Traveler - Chapter 1

The Beginning of Kallin's Involvement
         Chapter One

         Hanging up the phone, Kallin gave up trying to find company for the weekend. He tried every one of his friends but this holiday weekend only found everyone out of town. Even his best friend Geoff, who practically lived at Kallin's home, was away for the day visiting extended family. Abandoning hope for any sort of socializing, Kallin turned on the television in his living room. Because Kallin's mother always worked late on weekends, even she wouldn't even be home for a few more hours.
         Quickly becoming annoyed with the solitude and silence, despite the television, Kallin retreated to his bedroom. Remembering another friend he forgot to call earlier, he made his attempt.
         The phone rang and quickly, someone picked it up.
         "Yeah, what do you want?" Came the girl's voice from the other line.
         "First of all, I want you to get your butt over to my house and entertain me." Kallin said, joking with his friend. "Second, I want you to get rid of your caller ID. I can't ever prank call you anymore."
         "Well, I'm glad you at least value the fact that I am entertaining."
         "No, it's not that. I'm just that bored," Kallin responded.
         "Well, it's good to talk to you too Kallin," the girl said, trying hard to sound irritated over her laughing.
         "You know you love talking to me Megan," Kallin said laughing.
         "Occasionally I do," Megan said.
         "There is nobody at my house and I need entertainment," Kallin almost ordered Megan.
         "There's nobody at your house?" Megan asked surprised. "There's ALWAYS people at your house!"
         "Today breaks that always streak."
         "No party? No wild games? No jumping on the furniture? Nothing?" Megan sounded shocked as she asked her questions.
         "Right, Nothing." Kallin told her with a sad sound in his voice.
         "That's gotta be depressing dude. A weekend at your house and no party. That, like, never happens."
         "So, you'll help me out then?" Kallin asked.
         "No can do tonight," Megan told him. "I'm busy with a project in Mrs. Ingle's class and it bites. It's due Monday and I just barely started."
         "You're almost as bad of a procrastinator as I am!" Kallin exclaimed. "Though you'll need more practice if you want to be as good as me, so you should put it off until Sunday night."
         "Your support in my academic endeavors is heartwarming," Meagan said nonchalantly, "But I must decline. I have too much to do and I'm going to take a shot at being at least semi-responsible."
         "I have ice-cream," Kallin told her teasingly.
         After a long pause, Megan responded excitedly, "I'll be there first thing tomorrow morning!"
         "I guess that's as good as we're gonna get?" Kallin asked.
         "Yes."
         "See you tomorrow morning then."
         "Yeah, I'll see ya. And the ice-cream better not be gone when I get there,"
         "No problem there," Kallin said. "There's nobody here to eat it anyways."
         "Awesome! Sorry I can't defeat your evil monster of boredom for you, but I gotta get back to work on my English project."
         "Alright. Fine. Leave me to suffer alone in this horrible silence and solitude that is sure to..." Kallin stopped when he heard the dial tone on his phone. He smiled and laughed as he hung the phone up.
         Kallin let out a sigh of defeat as he threw himself flat on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The setting sun shown brilliantly through his window and the light bounced off his walls creating a restful ambiance. Kallin didn't want a restful setting. He wanted to be able to talk to his friends as he hosted another killer party at his house and created a disaster from their hyperactive fun.
         Frustrated about the lack of company, Kallin resorted to another regular pastime. He pulled a three-foot square box out of his closet and began pulling out the contents. His mother gave him this box some time ago at Kallin's request. From this box, Kallin pulled out several items that held a lot of sentiment for him. Every item once belonged to his father before he disappeared. A few large books came out of the box that seemed to be the victims of much of his Father's devotion. His dad was fanatical about books. He was constantly writing and reading. One of the books was a half filled journal. Kallin read the journal through before and found it strange how he stopped writing in it after meeting a person by the name of Zhal. After the entry of this meeting where this Zhal apparently asked his dad to run an unspecified errand for him, there was nothing more written. Up to this point, his dad had not missed a single day. Three years later, Kallin's Dad met his Mom and Kallin came along a year and a half after that. When Kallin was only five years old, his Dad disappeared. In later years, His mother told him about a car wreck that killed his father. Being too young to remember clearly, Kallin just accepted his mother's word with some feelings of doubt.
         Kallin pulled several other items out of the box, mostly photos of his Dad and himself as a small child. Only vaguely could Kallin remember anything and these photos seemed to create almost artificial memories that satisfied his sentimental hunger only slightly. Looking at the photos, Kallin saw that he did slightly resemble his father, even at seventeen. He had the same unkempt brownish-blond hair and deep green eyes. He obviously inherited his father's metabolism as they were both built very thin. In spite of any amount of weight lifting and exercise, Kallin could not make himself appear any bigger. Although he was toned, it didn't show.
         Underneath the photos and a few other odds and ends, at the bottom of the box was a smaller wood box. The box was about a foot or so in length and five inches wide. Its hinged lid was held tightly shut by a padlock on one side of it. The strange thing about this padlock is that it had no dial to spin a combination of numbers to unlock and no key hole. There was no visible way to open the lock. In the past, Kallin even tried shaking and twisting the lock in every way imaginable hoping that perhaps it might just be one of those puzzles that are bought at a local game store. Not even tin snips designed for locks such as this would cut it, but just became dulled by the unusually strong device.
         Taking this box and one of the other books his dad had written in, Kallin laid on his bed and set the box on his desk next to the bed. The book Kallin began reading was cryptic. There were many strange words and names that had no ring of familiarity. This book was written similar to his dad's journal except that dates were not written. Cryptic events were transcribed with little detail. The events all seemed to take place far from his home and the things that were talked about echoed with inconsistent lack of clarity. It was almost as if it was a shorthand record for only personal keeping and wasn't meant to be read by others. No matter how many times Kallin read this book, he could not make much sense of it. It seemed to ramble about something called a 'dimensional imp' which was apparently abbreviated to 'demenimp' later on in the book. What intrigued Kallin was this strange thing called a marci-farec and how it was supposed to kill this 'demenimp'. Several names were referenced in this book regularly, such as the names Zhal, Norwell, Wyrnlow, and for some reason a few elements seemed to be used as names, such as Ice, Darkness, Light, Earth, and Air. The book was riddled with strange names and objects and indefinable words that had been researched extensively by Kallin, with hopes of finding out what might have happened to his Father, but yielded no results.
         Kallin jumped as his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Jumping off his bed, he paused. Looking behind him at the window overlooking his cul-de-sac, he swore he thought he saw something move. With the light fading, it could have been simply the small indiscernible movements of the large tree outside his window. Yet, for the past month, he felt slightly uneasy, as if he was being constantly watched and followed. He shrugged the feeling away as the bell rang again.
         Rushing down the stairs in excitement, Kallin opened the door hoping to see one of his friends who actually rang the bell. Most of Kallin's friends were at his house so frequently that they would just walk in without knocking and would sometimes be chastised in jest for knocking or ringing the bell. His excitement was drowned as he saw only a pizza delivery man.
         "Hey Kallin," the man greeted, "Here's your regular weekend pizza."
         "Thanks," Was the only reply Kallin gave. His mother usually ordered a couple pizzas for him and his friends on weekends so this particular delivery man became a familiar sight.
         "What's the matter? You're not your usual chipper self."
         Kallin shrugged and pulled out money for a tip. "It's quiet here," The delivery man said. "You here alone?"
         Again Kallin shrugged and said with false hope, "Yeah, for now. Hopefully my friends will be over later tonight."
         "Hey man, if I had two meat pizzas all to myself, I'd be lovin' life as I chilled in front of some classic action movies," The man told Kallin. "Enjoy the peace while you can."
         Obviously, his mother didn't know that Kallin would be alone this weekend and habitually ordered the usual pizzas. Perhaps they would give him a good breakfast in the morning.
         Turning the television back on, Kallin set the pizzas on the small coffee table in front of one of the living room couches. As he did so, he heard a strange noise echo through the house as if a wrecking ball had splintered a large amount of wood. Hearing the sound come from upstairs, Kallin walked cautiously to the source. Several loud thumping noises above his head caused him to hesitate moving. After the sound stopped, Kallin proceeded up the stairs to his bedroom, now very nervous and hoping that all he heard was a tree branch falling onto the roof of his house. As he approached his closed bedroom door, he felt his heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. The floorboards behind the door creaked audibly giving away the presence of someone inside his room. Kallin held his breath and put his ear to the door to listen closer.
         Without warning, Kallin was thrown against the wall opposite across from his bedroom. The door broke in half in a shower of splinters, the bottom half hitting Kallin hard in the gut. With a groan, Kallin dropped to one knee only to feel something very large and hairy hit him in the side of the head with tremendous force. The blow knocked Kallin several feet to the side, causing him to land halfway down the stairwell. He felt the impact of each step as he unwillingly slid down the rest of the stairs. Slightly dazed, hurting, and in a complete panic, Kallin scrambled backwards from the stairs and stopped as his back contacted with one of his living room couches. He rested his hand against the side of his head where he had been hit and felt dampness. Looking at his hand, his fear heightened as he stared at the blood from his own head.
         Finally getting a chance to look at his assailant, he began begging himself to wake up from this nightmare. Clinging to the wall of the staircase much like a spider, was not what Kallin expected to see. The creature before him seemed to be built like a champion weight lifter of a man, but was covered in long course hair from head to toe. It's clawed fingers and toes dug deep into the walls with a very firm grasp making the creature appear to be walking comfortably on the now shredded wall. As the beast continued its slow advance towards Kallin, the frightened boy was able to see the face clearly. A baboon-like seemed to smirk at Kallin, revealing rows of sharp, dripping teeth. At the base of the snout, it stared at Kallin through wide solid yellow eyes. Kallin could not stop staring at the monster's frightening eyes as it approached.
         Regaining enough sense to move, Kallin scrambled to his feet and ran towards his front door. The beast ran along the wall towards the door, reacting to Kallin's hurried, and clumsy movement. As Kallin reached for the door, the creature leapt from the wall towards Kallin, sailing just over his head. The sharp claws raked Kallin's back as he tried to duck and he fell to the ground. The monster landed on one of the couches, causing the furniture to slide across the room, creating a large hole in the wall. The creature walked off the couch, tearing the material as it did, and stood on its hind legs upright.
         Kallin, knowing this must be a horrid nightmare, frantically tried to convince himself to wake up before he died. He tried to scream out in hopes that he would be heard, but his vocal cords were paralyzed in fear.
         As the beast stepped towards Kallin, it paused and a cruel smile it held disappeared. It looked around and began audibly sniffing the air in the house as if something was suddenly wrong. Seeing nothing in the room with its bright yellow eyes, the beast settled its gaze on Kallin.
         After the creature took one more step towards Kallin, it let out an ear shattering howl, painfully forcing Kallin to cover his ears. Looking up at the beast, Kallin saw it clutching its side. Between its fingers, and from a large gash where it held itself, a thick black mist floated to the ground. The creature wildly threw its arms around, trying to hit whatever attacked it. In its frenzy, the creature tore through the various objects around it, including the walls themselves.
         Trying to leave before the creature noticed his leaving, Kallin again darted for the door. Before Kallin knew what was going on, the beast lunged again towards Kallin. This time, Kallin was pinned against the wall with the monster's arms wrapped tightly around him. The creature's hot breath reeked as it held its face close to Kallin. He cried out in pain as the sharp claws dug into his arm and back tightening its hold on him trying to crush him.
         The beast let out another hideous shriek and released Kallin. Swinging its arms in a full circle, the beast unwittingly knocked Kallin again to the ground. From the ground, Kallin looked up at the creature to see another larger cut down its backside. This cut also did not bleed, but likewise issued a strange thick black mist.
         Out of the corner of his eye Kallin saw, for an instant, a strange white blur shoot from one side of the living room into the beast sending the creature flying into the other side of the living room's wall. Without putting too much thought into anything, Kallin took this opportunity to move. When he stood up and turned to run, the air shimmered in front of him as if a wave of heat blew past him. As the air wavered, a small black pinprick appeared at about eyelevel. The black spot floated in front of him and Kallin watched the air around it become distorted as if everything was being pulled into this point. The space around this spot turned several shades of blue and swirled together, giving the appearance that it was all being pulled into the center of this continually growing swirl. Once it reached the size of about seven feet in diameter, the swirl stopped growing and maintained a steady circular shape with various shades of blue swirling into the center.
         Despite the moving appearance of the distorted air around this large, floating disc, Kallin felt nothing from it. He stared into the swirling shades of blue, mesmerized by its hypnotic waving patterns.
         Another loud shriek emanated from the creature, this time sounding like a cry of realization and simultaneous desperation. Kallin knew that the thing was after him again. Before he had time to react, Kallin felt something push him forward into the swirling blue mass. He fell forward into the strange swirl, receiving a sensation similar to falling. A force pulled him farther and farther into the blue mass. While it did, it seemed to pull at Kallin from the inside out making him sick to his stomach. His vision grew dark as the sensation continued to grow and he soon lost consciousness.

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