Chapter 2

I pocketed the deck of cards and held out four cards facing down that I selected earlier.

"We have four cards remaining, I need you to slap three out of my left hand".

Rachel swung her right hand down hard on the cards and three flew out of my hand, leaving only one card left.

"Now, what was your card?".

"I tell you?" asked Rachel, not making any sense because she was drunk.

I nodded my head silently, as I smiled at my drunk friend, curious to see her reaction (as well as other people who were watching me).

"It was the three of clubs".

I flicked the down facing card with my right index and thumb, before I revealed the card to Rachel.

"Is this your card?".

I asked, already knowing that the card I was holding was her card.

"Yeah it is. How the hell did you do that?" she asked, as some people gasped when they saw the card.

I gave her a mischievous smile.

"Magic".

"Do another one!" shouted an anonymous person that was in the crowd somewhere behind Rachel.

"Well, if you insist," I replied, as I put away my regular deck of cards back into my satchel and took out my 'invisible deck'.

"For this next card trick, I need a volunteer".

Hands quickly shot up in the circle surrounding me. I selected the third closest person to me, which happens to be a tall thin boy with short brown wavy hair and deep blue eyes. He stepped up to me in his snazzy blue suit and tie. As I was about to do my 'invisible deck' card trick, my acute hearing picked up a noise coming from upstairs; The sound of a large window shattering, thumps, and was followed by a blood curdling scream.

Then I glanced to see if anyone else had heard it, but no one did.

"Aren't you going to do a card trick for me?" asked the teen boy innocently, seeing that I was putting my cards away.

"Yeah I will, after I go use the restroom".

I smiled at him, before I left the inner circle, with people moving either moving to the left or to the right of me, to let me pass. I speed walked to the other side of the ballroom and went down a hallway, finding the women's single washroom to my right, unoccupied. I went inside, locked the door behind me and put on my hero costume; Black boots, pants, long sleeve shirt, tunic, a brown belt, a purple cloak and my newest addition, a black mask that goes over my eyes.

After I exited the washroom, I hid my satchel under a large orange striped rock, that was partially fixed to the tile floor. Then I shapeshifted into a black cat with bright green eyes and took the elevator up to the second floor to investigate. As the elevator took me up to the next floor, the spine-shivering screams were getting louder.

When the doors opened, the elevator light was the only light on the floor, (as far as I could see), and an eerie silence hung in the air. I entered the hallway cautiously and began to use my night vision to help navigate myself through the darkness. As I made my way down the hallway, I could hear the faint sounds hissing and sliding.

The albino snakes are back!

I crouched low to the ground, flattened my ears and crept up behind a big vase, preparing myself to attack. After a few moments, I leapt out from behind the vase and bared my fangs at an albino anaconda that was attacking a young teen.

Unexpectedly, the snake was bigger than I thought it was. The snake's head whipped its head around to face me and lunged at me, going straight for my face with its serrated teeth. Reacting quickly, I stumbled back onto my hind legs, and shapeshifted back into my human form. From there, I stepped on the snake's neck and pulled out a seven of spades playing card from the pouch on my belt, slashing off the serpent's head in one motion. I wiped the blood smear off of my card (my deck has an air cushion finish on them), slid the card back into the pouch and offered a hand down to the terrified young teen laying on her back on the ground.

"Th-th-thanks" she stuttered, as she took my hand firmly, before helping her up to her feet.

Thankfully, we were by a small glass window that was emitting some light into the hallway, just enough to avoid running into things.

"Are you alright? Did you get bit?".

The girl shook her head.

"No, I didn't and I'm okay".

"Are there any others?".

The teen girl shrugged her slim shoulders.

"I don't know for sure, but I think some others ran down the hallway after the snakes broke in and I accidentally tripped.

"Alright, I'm going to go get the others; You go back down to the first floor" I said confidently, before I turned my back to her and started to continue down the dark hallway.

I cautiously approached a half open door on my right, slowly moving myself closer to kick the door open.

Taking a big gulp of air in through my nose, I kicked the door open with my boot hard and put both of my arms up, turning them into four black octopus tentacles each. In front of me was a mob of albino snakes cornering a few teens at the back right corner of the room, with their jaws snapping at them continuously. Before any of them could get bit, I used my right tentacles to grab all four teens, each one wrapping itself around a teen and lifting them up high in the air. Then I transformed my left tentacles into porcupine quills and shot them at the aggressive snakes, impaling each one in sight.

Once they all collapsed on the ground, I gently set down the four teenagers beside me, before turning my tentacles and quills back into my normal arms and hands.

"Are you guys alright?" I asked, with my gaze bouncing from one teen to the next.

"Yeah, we're all fine," replied a tall, big teen boy with green emerald eyes.

We all left the room quietly, with the tall boy taking the lead.

Going into the dark hallway, the group (including me) started heading towards the elevator, when the tall boy leading us suddenly stopped and said in a panicked voice;

"What the hell is that?!?!".

Blocking our path, was a massive muscular human looking creature. It (technically it was a she) was three times bigger than I am (including all of her bulging muscles that covered her body), has hardly any clothes on (because of her muscular body) and has 6 small red eyes on her face. Thankfully, she had a black pair of short shorts on and a sports bra on.

The creature lunged herself at the tall boy, hissing and spitting white foam towards the terrified teenager. Acting quickly, I pushed myself through the group of teens and got in front of the tall boy, shapeshifting into a eight foot tall cassowary.

The ferocious creature slammed all of her weight into me, sending me flying down the hall and slamming right into the back wall, making me shapeshift back into my human self. After landing on my stomach on the floor, I looked up to see if the teens were still okay and sure enough, the monster was charging at them.

Thrusting my arms forward, I turned them into long black mamba snake tails and wrapped them around all four teens, pulling the group away from the aggressive creature. After I pulled them behind me, I was getting up to my feet when the female creature dug her long nasty nails into my black snake arms and began to pull me towards her.

I dug my boots down into the floor and tugged against her trying to slip my snake arms out of her grasp. But I was clearly outmatched by her sheer strength and size. The female creature pulling me towards herself, looking like dragging me was no problem.

After a few moments of struggling, I realized that I could out maneuver her. I stopped pulling myself back away from her and ran towards her instead, sliding down in between her open legs and jumping up on top of her back, close to her neck.

Then I coiled my arms around her as tight as I could until the ripped female creature finally released my snake arms. Once she did that, my snake arms were almost fully coiled around her tightly when all of a sudden, the wooden floor gave way. I quickly turned my arms and legs into black octopus tentacles and attached them to the ceiling above me.

Then I made four more come out of my sides and grabbed ahold of each falling teen. Below me, the buff female creature landed on (and crushed) one of the long buffet tables. She laid on top of the mess unconscious as I carefully lowered myself down onto the tile floor and put down the four teenagers.

Then I shapeshifted my black tentacles back into my human arms and legs again, also making the extra two pairs disappear from my sides, only leaving a few holes behind. Instantly someone gasped at the sight of me doing that and I looked up at the teenagers that I just saved, but it wasn't any of them.

They just stared blankly at me. I quickly scanned the room around me, but there wasn't a soul in sight.

Strange.

I swore I heard someone-.

Lots of heavy footsteps interrupted my thoughts. I turned towards the front door and started to run into a sprint when one for the teenagers called out to me.

"Thanks for saving us!".

I shapeshifted into a harpy eagle, gave out a loud call to say 'you're welcome' and flew out the shattered window on the front door, flying back to my aunt and uncle's house.