I have a pretty normal life, or at least for this day and age. We live on a trailer park. Ours is pretty small, but it works for just me and my mom. I hardly ever see her, though. By the time I've passed out from swinging my air katana, she's only half done with her rounds. I guess she's trying to protect me in her own way by picking up hours, but I wish I got to see her more often.
    “Be kind and don't take advantage of people.” She told me that constantly… But I wish I could get some other life lesson, because even as a six year old, I could tell that dad taking our money and running off was bad.
    I do feel like this world has it out for me. I have bright blue eyes, so all of my teachers assume my black hair is dyed. Well, it's not, but it is really hard to get good grades with their prejudice. Plus, there’s the students. I'm an average height, so you'd think that I'd blend in? Not quite. It's my name, Chris Holdenster. You would think that the whole “Hold and Stir” joke would die after Elementary School, but I guess once a subject of bullying, always a subject of bullying. Oh, but there's this one girl, Aurora Frein, who always defended me on the big things. She's one of the “popular girls,” but doesn't act like it. She's always wearing some sort of pink or flower print, and her long, brown hair is always done up in either an exquisite braid, or a cool pony tail thing that gets clipped up. I don't really talk to her, but she is in most of my classes. I just can't help thinking if she would like someone like me-
    “Holdenster!” I jolt up from my haze to find Mrs. Laurel standing in front of my desk with a stern face and arms crossed. “If you don't wish to participate in class, then I would happily send you to the principal’s office!”
    My eyes widen, and my mind goes blank. Instinctively I stand- “S-sorry m’am!” M’am?! Good job Chris! She hates anything that makes her feel old (even if her hair is grey).
    Her eyes narrowed, and she looked down at my paper- notes annotated with samurai drawings. “If you have time to draw ninja, then you should be fine cleaning this classroom after school.”
    “Yes Mrs. Laurel.” Oh that made me cringe! Samurai are not ninja. I guess it serves me right for drifting off.
    I just kept my head low the rest of the day, with the exception of being shoved once or twice. Man, 10th graders really are brutal. At least I didn't have to endure Mrs. Laurel’s insults all afternoon. She got bored ten minutes in and told me to lock the door on my way out.
    The sky turned a blood orange as I started to head home. Another lucky thing, the trailer park is only about a mile from school. Still, this walk home was giving me the chills. The hair raised on the back of my neck, and an ice cold breeze swept by. At the halfway point, I accelerated to a fast walk. My heart convulsed as I looked back to find two figures following me. Crap! Why me? There isn't much I do to get on people's bad side, but this was a different level. While trying to run and look back, my legs crashed into a metal trash can near some apartments. One more turn!
    There, in my sights was my motor home. Keys! I fumbled through my pockets, and frantically flung my key into the lock of the door. I barely closed the door before the two figures approached.
    They were my classmates! One, the guy who kept moving my desk held a plastic bag. The other, Dave I think, was the popular football player. My legs trembled, but I wasn't all that scared. The were shaking the motor home. All I could do was watch through the smudged window.
    I looked down for a minute, and their laughter turned into shrieks. What? In the orange haze, I saw the silhouette of what looked like a hairy spider with only four legs. From the dark fur, three red eyes blazed. One leg was bent, and the two boys flailed wildly in between. The cries were combined with shouts of pain.
    “What do I do?”
    There wasn't much I could do. All I was good for was standing there, palms sweaty, and breath trembling.
    “What is that thing?” My heart began to race.
    I slowly backed up until a light breeze blew past my neck.
    “So you can see it?” A higher voice rung from behind me, shocking my system.
    “What the HEL-”
    “You should really do something… They will die, you know.” Aurora stood casually behind me with her headband in hand.
    “I can't do anything!” I looked down in fear. Aurora? What is she doing here? And how does she know what that thing is?
    “You can see it, right?” She leaned against a cabinet and pointed at me. “That means you're a descendant of the King.”
    “King?” What was that supposed to mean? “Can other people not see it?” The shrieks grew stronger and shook the confusion into panic. “I don't know what to do!”
    In split second my ears turned hot and they stung. Aurora was now behind me.
    “Wha-” She covered my mouth.
    “Those earrings should respond to your blood. All you have to do is close your eyes and imagine your inner energy materializing.” She took a few steps back.
    “How do I-”
    “Just try.”
    Great… I had no clue what she was talking about. Nevertheless, I obediently closed my eyes and focused on my life force. The only thing that came to mind was a blob of fire, and my ears began to burn fiercer. What? My hands automatically came together, and they became lead. I opened my eyes in amazement.
    My hands turned dark, and fused with a long sword that glistened about one foot wide. The end was tapered, and glowed bright red.
    “Great. Now go on.” Aurora sat down by the window.
    “Are you going to help?” There was no way I could do this… I didn't even know what this was.
    “I have long range powers.” She crossed her legs and inspected her nails. “Too late for that now.”
    I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The cries kept begging for aid. When I looked out, the monster wasn't killing them, but was staring straight at me, as if to use their pain as incentive to get me to come out. His eyes imprinted themselves on my memory. This was it.
    Without hesitation I lept through the the window for a preemptive strike; there was no longer any hope for the element of surprise. I aimed for the closest leg, but he moved enough to get away with just a nick.
    Not good enough. I lunged in, and jumped towards his core. Although the hostages were dropped, the monster slammed his now free arm into my back, and drilled me into the concrete. I couldn't breathe, and every bone in my body twinged. Not good. He was already ready to strike me, no less than a second from contact. Everything froze.
    Don't question it. I had to go. I jumped and rebounded on the firmly planted stock of a leg in order to slash his neck. My sword sliced through sluggishly, but his head stayed as I descended.
    “What?” My sword was gone. His leg flung to where I had been right before purple splattered from his cut, and his head toppled to my feet. A few moments after the corpse too fell over in a large thud.
    My pain resumed, piercing my lungs-scorching my muscles. The world turned in my sights before I saw Aurora above me. I couldn't move from my recumbent position.
    “Not too shabby.” She kneeled next to me. My mouth wouldn't speak. My mind wouldn't focus. My eyes rolled, and my vision gradually became fuzzy.
    “Not too bad, but there's more where that came from.” This is all I could hear before I lost consciousness, and everything went dark.