Mah epic story :3 please read and comment if you like it!

Chapter one


Claire Embry was a seemingly ordinary girl, living an ordinary life, with an ordinary family. She had straight, waist-length, red-brown hair, vibrant blue eyes, and light, fair skin. A rather bookish girl, and also very shy and reserved, she would usually rather be reading a good book rather than hanging out with the few friends she did have. She and her family lived in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, in the middle of a large forest. Fourteen years old, she had just started high school after being homeschooled since first grade.

Claire thought that she must have the dullest life on the planet. Nothing exciting ever happened; and if it did, the excitement didn’t last for very long until life turned boring again. For example, Claire’s average weekday: wake up, go to school, come home, hang out with her family and/or friends, do homework and chores, prepare for the next day, then go to bed. It was always like this. Day after day after day… She realized everyone else she knew had pretty much the same daily life, but they did not really mind all that much. For her, it was maddening. In the summer, sometimes the Embry’s took vacations; and when they did, they went to fun places like California or Florida, Disney World, or maybe just a log cabin beside a lake. It was always a ton of fun no matter where they went, but as soon as they came home again, it was back to the boring, and then eventually back to school.

She sighed now as she was thinking this. High school, she thought. Such a pain. So much work! She had not wanted to quit homeschool, but her parents decided it would be better to put Claire back in public school, as they were falling behind in a few subjects. Claire grudgingly agreed, because she knew it was necessary. Now it was the 10th of October, Thursday, and she was still trying to get back in the swing of things in public school.

The first two weeks had been really hard on her. She would come home exhausted, very thankful to be home again, and she would go up to her room and cry out all the held back tears. Please Lord, she would pray, don’t make me do this. I can’t handle it. Let Mom and Dad take me out of public school. I hate it! It’s too much for me. I can’t do this!

After a while, it got easier. But another problem Claire had in school: making friends. Claire was very reclusive, and didn’t talk much to people other than her family. She was very awkward in social situations and often tried to avoid them. Also, there seemed to be a lot of idiots in high school, so that limited her “options” with friends. She was not exactly girly, so that didn’t help with her making friends with the girls. She tried with the guys, and was more successful. But she still did not have many friends from high school.

Her stomach grumbled. It was eight o’clock and Claire realized she hadn’t had dinner yet. It was a make-your-own-dinner night, so she went downstairs and into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, and wrinkled her nose. Boy, something really smells in here. She took out a pan of leftover ziti and closed the door of the fridge.

When she was done with her meal, it was 8:30. Her older brother, Eric, had come down to eat too. For his amusement, she pretended to be a “weeping angel” from the television show Doctor Who; she only moved when he wasn’t looking. He grinned, and she tried to hold back a laugh. Very un-weeping angel like.

“Hey, do you know where Blythe is?” Claire asked her brother. Blythe, their dog, had not run up to meet her as he normally did when she came down stairs.

Eric shrugged. “Dunno, haven’t seen him.” Claire frowned and called, “Blythe! Here boy!” When the dog did not come, Eric did the same.

“Maybe Dad took him for a ride in the car,” Eric suggested. “He just went out to get gas and a couple things from the store. Oh yeah, and I wanted to show you something…” He ran upstairs to fetch whatever it was. Curious, Claire walked over to the stairs and waited for him to
come down.

She was very surprised when he did. Eric came down holding something bright red-orange. He grinned at her shocked face. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “That was my reaction too when I saw it.” It was kind of oval shaped, about the size of a milk gallon jug, and a fierce, fiery orange. What intrigued Claire the most was that it was covered in strange – and really beautiful - swirling designs all over the outside.

Claire just stared at it, completely astonished. “Where did you get this, Eric? And what is it? Some sort of gemstone? Gosh, it’s simply gorgeous, but what is it? What if… Oh, Eric, what if this belongs to someone? Wouldn’t this be stealing? What if they go to the police and ask them to find it, and then they’ll search our house and they’ll find it and we’d be arrested for theft and go to jail and-”

Eric laughed. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there! Just relax; we’re not going to jail. I found this buried in the ground in the forest. The dirt didn’t look disturbed at all, and there was grass growing over it, so it had probably been there for quite a while.” He looked down at the strange stone thing and scratched his head. “And as to what it is, I haven’t a clue.”

Claire snorted and asked, “Why were you digging around in the forest anyway?”

“I was fishing and I needed more worms.”

“Ah.” Eric fished a lot in the river near their house, so this was no surprise. He usually went two or three times a week.

Claire tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear, picked up the… whatever it was, and studied it. It felt a lot lighter than it seemed it should. “Sure it’s not a problem if we keep this?”

Eric rolled his eyes. “If anyone wanted it still, they wouldn’t have buried it, now would they? Who knows,” his eyes sparkled with mischief, “it could be cursed or something. Maybe that’s why they threw it away.”

It was Claire’s turn to roll her eyes. Eric laughed. “Honestly, you think that would scare me? Remember who you’re talking to? I would love it if something funky like that would be going on with this, um… thing.” She looked at it again, trying to think of a word for it. She held it in one arm, running her fingers along the thin, swirly grooves.

Just then, the front door opened, and a cheerful looking man walked in. From behind him, the little dog called Blythe came charging past, tail wagging. Claire bent down to scratch the energetic puppy’s ears, then looked up and said with a smile, “Hey Dad.”

He smiled back and said “Hi,” with a little wave. “I see Eric showed you the stone thingamabob.”

She glanced down at it. “Yeah. Pretty, isn’t it? I love the orange.” She turned to Eric. “Hey Eric, do you think I could borrow this? Just for tonight. I want to study it some more.”

“Sure, you can keep it. Not much I could really do with a big pretty rock.” He grinned at her. “Let me know about any major scientific
breakthroughs, okay professor?”

Blythe barked suddenly. Claire turned her head to see what he was barking at. Apparently, the stone which she still held cradled in her arms. “Shhh, Blythe, it’s just a big stone, don’t worry.” He kept barking in his cute little “growoof”, which started as a growl then turned into a bark. Their dad came into the kitchen and let the dog outside, where he continued to bark but was slightly muffled.

Dad sighed. “He wouldn’t stop barking at it before. That’s why I took him with me when I went out, just to give him a break.”

“Dunno why he would bark at it… It’s just a rock.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s such a violent shade of orange, and he feels offended ‘cause dogs can’t see orange,” suggested Eric.

Both Claire and their dad looked at him. Claire raised an eyebrow. Eric just shrugged.

Claire laughed and shook her head. She turned her wrist and looked at her watch. The little screen displayed 8:52 p.m. She looked at the stone she held, then said “Seeya” to her dad and her brother, and went upstairs to her room to do some homework.


Cramped in its dark encasement, a sentient creature – ancient, though it had yet to enter the world of the living – was beginning to stir. It felt more wakeful now than it had for thousands of years. It was dimly aware of noises coming from outside its tight confinement. The being was barely conscious, and it did not understand the sounds. The sounds were voices, though it did not know to whom or what they belonged, and it could not comprehend their words.

Somewhere in the creature’s mind a tiny alarm clock was ringing; it subconsciously knew its slumber would come to an end very soon.

This looks pretty good! Love the Doctor Who reference too xD

Haha, thanks! Glad you like it!

Holy crud I just realized...
xD I didn't intend to use your name, so don't think it was a reference to you or whatever; when I chose that name, I hadn't even heard of this website yet. derp xP

Lol XD I didn't think it was meant to me. Quite the coincidence though xD

Lol I know right? x3

Lol yeah XD totally

Imma post the next chapter now :l

Chapter two

Bleep bleep bleep bleep! Claire’s alarm clock was going off. She groaned and sat up in bed. Morning already? She had been having an awesome dream. She dreamt that the orange stone had grown large enough for her to sit on, and had sprouted wings. She would ride on top and she would soar through the sky. The giant, winged stone then shot fire and burned down the awful prison they called high school, with her shouting and cheering and whistling from atop the stone’s back.

But sadly, it had only been a dream, and she still had to go to school.



“Claire? Claire!”

She jerked herself awake and shouted randomly, “Forty two!”

“Yes,” said Ms. Adams, “the area of a parallelogram with a base of 7 inches, a side of 9½ inches, and a height of 6 inches, is indeed 42 square inches. Nice to know you were paying attention.”

Claire sighed and tried to pay better attention. She absentmindedly
doodled on her geometry notebook. Throughout the day, she caught herself daydreaming about the stone. Her life being so boring, her brother finding a strange, beautiful stone in the forest was probably the most interesting thing that had happened in a long time. (Of course, that wasn’t really true, but it was very uncommon for something as random as this to happen in her normal life.) So it occupied a large portion of her thoughts most of the time.

She looked at what she had doodled. It was - who would’ve guessed? - the stone. She realized she was probably obsessing a little bit over it. There’s no point in getting excited about it, she told herself. It’s just a rock. A pretty and possibly valuable one at that, but still a rock nonetheless.

She looked down at her watch. It was 11:39. Finally. The bell would ring in a minute, signaling the end of fourth hour. Next hour was band. She played clarinet, and was co-first chair with a guy named Jacob. He was pretty cool, and she’d been sitting next to him since 7th grade, so they were pretty good friends.

The bell rang and Claire jumped up from her chair, grabbed her books, and headed out the door and towards the band room. She went to her band locker, took out her clarinet case, put in her school books, closed the locker, and walked into the room.

As she was walking past the percussion, she smiled and waved at a friend of hers, Ashley, who played bassoon. Ashley grinned and waved back eagerly. It made Claire feel a bit more cheerful to be greeted by a friend. She had no friends in geometry, nor the class beforehand, and band seemed sort of like an escape from the loneliness and the need to pay close attention as the teachers droned on about subjects she didn’t care about.

There was only one other class that was not like that, and only the one that she enjoyed as much as band: Spanish. Claire loved learning Spanish, and both Ashley and Jacob were in that class, along with another of Claire’s friends named Alex. Also, the teacher was really cool. All Mr. Whitaker’s students loved him. He made learning Spanish fun, while still being an effective teacher. And, in the beginning of the year, when Claire had been overwhelmed by all the homework and schoolwork and… well, basically everything about school, Mr. Whitaker had taken it easy with the homework for her. She noticed it when the class was turning in homework, and she had only turned in a little over half as much as everyone else. She told Mr. Whitaker about this, and asked if she had missed an assignment. He said no, that he had just been trying to ease her work load a little.

He told her that he himself had been homeschooled when he was a kid, and he remembered how hard it was to adjust to public school again. Claire was very surprised at this, and she felt strangely connected to the teacher in a way. She realized that he always seemed to understand her more than all the other teachers. Claire liked Mr. Whitaker a lot.



Freedom! She wanted to shout as she stepped off the bus with her brother. Only Eric rode the bus home with her; their older brother, David, was in college. Claire glanced back to check that Eric was coming, then ran to the front steps of their house, opened the door and went in.

Their mom called to them in greeting from her office. Claire called back, and headed into the kitchen to get a snack.

David was in the living room playing a video game on their Xbox 360. He turned in his seat when he heard Claire, and said “’ello.” Claire responded with a “hiya” and proceeded to get her snack. She grabbed an apple and took a large bite out of it.

Then her mother came in the kitchen, getting a cup of coffee. She asked Claire, “How was school?”

“Dull, as usual. Nearly fell asleep in geometry…”

Mom laughed. “I guess I can’t blame you; it really is boring enough sometimes.” She added a bit of milk to her coffee. “I’m surprised; Eric didn’t come running into the kitchen to get a snack as he usually does.”

Just then, Eric walked in and strode directly towards the refrigerator. Claire smirked. “Spoke too soon, I guess.” She then turned and left the kitchen, and bounded up the stairs to her room.

When she walked into her room, she saw immediately that the beautiful orange stone was not in the place she had left it. That morning
she had set it down on the left side of her bed near the pillow, but now it was on the floor by the opposite side.

Claire frowned and picked up the stone. She did a quick study and analysis of it, and deduced that it hadn’t changed at all since earlier. Troubled by how it had moved, she took a bite out of her apple, then went downstairs again. She asked her mom and brothers if they had moved it, but they all said no. She went back upstairs.

She picked it up, sat on the bed, and held it in her lap. “A very curious thing, you are,” she whispered to the stone. “Arrived mysteriously, moved mysteriously… what next? What other surprises do you have in store?”

As if in response, it shook.

Claire gasped and dropped the stone, standing up. It landed with a thud and lay on the floor, motionless. She stared at it, shocked and startled. It rattled again and she jumped in surprise. She started walking backward slowly, away from the stone. It wobbled some more and tipped over onto its side, where it rolled back and forth slightly with each tremor. She walked slowly over to the door, eyes still glued to the stone, and felt around for the door knob. She had to tell Eric about this. But just as she was turning the handle, the shaking stopped.

Claire paused for a second, then released the door knob. She walked tentatively over to the stone; she reached down, jumped back, realized it hadn’t moved, then reached down again and picked it up.

She sat on her bed and - for what seemed the millionth time - looked it all over. She pressed her ear to the stone to see if she could hear anything: silence. She held her breath, which had quickened quite a bit, and listened harder: still nothing. She frowned at it. This is too weird, she thought. It’s a stone. It’s just a stone, and yet it’s moving. That’s not possible. How is this possible!

It shook again. She squealed and dropped it on her pillow. Very alarmed, Claire jumped up and left her room, intending to find Eric. He would want to know about this.

She checked in Eric’s room, saw he was not there, then dashed downstairs, yelling, “Eric!” He was in the kitchen watching David’s video game and having a bowl of cereal.

He looked up at her. “No neda fout, um wide heah,” he said through a mouthful of Raisin Bran. “Wadih yowand?”

“What?” Claire couldn’t understand him.

Eric swallowed and said, “No need to shout, I’m right here. What do you want?”

“Just come upstairs with me.”

“Can I at least finish my cereal first?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Claire waited impatiently as Eric ate his cereal, then rinsed off the bowl. “Come on, let’s go!” she said, and grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the stairs.

“Okay, jeez Claire, what is it!” Eric exclaimed as she pulled him upstairs and into her room. She walked to her bed, pointed at the stone, and looked up at Eric. “…What?” he said after a moment of nothing happening. Claire looked back at the stone. It was just sitting on her pillow being perfectly still.

She frowned and told Eric that it had been shaking. He laughed. “Yeah, okay. You expect me to believe that?” He rolled his eyes and turned to leave.

“No, Eric, I’m serious, it really did!” She took a step forward and reached out with a hand. He looked back at her with an amused smile and said, “Claire, it’s a rock. Rocks don’t move. You know that just as well as I do.” He turned and walked out of her room.

“But… but…” she protested weakly as he left. But it did move. Why don’t you believe me? She thought about that for a second, and reasoned that it was kind of hard to believe – an inanimate object moving around on its own. She knew she would not have believed it if she had not seen it herself. It was impossible and she imagined it probably defied the laws of physics or reality or something like that, but that didn’t stop the fact that it had happened. Laws of reality or none, the stone had still moved. Her brother’s words came back to her- “Who knows; it could be cursed or something.” Perhaps Eric had been right without even knowing it. And if not cursed, maybe it was – no, it couldn’t be, that’s silly… magical? She thought about that for precisely two seconds before she scoffed and told herself, Honestly Claire, magic? You’re crazy! Magic doesn’t exist. Only in fairy tales. She shook her head of the thought and went to do something that would take her mind off the stone. She picked up a random book, flipped to a random page, sat down at her desk and started reading.

As she read, she frequently glanced at the beautiful orange stone which was lying so sinisterly on her bed. Every now and then it would shake, and she would jump.



Later that evening, the stone had another bout of shakes like the one before. She grabbed the stone and was taking it to Eric to show him, but it stopped as she was going down the stairs, so he didn’t get to see. Other than that, the stone was quiet all night.

But then came the morning, and it was far less quiet.



Claire was yanked from her sleep in the middle of the night by a strange sound. Her eyes automatically snapped to her alarm clock: 3:26 a.m. She jumped out of bed and turned on the light, then looked around for what was making the sound. She found it quickly; it was the box she had put the stone in last night to keep it from moving. She lifted off the lid and saw the stone shaking again, more than it had before. She picked it up and sat on the bed, holding it tightly, trying to stop it from shaking, though she wasn’t sure that would work. It seemed determined to shake
no matter how much she resisted it.

Then it squeaked.

She thought that the shaking was bad enough, but now squeaking too? How else would this stone figure out how to annoy her? It’s just a stone! A stupid stone, for crying out loud! How can it be doing this?! She glared down at the fiery orange oval-ish sphere, which was glinting up at her. She shoved it off her lap, stood up, and paced across the floor. She stopped and knelt by her bed, staring at the stone with hard, bright blue eyes, as if daring it to do something else to piss her off.

It squeaked again, and then ever so faintly, there was another sound. Claire couldn’t hear what it was, so she put her ear closer to the stone. Another squeak. Then she heard the other sound again: some sort of a cracking sound. She took her ear back. Hey, she mused, from this angle it looks kind of like –

Another cracking sound, louder this time. And another. Then Claire saw something at the top of the stone, and she turned it around so she could see. She was shocked to see that the whole side of the stone was covered in cracks. She finished her thought: looks kind of like an egg. There was a bright light coming from the cracks, and she shielded her eyes slightly with a hand.

One more big crack, and the stone-egg thing split in half; and out flopped…

A dragon.

Oh snap o.o it's getting intense now. Haha xD

Oh, you just wait until the next chapter! Mwuahahahahaha!

Oh jeeze. The intense drama continues haha

x3 lol

Haha xD

Argh... I don't know why the editing's all messed up. I'm blaming the website! >:l it was perfect in the Word document. Hmph...

lol i know no one's responded yet, so it's almost like i'm talking to myself, but i don't care x3
I'm drawing a dragon for my story, and i was gonna post it on here. For some reason that i can't explain, my scanner, which usually does an awesome job, is making the drawings very light and hard to see. ;-; It's ruining a perfect work of art!

Yey <_> my printer and scanner are at last working WITH me! Sorry if this is huge...

The story is coming along nicely. Though, in a sense, it kinda reminds me of Eragon (but set in modern times and such). I never actually finished reading Eragon though, only the first half of it I think. Nicely done drawing too by the way.

Urgh, i was afraid someone would say that... I've read Eragon, and the entire series, actually... I was trying to be careful so the stories weren't too similar. :c  Woohoo, edit number 236,183, here i come! >_<
And thank you :3 I worked like crazy on that for 3 days straight, it better be good...

It's not too much like it. So I don't think it will be a big deal. It just seems like it was your inspiration?

You could say that.  The Inheritance Cycle (or the Eragon series, in case you don't know) was what sparked my love of dragons in the first place. So yeah, you could say it was my inspiration.

Yeah. I could tell cx I haven't actually read the series. I might. I know a bunch of other people who have.

Yes! You should! They're awesome! Christopher Paolini has swag. o_0 And a lot of it.

I might. Lol. The hardest part will be getting to the library.