Chapter 1
Zachary was mostly a normal, fifteen year-old teenager with teenage problems. He liked girls, listened to music, a few pimples every now and then, but the thing that set him apart from every other teenager his age was, mostly, his temper. He knew he had a problem with his anger but never wanted to do anything about it.
Zachary was court ordered to attend an anger management class for three months or until the counselor saw a change in his anger. The counselor soon moved to Guadalajara.
His parents weren’t much help with his temper either. His mother and stepfather never paid him any lick of attention ever since they found out they were going to have a child of their own and before that they were busy with their jobs. Jonathon, his stepfather, made cars for GMC; Sharon, his mother, worked as a manager for a district of restaurants that were actually night clubs if you paid attention to all who went inside. Only once before did Zachary gain any attention from his parents and it was when he broke his knuckle and they were mad at the bill they received from the doctor.
He never knew true friendship either. Sharon had one rule about making friends with people: no werewolves. Zachary didn’t know why she hated werewolves so much but in his mind he just didn’t want a long conversation. As it turned out, some of Zachary’s classmates that he got along most with were werewolves, so it was a double whammy when it came to his anger. He couldn’t be friends with them because he didn’t want to hear his mother yell at him. Not that it bothered him; it was just the screeching sound that came along with each yell. Plus, anyone else would have sold him out for a pack of gum or a dollar.
So Zachary was a loner and avoided people…a lot.
During one session of his anger management when he lived in Columbus, Ohio, he found out that his anger was towards his father. His biological father. Zachary’s father was his idol and role model. They literally did everything together. Zach was clung to his father like a koala bear cub. He was funny and wouldn’t get made at Zachary when he drew on the wall or broke a lamp. He was willing to do anything to get Zachary and his mother anything they wanted in any way possible. Then one day he just disappeared from Zachary’s life. He left for work one day and didn’t return. What was once a happy family became, an anger induced, son and his mother, who was never as protective and caring after that.
Zachary was only eight.
Now fifteen, Zachary is preparing to move away to a small town to north of Columbus, just near the Great Lake Erie. Jonathon’s grandfather had recently passed away and gave Jonathon a fishing boat because he knew Jonathon wanted to be either a fisherman or a farmer. So he gave Jonathon a boat.
Jonathon, being an employee for GMC (the company that went bankrupt), was “let go” and needed to find work. Sharon was fired from the entire restaurant district that she was manager of because she accidently said something racist over the phone line and an employee that was black became offended. So they both decided that they would move to Forest, Ohio, the town they are moving to, and let Jonathon become a fisherman while Sharon try her best to keep occupied at home until she found a job.
Zachary wasn’t much of anything when he went to school so he figured why change it. He liked to be alone. He enjoyed it with every fiber of his being. A new school meant that no one knew him and he could easily be ignored if he wanted to. But as he packed the last of his small items, he looked around his room and sighed.
So many memories in this house, he thought. Maybe I should try and make some friends.
“Zachary!” his mother called to him. “It’s time to go!”
Zachary lifted the fifty pound box with one arm and carried it through the house and into the garage where the minivan was waiting. There were boxes piled on top of one another in the very back of the minivan and if you listened closely you could hear the slight cracking of glass. The van was green and had a few scratch marks here and there but it was never meant to show or pop out.
He slid the door open and sat down. Jonathon was in the passenger side and Sharon in the driver’s seat. Jonathon wasn’t the best driver so Sharon always drove when they were going somewhere far.
“Zachary, I have something for you,” Jonathon said. He grabbed a box out from under his seat. The box was small and square but looked heavy and large. Zachary looked inside the box and saw three small statues carved out of wood. They were poorly created and you could barely sense that they were meant to look like dragons. They were Zachary’s first handmade statues. Each one was supposed to resemble something in Zachary’s life, he remembered. He just couldn’t quite remember what though. He lost them awhile back when they were spring cleaning.
“Thank you, Jon.” Zachary jerked in his seat at the sudden and unexpected movement of the minivan and gazed out his window as they left the garage. On the lawn was a sign reading COLUMBUS REALITY: FOR SALE.
The car moved through the town and out onto the highway. Zachary eventually fell asleep and dreamt of his new home and school. Would it be small with many people that were actually nice to one another or savages in the big city that will do anything for money? Would the house be a shit-hole or a perfect sized place to have a family of three? Half-way to Forest, Ohio, Zachary’s dream changed from a happy school yard and into a cage. He looked around the rusting room and cage and felt hungry. But he ate before they left? A man in a dirty purplish coat walked into the room with a bat. He opened the cage and Zachary couldn’t move. Well, he did move but had no control over what he was doing. It was as if he was in someone else’s life. Zachary curled up into the corner of the cage and the man laughed heavily and began to hit Zachary with the bat multiple times until he passed out which was when he awoke.
Zachary felt his unscathed face and his ribs. He felt each of those hits. But his attention was then directed elsewhere. He looked outside the minivan and saw nothing but thick forestry that was probably surrounding Forest, Ohio. A sign appeared on Zachary’s right window reading:
POPULATION
Humans: 1203
Vampires: 32
Werewolves: 29
Purebreds: 58
Vampires, Werewolves, and Purebreds. Each one considered a person now ever since August 15, 1998 when Clinton had another affair with a werewolf and wanted equal treatment for their kinds afterwards. No one ever quite figured them out until then. No one really cared about them unless they were important figures like Paris Hilton who turned out to be half vampire. No joke.
Vampires and werewolves have had many myths shrouding their existence so no one could quite get it exactly right. Vampires are allergic to garlic and silver. They don’t turn to ash and they aren’t immortals. They age normally. They drink blood, duh, but have to get it from blood banks or animals. Holy water never worked. The reason they thought that was when someone accidently mixed their acidic compounds with the holy water and it burned the hell out of a vampires face. Vampires are actually really religious sometimes, even saints in some countries.
Werewolves don’t only change during full moons and it isn’t painful (the first change is though) and they aren’t completely violent in that state, they can control themselves. Were-wolves change on full moons, no matter the age, and as a child, only when angered severely. Adults can change whenever they wish after practice. They look human most of the time and the only way to tell them apart is trimmed nail (werewolves have long, sharp nails) and if they have three sets of canines in their mouth. Silver bullets will put them down for a minute or two but will probably get back up.
Purebreds are simply larger versions of domesticated animals (except Dalmatians and Siamese cats for some unknown reason) but with thumbs and can speak human languages. Some can go back to their roots and talk to other animals such as wolves, dragons, and even goats. That’s why they are usually ambassadors for the next species.
There is a fifth species that is big in the economic and political worlds that people are disputing about: dragons. Dragons are not like the reptilian monsters you see on TV or movies; they are peaceful creatures. They have feelings and families just like humans, werewolves, and vampires can. They don’t fight over power and don’t kill, unless threatened. All that dragons want is to be left alone or for the world to nice to them. They breathe fire but not as often as most people think. Breathing fire requires a lot of energy and can make a dragon easier to kill. Their wings are long and powerful, allowing flight at high speeds. Their size is actually only one tenth of what people actually thought in folklore. They are actually human size but do have long bodies.
Dragons in the political and economical worlds are in dispute because politicians believe that they should be brought into civilization and live as people and not animals. Dragons refuse every time an offer is made, and economists want them to be exterminated. They are becoming endangered species and a preservation act was created by the Rasraimian government and forbid hunting of dragons. Economists say it is too expensive and dangerous to look after them and they should finish DH’s job and just wipe them out.
The dragons were the only species on Zachary’s mind. Every time something about dragons came up on the news, he was either the first to know or first to tell people that actually cared (…no one). His parents knew this about Zachary and let him change the channel on them when something like that is on the news; it was one of the few things they actually knew about Zachary.
Now, back to what was happening.
Zachary saw a few buildings come into view as the minivan progressed slowly downwards and into the town. They stopped at a gas station to refill the gas tank and on the horizon; Zachary saw the sun slowly making its way down to the other side of the Earth in an angelic wave of reddish-orange light. Zachary called it the sun’s fire breath.
Zachary then noticed a banner waving nearby reading Carg’s Carnies in crude cursive and red paint.
Coming in September, thought Zachary. He looked at the mini calendar glued to the dashboard. Saturday, September 16, 2009 it read. He held onto the box in his lap and waited for his mother and Jonathon to enter the vehicle. It wasn’t too long before they found their way to their new home. The house had been painted white with a few spots where there had been weather erosion. The garage wasn’t all that bad looking and the house was in pretty good shape. There was a large set of windows on the front of the house and they were so clean you could see the inside and the porch was clean as well. It was a perfect house for a family of three and soon to be four; except for the tree that had roots growing underneath the foundation of the house.
“Home sweet home,” Jonathon said as he exited the minivan. He moaned as he stretched his arms and back.
“Let’s take a look inside then,” Sharon said pulling a suitcase out of the trunk of the minivan. Sharon wasn’t as loud exiting vehicles as anyone else Zachary knew…not that he knew a lot of people.
Zachary left his box in the minivan as he entered the house. The front room was large and rectangular with the windows allowing the recently lit streetlights glow through them. It had gray carpeted floors. The inside of the house was bare and all of the walls needed to be repainted because it was a matter of time before the paint began peeling. The lights worked in every room but the back porch but that was just the light bulb.
“Where’s my room?” Zachary turned to his mother and asked.
“It’s upstairs, second door on the left,” she said taking pictures of the walls. Apparently she had noticed the paint as well and decided to take pictures of the walls to give to a probably local painting service.
It didn’t take Zachary even one minute to find his room and close the door behind him. He felt a sickening urge in the bottom of his stomach and his head hurt like a hangover-from-hell. It usually took a few minutes for his car-sickness to kick in after he had left the car. Once his pains had stopped he had curled into a ball on the floor and heard Jonathon call out to Zachary.
He hurried to the front door to see that Jonathon was struggling to carry Zachary’s box of items and dropped them. As they hurled to the ground, Zachary grabbed the open flaps of the box with only his thumbs and pointers, he pulled them up into his arms as if they weighed nothing.
He went back to his room silently and not saying a word.
In Zachary’s room, he began searching through his box. On the top was a photo of an infant and his father sleeping on the couch together and the mother in the background talking on the phone. The man had jet black hair just like Zachary’s (spiked up bangs) and high cheek bones that differed from the infant’s not long but not short face. The man also had a scar that stretched from the left side of his face over his eye and stopping at his nose.
Zachary looked at the photo and felt the framing. Dad, Zachary thought. Why did you leave? Suddenly, Zachary’s sadness became boiling anger and he threw his picture at the bare wall in front of him. The glass broke and the frame cracked then splintered once it hit the ground.
The boy tore through the box tossing everything except a few dragon statues he had recently created, a drawing book, Sticky-Tac, bags of glow-in-the-dark stars, and a notepad. Everything else was rocks or bubble-wrap. The rocks didn’t know why but he felt like he had to collect them.
Eventually, Zachary went back downstairs and walked outside. He took a deep breath and looked at the sky.
Fascinating, he thought. The night sky is as beautiful just as my mother’s cooking is bland. He huffed under his breath and took off down the street.
If you are wondering why his mother or Jonathon didn’t stop him, it’s because they aren’t exactly all that preoccupied at the moment about Zachary taking a walk but with talking about what to do for money until Jonathon can start making a profit.
Zachary saw a minimarket and pulled open his wallet there was one five and a fake quarter. He went into the store and opened up the freezer door. He saw out of the corner of his eye someone looking at him from behind a shelf of potato chips.
He wanted to tell the person to go do horrible things to themselves, but ignored the urge. In Zachary’s hand was a bottle of lime soda and in the other a small bag of chips. The storekeeper scanned the objects and ran the charge.
Outside, Zachary walked back down the street towards his house, observing all of the buildings as he progressed. Each one that was an apartment building had window ledges and brick walls. The normal houses were different; each one had something to climb up on and over to the top of the house. Sometimes a treehouse, sometimes a hanging garden. The windows all had ledges or something else to hold onto.
Back at his new home, Zachary laid down on the cold hard floor of his room, and listened to his parents talk about the house and how it was wonderful and perfect. The neighborhood was nice and the townsfolk were nice as well. Then just before Zachary dozed off, he heard his mother say, “What’s the rent?”
He fell asleep before he heard an answer, but he was sure it was a lot.
Sheeri never had a childhood. She never had any friends except one that died soon after they met. Sheeri never felt compassion from others; no remorse or pity either. She was just a pet to a vampire with many issues. Sheeri never wanted her life to be any different than what it was like back in Rasraim with her real family: happy, calm, and unchanging.
Carg, her “owner”, hated her. Sheeri didn’t know why, he just did. He would beat her, break her spirit, and barely fed her. When he would feed Sheeri, it was always something new, but nothing anyone could name. So she called it “slop”. She knew it was the only food she would get for days, so she tried to make the best out of it.
She was a dragon; a purple dragon to be exact. She had perfect emerald green eyes, but she was very, very, very dirty. She hadn’t been cleaned in years. She was small and fragile from malnutrition. She never learned how to fly and a collar around her neck kept her from breathing fire.
It wasn’t always like that for Sheeri. She was very happy when she was with Carg and his wife (well not as happy as when she was with her real family in Rasraim, of course). It all started when Sheeri was six and there was a large flash of light not far away from where she was at…
Sheeri, who was the size of muscle-man’s forearm, bent her head to the river and took a drink. There was a loud hiss from behind her. She looked at the approaching figure. It was her mother; a purple dragon just like her but much larger. Sheeri looked at her mother and shook her tail and dug her claws in fear.
“What are you doing out here so late?” Isabel said nudging her daughter towards a small hut barely large enough to hold a boulder. “You know you can be hurt very easily at night.”
“I was just thirsty,” the little reptile said. “I just wanted a drink.”
“Well, okay, but don’t do that anymore without telling me, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” the young Sheeri said rolling her eyes.
“Sheeri! This is important! I can’t lose you like I lost your…” She sighed and looked at the ground sadly.
“Uncle Josh?”
“Yes, your Uncle Josh. Listen, Sheeri. There’s something you need to know about Josh…he’s not really your uncle.”
“What about Hidey?”
Isabel sighed and nudged Sheeri with her snout again. “Never mind. Let’s just go back to bed.”
They just entered their home when a loud bang and then a flash of light appeared behind them. Isabel turned quickly and looked at the light. It was bright and another loud bang came just after she looked.
“What was that?” another dragon asked leaving the hut. This one was Isabel’s size, but with broader shoulders and more muscles around his body. Then another came, about twice Sheeri’s size but very sleepy.
Suddenly, Sheeri awakens from her terrible dream by a jab to the stomach. On her side, Sheeri growls and then yawns. Carg is using his pointed stick against her ribs and looked like he was enjoying it. He gave her one last jab to the spacing between the ribs and Sheeri yelped in pain.
“Just leave me alone!” the captive dragon yelled. She stood up and moved into her usual corner at the back of the cage. The trailer was rusted and the floor looked like it was going to cave in. It was small and being pulled by Carg’s truck which led the convoy of trucks, trailers, and freaks through the states and making money off of their appearance.
“What do you want?” Sheeri said angrily.
“Well! If you don’t want any food then fine!” He started for the door.
“Wait!” Sheeri leaped for the vampire’s pant legs and grabbed them. “What is it?” Sheeri knew it was pathetic, but she was desperate.
“Tomorrow, you’ll be going out there to be humiliated, taunted, and have things thrown at you. If you be ‘good’ I’ll give you something in return.”
Sheeri shook her head with her snout in between the bars of the cage. “Okay!”
Carg left without another word. She hated him. She hated everything about her existence. She was lonely, sad, and starving. Sheeri had even thought of suicide a couple of times. Carg had killed her only friend and won’t let her go out and live her life…so she figured why waste a life a life if you can’t use it.
The only thing keeping her from actually doing it is that she has nothing sharp to use, nothing since she was de-clawed. When Sheeri was forced to have her claws removed from her hands, she felt violated and devastated. Two things are worse than death to a dragon: being de-clawed, because they would have no way of defending themselves, and losing their tail for multiple reasons. Carg had no remorse for her but at least he left her tail alone.
Sheeri looked through the dirty window of the trailer and sighed.
I wanna go home, she thought but realized she didn’t really have a home to go back to.
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