AGAINST TIME Written and Illustrated By

Popo, Belle, Kitty, Grace and Meemee

Raine trudged silently, alone, through the wet grass across the school field. The lively sound of children and

teenagers chatting aloud was unnoticed by her. The sky

was grey and grim like lightning was going to flash at any moment. The wind ruffled her dark blonde hair as she walked steadily down the cement road which lead the way to her house. Raine sighed,'Another day had been

wasted' she thought, "I wished my life would be more ex}citing" she muttered out loud.

As soon as the words left her mouth, a frail woman

bumped into her. "I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Raine asked

frantically but the old lady didn't say anything as if her words weren't heard. Raine gently helped the stranger up

to her feet. The old woman wore a dark cloak and her head was wrapped in a colorful fabric which was a con}trast to her clothes. She smelled of herbs that was used for medicine which made Raine feel more relaxed.

Suddenly the stranger's black eyes turned ruby red. She straightened up and said in a loud, hush voice. "Triple the days will be the hardest in your life. You will face one

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Illustration By Grace Anantaprayoon

of your worse fears and unleash something you cannot deny.

Let the moon turn red, the portal open then get ready to say

Illustration By Grace Anantaprayoon

goodbye" The old hag's spoke in a rhythm like a poem,or, a

prophecy?She froze in terror as thoughts flowed in her mind.

What is she talking about? Is she nuts? Raine suppressed her emotions and calmly asked "Erm, excuse me? What are you

talking about?" But she was already gone. Raine shrugged

Illustration by Grace Anantaprayoon as if nothing has hap}

pened and continued to walk home. She was outside the house when she heard loud noises.

'BANG! CRASH!' Raine eyes widened and she dashed

quickly into the house, or what was left of the house. There was fire everywhere! "Mum!? Where are you?! Mum!" Raine screamed. She continued the search the house when she heard

a roar from the backyard. She rushed to see what was hap}pening. To her surprise, she saw her mum battling with a

hideous creature. It looked like a giant serpent, but with 10

heads and 4 arms with razor sharp claws. It was slimy and

it had red flaming eyes.

"Mum! What in the world is happening?" Raine shrieked.

"Stay back!" Her mum cried back. "Run away! Hurry!"

"But-"

Raine watched helplessly as the battle continued. Suddenly,

then creature leaped at her and pinned her onto the ground.

Raine watched in horror as it raised its claws, ready to slash

and kill her mum. Raine crouched down, covering her ears and closed her eyes. But instead of hearing her mum scream,

she saw a bright light through her closed eyes. Confused, she

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opened her eyes. For a split second, she saw a bright red fire shooting out from her mum's hand. What was that? Did fire just shoot out of her hand? Is my mum also a creature? But she only managed to say one word:

"What-?!"

" Don't worry Raine, I will explain everything when you

have calmed down."

20 minutes later, Raine and her mum was sitting on the couch as silence filled the room.

"So..." Rained started.

"I know this is kind of a shock for you Raine, you have pow}ers just like me." Her mouth fell open. "This power is used for killing monsters from another realm. You see the moon

there?"

"Yeah, why? Are the monsters and the moon linked or some}thing?"

"You see." Raine's mum continued. "Once the moon turns red, the portal between the realm of monsters and humans will be fully opened. If that time comes, all the monsters in

that realm would be able to enter our world, the world of hu}mans. Now for the most important part. You must listen

carefully. YOU must go to the realm of monsters and kill the one that is controlling the portal."Raine bolted right up

from her seat.

"What the-? Why me? I don't even know how to use my pow}ers yet. I know, why don't YOU go, mum? You know how to use your powers and more importantly, you know exactly

what to do."

"I can't." Raine's mum said quietly.

"Why not?"

"By telling you all this, I have lost my ability to kill them.

In other words, I don't have anymore powers."

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Raine gawked. With every second that passed by she felt that her energy started to leave her.

Illustration By Grace Anantaprayoon

"So... this means I have no choice." She managed to say.

"Pretty much." Her mum shrugged. "But don't worry, you

won't be going alone." She said as a small smile covered her face.

Her mum whistled loudly even though she was bleeding badly. A few seconds later, to Raine's amazement, a golden

dragon flew closer and closer. From the size of a dot, now it was the size of the house. The confused girl opened her mouth in suprise and gaped widely like a goldfish.

" What is that?" Raine asked

The golden dragon stopped, Raine's mum push her towards the dragon and slowly Raine went and sat on the dragon's back.

The dragon roared and flew above the sky like a flash of lighting. Before entering the monster world she turned and

looked back at her mother. She cried, her mum was still bleed}ing but she helped herself up and turned around. The dragon flew through the portal and suddenly appeared into the monster's world.

The dragon flew through hot and cold, mountains and for}ests, rivers and oceans. Raine jumped down from the scaly

dragon's back. As soon as her feet touched the floor, the magi}cal creature spread it's wings and took off.

Her heart thudded violently as she glanced cautiously

around the monster's realm. Raine's heart beated even faster

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as she absorbed the location around her. It was a complete wasteland and it was ten times as worse than what she had

imagined. There was acid mist everywhere, the air stank of rotten flesh and dead mice. The floor was littered with sharp

rocks and glass from head to toe. It was so sharp that some shards of glass dug into her shoe. Raine gripped her bronze dagger so tightly that her palms started to sweat. Every

once in a while, she would hear a scream around her, echoing everywhere. The voice was so blood curdling that it sent chills up her spine. Tears formed in Raine's eyes, "I wanna

go home. Mom help me, I can't do this by myself. Don't leave me.This is a task that I cannot do." She thought desperately.

She shook her head and roughly wiped her eyes with her sleeve. " Don't be stupid" Raine scolded herself " I have to do this and defeat that stupid monster. I can't be scared". She took a deep breath and gathered her courage.

She started walking confidently around the polluted waste}land, stubbornly ignoring the agony screams that continued

to echo everywhere. Determined now to find the vicious mon}ster.

After a long time from exploring the unknown world,

Raine's lips,started to crack and her throat was dry like rusty sandpaper. "If I had known, I would have drank more water" she grumbled furiously. Her knees started feeling weak and soon, she wouldn't have any power left in her body

to walk anymore.

Suddenly she found a strange looking animal. It had 6 long legs ,thick lips and a playful creeping sneer. Raine was terri}fied at first but later found out that it was trying to commu}nicate with her from its soft voice saying, " Me.. Friend..

Find.. Serpent.. Together." Raine slowly realized that this monster was her companion and would help her to find the serpent. She approached the monster with a fearless move, touched its head softly and jumped on it. Raine

found it uncomfortable sitting on the monster back initially

because of the little spikes on it. These spikes changed

into soft sponges as soon as the monster started moving to}ward the scream. The scream was getting louder and louder as they got closer. They came to a stop when they faced a gi}ant wall in front of them. It was made from frightening

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,crooked ,glassy rocks that pointed sharply and dangerously,

it seemed impossible to pass or even to touch it. It looked

liked it was a masterpiece of Hades. At this point Raine felt totally hopeless. But a miracle did happened to her. The monster turned slightly and look her in the eyes then it bounced high enough to see what awaited them on the other side of the wall. " Whoaa, steady" Raine cried in surprise. Her heart leaped up her to her mouth as the monster sprang across the deadly wall effortlessly.

It was a scene where Raine was staring at her worst fear. The giant 10 headed serpent had a lump of bloody meat in

its claws. She knew what made the scream as soon as the cold-blooded creature looked straight into her brown eyes. It was once a human, now in pain, ripped into pieces. Raine jumped down from the monster and knew it will be either her death or her enemy. The battle began with the attack of the serpent with one serpent head snapping her arm but it missed.

"Uh, friendly monster? Where are you? Some help please?" Raine whipped her head left and right, looking for

her companion but it was gone. 'Uh oh' she thought, her heart sinking. The terrifying Serpent made a combination

of hissing and choking which Raine figured out that the it was laughing at her. She gripped her dagger tightly as

ever. "Now,now. That's not way to treat a guest, Raine. I'm

sure your PATHETIC mother had enough sense to teach

you some manners" A dry hissing voice echoed in her head.

Raine's brown eyes flashed in anger. "Zip that mouth of yours you multi-headed slug. Don't you dare insult my

mother, she was a brave and intelligent women. Unlike YOU,

all you ever do is hog up space and eat innocent flesh all day

long. You're the one that's pathetic." Stunned by the reply,

the hideous monster snapped all of its 10 heads back then all of its eyes turned red and it growled furiously. The Serpent blinked a few times and it's eyes slowly turned back to the slimy green color as it regaining its composure from strain}ing to snap the little girl in half.

" Hmm, nicely said for a dim-witted girl like you. Well, we'll see about that. If so, why did no one ever defeated me?"

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"That's because you never met the right opponent. Simple as that" Raine's thoughts flew through her mind. ' I need to dis}tract it, I need time to think of a plan to delay the fight. I need to keep it talking.' She smiled casually and said "isn't the answer simple, I guess you're too stupid to understand.

How sad". She sighed.

"Oh really, if I'm really stupid then why do I know that you're trying to distract me to keep talking so you can think of a plan to destroy me?"

Raine eyes widened in shock and she almost gasped out loud

but she suppressed her emotions. "Oh, then you're not so stu}pid as I thought. My bad"

"Like I said, you're just a weakling like every other hero I fought with. PATHETIC like your mom." Raine eyes flashed angrily again, she felt a hot feeling boil up inside like she was going to explode. She charged bravely at the serpent, dagger in hand. She caught it off guard and managed to stab the creature a few times as green liquid oozed out of

the wounds before one of its heads smacked her against a

nearby rock. Raine breathed heavily, her vision blurring.

Illustration By Grace Anantaprayoon

She felt a warm liquid trickling down her injured head. "I can't give up, not now" she whispered to herself. "Mom, help

me kill this monster". She thought of her mom's smiling face which gave her more energy.

Raine charged again and she was whacked again, The poor girl slid along the rocky ground and luckily stopped right at the edge of the cliff.

Raine gasped in pain, her arms and legs starting to bleed

quite severely from the broken glass covering the 8

ground."Ha! Weak, silly, pathetic. That's all that you could

do to something powerful like me?" The serpent advanced

slowly, its teeth snapping hungrily for it's kill. The cruel creature was just it sink its jaws into Raine when suddenly

to her surprise, she felt an aura flowing around her. To her amusement, she no longer feel pain but a warm sensation in}side her. She leaped up and sprang behind the monster as it looked around for its prey in confusion. Raine reached out both of her arms and flame shoot out of it, hitting the ser}pent directly from behind. "That's for everyone especially

and my mom and the other loyal heros you killed" She shouted, full of power and blasted another strong wave of fire at the

heartless serpent.

The 10 headed snake hissed in agony and it's multi-heads swayed around before it crashed off the rocky cliff. Engulfed

by the darkest below, the moon was about to turn red. Raine leaped through the portal just in time as it clasped shut. She kneeled down and took a deep breath as her heart was thump}ing as loud as a drum.

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