• “Hello?” a voice said. “Miss?” Cheyenne felt someone touch her forehead. It was the only heated thing out here in this blasted freezing weather. She used most of her strength to pull her head up to see who was there. Her first thought was either the police, or Mrs. Honaker, who lived on the other side of the miniature forest.
    “Are you alright?” it said again. She realized that it wasn’t Mrs. Honaker because the voice belonged to a man. It must have been the police then. She reached up and tried to brace herself against a tree. The man saw that she was struggling, so he helped her out. She opened her eyes to see him, but she couldn’t really see anything. Everything was a huge blurry mess.
    “I… I…” Cheyenne couldn’t say a thing. The coldness of the snow and surrounding area was numbing. “Be quiet. You’ll strain yourself.”
    Questions began to fill Cheyenne’s head. Who is this guy? Why was he here?
    Cheyenne felt herself being lifted up. “I cant believe another one has been turned…” Who ever was carrying her started to walk away deeper into the woods. He stopped and she heard him open a door to a car. She was set down on something soft and she heard the harsh noise of the door closing to her right.. Cheyenne sat there, to drained of energy to do anything.
    She heard an engine rev up and the car took off. The window on her side was open and she could feel the wind pass over her face quickly, like one of those carnival rides where you sit in the swings, and go around and around and around. Just the rush of the air made her feel better and worse at the same time. She thought it would soon stop, but it kept going on forever and ever. She slid her eyelids closed, and sleep claimed her quickly, as she lost her grasp on reality.


    Octave sat alone in his thrown room as he awaited the daily news from Felix. He sat with a bored expression as he wondered what would be taking him so long. He heard the annoying tapping of checker pieces and looked to his left to see a girl sitting there tapping the checkers, thinking of a way to out wit herself in the game she was playing alone. The girl sat there playing and smiling widely.
    Octave found this unusual. She never smiled.
    He stood up and walked over to her board. He picked up a red piece and skipped a black. He handed her the skipped piece and stared at her. She still held the grin as he sat down across from her. He looked at her with a concentrated look. Her evil grin was growing more sinister the harder he looked.
    “What’s the smile for Alyssa?”
    The girl skipped a black and said, “The chosen Crupelum is rising.”


    Kyler drove down the road on his way back to the base. He glanced at the girl passed out in the passenger side seat worried about what the future had in store for her.


    Cheyenne opened her eyes and sat up. She held onto the familiar comforter on her bed while she came into focus with the world around her. What a strange dream… She thought to herself. She slid off the bed and made a thump on the floor. That’s not right… She thought again. She looked at the bed she had just gotten off, and frowned. Her bed was a couple mattresses on the ground, not this mattress on a frame and head bored. “Perhaps it wasn’t a dream?” she questioned to herself.
    Jut then, she felt a dizzying pressure in her head. She fell to the floor seeing black and blue dots covering her vision. She sat there on the ground for a minute or two, waiting for the head rush to pass. After her little ‘floor inspection’ to stood up slowly and made her way to the door.
    She opened the door and found herself in a hallway. The walls where plastered with picture frames. There was still about a half an inch of space between them, but beside that they were covering every bit of wall. But the strange part was, none of the people looked alike. They had every color of hair, eyes, they were all of different ethnicities, if this was a picture of every person in a family, there was a lot of different cultures. There was usually only one person in a portrait, but there were a few with two. The most Cheyenne saw in one picture was three.
    She continued to walk through the house, trying to find the exit. The house wasn’t very big, so it didn’t take her a long time to find it. She opened the door and ran down a few steps on the porch. A gust of freezing air hit her and she realized she didn’t have her coat. She ran back up the steps and tried to turn the knob to go look for her coat.
    The door knob twisted half way, then stopped. She twisted it harder until she realized it was locked. She considered knocking on the door until somebody answered, until she thought about how stupid that would be. She decided the cold didn’t bother her that much so she took off into the snow covered streets.
    She walked for ten minutes until she started to see that everybody stared at her. The people scraping their windshields, the people watching their children play in the snow, anybody who was outside, stared at her like she was a monster. She couldn’t help it with their glares burning through her so she stared back. When ever she looked at somebody, they immediately abandoned what ever they were doing, and retreated back to their houses.
    What in the world is going on?


    Kyler woke up and slipped out of bed. He walked down the hall to check on his guest. On his way to the room he kept going over what he was going to say to her in his mind. He reached the end of the hall and went to turn the knob, but the door was already opened.
    He pushed the door open to find and empty room. He cursed out loud and pulled out his phone. He punched in the numbers and waited for someone to pick up on the other line. On the fourth ring somebody picked up. “Felix, she’s gone.” the other person shouted something into the phone. “I woke up and she was gone.” He listened to the person.
    “If Octave knows about her then he’ll go and find her. Then we can bring her back here.” Kyler explained. The person spoke again and Kyler sighed. “I know it’s risky, but he already knows about her right? So if he just gets her over there, and we get her out, then we should be good.”
    The other person talked on as Kyler listened. “Her name is Cheyenne Skye Fabien and she’s got dark brown hair, and I don’t think she’s wearing a coat either.” he said as he picked up a long coat with synthetic fur. “Anybody that enters Octave’s place, ask their name. It’ll be the safest way.” He listened to the person say something else. “I don’t know. But I’ll go and look for her as well. You should probably stay where you are incase she does show up.” With that the other person hung up the phone.
    “Sometimes he can really be a jerk…” Kyler told himself. Then he slipped on his boots, grabbed his car keys, and headed out the door to go find his missing person.