Chapter 1

Dawn Turner

It was one Sunday morning. The sun was smiling, the birds were chirping, and the appliance store was being robbed.

Hold on. I directly got to that point, didn't I?

Let’s take several steps backwards and try to make sense of todays accident. I go by Dawn Turner. Some people say I’m incredibly cursed, others say I‘m an absolute idiot and all the bad things that happened to me were completely my doing. It all really comes down to how colorful your vocabulary is, I guess.

I woke up one Sunday morning, horribly thinking, I want some scrambled eggs. You might ask, what's so horrible about scrambled eggs? The answer is: nothing.

What’s wrong is the girl that is scrambling those eggs.

Clumsiness is a thing that consumes a person naturally. The thing about clumsiness, however, it has an off switch. If you try really hard, you can put in mind that you are about to do something very important and expect your clumsiness to be reduced.

In some cases, it works. In my case? It consumes me to the point where I don't even remember what being cool, calm, and collected actually feels like.

Back to the point, I was scrambling the eggs when my phone started ringing. Like the intellect that I am, I left everything I was doing and ran to pick up my phone. To be fair, I was expecting a call about a possible work offer. And yes, that justifies the fact that I left eggs on a very much turned on stove and never looked back.

When I picked up the phone, I found out that it was actually my mother calling me to check in as I had recently moved into my own apartment, ready to be an independent and free woman.

Little did I know that independent and free in my dictionary means talking on a phone with scrambled eggs burning my cute precious pan and everything around it in the background.

Let's just say, I have never screamed so loud.

So that leads us to where I currently am, an appliance store; looking for a pan that can replace my previous one.

I was actually amazed at how hard it was to find a pan that I would be happy with but after searching for a while, I finally found what I was looking for and started heading towards the exit with my brand new pan in hand.

Key word: started.

I was so distracted by how cool the pan looked that I didn't even notice three men, dressed in all black and wearing ski masks, emerging through the door and pointing their guns at everyone in sight.

"Get down on your knees!" One of them yelled, bringing my attention to the men in black.

Shit.

Panic soared through me and instead of kneeling down like everyone else in the store did; I ran and hid behind the counter, hoping no one would see me. My hands were sweating, as they normally do when I'm stressed.

It was a challenge to not break down and cry but fortunately, I managed to stay calm and quiet.

I slowly peeked at the scene from behind the counter and watched as another man pointed his gun towards the cashier. "You have one minute to give me all the money in the register or I will shoot you and get them myself!" He yelled in the cashiers’ face, making him visibly shake with fear.

"W-would you be interested in a coupon, Sir?" The cashier asked him, nervously. I rolled my eyes.

The man hit the cashier across the head with his gun in hurry. "We have no time for this." He turned around the counter, luckily not noticing me, and started placing a ton of money inside the giant duffel bag he was carrying with him when he came in.

"Come on, dude. The cops might be on their way here!" The other man was panicking while glancing back and forth between the door and the guy behind the cash register.

"Well, maybe if you helped me, we would've been out by now!" The first guy yelled at the second, making the third guy to step between them and backing them away from each other.

All of a sudden, I heard a 'whoosh' sound from behind me. I turned to look at the source of the sound but there was nothing there. Still, I felt on edge. 

What was that?

I turned to look back at the burglars, hoping they would finish their 'job' soon without causing any trouble, when the atmosphere around me tensed strangely. My eyes shut on their own and my sweating intensified. I felt so dizzy that I could not even stand straight. No matter how hard I tried, it was difficult to move at all. It was almost as if there was an invisible force holding me down in place.

The sun seemed to be useless against the coldness that started consuming the store, leaving me feeling like I was about to throw up. I held onto the counter tightly, clutching my stomach desperately, as confusion settled within me.

"Well, this is a disappointment. I was planning on having quite a delicious meal of human blood but I put that on hold to watch THIS? If you're going to rob a store, at least make it entertaining." A dark voice yelled out, making everyone freeze in surprise.

I've probably been in this store for over half an hour and not once did I hear an echo in anyone's voice. But when this stranger spoke, I could hear his dark, scary voice echoing throughout the whole store. It rang in parts of my ear I didn’t even know existed.

Who said that?

"Me." The same voice whispered from behind me. I felt panic rush through my body as I tried to make sense of who was speaking. On instinct, I jumped away from the source of sound.

I thought I asked that question in my head…

My eyes slowly widened as realization sunk in and I turned around to look at the person who spoke.

Holy....

In front of me stood a tall man, about six foot three, with a malicious smile slapped across his face. His hair was brown, reaching the top of his hazel brown eyes. It was messy and it fit the ‘scary man’ vibes he was giving off. When our eyes met, it felt as if he was staring right into my soul. I hated it.

I thought the blade that he was carrying in his right hand was going to be the scariest thing about him, but I was wrong. My eyes immediately fell on his freaking 4 feet tall black wings and my brain couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. It looked so real.

At this point I was convinced I was dreaming. Staring at his wings gave me a weird feeling in my stomach so I had to look away. It was too unbearable to look at.

"Are you an angel?" One of the men asked as he stared at the mythical creature in front of me with wide eyes.

"Ah, close enough, but not there yet." The creature answered and proceeded to stalk towards the three burglars. "That was quite a show you put on there. In fact, I would like to demand an 'encore'. I just can't seem to get enough!" He nodded his head with fake approval and started clapping.

With each clap, I felt my heart race faster and faster. It was as if he had orchestrated it perfectly himself.

"Are you a demon?" Another burglar asked while staring at the man with black wings.

The man rolled his eyes and sighed. "You guys are just as good at guessing as you are at robbing, fucking terrible." He shook his head, seemingly disappointed. "I'm obviously a dragon." He said with an obvious tone, as if anything about this situation made sense. Instead of laughing, everyone continued staring at him in terror.

At this point, even if he told me he was a mermaid, I'd still believe it.

His head swiftly turned in my direction. "You are quite rude, young lady. Don't I get a well-deserved laugh at my hilarious joke?" His light brown eyes glared at me. Those eyes...

My heart was beating so loudly that I was almost certain everyone around me could hear it. "I...haha…yeah." My laugh echoed in the store since it was now dead silent. If I wasn’t too scared to move, I would’ve passed away from embarrassment by now. I'm surprised I am even able to stand straight for this long.

The man raised his brows at me when he didn't get the response he wanted. I remained frozen. He raised his hand and pointed at one of the burglars "eeny" He said. His finger then pointed to another burglar "meeny". And then another "miny". I stopped breathing completely when his finger finally pointed in my direction "Hoe." He smirked.

"I-I think it's moe." I corrected him between heavy breathing while backing away.

"Is it?" He asked feigning ignorance. "Okay, I'm bored now." He clicked his fingers and all at once, the three burglars fell to the ground, choking on air.

"Holy--" I jumped away from whatever just happened in front of me and gripped my pan tightly. He didn't even look at them and yet somehow they were now lying on the ground, dead.

I'm stuck in a store with an angel-demon-dragon-mermaid creature and my only defense is a pan...how wonderful.

"Oh come on, Rapunzel," he stalked towards me. "What are you going to do with that? Hit me?" He asked with a chuckle.

Think twice, demon.

SLAM.

"DIE!"

SLAM

"BITCH"

SLAM

"DIE"

I continued shrieking while hitting the creature as hard as I could with my small arms. He fell down to the floor, groaning in pain, and I took that as my sign to run towards the exit while avoiding the three seemingly dead burglars on the floor.

My legs were so shaky and it took everything in me not to fall the to the ground. I was filled with adrenaline; or perhaps my body's desperate cry for help.

I don't know how, maybe it was God answering my unspoken prayers, but I somehow managed to get out of the store at the same time cop cars started surrounding me. It was then I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and my heart was finally beating normally again. Something still felt very wrong.

A cop got out of his car and approached me. I'm guessing the expression on my face made it pretty obvious that I was in the store during the robbery. He asked me to report to him exactly what I had seen in the store and I pointed back towards the glass doors, expecting him to see the man with black wings. "He appeared out of nowhere and made a terrible joke and choked them and then he came towards me but I hit him with this really strong pan and--"

"I'm sorry, who are you talking about?" He asked, confused. I looked back at the store where the 'creature' was once lying on the floor.

He wasn't there.

My eyes widened. I could feel every organ in my body stop functioning. My head was filled with unanswered questions that needed to be answered. I tried to speak again but words would not come out of my mouth. It was a struggle to even keep my eyes opened.

I opened my mouth to let out a sentence or anything that made sense but nothing did. My stomach churched, my eyes and legs started giving up on me. The next thing I knew, I was falling to the ground and allowing the darkness to take over.