• I woke up to find myself in a dark, stone room. I was leaning against a cold wall and I could see my breath as I exhaled.My lips were dry and my head hurt horribly.
    The only light in the room came from a torch burning on the wall, casting flickering shadows across the face of a boy who looked my age leaning leisurly against the wall directly across from me. A hawk perched on the boy's shoulder, feathers puffed as it napped happily. The boy sat with his arm on his knee, examining the fingernails of his left hand. He wore all black. His long-sleeved shirt was torn at the hem and his pants and boots were dusty. He had sandy-blonde hair that came to his eyes and only just passed the tips of his ears.
    As I looked him over I could somehow tell he knew I was awake and was trying not to look up at me. He let out a quiet sigh and I watched his breath hang in the air for a second, then disappear. It was then that I wondered why I wasn't cold.I looked down to find a long black cloak draped across me. It was pobably the boy's. He must be freezing, I thought. I took a look around the room. There were no windows and I didn't see any doors.I wondered how we had gotten in, wherever it was we were. I heard wings fluttering and turned my head to see the hawk land on my shoulder. I sceramed and recoiled from it.The hawk inched closer to me and rubbed its head against my cheek, crooning happily.I cautiously went to pet it. It's feathers were soft as I stoked them. I ran the outside of my finger against it's chest, then went to run my fingers over it's head again. It let our a piercing cry and once again I recoiled while shutting my eyes tightly. I was somewhat deaf in my right ear now because it was so loud.
    The boy chuckled. I looked over at him to find him looking at me.
    "She likes you." he said smiling. His voice wasn't that deep, but it was warm and pleasant to listen to. Even though he had only said a few words, I wanted him to say more. I sat up straighter to get more comfortable and the cloak slipped off my shoulders.I pulled my legs close to me and leaned on my left arm. It was sore, but it felt good to streach it some. I noticed the boy had blue eyes. For a second, I felt like I knew him my whole life, but how can that be possible?
    It was his turn to look me over.I was wearing my black jeans and my teal spagetti strap. I usually used it as an undershirt, but it could be used as a normal spagetty strap. The jeans were a little loose on me so I wore a black leather belt.I liked pants that were tight around my hips, I didn't know why. I was barefoot. I had straight brown hair that came four inches past my shoulders and I had Hazel green eyes that would change to different shades of blue-green depending on what I wore or how I felt. I knew by looking in the mirror so often that anyone could tell I didn't smile much because my lips were small and close together, they didn't have any particular shape to them, but when I did smile, the corners of my mouth turned up.
    I nervously watched him examine me. I tried to take my mind off it by taking up petting the hawk again. He noticed this and smiled. We sat in silence for a while, then the boy whistled and the hawk flew over to him and landed on his outstreached arm. He took out a piece of paper and wrote somthing on it, rolled it up, then attached it to the hawk's foot where a small message carrier was. I hadn't noticed it before. He sent the hawk back over to me. It landed on my shoulder and stuck its leg out for me to take the message. I looked at the boy, confused to why he wasn't talking to me directly, but took the message from the small message carrier anyway. I unrolled it and read it.
    Do you remember anything? it read. I looked up at the boy, confused. Apparently I had just answered his question because he looked away and mutterd 'great'. I started to search for a way to write something down, thinking he didn't want to talk out loud for a good reason, when something flew at me. I ducked. It just nearly missed my head. I looked up at the boy to see him looking apologetic. I could tell he hadn't meant to go for my head.I looked on the floor where a pencil lie and picked it up, and then I jotted down: Am I suposed to remember something? Why aren't we takling out loud?
    I rolled the note up, put it in the message carrier and sent the hawk back over to the boy. He read it, motioned for me to give him the pencil, then wrote his reply and sent the hawk to me.
    They're obove us, listening. The boy hadn't answered my first question. He sent the pencil my way again and I caught it, surprisingly.
    Who are 'they'? I wrote down after looking up at the ceiling to find a small stone grate open a little. A very small amount of light snuck through it. Then I wrote down, Why and how did we get down here? I sent the hawk with the note and the pencil to the boy who read the note then replied to mine. I read his reply. Try to remember. Better yet, what do you last rember? I sat for a while thinking. What was my last memory? I was walking in the woods when I heard something close by. I stopped, and then creatures jumped out of the bushes and came for me. Then I remeber running like hell to get away. Then I think I ran into a tree or something hard and I blacked out. I wrote this down and sent it to the boy.
    His reply: What events happened before this?
    My reply: I was followed home by a group of guys from my school. They kept their distance though. They didn't do anything, just kind of followed me. I see them around school a lot . I'm on spring break right?
    His reply: Yes, for two and a half weeks. Do you know why those guys were following you?
    My reply: No. Can you tell me?
    His reply: It's not that easy. Do you know who I am?
    Mine: I feel like I do, but I don't think so.
    His: You're a book worm right? What do you know about magic?
    I looked up suspiciously at the boy. How did he know I liked to read? And about magic stuff like fairies, dragons, and witches? I wrote down what I knew and sent the message back to him, still suspicious.He asked me in the next note if I thought magic was real. I said that I wish it was. He smiled when he read it and I wondered why.
    We stopped our note passing and sat for what felf like forever, I daydreamed to get my mind off of things. for instance, how the boy kept staring at me. I imagined that I was alone in my room listening to my music or playing with my cat. She hadn't shown up for the past few days and I was worried. But I had worse things to worry about. How did I get in here? Who was the boy? Why was he studying me so much? Why did he seem so familiar? All questions I couldn't answer. I was good at coming up with those kind of questions. I avoided the boy's gaze. After a while, I got fed up with the quietness and I called the boy's hawk over to me. Surprisingly it came and perched on my shoulders.The boy looked at me incredulously. Is it safe to talk aloud now? I hurriedly scribbled down on a piece of paper. I was getting ready to send it to the boy when he said
    "Huh! Well that's a first." He just answered my question so I replyied aloud and forgot about the note.
    "What's a first?" I asked.
    "Feara never responds to anyone but me." I just sat there. The boy called his hawk over to him by forming a fist and putting his arm out. Feara, the hawk, flew to him.
    "She has a pretty name." I commented. "Speaking of names, what's yours?" I asked casually. He waited a moment, not sure weather to answer me or not. Finally re replied.
    "My name is Aarrow. I already know yours, Sam." I was taken aback when he said my name. How did he know so much about me? We were silent again. I grew cold and pulled the cloak that had been on me before close around my shoulders. I leaned my head against the wall, closed my eyes and fell into a light sleep. I think I had been asleep for half an hour when I heard grating stone. I shot awake and looked around. The slit of light in the ceiling had grown to a wide rectangle big enough for a grown man to fit through with a foot or so on either side. A rope descended from it and a boy Aarrows's height crwled his way down it. His back was turned and I couldn't see his face, but he had visible muscles and shoulder length black, curly hair. He wore all black and a sword hung from his belt. I stood up quickly in fear when I saw it and backed away from the boy. Aarrow moved to get up to defend himself, and possibly me, but yelped in pain and grabbed for his right leg.
    "It's no use, Aarrow, I broke your leg." The boy spoke as two more boys slid down the rope.They all turned around to face their prisoners, for that is what I'm sure we were. When I saw the face of the boy who had come down first, everything came back to me.