Yazen (Ponith) (19 page)

The next few weeks,
Alex and I both made it into track. We practice running daily, after we practice shooting our arrows. I also took lots of pictures of everyone in school. Some in class, some during sports, and some during school events; it’s a lot of fun. Jenn made it into cheerleading, as well as the yearbook committee.

I have been spending a lot of time with
Alex and Jenn, and it’s nice. I really hope they will both go back to Yazen with me. I think they would like to go again. I’m not too sure about Jenn, though, as it may bring back too many memories for her.

It’s around October now and
we have a new girl that has started at our school. She’s really pretty, but she seems different than the rest of the girls at our school.

All of the guys drool over her and follow her around. She has joined cheerleading as well. Jenn doesn’t like her too much, I think mainly because she doesn’t get all of the attention now.

I’m doing well in track and I’ve been improving my running times each time I run. I try to eat as healthy as I can, as it helps me feel better. Alex is good in track, but he’s not as fast as me. He does better in pole vaulting. He can jump really high.

Alex
and I are talking about Yazen after practice when we notice the new girl staring at us. It’s quite creepy. We decide to head out so she doesn’t overhear our conversation.

Jenn yells at us, “Wait for me!” We stop so she can catch up to us.

“Thanks for waiting,” she says.

“No problem, what’s up?” I ask her. She looks like she’s annoyed at something.

“What is it with that new girl? I’m tired of her getting all of the attention. She tries to act so innocent, but something is weird about her,” Jenn says.

“What do you mean?”
Alex asks her. I think Alex’s attracted to the new girl. I catch him staring at her a lot, especially during practice.

“She stares at everyone, all the time. The worst part is, she never says a word to anyone,” she says.

“We just caught her staring at us, so I understand what you mean,” I tell her.

“Let’s go get something to eat, maybe burgers and shakes?” Jenn asks.

“I might eat a salad, but no burgers for me. I’m officially dieting, to be in shape,” I tell her. Alex laughs.

“I’ll eat a burger. It doesn’t
matter what I’m doing, a burger will always get eaten. No diets for me,” Alex says.

We enjoy a meal at the local diner and chat about our day.
Alex likes to pick on me because I’m on the yearbook committee, but I just deal with it. It’s a lot of fun to me.

A few days go by, and I’m at the football game. I’m the
re taking pictures for yearbook. It’s really busy here tonight. I start taking pictures of the players, then after I take some pictures of the cheerleaders. I notice when I take a picture with the new girl, a weird glow surrounds her on every picture.

I begin to try to take pictures of her at different angles, thinking maybe the lighting is messing up, but no
matter what I do, I can’t get a good picture of her.

I finally give up and take pictures of the rest of the cheerleaders and players. I’m really stumped on why I can’t get a decent picture of her. I wonder if I’m doing something wrong with the camera. I’ll ask my grandpa about it later tonight.

The game finishes, we win 24-0. It was a great game. I help a few of my classmates, help clean up and put everything away. On my way walking home, I feel like someone’s following me. I turn around, but no one’s there. It’s a weird feeling.

I decide to start running home because I’m starting to get nervous. I make it home safely and lock the door behind me. I end up getting home too late to ask my grandpa about the pictures.

I put the camera and pictures on the kitchen table, then go to bed for the night. I wake up in the middle of the night, as it sounds like someone is in the kitchen.

I slowly open my door and walk into the kitchen,
but I turn on the light and no one’s there. I look around, and start to head back to my room. I look down at my camera, and all of my pictures are gone.

Maybe
Grandpa got up and took them to his room to look at. I turn the light off and go back to bed. I will ask him about it in the morning.

The next morning, I sit down and have breakfast with my grandpa.

“Grandpa, did you take my pictures off of the table last night to look at?” I ask him.

“No, I haven’t seen them. I would love to look at them though,” he says.

That’s so strange; if he didn’t take them, then who did? I know I left them on the table last night. I don’t want to upset my grandpa by saying someone may have snuck in last night.

“I think I may have left them at school, sorry. I’ll bring them
home so you can look at them,” I lie to him. I’m going to have to explain myself at school now, on why I don’t have any pictures from the game.

I go to school and make up an excuse that my camera
’s not working right and apologize for not getting the pictures that they needed. I didn’t get in trouble, since it’s my first time on messing up.

I talk to
Alex and Jenn about it, and neither of them can give me an explanation on what may have happened. I think they may think that I’m going crazy.

It’s start
ing to get closer to Christmas and the snow’s already falling and covering the grounds. I hope we don’t get to many days of school called off; I don’t want to have to make them up during Christmas break.

My classes
are going well and I’m getting relatively good grades. It’s harder to run in the snow, so we’ve been doing our practices inside. I’ve won a few track meets, and I have received a few first place trophies.

Jenn has become president of the yearbook committee. She’s doing a great job setting everything up and getting everything together.

Alex is training daily, even in the snow, with his bow. He wants to get better, to show off to Laderic and Drakoe.

My grandpa is still doing well
but he hasn’t been working as much due to the weather. So he has been doing more stuff around the house.

We like to sit near the fireplace
and talk about Yazen. He’s starting to open up to me more and tell me more of his stories about when he went. It’s really neat to hear about them.

I’m starting to read a lot of books
, which is odd, as I’ve never been much of a reader. I’m learning more about fantasy and magic, the different creatures and worlds. I’m also learning about weapons, hunting, fishing, and trapping. I like to know that I can take care of myself, if I need to.

I practice making traps in my room, just for fun. It’s taking me a while to accomplish a trap that works. I finally get it, making m
yself proud.

I go and cut some trees from
the backyard, so we have some more fire wood. I want us to have enough, in case of any bad storms.

We end up getting a pretty bad snow storm that lasts for a few days. I pretty much stay in my room, occasionally calling
Alex or Jenn to say hi.

It finally clears up some, so we can go back to school. The forecast says it may get bad again, so we only go to school for the one day. School lets us start our Christmas break early. I’m so excited. It has felt like these last six months have taken forever to pass by.

I help my grandpa set up our Christmas decorations inside of the house. I want him to feel special. The snow is too bad to decorate outside. I make some hot chocolate for my grandpa and I, and we sit next to the fireplace. After we finish, we go to bed for the night.

Nicole Sloan is the
author of a new series that is being released called the Ponith Series.
Yazen
is the first novel of this series to be released. Nicole is in the process of writing her second and third novels now. The second novel will be called,
Volux
and the third novel will be called,
Crendus
.

She enjoys reading and writing
, with fantasy being her favorite genre. She lives in Central Florida with her fiancé. She’s very close with her family. Learn more about Nicole Sloan and her novels at her website, http://nicolesloansbooks.com/ and at her blog, http://nicolesloanswriting.com/.

Other ways to connect to Nicole Sloan are:

Email – [email protected]

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nicole.sloan.353

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Nicole_Sloan83

I want to give special thanks to my fiancé, family, and friends, and backers on Kickstarter for supporting me. Special thanks to my fiancé, Daniel, for inspiring me to follow my dreams on writing.

Special thanks to my parents, Ernest and Sherry, for supporting my reading habit as a child and my writing habit as an adult.

Thank you to my editor, Kerrie, for all of your time, help, and
for fixing my errors. You’re a pleasure to work with. Thank you to my cover designer, Ramon, for making a spectacular cover for my novel.

I had a few backers on Kickstarter who helped me get my book out sooner, and helped me with the funding to get it properly edited,
helped me get a nice book cover, and even a map of Yazen to insert into the book, which I greatly appreciate.

My biggest thanks goes to
“Alex Prevett.” He helped donate $600+ to make sure my project was successfully funded. Since he donated so much money, I changed one of my characters to his name, so he can be in the book series. I can’t thank you enough for your support. I really hope you enjoy the book and enjoy your character. You have helped make my dreams of publishing this book a reality.

Lastly, I want to thank all of my
readers; I really hope you enjoy this series.

Ponith Series:

Yazen – First book

Volux – Second Book (Coming in 2015)

Crendus – Third Book (In the Future)

Bredin – Fourth Book (In the Future)

Qysan – Fifth Book (In the Future)