Chapter Three Of "Risen"

  I was getting ready for a Halloween party when I was 16. (It's been a year since then). I was excited to finally have two days off for Halloween from Wuthering High School. I was going as what I really was, and just said it was some make-believe character I made up. I was wearing a dark purple shirt that was half-ghoulish, half-fairy-like (or faery, depending on which ones of which you're talking about, of course).I wore a dark black skirt that was flowy--and was quite flattering to my figure, might I add--and blakck leggings with small tears in them, along with black combat boots. (They went with pretty much anything). My hair was black--as it always is...ever since I was born--but what they didn't know, was that my hair changed colors. If someone asks, then I'll just tell them it was this new hair dye thing that'll change the color of your hair at random moments. But it actually changes according to my mood. But only I--and the people I wish to see it--can see the change in color. So, unless there is one of those special people who can actually see what we are, or if I become so far out of control with my emotions that I can't control it, I'll be okay, besides another one of us. My eyes--as always--were a mixed color of hazel, blue, brown, green, and black. But for that night, I let them change colors as they naturally do. It was a beautiful combination, and one of the few things I like about myself...along with my hair. For once, I actually had some make-up on. I had dark purple eyeshadow, black liquid eyeliner, and a rosy shade for my lips. My skin was what my real skin looked like, which is paler than it usually appears to be. But I didn't let my wings out...not tonight. (I'll explain about the wings later). I have to put on glamour in order to appear human to the naked human eye. So, basically, I look unwordly...which I am. I never anticipated that, on this night, I would fall in love...I never knew it was going to happen to start with, but I guess there really is a lid for every pop.

   I looked in the full length mirror one final time before I left. Well, I thought, I guess I look alright. I grabbed my purse on the way to the car. I sat in the driver's seat and drove...and drove...and drove. Soon, I came upon my friends' Halloween Party. Tex, my brother, was waiting at the entrance for me. When I got out, he looked half scared to death. I go over to him and whisper, "Don't worry. If anyone asks what I am, then I'll say I'm a character from a book I've been writing. No one will ever know, unless I tell them. Besides, it's Halloween! People dress up in oddball outfits anyway." With slight uncertainty, I could tell, he nodded his head, and lead me inside. I'll admit, the decorations were phenomenal. Not scary, to me, though.

   I looked around and saw black, orange, and purple silky ribboned-streamers draped across the rooms. I saw skeletons popping out of nowhere to give you a "surprise". Mummies and different kinds of vampires--but thankfully not the Twighlight sparkly kind--hanging around the place. I saw a painting of a man being hanged and his ghost coming out of him. If I was squeamish, I'd be blowing chunks because of all the gore in the work.

   The cups and plates were plastic, so as not to be such a hard clean-up. I looked aorund to the people. I saw pretty much everyone here. Stereotypically: Preps, Jocks, Goths, Geeks, Nerds, Punks--"like me"--and some regular kids. I saw a few shelks, like myself, but they were all scattered within different groups. I saw that they were all pure-bred. My brother, Tex, and I are the only partial-shelks I know. I don't know what other than shelk I am, I just know I'm not a pure bred. I also know that other shelks can't see I am one, unless I'm in true form. Though, they probably think it's just some fairy costume. I saw some of my friends--a mix of "Punks, Goths, Nerds, and regular kids," including my best frineds, Kat, who was hosting the party, and Marissa, who is Kat's cousin--hanging out by the stereo system. I'm one of the "outcasts" as the preps call me, which means I only have a few friends.

  I stride over there quickly, kind of hoping I don't see anyone I didn't want to see. On approaching, Kat sees me and practically gawks. (She doesn't know I'm a shelk yet, I was still waiting on permission to tell her at the time. Only the mates of shelks--if the are human--can be told without consulting the elders. You have to consult the Elders for a lot of things, including telling people about your job if it's in the creature world. If you get it approved, which I finally got permission two weeks later, you can tell the people who you asked about. Although, there are some instances where you don't have to get it approved by the Elders, but by someone else). "Alice!" Kat exclaimed, "You look--wow!" I blushed slightly and said, "And you don't?" I looked at her costume. Cowgirl. Nice. She was wearing a red, button down flannel shirt that had the sleeves rolled up to about her elbow, buttoned at the outside of her arm. There were two buttons undone at the top, and she had a bandanaaround the side of her neck, tying it in an 80's sort of looking knot. Her shorts were old denim jeans that'd been chopped off at about her mid-thigh and were frayed. She had light makeup on, that wasn't really noticeable if you weren't looking. Her boots were brown cowboy boots, and she had a straw cowboy hat on. How much more cowgirl could you get?

   Then I took a gander at Marissa's outfit. She was dressed as a white tiger. She'd made black stripes to go all over herself, by painting them on, I'm guessing, and was wearing a white shirt that had been spray painted with black stripes to continue the pattern. The pants were black and she spray-painted parts of the pants white, and she had white shoes on. She had an old black headband on with little black and white tiger ears attatched. She also had her brown hair dyed black and white--from what I'm guessing just to go with the costume, since she told me that she wanted to dye her hair red. She'd also painted whiskers and a nose on herself and had done her makeup with a cat-eye dip on the eyeliner, a smoky eye with black, grey, and white eye shadow, and black lipstick.

   "Wow, Marissa!" I said, "Talk about going all out!" Marissa blushed a little--although I could only partially see it, due to the black stripes. "And yours isn't fantastic?" Kat looked at me with one of those I'm-about-to-say-one-of-our-inside-jokes look, and said, "You might call it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." We busted up laughing; mainly because we were pretty much the only people we knew that knew that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious means fantastic, and partially because it's just a funny word. So, Marissa, Kat, and I just start talking about random things, and I'm so relieved that none of the shelks have noticed me out of my glamour, considering that shelks just aren't supposed to reveal themselves, leaving me guessing either the shelks just aren't noticing, or they figure since it's Halloween, it wouldn't matter. So, since I'm off guard enough, when a guy falls on me while I'm on my way to fill up my punch glass, instead of standing my ground and catching him like I normally would, we do a little tumble, and we wind up on the ground with him on top of my legs.

   I take him in before he starts getting up. He wasn't a bad looking guy. His hair was short and bright red. His eyes were this hazel that, even though a lot of times hazel isn't a very noticeable color, but his were. They were full of life, and so deep...like every thought he processed took an hour to come into existence, and was so profound no matter how simple the words may have been. He was wearing an Indiana Jones costume, which was pretty much to a T. He wore a white T-shirt and a jacket that was light brown and leathery. He wore black pants, and his boots were brown. His hat could've been owned by Indiana Jones himself, even though I couldn't see it on him since it fell on the floor. Even while I was looking him over, I couldn't stop coming back to his eyes and hair. When he turned and caught me looking, I felt myself blush, and was sure I was blushing I was on the outside. Even if I was, he didn't even seem to notice.

   He picked himself off the ground while I sit there staring at him. "Hey," he said, "sorry about that. Someone knocked into me, and I guess I knocked into you," he gave me an award winning smile, whilst stretching a hand out to me to help me up. I take his hand and give him a nervous smile as I rise. Oh my, I thought, I do wonder if...maybe...it's--"You alright?" he siad, interrupting my thouhgts. I just nodded and smiled a more reassuring smile as I pulled my hand away. His smile grew wider. He stretched out his hand once more, saying, "My name is Ender. Ender Livingston. And yours would be?" I take his hand in a shake and tell him, "Alice."

"Just Alice?"

"Alice Thorns." We both put our hands back at our sides.

"Ah. So you go to school at Wutherington High?"

"Yeah, you?"

I nodded, "So how do you know Kat?"

"I don't. I came as a friend of a friend. How do you know her?"

"Best friends."

He nodded, "Funny I've never seen you around before."

I shrugged, "I suppose."

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "Well...um...if you ever want to...you know...hang out or anything...let me know?"

"Um...alright," 

   I took out a permanent marker that I keep in my pocket and write my cell on his arm. He grinned, "Maybe I'll see you around more often." I smiled and said, "Maybe," and started to walk over to Kat. "Oh," Ender said, "great costume, by the way. Amazing attention to detail." I blushed and looked down a little, and told him thanks and his costume was cool, too. Before he could talk to me anymore and before I fainted from either embarrassment or whatever made butterflies cloud my stomach, I half-walked half-jogged back to Kat. She was staring at me with that who-in-the-world-is-that-sexy-guy look. I just look over my shoulder and then back to her. "That was a guy named Ender Livingston," I said. Kat and Marissa nodded their heads, and after glancing at each other, each gave me a little mischeiveious grin. "What?" I asked. "You're blushing," Kat told me. I raise an eyebrow. Kat gave me a little I'm-not-bluffing-so-don't-give-me-that-look nod. Marissa said, "You're totally crushing, aren't you?!" I looked away. "OH MY GOSH!" said Kat, "Marissa, you were right! She's in crush-mode!" I rolled my eyes as I said, "Oh, shut up." They shrugged and gave me that ha-now-I-know-you-like-someone-now-and-I'm-going-to-make-sure-something-happens look. I just rolled my eyes again what I had originally planned to do when I had gotten knocked over. So, I made my way back over to the punch bowl.

   "You can run from it," Kat laughingly said as I walked away, "but you can't hide!" I rolled my eyes again as I ambled toward my original destination. He was probably just goofing around, I thought, or maybe just trying to get me to do something. This is what my head thought, but my heart knew different and did a little dance. As I approached the table, I noticed more food had been piled on the food table. Bags of chips piled on the far rgiht of the table, guacamole and pretzels were semi-neatly placed in the middle of the table. Any and all pizza items were sprawled all over the left side. On the table behind it, there were desserts and beverages. It wasn't a well put together table, but hey, it was something to eat. I grabbed some more punch and downed it, since my face was still hot with embarrassment. I filled it up again and downed it. I decided that since there was an overabundance of cups, I'd throw mine away, and then get another one if I wanted anymore to drink.

   As I turned around, I saw Ender. He was moving towards me...