The Crystals by Courtney Terry (good books to read for teens txt) 📖

Chapter one



The wind was rapidly flipping their hair around. On the day of January twenty-sixth, two-thousand ten, Marie and Diane were walking around the empty campground. The only people there were a few members and some workers.

Diane woke, trembling with fear. The twelve year old, to this day, still remembered that horrific day that forever changed her life. She always hoped and prayed that the memories would go away, but she never seemed to be answered. Everyday she told herself that it was a dream and that it never happened, but just as she went to call Marie or go to her house, she would remember that no one was there to answer.

___________


The bell rang loudly as Diane walked inside the school. Everyone stopped, waiting for Ebonie to say something to her.
“Hey Diane.” she called loudly across the hall. “Did you do your math?” Ebonie knew that Diane wouldn’t answer her. Ever since that day a few months ago, she wouldn’t talk to anybody. Not even her own parents. Ebonie thought it was weird so she asked Diane questions in spite of herself. They used to be best friends until Diane started hanging out with Marie.
“Well, zero? You gonna answer me?” Everyone always called zero because of how she looked, how she acted and for the fact that she wouldn’t speak. She used to be the smartest one in her class until she let her grades drop. She started skipping school, stopped doing homework. She stopped caring how she looked. Her hair fell down long, brown, natty, and greasy. All her finger nails were bit off. Her lips were chapped and bloody and her eyes were swollen. "Hello, anyone in there?" Ebonie waved her hand in front of Diane’s face. Diane zoned out. As the warning bell rang, Ebonie walked off, arm in arm with her new best friend Jasmine.
Diane didn’t pay attention in any of her classes. She had a lot of homework, but when she got home, she threw it down and went to sleep.

_______

About two hours later, her mom walked in to tell her good night.
“Honey, do you want to talk?” her mom questioned her sincerely. Diane just stared at he mother with big, blue eyes.
“I’m serious. I really do want to help you but I can’t unless you tell me what’s wrong. I’m really worried. Sure Marie was your friend but that’s no reason to break away from the rest of the world. So I’m pretty sure that’s not why you’ve done that. Just tell me and I’ll help you. If you don’t want to talk tonight we don’t have to, just help you by helping me.” Again, Diane just sat there. No body could help her. Not after what happened.
“Well, okay. Good night honey, I love you.” Diane didn’t say anything, so her mom gave her a hug and left. As Diane watched her moms back disappear through the door, she felt like crying.


________


This is how it went for weeks. She crawled back deeper and deeper into her shell. It didn’t matter what anyone said, she wouldn’t talk. Eventually people stopped talking to her, except her parents. Ebonie stopped being mean because Diane didn’t act like she cared, because she didn’t. She didn’t feel any pain, until she heard the noise. Each night, as she thought back to that day, her mind got pierced by a high pitched noise. It was the language of, what she called, the Crystals. Every night it got higher and higher. The closer they got, the higher the noise got. It was hard to bear.
“They’re getting closer.” she thought without emotion every night until the night she couldn’t hear it anymore.
“They’re here” she thought that night. As she went to sleep, she felt a strange comfort knowing this fact.


_______


The next day, which was Saturday, she went walking around the campground that she lived at to assure herself that they were here. She felt the prickly sense that many eyes were on her. Just as she assumed, when she looked up at the mountains, she saw them. They were the Crystals. Even though she knew what they wanted, she still got scared. Diane knew for a fact that it didn’t help to run, but she did anyways. She ran to the exact spot that IT happened. The Crystals ran at lightning speed, so they were already there waiting for her. She screamed. She had De Ja Vu. This was all wrong. She heard all the same noises from that day. Today, the workers were doing exactly as they had been that day. No one could hear her scream. The grass was still faded to a rusty color on one particular spot. That spot was the grass on which IT happened. The Crystals surrounded her. She could hear their stomachs growling with hunger.
She had forgotten how beautiful they were. She didn’t know if their name really was Crystals, but she thought they looked like crystals.
They were strong, built creatures. Their fur was the cleanest, bright white she’d ever seen. It fell like flames and felt like the purest silk. They had wings so majestic, yet they looked harmless. Their arms and legs were huge and could break a human bone with the flick of a finger. Their claws were like razors but their teeth were sharper. But the thing she was drawn to most about them were the eyes. They were dark red, like fire, and you felt like you could see right through them. She stood there shivering as she took all the details in once more. The Crystals were circling her now. They were going to make her death slow and painful, but before they did, they made sure the time was passed with suspense. She had no idea when they were going to pounce. She thought back to that day…

The wind was blowing wildly, flipping their hair around. Marie and Diane were walking around the campground that Diane lived at. It was the winter season, so nobody but the members and the workers were allowed in side it. Diane’s mom, Jean, was a worker there. So was Marie’s dad, but Diane and her family lived at the campground. Earlier that day, Marie and Diane were bored, so as soon as Diane finished her chores, they decided to walk down to the Great Hall and play. Jean and Larry were working in the office. Marie and Diane walked inside the Great Hall and were goofing off. Diane kept saying
“Marie, watch out! I see something!” or “Marie, what was that noise?” until she actually saw something. She saw a flash of white and then heard a high pitched noise. Diane screamed and fled the place. Marie ran after her yelling, sarcastically
“Ha-Ha, very funny. You’re really scaring me.” She walked out to see Diane laughing and crying in the middle of the ground.
“What happened?” Marie said, running over to her.
“Marie, I swear, I really did see and hear something. I’m laughing because I fell and I’m crying because it hurt. But man, you shoulda seen the look on your face when I screamed. It was hilarious.” Diane did an imitation of it so when Jean walked out of the office, she found both of the girls sitting on the ground cracking up with tears rolling down their faces from laughing so hard. When the girls looked up and saw her standing there with a humored look on her face, they got up and told her what happened. She got in her golf cart and drove off to get some paint for the office.
The girls walked back into the Great Hall and were sitting by the door, too afraid to go any further. But then they both heard the noise. They walked out and sat down in the middle of the road, which was where the most sun was.
“Whoa, I have a feeling this happened before.” Marie exclaimed. “Everything that just happened, happened in my dream. A wind is about to blow.” and it did. Just as it was about die down, Marie told Diane that it was about to.
“Okay, this is really creepy. And, man, what is that noise?!” Diane cried angrily. Just then, on instinct because she felt some one watching the, she glanced up to the mountains. That’s when she saw them. It was the first time she’d ever seen them. They were white with piercing red eyes. She thought they looked like crystals.
“Look Marie!” she cried. Marie followed her gaze and saw them too. “They look like crystals, don’t they?”
Marie nodded in agreement. “They’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. What do you think they are?” Diane shrugged.
“I don’t know but I’m gonna call them the Crystals. Look, if you stare into their eyes, it feels like you can see right through them.” The Crystals started to run towards the seven-hundreds. “Ooh, let’s follow them. Please!” So they did, but on the way, they stopped by where Marie’s dad, Roy, was working.
He was tearing down a deck where a cabin used to be.
“Hey!” Marie and Diane said in unison. He looked down and waved. “Whatcha doing?” Marie asked.
“Oh, I’m just reading a newspaper.” he said sarcastically, as the girls finished the walk up the hill.
“Really?” Diane asked. “Does it say if the Cowboys won the game last night?”
Roy chuckled. “No. And sheesh, you’re sitting right there watching me. I’m tearing down this deck, smart one.”
“Thanks Roy, I appreciate it.”
“Again, I was being sarcastic.” He and Marie laughed at Diane together as she tried not to blush.
“Dad, will you please try not to fall?” Marie asked sincerely.
“Hon, I couldn’t fall even if I tried. I’m superman” He said it as though he believed himself, even though both the girls knew he didn’t.
“Dad, I’m being serious.” Marie said to him. To Diane she said “He really does have a shirt that says superman across the chest.” Just then, Roy tossed down a piece wood and Diane jumped.
“Awful jumpy today, aren’t ya?” he said jokingly but then he said in a serious voice “I saw a bob-cat earlier. Did you know they sound just like babies crying?”
“Yeah, right dad. You’re just trying to scare us” then to Diane “He’s just trying to scare us.”
“I heard that, and I am not. I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, okay. Dad, we’re going to the seven hundreds. We’ll be back at Diane’s by three thirty.”
“Fine by me. Just watch out for Chester the Child Molester.”
“Dad, there is no one out there by the name of Chester. Or for that matter any child molester’s.”
“Oh, I know. I’m just trying to scare ya’ll.”
“Roy, why’d you make it rhyme?” Diane asked.
“Why, because I’m a poet and didn’t know it. See? I can make a rhyme anytime. I’m good like that.”
“Kay, bye.” the girls said as they walked off, headed for their doom.
“Watch out for the bob-cats.” he called after them.


_______

The high pitched noise got higher and higher until they couldn’t hear it anymore. Finally, they came into view of the Crystals. They couldn’t help but to stare.
The Crystals started circling them, eyeballing them like prey. They were beautiful, majestic. Hard to resist. Marie reached her hand towards the closest one and rubbed it over the silky smooth fur. It started to, what sounded like purr, but its stomach was growling at the smell of human blood