Chapter Five

      It was the next day. My friends and I were hanging around the small park near our neighborhood. Jash kicked at one of the pebbles at his feet. Despite the fact that he appeared normal physically, the irritating boy seemed to be quite subdued. The image of him looking at his egg, his bangs masking his face's ex
pression reappeared in my mind. He had just been so strange yesterday after receiving the egg.

     The moments after we had taken the eggs were still fresh in my mind. We had departed to our separate households rapidly, not wanting to anger our parents for narrowly missing dinner. Nero, Lila, and I had spoken excitedly about our eggs then, while Jash strode alongside us with a strange air surrounding him. I had expected him to be cracking jokes or complaining about how we had spent hours in that forest. Yet he never spoke and whenever we attempted conversation with him, he would barely respond with a simple grunt.

      "What's up with you?" I asked him. "You haven't been normal since yesterday. Sure, you're not injured, but you are not as talkative as usual."

      Jash lifted his head and glared at me with piercing brown eyes. "Are you trying to insult me by saying I'm talkative?"

     I stumbled a bit over my words as I replied,"N-No, I didn't-"

       Jash almost immediately cut me off. "You know what I think?" he asked fiercely in a low voice. "You insult me because you think I deserve the insult of being a blabbermouth more than you." Jash paused in his rant, then continued,"This whole world deserves to burn right now." Baring his teeth in an animalistic fashion and letting his hair fall about his face wildly, the odd teenager strode away with his chin lifted in a defiant way.

(Not finished yet.)