Alisha stared down at the paper in front of her in dismay. It was her latest math test- and it was not at all good. She groaned in agony and put her forehead in her palms, wondering what her mother was going to say when she saw this new grade through the school's online grades database parents could use.
"Hey Scars, what's wrong?" The boy behind her sneered. Alisha gritted her teeth in frustration at his mocking nickname. She absently ran a finger along the curved birthmark on the side of her face that was the target of most of the teasing she had gotten throughout her life. They didn't care that it was her 16th birthday, every day to them was another opportunity to make her feel misery and give them some sort of gratification that they could do so. The bell rang for the end of the day, and Alisha let out a sigh of relief as she stood, quickly walking with the other students out of the classroom.
"Remember, tomorrow is the start of the next unit! Be sure to take good notes." The teacher said quickly as the students scrambled out to catch the buses for going home.
Once out of the classroom, Alisha walked leisurely down the hall as the other students ran past her to try to catch the bus within the 5 minutes they allowed between the end of the last class and when the busses left the school. She didn't have to worry about missing any buses- she always walked home because she lived within a mile of the school. Which was a hassle in the winter when the snow made the trudging home that much harder, but on nice days like this it was nice to just walk at her own pace.
She walked out the doors of the school and up the sidewalk leading to the houses of the neighborhoods that surrounded the building. As she passed a house, she turned at the smell of smoke and ashes filling her nose. The abandoned house had been burned down at some point that day- all that remained now were the blackened ashes of its base structure. She started walking, but paused when she heard some sort of strange bird call. She was used to hearing birds constantly around here, but this seemed different. She looked around to see a splash of color among the black of the house and curiously walked over, shocked when she saw a large Scarlet McCaw sitting on the ground, tilting its head at her curiously.
"Well how did you get here? Did you get out of someone's house?" Alisha smiled at the bird, kneeling down in front of it.
"House?" The McCaw copied in the normal bird-like voice parrots used to imitate humans.
"Oh, you can talk?" Alisha smiled. She had always loved parrots, and was amazed how they could imitate humans so well that it seemed like they could talk.
The parrot bobbed its head up and down excitedly and flapped its wings, hopping a bit closer to her and looking up at her. "Hello!" It said.
"Hello." Alisha said back, surprised that the parrot was willing to get closer to her. "Should we ask around for your owner? I'm sure they're missing you."
"Owner!" The parrot yelled, flapping its wings again. "Searching, searching!" It looked up at her again as Alisha looked up, seeing a car pass by. She hoped she wouldn't get in trouble for getting so close to a burned down house.
"Owner, owner!" The parrot said happily, flapping its great wings and landing on her shoulder, bobbing its head up and down as it rested on the strap of her backpack.
Alisha laughed as the bird continued to dance happily on her shoulder, shifting from foot to foot as he bobbed his head. "Alright then, let's ask around to see if anyone close by is missing you." She stood, the bird flapping its wings for balance slightly.
After going from house to house searching for someone who might have been missing the parrot, she figured that the bird must have flown from further away than the few houses around the burned down house.
"Maybe we'll just put up signs? I don't want to leave you out here or anything. Hopefully mom won't mind if you stay in the house for a bit." Alisha smiled as the bird trilled, swaying with her steps as she started walking home.

"Hey mom?" Alisha walked into the door, greeted by her small Scottie dog, who looked up at the bird curiously. The parrot squawked in fear, flapping his wings furiously and flying off Alisha's shoulder to perch on the side of the counter in the kitchen, chirping and squawking in warning at the Scottie dog, who quickly ran away in fear at the sight of such a large bird being so aggressive.
"What's wrong, Luke?" Alisha heard from the other room. She walked in to see her mother petting the dog to calm him down.
"Um… I found a bird on the way home, and I think it might belong to someone. Do you think we could keep it here until I can find the right owner? I want to post signs for it."
"Alright, but make sure to keep out a detail for identification. Someone might try to take it when it doesn't belong to them." Alisha's mother said, smiling.
"Alright." Alisha smiled, walking back out to the kitchen. She spotted the bird looking down at the sink, his claws clicking as he walked closer to the edge.
"Careful." Alisha said in warning, and was surprised when the bird stopped, as if he had understood her. It looked up at her and trilled before flying back over to her shoulder. Alisha brought him into her room, watching as the bird flew down onto her bed. "Make yourself at home." Alisha smiled. "We should probably give you a name while you say here so I don't have to call you 'bird'. What should we call you?" Alisha sat on the bed next to him. "Do you like… Primo? You have primary colors." Alisha watched as the bird squawked, flapping its wings angrily. "Okay okay, I guess not." She laughed. "How about… Hermes? He's the greek god of travel and messengers. Pretty fitting for a parrot, I'd say. Do you like the name Hermes?"
The bird bobbed its head up and down, trilling. Alisha smiled, holding out her arm for him to perch on. "Alright then, we'll call you Hermes."

A couple days later, Alisha sighed as she flopped down into her bed. Hermes was sitting on her bed, looking down curiously at one of the books she had open.
"Time for bed, Hermes. Maybe your owner will call tomorrow I put up a bunch more signs today." She sighed, changing into her pajamas as the bird watched the wall in front of it, as if watching something intently. He turned back around as Alisha flopped back onto the bed.
"Alright, if you need to go to the bathroom just scratch at the window again." She said, drifting off to sleep as the parrot trilled happily.

"Wake up, wake up!" Alisha heard, sitting up slowly. "They've found us, you have to wake up! We have to go!"
She sat up and looked around the room to see Hermes flying around her ceiling, squawking in warning, before flying back down to the bed. He flapped in front of her to surprise her awake.
"We have to go before they get to you! We have to get back to the park- I know the way, but we have to go now!" He said in his normal parrot-like voice.
"I must be dreaming. Are you talking?" Alisha rubbed her drowsy head as Hermes squawked angrily.
"Just get up! We will talk later- we have to go!" Hermes flew over to the window, scratching at it frantically with his talons. He let out a terrified screech when red eyes appeared on the other side of the window pane. "They are here!"
"Who's here? what's going on?" Alisha watched Hermes fly frantically around the room.
"The shadows have found us! We must get you back home before they capture us!" He said while flying in circles. "Hurry, hurry!"
Alisha didn't know what was going on, but she stood up and changed into clothes as quickly as she could. "We can't wake mom up, she'll wonder why we're going out. Wait- this is a dream, why does it matter?"
"We will be quiet, do not worry." Hermes swooped down and perched on her shoulder, running a bit of her hair through his beak anxiously. "Hurry!"
"Alright, where are we going?" Alisha whispered as they crept down the hall.
"To the park." Hermes whispered back.
Alisha walked out of the door, closing the door softly behind her and started running down the sidewalk, Hermes leaping off her shoulder and flying beside her. She let out a yell of surprise when something latched onto her leg, and looked down to see a black cat scratching at her pants, hissing angrily.
"What's going on?!" Alisha yelled as she shook her leg to unlatch the cat.
"It's a shadow creature!" Hermes squawked. "Hold still!" He scratched at the cat with his talons, taking the cat's tail in his beak and biting down. The cat shrieked in pain and ran off. Hermes took to the air again, flapping ahead of Alisha as she continued running. She heard a loud growl and looked behind her to see a large black dog running behind her with red eyes glowing in the night. She let out a yell of fear and started running faster, gasping for breath as she saw the park in view, which was on the other side of the burned down house where she had first found Hermes. She ran into the park, looking around at the chain-link fence that surrounded the playground in the middle of a large grass field.
"Now what?" She gasped for breath a Hermes flew beside her.
"We must take you to Wonderland. It will be safer there, and the Loyalists will protect you." Hermes said, flying past Alisha to the back of the park. Alisha let out a yell of fear as the dog tackled her to the ground, his jaws clamping shut just inches from her face.
"Let her go!" Hermes yelled, swooping down and ravaging the dog's face with his talons. The dog yelped and swatted at him, missing by inches as Hermes flew away. He passed Alisha, trilling with excitement as he saw her pick up a broken branch, holding it like a baseball bat while the dog charged her again. She swung as hard as she could, clobbering the dog on the side of the head so that it fell to the ground dazed, but not dead.
"Hurry, hurry! We have to get to Wonderland!" Hermes squawked, flying onward toward the back of the park.