Gordon

    Four Kicks was blaring in my ears so loudly that I almost didn’t hear the girl ask me about the grimic.   

“Excuse me but, I think rat might of ran into your pocket.” the girl said, “Oh and by the way my name’s Kami.”

She stuck out a hand with black matte nail polish. She had dark red hair and was wearing a Fall Out Boy shirt with the cover of Folie a Deux  on it and jeans.

    I knew bringing a grimic into the coffee shop was a bad idea. But, it was injured after the animal it’s tied to got captured by a poacher. But, no normal person could see them though.

“You can see him?’, I asked.

“Can’t everyone?”, she asked.

“From what I know only 8 other people can”, he said.

Kami

    He caught me by the wrist and dragged me outside.

“How long have you been seeing them?”, he asked.

“Since I was 2.”, I replied.

“You’re one of us then.”, he said, “There are 8 other people besides us who can see them. We call these creatures grimics and we are here to protect them".

Gordon

“So Grimics  are creatures that we only can see and we need to protect them from the shadows and we have no clue how to defeat them.”, said Kami.

“Don’t forget that for every extinct species of woodling another one of our species goes extinct.” I replied.

“So if we don’t save them millions of animals will die too. So far I’m loving the pressure.” she said.

“Let’s go to headquarters so you can meet everyone.”

Kami

“Headquarters” was a trashy warehouse near Pikes Place Market. It smelled of stale farts and McDonalds. Around 50 grimics  were running around nibbling on bits of bread, fish, cheese, and chocolate pasta.

“We have birds, fish, lizards, cats, dogs, etc.” said a tall, broad shouldered boy.

    He had dark hair, olive green eyes, and dark tanned skin.

“My name’s Thomas” he said arrogantly “ I’m the leader of this dump.”

Gordon rolled his eyes.

“ And this is Sarah, Chris , Philby, Jared, Ash, Samantha, and Amber.”

They all waved their hands in unison. Sarah had dark hair and pale skin, Chris was short and had red hair, Philby was around 6 feet and had shoulder length dreadlocks, Jared and Ash were twins with sandy blond hair and blue eyes, Samantha and Amber both had blond hair but while Samantha had piercing grey eyes Amber had dull brown ones.

Gordon

“Not all of us have seen them since we were little, I saw my first woodling when I was a roadie for Green Day-” said Gordon

“You were a roadie for Green Day!?!?!?” asked Kami

“ And The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Killers, and The White Stripes but that’s beside the point. I was 17 then. My parents thought I was crazy and I did too. I googled what I saw ( the grimic) and found a chat group that Thomas started about it and that’s how we all met.”

Kami

“Everyone come here now!”, screamed Thomas he had a big, dusty book of Native American legends in his hand.

“I found a picture of something that looks like a woodling.” On that page there was a blue deer and the caption was spirit animal.

“The Native Americans thought that each animal had a spirit animal connected to it and if you killed the spirit you killed the animal. They also thought that each human had a shadow connected to them that embodied all they’re evils.”, said Thomas.

“So, we’re fighting against ourselves?”, I asked.

“Look’s like we are.”, said Gordon.

“One more problem.” said Thomas, “ To kill the shadow is to kill ourselves.”

At that moment the whole world started to spin. I didn’t know if I was going to pass out or not.

Gordon

    Kami hit the floor pretty hard, when she finally woke she was white as a ghost and she puked pumpkin colored chunks all over her shirt. Thank god Amber had some extra clothes in her bag. Kami ended up having to wear jean shortie shorts and a 1D shirt. We both puked when she put that on. It was around 1 am and Kami needed to get home. She had walked to the Starbucks and god knows I’m not gonna let her walk home where she could get mugged or worse.

So, I drove her home on my vespa and no, I’m not a hipster. She live in tiny apartment complex in the seedy part of downtown. She had fallen asleep on my bike and was snoring like a pig. “ I wish we could’ve become better friends before I die.”, I muttered under my breath. Immediately after that she woke up.

Kami

    I was so stunned after what I heard Gordon said that I forgot I was pretending to sleep.

Gordon looked so tired I didn’t want to confront him about it.

“You look tired, want a cup of coffee I went to top pot donuts yesterday and got some grounds.” I asked

“Sure.” he said while yawning.

You had to hike up 6 flights of stairs to get to my apartment that’s why I have such muscular calves. When I opened up the door the smell of cigarette smoke enveloped us. My roommate Lizzy was sitting with a mug of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other listening to Nirvana’s Drain You. Gordon was humming along. Lizzy looked at me in my 1D shirt and shorts and immediately burst out laughing. “I’m going to change now!” I screamed.

Gordon

Kami’s apartment was a lot to take in with the anime and band posters, the huge record collection and the bookshelf filled with knick knacks, books, and manga. I picked up Who Killed Kurt Cobain? by Ian Helperin and Matt Wallace and sat next to Lizzy on the old couch.  I could tell from Lizzy’s glares that she didn’t like me. She had a black and blue hair that hovered just above her shoulders, a lip and nose piercing, and a couple tattoos. She wore heavy makeup and had on black tights and a sequined shirt. I was really glad when Kami came back.

She had changed out of her 1D shirt and had on a yellow Descendants shirt with the cover of I Don’t Wanna Grow up on it and blue sweat pants.

“I already started a pot of coffee.” she said obviously feeling better.

“ So, how long have you two known each other?” asked Lizzy, I could almost feel her glare.

“ A couple of weeks.”, said Kami, “ We met at Full Tilt Creamery, We shared a pint of Mudd Honey”

I gave Kami the most thankfull look I could muster.

Kami

    Gordon really appreciated my record collection. We jammed to Green Day and Nirvana for a bit but then he brought up his death comment.

“Listen Kami, we figured out whose shadow it is”

“Who?” I knew it was his but I didn’t want it to be.

“Mine.” he said before he started crying, his tough exterior cracking to pieces.

“When I was little I enjoyed killing animals.That side of me has literally been haunting me all my life.”

I understand where Gordon is coming from when I was little I enjoyed pouring salt on snails, smashing flies and spiders with my shoes, and keeping beetles in a container and holding on to one of their legs until it made a noise that sounded like a record scratching.

“ It could be me.” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. It just made him sob more. I really suck at comforting people.

“You’re to emotional to drive how about you sleep on the couch?”, he just nodded and stared at his hands. I grabbed one of the blankets my mom would knit before she died and a soft mint green pillow and put them on the couch in the living room.

Gordon

I didn’t stay the whole night. I waited till I heard snoring from Kami’s room and then I grabbed a pen and a rectangular pad of paper with flowers and golden retrievers. Way to positive for a suicide note but I’ll make do. It read:

Dear Kami,

    You are an amazing friend and I am honored to know you. Thank you for the hospitality I could never be as nice as you. If one life can eventually save millions and even yours then it’s worth it. I’m going to headquarters to leave a note there for the others. By tomorrow the shadows will be gone and the grimics safe.

Thank You,

Gordon

The second I heard the door click I dreaded the worse. I pulled on my favorite black hoodie and headed into kitchen. When I saw the note I screamed as loud as I could. Lizzy ran in with the pistol she hid under the bed.

“ Did Gordon hurt you!?!?”, she asked “I knew he was bad news!”

“ He left me a suicide note”

“ Wow, I was way off.” she laughed.

“This isn’t a laughing matter!” I screamed at her, tears in my eyes, “I’m taking your car.”

“Fine go rescue you’re suicidal boyfriend.”, she tossed me her keys.

    Lizzy had a matte black volkswagen bus she liked to think of herself as a punk hippie (if that’s a thing). I drove as quickly as I could to headquarter, almost hitting a couple of homeless people.

Gordon

I had Dead! by My Chemical Romance stuck in my head. I took in headquarters the couch, the stash of clothes in the corner, sleeping grimi the faint smell of stale farts and McDonalds, and the 20 ( what happened to the other 30). I’ve made up my mind. I grab the note and write out my final message to the “team” but isn’t a team the people on your side.

Dear team,

    Goodbye.

Sincerely,

Gordon

    Short and sweet. I wrote more words there than half of them have said since I’ve met them. I might as well stay here a little bit longer and catch some z’s.

Kami

My first instinct when I see Gordon sleeping on the couch in headquarters is to slap him and I do. It took a couple slaps to get him awake. He gave me the weirdest look ever.

“I told you not to follow me!”, he screamed.

“You leave a suicide note and you expect no one will follow?!?”

“It was fake!!”, he shrieked.

    At that moment Thomas walked in with a shadow. They were talking.

“I knew Gordon would pounce on the idea of him being the shadow.”, he said no detection of guilt in his voice. The shadow replied in a series of hisses.

“Yes we do have to be careful of that Kami girl. If she finds out we’re dead, literally.” Thomas did the best cackle he could.

“Thomas?” me and Gordon asked at the same time.

“Yes.”, he replied, his evil grin giving me the chills.

Gordon

    I suspected Thomas from the beginning, like when I first messaged him on the chat group. He just seemed twisted. He has read that book of Native American mythology inside and out and he just conveniently noticed that then. I could tell he liked Kami and wanted her as an alley. Kami looked dumbstruck when she saw him with the shadow girls can be so naive. It all happened in slow motion, Thomas attacking Kami, me reaching for the gun I kept under the couch, and me pulling the trigger. I think I hit Thomas but I was blinded by my anger so it could’ve been the shadow. The rest of the “team” came around an hour later and we told them about the shadow and Thomas. They looked relieved. We figured out I hit the shadow because Thomas didn’t have any bullet holes in him. Now that the shadow is dead we decided we would only meet once a month to take care of the grimics.

Kami

    I knew Thomas was a jerk but I didn’t think he was a shadow. We all decided that I would be the caretaker of the grimics at headquarters cause I had an internship at Sub Pop records. The grimics were sweet but they all had a biting tendency.