mind. "Georgia on the top, Beth and Jessica on the second row, Veronica, Faith, and Tori on the third row, and Emmeline, Whitney, Hollie, and Rebecca on the bottom."

The bottom isn't so bad, I thought to myself. I'd just have to do my best and impress Penelope, which was a nearly impossible task. Hollie and I hoisted Tori up onto our shoulders, and on my other side I held up Faith with the help of Whitney. Once Beth and Jessica had climbed on top of the third row, everyone stood up. It was a nearly perfect pyramid. All we needed was for Georgia to leap on top of us all. When she jumped, she was practically flying as she soared onto the top. We all shared smiles of relief knowing that we had done the best that we all could have possibly done. After the pyramid, we did a series of other excercizes to test our capability of cheering and our flexibility.

"Excellent!" Penelope shouted once we were done. "It will take us a few moments to determine this year's team." In almost no time at all of talking to the rest of the preps, she was ready to announce the remaining three spots on the team. "Congrats to Hollie, Jessica, and Rebecca for outstanding tryouts!" The few of us who didn't make the team gave each other sympathetic looks as Hollie, Jessica, and Rebecca raced over to grab their orange and black colored uniforms. As I walked out of the school gym, I sighed. Well, I hadn't expected to make the team anyway, and it was a miracle I had done well at all.

Life just didn't seem to be coorperating with me at the moment. It was as if I was getting the silent treatment from happiness, and disappointment just wouldn't shut up. I started down the street to walk around the block to my house. I kicked the gravel across the road; my anger was released on several small rocks. The sun was setting as it neared six o'clock in the evening, and I was almost home when I heard a noise in the bushes.

"Who's there?" I shouted expecting it to be Marissa playing some type of nasty trick on me. I looked all around carefully with fear in my eyes and waited for a while, but heard only the wind whispering. After that, I walked a bit slower being more cautious of my surroundings. A couple minutes later, I saw a bright orange flash of color running into the woods. "How strange," I murmured as I started off into the woods, determined to find what I had heard and seen.

The stream was flowing calmly down the hill, preparing itself to empty into the lake about a mile away. The multi-colored, autumn trees blew back and forth as the wind bumped into them. The nature world seemed to be in perfect harmony with everything around it. I wished everything could be like that in the human world. It seemed like in our world everyone hated each other. Peace was rare and treasured in Trefora.

As I made my way down the hill, I tripped over a rock and slammed into the earth. My stomach was killing me and my knee felt pretty banged up. I was determined to keep going despite my injuries. Even though I was getting dangerously close to the Collow border, I kept moving forward. I just had to figure out what that thing was!

Suddenly I spotted the bright orange flash again, but it looked as if it had vanished into nowhere next to the tree. "What the..." I started to say.

The creature reappeared and stared into my deep brown eyes. "It is you!" the creature said.

A note from the author: I would like to thank anyone actually reading this for their support and I hope to get really far in this book. Also, if you started reading this before I finished chapter 1 it would be smart to go back and re-read. I have added things in between. Thanks so much for reading! (officially UPDATED)