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This is the newest attempt i've made at starting this story. It was taken down from fictionpress because it did not fullfill how I wanted the story to go. It is however, extremely close to the product, so please, enjoy.

Author here O.k, so this is the first time I've let someone other than one of my friends read a story. I started this story well...ages ago. This is how it orginally went, but I've mixed up exactly how all the characters come into play.
Please review or tell me if anything is.....incredibly confusing.
And oh yeah, Anderra and Gethos I came up with. I later learned that there actually IS a country in Europe called Andora. They speak Catalan, a romance language that sounds very muchlike a cross between spanish and french, although it is its own language don't worry. Anderra is a parrallel world to ours, acessed through the gates which can usually only be found by Gaurdians. A lot of our mythical creatures and fairy tails come from there, and no, I did NOT get that Idea from a book. one such being Rebel Angels, this idea should sound familiar if you've read it. Anderra was formed in my mind waaaay before i read it. If the names sound like the ones in your storys, let me know. It really shouldn't, but coincidences happen.


Prologue: Maddeo
Maddeo Vilesari walked out onto her white marble balcony and studied the beautiful city around her. She smiled at the buildings, tall, shining in pale blues, greens, violets, and whites. Her own building was cream colored, the many balconies decorating its wide expanse. Her own balcony, was probably the nicest of all, sitting in the east corner near the top, hers beinglarger than most below it. Gold and silver veins caught the sunlight on her railing, reflecting onto her pale skin and fiery red hair, creating the illusion of being underwater.
Blinking her Pale gray-blue eyes she turned from the edge and walked back through the outside doors that where made solidly from Moonstone. Maddeo had a slight obsession for white and other pale colors, her room reflecting this obsession with its high quality white granite floors, polished and gleaming against the sun that filtered in through her nearly opaque quarts windows, that could be opened as if like glass. Currently, she had them cracked just enough so that her billowy white curtains could blow in the breeze for that certain....dramatic....effect.
To the right of her Moonstone doors was a screen made out of white translucent dragon scales secured with silver cord, behind them Maddeo's pet dragon, Xing Xing, lay sleeping on the great white feather mattress. It's sleeping chamber, formerly another bedroom, bathroom, and second sitting room connected to the apartments great balcony, had been converted into one large circle, half open so that Xing Xing could fly in and out without having to squeeze through.
Maddeo had stolen the egg from the Hatchery that she'd been living at before running away. Not many had thought to scan the dragon eggs for the rare, and incredibly beautiful albino baby's, no one but her. She had found it in the nest of a strangers dragon, sent to the Hatchery, the owner being the dirt poor descendant of a once great family of dragon riders, now selling his poor dragons offspring to make money the only way he knew how.
Maddeo knew the man had been too stupid to demand the Hatchery count the eggs regularly, The staff too busy to do the extra nitpicky stuff without being paid for it. Maddeo had hefted the heavy egg, a mass almost as big and heavy as herself at the time. Hiding it under her dying mothers bed next to the fireplace, Maddeo spent time with her mother just to keep a watch on the egg. Oh, it counted for something to her mother, the woman too sick to see how inattentive Maddeo really was.
The day her mother died, the egg hatched, and Maddeo had run away, reaching the city of Gethos by the time Xing Xing was large enough to fly her about.
It's little silver eyes had known her face before it had even hatched, and Xing Xing had never gone looking for another master, even after seven years of being better taken care of by various people Maddeo had lived with. Of course, the fact that her dragon got lonely from her neglect wasn't noticed by Maddeo. No, she happily floated along with her life, jumping from place to place all the time.
She had first lived with a stuffy half brother and sister in law. Her brother had sent his ruff and tumble little sister to a private school, where at the age of 12, She'd gotten a high ranking official's daughter to invite her home.
Ambitious, Maddeo slowly made her way up the ladder, until she was under the guardianship of the highest ranking man in half of Anderra's councils. So now here she was, living in her own little (little as in HUGE) apartment, two blocks away from the Grand Parliament Building of Gethos. Maddeo had gotten it for a sixteenth birthday present.
Yawning a little bit she swaggered over to her bed, where she kept her favorite possession/dirty little secret every night.
Chris was stretching slim dark body, waking up from the sun in his eyes. She supposed that she should probably have drawn the curtains when she woke up, but she liked the light from the glass window incasing the head of the bed, bewitched into only letting sun, not prying eyes, into the bedroom.
He sat up on his elbows and smiled and her. "So Madd, what are you up so early for babe?" She smiled, ignoring the annoying nickname that only he could get away with using. A small strand of pitch black fell into his eyes, making him so adorable. Maddeo had seen many a girl swoon over this boy, but not quite as many as she seen guys drooling over her.
Maddeo's opinion was that Chris was the most wanted boy in most of Anderra, who was living for the pleasure of the possibly most wanted person in Anderra....herself of course.
He crawled out of bed to give her a small kiss on the lips before going to get dressed in his guard uniform for the day. She smiled mischievously, catching his wrist and yanking him toward herself for a little more "deep" of a kiss, making it hard for Chris to pull away, a sad little look in his eyes. He smiled and turned back to their shared closet to get dressed. Maddeo leaned against the wall, smiling to herself.
The poor boy, had to get out onto the street, then back to her door before it was time for his shift.
Usually, he was gone before she even woke up. Pretending to not actually live in the home he stood outside of every day from eight until five was hard for him, but he was devoted to Maddeo, and had never been caught. Good thing he hadn't, or Maddeo would have been forced to abandon him. She geussed it would upset her more than it had before.This one she enjoyed.
A lot.
He hadn't always been so devoted to her though. She could still remember his refusal to run away with her, the ache in his eyes to just follow her. But he refused to leave family behind, so she had decided to help him along.
To bad she'd had to kill his sister to do it.

Chapter 1

My back is killing me. No really, I'm waiting for it to.

I suppose your probably thinking wtf about now and trying to creep slowly back and pretend you didn't see anything. But...too late, your already screwed.

My names Haze. Sera Hazel Porter actually, but I don't like Sera, so don't you dare call me that. Tell you the truth its not actually Sera. Its Seraphim, but don't ask me what my parents were smoking when they decided that. I'm not sure myself yet.

But back to the situation at hand.

You see, I have this birthmark. You wouldn't believe me if I showed you it, most people ask me where I went to get it done. It only looks like a tattoo though, I've got baby pictures to prove it. And the damn things pretty hard to explain other than it looks sorta like i've got this messed up celtic tattoo infused with something that looks like Japanese spreading from my collarbone, over my shoulders and down to the small of my back. It's been checked, studied, and even made national news, but no one has figured out what the hell it is. The writing isn't any known language, and the design is something never previously seen. Weirdest of all, it hurts like a bitch every full moon.

Ok, so I stretched that. It hurts at least once a month, but that has nothing to do with the moon.

But right now, its glowing, hurting like crazy even with the two prescription pain pills i took, and I can't find a shirt that won't let the light through.

And most girls worry about zits. ha! I would take super acne any day over this monstrocity.

Its twenty minutes to eight, and class starts in ten minutes. I'm not dressed, I've missed so much school because of my back that their threatning to make me repeat this semester, so I deffinantly have to go today. Finally after digging through the laundry, wearing a tank top, another graphic design tank top and a jacket, the glowing has been concealed. barely. but still concealed.

Running out the door, I'm going as fast as I can down the street trying to catch up to my brother Malach (Hebrew, I think, for Angel, starting to see a pattern?) was already driving to school in his truck. He slammed on the brakes laughing at me panting like a dog as I hopped into the car, slamming the door.

"You could have let me know you were leaving" I grumbled, thuroughly not enjoy today.

"Yeah, and I could have let you show up late to class Haze, so get over it" He said smiling over at me. My brother loves me, but that doesn't stop him from being a total jackass.

The ride to school is short, taking less than ten minutes to get there. I hop out of the truck, down to the parking lot asphault.
I've always hated the excess of space between my brothers truck and the ground, but for him and his 6'4'' frame, its just right. I got the short end of the stick, being over a foot shorter than him, my chances of getting much taller at fifteen are pretty slim. But then again, so are the rest of my chances of developing in any other way a girl could want. I'm small. Really small. Flat enough to be a boy in fact. My hair is kind of short, an inch and a half above my shoulders, Auburn red and stick straight. I like it like this though, and honestly, this is probably the longest I've had it since I was six and could convince my mother to cut my hair.

I cheated actually to make her do it. My dad died when I was six. I had been way to young to really care about what had happened, only that daddy was gone. I'd wanted my hair short since I was four, hating the painful brushing sessions. My dad had liked my pretty hair, red gold at the time, and was always saying "Gee, if only I could have some of your hair Hazey." while rubbing his very bald head. The night before his funeral, I cut a chunk out of my hair, clear to the roots, to put in my dads casket. Mom had rushed me to a hairdresser, sobbing as if it were her own hair I'd cut, and had them cut it short, each hair about an inch long. I'd liked it, and was happy to give the rest of my sheered off hair to my daddy when he went away. Mom took it from me, even the original chunk, and I think she threw it away.

I cried over that at my dad's funeral.

My thoughts get overly consuming sometimes. Really, I am sorry. Tell you the truth I just ran into someone and have to pick up their books now, muttering half hearted appologies to the shaking girl. I glance at her skinny arms, no meat to speak of, just bones. She trembles pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, and brushes away fizzy blonde hair. She looks too geeky to be anorexic, too smart for something as vain and foolish as that, but still, It's hard to believe that anyone could have as little muscle as her. She walks away without having said a word, and I try and remember if we've ever met before.

We haven't, and I don't remember her name. I don't expect she knows mine either, I'm not well know here at Draylor High School, nothing to really make me stand out I geuss.

Oh, well theres the glowing back thing, but nobody, not even my friends know about that one.

It's my secret, that stupid black monstrocity burning me up, glowing through my clothes and making people stare.....

Crap. People are staring.

I smile sheepishly as I make my way towards the nearest familiar locker, my friend Brooke's, and the only one that I know has a mirror. She gives a small bit of protest as I wiz through her combo and open the door, a full length mirror greeting me on the door.

And sure enough, my back is friking glowing, the light coming through getting more and more intense. what the hecks going on? I think to myself. and what exactly am i going to do? The pain in my back subsides as the light gets very noticable, and it seems that finally the pain pills are kicking in.

Great.

I think to myself for a secound unsure of what to do, when I see Denver. Rorys walking next to her, pretending to be able to follow whatever it is she's saying, a wicked little smile growing on her lips. Stealing the oversized hoodie that Brooke's boyfriend gave her, I slip it on. I pretend to shiver greating my friends with "Jeezus they really need to get the heaters on around here!"

They don't buy it for a second, but give me the benifit of a doubt. Slipping an arm in each of theirs I start walking down the hall, the direction they came from, but also the same direction as the nurses office. Pain in my back is gone, but I can feel it being replaced with heat, and I know that this hoodie isn't going to block the light out forever.

Just then, we pass by the glass case containing various art projects of those taking a painting class. My back is reflecting light of the glass, people behind my are starting to shine a bit. I can't keep this up.

Why should I keep it up? I wonder to myself for the first time. All these years of hiding it, for what? obscurity? I remember the girl I bumped into, and all the other kids looking at me strange in the hallway. Why did I keep it a secret? oh, I can't tell you how brave I suddenly felt, like today was going to be incredible or something. The warm glow grew and my friends started noticing my back wide eyed. screw it. I decide. I smile, starting to strip out of my attempt at hiding my wonderfull light bright back this morning. Tossing the hoodie and coat to Denver and the unessecary undertank at Rory, I glow like a billboard. One that's screaming freak.

The Halls staring, everyone has stopped. I retake my friends arms and turn down the hallway to our lockers. This whole situation is weird as all get out, but hey, the glow is subsiding, and the black designs showing starkly against my skin. Suddenly I wonder why I did what I just did. What the hell was I thinking?

I don't know. but at least the secrets out now.

Chapter 2
I'm sitting in the nurses office, and there are about 10 different medical professionals (we'll leave it at doctors) arguing over what the hell is wrong with me.

"Obviously the birthmark has somehow reacted to a phospherecent substance and reacted to it like an allergy"

"No no. That doesn't explain why it was glowing through the young ladys clothing"

"Well how else are we to explain the glowing at all!"

Sometimes I wish my birthmark would do something....more usful. Like make me go invisable at times like this.

The doctors have had me repeat the story six or seven times now. A couple of kids were asked to come into the office and give an account of what they saw. Some girl got a picture of it on her cell phone.

Her name is Cecelia. She's Native, has long dark brown hair, and is pretty. Her boyfriend stands with a protective arm around her waist, but she shoo's him off, giving him a little kiss to make him wait outside so she can sit down next to me.

The whole scene is pretty embarrasing. My bra is unstrapped, and my tank top folded against my chest. The doctors had me do this so that they coul more thoroughly examine the entirety of my birthmark. My cheeks are red, and I know my eyes are too. I don't know why but I really want to cry. Cecelia puts her hand on my shoulder, but the doctors roar at her, so she puts her hand on my elbow instead.

"You fealing ok Haze?"

So she knows my name. Well, I knew hers too so I shouldn't be too surprised. I just nod my head, too confused and nervous to say anything.

"It must be kind of hard hiding it, your birthmark. The picture I got of it glowing like that though, It's really cool. Would you like to see it?"

I smile and nod again. First person to have seen it and known it was a birthmark, not a tattoo. She's making me feel better by distracting me from the doctors argument. Pulling out her phone, a newer, sleeker one than my own mail in rebate cellphone, She has a fairly large screen, and I lean just a bit to get a better look at the picture she has there.

It's my back alright, I can faintly see the black underneath the glow, but something catches my eye. Its caught hers too because she points it out.

"The glow turns silver in a perfect circle in the middle of your back." She says, flipping to a better picture. I was taking off the under tank and had lifted my shirt enough for it to be seen clearly. The center of the design is a circle, with a lot of the symbols surrounding another perfect circle smaller than my pinkie. That little circle is whats shining silver, and only certain parts of my birthmark are glowing gold. She hands me a note and then stand up, walking quickly out of the office.

0.0.0.0

It's lunch time when the doctors finally let me get dressed and leave the nurses office. They want to keep a close watch on me, so after I grab some food, they want me in a classroom with a teacher, making up homework.

Kids stare at me in the lunch line. The lunch lady stares at me, finally having to be reminded to take my card. None of my friends have this lunch, so there aren't any friendly faces to meet. Just strangers.

Ok, so that was annoying. I'm past embarrased now. Just plain annoyed. With the kids, with my friends, with those damn doctors, and most of all....myself. I hate to admitt it, but if i'd just left Brooke's hoodie on for two more minutes, this wouldn't really have been an issue. Kids would think "where the heck did all that light come from?" It would be a conspiracy theory for a few weeks, but nothing more. Someone else would do something more explainable and more juicy, no one would remember the glow except for the stoners while their reminicing and high. even then though......

It feels odd walking down the halls with my food tray. I've never done this before, I've never been in quite this much shit about my back either, So I have to put my head up high and walk down the hall pretending not to notice the other kids staring.

It doesn't work and my eyes instantly find their favorite place. The floor.

I'm ashamed to say that my eyes tend to linger there. I'm sort of shy, and my self confidence isn't that high. I geuss it would be nice if no one could see me.

Like I said. I like my obscurity.

Eventually my feet make their way to the classroom they've set aside for me, and open the door. One of the fresh out of college teachers is sitting there reading a book. She's not even twenty-five yet. Just barely under a decade older. Still, she's young and close enough to my age that I feel uncomfortable, wondering if she's going to be kind, or if she's going to judge me like the other girls do. She looks up from her book and beams at me. Inwardly I sigh with relief. They gave me a kind one.

I take a seat in the middle of the classroom, I do my best and ignore the fact that camera's have been set up in the room, and she brings me a packet of homework.

"Whats your name?" Her tone is friendly. I look up, and the glimmer in her eyes doesn't match the tone. She's studing me. Oh god, this isn't a teacher. They gave me a goddamn scientist. A charasmatic one at that. She's developed her tone control, and manages it perfectly. The tone she used was warm, inviting. Earnest like she really just wanted to know. All she has to make her eyes stop telling the truth too and she'd be perfect at this.

"Haze Porter, but its probably not what your sheet said." My tone control is pretty good too. Friendly, like hers, but the last words let her know, what I know. She knew my name, and was trying to learn what she could from me. Well, I never did like playing stupid.

Her smile widens, the look in her eyes intensifies. I've done good, I'm not a stupid girl that has an interesting birthmark. "I'm Nedra, Nedra Ha" She said reaching out for my hand. I took it, her grip was firm, but so was mine. For somereason that stupid false bravery was comming over me again. Ahh, competitiveness. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I get like this. All the shyness and reserved actions that I tend to lean on are beginning to slip away again. Suddenly, I'm another person, brave, strong, and strangly determined to make the womans job hell.

"Seraphim hmm?" she asks. I smile. "Yeah, I still haven't figured out what they were smoking." My favorite line. Stupid in repitiion, I know, but she hasn't heard it before.

"And Hazel's your middle name, yes?" I nod. She's taking a breath. More questions comming up. Damn her.

"So do you know why they picked Hazel?"

"It was my great-grandmas name. Dads side. Dads dead so don't ask about him." I'm fighting to supress a laugh and a glare at the same time. Poor girl, I wasn't like this when they were taking those stupid personallity tests. She was expecting shy Seraphim Porter, not My-day-is-thoroughly-sucking-and-you-better-not-be-messing-with-me-right-now Hazel.

Heh....guess I didn't tell you about that. A couple months ago Some idiot therized that there was some connection between a persons physce and their birthmarks. I was a star example, currently going through a stage where most of my replies where soft spoken yes' and no's. She's probably going to send a report to them saying "This girl is not sweet and inocent like you said."

Then they'll label me Schizophrenic.

Oh well, I've gotten it before. My back makes me moody, what can I say, but that doesn't mean that I talks to me, or that I talk to it. Ok, so yes, I do talk to my back, but thats...different. All I say is that its stupid, stuff like that. Its usually around that time when I start having my back problems....

She's taken aback by my brunt about my father. She has a nervouse twitch in the corner of her right eye. She's formulating what to do next behind those dark brown eyes of hers...

Her eyes remind me of Cecelia, which reminds me of the note. "I need to use the bathroom Ms. Ha." I blurt, squeezing past her and dashing out the door. She calls and says something behind me, but I'm to far away to make it out.

In the bathroom, I lock the stall, and lean against the wall, carefully unfolding cecelias note. I squint to try and understand the picture on it, but the words catch my attention.

"Porta Carneus Expositus Ratum N. B."

Below it was the words

"Safe travels Nayan Bayna"

It made no sense. Porta and Expositus sounded.....kind of like latin to me. I geussed the rest was too. But then I had to wonder what the N.B. stood for.

I read it twice before I understood. "Porta Carneus Expositus Ratum Nayan Bayna?" I said. There was a sharp yank by way of my back. Light flashed brighter than it had before, but it was over with in seconds. "What the hell?" I said panting. Looking down at the drawing, I say an arrow pointing to the little circle on my back.

Then I did something very stupid. I put my index finger on it and repeated the words.

And..part of chapter 3

She's staring at me and its a bit disturbing.

She hasn't introduced herself yet, hasn't asked who I am yet, but she did give me some of her food, and is now staring.

I geuss I'm staring too though.

We look alike, but not the same. My hairs darker than hers. So is my skin. My face isn't as perfect and sharp as hers, but I think it's pretty close. We have the same color eyes, wich is to say, we have the same colorsin our eyes. Hers are more grey, like mine are more green.

Its a little more than strange.

She clutches her stomach as if she were pregnant, although as far as I can tell her body is in better shape than mine, not a hint of bulge to be found. As she takes the cup of soup from me I notice that she has blood on her hands. oh. Her left sholder looks bandaged up under her silk coat, actually I'm not sure if it is silk. To stiff in the wind to be silk. Well mabey its really dirty, but still. I reminds me of wool stiffness.

"Sooo..." I begin, not sure of what I was actually going to say.

"I'm Veronica." She says smiling forcibly. Maybe thats harsh. I'm reading to far into peoples facial expressions to remember that some people don't actually pay attention to the face they make.

"Haze." I reply. We shake hands and she stands still for a moment. My birthmark has caught her eye, the begining of it showing just barely on my shoulders. Lightly moving my tank tops strap, her eyes come to recognize it, the first time anyone has ever gotten that expression before, and she slides it back smiling.

"Haze" She says in a low voice. Her smile is making me think of a cat looking at a mouse. Damnit, I'm being harsh to her again. "Do you know what that is?" I shake my head.

"Well then, the less you know the better off you'll be she says patting my cheek. This is distracting, and I don't notice her pull the blade on me until she's already slit open my stomach, just like hers. I crumple to the ground, and she nudges me onto my belly. oh it hurts so bad! I barely let out a moan of pain when She rips of the back of my shirt, wrapping that around my stomach. yeah right, like that will really help.

Next she take her knife to my right hand, digging it in. I scream, she slaps me. "Shut up you whiny little girl, hold still!" She whispers to me. Suddenly she's kicked me onto my stomach again, her finger on the center of my back, and she's whispering words. Porta Carneus....the rest is different. Another flash of light, the freakiest sensation of someone being swallowed by my back, and a second later, its over, and I'm left bleeding on the ground.