Stories of the Eight: The Darkness of Love

Chapter 1: Ethan

I was sitting in my chair, working on a school project with my classmates. I didn't mind any of them, they were all pretty cool.

However, my classmate, Elijah, kept giving me strange looks. He was kind of freaking me out. I just chose to ignore him, what else was I supposed to do? I certainly wasn't going to confront him. The last thing I want to do is create a fight.

I was working with Elijah, his girlfriend, Mia, and another girl, Ace. Mia and Ace were good friends and had been for a long time. I was good friends with Elijah, Ace, and Mia. Though, Ace and I played the third and fourth wheel often.

Until today. Elijah was seriously freaking me out!

I stared at my part of the project. I was nearly done with my quarter of the work and I thought it looked pretty good.

Our assignment was to create a presentation of the twelve main Greek gods. Ace was doing Hades, Artemis, and Athena. Mia was doing Aphrodite, Hera, and Hermes, and Elijah was doing Demeter, Apollo, and Poseidon. I was doing Zeus, Hephaestus, and Dionysus.

Elijah glanced over at me with a wild look in his eyes and I moved slightly more toward the edge of my desk. Ace noticed me and turned to look at Elijah. She and I met eyes and I jerked my head slightly toward him.

"So where is everyone on their quarter of the project?" Mia asked, looking at me. A piece of her red hair fell in front of her face and she brushed it behind her ear.

"I'm done," I say.

"I'm close to finishing," Ace claims.

Elijah doesn't answer. What was wrong with him today? I looked at my teacher and she stared at Elijah. I get up and excuse myself. I need to clear my head. Perhaps I imagined all of that. I opened the classroom door and stepped into the hallway.

Then I saw two snake-like creatures dragging Elijah's body down the hallway toward the main door. What in the world is going on, I wonder, thinking I'm mentally crazy.

They hissed and I reached in my back pocket. I should have a pocket knife back there. I finally grab it and pull it out. The two creatures continued to slither toward me.

I was terrified.

The pocket knife was in my hands and I rushed toward the first snake lady and stabbed her in the gut. However, my knife did nothing to it. The blade bounced off her scales and it sent me stumbling backward.

What are these things? I wondered as I turned around to run. I realized the school had one back door and that was in the gym, past the snake women. So I turned around again to hold my ground. There was no place for me to run.

A warm hand touched my back and I whipped around, ready to stab whoever it was with my pocket knife, not that it could do much.

I was surprised to see my teacher smiling at me. She winked and ran toward the snake women. A golden dagger appeared in her hand and she stabbed the creatures. The snake woman disintegrated into ashes once she was stabbed.

How did she kill them?

"Grab your friend and let's go. There's probably more than where those came from," Mrs. Chase claimed, grabbing my hand.

"Wait! What about everyone else?" I asked, panicking.

As if on cue, a screaming sound came from the classroom and my teacher ran into the classroom. I stayed by Elijah's side, afraid to leave him alone and unconscious. I heard Mrs. Chase's voice echoing in the room. There was a slicing sound, followed by a poof. Just like the dust from the snake woman before.

Mrs. Chase walked out with two girls; Mia and Ace.

"What the DEVIL WAS THAT? Why did Elijah turn into a snake lady?" Mia asked.

"I'll explain everything once we're safe, I promise. For right now, trust me," Mrs. Chase claimed, walking over to Elijah to pick him up. She was strong and picked him up fairly easily. She started sprinting toward the door and we followed.

"Mrs. Chase, why should we trust you?" Ace asked during our sprint.

We ran out of the school doors and Mrs. Chase took the lead and we slowed down when we got near her car.

"Please, call me Annabeth and get in," Mrs. Chase said, ushering them into her silver Ford.

She lied Elijah down in the back row. I got in the middle row. Whether or not Annabeth could be trusted, didn't matter. If she took off, at least someone would be Elijah when he woke up in this strange lady's car. Besides, she saved me from snake women, I think I trust her.

Mia got into the front nervously and Ace got into the middle section with me and buckled herself in. I did the same moments later, glancing at Elijah. He seemed comfortable enough in the back. Well, as comfortable as he could look after whatever just happened.

Annabeth got into the driver's seat and took off.

Where on earth were we going?