assignment hit me, and thanks for that Grayle. I'll look into that, and also thanks for the email. With no further ado, chapter 3!

-Back to Anita-

Walking along a now common path, I strode to Anita’s place. I wanted to look confident, but all I could manage was a casual look. When I got there, there was no fancy greeting, no study of how I looked as I got from some of my customers. A quick look as Anita recognised ‘friend’ and invited me in. I had lost all understanding of how friends were greeted.

When inside there were mannerly greetings, Anita was inclusive and friendly, and talked to me nonchalantly, “So did you try it?” she asked.

That was quite a subject change to how I was feeling, “Try what?”

“Changing.”

“Yes,” I said after some hesitation.

“Any problems?” she said, she seemed to want me to feel excited, she definitely put that kind of feeling in the air.

I realised that she was trying to make me like this dragon stuff. I was not going to give in, “Yes.”

“What was it?”

“I looked ugly.”

“But what did you think?”

“Maybe if I stuck at this more, I could be a professional,” I said sarcastically.

Anita released a pained sigh and I realised that she may have been doing a lot of things for me. I made a mental note to act at least more respectful to her.

“How did you find out about the man who was watching me?” I asked, trying to change subject quickly.

“We have to watch out for people who are looking for us, we’ve gotten very good at it. I bet you can figure out what would happen if we were caught.”

I couldn’t but I considered the possibilities.

“Why don’t you know about the person who hired him?”

“Because all we can get on him is that he hires people to chase us. The hired people don’t know anything except that they are getting paid for information on dragons.”

I realised something, “What do you do with the people after you’ve questioned them.”

Anita looked at me darkly, “We’re getting off track here, but I’ll tell you and then we talk about how to hide your identity.”

She waited for me to agree, no room to move, again, I agreed.

She continued to speak, “We get the people who are hired and after we question them, we sometimes go to their extreme emotions to try and get the information out of them. We then wipe their memory clean using a bitter herb and some of our mental talents then we dump them at a hospital. Now let’s get to what we were doing ok?”

I agreed reluctantly and questioned no further.

“First off; eyes. If someone flashes a light into your eyes they will reflect light; that would give you away to the hunters immediately. To counteract it I have contacts that can shield some of the light from your eyes,” Anita held out a small case and opened it to show two contact lenses, dark green, “I chose a colour that matches your eyes so you don’t bring attention to yourself on changing eye colours. They will take a while to get used to, go on try one on.”

I took the case and looked back to Anita, “Is that all I have to protect myself from?”

“No, there’s more. You’re going to have to start practising to concentrate on what people do so that when they make a sudden movement to, let’s say, attack you,”

Anita’s lady-like stance changed and she aimed a punch at me. I flinched backwards but not too much. I had lightly delved into her mind and through her uppermost thoughts; she wasn’t going to attack me but was testing my reaction. Her fist waivered in the air as she held her pose for a split second with her fist a centimetre from my face.

“So that when they attack me they will either hit me or I react later than I normally would?” I asked, I just repeated what she was waiting to hear from me.

Anita smiled, “You’ve probably thought about that since when we last met.”

I said nothing but nodded. I was impatient to get on with this whole process.

Anita stood up and said, “Now this aspect is really hard. When you transform for the first time, you will experience pain, but by thinking about that pain you could accidentally bring on the transformation. What I want you to do is to practise transforming and controlling the transformation. It takes a while to get used to the changing. But when you’re good at it, you can change at will a lot faster than if you were a novice.  Then if you practise, you can instinctively tell when the change comes so you can prevent the change, if necessary.”

Changing into a dragon, I thought, it was amazing that I could change, but couldn’t there be a bit more ease in doing it than just transforming and facing the pain then getting used to it? I voiced my opinion.

“Well, trust me,” said Anita, “the more you practice, the less painful it gets, it sounds strange, but that’s just how it works.”

She had won, all the time she wins, always one step ahead. I really hated that, not only because I was new to this group but because I had now become a part of something I never really wanted to join. Anita was helpful but I hadn’t seen any threat which she constantly says exists. I wandered in my thoughts about the most recent days, then I realised something, “Anita, I had a phone call by a man asking me to come to his place for a demonstration on my paintings. When I was talking to him I had a really weird feeling that something horrible was going to happen. It felt like a hit to me, it was so strong that I had lost my balance. What could that mean?”

She looked at me, “You have that?” she started murmuring, “That’s pretty rare for a dragon to have that many abilities,” she looked very interested in what I had to say, “tell me more.”

I am SO sorry for my lack of updates, I have been hit left, right and centre with all kinds of problems, University and traineeships, internet overload and power blackouts, travelling and art comissions (I finally got hired to do something artwise, WOW!) just to name a small few. I will continue as normal until about the end of the third or fourth chapter, because I'm having lots of people go on my back about if I want this published, whether I should be doing this or not. Enough about me, and back to this story! And Grayle, thanks for your comment.

“A man rang me and he was asking me about my paintings, and when he asked about the date for me to meet him, I felt like I was hit in the chest. What could that mean?”

Anita looked very serious, “Most likely someone is watching you, and has been for a while. They must be fed up for waiting so long to risk getting you in person to come to them. Or they must realise...” Anita stopped talking as her mind rushed through her thoughts.

I waved my hand in front of Anita, “Hello what’s wrong...”

“You’re in trouble,” her tone was sharp and serious, “because that means they suspect you and want to find things out about me or our group through you. This is serious, anything you show this man will let out our carefully guarded information on this group; we can’t have that.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I was afraid of facing the man from the phone call; if that sense was so bad that I would stumble, then I don’t think I would want to be near him at all.

She slumped her shoulders, “I don’t know,” she said, she mashed her thin eyebrows together in concentration, “it could be disastrous to our group if we don’t do this carefully. He will most likely ask you about me, directly or indirectly. He will try to see if you’re a dragon. I don’t know how, but it will most likely be using Kraas. I don’t know any more than that.”

All the information was coming a little too fast for me, “How do you know this?” I asked.

She looked at me with a pained expression, “Not all the people who we talk to join our group, some don’t join because they fear what they are, others think they’re dreaming. Some people, though, we can’t get to join because they are caught by these hunters and we don’t know what happens to them apart from that. One guy who was caught managed to trick whoever they were into thinking that he was innocent, I don’t know how. He got away and came to us. We asked him what happened and he said that the hunter asked things about who I was and wether he believed in folklore dragons and about our group, he asked nothing more than that. The victim had pretended that he had barely met us.”

What happened to him? I thought, willing Anita to reveal the rest of the story, did he get caught again? Did he stay with the group? Did he go back to a normal life?

Anita finally spoke, “He joined us in the end. He soon realised what he wanted to do, to join us. He saw that we were trying to live and wanted to help us, in return we supported him in his life.”

I mulled over that and I had a new curiosity to see this man. He would probably be the only one who I could relate to, maybe? I’d have to wait to see him before I got my hopes too high.

Anita broke my train of thought, “So what we’re going to have to do is try to convince these people you didn’t join because you weren’t interested and you got nothing but pleading from me to join. Ok?”

“Might as well give it a shot, we still have nine days till the appointment. Anyway, what should I do if he does have Kraas solution? I can’t flinch at or fling everything that looks like that black liquid.”

She pondered for a second, “How about you wear gloves for when you’re showing the paintings? It would look like you’re protecting the paintings from any unnecessary damage so to keep it for other people to look at.”

I couldn’t put any better idea forward, “ok. Is there any other signs I need to cover up?”

She nodded and her eyes grew weary again, “Now this will get complicated. After your first couple of changes, your body will start to re-develop itself and you will notice that your grip on things may be stronger as you may suddenly tense up, watch out for that and practise controlling your strength and changes. It will come in handy later, trust me. But at the moment, since you’re the first person who hasn’t actually changed when young, so the ‘redevelopment’ could be either really fast or slow, I don’t know.”

“But how come I’m redeveloping now and not earlier?”

“Your body probably has been ‘dormant’, meaning that you haven’t had any problems with, say, changing. If you had done some changing before today, then you would have already practised controlling the change out of necessity. Your body has probably awakened from a state that it has been in for years. It probably will change to develop itself to your new abilities. I can’t explain any more than that, your body is really confusing, because you should have had some form of changing before now,”

Last edited by werer (2008-09-28 05:37:30)

AARGH! I so want to make sure I keep up with this story! University is killing me! But what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, and I will pull through. So anyways, the story has been hanging off a slow point, I'll add a bit more to the next cliffhanger . Sorry about my lack of updates

I looked at Anita sceptically, “So I’m strange for a dragon’s standards?”

She half smiled, “Well, yes. You should have already experienced a change, and you would show small signs that would prove that you were a dragon, but lack of these signs made finding you difficult.”

“So... what am I supposed to do, just hope that all goes well, or do I have to hide everything that may show to this guy what I am, or should I just avoid this meeting altogether?”

Anita looked horrified at the last proposal, “No! Go to it by all means; I don’t want you to seem strangely reluctant to go. What you will need to do, though, is practise the shape changing and get used to it. You would be in serious trouble if you started changing due to something you can’t control.”

I realised something, “What if the guy gets the solution on my face? I can’t protect that from anything without looking stupid. I can’t do anything to stop that.”

Anita considered this for a while, “I think there may be a way to bypass this problem. I could buy some skin lotion for you and you rub it into your face. That would definitely stop the solution for a while”

I was content with that, and so was Anita. She explained some things to me like what should have taken place in the meeting. Instead of her transforming and fighting and mind speaking with me, she had enticed me to join a group, wanted to help with artistry and also wanted a single portrait sketched of herself. I even did a preparation for a sketching of her face to look like I was actually doing it. Anita was also paying me saying that I should just do it for real, I didn’t object.

Finally I had left with my pocket jingling delightfully with the extra money that I had collected. Walking down the street back to my home wearing a happy expression despite my real feelings, it was a ploy set up by Anita to convince others that I was on a good business venture.
I really was angry though. The longer I tried to protect myself the more I had to lean on this group, and the more I became involved in it. This made leaving harder for me. Ordinary life just became more difficult, no, a normal life was impossible now for me because of what I had learnt. I concentrated on getting home so I could mull things over, again.

Home was comforting, even if it was a rented flat; it was the little place in my life which was really mine. My walls, my bed, my kitchen: all had a part of me placed in it either as a painting, or a photo, or some part of my life.

As I unlocked the door and walked in, I thought I saw something flicker further in the house. There was a small rustle as something scraped against the carpet. Someone was in here, and it seems like they wanted valuables. I carefully treaded on the ground trying to make as little noise as possible. I stalked along the lounge room and approached the room. There were more noises but nothing loud like a drawer opening, or wardrobes opening. I came closer to my room and peered in: there was a guy, he was checking under the bed. He knelt and stood up; he hadn’t noticed me so I took advantage of it and tried to trip him.

At that instant he noticed me and danced out of the way. He then raised his hands in a defensive stance very different to the ones that I adopted. I didn’t move waiting for him to attack. Instead, he relaxed his pose, stuck out his hand in a hand shake position and spoke to me.

“I’m Jamison, I have watched you Marcus.”

I know I've been inactive with my story, but things happen, I did have it all done up nice and spiffy, but just like a gardener never stops weeding, a writer never stops nitpicking his own story! I've read through it, and read a few other books in comparison, and I felt I need to restart, Not change the story, no, I could never do that, this plot is so well thought through... the only problem is the way it's made, I'm going to post it in smaller pieces, more critique that way. I'm also going to rewrite everything, basic outline, better (or worse, if it is worse, tell me! ) fleshing out.

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Remical: Drastar

Prologue

Anita ran, looking side to side wildly as her eyes filled up with tears and blurred her vision. Her one place she could maintain a sanctuary, had shattered, in one simple mess up. More tears flooded her vision from that thought. She was so stupid, how could she stay in that kind of family, she was a freak, a monster. She shouldn't even exist.

Anita sniffled and sobbed jarring her talk to herself, "There couldn't be any more, where could they be?� she took a deep shuddering breath, "Nothing on the internet, nothing in the library... what am I?"

Anita was fifteen, she wasn't prepared to accept herself as she was, she hoped she could fake it, fake it and make it through without anyone noticing. What confused her the most is that her family didn't seem to have the same problem as her. Yes, she definately asked them, using lots of different questions, in different contexts. They just thought that she was going through a phase of obsession and she soon stopped.

She pumped her arms harder, and harder, the further she went from her family, the further her problems seemed to go away, "Maybe I can start afresh," she murmured to herself, "I-I can start again, get a job, fake my name..." her relentless running finally caught up on her, and she stopped and lent her back against a tree, resting.

After a while, she caught her breath back, but her body seemed unwilling to go on, wanting to stay there instead of escaping to her perceived freedom.

“Why me?� she complained to the trees, “Why did I have to be like this?�

Anita huddled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them sobbing, it did barely anything to the chilly weather, and didn't help her aching bones from running out of town. Her thin, blue shirt wasn’t enough to keep the chill wind out of her clothes, and neither did her black shorts. Her shoes didn't help with the ground either, one of the soles had already come off the shoe. Anita took her shoe off idly to examine it, not that she could do anything about it.

She was a pretty girl, albeit short for her age, light brown hair, blue eye, lightly tanned skin and traces of freckles made her fit in the ‘cute’ category at school, and she had a great taste of clothes and furnishings too. However, to her, none of that mattered now. In her eyes, she was something that wasn't ever meant to exist.

She didn’t know what she would do if she was found out, how could she return to that place? Her dad flew into a rage because she suddenly got scared, then she started to change. She wondered what would happen if her dad found her, what would he do to her? She snapped her head into a direction, thinking she heard something, maybe a twig snap. She started to fret, did her father follow her? She started to panic and then she felt the same tingling sensation come across her skin, she was changing again!

She stood up and ran, trying to drown the feeling, and hopefully the change wouldn’t happen. It didn’t, but she didn’t stop running.  Her legs became awkward and she tumbled over. Her feet started to pinch in her remaining shoe, she had dropped the other shoe, gone now. She quickly pulled of the other shoe, wearing only socks now. She got up and ran again, her heart racing, she thought that if anyone was following her, she would be caught! She pushed herself up again, but this time, her feet gave way, she was unable to stop the change, and she couldn’t do anything properly with the new body.

Tripping and stumbling on her legs, she scrambled through the woody terrain, and soon grew accustomed to her legs.  The girl ran, and soon she was out of breath and she had to stop, her whole body burned from the effort she put in. She collapsed, breathing rapidly and in a shuddering manner between sobs. She saw her tail, a white cord-like thing sprawled underneath her, and her nose, way too long, white as well. Her hands were claws and so were her feet, she couldn’t feel the ground underneath very well from the cold numbing her skin. Scales covered her body and small spikes had protruded along her spine. Not a lizard, more like a dragon. She felt like a monster.


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Tell me your comments, I'll try and keep this updated, so I'll fix, reshred/rewrite whole parts of the story to make it flow better, after doing some RPing, it's made me realise a lot of things we take for granted. This is the end result of such studies.

Last edited by werer (2009-02-12 15:34:04)

Thanks so much Grayle, nice to see you back. I know that you're busy and all, and I thank you for taking the time to read through and collect different parts of my story that's awkward and such, well, back to the last of the prologue.

P.S. I take all kinds of criticism, after all, it's what makes a good story great So don't hold back. This is for everyone who reads this.

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“What the $#@! are you doing!?� Yelled Anita's father.

She stood there shaking like a twig desperately holding onto its tree in a hurricane, "Th-th-this is f-for m-my sports c-carnival..." she trailed of the way her father was talking was not unusual, he usually swore, rage, and so on. Though this time, his face showed more confusion than rage, "D-dad?"

Her dad continued to stare at her, face showing anger, to confusion, to surprise, then shock and fear. She looked at her arms and saw the white sheen of her start in changing, scales already forming. She was in so much fear of her dad, she didn't even feel the change happen. She now shook visibly, this had been happening for a while, but she didn't know what to do, so she hid it. It only came out with fear, as it was doing now.

Anita lay on the ground crying, that was her last memory of home before she ran away, there was no way she was going back. Anita felt the voice roar in her ears, echoing inside her head. Her father, his expression of shock and fear. She could only think one thing; she was a monster. She couldn’t do a thing about it. She sobbed some more as she felt the last tenuous link between her father and her slip away into nothing.

She kept on crying until a voice called to her, “Anita, you’re not alone.�

Anita looked up wildly, and saw a dragon right in front of her. Instinctively, she scrambled up and backwards. she was soon cornered against a tree, her fear of the other dragon refrained her from moving foreward, she shook in panic.

“Anita, you’re not alone,� it repeated.

Anita stared at the dragon in fear, it closed its mouth in a strangely comforting smile, and then the scales on the dragon started to fade away, only then did she realize that this dragon wore normal clothes, and it was changing into a person. The man who was a dragon, stood before her, smiling, “You’re not alone, there are people to help you,� he held out his hand to Anita and waited for her to respond.

Tentatively, she reached out and grabbed his hand, he pulled her to her feet and smiled at her.

The man knelt down and lowered himself to her level, “Hello Anita, I’m James,� he said.

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Prologue is finished! Now to edit the rest of the story, 100 pages to say the least! Wish me luck.

Last edited by werer (2009-02-12 16:01:23)

By being repetitive, what do you mean? This story is starting afresh, with the same plot, just more... well... structured and entertaining. I'm not quite sure by what you mean, if you could explain, that would be great thanks.

That's no problem, I thought you thought that I was switching back to the first part, and just repeating that. Thanks for looking over it again.