Monster, Brianne Robertson [books to get back into reading txt] 📗

Monster
We were on assignement on the docks on a bright summer night.

“Do you even know what we're looking for?” asked Andrea in a whisper.

“No,” I said back in a stern, but quiet voice, “But I know it's expensive.”

“Wow,” she said looking down from the metal spiral staircase, ”How far up do you think we are?”

“Maybe ten, twenty, stories.” I said to her. The warehouse smelled of old fish and oil, from the fork-lifts left there by the workers. It had been used for storing boat parts and the tools necissary for boat repair. It held large wooden crates that went up past my knee. Many of the giant boxes held things such as fishing rods and fishng nets, but we were after somthing more valuable, hidden tresure. Andrea went over to one of the many boxes that lined the walls and tried to pull the lid off, but couldn’t. After many tries she looked over at me with those big green almond eyes… She is a very pretty girl nice, stubborn, resilient… The list could go on forever; and I love her.

“Daniel, will you help me?” she asked in her high pitched, persuasive voice, “Please?”

I walked over to the box with crow-bar in hand, and helped her open it. The lid fell to the floor and we gasped in unison.

“There beautiful.” she said in awe. Pearls. Millions of them, they filled the box from top to bottom.

“Go open that other crate.” I said a little to bleak.

“Humph!” she said and went to the next one. When she wasn’t looking I took out a silver band that had three little indents where cheep plastic diamonds had once been. ‘My plans are going perfectly.’ ‘ all I need are some diamonds’. I took the biggest pearl I could find and super glued it to the ring in between the to smaller indents, got a handful of pearls and put them in my pocket.

“Daniel!!” Andrea yelled as I heard the crate lid fall to the ground. Still holding the ring in one hand I rushed over to see what she had found. Diamonds. They were beautiful, and in every shape and size you could think of. Every cut every color caught the little light that was coming from the moon and made her face glow.

“Why don’t you go sit down, you look tiered.” She looked at me with ‘the face’.

‘The Face’ was a series of emotions. Like… hatred, love, happiness, and sadness. This time she added a little annoyance.

“Please I’ll be there in a minute.” she looked down and sighed than walked away.

I took some diamonds and put them in my pocket. Then I found five of the smallest ones and super glued them in the little nooks, then I added more, and more, and more.

Soon it was a beautiful cascade of diamonds. Now I waited for the glue to dry. I stood there impatiently, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three… I looked back where she was supposedly sitting, but she wasn’t there.

I herd a crash and my hart skipped. The first thing that went through my head was A got her. We worked for an agency called The Dreamers. I heard another crash, than ran around the corner just in time to see Andrea through Adem down into another box full of hay. Typical, Adem Longhart is Jinn’s right hand man. Everybody on the force new he had a thing for Andrea, the only problem, my ring was for her.

“Adem!” I yelled as he got up with a groan.

“Daniel!” he yelled tiredly back in his slight English accent. “I take it you haven’t asked her yet.”

Everybody knew I was going to ask her to marry me, even Adem. Our long friendship has involved trying to win Andrea’s heart. “No I haven’t, but your welcome to stay.”

“Daniel?” she asked cutting in, “Ask me what?” Ring still in hand I walked over to her and knelt on one knee and asked in a quiet voice, “Will you marry me?” still on my knee, she stuck her hand out with a smile. I stood and put the ring on her finger. She started to cry with joy.

“It’s a little big, but I think I can manage.” Adem was still standing there with a ‘you win’ smile on his face.

That’s when the trouble started.
We heard a gasp. One of the workers had come on his rounds to make sure the factory was OK. The clip board in his hand was suddenly flying towards Adem. A direct hit!

Adem coiled back in pain, his arms flailing wildly. The worker ran to the tech tower where the evacuation switch was. The evacuation switch would alert the police and fire department.

I started running after him, closing fast. Two feet, closer… My adrenaline rushing through my veins, I was a cross country star all through high school.

I was close enough to smell his five dollar cologne. Close enough to grab the back of his fluorescent yellow and orange vest. I could tell he was panicking. Probably had a wife and kids at a nice house in a cute little suburb… It’s a shame there won’t be any evidence to give his family.

Then the worst thing of all happened to the worker. Andrea got mad. The Dreamer agents are genetically altered into monsters. Teeth that could rip through mastodon’s hide.

As Andrea ran after the man I kept going too. After all, the only reason she was mad was because he had ruined the moment between us.

“Stop running and she won’t chase you.” I tried to yell over the angry snarls of Andrea. There were different stages when morphing into a monster. The first is red, glowing eyes. The second, teeth grow sharp and long. Third, they start to grow and their teeth get even bigger. Their arms turn into wings and long claws form at the end of the wings. The fourth stage is the worst. They pretty much morph in to a gigantic bird. Their wings are covered by a big cascade of feathers and quills. Feathers burst through the skin, the process coats the quills, which are made of hollow bone, with a coat of poison. Their saliva is acid and their eyes look like fire or a blood red rose. It wasn’t uncommon for a human to fall in love with a monster especially those who are from the Chanderen Clan, like me.

The Chanderens, Chans for short, are descended from the land of the dragon. Also known as Asia or the land of the Lanian. The Chans are a very powerful group of Dreamers. I just so happen to be from that group. The group produced some of the most powerful people on earth, such as, Leonardo Di Vinci, Raphael, Donatello, Claude Monet, Abraham Lincoln, Father Abraham, Mary Magdalene, and some even say the Big Boss himself, Sanders.

I was still running after the man and Andrea. It’s surprising how fast you can run in a time of desperation. Andrea was only in the second stage when I last saw them. They turned a corner, I was two feet behind them. As I rounded the corner Andrea was standing there in the middle of the path, eyes glowing crimson. I could see the man still running to the switch, he was almost there. Instead of running after him, I ran to Andrea. “What’s wrong?” I asked too loudly. She was staring at the window on the ceiling a dark figure looked down, cigarette in one hand a butcher knife in the other. She showed her long fangs, they shimmered in the moonlight, she was about to pounce. I didn’t know what to do so I grabbed her around the waist and held her tight. She struggled and fought. I could feel my skin bruising. After that it went all fuzzy, like everything was in slow motion. Red lights flashed and a siren blared and I knew the worker had reached the switch.

I was so scared and disoriented I forgot what I was doing and let go of what ever I was trying to hold back. When I realized what I had done, it was far too late. She was in the third stage, she flew and bounded from box to box trying to reach the man standing in the window. The cigarette still up to his mouth, I could hear rain starting to trickle on to the old window.

Andrea had but only to jump and take the man out. She burst through the window sending a flurry of glass shards flying toward me and the worker now standing next to me. She was now in the fourth stage even when she went through the glass, she just looked at the man and screeched. The noise was so inhuman and loud, I fell to my knees with my hands over my ears.

When the screeching stopped, my ears wouldn’t stop ringing. Everything was happening so fast, I couldn’t keep my mind on one thing. My eyes were darting everywhere, I felt dizzy and disoriented.

I looked up at the man who was still standing there with no reaction to the ear splitting cry. Then I looked down at the worker, and then quickly looked away. The site I saw was so disgusting and horrible, I had no words for what was on the ground twitching and bleeding.

I looked back up at the man with the cigarette, his shadow looked down at the butcher knife. In a flash, he struck Andrea in the chest with the knife. She screamed again, this time it sounded more human. Her blood was dripping on the floor in front of me. He struck her again and again with more lethal blows.

I could hear the sirens getting closer, louder and more visible on the reflection of the window that was left. Andrea now too weak to fly landed on the ledge of the broken glass close to the shadow man. I could see glass digging into the pads between her gigantic talons. Then the unthinkable happened, she fell.

As she fell, she changed, and as she changed more blood came down. I followed her fall with my eyes, she was directly over the hole in the middle of the spiral stair case. I ran to the railing and yelled “Andrea!” Her eyes opened with a look of dismay. What I saw was not Andrea, it was a monster. Her eyes were as red as her blood. She turned over in the air and screamed when she realized she was falling into an endless pit.

Almost instantly her eyes changed to the bright and brilliant green that they usually were. She looked at me with frightened eyes. By the time she had passed by the railing, she mouthed the words “I love you”, and fell into the pit of darkness.

The sirens were right outside the building now and I could hear the heavy boots of policeman. I felt cold and alone and I had nothing else to do but run.