{{I know this is late, but...I want participation points. It's not HP, it's from another fandom (the first series of the television show, mainly), and it's an original cast in that 'verse. Prolly only E's going to read it, but I like posting warnings xD}}
One.
SHAY
“Oi! Pipsqueak!”
Shay West, still tossing and turning in bed, didn't answer.
“Hey! Mom says get up, as in now.”
The bedroom door was flung open by an irate girl in her older teens, long brown hair in a morning bedhead frizz. As the door opened, Shay's eyes snapped open and she snapped up, breathing as if she had just run a long distance.
“Dude, you're sweating like a pig.” A laugh. “What, another nightmare? Does baby still need someone to tuck her in bed?”
“Shut up Vanessa.” Shay threw her pillow at her, and Vanessa flipped her off. “God, is this what all seniors are like?” She exaggerated her shudder in an attempt to look comical. “I mean, not only are you a jerk, you've got giant bags under your eyes. I'm fifteen, so that means I only have a couple more years with a positive IQ.”
Vanessa's only response was to roll her eyes and saunter away while her younger sister Shay smirked.
But as soon as she was gone, the smirk became a grimace. It had been another nightmare that made her pant and sweat. In it, she was watching five girls with odd color-coordinated outfits and fairy wings running from an invisible enemy. Well, they were flying. In the dream, she had to run along with them. But in the end, no matter what she tried to do, they all froze in place...one by one.
The redhead was always the last to go down. And at the end of the nightmare she always handed her a glowing pink jewel. Then she opened her mouth to say something, and froze, just like the others. And then everything went dark and she usually woke up, or just drifted away in nothingness.
All in all, not pleasant. Maybe it was immature, but these dreams were creepily real. Especially when the really scary part came in: she'd seen those girls before.
Well, okay, not seen as in seen and met in person. But about a week after they'd started, she'd come across a photo of a group of girls that had gone missing from her school five or six years ago. The article had been short, just a 'still no sign' type of thing that meant they were giving up. No trace of them had ever been found, it was just like they'd vanished off the face of the earth.
Freaky and impossible, right? She'd been having those stupid nightmares all summer. Today was the first day of school and it still hadn't gotten better.
Maybe there was some way for her to just crawl back under the covers...
An hour later, she was walking up to the front gate of Sheffield Institute with a sigh. Yes, that was her school's name. Stupid, wasn't it? Whoever thought that calling a school an 'institute' was clearly on something, it just brought up a lot of stupid mental ward jokes.
“Shay! Shay! Wait up!”
She turned, smiling as she saw Olivia Daniels running towards her, looking blonde as ever. They had been best friends since the diaper years, even though they weren't all that much alike as time went on. Olivia was perpetually happy on a hyper level, and wore what Shay considered to be an unhealthy amount of green. It did match her eyes, but still.
Today wasn't too bad though, just a light green short sleeved sweater. Her jean skirt was blue, and her short boots were white. “Someone's opted to not blind the school today, I see.”
“You're one to talk,” Olivia laughed, grabbing her in a one-armed hug. “Black dress, belt, and legwarmers? Okay, there are stripes, but still. Black shoes even. Should I be saying trick or treat? I didn't realize the first day of school was that gloomy.”
Shay snorted and shoved Olivia lightly. “Oh you know, it's all so depressing. Trapped in stuffy classroms being lectured about things no one cares about instead of tanning at the beach.”
“Please, you're tan enough,” Olivia snorted. “And luckily it looks natural on you.”
“Since I was born with it, perhaps?”
“Details.” Olivia could be seriously blonde sometimes. “Point is, it doesn't look like you tried to spray it on last night, which is good. But if you're going some weird kind of tan-happy emo on me...”
They were still laughing when they entered the hallway, and almost ran into a redhead going the other way.
“Whoa, sorry there.” The girl grinned slightly and moved back. “Not trying to run people over or anything.” She walked off as soon as the doorway was cleared.
“New student?”
“Gotta be,” she nodded. “After all, you know everyone, miss Green Olive. I swear you're some sort of bat or something...”
A voice came from behind them, “If she were a bat, she'd be blind and use sonar to locate objects in her surroundings. It has nothing to do with hearing.”
“Hello Evelyn.” Evlyn Sato, Sheffield's local science geek. She got along better with Olivia, really. “Well, I guess some people don't go through summer geek-brain drain.”
Evelyn shrugged, and Olivia hugged her happily. “It's so good to see you again! How was surf camp? Oh, tell me later, there's the bell. Bye!”
“Later.”
Classes seemed to pass by in a blur, just the typical start-of-the-year junk about getting to know the students and handing out the yearly lesson plans. It didn't require much of her attention. But she couldn't shake her gradually rising feeling of anticipation. What, exactly, she was anticipating, she wasn't sure. But she felt sure that something was going to happen soon. Something exciting.
“Guess what, guess what, guess what!” Olivia practically tackling her as she walked through the school gate wasn't quite what she had in mind by exciting things happening soon.
“Someone hit your repeat button?” Shay grinned slightly at her.
Olivia sighed slightly, then disappeared from her range of vision as she jumped back, then reappeared dragging a dark-haired girl along with her. “This is Sarah Beth! Another new student. I mean, how weird is that, I counted three. Who moves to Heatherfield-”
“And then sends their kids to a school with 'Institute' in the name?” Sarah Beth had softly finished the sentence for her while shrugging. “Nice to meet you, I'm Sarah Beth.”
Shay smiled at her. “I'm Shay.”
“She's from Oklahoma, isn't that cool? It's like...so not here.” Olivia's energy button seemed to have been pressed, she was practically bouncing where she stood. “A talked a bunch of people into meeting up with us at this really cool Chinese place. Let's go!”
As far as exciting went, eating Chinese food and listening to Evelyn give boring lectures on science and the difference between Chinese and Japanese as soon as some idiot tried to call her Chinese just didn't cut it. Eager as Olivia looked, she needed to find some excitement.
Biting her lip, she shrugged and said, “Can't, sorry. I've got tennis.”
Olivia sighed dramatically. “Okay. I'll call you later. C'mon Sarah.”
“It's Sarah Beth. Both names.” With a friendly wave, Sarah Beth followed the hyperactive Olivia down the street. Hm. She did have a bit of a 'Southern-ish' accent, now that she was listening for it. She didn't even know her last name.
Olivia had run back down the street to where she stood by the gate, a gleeful smile on her face as she whispered in her ear. “And just so you know, tennis practice is on Thursday. Since this is Monday, I expect to know what you're really blowing me off for. Toodles!”
Sigh. As expected as that was, it didn't make it any less annoying. How was she supposed to explain that she was avoiding this back-to-school pig out in part because Evelyn could be prickly, and in part because a strange nightmare was making her think that something exciting and new was going to happen. Olivia liked to talk a little too much, and she tended to babble without thinking. Eventually someone who found out would probably put her in a real institute.
Shay walked slowly down a side street, pausing if any window displays of the little shops looked interesting. Nothing caught her eye for more than a few seconds, until she came to a bookstore on a corner lot. She barely ever came this way, but the fact that she hadn't discovered this place before was pretty impressive.
After all, it was kind of hard to miss. The inside looked like it had been hit by some kind of hurricane and no one had bothered to clean up. “Ye Olde Bookstore,” she said softly, looking up at the lettering over the door. “It looks kind of deserted.”
Her curiosity had kept her rooted in place, but now she moved to the door. She wasn't here to steal books or anything, but she just...wanted to get inside. Reason apparently wasn't back from summer vacation yet.
To her surprise, the door opened as soon as she tried the handle. This was kind of creepy, unlocked and looking like a mess, but it didn't look like it had been vandalized. It just looked like all of the books had been thrown around, like there had been a fight. As she stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind hr, she noted the clear layer of dust on the floor.
“Okay then.” Shay took a deep breath, willing herself not to be freaked out. Charging into things without thinking them through was a personal specialty, but once she'd already gotten into trouble she tended to freak out.
She stepped gingerly over books – and bookshelves - scattered across the floor, making her way to the register. It popped open as she moved her hand towards it, and she froze. “O-okay then. Okay. Totally not freaked, I just want to look around an abandoned bookstore for no particular reason. Nothing...odd about that.”
When she was able to convince herself to move close enough to peer into the drawer, there was a surprise there for her: it was full. Clearly this place hadn't been trashed because of some sort of robbery, all of the money and books were still present, it was just a mess. Maybe a fight had broken out in here? But why leave it like this then?
It was a dusty mess.
Ugh, why was she even here? She should just get out before someone spotted her and called the police on a thief, open register and all. This was more weird than exciting, it was stupid to have thought 'exciting' things were going to happen anyway.
Shay turned to leave, pushing the register shut. As she was opening her purse, there was a flash of light above her head, and something heavy hit her in the nose.
“What the hell?” She rubbed her nose and glanced around to see what had suddenly smacked her. The books were as dusty and stationary as ever, but there was something new in the room. “Hello, strange glowing necklace,” she murmured, picking it up and looking curiously at it.
It was a pink crystal necklace. One that looked exactly like the one from her nightmares that the redhead tried to hand off at the end. But this was probably just some kind of cheap jewelery you got from a gift bag at a party or something. Except that the chain and decorative-looking bits were most definitely real metal, and there was some sort of design etched in. And the round gem in the center, when she tapped it with her fingernail, didn't seem like plastic at all.
At the tap, the glowing intensified and the gem rose into the air, hovering above her hand. “Whoa!”
That was most definitely not normal. Shay wasn't really an expert on normal, obviously, but this was weird enough for her to be on the 'normal' side of the line divider.
A small piece of paper dropped into her hand after another flash of light filled the dusty old shop. It was crumpled up, but it had a kind of...glow to it as she smoothed it out between her hands. The crystal necklace continued to float, glowing brightly enough to read the elegant script on the paper quietly out loud.
“Hello Shay West.” Shay paused, staring blankly at the paper.
Okay, going from weird to creeped out by the fact that whoever wrote this knows my name. “You have been chosen as the new keeper of the Heart of Kandrakar. The infinite dimensions, which the Guardians have long protected, are being overcome by darkness.”
Darkness. Yeah. That's original. What, the universe fighting some sort of shadow-thing, or is it just someone that wears a lot of black trying to rule everyone?What? The universe? Okay, she was losing it if she was even thinking about this. But she couldn't stop herself from reading on. “As the new leader, you must locate the other Guardians before you confront the princess. There's no time, they're probably already after you now that you have the Heart. Always be watchful, always be wary, and don't trust anyone. Good luck.”
This wasn't cool, this really wasn't cool. So, evil was apparently after her. But none of this was real, since clearly, this was impossible, and not the excitement she'd been looking for. She could just go home and find out that this was a new nightmare or something. Right?
Maybe there was more on the paper, some other clue as to what was going on. She turned it over, checking to see if it went on. There were only two words on the back, and they didn't exactly clear anything up. “Guardians unite?”
The necklace dropped back into her hand and began to spin wildly. Shay almost screamed as lights burst out of it, orange, green, blue, white, purple, gray...and a bright pink one that flew into her chest. “Whoa! What's-” She stopped as the rest of the lights vanished, and the pink light reappeared. Her body was glowing, and now the little ball of pink light was spinning around her, creating a cocoon of light.
She barely knew what was going on, but she couldn't do anything, just gasp as she felt her body surge with energy. There was something growing on her back! But this was all impossible, this was-
It was over. The lights were gone, the weird necklace was hanging around her neck like any innocent piece of jewelery, and the dust was settling back down around her. Something felt different though. There was something on her back, and she couldn't exactly see what without finding some sort of mirror around here.
“Hang on, my hair!” Shay gasped as the silky brown hair moved across her shoulder. “I know I didn't put it in a ponytail, and it's been straightened.” Talking to oneself might be a sign of insanity, but with all of the other signs, she wasn't going to fuss.
The window would have to do, and it didn't look like anyone was out on the street from what she could see. Trembling, she stepped across the dusty floor to stand right in front of the glass. “What the...”
She looked as if she'd aged several years in the last few seconds, and it wasn't just her newly-straightened hair that had changed. The age difference had come with one of the color-coordinated outfits in the style of the faerie-girls in her nightmares. She couldn't see any striped tights, but her legs were entirely covered by loose purple pants. Like the faerie-girls, her top was green (they all had one half of the outfit purple and one green) but it was layered over a purple top.
It all felt unnatural, too smooth to be clothing. And the icing on the cake appeared when she turned in front of the glass and discovered what was on her back: wings. Small wings that were separated rather like insects'. Maybe some sort of weird butterfly? They were pretty, tinted green and all, but they were too small to possibly do anything.
Shay wondered if she could move them, since they seemed to be attached. If she could feel them there, and they were connected, she should be able to - “Ah! I'm fl-ouch!” As soon as she had tried, the wings had responded and she'd risen into the air, colliding with a bookshelf in her shock. “Okay then. Ladies and gentlemen, we're definitely not in Kansas anymore,” she whispered, moving back to the ground to stare at her reflection.