The uncanny life of Katherine Darke


Prologue

“Katherine! Where are you?!” My mother screamed. There was fire and billowing black smoke everywhere. The town was a disaster. My father was lying on the floor, motionless. I was breathing hard, my breath coming in rasps. “Katherine!!” My mother yelled again. “I’m down here!” I wheezed. Up to this day I still don’t know what happened to them. After I called to her, Sir Gabriel Drake, my fiancé, grabbed me from behind, and dragged me away. “You moron! They’re goners! We have to get at least get one person of the royal family! If we don’t, the royal line will be lost!” He shoved me out of the palace, and we tumbled down the steps. “Don’t look back!” He yelled. We raced toward the edge of the trees. The spaceship was waiting for us in the clearing. He pushed me inside. I whirled around to get one last glimpse of my once beautiful home. There was so many flames. It was tragic. The door closed and the spaceship lurched up and away from my home planet, Aflaorel. I was only eight years old when it happened. And I can still hear the wailing voices of the people inside of my home that was being torn down by flames.

Chapter 1

The sun was shining brilliantly down into the school on Earth. Yes Earth, you space doughnut. We moved. To Earth. After my home planet, Aflaorel, got destroyed, Gabriel Drake and I got away. We came to the planet called Earth. We wandered around until we came to a place that I liked. The U.S. , Georgia. Since I’m sixteen years-old and Gabriel is eighteen, he got a job at a pastry shop while I went to school. Back to what I was saying. The nervous teacher said, “Um… class, we have a …urm…. New exchange student. Katherine Darke…” “From what planet?” Someone said. chuckles filled the classroom. “For your information, I’m from the planet called, Aflaorel. And who are you speaking like that to a princess?” I said, agitated. “Freak.” That’s it. I stomped up to his desk and kicked him so hard in his chin that he did a five-flip backward into some students and chairs. Hm, that was better than last week, I thought. I bet you want to know what in the world are they talking about. Well, I’m not what you would call human. I’m a furrey. Half human, half animal. In my case, a cat. I have beautiful violet fur. My hair is a fiery bright red. And, I have long black shiny claws on each finger and toe. My eyes have, I guess, an eerie yellow glow to them. But my ears and tail are awesome! Gabriel is half human, half wolf. He has jet black fur and red, eerie glowing eyes. His hair is sapphire blue. Ug, I hate him! As you can probably guess, (and if you can’t, you’re stupid.) cats and dogs hate each other, naturally. Anyway, all of the kids where gasping and gawking at him. I got up and in his face, ”Don’t mess with me.” I turned around and went to my seat. The rest of the day went downhill from there. I went to the office on my first day of school, Gabriel had to work late so I had to walk all the way home, and the kid I kicked came back with his buds. Let’s just say that, they had to go to the hospital. When I got home Gabriel was lounging on the couch and watching TV. “Huh? I thought you had to work late.” I said. “I lied.” “Jerk!” I threw a plastic fruit at him. He dodged. Annoyingly, I stomped to my room and slammed the door. Humph, I’m going to get him back for that. I spent the rest of my time on the internet watching Anime. (Japanese cartoons.) When it got dark, I went to bed.
ﻛ ﻛ ﻛ
The next morning, something surprising happened. When I was eating my home-brought lunch, (human food is not as good as furrey food.) A girl came up to me. She had bright blond hair and pearl white skin. Her eyes were a striking electric blue. Her cheeks were a rosy red. “Hi! My name’s Corella! Just so you know, you look so cool! Do you want to be friends?” For a second there I was dumbfounded. “Uh… ok?” I mumbled. I have nothing to lose… Corella sat down next to me. “So, did you come from a different planet or something?” “Well… yes. I came from the planet Aflaorel. But it got destroyed.” She look at me sympathetically. “Im sorry. Different subject. What do your parents do?” “They died when the planet got destroyed…” When I looked up she had tears in her eyes. “You must be so lonely.” “Not really, I live with my…… boyfriend. Although, I don’t like him…” The tears where streaming down her face now. She lunged at me. “Wha-!” It was a hug. I sat there rigged and frozen on the spot. I… like her. “Let’s be great friends.” I said. When I got home, I was whistling. “What are you so jolly about?” Gabriel was sitting at the table eating a nikoshi fruit. It’s a fruit from my planet. Soon all of the food we brought from there will be gone. And then we’ll have to get used to human food. It seems that fish is pretty tasty, but Gabriel doesn’t think so. He likes raw meat better. “I made a friend today.” “With a human? Aren’t they all, ‘Ew! Look at that space freak!’” He grimaced. “Well, one said it out loud but, Corella was really nice to me.” “Humph, typical, naive humans.” He shook his head. “What is that supposed to mean?!” I said, bewildered. But, he went back to eating his fruit.


Chapter 2

Its been Five whole weeks since the first day of school. Me and Corella are great friends. Diiiiiinnng! The school bell rang. All of the kids got up to go. “Hey Katt. Did you know that my sister, Roma, is a martial artist? When Dan, her boyfriend broke up with her, she threw a shoe at him and knocked him out for two hours.” Said Corella, her head shaking. “I absolutely hate her guts. Go to heck Roma!!... Uh oh. Duck!” She shoved me to the floor. A pencil shoots through the air and slices through the wall right where Corella’s head was. By this point I’m like, what in the world? Roma fixes her with an icy glair and stomps out of the classroom. I told Corella I would see her later walked through the forest toward home. While I’m walking, I hear a shift in the leaves. I perk up my ears and strain to hear more. Its silent again. I keep on walking as my eyes scan my surroundings. A hand shoots out of the darkness and pins my hands behind me. “What the-?” I struggle against my attacker. “Shh, its just me. Someone is following us.” Gabriel whispered. He let go of my arms as I snatched them back. “What do you mean? I heard a shift in the leaves but that was just you.” He shakes his head and sighs. “Come on. We need to get out of here.” With that, he turns and starts walking down the street. I give a huff and follow. We don’t get far. Something jumps out of the shadows and tackles Gabriel. They both go down with a thud. I’m just about to go and help him out but something in the shadows says, “Get her!” More of those things jump out of the bushes and bound toward me. I believe I’ve heard of them before in our menagerie, but just not have seen it because the Raklion are too dangerous. But we kept them anyway because, for some reason, they smell really good. They have bodies and manes of lions, but their blue. They have the legs and tails of an ice dragon, but are red. And also, they have the face of a rabid saber tooth tiger. So, ….yeah. You should be totally terrified. No matter how good they smell, run. They tackle me but I give up a good fight. But, we are outnumbered. The last thing I hear is an evil laugh as we are hog tied and beaten unconscious.


Chapter 3

I am sore everywhere. After a few minutes of groaning, I try to stand but I seem to be tied up so I just sat there, looking around the enormous but really gloomy looking room. There’s nothing in the room but, oh nothing special, just some torture machines and equipment, that’s all. I notice Gabriel slumped on the floor next to me. I move my legs out from up under me and let them drop, hard, in his face, which, let me tell ya, is not so pretty any more. He yells and rolls over to clutch his much damaged face, which I just damaged more. When he composes himself, he fixes me with a bleary glare. “Sheesh! Why did you do that!” I smile and say, ”Oh, my hands and legs are tied so I couldn’t shake you awake.” I say a little too sweetly. It’s true, but I very much could find another way to wake him up. But I won’t tell him that.
“Well, we better find a way to escape... if I can ever walk again- ow! So it wasn’t an ache, my leg is broken.” Groaned Gabriel. I rolled my eyes at him, “Just shut up and walk anyway. I’ve seen you take a bullet in the arm on one of your ‘outings’ and still use it to pick up another soldier.” “Well, that’s a different case intierl- wait, you saw me volunteer for the fight for Umalicane?” I couldn’t believe me highly advanced eyes! Gabriel Wolfe Drake was blushing. “uh? Um…” I stammered. ”Yeah, I saw it when you fell flat on your face too! And making that poor soldier fall and brake his leg!” His face hardened. “It wasn’t my fault! That Blue Bear cub stumbled into our way!” He shook his head, turned around and groaned as he got up slowly. “Get over here and cut these ropes!” “Did I hear a ‘please’ somewhere in there?” He turned back around and gave me a look. “Okay, okay! Just don’t get your knickers in a bunch!” I sighed and struggled to get up. Gab grunted and put his foot thru a loop of rope that was around me, and twisted. I was up in an instant. “Show off.” I muttered, but hopped over to him and turned around so that my claws where on his ropes. I flicked my wrist, and the ropes slid off. He sighed gratefully. He walked over to a rather huge pocket knife and picked it up. Then he cut my ropes off to.
“Now, let’s find a way to get out of here.” I nodded, and looked up. There was a skylight at the top of the ceiling. We knew what to do.


Chapter 4


We hook our elbows together and nodded. Then we jumped high into the air. Gabriel kicked off of his wall first, (with one leg.) then I did. We did that again and again, till we were both holding onto the handle for the window. Then, I used my claw to cut a circle big enough for us to get through. Just as I was lifting myself out of the window, we heard a guard yell. Now everyone knew that we were escaping.
As soon as both of us were out of the window, we took off for the coast. (Which, I might add, isn't ANYWHERE I know.)We passed almost all of the guards until SOMEONE sneezed. Five soldiers came around the corner of the very ominous castle. (The were reptilian.) We finished them off in record time. But when we got to the water, I stopped. "Gabriel! I see a boat down-" He was already swimming. I stood there for a minute. There was NO WAY I was jumping into that NASTY water. Nope. Imma go get that boat...

Impressum

Texte: Author
Bildmaterialien: Illistrator
Lektorat: Markes Gildsmith
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.02.2012

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Join Katherine Darke and Gabriel Drake in there exiting adventure through a new world they've never known.