BZZZZZZZZT

BZZZZZZZT

Something was vibrating. Jason rolled over in his sleep as the buzzing softly woke him up. He belched, as a result of the many smores he ate last night.

“Ugh,” he groaned. “Overdid it.”

BZZZZZZZT

BZZZZZZT

He rolled over in his sleeping bag and reached for his phone. With his eyes barely open, he found the device in his duffle. In an attempt to see why it was buzzing he dropped it on his face as he held the device above himself; his eyes watered up. A few swear words and groans escaped his mouth which caused Mack to stir in his sleeping bag.

BZZZZZZZZT

BZZZZZZZT

“What’s that buzzing?” Mack groaned.

“My phone, dude,” Jason groaned back.

“Why do you have your phone?” moaned Mack.

Jason didn’t answer. He finally grabbed his device and looked at the notifications.

It was an alert.

He tapped on it and it opened a video. He lay there half awake as the camera in the video showed him the African Savannah. Suddenly there was a loud pop in the sky and a portal opened.

Jason’s eyes widened.

He watched as a meteor trailing black flames escaped through the opening and crashed.

“Yo, what is that?” He was waking up.

“Dude, I thought we agreed on no phones,” Mack groaned, getting annoyed that he was being woken up.

Something emerged from the crater and then suddenly screaming and painful cries started to sound. Blood splattering everywhere.

The camera dropped.

Jason was now wide awake.

“Dude!” said Mack, sitting up in his sleeping bag.

Jason was so fixated on the footage that he didn’t respond.

In the video he saw a shadow being holding a man up using some unseen force.

“Where is the incarnate?” the creature said in an otherworldly hiss, just before phasing its knife-like claws into the man’s head. The man screamed in pain as the creature searched his mind.

The shadow creature dropped the man as he scurried away. The creature wasn’t interested in him any longer as it took off into the sky, disappearing from sight.

“....whoa,” Jason sat up.

“You hearin’ me?” Mack asked, a bit annoyed that Jason wasn’t even listening.

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah,” Jason said compulsively. “But check this out!” He got out of his sleeping back and crawled over towards Mack.

“Dude, I don’t want to see anything. I just want to go back to sleep!” he barked.

“Bro!” Jason said sternly. Mack had never heard that tone come from Jason before. He looked at him with bewilderment, trying to figure out what was going on. His brother very rarely showed any kind of commanding attitude so this odd behavior warranted Mack to take his phone. “Just watch it!”

Mack read the title of the video.

FOUND FOOTAGE OF ANGRY SHADOW CREATURE. [SENSITIVE MATERIAL]

Mack hit play and began watching. As the video went on, Mack started to become disturbed. The sound of horrid screams and sights of blood made him discontent.

“How can you watch this?” asked Mack.

“Years of horror movies. Keep watching.”

Mack saw the shadow being holding a man up with a telekinetic power.

“Where is the incarnate?” Jason heard it ask again.

“There!” Jason stopped the video.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Listen to what it said!” Jason went back ten seconds in the video and heard the creature say again.

“Where is the incarnate?”

“So?” Mack wasn’t following.

“Dude, remember what Griflore said about the Prince?”

Mack yawned.

“Dude! I’m being so serious right now it’s not even funny!” Jason said annoyingly back to Mack.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset. Clearly this is fake in an attempt to get some viral video going so the internet can claim aliens exist or something.”

“One, aliens are real! Two, it’s not fake!”

“How do you know? Where did you even find this anyway?”

“I joined this online forum where people submit videos of the weird and unexplained.”

“Ah, I see. So in other words, fake!”

“It’s not fake! Before each video is posted it is looked at by experts to see if it is fake. If it is, it's not posted. There are videos of us, Griflore, a blue werewolf, even that cyborg dude from over the summer on here.”

“You can’t believe everything you see online.”

Jason was getting frustrated that his brother wasn’t believing him. “Dude, just listen to me for just a second!”

Mack rolled his eyes.

“After all that stuff with Griflore went down I decided to start looking into things. I wanted to see if I could set up an early warning system or something so that we could be on the case.”

“And?”

“And, Griflore was looking for this Prince guy because he could use the Ka he had to release all those other Super Xenton or whatever.”

“Aaaand?”

“So I started thinking, what if Griflore wasn’t the only one looking for the guy? So I plugged into this website and had my phone notify me whenever words like prince or reincarnated or anything related to that word showed up in videos.”

Jason played the line again.

“Where is the incarnate?” he glared at Mack, hoping his older brother was beginning to understand.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“So, what you’re saying is, you think this shadow thing is looking for the Prince.”

“Exactomundo big bro!”

“You have a few screws loose, my dude!” Mack got out of his sleeping bag and proceeded to get out of the tent.

“Bet money I’m right!” Jason said with agitation.

“No, because then I’ll just be taking your money!” Mack said as he stretched.

The other two tents opened. Sam and Dye emerged from theirs while Corrine unzipped hers.

“What’s going on?” asked Sam.

Jason grabbed his phone, left the tent and handed it Sam.

“Watch this!” he said abruptly.

Dye, Sam and Corrine huddled around and watched the video. It was gruesome, and disturbing, but the three couldn’t take their eyes away.

“Where is the incarnate?” Jason heard again.

Sam paused it. “What does it mean by incarnate?”

“Genius over here thinks that shadow thing is looking for the Prince that Griflroe talked about. I personally think that video is fake.” said Mack.

“Um…no, actually.” said Sam. Mack’s face dropped.

“The Unsure Times is known for its authenticity. This video could be a hundred percent real.”

“SEE!” Jason said, making a point to his older brother.

“He said ‘could’,” said Mack.

“I think you’re also forgetting the fact that Sam and I are halfway on the same page.” Jason pointed out.

Dye pondered that. “Yeah — no — um that’s weird that these two are somewhat in agreement.”

Jason was even more convinced that his findings were real.

“Okay, let’s say that this is real, what do we do?” asked Mack.

Sam pulled out his phone and began searching. “And why does everyone have their phone? I thought we agreed on no phones!”

Sam made a gesture with his hand telling Mack to hold on. He typed something on his device and then began scrolling.

“Here’s something,” said Sam. “Nine explorers were found dead in the African Savannah two months ago. Their bodies were found by the authorities after a flood of missing person’s reports were filed. Authorities claim the claw marks were consistent with a lion attack though coroners reports disagree as the wounds were too deep and too precise. People who knew the explorers said there was a tenth member who got away. He was found weeks later at a hotel having died after suffering a fatal aneurysm. Authorities found the footage of the brutal attack but have since then not released anything regarding it.”

“BOOOM! Mic drop!” said Jason in Mack’s face. Mack rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, um based on what we just saw everything seems pretty consistent. This could very well be something looking for the Prince.” Sam continued.

“And it’s on the loose right now,” said Corrine.

“Maybe we should show Arayan this. He might know what this thing is.” Sam suggested.

Mack shrugged. “Fine. But we need to eat and get going. I still have packing to do before my flight tomorrow night.”

It was then that everyone remembered that Mack was leaving for college. He had accepted a full ride scholarship to the University of Massachusetts over in Boston. He had finally come to grips with what happened last year and decided that he wasn’t going to let that hold him back.

Last year during football practice, Mack accidentally used his powers to plow through the defensive line of his football team. As a result, his teammates were seriously injured and they were forced to forfeit the season. This meant that Mack wouldn’t have an opportunity to get a scholarship to any school. That is until he learned that his coach, Coach Connelly, sent the tape of the incident to various scouts. To Mack’s surprise, they were impressed with his skills and offered him a multitude of scholarships to various schools across the country.

At the time, Mack didn’t feel very deserving of the award. In fact, he didn’t want it at all. He talked it over with his brother’s and they understood his dilemma but at the same time were split on what he should do.

On the other hand, he could go to any school of his choosing and no one would have to know, as per the deal with Coach Connelly who promised Mack he wouldn’t say a word.

Just as expected, the scholarship offers started rolling in. Scouts came to the house to meet with Mack personally. His parents couldn’t understand why Mack was being offered so many athletic scholarships when they knew his season was over before it even began. Though, they didn’t question it even though they should’ve. They were mostly excited that their son had the opportunity.

Feeling the guilt eat him up more, Mack decided to tell his parents what happened on the field that day, while keeping out certain details. The first thing their parents thought was that Mack was on some kind of performance enhancers. He assured them that wasn’t the case and to further assure them he showed them the negative drug test results which checked out.

After a nice long talk with his parents, he felt slightly better, though they were convinced that what happened was a freak accident. Probably the result of an adrenaline rush due to stress.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The truth was, Mack had no idea what he was until after the fact. Even he, at the time, had no clue how he did what he did, but that didn’t matter. The damage was already done and he couldn’t go back.

So, as the offers continued to roll in, he needed to make a decision on what he wanted to do. It was true that he caused the team to forfeit the season, but that didn’t mean that he’d meant to do it on purpose. Perhaps had he known beforehand what happened to him and his brothers he could have prevented it. The more he thought about it, the less guilty he felt. Now that he knew about his powers and how they worked, he was much better equipped to handle them. Meaning, if he accepted any of the scholarships, when it came to football he would be more in control of himself.

Besides, no one on the team knew what he was doing after high school anyway. All but a few had shunned him because they were convinced he was on steroids despite what the drug test revealed. The few who still talked to him had no clue he was being offered full rides every week up to that point.

Maybe getting a fresh start wasn’t a bad idea.

Being able to control his powers now was definitely a plus.

So what harm could it do if he accepted a full ride? He thought at that point, he would be stupid not to. So one day after school he took his pile of offers and started going through them. It took him hours to go through each school and to see what he liked and didn’t like about each one.

What programs did they offer?

Did they have a reputable football team he wanted to play for?

How was the campus life and the dorms?

Was the town and city nice to be in?

What about the people?

How was the academics?

There was a lot to consider and each time he thought he covered all the bases, a new category jumped out at him. He was overwhelmed. All of them looked like pretty good schools, but he could only choose one. So then he decided to sort them all based on location.

If he could live in any of these states, which one would it be?

A good number of schools were right there in California. He immediately ruled those out.

Some of the offers came from Florida. Too much like California but more humid so he moved those off to the side. There were offers from schools that were Idaho, Maine, and Alaska.

Idaho was a no. It was too country for him.

In his mind Maine had a grand total of twelve people and a moose so that was a no go.

Alaska, though the campus was nice, he always thought Alaska was weird. Also, who goes to college in Alaska?

Next, we're the offers from schools in the states of Tennessee, Kansas, New York and Texas.

Tennessee could’ve been interesting. Not quite the south but not there in the north. More of a midwest vibe. Plus they had good barbeque.

Kansas? Corn. Rows and rows of corn. That was a no.

New York? He always wanted to go to New York. The Big Apple. The most sought after city in the country. That could be fun.

What about Texas? He heard some good things about the University of East Austin. Their football team wasn’t half bad. The campus was beautiful and their academics were up there with the Ivy League schools.

This was it.

Good ol’ Texas. Plus, they also had pretty good barbeque, or at least that’s what he was told.

The more he thought about it, the more he could see himself going to the University of East Austin.

However, there was one last offer. It was actually the first one he had ever received.

The University of Massachusetts.

Mr. Hammlocke was a friend of Coach Connelly. Last year before the holiday break, Mr. Hammlocke came to the school to meet Mack. It was at that time that Mack thought he had no chance of getting into a decent college. That all changed in an instant when he met Mr. Hammlocke. He was a husky fellow who took pride in nice suites and pocket watches. He smelled like old tobacco but was very up beat in terms of personality.

After their meeting, Coach Connelly told Mack to not be too hasty and jump on the first offer that came his way. So Mack waited for more offers to come in and they did, but now, he was staring at the first offer to ever come his way.

Boston.

It wasn’t quite New York but then it wasn’t the back country like Idaho either. It wasn’t secluded like Alaska and it wasn’t empty like Kansas or Maine. It was somewhere in between and most of all, it was far away, practically on the other side of the country. He always wanted to check out the east coast, and now he had the opportunity.

He went online to visit the school’s website.

Their football team was a Division One team.

A high ranking football team? Check.

What about their academics?

It wasn’t bad. He had seen better. However, he did see something that he didn’t see in any of the other schools. UM offered an FBI training program that he could get into that would prepare him for Quantico, and later the Bureau after college. That was unique. He never thought about joining the FBI until now.

Special Agent Mackenzie Robert Haven.

That had a nice ring to it.

The campus was nice. The dorms looked spectacular and as for the degree he could go after, there was a long list of options that he would need to go through.

It didn’t take him long to talk to his parents about his choice. After hearing him out they agreed. He was on his way to Boston, and he was pretty excited for it too.