Alright, here it is - my first chapter of my first real story. I'm playing it more or less by ear for now, taking it slow to get a feel for things and how people like my style of narrating. Let's see if I can get this little experiment to work!

There's a Reason I Don't Like Surprises

It's been almost two weeks since we'd gotten the new guy in the homeroom, two weeks since I haven't had an itch on the back of my neck. He was about my height, six feet or so, and remarkably average save for the fact that he walked with a limp. It was explained to be a muscle issue to anyone who expressed interest, but then why wasn't he in a wheelchair or on crutches? One of the things that caught my attention – and this tells volume of my own paranoia – is that about a week after coming into the school Mr. Sylvus "Silly" Hawthorne had taken to following someone else in my homeroom. Amanda, hell if I know her last name, was just about as average as her new-found tail except for the fact that she didn't smell like newly cut grass from a foot away. She didn't make my skin crawl, either, come to think of it. "Will? You're stargazing again," an ever-so-slightly irked voice told me.

Now I could tell you with reasonable certainty that Amanda didn't smell like I just mowed my lawn, because I was sitting across a desk from her. It dawned on me that we were studying together for our respective history classes, and I managed a remarkably half-assed reply in the form of, "Yeah? Oh, just- "

"Distracted?" she finished for me, like she knew what I was going to say, "You've been that way for most of the week now. The test is on Friday, Will." Oh, right. She did know what I was going to say.

"I know," I responded, a weary sort of sigh escaping me, "Just trying to figure what the new guy's found in the trees, is all." It wasn't a lie, Sylvus was as occupied with the courtyard on the other side of the window as I am with good books. I just finished Teeth of the Tiger, written by Tom Clancy, over the week in fact, but that's neither here nor there. My brown-maned study partner made a quiet sound, and even half-distracted as I was it was more than obvious that she didn't entirely buy my excuse, but she didn't push and I was silently thankful for it. We weren't huge friends, but Amanda and I knew each other well enough to have an idea of when the other was in one of their moods.

It was an honest surprise when I heard her ask, "You're not so sure about him?" I didn't feel like giving mono-syllable replies today, so a shake of my head stood in to answer. "Neither am I," she followed up, and that prompted me to turn and face her fully. She continued as I was shifting, voice lowered, "But he doesn't rub me the wrong way nearly as much as our English sub. She's always eying me, like she's trying to catch me breaking a rule."

I nodded at that, giving an affirmative grunt. Ms. O'hara, the district's substitute teacher for the time being, was a fairly unpleasant woman of middling age. She always seemed to be wearing the same coat with decorative feathers on the arms, and looked like she was about to tear my head off when I told her one of the feathers had fallen out in class last week. I made it a point not to do anything incriminating around her, but annoying is another matter entirely. What can I say? I'm a bit snarky lately and she leaves herself open for it. "She's been keeping an eye on Silly, too, hasn't she? Moved his seat right in front of her desk, makes him pretty nervous from what I've seen," I said, brow furrowing a bit. Sylvus was a saint compared to my expressions of charm and wit, but the poor guy got a death glare that I swear made the room drop five degrees whenever he so much as twitched in the wrong direction. "Tosses a few red flags up, if you ask me," I continued, muttering just a shade above inaudibly to Amanda. Those flags were promptly dwarfed by something akin to a bright red tarp lashed onto a radio tower as the study hall supervisor called Amanda up to the front of the room; apparently Ms. O'hara was waiting for her in the hallway for something. Now I'm usually a privacy-respecting, rule-abiding Junior, but something about all of this had me on edge. I waited for the almost offensively inattentive supervisor to look back to her novel before slowly, carefully, rising from my seat.

I'm not the most light-footed of guys, not by a long shot, but by the various gods that woman was engrossed in her book! I pressed myself to the wall after a cautious, painfully slow walk to the door, daring to push it just a bit farther open than it already was. My reward came in the form of a hushed argument between Amanda and the teacher, muffled by some distance and half a wooden door. A moment's adjustment had me groping around the chalkboard ledge for the hall pass, various excuses cycling through my mind for in the event that anyone stopped my leisurely stroll-to-be, only to make me aware of an empty space on the metal lip. Sylvus moved around me, pass in hand, walking a damned sight more smoothly than a man with leg issues ought to as he gestured for me to follow. I weighed my options for a moment and decided on the most logical route, following a new Senior that I didn't know and vaguely distrusted. We both heard Amanda's gasp as we passed the threshold of the doorway, and as I rounded the corner I came upon a… rare and surprising sight. Ms. O'hara, the fifty-some year old English substitute, was holding Amanda up about six inches off the ground, sleeve-obscured hand gripping her throat. The feathers on her jacket were ruffled up, as if she fluffed them before coming, and I could've swore her jacket was tightening against her body. My eyes surrendered to that inadvertent blink of disbelief, and then I saw it. The teacher's wrinkled hands were nowhere to be found, instead replaced by much more threatening-looking, talon-like hands with nails more akin to claws. The jacket was gone now, leaving the feathers bound to her arm by- no, they were part of her arm. Most people would probably think something along the lines of, 'God help me,' or, 'What am I seeing?' My thought was more akin to, and please pardon my mental French, 'There's a goddamned harpy in my school."

I would find out later on that O'hara wasn't a Harpy, not exactly, but the details were destined to be lost on me. My last step must have fallen loudly, because the next moment I became aware of the fact that I was sprawled out on my back, my rear end hurt, and there was a body on top of me. Amanda pushed herself up as quickly as the sudden change of scenery would allow, and I could see all sorts of fear on her face in the second-long glance I stole. I followed her example, rising to my feet in time to hear a mind-shattering screech as the whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is charged us, and I nearly tripped again as a grass-scented hand yanked me back by the arm. In the moment it took for O'hara to right herself and abort the failed rush the rest of us came to an understanding, and a very simple one at that; We need to get the disgruntled substitute out of this building and away from everyone. Several of those everyones were becoming apparent in the form of hurried footsteps and the telltale sound of walkie-talkie transmissions coming down the hallway just as a series of confused, excited murmurs started sounding from the now-closed classroom door behind me. We didn't have time to come up with a plan, which is probably what helped me come up with my next plan. Amanda beat me to it, though, because the door I had been glancing to suddenly opened as a shaky, "Come on!" rang over the slowly increasing volume of footsteps.

We were halfway down the next hallway when the door slammed open – and I swear I just heard metal crunching in on itself. "Get back here, brats, and we can all make this easy!" assaulted my ears, blanking my mind in a combination of fear and a sudden urge to tear my abused ears off. I may have told her to go do something rather graphic with a barn animal in response, which would account for the next ear-violating screech.

It dawned on me that most, if not all of my fantasy-based geekery had just been proven true in the past three minutes, but I didn't have much time to appreciate the fact. The growing fear that O'hara was gaining on us grew in my gut, spurring me to do my damnedest to keep up with Amanda and Sylvus, whose alleged muscle issues have long since been proven false. I'm not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination and the fact was becoming painfully apparent in the form of a growing burn in my lungs. I desperately hope adrenaline is enough to balance the odds, if only enough to allow me a dignified death.

Thankfully enough, the death-defying chemical running through my blood kept me at a full sprint, if only barely. I was faintly aware of a lockdown announcement over the PA system as we burst through a door to the school's courtyard, sunlight forcing my eyes closed. I'll never be able to figure out what possessed me to dive to the grass off to the side, but it saved my life. Another frustrated screech tore from O'hara's lips, but it took me a few moments to realize, as I scrambled to my feet, that it was coming from above me.

I thought for sure she'd come after me again, God knows I've made the most cracks at her out of the three of us, but I guess Amanda and Sylvus had some bad karma. A strafing run from the now airborne bird-woman sent the wide-eyed Senior to the ground so hard his shoes came off, but for a second it looked like he had a large pair of boots on underneath. I didn't have much time to reason that one out, though, because the soaring substitute was coming around again. I sprinted as quickly as my burning legs and abused lungs would allow, but even at my best I wouldn't have outpaced the airborne creature before she made it to Amanda. The junior girl screamed as O'hara's form blocked her from sight, and my heart leapt to my throat. The flying hag let out a triumphant screech, but that was before my momentum ran us both into the cement.

It was a blur from then, my very awareness clouded by a searing rage that bubbled up as the "Harpy's" victory call rang in my ears. I felt myself come to a rough stop on O'hara's now-prone body, snarling as her claws marked my face and arms with wild swipes, drawing lines of stinging red. I had to have reared back for a punch, because the next moment my fist was meeting something that, while solid, gave way with what I perceived as a muted crunch. The frenzied shrieks ringing into my adrenaline-insulated ears turned to choked, frantic sounds as I caught something firm, vaguely fleshy, and cylindrical in my grip. My next noise dwarfed any that she had made, a roar that was the very essence of fury given form as I clamped down on what must have been her throat, the muscles of her windpipe collapsing as I squeezed my fingers into a grip tight enough to make a vice envious. A final, strangled yelp parted O'hara's lips as I crushed her windpipe, and almost a minute later I was beginning to register the fact that I was straddling a pile of yellow sand.

My breaths came heavily as soon as I could will myself to take them. Hands pulled at my shoulders, and I nearly surged up again before a dim voice began to grow in volume, each passing second returning more of my senses to me. After a few moments of stumbling to my feet, his grass-scented form supporting mine as sudden exertions of the past ten minutes finally caught up to my adrenaline-fueled body, Sylvus Hawthorne's voice echoed in my ears. "Amanda is dead," he told me, helping me to steady myself as we made our way toward the other end of the courtyard, "We have to get out of here, I'll explain everything when we're safer."

That's the first chapter. Functional, sensical, completely farking insane? You be the judge and jury, but be sure to warn me what the verdict is!