Titanium

It all started with a stupid glass of milk.

Sapphire Autumns had been home alone, listening to a documentary on the way ancient priests would use extremely advanced science to trick civilians into believing temples were inhabited by gods. It was late at night, and the History channel was Sap's go-to place for a late night splurge, especially when her Amnesty International papers were all only half finished and piling up on her desk.

Anyway, Sap was sitting on the couch, listening to a very interesting documentary and saving people's lives by writing to the governments of nations when she heard a large clash. She sat up quickly, looking around the dark house in a panic. Could it be an intruder? Or maybe an ancient Greek ghost, here to pry her heart out for revealing the secrets of his trickery, in order to save his temple...

Sap shook the thoughts away. Her usually calm mind was extremely paranoid tonight. Maybe too many horror games? Yeah.

She stood up and slowly stepped into the kitchen, searching for the source of the noise. She flipped the switch, half expecting to see a masked murderer, but the only thing lying in the new light was her cat, Penelope, licking up some milk off the floor. where a large puddle lay next to a shattered glass. Sap sighed, and went to look for the broom and dustpan.

Sap walked down the stairs towards the garage and into the small laundry room. She reached into the small area behind the washing machine, and was about the pull out the broom, when she heard the sound of a doorknob clicking open.

Sap froze. Her parents weren't supposed to be home until five. No  one was coming for a visit, and the house should be empty except for her. But...it wasn't.

She could hear the sound of booted feet trekking slowly towards her. She tried to slowly pull her arm out from behind the machine, but it didn't budge. She tried again, a bit harder this time. The footsteps were getting closer, in the kitchen now. Panicked, Sap grabbed the iron off of the top of the drier, and thanked god when she realized it was still plugged in. She flipped it on, and waited, praying it would heat up in time. The footsteps were at the top of the staircase now, slowly stepping down to the laundry room. Sap watched as an arm clothed in black began to appear, followed by a torso. Sap watched as the first tendrils of steam rolled out of the iron. The torso began to yield a neck, then a face. A hideous, scarred face. His eyes were a dark, dark blue, his air blacker than tar. His thin, ugly lips began to mouth words, and then he was speaking.

"There you are..." He said, his voice flowing out of his mouth like caramel flowing off a spoon.

Sap yanked at her arm, and it loosened a bit, but still not enough.

"What is it? Are you stuck?" The man asked, faking concern. He look mid-thirties, and certainly strong enough to snap her in half if he wanted to.

Sap continued pulling, grunting with effort. The man was inches away from her now, and she could smell his hot, sticky breath. It had the faint smell of cigarettes, but also something else. Something...comforting.

Sap panicked. She could see the bulge of a gun under his coat, and he kept getting closer. She pulled and pulled. He smirked, centimeters away from her face. She closed her eyes, tried to lean away...

And realized she was still holding a steaming iron in her other hand. She swung it around to meet his right cheek, and he screamed. Sap's momentum sent her and her arm sprawling onto the tile floor, and she landed on it with a surge of pain. She didn't have time to examine to cause, though. The man was approaching her, yelling profanities and reaching into his jacket towards the bulge.  Sap stood up and swung open the pedestrian door leading into her small driveway and started to run.

The man ran, too, and Sap knew he would catch up to her. If she were running on the smooth pavement. Making a quick decision, Sap darted behind a few houses, jumping over the areas where she knew there were roots and rocks. Thankfully, Sap had run this way many times, all to the same place she was going now. She was heading to the one person she knew she could trust, the one person who would help her no matter what. Sap knew where she was going, and she knew every twist and turn on the path to get there.

Sap heard bullets ring out behind her, and screamed as she felt something hot graze her shoulder. She could see his floodlights up ahead, and she began to yell his name.

"Zeke! Zeke, open the door!" She screamed, now standing on hid front porch, pounding on his door.

More bullets. Sap yelled even louder.

"ZEKE! ZEKE, HELP ME!"

She heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind her, and screamed his name. The door opened, and she fell inside, using her feet to back away from the door as quickly as possible.

"Sap? Sap, what is it?" The boy asked, kneeling down to where she leaned against his kitchen wall.

"Close the door!" She replied, waiting to see the man's face as he stepped her fortress of safety.

The young blonde boy shut the door, before resuming his position beside her. "Sap, your arm...What happened?"

"There...there was a man...and he was..." Sap was breathing heavily, and her adrenaline rush was starting to run down. She could feel the pain in her arm now, and she resisted the urge to look.

"Sapphire, look at me," Sap did so, and stared into his deep green eyes, "I need you to calm down. I'm going to try to fix your arm, and maybe patch up that shoulder, okay? But you're going to need to calm down."

Sap nodded, leaning her head against the cool wallpaper of Zeke's kitchen. The room was beginning to tilt, and the adrenaline was completely gone now.The burning pain in her arm and shoulder made her want to scream, but sheer exhaustion wouldn't even let her move her lips. She closed her eyes, hoping to find some escape from the pain, and found that it was much better when she couldn't see the room tilting around her.

"Zeke?" She whispered, without opening her eyes.

"Yeah?" He whispered back.

"How bad is it?" Sapphire asked in the same quiet voice, and wasn't sure if she really wanted the answer. Zeke had always been so brutally honest.

"It's pretty bad, to tell you the truth. Worse than that time you fell off your bicycle when you were twelve and ended up with a twisted ankle."

"How much worse?" Sap asked, knowing the answer wouldn't be good.

Zeke sucked in his breath, and Sap knew he wouldn't answer. He would never lie to her, but he would avoid answering in general. "Sap? Go to sleep."

Sapphire would've answered, but she was out of energy, and didn't even try to resist. She drifted into peaceful unconsciousness with the thoughts of twisted ankles and old bicycles.



HEY GUYS!..Okay, so I've written a lot of stories...but, the thing is, I'm kind of shy about publishing them. However, I decided to go ahead and type up my favorite story that I've ever written and post it here...So, yeah.

Okay, I know it's a bit too action-packed to start off, but I see it as kind of necessary. Its a fantasy story that focuses around nephilim. Not a Mortal Instruments fanfic, but it might include a bit of a love triangle. So...yeah. That's chapter one of Titanium. It'll probably be the first book in a series. Titanium, Platinum, Silver, Diamond, and Gold.

This is great! There's a few typos here and there but otherwise the story structure, grammar, and plot are all great! Keep on working!
(And by the way, if I was ordering the book titles, I would do Titanium, silver, gold, diamond then platinum. It's from least to most valuable. Just saying :D)

Thanks for the feedback! It's really appreciated! Yeah, I think I might just do it in that order :)

"Wait...tell me exactly what you saw," Zeke paced slowly back and forth across the room, running his long fingers through his dark blonde hair.

"I've already told you!" Sapphire sat on the old gray couch in Zeke's living room. It was her absolute favorite. It was soft, worn in, and Zeke's huge fluffy chocolate lab, who was currently covered in snow and curled up at her feet, soaking in the warmth of the lit fireplace, provided a very nice blanket. She was nose deep in an old beat-up copy of The Sorcerer's Stone, trying to concentrate through Zeke's shuffling and talking. She was still on page 30, which she had been stuck on for the past hour.

A knock on the door sent Gordon flying off the couch. Zeke followed behind closely, and Sapphire sat up, panicked. What the black-haired guy had seen her walk into the house? What if he was here? Where would she go? She had practically no family.

The door opened to reveal a pair of green eyes and wild, thick dark brown hair. The rest of the figure was covered with a long scarf and coat.

"Jacob?" Zeke asked, obviously surprised. "What are you-"

"Came for a small chat," He interrupted, removing his thick layers of clothing and throwing them on the arm of a nearby chair. "Didn't realize you had company..."

"I was just leaving-" Sap began.

"No, you weren't," Zeke cut her off, and Sap glared at him.

"Excuse me? I can go wherever I want, Zeke-"

"You go wherever you want, you'll get yourself killed. Anyway, where were you planning to go?" He returned her glare, and they both held each others gaze, before Sap sighed and broke away. It honestly wasn't that much of a dispute. More like an average day in the friendship of Ezekiel Robbins and Sapphire Autumns.

"Zeke, if your busy, I could come back later." The figure, Jacob, spoke. His eyes gleamed behind his glasses. He was a bit shorter than Zeke, as most guys were, but what he lacked in height he thrived in his general presence. He had a spirit that commanded attention, but he seemed to act like he didn't enjoy eyes being on him.

"No, no its fine. Jacob, this is-"

"Sapphire Autumns. I live just behind that wooded area over there. I'm just crashing here for a few nights while my parents are out of town," Sap beat him to the introduction, which was a small victory that she enjoyed in the shadow of her defeat about leaving.

"Jacob Carpenter. I live a few miles north from here, but I'm staying with my folks down here for winter break. Pleasure to meet you," He said with a smile as big as they come.

Sap nodded and smiled back. "I'll be upstairs, Zeke." She said, before grabbing her book and rushing up the stairs. She entered the second room on the left and set her book down in the nearly-full bookshelf. The bedroom had grown to become as much hers as the one in her own house. The drawers were packed with her clothes, her Amnesty International papers stacked on top of the dresser. She glanced quickly into the mirror and found herself staring. Something in the reflection was strange. Her light blonde almost-white hair encircled her round face, her hazel eyes searching relentlessly around the room. Finally, her eyes landed on it...boot prints. She was certain the white snow marks leading from her window the the bed hadn't been there before, and the window should have been closed.

Sap walked over to the open window and shut it, cutting off the cold breeze. It had stopped flurrying, but there was still snow on the ground. At least, enough that Sap could easily see that there were no footsteps leading up to the front steps. She wondered why that bothered her, when she heard laughter downstairs.

Jacob. How could he have gotten to the door with stepping on the snow? She doubted the flurries could have covered up the prints in that amount of time, and, now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen any snow on his boots. They didn't even look wet. In fact, none of his clothes had had a speck of snow or water on them.

But that was impossible? She must not have been remembering correctly. Her memory wasn't something she was known for.

Satisfied with the explanation, Sapphire sat down on her bed and picked up one of her unfinished Amnesty International papers. Hoping to forget the whole incident, she began to write.

Other than saying how much the title intrigues me, IT IS ABS-OLUTLY...

This is my opinion. :

...This is why I'M MORE INTERESTING THAN YOU

U should read my own story here and THEN fire off comments like that :D

/reads


...fine. We're even...




For now. ;)

MOAR MOAR

/blush

I could continue it, if you guys want...

Sapphire sat up in the bed, headbutting Zeke who was leaning over her, trying to wake her up. She fell back onto the bed, clutching her now aching head.

"What the hell are you standing over me for, you creeper?" She moaned, pulling the cover back over her head. She could feel the rats' nests piling up, but she didn't care. It was morning. And morning was too early to wake up.

"Shut up and get dressed. Breakfast is ready," Zeke pulled the cover off of her and dragged her body out of the bed onto the carpeted floor.

"What time is it?" Sap moaned, as he began to walk towards the door.

"Around five," He relied, smirking evilly as he left the room. Sap weakly threw a book at the door, but it landed only a foot away from her. She sighed and reluctantly got up..

Mornings were evil. Mornings were dreadful. Mornings were absolutely, positively-

"Splendid. Ezekiel already woke you, I see. I just wanted to let you know that I'll be staying here for a few days. Family business," Jacob opened the door, a bright, happy smile on his face when Sap looked in the mirror facing her and the doorway. Sap didn't care. It was five. She gave a brief, slow nod and waited for him to go away.  "Anyway, I'll leave you to get dressed. See you in a few minutes!" The door closed with an annoyingly happy slam.

Sap slipped on a T-shirt and some black sweatpants, before stepping into the bathroom down the hall. She decided to brush her hair and teeth after breakfast, and pulled the previous back into a low half-ponytail.
                                                                             
                                                                             

Sap slipped down the stairs, looking like a zombie. She stumbled into a bar-stool and was served a bowl Fruity Pebbles by Zeke.

"Thank you, Ezekiel," Sap snorted unattractively and began to eat. Zeke absolutely hated his name, and Sap knew it.

"I have no reason not to pour this whole half gallon of milk on you right now," He replied, waving it in the air as if it were a serious threat.

"Actually, you do. If you pour milk on her, she'll be upset, and if she's upset, she won't answer my questions." Jacob's voice resounded behind her, and she wondered how she hadn't noticed him.

"What do you mean, questions? I've told Zeke everything I know. And, frankly, I'm sick of all the asking," Now the mood in the room was serious. She had repeated the story to Zeke a thousand times, and now she had to tell this guy? She spun around to face him, and he was only a few inches away from her.

From here, she could see how dark and deep the blues of his eyes were behind those glasses, how his hair looked as black as tar. It reminded her of the face of the unnamed man, the one who's tried to take her two nights ago. It was like a terrifying jolt went through her every time she looked into those eyes, and she hated it. She scooted back in her barstool, eager to get away, until Zeke grabbed her shoulders across the bar, steadying her.

It wasn't him. She was safe.

She shook off the feeling, as well as the hands, and stood up, brushing past Jacob and running upstairs with out a word. She practically threw herself into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. She stood up shakily, memories of the night coming back to her. It was only two nights ago. About thirty-six hours. She turned the facet on and threw water on her face, looking at her reflection in the mirror until her shakiness washed away like the liquid down the drain.

"...Try it again...safest thing for her...More frequent..."Sap heard a muffled voice and jumped at the sound. Then she remembered the air vent. She and Zeke used to talk to each other through it when they were younger, maybe seven or so. She'd completely forgotten about it.

"...Know the consequences...too many times already..." Zeke's familiar voice floated up to her, and she knelt down quickly to put her ear beside the vent.

"...Tell her...too dangerous..." Jacob's voice answered. She could hear well enough to recognize who was talking when.

"I know...I know, Jacob...you know what she is..." This was getting her nowhere she was just even more confused than before, and she was still a bit shaken by the whole experience. She needed straight answers. But in order to get those answers, she'd have to give her own.

                                                                               

Yelp this one is not my best but I'm tired so yeah.