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Chapter 2

Dante, Age 15, A New World

Dante de Bellis was walking through the front doors of his 200-year-old mansion, except it was no longer the original mansion. His original mansion was so out of date that wallpaper used to be peeling off in the living room. There used to be a mix of gothic and antique furniture bought from various auctions and high-end flea markets littering every room. Almost everything used to have a layer of dust settled over it as if nobody ever used it, which they didn’t. 

     Dante was confused when he woke up on the lawn in front of his house, but he remembered something. The strange characters that showed up in his room just a few minutes ago —Morty and Gus, those were the names— had they pushed him out the window? No, he probably would’ve at least broken a limb. His memory flooded back to him. He remembered looking out the window, about to jump, feeling the cool air wash over his face. This is ridiculous. I’m not doing this! 

     “On second thought,” he told the strange characters, “maybe I’ll just settle with trying to wake up from this weird dream.” 

     “Told you he’d bail out,” Morty had said. “It’s alright though. At least I got to scare the horse poop outta him, unlike that other Half-Bake.”

     “Mo, I told you. We’re here to extract them, nothing else.”

     “Alright, Killjoy. Spray him before he runs.”

     “Excuse me? What are you—” Dante never got to finish the thought before he blacked out. He woke up to a new world. The grass was green and luscious, instead of dead and gray and the cement around the house was new and uncracked. When he walked into the house, gone were the old, musty furniture and peeling wallpaper, and in place were white walls and tiled floors. It was like somebody took out the entire interior of his house and replaced it with a hospital except there wasn’t any health related technology that Dante could see. 

     “The hospital ward is down the hall if that’s what you’re thinking. Although they do sometimes bring the bodies in here. This is the Communications Room.” Gus had been standing next to the radar that showed bodies of heat around the area. “Any sightings, Monty?”

     “Nothing out of the ordinary so far,” the tall looking man with the angular structure and the black hair replied. “They’ll come. It’s only a matter of time.”

     “Alright Mo and I will get the other Half-Bake. Keep him company will you?” Gus gestured towards Dante. “He’s a bit shy.”

     “Sorry I don’t encounter sarcastic beings that turn invisible often. Or people with purple teeth like your friend over there,” Dante complained. Gus just shrugged and left him with the man Dante assumed was Monty.

     “So you’re new here. Welcome to the Ghost House, where the owner’s creepy relatives decide to show up and mess with our machines and scare us when we’re trying to take a dump.” Monty’s words were dripping with disdain. “You’ll love it here.”

     “I do actually love it here, thanks. And my relatives only like to bother the trespassers so might I ask what are you people doing here in my house?” Dante was furious at the workers here but at his grandmother too. He lived with her and had to take care of her but despite being ill for most of the week, it doesn’t stop her from hosting a daily evocation. She always muttered about how the spirits would cleanse the house of evil.

     Another worker poked his head through a doorway and addressed Monty. “Nice. Insult the new kid. Assert your dominance.” 

     Monty looked momentarily stricken when he realized but quickly recovered. “Sorry. You must be Dante then. Excuse my rudeness. I’ve been working since lunch yesterday. Damn Council didn’t give anybody breaks,” he said with a scorned smile, though he was still pale. 

     Dante couldn’t figure out why the sarcastic worker was so scared. It seemed he was scared of him but that didn’t seem like a possibility to Dante. Everybody avoided him yes, but only because he was weird and made people uncomfortable. Never did he scare them. 

     “It’s fine. This Council is in charge of the place?” When Monty nodded Dante said, “Not doing a very good job of running it. Seems like you hate them.”

     Monty’s face seemed to calm down as he looked at him with interest. “Of course not. My life’s work is here. Not like there’s any other job I can do. The Council can be… inattentive at times.” 

     “You're telling me. I don’t even work here. So why have I been taken to whatever dimension this is?” 

     “To be honest Kid, I’m not sure why they brought you specifically. I thought you would be the last person they’d bring.” 

     Dante was about to reply when he heard Morty’s voice from the hallway. He was walking with Gus and a pretty girl he’s never seen before. He noticed how striking she looked with her black ensemble of clothes against tan skin. She was wearing a fitted black crop top with black jean jean shorts and a black, unbuttoned dress shirt. Her face was all made up with eyeliner and lipgloss and was framed by pin-straight black hair that stopped at her chin. Dante could see flashes of blonde hair underneath the natural hair color. 

     “I just don’t understand how you could take an hour to get ready. And you were already ready to go! Why’d you even shower and change?” Morty exclaimed. 

     “Some guy spilled their drink on me. Plus I was in party clothes. Not jump-out-the-window clothes.” The girl’s voice was smooth, like she could hypnotize somebody. 

     “And the makeup?” Gus questioned. 

     “It’s part of the look. How else am I supposed to intimidate people?” She said with a wink and a smile.

     They got closer and closer to Dante. “Anyways, what are we— and who’s this?” Her eyes were now fixed on Dante. “I’m Bella. Nice eyes. Didn’t know there were eyes so blue.”

     “Thanks,” Dante replied. “Nice um…”

     Bella laughed. “It’s okay. Don’t hurt yourself.”

     Dante stayed quiet. He didn’t trust himself to speak because he would probably say something stupid. 

     “So what are we here for? Or is Blue Eyes one of you guys. He doesn’t seem to be.”

     “Dante,” he blurted out. “Dante de Bellis.” 

     Bella turned to him. “Hello Dante de Bellis. Very nice to meet you.” 

     He nodded before Morty interrupted their moment of awkward silence. “Ready for the Council? Or are you not done staring at each other? Jeez. Teenagers.” 

     “What are they going to talk to us about?” Bella asked. She didn’t seem worried at all to Dante. You would think being thrown out a window into some different dimension would get somebody a little concerned. 

     Gus replied this time. And with his words, Bella’s face finally showed distressed as did Dante’s face. “Why, you both are going to save the world of course.” 

Second chapter!!! I’m not really sure about it but anyways, enjoy if you’re actually reading it :) I also might posting chapters every other week instead.

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Chapter 1

Bella, Age 15, The First Encounter 

Bella was sneaking in through the bedroom window at 3 o’ clock in the morning. She had just finished crashing a big house party across town and was trying not to get caught by her parents. It wasn’t an easy feat considering the cameras all around the house, the motion detectors on all the windows and doors, and the alarm system that made the most horrible blaring noise. 

     She had already disabled the motion detectors and the alarms and moved the cameras that watched the area outside her window so that there would be a big enough blind spot to move through. It defeated the purpose of the secure structure they tried so hard to keep, but she figured it would be fine since they lived in a gated community. Nothing ever happened there, aside from the Incident. 

     It was only a few minutes later when Bella found out she wasn’t alone in her room. She was looking out her window as usual, watching the star-filled sky. She closed her eyes and felt everything buzzing with energy around her, despite being inanimate objects. She opened her eyes again and stared into the darkness, there was something watching her even if she couldn’t see it, just hovering a few feet away from her window. 

     “Hello?” she tried, hoping for a response that usually never came. “I hope you don’t tell my parents I was out,” she said with a laugh to the invisible being. “Lovely night isn’t it? Maybe you could tell me why you're staring at me instead of the sky.” Bella knew she was about to cross the line of being certifiably insane. I’m talking to the air, she thought. 

     “Oh we’re just air now aren’t we?” Bella whipped around towards the sound of the new voice in her bedroom. “Here comes the best part! I haven’t done this in years. I love freaking out you Half-Bakes. It’s always a classic breakdown of ‘Ah! Don’t kill me!’” Two figures materialized in front of Bella. 

     “Morty, calm down. The kid knows we exist. Haven’t you been paying attention?” The other voice cuffed him upside the head with his hand. 

     “Ouch! Gus, who here has been on the field longer than you have? It isn’t the kid. It definitely isn’t that chair over there. Just because you got a higher rank than me doesn’t mean you know everything. Let me tell you, they always get scared.” Morty turned towards the kid with a big smirk, but after seeing Bella’s expression, his smirk slid off his face. Bella was standing there with her arms crossed across her chest, one eyebrow arched, and a venomous look on her face. “What’s she doin’ eh? She’s lookin’ at us like we didn’t just pop outta thin air. What do I do this job for?”

     “You do this job to extract the humans, Mo. Not to mess with them.” 

     “Excuse me boys, it’s getting boring listening to this. Now, what do you mean by Half-Bake?” Bella replied to the two seemingly human figures. She couldn’t tell because of the short one, Morty, who was about four feet tall. He had very curly hair growing all the way down to his waist, had very long feet, and had purple teeth that flashed every time he talked. The other one, Gus, had more human features, but then again, they did just flash into the room. The figures being human wasn’t exactly implied.

     “It’s a term we use for you humans who don’t know the half of what they’re doing,” Morty said with a sneer.

     “What Mo here means to say is that we call humans Half-Bakes because the humans on this side don’t know about everything there is to know about how and where they live. You guys are kind of like toddlers to us.” Gus thought about his statement for a second and frowned. “Well that doesn’t sound any better, does it.”

     “Ha! Toddlers. More like Neanderthals.”

     “Say’s the one who looks like he just crawled out of a caveman tea party.”   

     “Very charming, you two.” Bella interrupted before it got even worse. “Mind telling me why you guys are here? And maybe an explanation as to why you came way too late?” 

     “Okay, Mom. Jeez. We didn’t mean to come so late, we don’t really have watches in our part of the world,” Morty complained.

     “Not what I meant.” Bella couldn’t shake the feeling of anger as she rooted through her closet. Why did they wait so long to finally respond to her? “I’ve been waiting for years—” Her rage was cut short.

     “Calm down, Half-Baked. We’ll explain later. Now, are you coming or not?”

     “This isn’t like when I was nine…right?” Bella said fearfully. Gus and Morty made eye contact. They looked uneasy and Bella didn’t have a clue why. “Forget I asked. Of course it’s not.”

     “Seriously kid?” Gus asked incredulously. “You’re not even wary of us? 

     “Well you did just pop into my room, so obviously some sort of magic is involved, or at least really, really advanced technology. And whether you’re good or bad, I guess I’ll find out. How are we getting to wherever we’re going?” 

     Morty gave a hearty laugh. “I like this one, Gus. As for you— what was your name again? Ella?”

     “Bella.”

     “Right. Anyways. First test of bravery. You wanna know how we’re getting there? We’re gonna jump out a window.” Morty waited for her to back out. But that definitely did not happen. Instead, Bella’s eyes glinted mischievously.

     “Well then,” she said with a troublemaker smile that terrified and awed both Gus and Morty, “Let me get dressed.”

First chapter!!! Hope you like it. Any tips are appreciated :)

[emo-hydra]

Prologue

Bella Age 6, Three Years Before The Incident

There was a girl somewhere out there. She lived in an extraneous house, in the middle of an extraneous town, with an almost extraneous life. Almost. She was looking out her window for a moment, whispering to the air, hoping someone would respond. It was the middle of the night so she knew nobody else would hear her other than the creatures of her dreams. Anybody would say it’s a child playing with imaginary figures. But she knew better.

     This girl seemed like any other ordinary little kid. Born in a hospital with a family of a mother and a father, grew up in a two-story house in some city, went to school with her friends and endured bullies, you get the gist. But if you zoomed in on her memories, you’d see she wasn’t very ordinary.

     Ever since she started seeing the world as a big mystery that she needed to figure out, curious about everything, she also became a great warrior. She became a beacon for everybody around her. Granted, at the time it only meant she fought off the bullies when they pushed her friend. Give some trust, however, when I say that she did more than be some elementary school hero.

     This girl made the wind blow harder with her changing emotions. God forbid she threw a tantrum because there was a guarantee a huge lightning storm happened somewhere. When she was younger, she could close her eyes and feel everything around her. If she could think hard enough, she would make things move without touching them. As she got older, her extraordinary powers got stronger and she started to feel invisible creatures watch her, even with her eyes open. She started conversing with the inconspicuous creatures that most thought were imaginary.

     Sometimes, even she thought they were imaginary, but she would not give up. She’d start talking endlessly to them when no one else is watching. She would never make up voices for the other end of the conversation. She would wait until a voice would respond, which never happened. As the years went by, she would talk less and less to the blowing wind, but she always felt something, something she couldn’t see, watching her. Which there was.

The Incident

     Our heroine, nine years old, still waited for her invisible friends to show themselves, waited for them to whisk her off to a place where she can finally feel important. But instead she found something— more like someone else. Something that unfortunately is completely, utterly normal.

     She went down the sidewalk next to her house. She would have been riding her bike but, starting the disastrous chain of events, the bike got a flat tire. As she walked, she could feel the presence of her invisible friends watching her but this time it wasn’t only them. A man approached her, he was tall with lots of facial hair and a distinct smell of a cigarette among many other chemicals. He promised her a new magical world, like he knew exactly what buttons to hit. This girl, being gullible as she is, believed him. She thought the place she was waiting for was finally showing itself to her and so she went with the strange man.

     Nobody knew what happened until the next day. She was gone for several days without anybody having a clue as to where she went. Eventually, the police caught her a couple of towns over about to be sold to some perverted creep. Luckily nothing too horrible happened to her, the police were right on time. But the emotional scarring was still there. When she was safe in her own bed once more, she gave up on the notion of the world she wanted to see and she had finally thought about her invisible friends as imaginary.

     The friends, however, were still there. They were with her every step of the way when the girl was taken. They watched how she went willingly with the strange man, but they couldn’t do anything about it until years later. For if she found out too soon, it could mean trouble for both worlds. They saw her give up on them and eventually they gave up on her too.

     Over the years, as she grew even older, she became the most restless girl you’d expect any teenager to be. She went out to parties, was loved by all the boys, and even some of the girls. She had a borderline unhealthy obsession with the color black and was the most full blown rebellious girl you’d ever met. That was only at 15 years old. She never lost her bold and courageous streak thankfully, or her kid instincts to believe in the unordinary, the magic.

     She’ll save the world some day, with the help of friends. One day, the world will know Bella Wilde.

Hey to whoever actually reads this. It’s my first of hopefully many posts. A little warning: I’m not that good at writing but I love doing it so here we are. I would say let me know if you want to see more but I’m going to be posting here anyway. I would appreciate tips and stuff tho :)