Chapter 1

  Today is the day when I can finally get answers for all the things my parents have kept from me. It has been so frustrating dealing with their constant whataboutery all these years, which is why I have worked hard for this opportunity; to go and find the answers for myself.

  I flipped over the note on my desk and quickly wrote the words, 'To Mom and Dad'. I got up and grabbed my bag and slung it onto my shoulders and quickly left the room. I don't have a lot of time left, I need to leave home within the next hour.

  I closed my eyes and tried to get a sense for where Mrs Chelsea was as I sense where she might be within the house. I filtered out all the different presences around the manor and honed in the familiar presence that gave of nurturing and loving feel.

  I have had this ability for as long as I can remember. It allows me to sense those around me, as well as giving me a general sense of their temperament. I should probably try to look up preternatural abilities to try to get a better understanding of my own abilities and I could have probably asked someone, like Father Joshua or one of the local police but whenever I do try to tell anyone that I even have an ability, I get this profound sense that I am approaching some line I am not supposed to cross, like I am under some kind of vow of silence.

  It's not like it matters anyway, since the only ones with any profound abilities are the Chosen, the Primordials and the Possessed, and I know enough to know that I am just a Gifted preternatural.

  As I headed down the stairs still deep in thought I sensed that I was close approaching Mrs Chelsea and I decided to take a turn down the hall and was met with a portly figure in a very familiar blue and white maid uniform that I had grown accustomed to over the many years since our family first moved here.

  The tall middle-aged woman seemed to notice my arrival out of the corner of her hazel eyes and she turned to greet me, "Good Afternoon Master Scott." She calmly greeted. "Are you off to another one of your shifts at the pizzeria?"

  "Hello Mrs Chelsea;" I say as I wave; "no, I've decided to take the next few days off from work just to rest a bit."

  "That's simply wonderful;" she says whilst clapping her hands together; "I was just about to put on some tea, would you care to join me?"

  I cannot help but feel my stomach growl at the mention of tea, but I don't want to be here when my parents arrive. My Mom always seems to be able to figure out when I have some alterior motive or plan, so I will probably just have to miss out on Mrs Chelsea's amazing tea.

  "Sorry Mrs Chelsea, I'm afraid I'll have to take a rain check on that, I've already made plans, I'm going to see a movie" I say reluctantly.

  "Oh, well then have fun Master Scott." She says as she waves me goodbye. And as I am turning to leave, she yells out, "Stop by the pantry on your way out, Peter's baked some scones." I chuckled as I realised she probably heard my stomach growling earlier. Guess it was louder than I thought.

  I bid her farewell and happily hopped my way into the pantry to get myself some of Peter's scones and I didn't have to worry about being delayed as Peter usually finished work before noon, so I just walzted in and grabbed the scones, stuffing them into my bag.

  It was a good thing that I found her before leaving, that way she'll probably tell my parents that I just went out to the movies when they get home, which will buy time for me to be as far from the city as possible before they realise that I have left. By the time they find the letter, I will have already gotten far away from the city. They will probably try to send someone to come and get me, but by then I will be closer to Littlesmith, my hometown, than they are to me.

  Afterwards I got out of the large house and made my way to the tool shed and retrieved my red bicycle and rode it down the long winding road towards the gate of the Scott Manor and make my way out and rode quickly towards the outer edges of Grimm City's only borough, Saints Lodge.

  As I entered the borough, I quickly wove my way through towards the bus stop. As I turned the final corner I slowed down and got off my bike and walked to the bus stop and sat down on the bench. Having locked away my bike on the bike rack, I take the moment to relax, knowing that this should probably be the easiest part of my plan since I just have to wait for the bus to get here and then wait for it to leave.

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  I flipped over my wrist to look at the time, seeing that the black digital watch reads 13:43, I sighed anxiously as I still have 17 more minutes before the bus arrives and still a further 90 minutes until it actually leaves.

  Seeing as I have so much time ahead of me, I decided to pull open my bag to see what I should do now. I ruffle through till I find the today's newspaper. I just packed without really paying any attention to what its contents might contain, so I decide to take a look.

  I pulled it out and looked at the front page to see the image of a man with pale blue skin and blazing red eyes, with the image having a bold caption above reading: UNDERBOSS DESTROYS TOP HALF OF SCY TOWER!

  What!? Isn't Scy the business my dad started. I guess that explains why they went to work before the sun had even risen. This kind of makes me feel bad for doing this today but I can't turn back now, not when this is a chance for me to finally learn why I can't seem to remember anything about our life before moving here.

  I look back down at the image of Underboss. Despite him being a pretty big deal in Grimm City, I don't really know much about him besides him being one of the Possessed and that he has super strength. The only one I know anything about is the Black Bride and that's only because she's the only one who can get past the barrier of holy water that the church set up after the Possessed first gained power.

  It is a bit weird to think that the world wasn't always like this, that things could change so fast. For me, the world has always been like this, but for my parents, the world was a lot less mysterious. Sometimes my parents will tell me stories of back then, how things were so different. Apparently it was a world where big battles of cosmic significance were only things that happened in movies, but everything changed on the winter solstice of 2020, which funnily enough is the day my parents got married.

  I sigh and put the newspaper back in the bag, having decided to continue reading it on the bus. I instead decided to just expand my presence sense over my surroundings and I can sense all the hundreds of people across a few of the city blocks around me. I wondered if maybe these presences I sensed might be people's souls or if they were something else entirely. Even if they weren't the flashiest abilities, I still liked having them as they gave allowed him to explore questions like this. He had once asked Father Joshua about information on the soul, but the only information I could get was that the soul was basically indestructible from the perspective of any human, which kind of bummed me out at the time but now it makes me happy that there's so little on the soul. It's like my own personal mystery for me to uncover.

  As I'm focused on the different presences, one presence enter the outer boundary at a very fast speed, faster than any human can move. I guess that it might be the bus and I quickly flip over my wrist to check the time, to see that this should be around the time that the bus arrives.

  As I get up the air around me seems to shimmer but before I can focus on that a blue bus screeches to a stop next to the bus stop and I move towards the door of the bus but I stop. Something was wrong, I could feel it. I warily looked around trying to found out where the feeling was coming from. As I tried to look through the windows of the bus, I realised that there wasn't anyone inside. I tried to sense where the presence that I sensed earlier went, but I don't find anything.

  That doesn't make any sense though, I know that I sensed him just now. I tried again, only to find that it isn't just the bus driver but all the people who were in the buildings around me aren't there anymore. What's going on? I expand my sense further to the outer limits of the borough, but still no-one, which is weird as there should be many people around, especially given the current time.

  I turn towards the bike rack to grab my bicycle but it's no longer on the rack. Darn it. Maybe I can find some information about what's going on by going to library or the local church, they might have books on whatever is going on.

  I turn around and cross the street still feeling very wary and as I make my way to the opposite side of the street, I feel a shiver going down my spine, as if someone watching me, but I don't sense around so I there shouldn't be anyone watching me, at I hope so.

  I weaved my way to the right and got to the corner of the street, and I sneakily looked around the corner and instead of the church, I saw a mass of cars stacked where it should be instead. The cars were on fire, with what appeared to be a small moat of lava encircling the mass of cars.

  Where's the church? It should be right there. I lookedaround the street and saw that it was clear and I got up from the corner and I decided to book it down the opposite end of street towards the direction of the library, as I was now desperate for a chance at getting out of here.

  Krathoom!

  The pile of cars explode upwards and the cars start to rain down on the street and one of the flaming cars was headed to where I was standing and I push with all the strength that my legs could muster as I jumped aside. I could feel the heat radiating from the car narrowly pass me by as it crashed onto the ground where I was just standing.

  I sighed in relief and quickly got up, looking back at where the cars had been, now only a smoldering fire in their place. This place seems to be quite dangerous. I'm going to need to be careful if I want to get out of here alive.

  I got up and turned towards the direction of the library. Hopefully I can find a way out of here. I took a deep breath and startef making my way to the library.