I walked into the next train car to get away from the boy. There were two odd women wearing long trench coats sitting near the door I had walked into the car through, but other than that, there was no one else there. I walked away from the women, and sat down with my backpack at the other end of the car. At the next stop, I looked up, and realized that the two women seemed to have moved closer to me. But I hadn’t heard them move, or seen any movement, so I dismissed it as my imagination. At the next stop, however, when they moved closer to me again, I realized that there was a weird musty smell in the air that was rather unpleasant. The two old ladies were starting to creep me out, so I got out my phone to maybe call somebody if things got dangerous.

And that was my biggest mistake. The two… creatures… took this as a threat, and threw off their trench coats to reveal their bird bodies. Harpies. For once, my intensive reading helped me. With a screech, they threw themselves at my face. I did what came naturally; I threw my left arm up to protect my eyes, and one of the two creatures scratched down the length of my forearm. I cried out as pain lanced up my arm, but didn’t lower it. The first harpy, the one that had scratched me, circled around for another hit, while the second one pushed me down. I fell, putting out my right hand to catch myself. As I did so, the first harpy came again, and gouged another scratch, this time on my lower leg. I cried out again, and somewhere in the back of my mind, realized that the best thing to do now would be to curl up into a ball to protect my face and as much of my body as I could.

I don’t know how long I stayed there like that, with the harpies screeching around me, trying to get at my face. I had numerous scratches on my back and my arms, and the pain was starting to get overwhelming. Suddenly, the harpies screeched in what sounded like pain, and their furious onslaught against me stopped. I looked up, and saw the boy from the other train car there, fighting the harpies with what looked like a bronze sword. As I watched, he stabbed one of them, and she exploded into sand-like dust. The other harpy screeched in defiance and disappeared in a poof of smoke.

The boy somehow put his sword into the small backpack he had on his back, then turned to me. “Hey,” he said, holding out his hand to help me up. I looked at him, not sure whether or not I should trust him. “Come on, we have to go. The second one is probably on her way back with reinforcements already.” he said, a little impatiently.

“Who-who are you?” I asked. “My name is Jake,” he answered. “Please, just come with me. We need to get out of here.” After a moment of hesitation, I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet.