The Zeuorian Awakening
Read The Zeuorian Awakening Online
Authors: Cindy Zablockis
Cindy Zablockis
Published by CZ Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Cindy Zablockis
The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CZ Publishing, LLC
Round Rock, TX 78681
Visit our website at
http://www.czpublishing.com/
First Edition: Sept 2013
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Zeuorian
TM
is a trademark of Cindy Zablockis
Photography ©2013 Igor Balasanov/Vetta Collection/Getty Images
Book and jacket design ©2013 CZ Design Co.
DEDICATION PAGE
For my mother, Lois Zablockis, without your help, I wouldn’t have been able to complete this book.
And for my husband and son, thank you for your understanding and support the past couple of years.
Sometimes learning the truth is worth risking everything even your life.
Lexi had a nagging feeling something bad was about to happen to her, but she never expected this. She lifted her hand from the salt water and blinked several times. Her bones were glowing through her pale color skin.
No, I can’t be glowing. It must be the sunset playing a trick on my eyes.
She stuck her arm into the water. The typical cold Oregon Ocean warmed and bubbled around her. Her glowing bones shined on the coral attached to the massive rock a few feet from her. Every bump, crevice and crack on the surface became visible to her. Even the sea creatures that normally blended with the rock were visible from her glowing arm.
That couldn’t be right. It had to be an illusion.
She plunged her other arm into the water and the light shined brighter on the rock. The temperature of the water warmed even more as large waves formed around her. The waves thrust her body back and forth until she slammed hard against the rock.
A sharp pain radiated from the back of her head and down her spine. Then she felt nothing. Not the gentle breeze brushing across her back. Not the waves lifting and lowering her limp body. Not even her lungs inflating while taking a breath.
Nothing.
Slowly the water faded into darkness, followed by the glow on her skin. The loud roar of the sea transformed into the slow rhythmic beat of her heart. Thump, thump . . . thump, thump . . . thump . . . thu-ump . . . silence.
A seagull squawked, waking Lexi from her sleep. She opened her eyes and looked up at the black sky, dusted with twinkling stars. She moved her aching hand and grains of sand slipped between her fingers.
What happened? Did someone save her?
She sat up and glanced around the dark beach. The sand stretched across the coast to the rocks stacked along the bottom of the cliff. To her right was a dense forest cast in shadow, but no one seemed to be close by.
She must’ve washed ashore after, oh, no. Thoughts of her glowing flooded her mind.
Lowering her head, she searched her body for a single hint of a glow. She scanned her feet and moved up along her legs to the white bikini that hugged her narrow hips and finally ended at her slender arms.
Her skin appeared a neon color green that shined on the sand similar to the glow on a screen after turning off the monitor in a dark room. A sign the glow would burn out soon and she’d be normal again, at least she hoped.
What a relief. She slumped back and rested her palms on the sand. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her body glowing while going home unless someone showed up before her glow disappeared.
She scanned the beach one more time, looking for anyone who could be close enough to see her skin glowing. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the most popular boy in school and to some girls—a God. He brushed a few strands of his jet black hair, dripping wet, off his face while stepping off the rocks in her direction.
No, no, no. Why did Tyler have to walk over to this part of the beach? He was the most talked about person at school. He documented and posted his entire life on the web for the whole world to read. If he saw her glowing, everyone in school would know before midnight about it.
She leaped to her feet and ran into the woods to get away from him. Then she stood behind a tree and checked to see if Tyler had seen her.
He continued to walk across the sand toward the spot she had been lying. A white box swung back and forth in his hand. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t seen her on the beach. She still had a chance to avoid him seeing her glowing.
She spun around and took off into the woods. The woods were darker than she expected, but she refused to let that slow her down. She ran faster, side stepping bushes and low hanging tree limbs until her foot got caught on a rock and she fell on a pile of pine cones. The hard cone shells let out a large cracking noise as she crushed them with her body.
“Who’s there,” Tyler shouted in the distance. “Is that you Lexi?”
Oh, no, he knew she was there.
She sprinted deeper into the woods as he chased after her. The sound of his heavy panting grew louder and louder. Damn, he was gaining on her. No surprise. He was the star quarterback and fast.
She ducked behind a large bush and watched Tyler run passed her. The neon blue trim on his swim trunks dulled the farther her ran until it disappeared. Once his breathing faded into the distance, she sprinted across the highway, dodging cars on the way, and continued to run until she reached her two-story house.
Gripping the door knob, she yanked it to the right and the door opened. She rushed inside, calling to her aunt, “Irene, are you home?”
She stopped near the kitchen door at the foot of the stairs. The white satin cake with seventeen candles sat in the middle of the round wood table. The same place she’d left it before ditching her birthday party Irene threw against her wishes.
Next to the cake she noticed a half-empty cup of coffee and a newspaper open to the local news section. Irene must’ve waited for her to come home and eventually gave up and retreated upstairs, Lexi assumed.
She rushed up the stairs toward the tiny hall barely lit by a low watt bulb while calling out, “Irene, where are you?” But when she reached the top of the stairs, the three bedrooms were dark and a note was stuck to bathroom door.
“Lexi, I went to the hospital,” Irene wrote. “One of the doctors in the ER got sick and I had to take their shift. There’s a frozen dinner in the freezer for you.”
Great. Irene won’t be back until after 7 A.M.
Lexi rubbed the back of her head, throbbing from her hitting it on the rock. When she glanced at the palm of her hand, blood and sand covered it. Damn, she better take care of her wound before it got infected.
She walked into the bathroom and flipped the light switch to check the back of her head. When her eyes caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, her mouth went dry and a tiny gurgling noise escaped her lips.
What happened?
She pressed her body against the sink to get a better view of herself. Her freckles had washed away. Her strawberry-blond hair had darkened into a beautiful auburn color, accentuating her emerald-green eyes and her boyish figure had filled out in all the right places. She looked like a totally different person from the one she had been a few hours ago.
This was strange even for her. She was born with the abilities to read others minds and receive premonitions or rather gut feelings when she sensed danger. From what she read on the web, those abilities were, well, not too out of ordinary compared to transforming. That was something straight out of a comic book or a movie.
The phone rang and Lexi knew instantly who it could be, Angie, her best friend, probably calling to discuss their class schedules. Oh, no. She forgot. School started tomorrow.
This was off the chart, end of the world bad. Tyler had been throwing a party at his beach house when she walked by. She couldn’t recall anyone seeing her other than Tyler. If she went to school, he would know she had transformed overnight, unless he already knew. She bit her lower lip.
He could’ve seen her glowing on the beach before she ran and saw her new appearance? That would explain how he guessed it was her in the woods. Or Worse. What if he saved her from drowning and came back after grabbing a first aid kit to tend to her wound.
He did have a white box in his hand, similar to a store bought first aid kit. If he had saved her, then he would’ve seen her body glowing as well as her new appearance up close.
But would he tell anyone?
He was known to keep secrets, playing the attractive, mysterious boy to all the girls, but even he couldn’t resist sharing this juicy information with his teammates and probably on his Facebook page. No not Facebook. Anyone could read the posting on his personal page without being one of his friends.
Lexi cringed. There was only one way to know if he told anyone.
She ran out of the bathroom to her bedroom and over to her computer desk under the tiny window. It took several minutes for the computer to boot up before she could log on to Facebook. She typed into the search box, “Tyler Moore.” His personal page appeared on the screen. There were over fifty messages posted on his page within the last twenty minutes.
How could there be so many messages already?
She scrolled down the page to the first message he received from a boy named Steve and read, “Dude where did you go? You missed Amber’s bikini top falling off in the pool.”
“I don’t think Tyler’s back yet,” a boy named Neal replied.
She scanned over the rest of the messages and there weren’t a single reply from Tyler, but he could post a message later or talk to someone in person about her glowing and changing.
When that happened would the person he told be cool about it like Angie had when she discovered what she could do or would they freak out like the man who had tried to kill her when she was fourteen years old.
An hour later Lexi placed her cell phone on the dresser next to a photo of Angie holding a brand new Gucci backpack. Then she grabbed a worn camisole from a drawer and pulled it on. The fabric stretched over her newly curved chest until the seam split open under her arm.
Great. Lexi checked if the seam could be repaired, but to her dismay it couldn’t.
She picked up her cell phone and continued her conversation with Angie. “I think I need to buy new clothes.”
“Really?” Angie said with a hint of surprise to her voice. “You’re actually going to buy clothes?”
“I bought clothes before.” Lexi said, a hint of defensiveness to her voice.
“Yeah right, says the girl who wears her mother’s hand me downs.” Angie scoffed. “But if you’re serious about going shopping, we can go after school tomorrow. I already know the perfect places to—”
“Don’t get too excited.” Lexi stopped Angie before she planned out their shopping trip. “I’m not going to school. I, uh-hum,” she cleared her throat, “brace yourself Ang. Something strange happened to me today when I went swimming in the ocean. My body lit up like a light bulb and I changed afterwards.”