Dusk

Dusk

Chapter One

The Wild Graydons.(WGD)

It wasn't the bright and blinding rays of the sun that made my eye sting, even though I was staring right at it for more than a few seconds. What really got me stinging, was the left hook i had just received, straight to my right eye. And for some reason, I had not only twirled like a disgrace of a ballerina, my face had somehow spun to face the sun directly, the sting from the punch hitting so suddenly I thought I was gonna loose consciousness, and maybe I did, because the next thing I knew, I was in the arms of someone, I think he had caught me. Perfect timing I would say, 'coz if not, a black eye woulda been the least of my worries. The tarred road shows no mercy to heads that get bashed against it.

"What with you and your ideals." My rescuer said, it was a voice I knew all too well either that or I had actually hit my head and all this was me hallucinating while lying unconscious. "That's what you get for getting involved with the dubs." He left me almost instantly, letting my head hit the hard ground and that confirmed my first thoughts....that was my crazy friend Diego...or as we called him...The A Ghost!

"Now who wants to get some?!" I heard him yell before i finally lost consciousness. I was safe at least. Diego wasn't a fighter, but he was crazy. So crazy that he gets scary sometimes.

That was probably enough to get Liam and his buddy Colt on the run.

You see, I had tried to play hero earlier on. Colt was about to take a beating from Liam, or maybe it was the other way around, I wasn't sure. At the time I just thought of trying to get them to settle without getting into a fist fight. But guess who got a fist to his face instead? I did!

Then again it was my fault for trying to get in-between the dubs. It's always the same with them; Fight today, friends tomorrow. So much so that it became a thing to never get involved with them. Which proved difficult coz unfortunately like almost every other teenager here in Blackwood, Indiana; we were all part of the dubs at some point.

I could hear someone smacking their lips as I opened my eyes. There was Diego, sitting on the driver seat in his car parked next to me, with a lollipop in his mouth.

"You know...some people would rather carry their unconscious friend inside their car and not just leave them lying on the side walk." I sat up slolwy. Classic Diego, leaving me lying there under the sun while he sat in his car.

"Carry you? What are you? Five?" He shot a crazy stare at me. " Didn't ask you to go get your butt kicked did I? Besides...Hiro was gonna meet us up here." He smacked his lips again, a rather annoying habit of his.

It was already sundown.

"How long was I out?"

"Ehh...just a couple minutes " He shrugged pulling back some of his long blonde hair that had gotten to his face, obviously he didn't bother keeping track of the time. "You might wanna patch up that cut tho" he signaled to the side of his right eye.

I didn't need a genius to tell me, the sting i felt on there was enough. I probably got a small bruise, maybe worse.

" Hey Guys." I turned to the direction the voice came from. And there he was, my half Japanese half American bud, Hiro. His head was buried in his phone with a headset on as he walked towards us. "Rea says hi" he showed us his phone and there was Rea waving at us. Apparently he was on a video chat with Rea, another one of our friends. Which was no surprise at all since Hiro and Rea always had this special connection.

Rea had gone home to the Philippines to visit her parents for the summer holiday and also work on some engineering project thing. She was the smartest amongst all of us.

Hiro's eyes lit up as it seemed he suddenly noticed my bruise. "What happened to your..."

"Don't wanna talk about it!" I immediately got into the car's back seat and closed the door.

"Is Kriss okay?"Hiro asked Diego as he sat on the seat next to the driver seat.

"Ehhh..he almost got his butt kicked by some of those Graydon guys" Diego started driving while telling Hiro his version of what happened and how I woulda died if he hadn't showed up when he did.

I didn't mind at all though coz I was pretty sure hiro was paying less attention to him and more attention to his chat with Rea.

Here in Blackwoods, there's this really big popular school, Blackwoods International and people from around the world would do anything to get their kids to come up here. Which is exactly why there's at least one kid from almost all the countries in the world.

Diego's American, Rea's from the Philippines, Hiro's half and half, I'm African. From Nigeria to be exact and there are loads more.

For some reason though, Blackwoods, Indiana is majorly home to us kids. Barely any parents or adults around. Overall, the school takes responsibility for all of us, except those who actually grew up here. So coming to a new town on your own, it's really easy to get into one of the groups in the area, just so you're not totally alone. And The Wild Graydons aka Dubs would welcome all with arms wide open.

The Dubs have been around for as long as anyone remembers, they're the biggest group in the town. I heard it started off as a children's group but as soon as their current leader took over, the group's members exploded in a matter of weeks, and so did their influence.

They're literally the first group to reach out to all the newbies in school and they don't seem too bad at first.

They're alot of other groups, smaller groups. But in truth, they were probably all dubs at first, even us.

We arrived at my place in no time, I got off before Diego went on to properly park the car at the garage. My buddy Bash was the first one to notice my eye as soon as I walked in. Although I tried to avoid her gaze...it didn't work.

"Krispyyyyy!!!" She called dropping the can of milk she had been drinking from, apparently that's the nickname she gave me. "What happened to your face?!" She sounded really concerned as she walked to get a closer look.

''I tried to broker world peace...but instead i got this custom made body art." She smiled, closing in on my face, her expression confirming it wasn't that bad. I was relived, at least now I can go see it for myself in a mirror. I had actually avoided looking at the mirror back in Diego's car. Wasn't too excited about seeing my new peacekeeper award. "I also just found out why I keep running out of milk!" This time she giggled

"It was almost empty anyways." An obvious lie.

She got an ice pack from the freezer and tried to help but I took it from her. "I'm good thanks." I genuinely appreciate her help.

I know all my friends care about me, but Bash would always let it show.

Bash is also American, a chubby, food lover, with a pretty round face. She was amongst the few who was never originally a dub when she moved to Blackwoods. I met her shortly after I left The Wild Graydons..and she's been one of us since. We're all same age and first year's. Except Hiro, he was a year higher than the rest of us.

"I thought you wouldn't come back." I looked up and saw Omaima walking down the stairs. She was from North Africa, a Tunisian to be exact, also never one of the dubs.

She was the oldest, a third year. Sometimes she acted as the mother towards the rest of us. Also, her English wasn't perfect, but we understand her enough. Enough to know she was referring to all of us who just walked in, and Diego went on to retell the story of how he saved me from imminent doom.

I quickly apologised, promised not to get into trouble again..and actively tried to change the topic. It was either that or get a good scolding from Mai(which is what we called Omaima).

"Anyone heard from Moeka?" I tried to bait her away from continuing the conversation about my bruise. She must've noticed I didn't want to talk about it so she took the bait.

"Jacob try to reach her" Mai said. And in my opinion, her English has improved by alot since I first met her a few months ago.

"She's started her Katana blade lessons" that was Jacob, the youngest of us, and also an ex dub member. He ran down the stairs with newspapers in his hands, he looked troubled. "She won't be coming over for a while...says she needs her focus" I spotted Hiro walk to the kitchen, he was still on the Phone with Rea. "But that's the least of our problems really" jake took a seat with the rest of us and read directly from the newspaper. "Unidentified teenager from fifth avenue found dead."

"What? Gimme that!" Diego grabbed it from him to see for himself.

"It happens like every week now?" Jacob asked

"Did any of you know this kid?" Diego showed us the image attached to it, it was a black and white image, and it was blurry. I shrugged. I didn't recognise him.

"These school papers is just pranks isn't it?!" Mai asked a bit concerned

"That's what everyone else says" Jake answered...although it was obvious he didn't believe it was.

"There's nothing on the internet though....except the gossip sites" Hiro finally walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in his hand.

It's also nothing new that whatever we see on the internet is limited and closely monitored by the school.

"No one's gonna talk about it at school...so why bother? I say it's all just a prank to get more attention" Bash started heading upstairs, apparently she wasn't much interested in the topic.

"I agree with Bash" Diego said " Afterall...the dubs get alotta their finances from these newspapers...gotta keep it catchy." He shrugged and walked to join Hiro.

Hiro gave him the entire bowl and muttered about the empty milk bottle then they went out to go buy some more.

"I'll go talk to Jae about this paper thing..it's really not cool spreading fake news." Jacob really didn't want to let this go.

"Don't bother." Mai discouraged him. "Trust me....this isn't enough to worried about...it's all just every day thing here in Blackwoods." Her Arabic accent came out slightly stronger this time.

"Yeah...it's all regular stuff until it happens to someone you know." And suddenly there was this eerie feeling in the room as if it just dawned on us that these deaths could just be real.

"It's really not worth to consider." Mai said "the school will stay out of business when we don't break their rules....the dubs can write whatever they write on the paper...just let it go."

And that ended the conversation.

Soon after Mai left to her place, Jacob left too, he actually grew up here in Blackwoods. He lives with his parents, and he used to be really influential while he was with the dubs. Even now, he still has some influence with some of the members. He could get to the bottom of this if he wanted to but as Mai said, there probably wasn't anything to get to the bottom of.

The Wild Graydons may claim to be home to all, but unsettling newspapers wasn't the only thing off about them. Other than their insane numbers, members tend to do whatever they like, they'd only ever play nice when their leader's around, and as Wild and untamed as the group sounds, you'd think their leader would be someone fierce and strong that keeps them all under control. But as crazy as it sounds, their leader was everything but fierce and strong. She was a cute first year, a chubby, charming and kind girl from the Philippines.

Her name was Jaerang, they called her Jae.

Jae was known and loved by all, even till now i still think she's awesome. No one really knows how she controls them all, but she does. Maybe it's her charisma, maybe it's how warm she is, I dunno.

But in my opinion, all that warm and kind persona she portrays, that makes her unpredictable. And unpredictable....equals dangerous!