By law this story and every story on this website is (c) to the original owner. If it is stolen, legal action can take place. Yee Have Been Warned!! Chapter 1 When something awful happens- a bad accident, the death of a loved one, being alone for what seems like the rest of your life- it can really put a guy in a dark place. Especially, when it’s all three of those condensed into one large tragedy. At least for me, that is. What makes the situation even worse is when you’re the one who caused the accident in the first place. Yeah, I’ve been there. It had been a week and a half since the accident and I was finally able to leave the hospital. My doctor told me that instead of going to a foster home or something like that, I was accepted into an academy of some sort. I didn’t care too much for what it was about or where it was, I just wanted out of the hospital. My first preference would have been not surviving the accident, but hey, what can you do? Earlier that day, I had a police officer escort me to my house and let me take care of a few things. Some things I had no control over, like who would take the house, all of the items like chairs, televisions, appliances, and even my dog, Banjo. I had no idea what was going to happen to him. The police officer said that the academy I was going to was going to take care and sort out some of the things for me, so I hoped and prayed that everything would be well under control. I quickly packed up my clothes and other items for school and headed back to the hospital. Now, I sat in the waiting room, legs shaking anxiously, with my coat on and bags ready to go. I didn’t like how people stared at me. It’s like they’d never seen a few scars before on a badly beaten face. I pretended not to notice them, and I kept my eyes glued to the floor in front of me. When the automatic doors opened, my eyes darted up to see a tall, somewhat muscular man with short, neat light brown hair, wearing a big coat and scarf. His grey eyes scoped the room, stopped when they landed on me, and then flashed a smile. This must be the guy that has come to get me. I sat up straight in my seat and pushed the black beanie on my head down and secure. He walked over to me and held out a hand. “You must be Adam Ylaakso?” he asked with a friendly tone. I stood up, shook his hand reluctantly and forced a smile of my own. “That’s me,” I answered coolly followed by a subtle scoff, quickly grabbing my suitcase when my hand was finally free from the man’s grip. “It’s very nice to meet you, Adam,” he said to me. I only nodded my head in reply. “I am Hinto Cadmus, the founder and principal of Gryphon Academy located in Park, Wyoming.” I raised one of my eyebrows at him and started to grind my teeth. He continued to look at me eagerly, but could tell that I wasn’t at all interested. The principal then cleared his throat and bent down to pick up my duffel bag. “Alright, Adam,” he said. “Let’s get you out of this hospital and off to Wyoming.” He smiled at me again and led me out the door. The second I walked outside, the cold air hit me like a ton of bricks. When I took my first breath I choked because it was so cold on my throat, especially for just a few days ago having a huge tube stuck down it. We walked to his car in silence. I could tell that he was disappointed by the fact that I wasn’t talking. I almost died in an accident that I caused and killed my parents. What did he expect, me to be as happy as a puppy getting taken home from the shelter? Well, in a way that was actually accurate. I was relieved to be getting out of the hospital, but I still wasn’t happy. I especially wasn’t thrilled to be going to a boarding school. I kept telling myself that it was going to be alright. I’d just need to finish junior and senior year and I’d be free. I tossed my heavy suitcase into the principal’s car and it made a loud thud. Mr. Cadmus carefully set my duffel bag beside it and then gently closed the trunk. He smiled- yet again- and I raised my eyebrows. When he turned and headed toward the driver’s side, I rolled my eyes and groaned quietly. I then made my way out to the passenger side and sat down out of the cold. “I bet you’re glad to be leaving the hospital,” Cadmus said as we were driving down the road. I turned my head away from him and peered out my window. “Yeah,” I replied quiet and emotionlessly. He nodded his head and the car fell silent. I turned my head the slightest bit and glared at him. He looked extremely focused on the road. He was probably looking to see where the salt trucks had missed and large patches of ice still sat on the road. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he said. Small talk, that was perfect. Especially on a subject I really didn’t want talk about. Instead of letting him give me sympathy, I completely blew him off and asked him a question. “Why’d you come and pick me up? I mean, I’m sure you have plenty of counselors or teachers and workers that could have come and got me, but you came. Why?” He laughed at the question and that I didn’t acknowledge him. “I want my new students to feel comfortable at my school and know that they can come to me if they need anything. Plus, there was a meeting that would have lasted forever and I really didn’t want to go,” he admitted. I couldn’t help but laugh under my breath and shake my head. When I turned back toward my window, my whole body shifted. I cringed slightly when I saw what road we were on. I tried my hardest not to think about it, but regardless to how hard I tried, the images kept flashing back into my mind. I closed my eyes and pressed my hand against my forehead. I could hear voices. I could hear the sound of cars trudging through slush; our laughter rung throughout my ear. My eyes came open and I slouched in my seat. Repeatedly I told myself to think of something else, but I couldn’t. I fidgeted in my seat and took in a deep breath; thought it felt like there was no oxygen reaching my lungs. I pressed my palm against my head again and closed my eyes; at this point I was gasping for air. I could see something in my headlights and I squinted at it, pressing the gas pedal to get a closer and better look. My parents saw the little lights too. My father made a remark and we all chuckled, but as we got closer the figure became recognizable. We realized what we were in for a little too late and the deer jumped out right in front of my car. “Look out!” I heard my mother shout. I panicked and swerved the car. Where I swerved, there was another car. It too veered out of the way, but I was already steering the car back into my own lane. The tires of my car failed to grip on a thick patch of ice and we hit a telephone pole. The person in the car behind us was tailgating, so it was inevitable that he would skid and hit us too. The blow from his car sent me, my parents, and my car flipping down into a ditch that was dividing the road. Tears flooded my eyes as they shot open once more and I still gasped for air. I was so afraid and I didn’t even know why. The past was the past; it wasn’t going to happen again. Mr. Cadmus looked at me worriedly and started to pull off onto the shoulder of the road. He put his hands on both of my shoulders and gave me one rough shake and made me look him right into the eyes. Apparently, they’d told him about my history of panic attacks. “Adam, whatever it is, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re with me and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” My face was wet with tears and I could tell that my eyes were probably as red as they could get. My whole body trembled and my eyes made their way to look out the window. This was the spot. Construction men were up on their bucket lift, putting in a whole new telephone pole. I gagged when I gasped again, and then I coughed. I could feel my body give out and Cadmus was the only thing keeping me up. He looked out his window to the left and saw what I had seen. He set me back down in my seat and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Damn it, Adam,” he said. “It’s okay, nothings going to happen.” He began to get out of the car and head toward me, but I stopped him. “No,” I managed to choke out loud enough that he heard me. He peeked his head inside and looked at me. I was still breathing heavily and I was leaning up against my door. “Just drive.” Cadmus peered at me questioningly. I looked back at him desperately and tried to make my breathing more deep and even. He nodded his head, hopped back in the car, and took off. Cadmus began talking while I tried to calm myself and get back under control, but I wasn’t listening. I’m pretty sure that he knew I wasn’t paying attention either. I think at one point he started having a conversation with himself about mashed potatoes. Once I was finally over my fit I couldn’t stay awake any longer. It was only 4:27PM, but I was so tired I had to sleep. “Adam,” Cadmus said, waking me up. I looked outside the window and it was pitch black. We were still driving and snow was still coming down gently to the ground. There were tons of trees around us and we were winding around a curvy hill with an old looking brick wall. “Where are we?” I asked my voice quiet and rough from just waking up. “We’re almost there,” the principal answered. I looked at the clock and it was already 11:15. “I didn’t tell you this earlier, because you’re going to think I’m crazy.” Oh great, what have I gotten into now? “You’ve got… a trait about you, Adam, that most people don’t have.” I raised a brow at him. “What do you mean?” I asked. He paused and looked like he was trying to word something. Not like he didn’t already have five hours to plan this out while I slept. “It’s kind of like a… super power.” I looked at him blankly and then laughed. Before I had the chance to tell him that he was out of his mind, we pulled into a long driveway through a huge gate and archway. Down the dirt road there was a clearing in the trees. In the clearing stood the biggest mansion I had seen in my life. Cadmus pulled into a dirt parking lot, unbuckled his seatbelt and faced me. “Finish what you were saying,” I demanded. A figure emerged from the doorway of the school and started down toward us. “Ever see a super hero movie?” he asked me. I nodded my head ‘yes’. “Well, that’s not all crap. Most likely, all of the super powers you’ve seen in the movies people really possess. Every person in this academy holds a special power. You have a special power.” I scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I yelled. It hurt my throat to be using it so roughly. “I’m sorry! I didn’t want to throw this on you so suddenly, but after your episode in the car I couldn’t tell you then and after you slept and now we’re here and I don’t want you to get all freaked out if you go into the school and see some weird stuff,” he explained desperately. The woman had finally made her way through the snow and across the yard to where we sat in the car. She bent down and opened up the car door for Cadmus. “Are you guys going to come in, or are you just going to sit there and have a chat?” she said. Her voice was strange and her red hair was pulled up into a curly bun. “I’m sorry, Amy,” Cadmus said. “I was just explaining to our newest student what the school was about… maybe you can show him and convince him I’m telling the truth. The redhead smirked and looked at me. “Of course, Hinto,” she replied to the principal. “I’d be glad to.” She the walked up to the car; and then she walked right through the car and sat down into the back seat. “She’s a phaser,” Cadmus explained to me. “She can phase which means pass through solid objects, like you just saw.” I nodded. I probably looked stupidly puzzled. “You’re not a normal person, kid,” she said to me and casually picked her nails. “You’re talented, supernaturally. You’ve gotta accept that or else we’ll ship you off to some foster home or boring old regular boarding school.” “Okay…” I finally agreed. I was having trouble adjusting to the fact that what I had just seen did actually happen, but I wasn’t dreaming and I did just see that, so what else was I going to do? “So, what’s my power?” The two looked at each other. Cadmus jumped out of his car and Amy slid out of the top and opened mine for me. “You have the power of timeframe control,” Cadmus told me. “Oh…” I said not knowing what that meant. “What is that?” He smirked, handed me my suitcase, grabbed my duffel bag and closed the trunk. “That’s for you to find out in the future.