Chapter 1- The Highwayman!

Gwynedd, the twenty-two year old man, was still living with his mother since there was no point in getting a new house for him self. He was living in the small cottage next door that she owned, so he had his own privacy, and he had everything he need and was close to college so the point of getting his own house away from everyone was non existent.
It was a record braking, hot July in 2027. Global warming was beginning to slow down due to the massive efforts produced by the British public and not government policy. The sun was dazzling the country side where he lived near Narberth. The road was a darker shade of grey, where the sheer heat had melted it into a thick, gloop on the top.
His blue eyes were the mark of his mother, and his light brown hair were a memory of his father. His sister Robin seamed to inherit little but lightening wit and a tendency to fight for what she believes. He didn’t like Robin, naturally. They had different fathers, just like the entire lot of them. His father had died when he was just two, then came Robin’s father came into the picture when he was three and that was when Robin was born. He was a jerk and Gwynedd remembered very little of him.
Then came Gwen’s father who was said to be a really nice guy, he Gwyn couldn’t even remember meeting him at all. The relationship wasn’t meant to be so Rhiannon, his mother, ended it not long before Gwen was born and told Gwen’s father that he had to get on with his own life and not worry about them. Gwen was an angelic girl; her revenges were slow but long lived and brought much more pain than Gwyn or Robin could put anyone through. But Gwen would never use her revenge unless it was truly deserved; they always said that she was wise beyond her years. She was measured and fair, and that she’d make a very good judge one day. She was very articulate and cunning but still needed help from friends or siblings to get out of sticky situations.
He was about six when his mother brought her home, he didn’t even remember Rhiannon going to hospital or being pregnant. It was around about the same time as they moved into the house, the two things just drifted into their life as if unimportant. She was now a sixteen year old girl with bright blue eyes and golden blond hair in sleek sheets. Everyone loved her. She was the innocent one, as far as everyone knew, but she was picked on in school like most other girls her age.
It was Robin’s last day at school, Alex had left the year before, and Gwen was there for another two years yet but it was the summer holidays now. Alex lived over the road and had been Robin’s first best friend and stayed that way ever since, Gwen didn’t favour any of her friends, but she was more alike to Alex than any other.
Any minute now they’d be coming back from school on the hydro powered bus. Contemplating this, he decided he’d better start looking busy, as he was supposed to be fixing some tiles up there and hadn’t been doing anything but drinking beer and staring out at the patchwork of fields and forest, lined with roads, dappled with bright sunshine and the speckled glaze of pink and orange summer flowers.
He picked up the paint brush and started to do a rough job over where he’d missed, it would hide the fact that he’d been lazing all day. He glimpsed a sparkle on the line of the horizon before he started, and knew that he wouldn’t get much done before they arrived back. Quickly it turned into a thin, white snake with a steamy trail rising to the sky.
It turned and stopped here and there, leaving a few extra puffs wherever it rested. Slowly, it made it’s way up to near his house and a dozen kids got off. Seven of whom- who came from a foster family- started to head down the drive next to the house.
Alex, Gwen and Robin stepped off and crossed the lawn. “Tra Franko!” They called back to the bus driver, who waved back before putting the vehicle into gear again and driving away. Gwen was wearing her dark blue Doc Martins with the red laces and her short, pleated skirt. Her long jacket overlapped the skirt and flowed around her like a gown.
The other two were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Their wavy dark hair could make them look almost identical but Robin had much lighter hair and a long face whereas Alex had red streaks in her almost black hair. Gwynedd didn’t care for his sister, Robin, he’d never liked her. Her father was never nice to him as a child and she shared some of his traits- the sarcasm and self worth.
Gwen was the innocent that everyone adored. Gwynedd treasured her. She had golden blond hair and cobalt blue eyes. She was intelligent, not physically capable of anything special but she knew her facts and her fictions well enough to tell you where you were going wrong.
The three of them entered the house through the front door, which was not far below him. They’d barely looked up; at least they hadn’t suspected he wasn’t doing anything. There was no point for him to stay up there as he’d finished.
He heard something move in the bushes and stared over at the scrub that crowded the wall that he would have to climb down and thought he saw something very dark. There was something sleek and long, perched under a branch… upside down. It was very still and he knew it was staring at him as he gazed at it.
He laughed at himself and shook his head. He couldn’t blink as he watched the sheer black of the object. It was still, dead still. There was quiet all around him, or maybe it was that he couldn’t hear anything while transfixed by this shadow.
“Gwynedd!!” He leapt out of his skin. His sister was calling from below.
“I’m coming!” He replied and turned to climb across to the edge of the roof. There was a ladder against the wall. It led almost through the bushes so he’d have a difficult time climbing down. Leaves and twigs flicked his face and he had the sudden impulse to pause.
The bushes were moving behind him, parting around him. As soon as he turned he was pinned against the brick wall by talons and felt something dig deep into his neck. He thought it would puncture an artery. He opened his eyes and thought he saw a face for a second, but all that was there was black. He couldn’t breath and the pain in his neck reached the bone.
In the moment he found strength to move he lifted his arms and pushed whatever it was away from himself. A trickle of something warm ran from his neck to his chest and he leapt the rest of the distance to the floor.
For a moment, he couldn’t see a thing and he thought it had attacked him again but it was just temporary blindness. In front of him was the trunk of the tree and the branches separated into twigs and leaves. It was all green; there were no shadows but the one he stood in. Whatever it was, it had gone. He felt his neck and there was nothing there but sweat and dry blood, which was also over his shirt. He looked at himself, pitifully trembling, with blurred vision.