Gargoyle Saga: In The Beginning

Chapter One

Outside the sky was unusually clear and blue for the end of February. A cold breeze swept around my room from my window that I'd left ajar, it ruffled the top of my hair but as I inhaled trying to rid my horrible feeling, I just felt even more upset. Tilting my head, I heard the birds chirping away in my sparse climbing tree that was just within reach of my window. I had longed to be outside and wished deeply to be as it once was, but I had to face reality: I was indoors feeling terrified of the outside world, almost close to being agoraphobic. I feared everyone pointing and staring at me. I felt like such a freak and there was nothing I could do about it. The bullying had got so bad at college that my parents had to pull me out, four months before I was due to finish. So, my chance of going to university now was beyond help.

I was never like this, so scared of everything. Just over a month ago I was normal, I was in with the popular crowd, my grades were decent, but then after that freak accident at the museum, I had somehow become photosensitive. Originally my parents said that I was lucky that I didn't erupt out in large rashes when the light touched my skin, but now, they think I ought to see a specialist. You see, after about a week of becoming photosensitive, my irises turned yellow and my ears became deformed into something resembling an elf. Naturally, my parents were extremely worried and after numerous tests, where the words 'illness' and 'disease' were thrown around, there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. Apart from my eyes and my ears, the only other advance of this illness was that I had become paranoid that I could sense evil people around me and soon, I'd developed a habit of calling people out in the middle of the street, quite literally pointing at them and shouting, "You are evil!" My parents weren't impressed. I then went to a psychiatrist and was told that though my body was normal, my mind had degraded and I was given a series of tablets. I've been on them for a week now and they haven't affected me in the slightest. My parents are more than concerned.

Since I was given a clean bill of health, in the physical sense, my Dad had become somewhat scared of my appearance and so once again, here I was listening to him and my mother shout about what was to be done with me.

"But she's a freak!" My Dad screamed. "Calling people evil from across the road? That's not normal! I don't want her in the house." He banged his hand on the kitchen table, and then I heard him walk into the living room. It was eleven in the morning, they'd been arguing for at least half an hour.

"Please, don't do this, she'll learn to stop it, I know she can," my mother begged, I heard her sobbing as my Dad rampaged around downstairs. I don't know what he was doing, but my mother was obviously trying to stop him.

"We've given her too many chances! She can't stay here! Think of what it'll do to us!"

"I don't care!" she screamed back. "David, please don't. Look, we'll move. We'll change our names; we'll go into hiding-"

"I will not hide because of HER!" he bellowed so loudly I felt it vibrate through the floor beneath my bed. I was crying softly into my pillow. My parents had been arguing about my growing and unstable situation for the past month, but now, my Dad had surpassed trying to understand me and was so scared of me he didn't want me anymore.

"But where is she going to go?"

"In a loony bin, in a mental home, in a laboratory! Anywhere that's not here!"

I clapped my hands to my ears, trying to drown out his hurtful comments, but he was right. I was a freak. I was beyond a freak and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My Dad thought that I was a mutant of some sort like I'd fallen into a vat of toxic radioactive substance, but really it wasn't like that at all.

It all started when I was out with my friends last month and we'd followed this really cute guy into our local museum, I mean why else would we go into a museum, right? And before I knew it, I got separated from my friends and ended up in this medieval section. A lot of the things that were there looked really boring. But there was this old looking cross with a black gem in the middle. The plaque beneath it said that some archaeologists found it in an old run-down church in Rouen, France in an excavation in the 1960s. The origin of the cross was unknown but was estimated to be from the 14th century. None of that was really interesting accept the named the cross which was Verity, which is also my name. That was the only thing I thought was interesting in the entire building. But anyway, as I turned to go and try and find my friends, I heard this crash. I admit it scared me. Flight or fight and I were frozen to the spot like some idiot and as I turned around, I saw the cross on the floor, glass strewn around it. It seemed to have fallen from its plinth and had broken through its protective glass. The sound had attracted the attention of one of the museum's assistant curators. This pretty middle-aged Asian woman came into the exhibition room and after seeing the smashed glass and the cross on the floor and then me, alone, she started yelling. I tried to tell her I didn't do it, but she didn't listen. After beckoning me to her, I had to pass over the glass, but as I neared, the cross moved towards me and before I knew it, it clocked me on the head and disappeared. The museum curator obviously called the police, I found out my friends had ditched me when they couldn't find me. My parents were called came down to the museum. After it was discovered that I didn't smash the glass through a CCTV camera and I didn't steal the cross, I was free to go. Then suddenly everything went downhill from there.

On the way home my father was rollicking me in the car. "Never been so irresponsible... I thought you were better than this... You are never seeing your friends again." My mother was defending me but was sadly drowned out. My dad was louder than her hands down. All I could do was sulk in the back seat and wonder on what happened to that cross. Every now and then I'd lift my hand and touch where the metal hit, but there was nothing there not even a bump and I didn't feel a bruise. The curator and his two assistants just couldn't find it. And I was patted down three times before they finally gave up on the idea that I'd stolen it.

Dad parked up outside the house and slammed his door shut. Mum stayed in the car with me. "Sweetheart," she began in her usual disappointed mother voice. "What actually happened?"

Groaning, I got out of the car. "I already told you," I snapped. "The case smashed and the cross hit me on the head and disappeared. I know how it sounds but whatever, no one believes me."

"Verity," she called but I headed into the house after dad.

Rosie met me at the bottom of the stairs but I ran past her and headed into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. It was nearing ten at night and I was angry and confused and just wanted the day to be over it. Oh, how I wish I didn't will the end of my normalcy away so flippantly you see the following morning showed more than I cared to see and my family didn't take it very well.