The Silent Soldiers

by Travis Stinnett

night,” she said.

  “Yeah, we survived,” I replied.

  “Well that’s definitely a good thing,” she said smiling.

  “I just wanted to make sure we were still going to have class today.”

  “Unfortunately we are. Mom said to make sure I showed y’all where to go and everything.”

  “Did you get all of your presents last night?” Ava asked.

  “Presents? What presents?” I asked.

  “Your birthday presents, silly. There was a table full of presents at your party last night,” Ava said.

  “I didn’t notice them. As soon as I came in the door I had the vision and everything was chaotic after that,” I explained as Ava walked over to her bedside table and opened the top drawer.

  “I wanted to give this to you in person. After you open this we can run down to the dinning room and see if your other presents are still there,” Ava said.

  “Thank you so much, Ava, you didn’t have to give me anything,” I said as she handed me a small gift wrapped box.

  “It’s not much, but I wanted to give you something. I really like you a lot, Luke, and I’m glad you are here,” she said as I took the box and unwrapped it.

  I slowly opened the lid of the box not knowing what to expect. Inside was a small blue velvet bag with little black drawstrings. I laid the box on the bed and opened the little bag. I dumped the contents into the palm of my hand. Connected to a beautiful silver chain was a silver tooth. As I looked a little closer I noticed a small blue sphere embedded inside the silver tooth. I examined the sphere even more and noticed that the blue was actually smoke swirling around inside the sphere. The blue color of it reminded me of the color of the sky on a cloudless, beautiful, sunny day.

  “Ava, I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful!”

  “I’m glad you like it. It’s a mold of a real wolves tooth. Hopefully it will bring you luck, and keep you safe,” she explained.

  “I love it!” I exclaimed as I put it on around my neck.

  “Let’s go down to the dinning hall and see about your other gifts,” Ava said. She headed for the door and I followed her down to the dinning hall. The dinning room was empty except for the huge piles of presents wrapped in different colored paper. I had never in my life seen so many gifts at a birthday party, especially a party for me.

  “Open them,” Ava said as she took a seat and waited for me to begin. I started with the smaller ones and found DVDs, books, and a few video games. I also had several sets of clothes and a back pack full of supplies I would need for class. There was a DVD player and a game system that would definitely come in handy with the DVDs and games I had gotten. The next to the last present I opened was a laptop. I totally didn’t expect that, I had never owned a computer before, so I was very excited about this gift. The last present, and of course the biggest one of all, was the biggest flat screen TV I thought I had ever seen in my entire life. I couldn’t believe all the things I had gotten. As Ava and I shared the excitement of the things I opened, Grandpa came into the dinning hall.

  “I see you found your gifts,” he said with a smile.

  “Ava told me I had gifts down here left from the party, but I never expected all of this,” I said, “Who are all of these from?” I asked.

  “Well, the TV and the laptop are from me, Luke, and the game system is from Charles and Matt. The others are from the rest of the pack,” Grandpa explained with a huge smile on his face. “I hope you like them,” he added.

  “I love them, Grandpa! Thank you so much!” I exclaimed as I ran over and hugged him.

  “I’m glad,” he said as he hugged me back, I’ll have the staff bring everything up to your room while you’re in class,” Grandpa said.

  “That would be great!” I said as I grabbed the backpack and the laptop to take with me.

  “Let’s go up to my room and see if Matt’s up yet so I can tell him what I got,” I told Ava.

  “I will see you later this afternoon, Luke, after your last class. I want to test your powers a little more, and discuss a few things with you and Ava if you don’t mind,” Grandpa said as we headed out of the dinning room.

  “Ok, Grandpa, we’ll see ya later,” I called out. We ran all the way to my room. I was so excited about the presents I had received for my birthday. I opened the door and noticed Matt sitting at the bar with a huge tray of food. He obviously had already ordered up some breakfast.

  “Why don’t we order a pizza from the kitchen for lunch?” asked Ava.

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  “Yeah that sounds great!” Matt replied with a mouth full of food.

  “You’re going to eat all of that and pizza? Where the heck do you put it all?” I asked.

  “I can’t help it, dude, I’m a growing boy,” Matt said with a laugh.

  “Keep eating like that and all you’re going to do is grow out instead of up,” I said as Ava and I laughed together.

  “Man, you will never believe all the presents I got for my birthday. I got movies, a DVD player, and I even got a freaking big screen TV. Thank you and your dad for the Playstation, man, it’s awesome. Oh, and I got this,” I said and held up the box with the brand new laptop in it.

  “You got a Playstation and all that stuff too?” Matt asked with a shocked look. “Yeah, Grandpa said you and your dad got the Playstation for me,” I said.

  “Well hell, we got you one, and I don’t even have one myself,” Matt said with a sigh.

  “Well you’re welcome to join me in playing mine on the new big screen,” I told him. Matt finished his breakfast and headed for his room to shower and get dressed for the day. Ava helped me unpack my laptop and get it all set up so I could use it. I was somewhat familiar with computers using them at school, and what little I did on the one Uncle Charles had. I was super excited about having my own now.

  “There is Wi-Fi everywhere in the mansion,” Ava said.

  “That’s awesome,” I replied as she began to show me how to connect to the mansion’s network. The pizza had arrived by that time, and Matt returned to my room as if the smell of it had lured him back. I grabbed everyone a soda and we dug in to the pizza.

  I noticed the Silent Soldiers logo as an icon on the desktop screen of my laptop and clicked it. The program opened and asked for a user id and a password.

  “Look at this,” I said as Ava and Matt looked over at the screen to see what I was talking about.

  “What’s that?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t know, but it’s definitely something to do with the Silent Soldiers,” said Ava.

  “I wish we could get in and see what it is,” I said.

  “Hey, I know somebody we could talk to about it. We need to ask Jenna if she knows how to get in,” said Ava.

  “Who’s Jenna?” I asked.

  “You know, Dante Sanderson’s’ daughter. The one we met yesterday while we were waiting on our schedules. The blonde that Matt was practically drooling over,” Ava explained with a little giggle.

  “I was not,” Matt yelled and immediately turned bright red with embarrassment.

  “Anyway, Dante is the tech guy for the whole mansion. He works on all of the video and computer stuff. She may very well have picked up some of her fathers skills. She might be able to help us hack into the system,” Ava excitedly told us.

  “It’s definitely worth a try,” I replied. We finished our lunch by that time, and I looked at my phone to check the time. It was about a quarter to twelve so I threw my books and my laptop in my bag and we headed for class. Matt and Ava grabbed their books from their room on the way. Ava led the way as we headed through the great room and into the room where the pool was. We took a right and went through a big wooden door.

  The door opened into a long hallway with doors on either side. I noticed the rooms were numbered as we continued down the hall. We made it to the end of the hall and turned left down another hall. This hall was much like the firs
t only shorter. We came nearly to the end of this hall and entered one of the last doors.

  We followed Ava into the room. To my surprise it looked just like the classrooms back home. Chalkboards covered the wall in the front of the class. Rows of desks faced the chalkboard just like any other classroom you have ever seen. The only difference in this and a normal classroom were the posters and paintings that decorated the other three walls. These were definitely not anything I had seen before. They contained pictures of different forms that ShapeShifters took when they changed. There was also a picture that showed the different phases of the moon. We all took a seat on the front row. I pulled my ShapeShifter 101 book out of my bag along with a notebook and pen.

  A few seconds later Jenna bounced into the room as if she thought she was going to be late.

  “Hi!” Matt said a little louder than necessary. He immediately dropped his head and blushed with embarrassment.

  “Hey, Matt, is it?” Jenna asked.

  “That’s right,” Matt said a little surprised she remembered his name. As Jenna took the seat next to Matt, Adriana came swiftly into the room and slammed her books down on the table. Adriana bent over and put her hands down on either side of the desk as she glared at us. She looked as though she was ready to pounce on us at any second as she told us,

  “You will address me as Ms. Grayson. I did not choose to be here any more than you did. We will not meet every day of the week like some of your other classes,” she said. I thought that was probably the best thing I had heard in