1. THE ROAD
ONE
THE ROAD
I was running down my street, my bare feet slapping the gravel hard. A monster was chasing me.
I ran on and on along a road that never seemed to end. The grass had burrs all in them and I had to run into them to dodge the cars parked on the side of the street, not to mention the ones headed down the gravel in my way, and I would have to dart into their thorns and pricks and back. I’d had no time to grab my shoes.
My eyes caught a sign that made me skid to a stop. My feet have left trails of blood on the hot road. It said:
WELCOME TO THE END OF ALL ROADS
A howl crackled in the distance.
Actually, three loud ones.
I spun and saw the mythical creature clawing the ground as it ran and all three of its ravenous heads faced toward me. I turned to run but stopped short to find there was a thousand foot drop at my toes. That hadn’t been there before.
The water was churning and smashing against the step rocks on the sides and I felt my heart leap into my throat as I let out a gasp and began to sway from the height.
Suddenly, something floated up from the lip of the cliff. I’d seen it before, but only in my dreams.
It was the figure of a man with an old face, wrinkly and shaggy. He was tall and skinny, with a long black tattered cloak around his body. His fingers were skinny and seemed frail, and looked as if they had been put to rest for years.
Because they had.
“Hexinoide,” I gasped, fear making my bones tingle.
“Precisely,” he spoke from his cold, grey lips. “Step over the edge with me, Krystal…”
“No. No, what do you want with me?” My voice cracked as I began to shake. “You’ve tortured me enough by taking control of my dreams!”
He smiled, his gash-like mouth sending shudders up my spine. “I want your life!”
His yellow teeth were revealed from behind his death-riddled lips and I screamed. I needed to get away.
I turned around—and came face-to-face with the monster that had been chasing me. It’s a mystery to me how no one else saw him, he was huge.
A three-headed monster he was. He was very tall and long, and around each collared-neck danced several snakes. Another one jutted out from its spine, creating its deadly tail.
I pushed past my terror and sprinted straight past its three snapping jaws, past the snake-of-a-tail, and kept running, somehow. I’d made it alive past the beast. I give a small victorious smile as my blonde hair sticks to the sweat dripping down my forehead and neck. Now I’d have to outlast the two of them, and that wasn’t going to be easy.
To top it all off, I came to a fork in the road. Awestricken, I realize that the road I stand on seemed as if every road led to each other and stopped at one point. I stopped, gazing at the roads, and then remembered myself.
“Which one is home?”
I lock my eyes on the middle road, hoping my gut instinct is right. I didn’t look back as I ran, my feet burning and bleeding. I hoped they wouldn’t follow me, Hexinoide and Cerberus.
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