Was it a dream?

Was it a nightmare?

It can't have been real. Could it?

These thoughts raced through Kyle's mind from the moment he woke up and all the way through the rest of the morning. His parents had tried talking to him but his thoughts prevented him from really having what most people would call a conversation.

He was distracted all through his classes and not even Zach could pull him out of his haze.

He'd been going over everything that had happened the night before, trying to pick out anything that could act as an explanation. Obviously, he'd failed every time.

There was only one thing for him to do and that was to track down the group that he'd shared the experience with, and see if they'd come up with anything.

The first person he spotted, surprisingly, was Jess. She was either feeling a lot better about whatever had kept her absent, or just as desperate for an explanation as he was.

"Hey Jess!" He called out to her as she slowly descended the stairs with a few of her friends. "I need to talk to you" He told her, ignoring the icy stare that she was giving him. Meanwhile the stares from Jess' friends were just purely out of confusion. They'd probably never seen the two of them together before.

"Go ahead, I'll catch up" Jess reluctantly nodded to her friends, telling them to save her a seat at their lunch table before they were out of earshot.

Now, huddled together in the corner of the half-landing of the stairwell, the two could talk.

"What the hell happened last night?" Jess whispered, giving a big indicator as to her return.

"I don't know, but I couldn't sleep worth a damn. I kept thinking about it" Kyle sighed.

"Is Oscar ok?" She asked. Whatever you thought of Jess, you couldn't deny her compassion for dogs.

"Yeah I think so. He was a little jumpy for a bit but now it's like nothing ever happened"

Typical dog.

"It was probably just our imagination" Jess conceded. "I mean we were in the forest at night. And you know what this town is like these days. Paranoia is contagious" She rolled her eyes. The amount of times someone had said that recently was scary.

It was also true.

"You know you still haven't told me why you were out there" Kyle reminded her.

"I know" She shrugged, stopping that particular conversation in its tracks. Not to be deterred, Kyle continued.

"Well it's a pretty strange thing to do, you know. Considering"

"Considering?" Jess laughed. "You accusing me of something, Kyle? Because you were the one following me, remember?"

"Can we get over it please? I was worried about you, ok"

"Why?"

"Because we've all got to worry about each other around here" Kyle hissed angrily. He hated to be like everybody else but he knew it was true.

"Whatever. I'm fine, you're fine and so how about we just pretend it didn't happen? Katie said her friends were hanging out there. It was probably just them playing a joke on us. They're all probably sitting around laughing at us right now" Jess clicked her tongue at the embarrassment of it all.

"Yeah" Kyle, though uncertain, nodded. "Yeah you're probably right".

Just then, Katie appeared between them.

"Probably wrong, actually" She smiled triumphantly.

"Where did you come from?" Kyle asked.

"Spanish?" She shrugged.

"What do you mean by probably wrong?" Jess asked, ignoring her smart-ass retort.

"I texted everybody last night and if they did do it, they're denying it. They wish they could take the credit for it but they were just as scared as I was when you guys came along. The only difference is that they got away. So we need a new theory" Katie said as a frustrated sigh crept into her voice.

"I'm still sticking with imagination. It has to be!" Kyle stated before a confused expression creased across his face. He'd just noticed that Katie was wearing the exact same outfit as the night before, her light jeans and denim jacket showing visible creases.

"We all know that wasn't just our imagination" Katie either ignored his observation or simply didn't notice.

"Well then what are you saying?" Jess argued. Her usual smiling face was now filled with a similar terror to when they'd encountered the strange being. "This . . . thing can't be real. Can it?"

For the longest time, no one said a word. The three kids were being passed by hundreds of others on their way to their lunch break but for them, in this moment, they were the only three people in the world.

Finally Katie sighed and spoke again.

"You know what we have to do, right?" She asked them both.

"Ugh" Jess threw her hands in the air and half-turned away.

Looking back and forth between the two girls, Kyle caught on to their wavelength.

"I don't like it either. But it's the only way we're gonna get to the bottom of this.

*

Just like every other day, Matt Maguire was sitting on the waist high, stone wall that surrounded the school grounds. Although many people used this physical perimeter for lunch and other activities, Matt had recently discovered that the furthest away corner seemed to be a no fly zone for the flocks of students. This was exactly what he wanted. Peace.

His only company was the small, grey pigeon that had landed next to him and looked at him from what seemed like a million different angles.

Finally, Matt relented and threw a small part of his sandwich to the bird.

"There you go" He whispered to it. "Just don't bring any of your friends along. I gotta eat too, you know?"

Halfway through its surprise snack, the pigeon, startled, flew away and was replaced by Kyle Brennan.

"You scared the bird!" Matt scolded him.

"We need to talk" Kyle said ignoring his telling off as he took the birds place on the wall.

"Please, sit down" Matt sighed.

"We need to talk about last night" Kyle once again ignored the increasingly frustrated Matt. "I spoke to Jess and Katie and they're both majorly freaked out.

Matt knew that Kyle was also majorly freaked out but he decided not to force the issue.

"So? What do you want me to do about it? You already said that it wasn't real" He shrugged.

"Can you just listen?" Kyle moaned. "The three of us are going to be in the library after school. Meet us there" He told him, before hopping down and making his way back inside.

"Is that where all the cool kids hang out now?" Matt called.

Kyle kept walking, but still managed to flip Matt off as he walked.

*

Matt wasn't even sure that he wanted to go and meet the others.

Although his mom was always saying it would be great if he made some friends, he somehow doubted that this would count.

What swayed him in the end though, was that someone wanted something from him; and not just to beat him up for a change either. He could actually be helpful.

So with his full backpack on his shoulder, Matt power-walked into the library, smiling at the elderly librarian as he did so. He spent a lot of time here, and when most people looked at him nowadays, they only saw his brother, but not her. He spotted Kyle and the girls in the farthest corner of the room, tucked in behind the politics section of the library.

"You guys couldn't have picked a more obvious hiding spot" He laughed as he approached them.

"None of us really want to be here so let's just get it over with. What do you know about last night?" Katie hurriedly asked.

"I already told you what I think but you guys shot me down" He reminded them.

"Well now we're listening" Jess smiled, cutting Kyle off from inevitably going into another rant about something.

"Ok fine" Matt acquiesced. "What do you wanna know?"

"Tell us exactly what you think we saw last night" Jess told him, looking around again to make sure that no one saw them.

Matt deeply exhaled, looking at his three partners for any hint of a joke in their expressions, but was met only with seriousness and curiosity.

"Well I think it was the Falls Peak Beast" He shrugged, not really knowing what else he was expected to say.

"But why? What makes you think that?" Kyle asked.

"Because I've been trying to track it. I've been going out there every night and leaving stuff for it, and the next night it's been moved. That's how I ended up there."

"What kind of stuff?" Asked Jess.

"You know . . . food and stuff. Rocks . . . stuff that monsters would like" Matt shrugged. He'd never said that out loud before and he'd no idea that it would sound so ridiculous.

"Well that could be anything right? Moving them, I mean" Katie snorted.

"You don't understand" Matt shook his head, trying to think of an easier way to explain it. "They're moved to places that they shouldn't be able to get to. Up in trees or in some bushes several hundred yards away. I'm finding leftovers all over the place. No person or animal would do that".

"But that's all you've got?" Kyle asked, incredulous.

"You guys saw the eyes, right? They were glowing red!" Matt cried, receiving a "Sssshhh" from someone else in the library that they couldn't see.

"That could have been anything! A trick of the light! Our imagination! Hell, even a plane!" Kyle argued.

"Here's what I don't understand" Jess said, raising her hands as if to hold the boys back from attacking each other. "If this thing really was the beast, then why didn't it attack us?"

"Probably 'cause Ace Ventura here was feeding it" Katie quipped. The others laughed along with her, but Matt remained completely serious.

"There have been tonnes of cases reported of sightings where it's just watched people. It's actually been a while since someone reported to getting hurt by it. Some people even say that it's – "

"A protector" Kyle finished for him, remembering his own research.

"Exactly" Matt agreed, stunned that Kyle knew even that small piece of information.

"Well since you've been leading this thing towards town, you better hope that it's only going to sit and watch" Katie warned Matt. "Because if this thing is real and you're wrong and it's really a killing machine . . . sorry. Wrong choice of words" She winced at seeing the monster hunter jump at the "K word".

"It's ok" He whispered, though it definitely affected him. "And I'm not leading it into town. Can you imagine what people would do?"

"Shit themselves" Katie quickly replied again.

"They'd lose their minds" Jess added, sounding a lot more worried than Katie appeared to be. "They'd go after it and probably kill it".

"And that's the last thing I want" Matt interjected. "This is a part of nature. I'd never forgive myself if I led it to its death".

"So what exactly are you trying to do?" Kyle asked.

"I just want to bring it a little closer. Get what I want and then lead it back deeper into the forest. Normally I make a marking of where I got to but because you guys showed up, I didn't get a chance to last night. So tonight I'm gonna try and go back to see where it went afterwards" Matt assured them, but he wasn't sure why he felt he needed to. He still didn't think they believed him.

"You can't go back out there" Jess told him, contradicting his thoughts.

"Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Kyle laughed. "That thing could have killed us. If it wasn't for us, you would be toast".

"Don't pretend to care about me. I've been fine on my own in those woods for months now. I'll be fine" Matt told them before getting up from his chair and stepping away.

"You're going now?" Katie snorted.

"Yeah" He shrugged. "I want to find where we were before it gets too dark. Do you guys want to come?" He joked to himself. There was no way they'd come.

As he suspected, no one said a word, allowing him to leave the library unchallenged, waving goodbye to Mrs. Reynolds before going through the door.

*

Matt had only been gone for a few seconds before Jess, sharing glances with her neighbour and the distracted-looking girl, finally spoke up.

"We can't let him go back out there on his own . . . can we?"

Judging by the expressions on their pale faces, the answer to her question was clear.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 5 is here!

Do you think any of the kids have the right ideas on what they saw? And is going back into the forest straight away a good idea?

This chapter lets us see a lot more of Katie, who was also created at the same time as Kyle and Jess. Back then, she developed into my favourite character because of her sarcastic nature and seemingly endless pop culture references. This time around, I've kept that but made her a much more mysterious character. I hope you like her!

Hopefully the next chapter wont be long but until then, any votes and comments would be wonderful.

Thanks guys!