Alex maneuvered his skateboard on and off the sidewalk of the broken up road; his board vibrating as it moved over the cracked and sometimes missing pavement. He paid no attention as he was deeply concentrated on his movements on the board; kicking the back end down and hopping onto the cracked sidewalk and then flying down onto the road again.

He had a lot on his mind; his girlfriend had just broken up with him and he had just sat through, what he liked to call, an ‘intervention’ about his grades with his teacher and principal. His dad worked late hours and was not easily dragged out of bed for, in his mind, such trivial meetings. He envisioned Alex taking his place at the steel mill in five years anyways but for some reason he wanted Alex to at least finish school first.

Skateboarding seemed to be his only release from his confining reality as it spun out of control with him at the helm.

He liked to daydream as he was surfing the sidewalks of the old valley-town of Trenton. This time he was dreaming that he was actually surfing the black void of space avoiding asteroids and shooting stars; sometimes his visions weren’t altogether realistic.

He was so caught up in his daydream that he didn’t see the old Chevy pickup screeching to a stop as Alex glided in front of it. Alex was spun out of his alternate world as the driver honked his horn loudly and spit toothless curses at Alex; his wild and wispy hair greased against his head.

"Hey kid," the old coot spat, "why don’t you watch where you're goddam going, cuz next time I ain’t gonna stop."

The guy was half stoned and Alex just gave him a dull look as he continued to glide down the road. The old coot laughed.

"You stupid kid," he yelled after Alex, "wasting your life on some piece of wood, why don’t you get a job."

With that final comment seeming to satisfy the greasy man, he pealed away leaving a large cloud of smoke in his wake.

Alex just shook his head and continued on; his near death experience lost again in his endless mind.

He stopped as he reached the old Tim Horton’s beside the Trent river; deciding to get some coffee into him before he went over to the skate park to release his stress.

As he waited in line he reflected over the days happenings. He had arrived at school, late as usual, to find a group of his friends hanging outside in the smoking area, rolling up some weed.

Alex had never had the urge do indulge in any mind bending drugs. It was surprising, since Alex’s rebellious attitude had not only provided him with multiple suspensions but a criminal record as well. Alex felt, though, that weed and other such drugs really didn’t improve on his ability to skate; which was the only thing in life he was actually passionate about, and he had reason to be. Alex’s ability on the board far surpassed that of any competitor be it two towns over or in another province. His problem was he never dedicated himself to any competitions; he felt he didn’t want to sell himself short and was meant to do something bigger with his abilities.

Alex had rolled up on his board and slipped off kicking the board into his hand professionally. His circle was small but satisfactory; Alex liked his friends even though they always smoked weed and never seemed to have any motivation for anything. Amongst them were his childhood friend Denny, and the two guys they had met when they reached high school; Duke and Bensky. They were inseparable, and always confided in each other on remedial and emotional matters; although, it was mostly all remedial as most of them were too stoned to be emotional in the first place.

Bensky had started off the conversation between them as he always did, by sticking his foot in his mouth.

"Hey Alex man I saw Cassie making out with that moron jock Luke Wilson."

Alex had cringed at this as one, he had come to realize that Cassie was the only girl for him, and two, Luke Wilson was by his terms, the dumbest person and biggest waste of muscle ever to walk the earth. Luke Wilson had a record of drinking the most beer and then crushing all the empty cans on his head one after the other. It wasn’t a hard act to follow and Alex’s first thought was either Bensky had smoked so much that he had imagined the whole thing, and it wouldn’t have been the first time; or that Luke had managed to somehow drug Cassie at a random party and had taken advantage of her. His following thought for either option was that he wanted to kill Luke.

Before Alex could talk, Duke elbowed Bensky in the chest hard and Bensky wheezed in pain and doubled over.

"Bensky, you tool, you weren’t supposed to say anything."

Duke carefully looked over at Alex unsure of what was waiting for him on Alex’s face.

Although, Alex had taken a completely blank look onto his face. He was of course in denial at the first comment, but that feeling was slowly subsiding after the residual comment from Duke. Alex swallowed hard and thought a moment before saying anything.

Denny had remained silent through this outbreak and was studying his friend with care for a moment. He knew this blank look well it either meant that Alex was going to do something completely rash and out of his mind, or he was going to block the world off and drift into his own world.

Not surprisingly Alex did both. Instead of saying anything he suddenly walked away towards the school; Denny shook his head.

"Oh no," he said softly, "here we go"

"Alex man where are you going, come back," Bensky called after him.

Alex no longer heard any of that, his mind was filled with explosive rage and he only saw white. He stalked up to the doors of the school and wretched it open savagely. Peering through the white and into the empty hallway of the school, he then marched inside.

He headed straight to Cassie’s first class of the day; science. He didn’t even bother knocking he grabbed the knob and flung the door open. The door hit the wall with a loud bang, making every student in the class jump out of their seats. Alex looked around warily until he spotted Cassie sitting in the back looking totally confused and frightened.

Alex pointed at her, and for the first time spoke the words that he had been deep in thought about saying since he first heard about her promiscuous affair with the high school peanut brain.

"You stupid slut."

With that he turned around and slammed the door behind him. The surprised teacher had stared at the door in awe for a few minutes and then realizing that he was an authority in the school got up and chased after Alex.

Alex had gotten a week’s detention for his hot headed stunt, and this had started up the ‘intervention’ about his grades. Cassie had approached him at lunch, and without saying a word she slapped him across the face.

"He tried to kiss me at a party and I had told him I was in love with you," she said her eyes tearing up.

With that she turned around and stalked off, her body shivering as she walked away.

Alex had lost track of the amount of time he was rooted to the spot, watching her leave forever even after she had long since disappeared from his sight.

Denny was the one who had grabbed him by the arm. Alex hadn’t said anything, he just followed Denny outside where they sat on the bleachers and Alex just started up into the sky wishing that he could just fly away into the deep blue oblivion.

"Double double right?"

Alex shook his head and focused on the pimple-faced girl in front of him with a smile on her face. Alex nodded slowly and watched as she smiled big and then went to retrieve his coffee; she came back quickly and handed it over to him.

"It’s a large, like you usually get," she said a tinge of nervousness in her voice.

Alex stared at her for a moment, as if for the first time seeing this girl that had taken the time to remember his coffee, and he had never said thank you or shown any appreciation before.

"Um that’s two forty eight," she said again smiling. Her braces where noticeable and large but Alex guessed that she would have a nice smile when she got them off.

Alex reached into his pocket dreamily and pulled out a ten, handing it to her; when she started to reach for the cash register Alex suddenly raised his hand.

"That’s fine," he said quietly.

Before she could protest he took his coffee and hurried over to the door. Just before he slipped out of the coffee shop he looked back at the girl. He seemed to catch her staring at him because she suddenly jerked her face back to the next customer who was looking frustrated that she wasn’t listening to him.

Alex smiled for the first time all day and then slipped through the door into the outside world.

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A loud beeping noise was piercing into her brain and she opened her eyes in annoyance wishing for it to stop. She then realized where she was again and hopped out of the cot quickly running over to the computer console.

There was a large blue and green planet in the viewing screen and it was getting even bigger as she watched it. She read the quick informational note that had listed at the bottom of the screen:

Planet Name: Erathius ‘Earth’

Dominant Species: Human

Population: 251 425 924 9001

There was another category she didn’t recognize; she looked closer at it and thought about it for a moment.

Intellegent Species: Unknown

She wasn’t sure if this meant that, either the computer didn’t know if the humans were the intelligent species, or that if there was a species on this planet that were not listed in its databanks. She began to think about the stories her father had told her as a child, about a species so above most species that it lived in-between two dimensions. Her people had called it the Koerog, but in her travels as a rebel ambassador she had heard similar tales under different names. She quickly discarded this thought as her rational mind took control again. She hurriedly tapped some keys on her console and the screen changed.

"Please select desired trajectory," the console requested.

She typed for a few seconds and waited; the computer took a second to process the information and then a new screen came up again.

"Please select desired location," the console requested again.

She typed in the coordinates that she had gotten from the stolen information. The computer processed again, and again a new screen came up; it was a map.

"Trajectory: Western Hemisphere. Location: Trenton, Ontario, would you like to cloak?"

"Yes," she said in a clear decisive but soft voice.

"Thank you."

The console changed back to the view of the planet again; this time it was the only thing that she could see on the screen, and she could make out mountains, rivers and lakes as the shuttle sped closer to the earth’s surface.

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Alex had decided to walk home; he had been skateboarding for five hours and was tired of his board. The night sky had taken over quickly, and before he knew it the sun was down and the moon had started to rise over the trees.

He had relieved a lot of stress and was getting hungry; his dad would have been at work by now so he figured he would stop by a fast food joint quickly to grab a bite to eat.

His cell phone had been ringing none stop; he never answered it but had looked to see who was calling. Twice Benksy had called and then Duke, his Dad had called once, probably to check on where he was, and then Denny. The final call Alex had fought over answering; it was Cassie. Although, before he had a chance to answer it she had hung up.

He was glad that he hadn’t answered it; they both needed more time to cool off before they talked. He still had a lot of things he had wanted to say that probably wouldn’t help the situation at the moment.

It was April and the night air had a slight chill to it; Alex pulled his hood over his head and quickened his pace. He had a weird feeling, like he needed to get home quickly. Suddenly the outside was not the escape he had always sought, but a dark and dangerous place that was better left without him in it.

He was almost a ten minute walk from his house still, but he began to break into a slight awkward jog; hefting his board in his right arm with each hard pressed sprint. He felt as though he were being watched, but not from behind or beside him. The feeling came from above him; as though some alien in the sky was studying him with great curiosity. It was a very real and uncomfortable feeling; his jog broke into a full out run.

Alex was running for what he believed was his life now; something was after him and he knew it for sure. He wondered if he could outrun the strange presence that wasn’t really anywhere near him. He was in actuality running from nothing, but his mind told him differently. Something was definitely wrong and he had to get home; it was his only hope of living, of his survival.

It was a ridiculous thought that made Alex stop dead in his tracks and start laughing. Except it was a nervous, almost maniacal, laugh, a little too overdone; as though he was trying to reassure his mind that everything was okay.

His mind would have none of it, something was out there and it wanted him. What happened next was from pure paranoia: Alex dropped his board suddenly and then when he turned to run he stepped on the board; it slid backwards with his weight and Alex fell. The feeling was similar to someone pulling on his leg though, and Alex screamed out in terror. He hit the ground hard and was dazed for a moment.

In his lapse of momentary reality Alex almost thought he saw something flying across the dark sky in a fiery rage. Although, as he closed his eyes in pain and opened them again quickly, the thing was gone; if it had been there at all.

Alex groaned as he pushed himself up, wincing in pain. He then got to his feet and looked up at the dark sky again; there was no cloud trail or fiery thing. Maybe it had been a shooting star, or maybe it was nothing; although, Alex was almost positive he had seen something now. Suddenly the feeling was back, in the pit of his stomach, the nervous feeling of danger.

"You must have hit your head after that fall," a female voice said.

Alex jerked his head down towards the voice. There was a tall dark haired attractive girl standing in front of him; she was about his age, in tight-fitting jeans and a low-cut tank top. Alex did not register this; he had a dense feeling of danger now, and it was spreading all over his body.

"Wh-what do you mean," Alex stuttered uncontrollably.

She smiled a little, and Alex had the distinct uncomfortable feeling of being assessed by her dark deep hazel eyes. "You got up, and have been staring up into the sky since I came to check on you."

Her eyes went quickly from him to his board and back again. Alex wasn’t sure what the movement was about, but she had for some reason purposely checked his board out. Almost as if she was threatened by it; Alex didn’t understand any of this.

"No, I thought I saw something in the sky when I fell, like a shooting star, only closer," Alex explained, warily, "I was just looking to see if I could see it again." The girl looked up into the sky; she made a slow exaggerated movement of it, as if trying to make a show out of it. She waved her long dark hair back as she did it, and her hand ran up and down the side of her stomach, lifting her top up a little; her smooth tanned skin was rippled with goosebumps.

"Mmmm," she groaned, "I don’t see anything."

Alex shifted uncomfortably; he got the feeling that something was very wrong here. His mind was going crazy now, shooting alerts all over his body trying to make him run.

The girl's eyes moved back from the sky to his face; they were so deep, Alex felt himself getting lost in them. His mind began to calm again.

"So what’s a most handsome guy like you doing, walking alone on a night like this," the girl purred. She smiled again, and Alex almost thought he saw oddly shaped teeth; but she closed her lips quickly and he couldn’t be sure. One thing he was sure of was that he had to leave, and now.

"Um well I, uh, I’m just headed home, actually," Alex replied nervously.

The girl laughed loudly and made Alex jump a bit. It was a deep, guttural, and unnerving laugh. Alex instantly wished he hadn’t heard it; it almost sounded, evil. "You silly boy, its such a lovely night you should be escorting a beautiful girl like me for a walk in the park," she eyed him again, "If you don’t, who will be there to take care of me."

The air was cooling off rapidly; Alex felt a chill running down his spine. Even with his hood on he felt the chill; the wind began to pick up a bit.

"It’s a little cold for a walk in the park isn’t it?" Alex asked, nervously.

The girl was now staring to the right of him seemingly at nothing as her eyes took on a glazed look, and she didn’t seem to be listening; although, she replied to his hypothetical question.

"I like the cold, it's so invigorating. It just makes me feel, so, wild," she replied still staring off to the right.

"Look I uh really should be going now, but it was nice to meet you…..um," Alex trailed off.

"Krissy; please, call me Krissy, Alex"

Alex suddenly snapped to attention at the mention of his name.

"What...how did you know my name?" Alex’s eyes narrowed.

Krissy moved her deep, dark eyes back to him.

"I know more about you than you think Alex," she sneered.

She smiled again, but this time it was a twisted jeering smile. Alex could not be mistaken this time, two fangs showed themselves on either side of the top of her mouth.

"What...what are you?" Alex began to back away.

"I’m not human Alex, I’m definitely not human. What does that matter right, because being human, as you're about to find out, is so…weak," she laughed, still showing her glinting fangs to him.

Krissy began to advance on Alex slowly; Alex was not going to stick around and find out how fast she could get to him. He spun around to break into a run.

Krissy was standing in front of him as he spun around. Alex stepped back awestruck and fell to the ground tripping on the curb of the sidewalk.

"How, what, how the hell did you do that?" Alex cried out in fear.

Krissy waved a finger at him clucking her tongue in disapproval.

"You see Alex, you humans you feel the need to express your most primal of emotions in the formation of such unintelligent words. My masters could really teach you a thing or two about expressing yourself properly. Then again, you won’t live long enough to find that out."

Krissy moved towards him in slow exaggerated movements, toying with him like a cat with a mouse. She opened her mouth wide exposing more sharpened teeth along the bottom of her mouth.

Alex didn’t know what it felt like to be bitten by such rows of sharp teeth, but he had no intention of finding out. He looked around desperately for something, anything to stop her with. He looked down in his hand and saw his board; he suddenly had a feeling that he needed to hold onto it, it had a general importance that had not come into play yet.

Alex looked beside the board and saw a large rock. It was right beside his left hand, if he made a quick grab for it she shouldn’t have enough time to react, but then again she had jumped from behind him to the front of him in less than a second.

Alex didn’t have time to assess the risks; either this was going to work or he was going to die. Which was going to happen anyways if he didn’t try something. Without thinking anymore Alex made a grab for the rock and threw it at her. Before she could do anything it hit her square in the face and momentarily shocked her.

It was all Alex needed, he was up and on his feet running down the street as she screeched out into the dark night in pain. Alex was running now, faster than he had ever run in his life. He felt his chest heaving in pain suddenly, his body could not handle this type of extreme pressure; he pushed himself still though, he was not going to die because he had chest pains. Alex dared a look behind him. The sudden scan showed that she was no longer behind him. Alex quickly looked back in front of him, but this time there was no Krissy suddenly jumping out at him.

He didn’t take this as a good sign and continued to run.  He was heaving now heavily, rasping for breath with each intake. He tried to listen for footsteps running behind him, but he could hardly hear anything over his own breathing.

Alex couldn’t run anymore, he skidded to a jagged stop. He leaned over and coughed hard, coughing up a bit of flem and spitting it onto the road. He pushed himself up slowly and looked around. There was a complete silence closing in on him; the dark had become darker. The stars seemed to be slowly disappearing. Alex was so confused and scared. He couldn’t try to even think, his mind was going out of control sparking and fizzling. The fear had not gone away either; his stomach was grumbling in disturbance, as he still felt the danger was close, very close.

There was a loud snap; it made Alex jump up in the air. He looked towards where the sound had come from, and a large tree branch hit the ground with a rustle. Alex studied the broken end of the branch from where he was; it was a jagged as though a great weight had broken the branch.

Alex didn’t want to but he forced himself to look up into the tree; he feared what he saw. A pair of red dots were shining high up in the tree; they appeared to be pointing at him. Alex knew before the rustling began that they were eyes. The tree began to tremble, and then shake violently.

Alex watched on as the entire tree, even the trunk shook; but the eyes never moved, they hovered between the moving branches. There was a loud screech that broke the air and suddenly the eyes disappeared and a black blur flew from the tree. It disappeared for a moment high in the air, and then came back towards him landing heavily on the road; shattering the hardened tar.

The beast on the road looked up at him with its red eyes shining furiously, and it roared loudly showering spittle across the black tar. It had a long snout like a dog, with flaring black nostrils and, top and bottom, rows of sharp glinting white teeth; the rest of its body resembled something of a bear mixed with a gorilla. It had a shaggy coat of jet black fur and its front limbs consisted of two large muscular looking arms that ended in large curled claws. The back legs were more consistent with something like a dog again; where its hind quarter thighs were large and muscular and its ankles were tiny, and ended in large black paws with shorter less curved claws.

The beast walked towards him slowly, leaning on its front claws; it growled menacingly, and a bit of drool hung down from its snout before hitting the ground.

Alex knew now he had no escape from this, he was going to die and he had no idea why. "Krissy? Krissy is that you," Alex asked in fear, "why are you doing this?"

The beast seemed to have no intention of communicating anymore; it had tried to make things easy on Alex but he had resisted, so it was now going to finish this the hard way. Alex closed his eyes waiting for the pain to come. He waited and thought about the news paper heading, of all things: Kid found ripped to shreds by dog. That’s what they would have thought, that some animal had done this.

Alex realized that some time had passed and he dared to open his eyes to find out what Krissy was up to now.

What he saw was a shock; the beast was still there but there was a girl on top of it holding her arm over its neck and the beast struggled to get free. Alex was struck, he couldn’t believe a regular girl would be able to hold back this muscular pack of power. The beast struggled and grunted, it looked as though the girl was trying to strangle it to death.

Alex walked forward a bit and the girl suddenly looked at him.

"Don’t," she said suddenly, "don’t come any closer."

She stared him down with her blue eyes. Alex felt different looking into her eyes; the fear was still strong in him but he felt as though he was protected from it, he felt very safe in her eyes.

The bond between them was quickly broken as the beast twisted around the lower half of its body; it swung one of its legs up knocking the girl in the head, momentarily dazing her. The beast took this advantage to throw the girl away from it; she hit the tree with such force that the trunk split away from the roots and fell over slamming into the house behind. This set off a wave of action; lights suddenly came on all over the street.

Alex’s heart raced; the beast was free and he knew the first thing it would do was try to attack him. He saw the girl slumped over against the broken trunk of the tree, not moving. Alex jerkily searched the area for the beast; his eyes shifting quickly from the tree to a porch to the street. He spun around and looked behind him; the street was lighting up like a Christmas tree and the beast would be easily spotted now.

Alex searched, but he no longer saw the beast; he wondered if it had hidden again, but there were no trees close to his vicinity that it could be hiding in, and it was too bright now to hide under the cover of darkness.

It was then that Alex realized he heard the constant sound of clicking; like hard plastic hitting pavement. He looked to his right down the street and saw a shadowy dark figure making away from the area as quickly as possible. Alex knew then that it was Krissy, because he felt the fear in him slowly disappearing, he no longer felt in danger.

Figures were now showing up on front porches; people were looking around to see what had made the loud noise. A lot of them had started to walk towards the tree where the girl was still slumped over. Alex made a quick decision; he ran over and grabbed the girl. Hefting her into his arms, he then ran down the street towards his house as best he possible could with her light weight in his arms; leaving the confused on lookers to assess the damage.

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excerpt from Lost Bandir   by Paladijn