Nessa sat in the back of her sixth period class doodling avidly on what was meant to be her math notes. Notes she would later regret not taking. Maybe. All around her people sat, their gazes locked on the blackboard at the front of the room, though few of them had deemed what Mr. Lass was saying important enough to write down.

  

    Peering up the the clock through her bangs Nessa let a small smile work its way onto her face; once again Mr. Lass wouldn’t have time to finish the same lesson he’s been trying to teach for the past three weeks. She slowly began clearing off her desk while he continued to teach the class. Nessa pulled her hair pins out of her bag and put her hair back up before throwing the rest of her stuff into the bag. Another day wasted. Sighing she pulled on her old jean jacket and threw her bag over her shoulder before leaving the room. In the halls of the mildew infested prison Nessa was shoved into places a person should never be and had to endure the vile words that spewed from her classmates. Playing with the piercing that went through the lower left corner of her lip she pushed her way through the back doors and burst into the freedom of the fading September sun.

  

    Beautiful yellows, pinks and reds greeted her as Nessa slipped through the back entrance of the school and off the grounds. The light was reflecting off the tall golden grasses and the few clouds that were in the sky that day were being lit from within making it appear as if they were glowing. Pausing for a moment Nessa stood surrounded by the grasses and the sky above her head; she wished she could live here instead of the dingy one bedroom apartment she shared with her mother.

  

    Trailing one hand over the grass and the other clutching at the heavy gold band that Nessa wore around her neck she contemplated, not for the first time, what would happen if she ran away. She didn’t have anything keeping her where she was. A mother who was drunk half the time and high the other half, the hollow memories of her dad and she was living in one of the most dangerous parts of Detroit. But even if she did run away Nessa knew nothing would change. Her mom would still be what she is, her dad would still be dead and she would still be struggling to keep her head above the water.

  

    Passing through the hole in the cemetery fence Nessa walked through the back part of it. It’d been abandoned long ago and no one went there anymore. The individuals buried here had long been forgotten. It made her feel like she was invading their privacy by walking past their final resting place, but it was a far better alternative to walking through the newer part of the cemetery. In the newer part she would have been tempted to walked over to where her father lay buried by six feet of dirt encased in a wooden box. His body may be nothing but a pile of bones dressed in rags but it doesn’t change the fact that the last day she had stood in front of him she had felt free, and that is one thing she will never be. Weaving in between the crumbling headstones she wiggled through a gap in the fence and left the silence of the cemetery behind her.

  

    After walking among the sounds of the city for  few minutes Nessa pulled out her headphones and stuck them in her ears to drown out what was going on around her. Not a day went by that a crime didn’t happen and it was just safer for her to pretend she didn’t know what was going on around her.

  

    The streets were oddly empty for this time of day but Nessa didn’t pay too much attention to that as the rain started to fall. She was preoccupied trying to protect her precious iPod from the cold water that was falling from the sky in cold, fat drops. When she was younger she would have been laughing and skipping and playing in the rain, but not anymore. It just wasn’t smart, or all that healthy. Flipping up the collar of her jacket Nessa decided to jog the rest of the way home. It wasn’t long. With her head tilted downward to keep the water out of her eyes Nessa turned a corner and slammed into a person.

  

    She continued on her way but spun around to apologize. Just when she was going to actually vocalize her apology the words froze in her throat. A long, cold, slimy arm had wrapped itself around her neck. Eyes widening in panic she reach up to pull the arm off of her but stopped when her small hands closed around the offending appendage. The skin wasn’t normal; it didn’t even feel like skin. Whatever was on the arm was alive and it was moving.

  

    Whimpering low in her throat Nessa shifted her attention to the people in front of her; there were three total. Two of them were leaning on each other and had hoods obscuring their faces, the other stood in plane view. His brown hair hung in his deep brown eyes, his lips pursed in distaste and his body was tensed. Almost like he was waiting for a fight.
    “Let the mortal go Acerbus. This is between you and me, there’s no reason to drag a puny human into this.” The boy in front of her barely spoke loud enough for her to understand what he was saying. Just before the words left his mouth Nessa felt a sharp stinging pain in the back of her neck and something cold started to spread from there. It started at the injection site and spread around to her chest before growing intensity and spreading into her lungs. Gasping for breath Nessa clawed at the arm. What did they do to her?
    “Oh but I already poisoned her. If I let her go now I won’t get to see her reaction to the new composition and where’s the fun in that?” The voice sounded wrong, like whoever held her couldn’t form words correctly. Tipping her head back Nessa looked at the man who had her in his grip, except it wasn’t a man.

  

    The scream that had been building in her throat ripped its way free from her chest and Nessa doubled her efforts in freeing herself. It had no eyes. Just giant empty holes in its head; the nose was just two tiny slits that sat between the empty eye sockets and the mouth cavity. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any more terrifying a grey tube emerged from the mouth and slithered up the face to lick at the burgundy goo that had fallen into the creature’s eyes socket. It was then that what the thing had said permeated the fog that had wrapped itself around her mind.

  

    Poison? They had poisoned her? Pulling at the arm again Nessa mentally searched herself for something she could use to get herself out of this situation. Her pockets were empty and her bag lay and her feet where she dropped it, that only left her with her hair pins. With shaking hands Nessa reach up to pull them out of her hair, she had to do this quickly and then run, it was her only hope. In one fluid movement she had ripped them out of her hair and lodged them into the creature’s arm. The arm was jerked off her with an inhuman screech. Spinning Nessa got a better look at it before dashing around it.

  

    Skidding to halt outside her apartment door Nessa struggled to free the spare key from the hiding place. Finally getting the key free she unlocked to door and slammed it behind her. Stumbling over to the counter Nessa searched frantically for the phone. Coughing wetly she wrapped her arms around her chest and fell to her knees. The room was tipping dangerously to one side and her body was still enveloped by the freezing pain. Having crashed onto the stained linoleum tiles Nessa hunched over gasping for the much needed oxygen. In the back of her mind she heard the door open and close again accompanied by the sound of a pair of keys being tossed onto the table.
    “Mom.. help...please...” wheezing Nessa looked up expecting to find her mother’s bloodshot eyes staring down at her from behind a curtain of limp blonde hair but it wasn't her mother. Where her mother should have been stood yet another creature.

  

    Empty eyes sockets are set above to tiny slits for a nose and a mouth filled with pointy white teeth and another greasy tube tongue, but that's where the similarities ended. Instead of being tall and thin this one was short and it’s skin was stationary and a lighter shade of red. The thing took one look at her and fled the apartment. Nessa jumped slightly as the door slammed for a second time, she was alone again. Giving up she fell the rest of the way to the floor and lay staring up at the ceiling. This was it, after sixteen years of living a boring and empty life she was going to die on the floor of a cheap apartment that hadn’t been cleaned in months. That was the last thought that crossed her mind as she felt her body shut down and her breathing stop.

  

    Nessa took a deep breath and tried not sneeze when her nose was assaulted by the harsh smell of chemicals. Prying open her eyes Nessa looked around her; two empty metal tables were to her right and on her left was a desk covered in piles of paper. Sitting up she went to put her feet on the floor but screamed when the sheet that had been covering her body fell off exposing her naked body to the world. Scrambling she grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around herself before putting her feet on the stained concrete floor. Now that she was fully aware of where she was Nessa saw a balding man sitting at the desk.
    “You... you’re supposed to be dead. Why aren’t you dead!” The man’s voice had taken on a tone of hysteria and Nessa was left trying to calm him down before he alerted everyone in the building that she was there. Thinking quickly she saw the half empty bottle of whisky hidden beneath some files and just started talking, and she wasn’t even that soothing. Nessa just let the words fall from her mouth.
     “I’m still dead, I’m laying on that table behind me. Just like before. You fell asleep at your desk after drinking a little too much.” She nodded her head encouraging him to agree with her. Holding her breath she hoped he would, if he didn’t she would be totally screwed.
    “Yeah that’s probably it...” The man trailed off.
    “Yep. Now I have a question, it's okay. Not a hard question at all. When I came in I had a necklace around my neck with a gold ring on it, where did it go?” He open his mouth to speak but Nessa reached forward and laid a finger on his lips, “Sh... Just point and then you can go back to sleep.” She made eye contact with him praying that he wouldn’t question why she wanted the necklace. With an unsteady hand he pointed to the box across the room. Smiling Nessa thanked the man and walked over to the box. Prying it open she found not only all her jewelry but also her clothing.

  

    After she had dressed Nessa slipped out of the room and down the dimly lit hall. She not only had no clue where she was, but now she was wandering around a strange building with hardly any light. Trailing one hand along the wall Nessa walked with her side brushing the wall; where ever she was there had to be a way out. Several minutes passed in silence, the only sounds that she could hear was her ragged breathing and the slight squeak of her left boot on the floor. Her hand slipped off the wall and she fell forward into the wall in front of her. Rubbing weakly at her face Nessa turned and looked down the new hallway. She barely managed to suppress a scream when she looked. There at the end of the hall was a sign. A sign that clearly read exit. Pushing herself off the wall she ran to the end of the hall and burst through the door into the cold night.
 

2: The Beginning

    The door to the building she had been in closed behind her with a final thud, shutting the heat inside and her outside. Nessa was finally free, but from what? The air outside was cold and nipped at her nose like only February wind could. With a sniffle and a cough she pulled the worn fabric of her jacket closer to her body and took off in a random direction.

    The man from the morgue, yes it was an actual morgue, thought she’d been dead. Which was understandable, she couldn’t have gotten on the metal slab if they hadn’t been absolutely sure she was dead, but she wasn’t dead. So why couldn’t the man see that? Thinking back to her brief time in the sterile tiled room Nessa wanted to slap herself upside the head. The bottle. It all made sense. The poor man had probably seen hundreds of dead people, too many to sleep at night and had turned to drinking to find peace. But if that was the case then Nessa had just convinced a person that she was dead and that meant it go down in the records that she was dead.

    Okay she could deal with that, right? She wanted to get away from this city, from her mom, from everything and now’s her chance. Except she didn’t want to. Nessa just wanted to go home to the smelly apartment and the empty liquor bottles and hollow memories of happiness, but she couldn’t. A single tear ran down her face as she walked on in silence.

    That one tear had turned to hundreds and Nessa ended up needing to stop because she couldn’t see anything through the torrent of tears. She just barely had time to lean against a wall before she really started to cry. Broken, gut wrenching sobs ripped free from her slim body. She was alone now, her mom was probably drunk somewhere fucking anything that moved and her dad was dead.

    By the time she was done crying the sun had risen showing off her wonderful tear stained face and bloodshot eyes. Getting to her feet proved to be a struggle and Nessa had to use the wall just so she wouldn’t go crashing to the ground again. A handful of people were on the streets now, some going to work other leaving but none spared her more than a glance. Coughing weakly, probably left over from the drug the people had used the other night, Nessa righted her clothing and ran a hand through her hair before taking off again.

    It was time for lunch and Nessa could barely stay on her feet. Her stomach growled so loud the noise might as well have been coming from a whole different being. She was sure the vertigo was from lack of sleep and hunger. Or that’s what she kept telling herself.

    As time went on Nessa became less and less aware of her surroundings and her footing grew gradually more unsure until she fell right into a random persons arms.
    “I told you she was one of us Ashly.” It sounded like the guy from the other night. Weakly Nessa turned her head to the side, trying to get a view of the guy but her eyes were closed and she couldn't seem to remember how to open them.
    “Shut up Duncan. I get it. Aaron and I made a mistake, now get her in the car. Mann’s gonna want to talk to her.” Duncan? Aaron? Ashley? Mann? Who the hell were these people?

    Nessa woke up slowly, fighting it every step of the way, she pulled the blanket draped around her further up and snugged deeper into the warmth of it. This was a nice change from the usual for her. Normally she would fall asleep cold, wake up cold, go through day cold and then fall asleep cold. There’s a pattern to her life. This does not match the pattern. Eventually though she gave up on the idea of sleeping through the rest of the day and restyled her way to the surface. Nessa was sitting in the back of a car with  a leather jacket draped carefully over her upper torso. There were two people in the front seat bickering over what radio station should be playing and looking almost identical to each other. With their ebony hair and high cheekbones the pair looked like they were at least half Native American, maybe more. Carefully shifting so she was completely upright and still covered by the jacket Nessa inched her way forward. A muffled sneeze to her right caught her attention. When Nessa looked over she nearly screamed.

    It was him. They guy from the night she was attacked. Well, they hadn't killed her yet and they were taking care of her. So why fight it? The guy driving, yes it was definitely a guy, looked back at her through the rear view mirror while his sister turned all the way around.
    "Hi! I'm Ashley and that's my brother Aaron." The girl gestured wildly to the guy driving who shot her a look when she accidentally smacked him in the face. "Anyways you get to come live with us now. It'll be so nice having another girl there! I've been all alone and-"
    "Take a breath Ash. You may have just scared the girl for life. Hi. I'm the before mentioned Aaron. Duncan's in the back next to you. Just be sure to give him back his jacket when he wakes up again and you two will get along just fine. Maybe. He’s kind of a hard person to get along with. Anyways we’ll be there in about an hour so you can just go back to napping or anything else you want to do. Just be sure to let us know if you start to feel... off. In any way. Okay?” Nodding she turned back to look at Duncan, the guy who’d saved her life and lent her his jacket.

    Dry and asleep he looked almost like a normal boy; the lines of his face softened while he rested, erasing the anger and hurt that rested just beneath the surface. Leaning towards him Nessa reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from his face. He really was a sweet guy. Even if he did call her punny.
    “Why’d you save me? Why not just leave me on the streets?” Thankfully the twin up front were busy arguing over the radio station again and didn’t hear her questions. It was stupid but Nessa was hoping that she could somehow see the answers to her questions. That maybe Duncan’s sleeping face held the answers.
    “Because you’ve done nothing wrong and it was my fault you were attacked in the first place.” Opening his eyes Duncan looked directly into Nessa’s eyes. His blue eyes met her green and for a moment, brief and fleeting but a moment all the same, she felt safe. Then the world went black.

    Her chest tightened, effectively cutting off Nessa’s oxygen supply and causing black orbs to float around in her vision. Gasping for air Nessa collapsed in Duncan’s lap and clawed at her chest. For the third time in as many days Nessa was struggling to stay conscious and get enough air into her lungs. People were yelling and try as she might Nessa couldn’t understand anything. After a few minutes of struggling the world went black and everything faded into the background.

    When Nessa woke up again she was still in the back of the car and a deep pain had settled deep in her bones. From where she was laying Nessa could see trees, green and tall, zip by in their attempt at blocking out the sun. Turning her head so she was looking more towards he feet and not up at the roof of the car, she had to blink away the remaining black spots from her vision. The other three passengers in the car were all too busy talking over each other to notice that she’d woken up and Nessa was all too glad to let them bicker. She was really ready for a nap. Just as she was about to fall asleep the car hit a bump, most likely a speed bump used to keep people from speeding, which sent her flying up off Duncan’s lap. Crashing back down Nessa failed to suppress the scream of pain that had been ripped from her lips.
    “Guys she’s awake!” Duncan grabbed Nessa’s face and held it so he could look fully into her eyes, “You need to stay awake. Just for another five minutes then you can do whatever the hell you want to do. Just stay awake.” She didn’t know why she had to stay awake or even how she was going to keep herself awake. It seemed pointless. Fighting around the numb feeling that her held her tongue captive Nessa struggled to get the words out of her mouth properly.
    “What’s it matter?” Duncan laughed from above her and helped her sit up before she could start thinking about struggling to sit up.
    “Just because. Tell me about yourself, or a story. Just keep talking.” Too exhausted to come up with a fun story or even a good lie to tell him Nessa started talking about herself.
    “I’m Nessa. That’s short for Vanessa, I don’t like my full name. I mean who names their child Vanessa? It’s long. And incredibly delicate. I’m not delicate, or fragile, or feminine. I’m nothing like a butterfly! That’s what Vanessa means by the way. It means butterfly.” Thankfully Nessa didn’t have long to ramble and because she was struggling with moving her mouth enough to get the words out with any consistency. She’d just finished ranting about what her name meant when the car slid to a stop.
    “We’re here.”

    Everyone had gotten out of the car, well the three who could get out of the car without assistance had, and Nessa was busy trying to stand up without any help. She kept waving away the many helpful hands that reached out to help her up. When she had gotten out Nessa kept a hand on the the car door and swayed back and forth. The pain was doing more than distracting her from more important things, it was messing with all of her. Everything that made Nessa who she was was being altered. Stumbling away from the car Nessa stood slightly behind the Aaron, Ashley and Duncan.

    She was able to stay upright just long enough to see an elderly man walk down a set of stone steps before her knees buckled. Reaching out Nessa tried to find something to keep herself upright but only succeeded in snagging the back of Aaron’s jean jacket. Right before the rest of her body hit the ground Duncan swung her up into his arms and cradled her up against his chest.
    “I’ve got you Nessa. I've got you.” Closing her eyes against the pain Nessa nodded and buried her face in Duncan's shoulder. She didn't know why these things were happening to her or what to do about it all, but she knew that Duncan would take care of her.

    An old calloused hand rested on her forehead, soothing away the pain and calming her erratic heartbeat. Cracking her eyes open Nessa glanced at the man above her; he was at least four inches shorter than Duncan and with is wrinkled face and salt and pepper hair he looked old, but not as old as his hands would suggest.
    “Rest child. There will be time for questions in the morning, rest.” And just like that Nessa felt the tension that had been building in her muscles for ten years seep out of her body, then she slept.
 

3: The Awakening