The wind whipped across my face as I peddled out of the woods and across the field, my heart pounding faster than the lightning lighting up the sky, being a flashlight for me to see into the blackness of night. I looked back, popping my head over my shoulder only to find them gaining speed, shaking the ground as I heard the frantic thud of hoof-beats flying toward me from behind. They wanted me, and they wanted me bad!
I sat down for lunch the next day, trying not to show any signs of worry or shock from last night. Suck it up I told myself mentally. You are who you are! There’s no changing that.
“Hey, Ali!’, Sydney said as she sat down next me, nearly missing her chair as I almost jumped out of mine. Be confident I reminded myself.
“H-hey.”, I said, quivering. So much for being strong…
“What’s wrong?! You look drained!’’, she spoke with concern, care, and a little bit of worry.
“Nothing”, I lied. “Um… I’m just tired from last night I guess.” OH NO! I said too much! I slapped my hand over my mouth as if shushing myself.
“What happened last night?”
“Oh, um, parents fighting again.” Another lie! Oh, I’m horrible at this!
“Are you sure? There seems to be something else bothering you," she said, her eyes locked on me. I felt like she was trying to dig deep into my thoughts and dig out what I was hiding.
“Really, I’m fine.” I concluded, unsure if it was true.
“Alright.” She said, unsure whether or not to trust my words. “So, what were they fighting over?’’
“Who?” I said, curious to know who was fighting.
“Your parents? You know, last night? Are you sure that’s what happened?”
“Oh yeah!” I practically shouted. “Um, they were fighting over……” my gaze shifted to the main cafeteria entrance. “Sydney, I thin-“ But my sentence got cut off by a deep, manly voice.
“I’m looking for a girl named Ali Downey,” the man choked.
Oh no… This was no ordinary man looking for me. This was the man that knew my secret. The man from last night! “Sydney, we have to leave. NOW!,” commanded her. She started to question me, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her up as we ran across the lunchroom to the other exit. “I’ll explain late.,” I whispered to her, hoping she could hear me.
But our departure from the cafeteria was a mili-second too late. “THERE! OVER THERE!” The guard screamed, chasing after us. I quickly pulled Sydney into the teacher’s restroom, locking the door lock and the dead bolt as I started searching for my pocket knife with the screw driver. I swung my head around as I heard the thumps of footsteps that belonged to multiple army men.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Sydney questioned me, a little to loudly. I put my finger over my lip, motioning for her to hush.
“SHH, they’ll hear us!” I breathed.
“Who’ll hear us?’’ she mouthed, but I didn’t reply. I gave up finding the screwdriver and I just flipped open the blade as I stood on the toilet, fiddling with my knife to undo the screws of the vent. With each turn of the handle, my hand got tired. I thought about giving up, just letting them find us and take us, probably kill us, but then I heard a Clink, then finally a ding. The screws came out! I pried open the vent and tossed the metal part to the ground with a thud.
“Syd, quick, hop in and I’ll follow after you!” I said, quieter than a whisper. She gave me a look that made me uneasy as she reluctantly stood up and gave into me. She could sense something was up.
I quickly followed her into the vent, just in time to hear a knock at the door. “Open up! By the court of law I command you!” they screamed in unison. Pounding, kicking, pulling on the door was all that they could do.
“Moura Si Din Areoah-la Quiv Se-umina.” I muttered under my breath as the faint glow of yellow powder sprinkled itself onto the door. “That should hold them back a little bit longer”. I turned and followed Sydney down the dark vent.
We kept crawling, twisting around each corner as we fought to stay awake. The frigid air was biting at out skin. We sped up when we saw the light faintly glowing in the distance. Somehow, Sydney ended up behind me. But oh well. “Wait, If Sydney’s behind me, than who’s in front of me?” I thought aloud.
“I’m still in front of you!” Sydney assured me as we skidded to a halt in front of the closed vent. It was sealed from the outside, so we couldn’t open it. As I was thinking, a deep voice came from behind me, scaring me half to death when it spoke.
“Hello, I’m Ryan. I-“ I cut him off.
“Why are you here? Did you follow us? Why did you follow us? Who are you?” The words came out of my mouth like a cry does from a baby; scared, annoyed, worried, and unstoppable.
“Give me a minute and I’ll tell you. I’ll have all of those questions answered, and probably many more.” He spoke like silk, his lips moving in the right direction with each vowel, so flawlessly. “But first, we need to get somewhere safe. They could find us any second.” His fingers wrapped together as he made a perfect fist with absolutely no effort showing in the process. He made his way between me and Sydney towards the sealed vent, and with one strong punch, it was plummeting to the ground below us.
“That was so h-“, I started to say, but Sydney gave me a look that told me not to finish what I was about to say. “Scary” I finished with uncertainty. “That was so scary.”
I looked next to me, only to see Sydney holding back a laugh. I turned my eyes back to Ryan, but he wasn’t there anymore. Quickly thinking, I looked down below us to see him following the vent that hit the ground. My eyes locked shut. THUMP! I peaked one eye open to see if he was okay. There he was, waiting for us to jump into his open arms. I grabbed Sydney’s hand and pulled her down with me, both of us screaming until we were caught by one arm each. Sydney quickly jumped out of his arms, and he had to push me off of him, then we ran into the dim-lit forest. We didn’t stop not look back until we neared a large bush. Ryan stop and mumbled a few weird words to the bush, and it sounded familar, but my thoughts all washed away when the bushes spread open, the leaves crackling with each movement. “THERE THEY ARE!” a man screamed, and he charged at us.
“Crap! Jump in! Hurry!” Ryan said, his face full of worry. This time, Sydney jumped in first. I froze when the bushes started to close. Ryan panicked, and he flung me into his arms as he jumped. As we fell, I buried my face into his chest, scared to death of what would be waiting for us all. His chest was warm. So warm, that when I saw the faint glow of a light, I did nothing but hold onto him tighter.
We landed on a dirt floor. The surroundings looked familiar, like a house I once lived in. There was furniture everywhere, and it was comforting.
Ryan dropped me and made himself comfortable on the couch after he pealed off the plastic cover that was smothered in layers of dust. With a loud flop, his feet were hanging off the couch, his head laying lazily on the armrest. “So, are you going to explain?”, I asked impatiently as I sat next to Sydney on the table.
“Where do you want me to start?” he questions me, biting his lip to hold back a smile.
“Umm…. From the beginning I guess.’’ I said it with confidence, freezing my face in a serious position.
He grinned as he started. “On December 15th, you were born in Mary Lane hospital, room 406, and-“
“Not that far back! Try, Oh I don’t know, maybe why you followed us into the vent!’’. I sank deeper into the coffee table, realizing I had a Smart-Alic on my hands.
“Well, I was in the bathroom at that time because I knew that’s where y’all would be. When you opened the door, I saw the people running after you. They’re the people who always have and always will hate our kind. I also saw you fiddling with your knife, looking for the screw driver. You gave up and used the knife blade, which is very dangerous by the way. But because of who you are, you could have just said Maro Con Si-henya. It means open up a pathway. But anyway, when you pushed Sydney into the vent, I heard you mutter that spell. It was then I realized that they were right; You really don’t know what you’re doing. So, being the kind gentleman that I am, I followed you to help you.” He said it all with a mocking tone.
“I did too know what I was doing!” I lied.
"Okay, whatever. But I really had no choice but to follow you. Both of you are my assigned projects.” He spoke slowly and clearly, looking Sydney and I over and over again, studying our reactions. I was right; the army men were sent by King Spence. I snapped out of thought when I heard Sydney crying. My first reaction is to pull her in for a hug, and that’s exactly what I did. I started to tell her that it would all be okay, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know what for sure. But also because I kept thinking of his last sentence. “You two are my assigned projects.”
“If you’re wondering what it means, it means that I have to teach and protect you," he chuckled, but his facial expression showed that it was to cover up the seriousness of his mental thoughts. Suddenly, it all clicked together.
“You don’t mean-“ I started to say in awe, but he spoke in my mid-sentence.
“Yep! King Spence is now also assigning jobs again to us, the Differences. He thinks, no, he KNOWS that I’m capable of protecting and teaching you both, and that’s why I’m here. The only reason!” I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t say other wise. He acted as if it were nothing, like all of this is a joke, and like we’re all perfectly safe.
“Who’s this Spence dude? He seems like a jerk.” Sydney asked, lifting her head from my lap as she wiped away her tears. “He seems really powerful considering you call him King.”
I started to speak, but my voice was hushed by Ryan. He probably understood it more than me. After all, I’ve only known for about 8 months now. Poor Sydney knows nothing about any of this though. She’s in for a ling, rough Roller-coaster ride of truth. ”He’s the king, or controller of us Differences. If we disobey him, he has the right to take away our powers, and even our life.” Ryan gave me a glance, then looked back at Sydney. What was that for?
“Our? W-what do you mean our?” Sydney, oh poor, poor Sydney.
“There’s no easy way to say this Sydney, but you’re a Difference too.” My voice crackled when I saw the look on her face.
“What the heck is it though? A Difference, what is it?” Ryan stood as she spoke, and he walked out of the room.
“Well, thanks for the help Ryan!” I called after him. I turned back to Sydney and explained it to her. “ Well, to sum it up, we are the people who save the world. WE have to be trained to use our multiple protection powers, and, well, it’s dangerous. We have to learn many new things; things hat aren’t easy. Things so hard to control, it’ll hurt.” My hands started this weird thing where whenever I talk about my powers, they glow. And, well, right now, they could be considered the Sun’s daughter.
“So, that’s why everything’s been so, ugh, weird lately? And is that why my finger’s glow in the dark at night?” Her gaze traveled over to my hands that would be visible from a mile away in fog. This question was meant for me to answer, I just knew it.
“Yes, probably. When us differences turn 15, we develop our powers. Well, let’s just say we’re, um, unique, because we’re 13 and we’ve developed our partial powers, and we’re more powerful than many others.”
“Ok.” Was her only response. We stood and walked our of the room, down the hallway to find Ryan.
“Ryan!” I nearly screamed. “Where the heck are you?!” We had a question for him, but it developed into a new question because we couldn’t find him. We pushed open every door, one after another, hoping he would be behind one of them. We skidded to a halt as we reached one last door which had a note hanging from the handle.
Dear Girls,
Don’t you DARE leave this place. If you do, your powers will be exposed, and they’ll find you. You don’t want them to find you. TRUST ME.



You know you love me! ~Ryan
“His signature! It’s so…. so…… so per-“ I heard the thump of footsteps behind me as I spun around and grabbed my pocket and whipped out my knife only to be face to face with Ryan.

“It’s so what?” he teased, a grin threatening at his lips. “Perfect?” I chose not to answer him as I attempted to slip passed him to go get Sydney, but when we saw it, we both froze. A head was leaning down from the attic door at the top of the ladder that was on the left wall, right next to us. We started to run, but the face grew a body with limbs, and it caught me by the hair, pulling me back to it. It smiled, and it’s eyes rolled back into it’s head, leaving the sockets of the eyes pouring out yellow liquid.

“Hello.” It hissed at us as it was still grinning a smile ear to ear, sending chills down my spine. I whipped the blade of my knife open and started slashing the creature’s hand over and over, but it kept going straight through it. “Haha. Stop, that tickles”, it said emotionless in a sarcastic tone.

“What are you? Some kind of freak of Nature?” I said, disturbed and full of fear. A surge of electricity stunned me when Ryan touched my hand. Suddenly, I remembered everything; all of my childhood memories, being chased into this hole/house thing once before, everything. It gave me a burst of confidence and I thought, or a split second that maybe the button on the back of the knife would help. But when the, ugh, Thing, grabbed my neck, I figured there was no harm in trying. I quickly flipped over my knife, clicking open the square box on the back.

“What are you doing?” It grunted, confused.

“NO!” I shouted! “NOT AGAIN!” I pushed the button as the blade started glowing a bright gold. I stabbed the Thing in the chest as it screamed a sigh-pitched squeal before it vanished into thin air. Then, all's I remember seeing was Sydney’s stunned face as I fell, and I don’t remember getting back up.