My heart in my throat, I pivoted on my feet before darting out of the bathroom door. I ran back towards my bedroom, hearing the thing behind me as it snarled, hoping that I wouldn't be struck down. The dark haired man was running in my direction, but I didn't care. He was a fluffy bunny rabbit, compared to the werewolf. Even though my logical mind kept up a repeating litany of werewolves aren't real, my survival instincts kept screaming run. I barely registered the man running past me, pulling something out of his coat. For a split second my civilized side wanted to stop him from running into certain death, but my survival instinct said if he got caught first I'd have a better chance of getting away.
I bolted into my room, slamming the door and locking it with shaking hands. Realizing it wouldn't stop the creature, I struggled to push my dresser in front of the door. It wa heavy, and the bottom edge dragged along the carpet, resisting my efforts. I got on all fours and pushed against it with my shoulder until it was centered in front of the door. Standing, I looked around, listening to the struggle outside of my door, trying to figure out what to do next and fighting my guilt at not helping the man. I didn't have anything to use as a weapon since the man had taken my bat. I couldn't hide; it only stood to reason that the werewolf could sniff me out. My only chance was to get outside.
I slipped on a pair of hot pink flip-flops, the only shoes I had in my room. Just as I turned to the window, my door was blown inward. Splinters of wood zinged at my face, forcing me to duck to avoid an eye injury. The man and the creature burst through the remains of my door and grappled with one another as they fell over the dresser. As I began backing up, I realized that another werewolf was climbing through the door way. I had only a moment to wonder how many of the things were in my house before a strange feeling washed over me.
My heart, which had been tapping out a fast paced staccato, began to beat hard and slow. It pounded so hard that I could feel the blood rushing through my body, surging through my brain and making my chest burn. Looking around, everything seemed to be in slow motion. Werewolf number two was putting his foot on the dresser while slowly bending so as to fit into the room; the man was climbing off of werewolf number one, which looked dead judging by the way its neck was angled. He turned his head, and raised his hand to gesture to the window. "Run!" He said, his voice sounding as if it were a record that had been slowed, deep and drawn out. I swung back around to face the window, the movement seeming to take forever.
As I started running toward the glass, the man caught up to me. I glanced at him, noting that despite the fight, he didn't have so much as a scratch.
"Jump!" He ordered.
Without even looking at the window, I obeyed. We burst through it together, glass shards flying through the night air and twinkling like stars. As we fell to the ground, I realized there were two werewolves running toward us from the front part of the house, the claws on their back feet digging into the dirt and spraying clods of it behind them. We pushed away from the ground and started running again, speeding away from my house. I thought of my car for only a moment, discarding the thought immediately. I'd never make it.
I looked back to see that all three werewolves were gaining on us. I sped up, pushing myself to the limit. My lungs bured with the effort, and yet one of the werewolves was closing in on me, reaching out to grab me. As a last ditch effort, I jumped up to get out of its reach...and kept going up.
"Finally!" Said my stranger, jumping from the ground and flying upwards. Within a few seconds, I was twenty feet off of the ground, watching as the werewolves ran and bayed at losing us. They seemed to shrink as I went higher, wind whipping around me and causing my pajamas to flap like a flag. Once they stopped running, my heartbeat returned to normal, and things began moving at a regular pace again. Suddenly, I began dropping.
Gravity was pulling me down. Like a moron, I began flailing my arms, kicking, anything to keep me from crashing into the ground. A second before I would have become a human pancake, the stranger caught me, and flew back into the air, cradling me like a child. I should've wondered why I could fly; I should've asked why the werewolves had broken into my house, or what he planned on doing with me. There were so many better questions to ask, but when I looked into his dark brown eyes, the only question that came to mind was, "What is your name?"
He looked down at me and frowned, his full lips thinning just a little.
"My name is Kory Scotts. I am captain of the Guardians; and I will be your trainer."
*
Unbelievably, I fell asleep. In the arms of a stranger in midair, I fell asleep. When I woke, I was laying on a small twin sized bed in what appeared to be a jail cell. It was a small room, just large enough to fit the bed, a metal toilet that was screwed into the wall, and a metal sink the size of a mixing bowl. There was a small window over the bed, and the sunlight streaming in was amplified by the white colored walls. I sat up, noting that the door didn't have a handle on the inside and the window had bars on the outside, as well as what looked to be silver mesh on the inside.
I was wearing plain gray drawstring pants, and a white T-shirt. There were thin, black slippers beside my bed. I didn't remember someone having changed my clothes. I shivered as I slid my feet into the slippers and walked to the door, which also had a window with the silver wire mesh. Looking through the window, I could see a pretty, smiling woman talking on a cell phone. She was blond, with a black pantsuit, and looked friendly. I raised my hand, tapping on the window to get her attention. She looked up at me, smiled even more broadly, and held up her hand to me.
"Just a moment," she mouthed. Wrapping my arms around myself, I waited until she got off of the phone, pacing back and forth. She came to my door and pushed something on the side of it.
"How are you feeling?" She asked, looking at me. Puzzled about how I could hear her, I looked around until I saw a tiny speaker set above the door. Ah, I thought, an intercom.
"No offense, but how in the world do you think I'm feeling? I'm in a strange room, in strange clothes, I can't get out, and, oh yeah, sort of kidnapped! I'm feeling a little off!" I stopped pacing and glared at her.
She laughed, a nice chuckle that was low pitched and somehow reassuring. "I meant physically. Do you hurt? Do you feel hot?"
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I felt sore, and I could see a few short, shallow cuts on my arm from breaking through my window, but other than that I felt fine. Relaying this to her, I watched as she wrote on some sort of chart.
"Okay then," she replied. "Would you like to come out?" Taking another deep breath, I gave her the nicest smile I could muster. "Yes please. I really would."
She leveled a stern look at me, her wide, cornflower blue eyes narrowing. "There's to be no funny business. Don't try to run off, because I will catch you. And then you'll be right back in that cell."
Mentally crossing my fingers, I said, "Of course not." At least, not until I have the perfect opportunity. I figured I would be in a huge pile of dung if I got caught. Stepping back, I watched as she used what seemed to be a biometric scanner, a blue light rapidly flashing over her eye. When the door opened, I was tempted to make a run for it, but I didn't know what was on the other side of that door and didn't want to chance it. Instead I calmly walked through the door and to the woman's side, looking at her expectantly. After another moment of writing on the chart, she placed it under her arm and turned to me.
"It's almost time for breakfast. Walk with me to the mess hall; I will try to answer any questions you may have." Smiling again, she extended a manicured hand to me. "By the way, I'm Ana. Ana Landry."
Cautiously, I shook it. "Crystelle Jackson, but everyone calls me Elle. Where am I?"
We began walking down a long hallway. "You are in the Guardianship headquarters, and before you ask; no, I will not tell you where exactly that is."
A bit stymied, I asked the next big question, "Why am I here?"
"Well," she replied as we turned a corner, "to put it simply, you are a possible guardian."
Seeing the confusion written on my face, she continued. "There is a branch of guardians who still function as part of the normal world. We call them spotters. What spotters do is keep an eye out for possible guardians, people who are faster than a normal human. Or people who have better psychic abilities than a normal human. In essence, spotters look for people who are a more advanced human."
"And you think that I may be an "advanced human"? Other than flying last night, which I'm not sure really happened, I'm pretty average." I said as we began walking down a flight of stairs.
"So, you're telling me that you've never seen something about to fall, moving in what seems to be slow motion, caught it before it hit the floor, and placed it back where it belonged?"
"Well..."
"And then had people tell you that they'd never seen someone move so fast?"
"I..."
"Or heard when a television or radio was turned on, like a high-pitched whistle in your ears, even if they were turned on rooms away?"
"Yes, but..." I tried to respond.
"And you've never jumped off of something and hovered in the air for a few seconds longer than normal?"
"Well, everyone has stuff like that happen to them!" I exploded. I was tired of being cut off.
"Yes, once or twice in their lifetime. Our spotter in your town saw you do three of those things. Just this week."
"So?" I said. We came to a stop in front of a steel door.
"Just a moment," Ana replied, stepping in front of a keypad. I watched as she punched in a series of numbers. The keypad slid aside to reveal a biometric reader. After a thumbprint scan she ran a card through a slot and the door finally opened. "A precaution," she said smiling. "Don't want any dogs running loose."
"I'm not a dog," I retorted mulishly, following her through the door.
"Like I said, it's a precaution. We didn't know if you'd been bit."
"What, you guys didn't look me over while you were changing my clothes? A bite would be kind of hard to miss I would think."
"If you'd been bitten, then by the time you arrived here, it would've been healed. Even a just-turned dog heals incredibly fast."
"Alright, whatever. Back to the original subject." I said, realizing she'd changed subjects quite neatly. "So what if all three strange occurrences happened last week? It doesn't make me some sort of freakish warrior."
She smiled again, which I was starting to get annoyed by. I didn't find anything amusing about our conversation.
"No, it doesn't make you a freak. However, it does make you a possible guardian, as I stated earlier." She stopped outside a pair of double doors.
"Why only a "possible" guardian?" I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.
"Because it is your choice," Ana replied, pushing through the doors. "Your choice to train, study, and become more than you could imagine; and your choice if you decide not to."
Close on her heels, I watched as at least thirty pairs of eyes shot to me. My shoulders hunched and I ducked my head a little. I felt a little like a bug under a microscope. Stopping, I tugged at Ana's shirt before she got too far ahead of me.
"Yeah...Just lead the way out of here, because I don't want to be one of your guardians. I'm going home."
"No you aren't." Said a deep, graveled voice behind me. Jumping, I whirled around and found myself looking at a chest that seemed made of steel. I raised my eyes to find myself starting into eyes like dark chocolate.
"You are staying here," Kory stated simply. "Regardless."
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