Prologe

(''Spinin round and around" Remmy Zero - Save Me)

Sasha greedily hugged the hall corner as she eyed a row of dirty beige lockers, concentrating on one in particular. The young brunette’s brow furrowed beneath her glasses as she peered through the throngs of passing students, waiting in secret anticipation of the school locker's owner. Sasha distractedly brushed back a lock of hair and re-adjusted her glasses making sure they were squarely on her face, and then, looking back towards her focal point, spied the person she had been thinking about for some time now. Sasha smiled uncontrollably, berating herself quickly for such an obvious open display of emotions, but only slightly. The brunette observed the locker’s proprietor hurriedly grabbing out papers and books and exchanging them quickly with other items in their bag. Sasha watched as the person she was surveying turned around after shutting their locker door and proceeded to affect a look of deep thought. It was the same look that always seemed to make the brunette’s hands feel awkward, make her cheeks warm, and make the back of her neck tingle.

“Hey Sasha,” came an unexpected voice from behind the young brunette. Sasha jumped slightly as the greeting ripped her out of her mental thoughts. Part of Sasha give out a silent sound of exasperation as she turned to greet young Clark Kent.

Ever since her confrontation with Clark about the election, the attacks, the bee’s, everything, she had felt him shadowing her in that polite country boy kind of way he had. Checking up on her periodically, making sure her past incident was just that, a past incident.

Sasha tried hard to force down the irateness building up in her from being checked up on. Mentally she understood Clark’s concern and knew that she shouldn’t fault him, but it was hard sometimes. It was especially hard during the times where she knew that no matter how upset she was, Clark was doing the right thing which just reminded her of how much she had been a failure to her classmates from her actions during the election, on top of being a failure at home. Sasha let some of her bitterness slip away though, knowing that the next period was mere minutes away, the period where she sat directly across from the person she had been thinking about more and more.

“Hey Clark,” Sasha said, feeling a bit of anxiousness slip into her spine as she thought about getting to her next class early.

“How are you doing today?” Clark asked as he adjusted his backpack’s weight slightly on his shoulder.

“I’m well Clark, thank you for asking, but if you don’t mind, I'd like to get to Mr. Wallace’s class early,” Sasha said, trying to give the best reassuring smile she possibly could.

“Ok then, see you around,” Clark replied and proceeded down the hallway. Sasha let out an audible sigh, then firmly re-gripped the books in her hand and walked purposefully to her next class.

Battling through the throngs of people, finally she reached the door to the room she would sit in for the next fifty five minutes, and opened it up as calmly as she could. Strolling through the isle closest to the door, Sasha went and took her normal seat, carefully laying her books down on her desk as well as her mechanical pencil. As she heard the greeting that often seemed to make her stomach warm, Sasha adjusted her glasses, hoping the reddening of her cheeks wasn’t too obvious. Smiling without thought, the young brunette turned her head to face her classmate that was already making her stomach a little lighter.

“Hey Chloe,” Sasha started, then proceeded to ask the questions she had been working on earlier that day, questions she knew that would get Chloe impassioned and talkative. Then, smiling, she leaned in to listen to the blonde woman speak, secretly taking delight in the other’s voice and excitement. Sasha listened and watched, even after Chloe stopped talking, listened and secretly watched in brief glimpses.

Chapter 1

(''Somebody save me" Remmy Zero - Save Me)

Chloe hated hiking through the woods, hated the unkempt dirt and leaves, hated the spider webs, hated the random spots of mushy ground, hated the dampness, and hated the incessant bugs. Chloe was far from happy to be so deep in the woods, far from happy indeed.

“Gah!” escaped out of curled lips as the young blonde lifted up her shoe to see what she just stepped in, then quickly put it back down. Chloe closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she tried to regain her composer. “I’m calm, I’m cool, I’m collected.” Birds chirped to each other, relaying warnings about the human intruder, fluttering about sharply as Chloe made her way closer to the remnants of the Jones’s campsite.

When Chloe had talked to the Jones's earlier that week, Frank and Ethel had assured her that their decision to go home early from their vacation to the Obitai Local Park had nothing to do with any strange occurrences or meteor rocks. Chloe though, believed differently. After the young blonde had finished interviewing the couple, she went and talked to ten year old Timothy, the two's only son. Chloe had used to baby-sit Timothy when she was younger and occasionally she still spent some time with him, visiting and playing with her friend. It was during her last visit when Timothy had mentioned the camping trip they had been on ended when they had heard a monster. Frank and Ethel had said they hadn't seen or heard anything during their vacation and that Chloe should know by now that their son has an overactive imagination. The two told Chloe that their decision to leave their getaway was because Timothy kept crying and throwing fits and it just seemed easier to spend the rest of their time home if they could get their son quite for what little they had left off their vacation.

So now Chloe was out in the Obitai park, trudging through the woods, the muck, and through gunk that she tried hard not to focus on from the off chance that she might know what she just stepped in or accidentally brushed her hand through. All this for a 'monster'. Chloe felt that this was a long shot but something in her gut told her that today, that being here in these woods following this lead, was important. Chloe's instincts were pointing her in a decided direction and the young reporter wasn't about to stop listening to the little parts of herself that tugged at her insides when something important was near and just floating out of sight, waiting for someone to uncover them.

"Hey Chloe, wait up," came a struggling voice from behind her. "It's hard to keep up with you through some of this stuff." The young blonde paused in her forward movement, letting Sasha catch up with her again. Sasha had been tagging along with Chloe recently, helping out with stories here and there for the Torch. Chloe actually found herself liking the brunettes company a lot more then she expected. Sasha seemed to almost always be eager to help out and wasn't afraid of putting in extra work to figure out something she didn't understand or just reach the truth. Chloe still worked a lot on her own or with Clark and Pete on her major stories but a lot of her smaller sidelines and less important projects were spent with Sasha, and Sasha didn't seem to mind at all. Not only did it seem that Sasha didn't mind working on less important stories, she also had an aptitude for figuring out puzzles as well as an impressive writing style that made Chloe smile as well as sparking a slightly envious nerve at times, but that was easily enough dismissed. This evening the story that Chloe was following was typically larger than something she'd share with her brunette reporter-in-training but she wanted more than her set of eyes in the woods just in case she missed something, and both Pete and Clark had ended up being busy doing their own thing. When Chloe had asked, Sasha seemed eager to follow along, even after Chloe had mentioned that they would be mucking through woods and muddy ground. Inwardly Chloe felt herself impressed at Sasha not being detoured, she hadn't even complained as they trekked about in the wilderness, even after tripping a few times. The only thing close to a complaint at all that came from her cohort was the occasional request for Chloe to slow down for a moment and wait for her to catch up, just like the one she let out just a moment ago.

"You still doing ok Sasha?" Chloe said as she watched the brunette slightly struggle over a fallen log to reach her. Sasha's brow furrowed slightly as she concentrated on her footsteps while traversing over a particularly tumultuous piece of ground. Chloe smiled in-spite of herself as she watched the other young woman give careful measure to each step she placed as she came closer.

"Yeah," Sasha said looking up from the ground to Chloe for a moment, then back down again as she kept moving forward. The brunette finally came to a stop next to Chloe.

"Well, I think we're almost there," Chloe said as she surveyed the setting around her.

"Why did they camp so far out in the wilderness?" Sasha asked curiously.

"Frank always talked about how the only true way to get away was to make sure that even a car couldn't get to you.'' Chloe sighed at being so far from a soda machine. ''He always liked being as far from technology as possible on his vacations."

"Then I guess it's no accident that there isn't any cell phone reception out here as well," Sasha said as Chloe turned to see the brunette frowning down at a beige cell phone. Chloe let out another sigh.

The two continued on through the Obitia woods, each one traversing the landscape with care and caution and occasionally giving each other a helping hand over the rougher parts until they arrived at the campsite.

The surrounding woods gave way to a small clearing that Chloe and Sasha found themselves stepping into. The canopy that had been filtering the clouded sunlight gave way for some distance, gently revealing the sky that had become even more obscured, the clouds now carrying a darker tint as they swelled a bit more. Sasha glanced weary at the sky as Chloe started walking more into the small clearing. The blonde stepped out and moved to where the Joneses had made their campfire at. Chloe crouched down on her hunches, her right hand reaching out to finger a few spent logs that littered the abandoned dead fir bed.

"So what do you think it might be that was out here that scared Timothy?" Sasha asked as she peered down from the sky and out over the small piece of open terrain around them.

"Not sure. Hopefully if there is something, it'll leave some clue behind." Chloe stood back up and began dividing the area around her up for a moment. "Sasha," Chloe began as she pointed to the right side of the camp clearing. "Can I get you to check that area for anything that might look of interest and I'll check over here on the left side." The blonde watched Sasha give an affirming nod and the two began splitting up, each intently scrutinizing the ground they were covering.

The two passed the next hour loosing themselves in their investigation, taking in as much as they could in hopes of finding anything that might lead to any thing of importance. Finally looking up, Sasha was the first one to notice that the sky had taking on an even danker look than when she first had seen it after coming into the camp site. The brunette made her way over to Chloe and gently tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey Chloe," Sasha started. "I think it's going to rain pretty soon. We may want to think about heading back. Anyways, it's gunna be getting dark also."

"Just a little longer Sasha, I wanna look over another part back there," Chloe said as she pointed off a little out side of the camp clearing and into the woods. Sasha eyed the place that Chloe was taking about and frowned, then quickly replaced it with a determined look.

"Ok, I'll help you out. I didn't find anything over where I looked," Sasha said. The two began walking into the woods a little farther scrutinizing their surroundings as they moved about. It was about the time that Chloe had found the first track of what might be her 'Monster' that Sasha came up to her with a piece of information she loathed to hear.

"Hey Chloe," the brunette voiced as she looked down at the excited blonde reporter crouched over the track on the ground.

"Yeah?" Chloe responded with a smile still plastered in her face from the elation of discovering their first piece of evidence that day.

"I think we're lost." Chloe's face turned to a frown as she looked around, realizing that the area she was in seemed completely foreign and with out reference point. "I tried to keep track of our bearing but I lost our direction somehow. Sorry." Chloe stood up and looked around again, her face in a slight disheveled look. Then it began to rain. Chloe pulled her jacket tighter as the drops falling quickly began to pick up speed and density. In moments the rain began falling so fast and loud that the two women could barley hear each other’s yells as they began running for any kind of cover that a thicker part of the forest canopy could provide.

Chloe quickly fell in tow behind Sasha as the brunette trudged forward, one arm hung over her head for some form of cover that seemed to have little effect against the rain, her other arm batting foliage away from the path she seemed set upon. Chloe stumbled behind and then suddenly she saw a hole in a rock wall they'd come too, a cave large enough for the two of them to stand in. As Chloe and Sasha stepped in, the blonde gazed down the stony shelter to see where it ended and couldn't find a far reaching wall, not with all the ran and clouds keeping the sun light from their new earth made cover.

The young blonde pulled her jacket tight as she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Chloe looked up to see Sasha doing the same, both of them looking out from the rocky protection they both huddled in, watching the rain spill down harder then either had seen it in years.

“This won’t last too long,” Chloe said through chattering lips. “My father always said heavy down pours last a moment, light sprinkles last a life time.” Sasha watched the rain wearily as she shivered a little more from the cold and her rain soaked clothes as Chloe’s voice sunk in.

“Some times the heavy down pours last longer than you expect,” the brunette said quietly, the crescendo of the rain drowning out her voice before it could reach her compatriot. Sasha finally pulled her eyes away from the water streaming down from the clouds above and moved over next to Chloe. “Hey Chloe,” Sasha began, close and loud enough for the blonde to hear even over the noise of the rain outside.