Josie walked the halls of North View High school. She watched as several senior boys raced past her and slapped the door frames. She adjusted her backpack on her shoulder and pushed open the door to her next class.

“Hi, Josie!” her best friend, Andrew waved to her. She had gotten lucky with her classes, most of them she at least had one friend in.

“Hey”

“Mrs. Holder is out for the week so we have a sub.” Josie heard the girls whispering behind her.

She stretched before taking her seat next to another girl.

“Good morning class.” a gruff voice said.

Josie looked for the direction of the voice and it was coming from the back of the class. Josie could’ve sworn she didn’t see him back there before.

She shrugged it off and the teacher continued, “My name is Mr. Farris. Ill be your teacher for the next week.” He walked to the board and started writing a formula.

He started explaining things, but Josie wasn’t watching. The piece of chalk that was in his hand floated for a brief moment. She rubbed her eyes, theres no way she saw that correctly.

She looked back at Andrew to see if he noticed, but he just looked at her in confusion.

Class dragged on and Josie still noticed little things, like the chair moving by itself and desk drawers flinging open when they weren’t touched.

“Ok, go to lunch.”

She kept her eyes on him as she reached for her backpack and waited for Andrew to pack his stuff up.

As soon as they were out of the classroom, Josie explained what she saw.

“Jo, you’re probably just tired.”

“I’m serious. Theres no way I hallucinated that.”

“You know how you are in the morning.” Andrew chuckled.

Josie rolled her eyes, “Well i’m skipping lunch to watch him”

“Don’t go by yourself….” his voice trailed off.

“Ok, come with me.”

“Lunch food isn’t that good anyways.” He flung his backpack over his shoulder.

Josie and Andrew made their way back to the classroom and took turns peeking through the window on the door.

“Did you see that!” Josie yelled in a whisper.

“Sure did, thats crazy. Also in class, I swear he wasn’t in the back of the classroom.”

“Thats what I thought. Did he walk through the wall?” Josie responded

“I don’t know. We need to watch out for him.”

“I suppose”

The pair continued to peek through the window as a flood of students walked past them.

“We should probably get out of here, I don’t want him to see us.” Andrew decided.

“You’re right” She agreed.

As they turned to look at each other, Andrew looked back in the room. He had to do a double take because the teacher vanished! He turned his head again and the teacher was standing in front of them, causing Josie to scream.

“Its rude to eavesdrop on people.” the teacher said with a creepy smile and menacing voice.

“Its my turn!” Moon yelled over to her friend.

“I have 5 more minutes, then you can take my spot.” Sun said, shifting his gaze back to earth.

Moon snorted and rolled her eyes, “it always seems like you get more time than me.”

“Probably because i do.”

“Well thats not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“That only applies to humans, not us.”

“I suppose.” Sun replied.

“Is it my turn now?” Moon nagged.

“Ugh, fine you can go out early tonight.” Sun said, scooting away.

“Yay!” Moon celebrated.

Sun closed his eyes for a moment until he heard the pitchy, annoying voice of Moon.

“What?”

“Can you shine on my good side?”

“This is the worst possible job we could’ve gotten” Walter said, lighting a cigarette.

“Maybe you should be doing the job instead of smoking.” Patterson rolled his eyes while snatching the lighter from his coworker.

“Oh, you want a light? All you had to do was ask.” Walter joked.

“Hey, boys! Can you help me over here.” a man yelled to the pair. “my shovels stuck.”

“A shovel? For this? What makes you think that’ll work.” Walter chuckled.

“Exactly, mate, this thing is huge.”

“We can’t get bulldozers out here until the ice and snow melts a bit. We have to work with what we have.” The man responded. Walter sighed at the man’s efforts, but helped him pull the shovel from the ice.

“Can’t we just wait for the ice and stuff to melt? I mean whats the point of this.”

“Did you forget this place was packed with people? Is your brain really fighting that hard to survive?” Patterson retorted.

“Ah, quit your yapping.” The other man said grumpily.

Walter put his hands up in surrender while walking backwards until he tripped on something.

Patterson started laughing at Walter’s foolishness until his smile faded.

“What? What is it?”

Patterson grabbed a nearby shovel and started digging.

Walter looked in front of him and quickly scrambled to his feet. “A hand.”

The three men worked together and pull the body from the mountain of snow. When they yanked the person out, Walter immediately recognized her.

Patterson saw the color drain from his friend’s normally rosy cheeks, “Do you know this girl?”

Walter’s eyes filled with tears as he dropped to his knees and hugged the lifeless body. “shes my sister” he whispered through his tears.

Aether came to a halt right in-front of the crystal castle. Flora dismounted him and stared at the sparkling building. Suddenly, the ground started to shake and she was thrown to the ground by an immovable force. A dragon, who was not Aether screeched from the air. He was a dark, blood red with black spikes covering his back. His emerald green eyes shaped like a crystal. The sun shone on his claws making them resemble copper. Flora shielded her face from the debris flying around them.

Aether screamed back in a horrifying manner causing Flora to shudder and shrink back to her knees against her chest. She could feel the other dragons hot breath threatening to expand a blanket of fire upon the castle and across the valleys of Cayra.

Flora scrambled from the ground and stumbled because of the winds pushing her backwards.

Aether flew above the other dragon before swooping down and banging straight into him. The other dragon screamed, letting his breath set the side of the castle ablaze. Flora gasped as she jumped out of the way of a piece of crystal fell next to her.

Aether snapped his neck back and screeched back while trying to chase the other dragon away from the city.

Flora looked closer and recognized the dragon- Taber; once he was used as the king’s way of transportation until he was injured and exiled from the city- until recently. He had come back for revenge.

She ran from the battle ground to find a knight to assemble the army to take him down. She hesitated. Taber was treated horribly after his injury, maybe the kingdom deserved it. However, she kept running to find a knight.

Aether bit down hard on Taber’s tail before he spit it out because of the spikes that cut his gums. Taber snapped back in his direction and clawed at his face, leaving open wounds slashed across his face. Taber whipped Aether with his spiky tail and Aether was thrown to the ground. His weight and force caused the path to shatter.

Aether painfully turned back to face Taber and growled deeply. Taber struck him again as he laid defenseless on the ground.

Flora turned to look at the dragons battling and noticed Taber sink his teeth into Aether’s neck.

“Aether!”

I biked my way all the way to my favorite shop, Tilly’s Antiques. The outside was decorated with lovely red and gray bricks intertwined. It had a homely sign that hung right over the sidewalk. As I leapt off my bike, I slipped on the peddle and placed my hands out before I slammed on the concrete. I can be so clumsy, it’s embarrassing. The window was covered in a slight frost so I wiped it off. I noticed a few new things in the display when I peeked inside. I looked over the display and saw the owner, Gregory, waving his hand at me. I smiled, set up my bike at the stand, and rushed inside to properly greet him.

“Good day, Astrid!” He greeted. His warm, kind smile was my favorite part of this shop. His wife, Tilly, passed away a few years ago and this shop was in memory of her love for vintage items. Gregory, in a way, saw me as his grandchild, as he has none. One of my grandfathers passed when I was only three and my other died when I was only a baby so I never had a close relationship with them.

“Good day, Greg.” I smiled back.

“I saw you trip out there, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” I blushed realizing he noticed. I had really hoped no one had.

He cleared his throat, “there is someone I would like you to meet.”

I nodded in confusion. Who would be here to see Gregory? I was here with him a lot and he never mentioned anyone, especially not family.

“This is my nephew, Grant.” He announced as the young man walked out of the storage room with boxes in tow.

“I pulled my jacket farther over my shoulder and shyly waved at the other teenager. He looked around my age, maybe older. Brown hair, brown eyes, and tall. Very tall. I wish I was that tall. He stuck his hand out and I looked at it, no one does handshakes anymore.

“Nice to meet you.” He said.

After a few seconds, I took his hand. He seemed like a nice boy.

“He will be here over Christmas, maybe until February. I want you two to get to know each other.”

He better not be trying to play Cupid. Last time he did, the guy was a huge jerk and I couldn’t stand him. His name was like, Matt, Matteo, or Mike, or something. He acted like an angel around Gregory but was horrible to me the rest of the time.

Gregory told me several times he was perfect, and one day, I should consider marrying him-absolutely not.

I pulled myself back to the present and Gregory looked at both of us, sort of hopefully. He better not expect anything to come from this.

“I have an errand to run, can you Astrid, teach Grant how to run the store?” I’ve run errands, run the shop, and done small favors for him. I really don’t want to be left with a guy I barely know. But I guess every time I’m here by myself, I’m helping someone by myself.

“Sure.” I said pretty….unsurely.

Grant smiled nervously, even he doesn’t want to be here with me.

“Alright, I’ll see you guys later.” Gregory threw a towel at me and patted Grant fatherly on the back. I snatched the towel with my free hand, walked behind the counter, and wiped the top. Grant watched me do this like a little lost puppy. I peeked back over the counter and stared at him for a second.

“What?” I said with a little more attitude than I intended.

“No need to bite” he stepped back as if I was menacing.

“Sorry, I’m just frustrated. I came to chill out with Gregory and he left.” I flung the towel over my shoulder.

He finally dropped the boxes he had been holding for two minutes straight. It was honestly starting to bother me. He opened them and starting unpacking stuff.

“What are you doing?”

“Uncle Greg wanted me to unpack these. It’s Aunt Tilly’s old things.” I never thought Gregory would want those things touched-ever. I actually touched her childhood clock and he almost had a heart attack.

I walked back to him and knelt down. “What’s that?” He grabbed the small box and read the front.

“For my future grandchildren…”