• Veran Mill High School was a dreadful place. The tall, fainted red with hints of an aged brown building with its concrete slabs of a roof, stained and moss-encrusted, tinted windows, and long, twisted, rusted, and smoke-ridden cafeteria chimneys created an image and atmosphere that, when combined with the constant gray and gloomy cloudy sky constantly above the entire area, could make even the most cheeriest of people feel like a gray cloud has been cast over them.

    And this was where an unfortunate many had to go for an education that may or may not come in handy later on in life. The most the students at Veran Mill will even hope to learn is what an atom is, the names of the planets in 2010, or how to work with graphs.

    Kiara was one of the many hundreds of students at Veran Mill that merely blended into the crowd. This 15-year-old, black-haired, slightly darkened skin toned, girl was not one to stand out of a crowd. Even when she had pink streaks in her hair and some gold streaks, she didn't seem to get any attention.

    This was her "hundred-and-something" day as a sophomore at the high school and still she only had one friend. Glork, as he was commonly called because of his uncanny ability to be a cross between a "Geek" and a "Dork". As much as Kiara had despised him since she first met him, he understood her and Kiara could tolerate him. It was a slow friendship, but they managed to stay as friends.

    Today seemed strangely odd, though. As she walked down the halls of the bleak-streaked hallways with rusted lockers and burst light sockets. The windows to her left were rattling and the sky was oddly darker, gloomier, and more cloud-filled than usual. The green and orange-tinted leaves of the surrounding trees were swirling in micro-cyclones and the atmosphere was unusually heavy. All the students seemed to have left the entire building, leaving, seemingly, only Kiara by herself, walking down a hallway with a backpack full of school stuff and inventions that she had stashed during the school year.
    Kiara may not have looked like it but she had a great mind. She constantly drew complicated sketches and schematics that she invented for daily living. They never truly worked. Her Mentos&Diet Soda Grappling Hook was too weak, her Binocular/Glasses were to simple, and her Mini-Dynamite Explosive kit - strangely enough - kept exploding in her face whenever she didn't want it to. This is why she had to have color in her hair: The explosions constantly spread a white powder in her hair that was slowly turning part of her hair snow-white.
    When Kiara walked out the door at the end of the hallway at the back of the school, she stumbled over a large rod that was on the steps. Her face missed the concrete, uneven steps as her back - and her backpack - finally stopped on the soft, leaf-ridden, and water-soaked ground.

    She looked up, picking scruff and debris out of her hair, and saw a large white stone slab. It was almost perfectly rectangular except the top-right corner had a large piece. There was an inscription on the very bottom of the slab that was written in a very fine print that was almost computer-like. But that didn't grab her attention. What she was astounded by was the drawing that took up almost the entire slab. Only the top-right corner of the picture was missing.

    In it, a large, brutish-looking lizard man with large tusks and two horns protruding from its skull was holding a large staff with a point surrounded by 4 smaller points. It was amazingly buff and had scales all over. Its eyes were triangular yet they looked almost like an average person's eyes. It had a large, meaty had that had 2 thumbs and 4 fingers. Its tail was spiked and covered with plates. The legs had horns sticking out of the kneecaps and the belt it wore around its waist had many items in it. Its large chest looked like it held a pair of lungs that could keep it running for thousands of miles. Its head was actually a skull. Its two horns were twisted and demented-looking. Its tusks were the two largest teeth Kiara had ever seen. Its other "regular" teeth were sharp and serrated.
    It was in a large field with fire surrounding the beast. The hills in the back were in flames and the mountains were broken. The houses in the visible villages were smashed and the trees were flattened. In this very desolate scene of destruction and mayhem, a knight clad in a colored armor holding a long bow and a broad shield was facing the monster. The knight's hair was flowing in the wind and its bow was raised at the beast.

    Under the picture, the description read: "When the Yeuray is raised from his slumber and released to the land where the king and his magicians locked him away for eternity, only the Knight of Light can bring a ray of hope to land when the peasants call for h..."

    The description was faded after the "h". Somehow, Kiara felt an odd energy eminating from the stone. All of a sudden, a thunder was rolling down the land. The lightning stroke, stretching across the clouds and lighting up the entire field with enough light to be confused as daylight. An ominous wind was blowing as Kiara's hair was flipping wildly in her face. She wanted to run but her legs were glued to the land.

    "Something was coming", she thought "and I don't think its friendly...."