I don't know what to expect anymore. I'm tired of routine, and I know that this routine is soon to end. I am worried that I won't get in to regis because of my grades this term. I talked to my mom, and she's a really wonderful person. She made me see the errors in my thinking, just as I make her see her own errors. We help each other out. I found that if I get lower than a C in any of my classes, I'm not accepted at Regis. I'm really worried because I don't know if I can pull off a C or higher in my Japanese class.
God, I put this in your hands, please take care of me.
Hanlu and I are dating now. She's a really really nice person, and she's very fun. She's like me in a lot of ways; we both tease each other and have unique personalities. We're the misfits, the mischievous little imps who mess with everything. So summarizing, we're a good match. She's going back to Shanghai on wednesday. I'm sad because I will not be able to see her over summer, and if I get into Regis, then I won't see her for a long time.
Saturday morning I watched all of Fooly Cooly. I remember now, that it was what inspired me to right my first book. I really love that anime, and it always inspires me to do something. It's beautiful, short and sweet and unique: daring. Brisque, and some other adjectives. This is the most I've written in one sitting time period in the last month or so. I finally feel loose enough to just let the thoughts flow and go until I run out. It is because of the stress I've had, I just haven't been able to let it out, and I don't really understand how that works but it doesn't change the fact that it's prevented me from writing.
I want to see the world, so bad. I want to adventure and visit places and meet people and try to find if there's a niche in the world for me or if Pittsburgh has been the place for me all along. There are parts of Pittsburgh that I like, but I really can't get over the depression I feel when I'm here. I'm not leaving to run away, but I'm leaving so that I can grow up and maybe find an answer to all the things that happened here. I wish that it was easier to travel. I wish I could teleport and see the things I wanted or needed to, find a place to live and just settle down.
I'm not sure how it's going to work out, but I also want to have kids. More then three for sure, and I want to love them and hold them and kiss them on their heads. At the same time I want to travel. So I worry sometimes about whether or not I'll ever find the right person for all of this. Even if I don't, I trust God and know that something that I'm meant to find will be what I find eventually.
I'm so into this right now that I can close my eyes and as I type I visualize the words and know where I made typos and how to go back and fix them. It's really cool to finally feel focuses for once.
I don't do paragraph breaks enough, and I'm sure that my reader basis has a hard time dealing with the lack of break in the prose. So today must be a field day for you guys.
I think I keep forgetting to breathe. Life is so full of things worth living for, I'm finding. Even in the utmost despair, there's over 7 billion people on earth. The chances that none of those people will love you is absolutely 100% impossible. Truly, there is no way all of them would hate you. I think that's the beauty of Planet Earth. There's always someone to love each other. We all really should love each other, because then things would be a lot calmer.
In America we are all very caught up in our ways of life, and we ignore the small things that are truly important. There are fathers who miss their son's first steps, and mothers who miss their children after a divorce. My feelings about divorce: Stop sucking so fucking bad and get to know the person first. If they aren't the one for you, don't fucking marry them, if you think they are and they think they are than stay with them and don't give up no matter what. If my parents taught me anything, it's the value of honor, trust, love, hope and the ability to fight: not necessarily to fight each other but to fight for the sake of a future with one another.
I'm realizing that I've written a whole lot right now, that I've just been rambling and subjects have been bleeding over into each other, but I think it'll be good if I get it all off my chest.
My whole face feels numb for some reason. This next sentence is going to sound so ADHD that it's impossible but, my face feels numb right now. And there are helicopters going on outside my window, all the time. like every waking hour of the day, they're coming and going outside of my room. It makes you wonder; are they really such diligent workers? because that's fucking impressive. Saving people all day long; and all night long. I'm pretty sure I used that semi-colon wrong, but whatever. So Hanlu is sleeping, and she's absolutely adorable. I want to give her a hug and let her know how much I care about her. I'm afraid that saying this will piss off a least one person reading this.
A long time ago, I got addicted to Ogame. what stops you from playing it is someone who plays it more obsessively than thou who finally blows you the fuck away and steals your shit. and then you suddenly feel that everything you fought for, everything you built was in vain. i started to play again. This is much better, it's on a server that is 2x speed. I'm also playing on one that is 5x speed. It's really a beautiful thing. I love it so much.
So, I'm gonna say some stuff that may piss my parents off. I tried cigarettes recently. I bought a pack for a film project in which I ate two cigarettes on camera. It was pretty funny to watch. In this film I also chased someone down a hallway with a katana, and then dragged their body into my room. It was epic. So anyways about the cigarettes: I don't feel addicted at all, and I didn't cough or choke on the smoke at all, which was strange. I don't feel the need to continue, so I'm going to burn the pack pretty soon.
Speaking of Packs, I'm going to pack for home soon.
Also,
End Post.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
At first it was impossible to tell exactly what time of day it was by the sun since it seemed to be unmoving, and I didn’t feel like asking Erin. After an hour or so, it started to creep downwards for a sneak attack on the horizon opposite the mountain. We had been walking for what seemed like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been an eternity; things were just so quiet between us that it made everything seem very strained. Even if we weren’t in dead silence, I doubt I’d be able to tell how far we’ve walked or how far we had to go.
I’ve driven fifty miles before in just about no-time. That is, breaking a few laws. Walking, now that’s a different story. I had no idea how far it really was until I finally decided to ask Erin.
“How far are we now?”
“We’ve gone about two miles.” Came her reply.
Silently my head exploded in frustration.
“What?! We’ve been walking for almost an hour! At least I think it’s been an hour!”
“You have to understand, we’re walking down a mountain. If we were on flat ground in optimal condition we probably would have gotten much further already without any effort at all. It’ll only get harder when we get to the woods. We really have no choice as to which way to go, this way is simply very direct, and we can count that as a blessing. The best thing to do is try to pass the time on the way.”
“Oh. Okay. Well this sucks.”
Pass the time. Pass the time? How? I mean, we could try talking. But then again, I didn’t really have any idea what to talk about. I never talked to anyone in school really, it wasn’t worth my time. Everyone was so boring and talking about dumb things like relationships or high school drama, and there was no point to even try to talk to them and stay out of that kind of crap. So here I was, completely at a loss with a gorgeous girl who actually interested me and I have no idea what to talk about. What a moron.
A thought came to mind just then.
Oh right, she’s a time traveler. I could ask about tha-
“I can’t tell you anything more about the future or how to time travel, I just got the orders. Sorry Grim.” She frowned.
The question for me was, how did they know I was gonna ask? Maybe, I already did, and they sent the orders back to change the past. She might have told me in another version of reality and caused something that her higher-ups didn’t want to happen, and therefore they solved it by preventing her from telling me anything. Well if I don’t ask this time around, would they have sent the orders? If I was prevented from asking, then they have no further need to send orders back. Bah. Damn paradoxes. This is confusing and more confusing the more my train of thought moves on. Why is everything confusing now? I’m supposed to be smart. Alright, whatever. I’ll get over it.
What now? We can’t talk about time travel or anything, and I’m out of ideas already. I want to punch myself in the face, I’m being so stupid. Hmm. I could ask her.
“So if you can’t tell me about that, what can you tell me?”
“Well it would be a mistake to ask for information and an explanation. I can give the information to an extent, just not the explanation. Are you sure you want to hear any of this? “
“Of course I am”
“There’s not much. I could tell you that you’re important and that’s why I’m protecting you. Or I could tell you that this isn’t the first time we’ve met. Well for me at least. I think I might have met you earlier in your life, but in the future for me. I don’t know,” She stated.
“What? You haven’t met me before. This is the first time.”
“Yes, the first time for you. I’ve met you before at different times in your future already.”
“Oh. That’s annoying.”
“Well at least it’s not your job.”
She had a good point. I was silent again after that. There really was no path into the woods, so we had to hack and slash our way through the thicket. Walking got harder as we got to the foot hills, adding elevation to a mixing pot of traveling worries. It was similar to climbing sand dunes made of wood and prickly bushes. Everything was certainly very green, and the surrounding emptiness made the atmosphere eerie. The wind wasn’t prevalent because of the trees, and there was a blanket of quiet lain over the forest. Only a few birds chirped once in a blue moon. We walked for a while, I couldn’t tell how long this period was until Erin said,
“Let's camp here for tonight.”
What? I hadn’t even noticed the sun setting. I turned back to see the mountain still relatively close. Damn it. We had come to a clearing in the trees with enough fallen branches to use as fire wood.
I guess we can stop here.
“I don’t have any tents or anything, so we’ll have to make do.” Erin busily went about gathering firewood.
I moaned. Okay. I helped her get a decent campsite together, if by decent you mean horrible. As we had just finished clearing a good spot in the woods, night was heavily upon us and the moon began its trek across the sky. I had just gathered another bundle of firewood when I heard a snap, and turned around to a fully lit fire.
“Did you even have any matches?”
“That’s classified.”
“Okay, fine. What about food?”
“That’s classified.”
“Are you freakin’ serious?!”
She gave a mischievously gleeful smile. “Nope.”
I sighed.
“That’s not funny.”
We laughed over these stupid antics and then I managed to find a nice, solid looking piece of root infested ground to lie on. After collapsing into an uncomfortable position just near-enough to the fire so that I didn’t burst into flame, I threw my head back and let out a sigh.
“It’s gonna take so long to get there.” I said to myself.
“That’s okay though, I think,” Erin replied anyways.
“Hmm?”
“Well,” she continued, “Look.” She pointed upwards. “The stars are out winking at us.”
When I glanced up, I saw a real sight; it was beautiful. I was ashamed I hadn’t noticed until she mentioned them. Just at the horizon there was a dim scarlet hue from the sun laying its big fat head to sleep, and the rest of the sky was dark velvet, embroidered with billions of twinkling lights. They were uncountable, I had never seen so many. Living in society, I was sort of conditioned to pay attention to all the insignificant crap that went on, and even if I noticed the sky, there were never this many stars; my home was too near the city’s light pollution. It was amazing.
I never imagined the sky could have so many freckles.
“Hey. Since we’ve got a while to go, let’s enjoy it while we can. It’s the first break from paperwork I’ve gotten in a long time.”
Now that is an award winning thought process, I’m sick of all the boring crap anyways.
“I concur.”
We sat there next to the cackling fire as it giggled and spurted with insanity to itself, and we watched the freeze-frame universal fireworks from too far away together. There was just enough breeze so that we wouldn’t be too hot during the night, and the fire had enough embers to keep us warm. I tried to think of something to talk about for a long time, but I couldn’t manage it. I still had so much sand to sift through; too much idle bother that I was so used to letting occupy my mind during school.
“I always notice the stars when I come back here. In our time you can’t see them at all unless you’re in one spacecraft or another. There’s less pollution on the earth, but more lights, more buildings, more people. It’s actually silly. People who recognize me as a time traveler ask me if I’ve seen the stars before because they don’t have any space crew to ask.”
“Oh. Why not?” I questioned.
“Well they’re up in space, or on other planets. I had wanted to go as a kid. When my father dragged me along, I became attached to this world. I think that’s what I’m not allowed to advance in rank at all. Time travelers aren’t supposed to become attached to anything in the past because we’re not supposed to interact at all. I’m not ashamed of it though, there are so many great things here.”
I laughed out loud at that.
“The only great things here that I’ve discovered have been certain sodas, heavy metal bands and now you.”
She was quiet for a while. I was afraid that I had offended her or something. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft as if she were afraid I’d hear.
“What about that mountain? These hills? What about these stars and everything around us? To me, these are so precious. The earth in the future has no space for trees anymore, no scenic views. The only places to see those anymore are in museums floating in orbit, and you have to be rich to get there and see those kinds of photographs. Could you imagine if where we were right now was covered in buildings and skyscrapers, roads and forums? We’re currently lying on the inside of just one more city of the future earth.”
“If there’s so many buildings and no trees, how does the Earth process carbon dioxide?” I felt like an environmentalist at that moment, and frowned at myself.
“They have wind-catcher buildings that do basically what trees do. It’s like a windmill with no fan, it just converts CO2 to Oxygen and a measure of energy.”
That’s really depressing; having no trees on earth. She stopped again for a bit, and I spoke out.
“The people of this Earth never learned to value what they have, because they can’t believe in their reality being so abstract from what it currently is; they can’t imagine what future generations will have to deal with. I tried to force myself away from any involvement in things like that, because there’s no room for fruition. The God damn politicians and Mr. and Mrs. Big Suits all turned the problem into political controversy; so nothing gets done, and it’s all about arguing and having a reason to hate your friends.”
She glanced over at me as if the thought was abstract, and then she gave a look that seemed like “oh yeah, we are in the past now that I think about it.” She spoke out again to me.
“I think I do have something to regret after all.”
“Hmm? What’s that?”
“I regret not being able to live here, not being able to care too much about the people I spend the most time with, and not being able to hang onto what I find important unless it’s safely put away in the future.”
Her face seemed covered in shadows from the light of the fire. I wish I could comfort her.
Time passed like a slug in the dark and silence, and I still had wanted to talk, but I didn’t know what about; I just knew that I wanted to talk more before I fell asleep.
After a while I thought of something.
“Hey, Erin. I have a question.”
“What is it, Grim?”
“Remember how you said you’ve met me before? What did you mean?”
“Well let’s see…” she was counting something on her fingers.
“The first time I met you will be in a few months from now for you. You seemed a lot different at that time. I don’t know how to explain it really.”
“Different?”
“You were, well… sad. I don’t know why, but I was worried at the time. You said you had met me already, twice. You also said you were sorry, but you wouldn’t explain why. I didn’t know what to make of it.” She paused for a bit. “Oh yeah, you also told me to tell you something when you reach the void-zone.”
I lay silent for a bit. It was a good bit of thinking to absorb and process.
“I guess I can’t convince you to tell me about it now, huh.”
“That’s classified.”
After that it was silent yet again. Erin seemed as deep in thought as I was, and distressed at some idea. When she’s upset, I tend to be upset too, I noticed.
I had my own thoughts to fight with though. For one thing, I couldn’t imagine what I was supposed to hear from myself. For another thing, I was lost and it’s only been a day, but it feels like it’s been an entire week. In my mind, I knew things can’t stay peaceful too long; After all, there was still Odin to be accounted for.
Another brilliant idea came to mind.
“Hey Erin.”
…
“Yeah?”
“In the future, what am I to you?”
…
…….
……….
After a while I could hear her breathing get more even.
I whispered at her as she slumbered.
“Good night kid.”
I drifted off into sleep. I woke again at what must have been midnight, or maybe 2:00 AM. The fire had dimmed enough to let the stars illuminate everything instead. I looked over to see Erin lying where she had been, and shivering. A strange thought took over my mind for the first time I could ever remember; an alien emotion. I took off my shirt, but not my undershirt, and put it on Erin’s small sturdy frame as a blanket to ward off the cold.
I didn’t know what to think of my feelings anymore, I had never cared about anyone; and what I did had just been instinctual. I felt ache at the thought of having less emotional guard against the cold and bitter heart of human kind that I’ve always known, but for once I was more worried about someone other than my stupid self. I hope she doesn’t get a cold or anything.
I left the campsite, and found another clearing in the trees, and spent the rest of the lonesome night craning my neck up at the stars in deep thought. I sat with my head on my knees when I saw the horizon darken before starting to get its morning dosage of illumination. I was worn out from the long night, so I walked back to the campsite, and found Erin still sound asleep. I guess I ought to try and sleep before she wakes up and we start moving. I felt very lucid and out of ideas to think. Having a blank plate isn’t so bad all the time. When I had lain my head back to the warm earth near the dying embers, I didn’t realize just how full my head had been of tiredness and a cry for sleep.
I was gone after a few minutes, for a good sleep after a strange day.
At first it was impossible to tell exactly what time of day it was by the sun since it seemed to be unmoving, and I didn’t feel like asking Erin. After an hour or so, it started to creep downwards for a sneak attack on the horizon opposite the mountain. We had been walking for what seemed like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been an eternity; things were just so quiet between us that it made everything seem very strained. Even if we weren’t in dead silence, I doubt I’d be able to tell how far we’ve walked or how far we had to go.
I’ve driven fifty miles before in just about no-time. That is, breaking a few laws. Walking, now that’s a different story. I had no idea how far it really was until I finally decided to ask Erin.
“How far are we now?”
“We’ve gone about two miles.” Came her reply.
Silently my head exploded in frustration.
“What?! We’ve been walking for almost an hour! At least I think it’s been an hour!”
“You have to understand, we’re walking down a mountain. If we were on flat ground in optimal condition we probably would have gotten much further already without any effort at all. It’ll only get harder when we get to the woods. We really have no choice as to which way to go, this way is simply very direct, and we can count that as a blessing. The best thing to do is try to pass the time on the way.”
“Oh. Okay. Well this sucks.”
Pass the time. Pass the time? How? I mean, we could try talking. But then again, I didn’t really have any idea what to talk about. I never talked to anyone in school really, it wasn’t worth my time. Everyone was so boring and talking about dumb things like relationships or high school drama, and there was no point to even try to talk to them and stay out of that kind of crap. So here I was, completely at a loss with a gorgeous girl who actually interested me and I have no idea what to talk about. What a moron.
A thought came to mind just then.
Oh right, she’s a time traveler. I could ask about tha-
“I can’t tell you anything more about the future or how to time travel, I just got the orders. Sorry Grim.” She frowned.
The question for me was, how did they know I was gonna ask? Maybe, I already did, and they sent the orders back to change the past. She might have told me in another version of reality and caused something that her higher-ups didn’t want to happen, and therefore they solved it by preventing her from telling me anything. Well if I don’t ask this time around, would they have sent the orders? If I was prevented from asking, then they have no further need to send orders back. Bah. Damn paradoxes. This is confusing and more confusing the more my train of thought moves on. Why is everything confusing now? I’m supposed to be smart. Alright, whatever. I’ll get over it.
What now? We can’t talk about time travel or anything, and I’m out of ideas already. I want to punch myself in the face, I’m being so stupid. Hmm. I could ask her.
“So if you can’t tell me about that, what can you tell me?”
“Well it would be a mistake to ask for information and an explanation. I can give the information to an extent, just not the explanation. Are you sure you want to hear any of this? “
“Of course I am”
“There’s not much. I could tell you that you’re important and that’s why I’m protecting you. Or I could tell you that this isn’t the first time we’ve met. Well for me at least. I think I might have met you earlier in your life, but in the future for me. I don’t know,” She stated.
“What? You haven’t met me before. This is the first time.”
“Yes, the first time for you. I’ve met you before at different times in your future already.”
“Oh. That’s annoying.”
“Well at least it’s not your job.”
She had a good point. I was silent again after that. There really was no path into the woods, so we had to hack and slash our way through the thicket. Walking got harder as we got to the foot hills, adding elevation to a mixing pot of traveling worries. It was similar to climbing sand dunes made of wood and prickly bushes. Everything was certainly very green, and the surrounding emptiness made the atmosphere eerie. The wind wasn’t prevalent because of the trees, and there was a blanket of quiet lain over the forest. Only a few birds chirped once in a blue moon. We walked for a while, I couldn’t tell how long this period was until Erin said,
“Let's camp here for tonight.”
What? I hadn’t even noticed the sun setting. I turned back to see the mountain still relatively close. Damn it. We had come to a clearing in the trees with enough fallen branches to use as fire wood.
I guess we can stop here.
“I don’t have any tents or anything, so we’ll have to make do.” Erin busily went about gathering firewood.
I moaned. Okay. I helped her get a decent campsite together, if by decent you mean horrible. As we had just finished clearing a good spot in the woods, night was heavily upon us and the moon began its trek across the sky. I had just gathered another bundle of firewood when I heard a snap, and turned around to a fully lit fire.
“Did you even have any matches?”
“That’s classified.”
“Okay, fine. What about food?”
“That’s classified.”
“Are you freakin’ serious?!”
She gave a mischievously gleeful smile. “Nope.”
I sighed.
“That’s not funny.”
We laughed over these stupid antics and then I managed to find a nice, solid looking piece of root infested ground to lie on. After collapsing into an uncomfortable position just near-enough to the fire so that I didn’t burst into flame, I threw my head back and let out a sigh.
“It’s gonna take so long to get there.” I said to myself.
“That’s okay though, I think,” Erin replied anyways.
“Hmm?”
“Well,” she continued, “Look.” She pointed upwards. “The stars are out winking at us.”
When I glanced up, I saw a real sight; it was beautiful. I was ashamed I hadn’t noticed until she mentioned them. Just at the horizon there was a dim scarlet hue from the sun laying its big fat head to sleep, and the rest of the sky was dark velvet, embroidered with billions of twinkling lights. They were uncountable, I had never seen so many. Living in society, I was sort of conditioned to pay attention to all the insignificant crap that went on, and even if I noticed the sky, there were never this many stars; my home was too near the city’s light pollution. It was amazing.
I never imagined the sky could have so many freckles.
“Hey. Since we’ve got a while to go, let’s enjoy it while we can. It’s the first break from paperwork I’ve gotten in a long time.”
Now that is an award winning thought process, I’m sick of all the boring crap anyways.
“I concur.”
We sat there next to the cackling fire as it giggled and spurted with insanity to itself, and we watched the freeze-frame universal fireworks from too far away together. There was just enough breeze so that we wouldn’t be too hot during the night, and the fire had enough embers to keep us warm. I tried to think of something to talk about for a long time, but I couldn’t manage it. I still had so much sand to sift through; too much idle bother that I was so used to letting occupy my mind during school.
“I always notice the stars when I come back here. In our time you can’t see them at all unless you’re in one spacecraft or another. There’s less pollution on the earth, but more lights, more buildings, more people. It’s actually silly. People who recognize me as a time traveler ask me if I’ve seen the stars before because they don’t have any space crew to ask.”
“Oh. Why not?” I questioned.
“Well they’re up in space, or on other planets. I had wanted to go as a kid. When my father dragged me along, I became attached to this world. I think that’s what I’m not allowed to advance in rank at all. Time travelers aren’t supposed to become attached to anything in the past because we’re not supposed to interact at all. I’m not ashamed of it though, there are so many great things here.”
I laughed out loud at that.
“The only great things here that I’ve discovered have been certain sodas, heavy metal bands and now you.”
She was quiet for a while. I was afraid that I had offended her or something. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft as if she were afraid I’d hear.
“What about that mountain? These hills? What about these stars and everything around us? To me, these are so precious. The earth in the future has no space for trees anymore, no scenic views. The only places to see those anymore are in museums floating in orbit, and you have to be rich to get there and see those kinds of photographs. Could you imagine if where we were right now was covered in buildings and skyscrapers, roads and forums? We’re currently lying on the inside of just one more city of the future earth.”
“If there’s so many buildings and no trees, how does the Earth process carbon dioxide?” I felt like an environmentalist at that moment, and frowned at myself.
“They have wind-catcher buildings that do basically what trees do. It’s like a windmill with no fan, it just converts CO2 to Oxygen and a measure of energy.”
That’s really depressing; having no trees on earth. She stopped again for a bit, and I spoke out.
“The people of this Earth never learned to value what they have, because they can’t believe in their reality being so abstract from what it currently is; they can’t imagine what future generations will have to deal with. I tried to force myself away from any involvement in things like that, because there’s no room for fruition. The God damn politicians and Mr. and Mrs. Big Suits all turned the problem into political controversy; so nothing gets done, and it’s all about arguing and having a reason to hate your friends.”
She glanced over at me as if the thought was abstract, and then she gave a look that seemed like “oh yeah, we are in the past now that I think about it.” She spoke out again to me.
“I think I do have something to regret after all.”
“Hmm? What’s that?”
“I regret not being able to live here, not being able to care too much about the people I spend the most time with, and not being able to hang onto what I find important unless it’s safely put away in the future.”
Her face seemed covered in shadows from the light of the fire. I wish I could comfort her.
Time passed like a slug in the dark and silence, and I still had wanted to talk, but I didn’t know what about; I just knew that I wanted to talk more before I fell asleep.
After a while I thought of something.
“Hey, Erin. I have a question.”
“What is it, Grim?”
“Remember how you said you’ve met me before? What did you mean?”
“Well let’s see…” she was counting something on her fingers.
“The first time I met you will be in a few months from now for you. You seemed a lot different at that time. I don’t know how to explain it really.”
“Different?”
“You were, well… sad. I don’t know why, but I was worried at the time. You said you had met me already, twice. You also said you were sorry, but you wouldn’t explain why. I didn’t know what to make of it.” She paused for a bit. “Oh yeah, you also told me to tell you something when you reach the void-zone.”
I lay silent for a bit. It was a good bit of thinking to absorb and process.
“I guess I can’t convince you to tell me about it now, huh.”
“That’s classified.”
After that it was silent yet again. Erin seemed as deep in thought as I was, and distressed at some idea. When she’s upset, I tend to be upset too, I noticed.
I had my own thoughts to fight with though. For one thing, I couldn’t imagine what I was supposed to hear from myself. For another thing, I was lost and it’s only been a day, but it feels like it’s been an entire week. In my mind, I knew things can’t stay peaceful too long; After all, there was still Odin to be accounted for.
Another brilliant idea came to mind.
“Hey Erin.”
…
“Yeah?”
“In the future, what am I to you?”
…
…….
……….
After a while I could hear her breathing get more even.
I whispered at her as she slumbered.
“Good night kid.”
I drifted off into sleep. I woke again at what must have been midnight, or maybe 2:00 AM. The fire had dimmed enough to let the stars illuminate everything instead. I looked over to see Erin lying where she had been, and shivering. A strange thought took over my mind for the first time I could ever remember; an alien emotion. I took off my shirt, but not my undershirt, and put it on Erin’s small sturdy frame as a blanket to ward off the cold.
I didn’t know what to think of my feelings anymore, I had never cared about anyone; and what I did had just been instinctual. I felt ache at the thought of having less emotional guard against the cold and bitter heart of human kind that I’ve always known, but for once I was more worried about someone other than my stupid self. I hope she doesn’t get a cold or anything.
I left the campsite, and found another clearing in the trees, and spent the rest of the lonesome night craning my neck up at the stars in deep thought. I sat with my head on my knees when I saw the horizon darken before starting to get its morning dosage of illumination. I was worn out from the long night, so I walked back to the campsite, and found Erin still sound asleep. I guess I ought to try and sleep before she wakes up and we start moving. I felt very lucid and out of ideas to think. Having a blank plate isn’t so bad all the time. When I had lain my head back to the warm earth near the dying embers, I didn’t realize just how full my head had been of tiredness and a cry for sleep.
I was gone after a few minutes, for a good sleep after a strange day.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
It felt like one of those lame sitcoms where the main character fades in and out of consciousness. Only, I didn’t dream of hospitals, but I had flashes of other things.
I remember seeing a large suit of black armor, and someone getting stabbed with a Japanese sword, and some bright things I couldn’t interpret. I saw Erin a few times, one time crying, another time smiling and another version of her face plastered with a scream. I heard a solemn tune playing in the distance, and saw a woman dressed in a blue gown. I saw at some point what looked like Trent crawling out of the ground. “Why’re you crawling out of the ground?” I asked my subconscious, but there was no response. Images continued to fly past my unconsciousness and plague me with unrest. After a while it got annoying. When the hell am I gonna wake up?
At that thought, it all stopped. A howling wind blew past my ears in the silence, but I felt nothing besides emptiness. Infinite amounts of time seemed to pass, as if I was absent from time itself and waiting for it to finish and repeat itself all at once over and over again in slow motion. There seemed to be no life here, no emotion, no thoughts or anything physical. Maybe something metaphysical, but it was something I couldn’t interpret. I then felt a deep hatred course through my body, and heard whispers that were impossible to decipher, flooding and smashing through the inside of my skull. The scream wrenched from my mouth seemed to be at a million decibels and at the same time silent. Then images of three large stones appeared before me, all of which continually shattered and rebuilt themselves, turned to dust and then grew like plants. As if it never happened, it was gone again and no time had passed at all, as if I had just arrived in this paradox of time and dimension. My senses started coming back to me at last, or it might have been immediately, I had no way of telling. I felt weightless and numb; then a sensation of falling startled me. As I gradually began to feel again and hear again, I realized that I was very cold. My bones and muscles felt as if they hadn’t moved for centuries and I was waking up from the dead. I felt empty and nauseas.
All of a sudden everything stopped with a flash of sunlight. I was standing up very stiffly, and then gravity seemed to take effect and I fell over from the disorientation. The nausea slowly went away, and my eyes slowly adjusted. It felt like the sun reflecting off of my drool in science class again. Was it all just a dream? When I open my eyes, would I appear back in that classroom? It was such a good dream after all, but if it was real I think I’d be very much afraid.
I opened my eyes to a surprise.
I was still in a ray of sunlight, but this was no classroom.
What the crap?! I hurriedly stood up and saw a landscape that I’ve never known before. Lightly rolling hills covered with trees went for miles and miles. The trees all seemed to be from around the area I lived, but this was not a sight I’ve ever seen in my life. There was a river snaking through the hills, bringing life to the land surrounding, and in that direction the sun was at about a forty-five degree angle in the sky. The air was so clear, the sky was an ocean spattered with cream colored clouds, and I could see for miles and miles. I spun around and stumbled, the wind grew strong; and then stronger. I was standing on a platform about a quarter from the peak of a mountain. I tried to regain my composure, but I began shaking.
What the hell is going on?
I felt a stroke of trauma tugging at my brain trying to put me into a sleep in reaction to the shock.
I turned back to face the landscape and sat down on the stone ledge.
How did I get here? When did I get here? Everything is so weird. My memories seemed to stop there, and they slowly came to mind again.
That strange girl was in trouble… Oh God.
I killed that guy.
And then, then… I was on fire? It was black fire though… if I’m here because of that… Where is that girl?
I looked around.
“Hello? Hey! Anyone up Here?” I shouted to the unresponsive wildness.
The echo of my voice died down slowly, as if in a cave. The wind started to slow. After a few minutes of suspense, or what felt like hours, there was no answer to my call.
I started to get really worried after a bit. I paced around in disbelief, looking about for the girl who was with me before I got here. Instinct was nagging me. Survive, survive. How? Find the girl, she probably knows what’s going on. I received a swift punch in the face at a realization.
I’m in a different world. It hit me. Why? When? How am I gonna get back?
…
Does it matter?
…
……
I was intrigued at the very least. I continued to look around for the girl. I scanned further and further down the mountain… There.
She was unconscious. Shit.
Without thinking, I hurried into action. I jumped over a precipice. Don’t ask why, it was impulsive. About halfway down I caught onto the side of the slope with my hands, and slid down along the Cliffside with a cascade of loose pebbles which provide a sliding surface for me to travel on. A boulder decided it wanted to stay in the way, and I was unable to choose a different pathway, so I had to jump over it. Dropping a good twenty feet, I landed with a roll onto another platform. The girl was right there, and she was beginning to stir. She seemed really dazed.
“…How did… How… you recovered first?”
I had no time to think or consider her question, let alone answer it. I hoisted her onto my back as a rumbling echoed from higher up the mountain, and then a series of crashes. A bit further up the slope something was moving; something very big. A rock leapt over the ledge heading straight for us.
“We gotta go. Whoever you are, hold on!”
She made an effort to clutch to my neck, but she seemed feeble from what seemed like the same disorientation I had experienced. I jumped again, and again. The rock made some friends and wanted to have a party with us. Not today.
I had to speed up; I began running, jumping, whatever helped us along down the steep stone behemoth. We weren’t going to make it. We were running out of mountain to move down, and at that finish line was what looked like a deep canyon. We came to the end of the line.
The girl screamed in my ear. God damn, great timing, now I’m half deaf.
I jumped as we reached the cliff above the ravine. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I looked down and saw all the reason in the world to join in with the girl in screaming. Below us was at least a thousand foot drop that I was positive I wasn’t gonna survive.
… No! Just as things started to get interesting. Damn it all. I wanted to talk to that girl and find out what the hell is going on.
I closed my eyes, and the sensation of falling didn’t come, but a strange humming did. I opened them again to find myself encased with the girl in a translucent blue sphere, and we were drifting as serenely as a feather down towards the foothills.
“What?”
I turned back to see the avalanche take a nosedive for the ravine. We were supposed to do that first, damn avalanche cutting in line. Gosh. In bafflement, I looked forward again. Our path was pretty much y= -x + 20, or so to say it was very straight. I didn’t know what the heck was going on, so I did my best to enjoy the moment, as well as check on the girl. Her eyes were very wide with worry, and she looked around like a frightened mouse. Poor girl, I wish I was good at comforting people. We slowed our descent to land safely on a grassy hill. The shield disintegrated as we touched down softly on the grass which felt oh-so-bouncy. When the shield was gone, we could feel the wind again, which had been absent for the past minute or so in that bubble.
“What was that?”
Surprisingly it was the girl who was asking, and not I.
“…I don’t know.” And then I thought of something. “Hey! Wait. Who are you?”
She stuttered for a bit, then stopped and took a deep breathe to regain her composure. She continued with “…Well I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m Erin. Erin Madrid.”
Erin. It’s nice to meet you. Very nice indeed, I thought. The smile she gave me was one that could make anyone want to protect that pretty little face no matter what.
I gave a rare smile.
“I’m Grim, but everyone else calls me Lee. No one but you knows that. Why is it that everyone in the world knows me as Lee, but you know my real name, which I have never spoken aloud until now?” I questioned.
“I’ve been sent to protect you, by the higher-ups in my organization. I had no idea we’d end up here though, of all places.”
“Sent to protect me? Why? From where?”
“Your appearance was just chance, as everything you’ve done thus far. The question isn’t where I’ve been sent from, it’s when. I’m from the future, but what time period exactly is something I’m not permitted to tell you or anyone in this time period. I can’t say why or how, it’s classified for your protection.”
God Damn it. I’ve read science fiction novels but I never imagined how frustrating it must be to be confused. Where’s a lifeline when you need it? And now that I think of it, whoever invented that game is an idiot.
“Erin… I’m completely lost here. I have almost no idea of what context I ought to be speaking to you in, or where we are or what we’re supposed to be doing. Even if there’s nothing we’re supposed to do, I don’t know what we should do, or how I’m supposed to get back.”
She smiled again, and comforted me a bit with “It’ll be okay, that’s why I’m here.”
I stopped my many complaints for the moment.
She continued.
“I am a time traveler. In fact, I’m one of the middle ranking travelers, so I’m basically the best out of those who still travel back in time. However, I’m still left in the dark to an extent by the higher-ups so that I don’t reveal any information that I shouldn’t through my actions or thoughts. My job is to do my best to effect only one aspect of the past to rectify an error in the space-time continuum without changing anything else. These errors are most often caused by Odin. The information we have on him is very limited, and the only time we came into direct contact with him was in this time period. He is considered to be the only being in history with the Omega Threat Level label. However, we have not been able to do anything to stop him. There are two things we have going for us though, and one of them is you, if we can persuade you, but I’ll get to that.”
She was beginning to get hard to follow. So much information on your mind when you originally thought it to be impossible for the concept of time travel to exist, let alone involve you.
“You see, we knew much of the past, yet you seem to be an independent variable of the planar values. You cause changes that shouldn’t happen. An analogy that might help explain it is to look at Newton’s first law. An object in motion remains in motion unless an outside force acts upon it. Now consider the object to be a segment of history. There have been four segments of history that have changed without any force acting upon them, or what ought to be the equivalent of no force at all. See, when we use a time scope to see what’s in the past and understand what we need to do in order to rectify situations, you were never there. Yet you still managed to bring changes to history. How is that possible? We asked ourselves this. We looked through all the instances of change with no catalyst, and went back to the first one, dated 12 years ago from now. That was when we first came into contact with you. So beyond the strange coincidences that have been occurring lately, you were just an ordinary boy who just happened to exist without a trace and without any way to know where you were unless we found you with our own naked eyes. That’s why I did not expect you there. Or here.”
Breathe. Breathe, Grim. What the hell makes me so important? I mean, I’m good at a lot of things, but I never did anything worthwhile, and I never planned on it. The air up here was very clear, but I was suffocating. I had no idea how bad it was back in my town. Now that I think about it, the world I was living in was a corrupt and dirty place. I used to try to stay out of it, and everything became boring. Every time I got involved in a sports team or club or event, there was always a level of unfairness. It wasn’t always unfair for me, but it was always unfair for someone, and I always felt bad about it. Was it so troublesome to be honest or fair? These are the same thoughts that have reoccurred in my mind every day for years. I learned to tune them out so long ago. Is this my fault too? If I truly don’t have any place in history, or I’m not supposed to, then how do I exist?
Erin was poking me in the ribs. “Hey. Wake up, snap out of it. We have to go, Grim!”
I shook myself out of my daze, and rubbed my face to rid a sense of solemn and quiet agony.
“Okay, where are we going?”
“To another void-zone. So we can get you somewhere safer. Please close your eyes.”
“What? ‘Void-zone’? What are you talking about?”
“That’s classified.”
“Why am I closing my eyes?”
“Just do it.”
I did. I repeated my question “Why am I closing my eyes?”
Her reply came from in front of me, but I could still hear an echo from the surrounding hills.
“You aren’t allowed to see any technology from the future. Those are my orders, and I have to find what time we were in precisely.”
I opened them, but she must have put away whatever technology she had been talking about before I got the chance to see it.
She gave me a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re in the same period, just a different place. This isn’t supposed to happen, and I can’t contact my higher-ups. Our original destination was further back. I guess we’re on our own for now.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. We’re stuck?”
“No, I found a void-zone that is about fifty miles away. If we can get there before it collapses, I should be able to find out way out of this sector.”
Besides her use of words that I couldn’t know, this was a shock. There was a breeze tugging at my hair, teasing me and pleading with me to go back to the mountain. This felt like one of those pirate movies where they were all like “if ye go past this here point, then ye be goners, and there be no comin’ back.”
Erin offered me her hand just in case I might need a hand in taking forward steps.
Here I was, in a place I’ve never known being offered the hand of a hazel-eyed stranger. In this place I have nothing at all. The money in my wallet means nothing to nature and I have no place to sit and hide, no menial tasks calling my attention. My chest ached a bit, and Erin pushed her hand closer to me with a look of determination.
“Well, I’ve got nothing to lose,” I whispered to myself.
I smiled, purchasing a new path in life. I wasn’t quite this used to so much smiling.
“You know Erin, this better not be a dream. If I ever go back or find myself alone again, please find me and kick my ass.” I said to her face. It softened.
She smiled radiantly.
It was like the sun on its dawn of a golden age. The wind stopped tugging.
…
I took her hand.
It felt like one of those lame sitcoms where the main character fades in and out of consciousness. Only, I didn’t dream of hospitals, but I had flashes of other things.
I remember seeing a large suit of black armor, and someone getting stabbed with a Japanese sword, and some bright things I couldn’t interpret. I saw Erin a few times, one time crying, another time smiling and another version of her face plastered with a scream. I heard a solemn tune playing in the distance, and saw a woman dressed in a blue gown. I saw at some point what looked like Trent crawling out of the ground. “Why’re you crawling out of the ground?” I asked my subconscious, but there was no response. Images continued to fly past my unconsciousness and plague me with unrest. After a while it got annoying. When the hell am I gonna wake up?
At that thought, it all stopped. A howling wind blew past my ears in the silence, but I felt nothing besides emptiness. Infinite amounts of time seemed to pass, as if I was absent from time itself and waiting for it to finish and repeat itself all at once over and over again in slow motion. There seemed to be no life here, no emotion, no thoughts or anything physical. Maybe something metaphysical, but it was something I couldn’t interpret. I then felt a deep hatred course through my body, and heard whispers that were impossible to decipher, flooding and smashing through the inside of my skull. The scream wrenched from my mouth seemed to be at a million decibels and at the same time silent. Then images of three large stones appeared before me, all of which continually shattered and rebuilt themselves, turned to dust and then grew like plants. As if it never happened, it was gone again and no time had passed at all, as if I had just arrived in this paradox of time and dimension. My senses started coming back to me at last, or it might have been immediately, I had no way of telling. I felt weightless and numb; then a sensation of falling startled me. As I gradually began to feel again and hear again, I realized that I was very cold. My bones and muscles felt as if they hadn’t moved for centuries and I was waking up from the dead. I felt empty and nauseas.
All of a sudden everything stopped with a flash of sunlight. I was standing up very stiffly, and then gravity seemed to take effect and I fell over from the disorientation. The nausea slowly went away, and my eyes slowly adjusted. It felt like the sun reflecting off of my drool in science class again. Was it all just a dream? When I open my eyes, would I appear back in that classroom? It was such a good dream after all, but if it was real I think I’d be very much afraid.
I opened my eyes to a surprise.
I was still in a ray of sunlight, but this was no classroom.
What the crap?! I hurriedly stood up and saw a landscape that I’ve never known before. Lightly rolling hills covered with trees went for miles and miles. The trees all seemed to be from around the area I lived, but this was not a sight I’ve ever seen in my life. There was a river snaking through the hills, bringing life to the land surrounding, and in that direction the sun was at about a forty-five degree angle in the sky. The air was so clear, the sky was an ocean spattered with cream colored clouds, and I could see for miles and miles. I spun around and stumbled, the wind grew strong; and then stronger. I was standing on a platform about a quarter from the peak of a mountain. I tried to regain my composure, but I began shaking.
What the hell is going on?
I felt a stroke of trauma tugging at my brain trying to put me into a sleep in reaction to the shock.
I turned back to face the landscape and sat down on the stone ledge.
How did I get here? When did I get here? Everything is so weird. My memories seemed to stop there, and they slowly came to mind again.
That strange girl was in trouble… Oh God.
I killed that guy.
And then, then… I was on fire? It was black fire though… if I’m here because of that… Where is that girl?
I looked around.
“Hello? Hey! Anyone up Here?” I shouted to the unresponsive wildness.
The echo of my voice died down slowly, as if in a cave. The wind started to slow. After a few minutes of suspense, or what felt like hours, there was no answer to my call.
I started to get really worried after a bit. I paced around in disbelief, looking about for the girl who was with me before I got here. Instinct was nagging me. Survive, survive. How? Find the girl, she probably knows what’s going on. I received a swift punch in the face at a realization.
I’m in a different world. It hit me. Why? When? How am I gonna get back?
…
Does it matter?
…
……
I was intrigued at the very least. I continued to look around for the girl. I scanned further and further down the mountain… There.
She was unconscious. Shit.
Without thinking, I hurried into action. I jumped over a precipice. Don’t ask why, it was impulsive. About halfway down I caught onto the side of the slope with my hands, and slid down along the Cliffside with a cascade of loose pebbles which provide a sliding surface for me to travel on. A boulder decided it wanted to stay in the way, and I was unable to choose a different pathway, so I had to jump over it. Dropping a good twenty feet, I landed with a roll onto another platform. The girl was right there, and she was beginning to stir. She seemed really dazed.
“…How did… How… you recovered first?”
I had no time to think or consider her question, let alone answer it. I hoisted her onto my back as a rumbling echoed from higher up the mountain, and then a series of crashes. A bit further up the slope something was moving; something very big. A rock leapt over the ledge heading straight for us.
“We gotta go. Whoever you are, hold on!”
She made an effort to clutch to my neck, but she seemed feeble from what seemed like the same disorientation I had experienced. I jumped again, and again. The rock made some friends and wanted to have a party with us. Not today.
I had to speed up; I began running, jumping, whatever helped us along down the steep stone behemoth. We weren’t going to make it. We were running out of mountain to move down, and at that finish line was what looked like a deep canyon. We came to the end of the line.
The girl screamed in my ear. God damn, great timing, now I’m half deaf.
I jumped as we reached the cliff above the ravine. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I looked down and saw all the reason in the world to join in with the girl in screaming. Below us was at least a thousand foot drop that I was positive I wasn’t gonna survive.
… No! Just as things started to get interesting. Damn it all. I wanted to talk to that girl and find out what the hell is going on.
I closed my eyes, and the sensation of falling didn’t come, but a strange humming did. I opened them again to find myself encased with the girl in a translucent blue sphere, and we were drifting as serenely as a feather down towards the foothills.
“What?”
I turned back to see the avalanche take a nosedive for the ravine. We were supposed to do that first, damn avalanche cutting in line. Gosh. In bafflement, I looked forward again. Our path was pretty much y= -x + 20, or so to say it was very straight. I didn’t know what the heck was going on, so I did my best to enjoy the moment, as well as check on the girl. Her eyes were very wide with worry, and she looked around like a frightened mouse. Poor girl, I wish I was good at comforting people. We slowed our descent to land safely on a grassy hill. The shield disintegrated as we touched down softly on the grass which felt oh-so-bouncy. When the shield was gone, we could feel the wind again, which had been absent for the past minute or so in that bubble.
“What was that?”
Surprisingly it was the girl who was asking, and not I.
“…I don’t know.” And then I thought of something. “Hey! Wait. Who are you?”
She stuttered for a bit, then stopped and took a deep breathe to regain her composure. She continued with “…Well I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m Erin. Erin Madrid.”
Erin. It’s nice to meet you. Very nice indeed, I thought. The smile she gave me was one that could make anyone want to protect that pretty little face no matter what.
I gave a rare smile.
“I’m Grim, but everyone else calls me Lee. No one but you knows that. Why is it that everyone in the world knows me as Lee, but you know my real name, which I have never spoken aloud until now?” I questioned.
“I’ve been sent to protect you, by the higher-ups in my organization. I had no idea we’d end up here though, of all places.”
“Sent to protect me? Why? From where?”
“Your appearance was just chance, as everything you’ve done thus far. The question isn’t where I’ve been sent from, it’s when. I’m from the future, but what time period exactly is something I’m not permitted to tell you or anyone in this time period. I can’t say why or how, it’s classified for your protection.”
God Damn it. I’ve read science fiction novels but I never imagined how frustrating it must be to be confused. Where’s a lifeline when you need it? And now that I think of it, whoever invented that game is an idiot.
“Erin… I’m completely lost here. I have almost no idea of what context I ought to be speaking to you in, or where we are or what we’re supposed to be doing. Even if there’s nothing we’re supposed to do, I don’t know what we should do, or how I’m supposed to get back.”
She smiled again, and comforted me a bit with “It’ll be okay, that’s why I’m here.”
I stopped my many complaints for the moment.
She continued.
“I am a time traveler. In fact, I’m one of the middle ranking travelers, so I’m basically the best out of those who still travel back in time. However, I’m still left in the dark to an extent by the higher-ups so that I don’t reveal any information that I shouldn’t through my actions or thoughts. My job is to do my best to effect only one aspect of the past to rectify an error in the space-time continuum without changing anything else. These errors are most often caused by Odin. The information we have on him is very limited, and the only time we came into direct contact with him was in this time period. He is considered to be the only being in history with the Omega Threat Level label. However, we have not been able to do anything to stop him. There are two things we have going for us though, and one of them is you, if we can persuade you, but I’ll get to that.”
She was beginning to get hard to follow. So much information on your mind when you originally thought it to be impossible for the concept of time travel to exist, let alone involve you.
“You see, we knew much of the past, yet you seem to be an independent variable of the planar values. You cause changes that shouldn’t happen. An analogy that might help explain it is to look at Newton’s first law. An object in motion remains in motion unless an outside force acts upon it. Now consider the object to be a segment of history. There have been four segments of history that have changed without any force acting upon them, or what ought to be the equivalent of no force at all. See, when we use a time scope to see what’s in the past and understand what we need to do in order to rectify situations, you were never there. Yet you still managed to bring changes to history. How is that possible? We asked ourselves this. We looked through all the instances of change with no catalyst, and went back to the first one, dated 12 years ago from now. That was when we first came into contact with you. So beyond the strange coincidences that have been occurring lately, you were just an ordinary boy who just happened to exist without a trace and without any way to know where you were unless we found you with our own naked eyes. That’s why I did not expect you there. Or here.”
Breathe. Breathe, Grim. What the hell makes me so important? I mean, I’m good at a lot of things, but I never did anything worthwhile, and I never planned on it. The air up here was very clear, but I was suffocating. I had no idea how bad it was back in my town. Now that I think about it, the world I was living in was a corrupt and dirty place. I used to try to stay out of it, and everything became boring. Every time I got involved in a sports team or club or event, there was always a level of unfairness. It wasn’t always unfair for me, but it was always unfair for someone, and I always felt bad about it. Was it so troublesome to be honest or fair? These are the same thoughts that have reoccurred in my mind every day for years. I learned to tune them out so long ago. Is this my fault too? If I truly don’t have any place in history, or I’m not supposed to, then how do I exist?
Erin was poking me in the ribs. “Hey. Wake up, snap out of it. We have to go, Grim!”
I shook myself out of my daze, and rubbed my face to rid a sense of solemn and quiet agony.
“Okay, where are we going?”
“To another void-zone. So we can get you somewhere safer. Please close your eyes.”
“What? ‘Void-zone’? What are you talking about?”
“That’s classified.”
“Why am I closing my eyes?”
“Just do it.”
I did. I repeated my question “Why am I closing my eyes?”
Her reply came from in front of me, but I could still hear an echo from the surrounding hills.
“You aren’t allowed to see any technology from the future. Those are my orders, and I have to find what time we were in precisely.”
I opened them, but she must have put away whatever technology she had been talking about before I got the chance to see it.
She gave me a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re in the same period, just a different place. This isn’t supposed to happen, and I can’t contact my higher-ups. Our original destination was further back. I guess we’re on our own for now.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. We’re stuck?”
“No, I found a void-zone that is about fifty miles away. If we can get there before it collapses, I should be able to find out way out of this sector.”
Besides her use of words that I couldn’t know, this was a shock. There was a breeze tugging at my hair, teasing me and pleading with me to go back to the mountain. This felt like one of those pirate movies where they were all like “if ye go past this here point, then ye be goners, and there be no comin’ back.”
Erin offered me her hand just in case I might need a hand in taking forward steps.
Here I was, in a place I’ve never known being offered the hand of a hazel-eyed stranger. In this place I have nothing at all. The money in my wallet means nothing to nature and I have no place to sit and hide, no menial tasks calling my attention. My chest ached a bit, and Erin pushed her hand closer to me with a look of determination.
“Well, I’ve got nothing to lose,” I whispered to myself.
I smiled, purchasing a new path in life. I wasn’t quite this used to so much smiling.
“You know Erin, this better not be a dream. If I ever go back or find myself alone again, please find me and kick my ass.” I said to her face. It softened.
She smiled radiantly.
It was like the sun on its dawn of a golden age. The wind stopped tugging.
…
I took her hand.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Startled awake by the sound of sweet, sweet freedom, I fell out of my chair at the cacophonous bell. No one worth talking to was in this room, so I sprinted to my locker, past the crowds of unnecessarily loud idiots. You’d think that when you have something to say to someone you were standing right next to, you could calmly tell them. But no. No fucking way for these monkeys. I opened my locker out of habit and realized there was nothing I really wanted from it again. Now that I think about it, I never needed to open my locker for any legitimate reason because I never kept anything in it. I’m too compact a person for a locker. I turned a corner past a bunch of giggling cheerleaders and then with a quick glance down the hallway, slinked into the AV Room. Within the next two minutes I was back outside with everything I needed and on my way to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going, bitch?” Someone shouted at me.
It was John and a couple of his friends, conveniently located in front of the main exit of the building.
“I’m going to Portugal you dimwit.” I told him sarcastically.
He laughed as if he thought it was funny, and his friends laughed too. They all looked at me the same. I recognized a few of the faces from back when I was a kid. I grimaced and understood. They were here because they disagreed. Not just disagreeing with me, but disagreeing with my existence. This time is different, and I’m a lot older than I used to be.
“You see Lee, we can’t let you leave. We’re really sick of you pretending you’re better than everyone.” John stated as if he was the mouth of all six persons thoughts.
“Yeah!” One of the other apes chirped in.
I was never one of much respect. These guys were really into the art of monologue I guess, so I took advantage of it. A few of the smarter ones caught what I was doing and moved to get in the way. I threw the tripod I had taken from the AV room at John’s head like a javelin. He ducked out of the way and a shorter kid behind him got hit. Poor guy. Sorry. Anyways from the right and left two of the grunts came to surround me. Unfortunately for them I had been expecting just this and had prepared for it. John stood back up to face me, but I had already set down the box I had been carrying and closed the distance between us. He looked really surprised, so I punched him in the gut, causing him to topple over out of breath. The two directly to the right and left of John were just as surprised since the moment the shorter kid was taken out by the tripod. No one expected a skinny guy like me to be a fighter, so no one prepared for it. They prepared for ganging up on a geek with good grades.
I suddenly got hit on the flat of my back, with a baseball bat. I hadn’t expected that. I fell to the ground, and quickly got my feet under me, biting past the pain and lunging up head first into the kid who was to the left of John. I caught him under the chin and he went down. I ducked as the baseball bat whizzed over my back again. Then when it came again I punched at it right where it starts to get thinner. I felt a flash of heat for some reason, and a bright blue, similar to what I thought I saw that morning in the glass. The bat broke where I hit it, and the two pieces fell to the ground. The conscious remainders of the group blinked once, then twice in unison and then bolted. I dragged the smallest kid who got knocked out by the tripod over to the wall and sat him up against it. I took out a sharpie and wrote “sorry” on his arm. John was still wheezing, so I pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911, then put it next to his wheezing mouth on the floor.
“Make sure they get someone to take care of both of them.” I told him, then picked up my stuff and walked out the front door of the building. Someone bumped into me on the way out of the building.
“Hey!” I said, trying to see who it was, but I only caught the end of a trail of brunette hair rounding a corner. Whatever I guess.
There had been a crowd behind us who had been silenced by the fight. I don’t think they had ever seen one with a decisive winner against six opponents. So I didn’t even glance at them, it didn’t matter what they thought. I walked out and down the front steps.
I carried both tripod and camera case with my left hand, and rubbed my head where I made contact with that kid’s chin. I couldn’t figure out where that flash of light came from, but I’m sure it was just a trick of the mind. I got to the bottom of the steps, and Trent was sitting on the cement railing to the left of the building. I looked over at him and nodded.
“Yo.”
“You bring the camera?”
I gestured at the heavy package I was carrying, and then wiped blood from my face.
“You’re bleeding, Lee,” Trent put blandly.
“It might not be mine. I didn’t keep track,” I replied.
“Oh. Well, okay. Let’s go.”
Trent was a good friend; better than most. In actuality he was just a respite against boredom. A guy had to keep himself occupied, you know?
Trent had both of our bikes, which I traded the tripod for one so the load was split between us. We rode down the main hill in our town and stopped at a convenience store to get some water bottles. Then we left and rode back to Trent’s house and out to his backyard. As we rode, the sky grew grayer the closer we got to his home.
We abandoned our bikes to a nearby tree and walked over to his old chicken coop. Once upon a midnight dreary before we were born there used to be several dozen fat hens that spent their lives as stock here, but they’ve been gone for a long time now. I put my things down against the green peeling paint of the coup and turned to Trent.
“You get the key; I gotta get props and Brittany,” Trent gave out a command.
“Fine.”
I walked a short trek across Trent’s large property. It used to be a farm, but now it had several houses on it for rent instead of cows. This only made it hard to walk from one place or another. The insecurities of man will forever be astonishing to me: the need for boundaries and fences. Every yard had fences between them, as if the rents of Trent’s parents didn’t have the ability to be civil with each other without boundaries. I went around to the back of the chicken coop and searched under a pile of bricks to get the key. I used it to open the door and sat down only after spreading outlines and scripts on the ancient dusty table.
We’ve had so many memories here, from the time we were young until now. In that yard, we set off fireworks every year for Fourth of July, and that tree over there is the one I ran Trent’s car into last year. The first time I came here we sat in this damn chicken coop and froze our asses off trying to get the stove going. It took like two hours while it was snowing out because our tinder decided to be wet, and it took till the last match to catch a twig on fire. We’ve had some of the best times together here, and some of the worst. I came here when my only girlfriend had just dumped me and cried until Trent told me about how stupid I was being and punched me in the arm. On another occasion, I had done the same for him. He’s always been that best friend who’s always around for a good punch. I think that’s actually what led us into filmmaking, when we were acting out parts of a play and punching each other when we messed up. We chose to make it into a skit, and it turned out to be our first train-wreck of a film.
Working as a filmmaker with almost no resources is pretty much a pain in the ass. Trent was reliable, don’t get me wrong. He knew how to hold a camera and get good shooting angles, as well as how to write a mean script. Being antisocial was a huge problem when trying to find actors and actresses, which tended to be rare. The only other functioning screen-player we had was Trent’s sister, Brittany. She was one of those high pitched kiddy-girls. Worst of all, she hung on me a lot.
Damnit, we need a working crew, not this dumb girl. Oh well, it’s bound to happen with a non-existent budget.
Well I guess I should explain as to why I’m in a chicken coop of all places. I met Trent eight years ago, and we used this place as a club house, then a fortress, and now a headquarters or hideout. We’re also working on a movie at the moment. That’s a hobby of mine sometimes. Most of the movies we make are pretty… pretty unique. Don’t worry, you’ll understand sooner or later.
So I started working on another script while waiting for Trent to return. This one is for a commercial that advertises orphans that paint themselves. Never mind that.
“Lee!”
It was Brittany. God she’s annoying, someone save me. She rambled about something or another while clinging to and shaking my arm.
“… do anything in school? What time is it? What are we doing today? Lee when are you gonna hang out with me? Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Lee. Hey Lee. Lee you’re not listening!” She whined into my ear, destroying one of my precious five senses.
“Alright already!” Trent, get her off of me! I didn’t say this part though.
Brittany is easily described as short, hyperactive, brunette, and slap-happy. Don’t underestimate her by her short stature. I have a feeling that if I ever got on her bad side she would seem a lot like that killer rabbit in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail. She could out-smile a hurricane.
I realized in the middle of another of her outbursts that I was ignoring that she was starting to move from rambling to trying to get my attention.
“… been forever since I saw you last,” She was saying.
“It’s been less than twenty hours, jeez woman.” I rubbed my temples. So irritating.
“Oh, Right. So what are we doing today?” She shouted more so than she questioned, jumping up and down all the while.
Trent had just arrived, so I shrugged this question onto his shoulders. “What are we doing today?”
“The second fight scene,” came his reply.
Thank God. Brittany has to do camerawork for that, and not act. “Use a tripod Britt.”
“Oh fine,” she replied, beaming.
What are you smiling for you silly girl?
Trent shrugged at my confused expression.
“Do you want the sword or the gutter?”
“I want the gutter. I’ll go get it, you guys go set up the camera by the fire pit.”
“Right.”
“See you soon, Lee!”
“You don’t need to say goodbye you twit.”
“Oh, right. Hurry back.”
Ugh. I started over to get the gutter, slapping myself out of a stupidity overload. This trip was also a long walk. I didn’t mind though, Trent’s many yards were all very green and good to look at. It brought some peace to my mind before I would have to encounter another emotional train wreck in that girl.
“So stupid!” I said out loud to the trees and grass and shrubberies.
I arrived at Trent’s storage dump behind his third home, which an Italian couple who spoke no English were renting. Trent had a pile of old rain collectors under a bush behind their house. I looked for the straightest one to wield as a weapon. After grabbing a ten foot long gutter, I headed back towards the fire-pit and got into position. Trent was my enemy in this scene, so we stood opposite each other and waited for the cut to begin.
“3…2…1… Bullshit!” Britt gave the cue at the press of the record button. (The idea of using “bullshit” instead of “Action” was all mine.)
“So fool, you think that you have what it takes to defeat me, your darker side? There is no option for you anyways, for today you stand in line for your good share of death. There’s no way you’d stand a chance against me, a powerful overlord with the legendary Haruken sword. Prepare yourself.”
After this monologue and a battle cry, my gutter clashed with his sword and the fight was on. In the story, the Legendary Haruken sword was a black sword that had killed Trent’s character’s lover.
I was tempted to use corny lines such as “avaste ye, knave!” or “en guarde!” or “I will end you.” However this was supposed to be one of our more serious movies, if there ever was one.
So we spent a frustrating hour trying to film our fight from several angles. After we packed up I finally bid farewell to Trent and his emotional maelstrom of a sister, and rode my bike out of his driveway, turning to go home.
The road back home was a few miles, and I had to head back towards the school we studied at. Unfortunately for me, after the school it was one hill to go down, and the rest of the way was uphill to my destination. It didn’t matter if I took my time or not, I had a feeling that no one would really miss me if I took too long. I sighed.
The clouds came out to play around halfway into my tiresome trip. Damn weather, why can’t you ever be like a nice nerdy kid instead of a jerk?
I was about halfway up the hill near my school, which I had to cross to get home, when my bike chain decided to snap. How lucky of me.
“God Damnit! I just put that on yesterday.” I complained out loud, aware that no one was around to give a damn. I hiked up the rest of the hill, and to my dismay it started to rain. I had about three miles to go on the way home, so I sought shelter on the school grounds. I was so soaked by the time I got to the school doors that I could water Trent’s garden. The doors just happened to be locked. Could it get any worse? I felt very cliché.
I wanted to cuss out whoever was in charge of the weather.
So I ran out towards the track field and took refuge under a tree. In a foul mood now, I was sarcastically proud to be American or something along those lines. I was still upset that everything decided to be wrong all at once, but I took the time to sit and enjoy the rain.
Rain. It was a beautiful thing for me, and a depressing thing. From the very earliest memory, I could remember the rain; the smell, the feeling and the infinite of it. Sometimes it seemed like it could go on for years and years, or it could seem light and playful. Whenever I run out of inspiration and hope, the rain was a good friend there to comfort me. It seems that the most vivid memories of mine involved rain, almost always.
Besides, the school grounds seem too empty without it, too barren. The rain fell down like a comforting blanket of material over the blandness of the school grounds. The tree I was under was bent and old, not preventing much rain from landing on me, but I didn’t mind so much. Off in the distance I could see a figure running out from the woods at the edge of the school grounds… and a figure chasing the first one.
“Huh.”
The first figure seemed to be in distress, it looked like a girl. A damsel if you will. I’ve always wanted to use that. And what’s that? The second figure was a bull of a man, and he spout an aura of anger or hatred. I strained my eyes through the haze to realize that he was holding a… a knife?! It was some crazy big oriental knife; it didn’t look like it would taste pleasant.
Time seemed to move in slow motion for me. Ever have one of those moments of indecision where you’re trapped between going or staying, left or right, and it makes you almost mess up entirely? Well I was at the mother-load of indecisions and crossroads.
What should I do?
This was one of the first times in my life that I had any serious actions to have doubts about. The problem was that I had to make a move sooner rather than later because I couldn’t just do nothing. They were coming closer rapidly, and my field of vision seemed to be condensing. I don’t feel so good. There was some deep feeling of being noble for today inside me.
“Do something,” I told myself.
You must understand, just because I find everything boring doesn’t mean I never do anything. When I first came to school, I joined all the sports teams and clubs sequentially (which all turned out to be dumb). They kind of helped me along athletically I’ll admit. So why am I telling you this? Well I made like a quarterback and/or pitcher and chucked a fistful of fist-sized-rock.
I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t thrown that rock, how my life would have turned out, but I’ll never know. It soared through the air before force feeding the mysterious assailant with a bucketful of unconsciousness. The damsel spun around to see the would-be murderer unconscious and was clueless as to how it occurred. I hurried out to assess the situation.
“Hey, you okay?” I questioned her.
She seemed to have missed it. “Did you throw that rock?”
“Yeah that was me.”
“Thank you so much! I was so scared, help me hide his body.”
“Wait.
…
Hide his body? You don’t mean…”
“He’s dead, and deservedly. We need to get rid of him before things get worse. Oh jeez. This wasn’t anticipated. We need to hurry. Quickly, grab his legs.”
Anticipated? What are you rambling about? I helped her move the body, her face seemed paler than the corpse. I suspected my face was similar to hers after the strange sequence of events. I looked at the dead person, and realized with a turning of my gut that it was one of John’s friends. I chose not to say anything because I was afraid of answers.
She gave me a quick glance after the body was safely tucked under some bushes in the woods. After a double take she gasped.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You… you’re… no it shouldn’t be you. It can’t be. What do I do? Oh man. I need to contact them.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
She seemed lost for a moment, or trapped with indecision. She pulled a strange cell-phone-like device out of her pocket which made a beeping noise. Then she said,
“Come with me.”
She grabbed my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and proceeded to drag me at an astonishing speed across the track field. It was at that time that I really took a look at her.
She seemed athletic and well built, with deep hazel eyes and dark brown hair with black layering. She was cute, but… distressed.
“Where are you taking me? Who are you? What’s going on?”
It was at that time that I realized she was dragging me back towards the school.
“We’re going somewhere safe. I can’t tell you anything else yet, but I will, I promise. I’m sorry.” She sounded frantic.
The wind seemed to pick up suddenly, and the clouds above the track field began to spiral around the gaping black hole in the sky.
“Wha-?”
“Quickly, inside.”
The previously locked school doors swung open of their own accord and we rushed in. Things were starting to get weird I had to admit, but I wasn’t ready to admit that it was the first time I was interested with what was going on.
“I know this is confusing, but you need to trust me.”
Outside, the wind was starting to bend the trees. All the wind seemed centered on an axis at the hole in the center. It grew so loud that I had to yell for the girl to hear me.
“What’s happening?”
“I know this may sound like babbling, but it’s Odin. You killed his henchman, and he doesn’t want any evidence… or people to talk about it.”
“Odin? Henchman? What are you saying? I knew that kid. He was in school today, how the hell could he be a henchman?”
“Come here.”
She grabbed my forearms and stood across from me. She had a strong grip. I caught sight of her eyes then, they were enchanting and full of determination. I brought myself back with a question;
“What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving.”
“No, we’re standing, not even moving. What the hell is going on? Why won’t you answer my questions?”
Just then I felt a sensation like ice spreading from my arms at her touch. I looked down in surprise to find a fluidly-moving black conflagration steadily spread up both my arms and the girl’s arms. It began to cover our entire bodies. I was pretty weirded-out by now.
“What the hell?”
“No matter what, don’t tell anyone your name.”
“Why? And you don’t even know it. Why does it matter?”
“You’re Grim. Don’t forget what I said, and try to be true to yourself.”
I froze for a second. No one knew about that name except me and some little girl. My name is Lee to the world, but to myself I’ve always been Grim because when I was younger someone who cared about me called me it.
“How’d you know that name? What the heck? What are you talking about? You crazy person! What’s gonna happen? I demand a refund.”
“Smile, Grim.”
With that, the fire spread to my head and finished covering me. I glanced outside to see a column of blue light touch down on the track field, and then expand, consuming everything in its path. It was about to reach the school when the strange fire blindingly covered my eyes. With a sensation similar to feeling nothing, I tried to cut through the abrupt silence
Augh!
Everything went pitch black.
Startled awake by the sound of sweet, sweet freedom, I fell out of my chair at the cacophonous bell. No one worth talking to was in this room, so I sprinted to my locker, past the crowds of unnecessarily loud idiots. You’d think that when you have something to say to someone you were standing right next to, you could calmly tell them. But no. No fucking way for these monkeys. I opened my locker out of habit and realized there was nothing I really wanted from it again. Now that I think about it, I never needed to open my locker for any legitimate reason because I never kept anything in it. I’m too compact a person for a locker. I turned a corner past a bunch of giggling cheerleaders and then with a quick glance down the hallway, slinked into the AV Room. Within the next two minutes I was back outside with everything I needed and on my way to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going, bitch?” Someone shouted at me.
It was John and a couple of his friends, conveniently located in front of the main exit of the building.
“I’m going to Portugal you dimwit.” I told him sarcastically.
He laughed as if he thought it was funny, and his friends laughed too. They all looked at me the same. I recognized a few of the faces from back when I was a kid. I grimaced and understood. They were here because they disagreed. Not just disagreeing with me, but disagreeing with my existence. This time is different, and I’m a lot older than I used to be.
“You see Lee, we can’t let you leave. We’re really sick of you pretending you’re better than everyone.” John stated as if he was the mouth of all six persons thoughts.
“Yeah!” One of the other apes chirped in.
I was never one of much respect. These guys were really into the art of monologue I guess, so I took advantage of it. A few of the smarter ones caught what I was doing and moved to get in the way. I threw the tripod I had taken from the AV room at John’s head like a javelin. He ducked out of the way and a shorter kid behind him got hit. Poor guy. Sorry. Anyways from the right and left two of the grunts came to surround me. Unfortunately for them I had been expecting just this and had prepared for it. John stood back up to face me, but I had already set down the box I had been carrying and closed the distance between us. He looked really surprised, so I punched him in the gut, causing him to topple over out of breath. The two directly to the right and left of John were just as surprised since the moment the shorter kid was taken out by the tripod. No one expected a skinny guy like me to be a fighter, so no one prepared for it. They prepared for ganging up on a geek with good grades.
I suddenly got hit on the flat of my back, with a baseball bat. I hadn’t expected that. I fell to the ground, and quickly got my feet under me, biting past the pain and lunging up head first into the kid who was to the left of John. I caught him under the chin and he went down. I ducked as the baseball bat whizzed over my back again. Then when it came again I punched at it right where it starts to get thinner. I felt a flash of heat for some reason, and a bright blue, similar to what I thought I saw that morning in the glass. The bat broke where I hit it, and the two pieces fell to the ground. The conscious remainders of the group blinked once, then twice in unison and then bolted. I dragged the smallest kid who got knocked out by the tripod over to the wall and sat him up against it. I took out a sharpie and wrote “sorry” on his arm. John was still wheezing, so I pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911, then put it next to his wheezing mouth on the floor.
“Make sure they get someone to take care of both of them.” I told him, then picked up my stuff and walked out the front door of the building. Someone bumped into me on the way out of the building.
“Hey!” I said, trying to see who it was, but I only caught the end of a trail of brunette hair rounding a corner. Whatever I guess.
There had been a crowd behind us who had been silenced by the fight. I don’t think they had ever seen one with a decisive winner against six opponents. So I didn’t even glance at them, it didn’t matter what they thought. I walked out and down the front steps.
I carried both tripod and camera case with my left hand, and rubbed my head where I made contact with that kid’s chin. I couldn’t figure out where that flash of light came from, but I’m sure it was just a trick of the mind. I got to the bottom of the steps, and Trent was sitting on the cement railing to the left of the building. I looked over at him and nodded.
“Yo.”
“You bring the camera?”
I gestured at the heavy package I was carrying, and then wiped blood from my face.
“You’re bleeding, Lee,” Trent put blandly.
“It might not be mine. I didn’t keep track,” I replied.
“Oh. Well, okay. Let’s go.”
Trent was a good friend; better than most. In actuality he was just a respite against boredom. A guy had to keep himself occupied, you know?
Trent had both of our bikes, which I traded the tripod for one so the load was split between us. We rode down the main hill in our town and stopped at a convenience store to get some water bottles. Then we left and rode back to Trent’s house and out to his backyard. As we rode, the sky grew grayer the closer we got to his home.
We abandoned our bikes to a nearby tree and walked over to his old chicken coop. Once upon a midnight dreary before we were born there used to be several dozen fat hens that spent their lives as stock here, but they’ve been gone for a long time now. I put my things down against the green peeling paint of the coup and turned to Trent.
“You get the key; I gotta get props and Brittany,” Trent gave out a command.
“Fine.”
I walked a short trek across Trent’s large property. It used to be a farm, but now it had several houses on it for rent instead of cows. This only made it hard to walk from one place or another. The insecurities of man will forever be astonishing to me: the need for boundaries and fences. Every yard had fences between them, as if the rents of Trent’s parents didn’t have the ability to be civil with each other without boundaries. I went around to the back of the chicken coop and searched under a pile of bricks to get the key. I used it to open the door and sat down only after spreading outlines and scripts on the ancient dusty table.
We’ve had so many memories here, from the time we were young until now. In that yard, we set off fireworks every year for Fourth of July, and that tree over there is the one I ran Trent’s car into last year. The first time I came here we sat in this damn chicken coop and froze our asses off trying to get the stove going. It took like two hours while it was snowing out because our tinder decided to be wet, and it took till the last match to catch a twig on fire. We’ve had some of the best times together here, and some of the worst. I came here when my only girlfriend had just dumped me and cried until Trent told me about how stupid I was being and punched me in the arm. On another occasion, I had done the same for him. He’s always been that best friend who’s always around for a good punch. I think that’s actually what led us into filmmaking, when we were acting out parts of a play and punching each other when we messed up. We chose to make it into a skit, and it turned out to be our first train-wreck of a film.
Working as a filmmaker with almost no resources is pretty much a pain in the ass. Trent was reliable, don’t get me wrong. He knew how to hold a camera and get good shooting angles, as well as how to write a mean script. Being antisocial was a huge problem when trying to find actors and actresses, which tended to be rare. The only other functioning screen-player we had was Trent’s sister, Brittany. She was one of those high pitched kiddy-girls. Worst of all, she hung on me a lot.
Damnit, we need a working crew, not this dumb girl. Oh well, it’s bound to happen with a non-existent budget.
Well I guess I should explain as to why I’m in a chicken coop of all places. I met Trent eight years ago, and we used this place as a club house, then a fortress, and now a headquarters or hideout. We’re also working on a movie at the moment. That’s a hobby of mine sometimes. Most of the movies we make are pretty… pretty unique. Don’t worry, you’ll understand sooner or later.
So I started working on another script while waiting for Trent to return. This one is for a commercial that advertises orphans that paint themselves. Never mind that.
“Lee!”
It was Brittany. God she’s annoying, someone save me. She rambled about something or another while clinging to and shaking my arm.
“… do anything in school? What time is it? What are we doing today? Lee when are you gonna hang out with me? Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Lee. Hey Lee. Lee you’re not listening!” She whined into my ear, destroying one of my precious five senses.
“Alright already!” Trent, get her off of me! I didn’t say this part though.
Brittany is easily described as short, hyperactive, brunette, and slap-happy. Don’t underestimate her by her short stature. I have a feeling that if I ever got on her bad side she would seem a lot like that killer rabbit in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail. She could out-smile a hurricane.
I realized in the middle of another of her outbursts that I was ignoring that she was starting to move from rambling to trying to get my attention.
“… been forever since I saw you last,” She was saying.
“It’s been less than twenty hours, jeez woman.” I rubbed my temples. So irritating.
“Oh, Right. So what are we doing today?” She shouted more so than she questioned, jumping up and down all the while.
Trent had just arrived, so I shrugged this question onto his shoulders. “What are we doing today?”
“The second fight scene,” came his reply.
Thank God. Brittany has to do camerawork for that, and not act. “Use a tripod Britt.”
“Oh fine,” she replied, beaming.
What are you smiling for you silly girl?
Trent shrugged at my confused expression.
“Do you want the sword or the gutter?”
“I want the gutter. I’ll go get it, you guys go set up the camera by the fire pit.”
“Right.”
“See you soon, Lee!”
“You don’t need to say goodbye you twit.”
“Oh, right. Hurry back.”
Ugh. I started over to get the gutter, slapping myself out of a stupidity overload. This trip was also a long walk. I didn’t mind though, Trent’s many yards were all very green and good to look at. It brought some peace to my mind before I would have to encounter another emotional train wreck in that girl.
“So stupid!” I said out loud to the trees and grass and shrubberies.
I arrived at Trent’s storage dump behind his third home, which an Italian couple who spoke no English were renting. Trent had a pile of old rain collectors under a bush behind their house. I looked for the straightest one to wield as a weapon. After grabbing a ten foot long gutter, I headed back towards the fire-pit and got into position. Trent was my enemy in this scene, so we stood opposite each other and waited for the cut to begin.
“3…2…1… Bullshit!” Britt gave the cue at the press of the record button. (The idea of using “bullshit” instead of “Action” was all mine.)
“So fool, you think that you have what it takes to defeat me, your darker side? There is no option for you anyways, for today you stand in line for your good share of death. There’s no way you’d stand a chance against me, a powerful overlord with the legendary Haruken sword. Prepare yourself.”
After this monologue and a battle cry, my gutter clashed with his sword and the fight was on. In the story, the Legendary Haruken sword was a black sword that had killed Trent’s character’s lover.
I was tempted to use corny lines such as “avaste ye, knave!” or “en guarde!” or “I will end you.” However this was supposed to be one of our more serious movies, if there ever was one.
So we spent a frustrating hour trying to film our fight from several angles. After we packed up I finally bid farewell to Trent and his emotional maelstrom of a sister, and rode my bike out of his driveway, turning to go home.
The road back home was a few miles, and I had to head back towards the school we studied at. Unfortunately for me, after the school it was one hill to go down, and the rest of the way was uphill to my destination. It didn’t matter if I took my time or not, I had a feeling that no one would really miss me if I took too long. I sighed.
The clouds came out to play around halfway into my tiresome trip. Damn weather, why can’t you ever be like a nice nerdy kid instead of a jerk?
I was about halfway up the hill near my school, which I had to cross to get home, when my bike chain decided to snap. How lucky of me.
“God Damnit! I just put that on yesterday.” I complained out loud, aware that no one was around to give a damn. I hiked up the rest of the hill, and to my dismay it started to rain. I had about three miles to go on the way home, so I sought shelter on the school grounds. I was so soaked by the time I got to the school doors that I could water Trent’s garden. The doors just happened to be locked. Could it get any worse? I felt very cliché.
I wanted to cuss out whoever was in charge of the weather.
So I ran out towards the track field and took refuge under a tree. In a foul mood now, I was sarcastically proud to be American or something along those lines. I was still upset that everything decided to be wrong all at once, but I took the time to sit and enjoy the rain.
Rain. It was a beautiful thing for me, and a depressing thing. From the very earliest memory, I could remember the rain; the smell, the feeling and the infinite of it. Sometimes it seemed like it could go on for years and years, or it could seem light and playful. Whenever I run out of inspiration and hope, the rain was a good friend there to comfort me. It seems that the most vivid memories of mine involved rain, almost always.
Besides, the school grounds seem too empty without it, too barren. The rain fell down like a comforting blanket of material over the blandness of the school grounds. The tree I was under was bent and old, not preventing much rain from landing on me, but I didn’t mind so much. Off in the distance I could see a figure running out from the woods at the edge of the school grounds… and a figure chasing the first one.
“Huh.”
The first figure seemed to be in distress, it looked like a girl. A damsel if you will. I’ve always wanted to use that. And what’s that? The second figure was a bull of a man, and he spout an aura of anger or hatred. I strained my eyes through the haze to realize that he was holding a… a knife?! It was some crazy big oriental knife; it didn’t look like it would taste pleasant.
Time seemed to move in slow motion for me. Ever have one of those moments of indecision where you’re trapped between going or staying, left or right, and it makes you almost mess up entirely? Well I was at the mother-load of indecisions and crossroads.
What should I do?
This was one of the first times in my life that I had any serious actions to have doubts about. The problem was that I had to make a move sooner rather than later because I couldn’t just do nothing. They were coming closer rapidly, and my field of vision seemed to be condensing. I don’t feel so good. There was some deep feeling of being noble for today inside me.
“Do something,” I told myself.
You must understand, just because I find everything boring doesn’t mean I never do anything. When I first came to school, I joined all the sports teams and clubs sequentially (which all turned out to be dumb). They kind of helped me along athletically I’ll admit. So why am I telling you this? Well I made like a quarterback and/or pitcher and chucked a fistful of fist-sized-rock.
I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t thrown that rock, how my life would have turned out, but I’ll never know. It soared through the air before force feeding the mysterious assailant with a bucketful of unconsciousness. The damsel spun around to see the would-be murderer unconscious and was clueless as to how it occurred. I hurried out to assess the situation.
“Hey, you okay?” I questioned her.
She seemed to have missed it. “Did you throw that rock?”
“Yeah that was me.”
“Thank you so much! I was so scared, help me hide his body.”
“Wait.
…
Hide his body? You don’t mean…”
“He’s dead, and deservedly. We need to get rid of him before things get worse. Oh jeez. This wasn’t anticipated. We need to hurry. Quickly, grab his legs.”
Anticipated? What are you rambling about? I helped her move the body, her face seemed paler than the corpse. I suspected my face was similar to hers after the strange sequence of events. I looked at the dead person, and realized with a turning of my gut that it was one of John’s friends. I chose not to say anything because I was afraid of answers.
She gave me a quick glance after the body was safely tucked under some bushes in the woods. After a double take she gasped.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You… you’re… no it shouldn’t be you. It can’t be. What do I do? Oh man. I need to contact them.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
She seemed lost for a moment, or trapped with indecision. She pulled a strange cell-phone-like device out of her pocket which made a beeping noise. Then she said,
“Come with me.”
She grabbed my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and proceeded to drag me at an astonishing speed across the track field. It was at that time that I really took a look at her.
She seemed athletic and well built, with deep hazel eyes and dark brown hair with black layering. She was cute, but… distressed.
“Where are you taking me? Who are you? What’s going on?”
It was at that time that I realized she was dragging me back towards the school.
“We’re going somewhere safe. I can’t tell you anything else yet, but I will, I promise. I’m sorry.” She sounded frantic.
The wind seemed to pick up suddenly, and the clouds above the track field began to spiral around the gaping black hole in the sky.
“Wha-?”
“Quickly, inside.”
The previously locked school doors swung open of their own accord and we rushed in. Things were starting to get weird I had to admit, but I wasn’t ready to admit that it was the first time I was interested with what was going on.
“I know this is confusing, but you need to trust me.”
Outside, the wind was starting to bend the trees. All the wind seemed centered on an axis at the hole in the center. It grew so loud that I had to yell for the girl to hear me.
“What’s happening?”
“I know this may sound like babbling, but it’s Odin. You killed his henchman, and he doesn’t want any evidence… or people to talk about it.”
“Odin? Henchman? What are you saying? I knew that kid. He was in school today, how the hell could he be a henchman?”
“Come here.”
She grabbed my forearms and stood across from me. She had a strong grip. I caught sight of her eyes then, they were enchanting and full of determination. I brought myself back with a question;
“What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving.”
“No, we’re standing, not even moving. What the hell is going on? Why won’t you answer my questions?”
Just then I felt a sensation like ice spreading from my arms at her touch. I looked down in surprise to find a fluidly-moving black conflagration steadily spread up both my arms and the girl’s arms. It began to cover our entire bodies. I was pretty weirded-out by now.
“What the hell?”
“No matter what, don’t tell anyone your name.”
“Why? And you don’t even know it. Why does it matter?”
“You’re Grim. Don’t forget what I said, and try to be true to yourself.”
I froze for a second. No one knew about that name except me and some little girl. My name is Lee to the world, but to myself I’ve always been Grim because when I was younger someone who cared about me called me it.
“How’d you know that name? What the heck? What are you talking about? You crazy person! What’s gonna happen? I demand a refund.”
“Smile, Grim.”
With that, the fire spread to my head and finished covering me. I glanced outside to see a column of blue light touch down on the track field, and then expand, consuming everything in its path. It was about to reach the school when the strange fire blindingly covered my eyes. With a sensation similar to feeling nothing, I tried to cut through the abrupt silence
Augh!
Everything went pitch black.
Prologue
Prologue:
I woke up due to a streak of warmth cast along my face, and opened my eyes to a small stream of drool. I could see the sun reflecting onto my face in the miniature pond I created. Through the window I saw the glow of my strangely blue eyes. My friends used to tell me they glowed, but I could never catch it when I looked. The times that I did I didn’t truly believe it was anything more than my imagination.
It was cold on the other side of the third floor window. The sun was still shining, probably oblivious to this measure of hypocrisy. The weather where I lived back then was always changing, always unexpected, but most frequently it rained. From what I remember, as a kid I liked the rain, but sometimes I feel like I hated it. It never really snowed in the winter, so I never got a chance to bond with that like I did with rain. I enjoyed the rain the most because when I was standing outside in it, no one else wanted to.
Back to where I am, second period (a.k.a. science class), is quite unpleasant to wake up in for two reasons. First of all, I’m wondering why I’m not in my bed and why I'm so uncomfortable. Secondly I’m wondering why the teacher is yelling at me.
“Lee! Wake up. If I catch you sleeping again you’ll be sent to the office.” He shouted as if something was terribly wrong. You gotta admire people like him, always managing to find the energy to shout. Hate the weeds, admire their tenacity.
I hadn't really listened to Mr. Acapella and had no intention of starting this late in the class. I stared out the window yet again, and thought I saw a glimmering outline of something in the distance. I squinted to try and get a better look, but it was gone.
Oh well. I wish something interesting would happen to me.
I remember thinking that, but if I had known what would come to be, I would never have wished for it.
The monotone voice of Mr. Acapella droned through my skull for about twenty more minutes before class finally ended. The entire time I spent scribbling endlessly. He announced a few things at the end of class, something about assignments, and apparently there is a test this Friday. Who cares?
The only redeeming part of my daily imprisonment was that I managed to have the same seat in every class; the furthest to the back, closest to the window. Perfect. In the next class I quietly secluded myself to the optimal back seat like usual, preparing for another session of hypnotherapy. This one was labeled social studies. I always wondered what social studies would be like if we studied more than one source of information, instead of a "trusted" publisher. I don't know what it is about me, but I always manage to be the annoying person who always doubted society.
It turns out that social studies would be one of those classes where I couldn't sleep because I was deep in thought. I never understood what my daydreaming meant back then. A lot of it included violence, fire and death. Just flashes of things that seemed dramatic. I used to want to write a book about it, but I don’t really have the time or drive to do it. I daydreamed about a lot of random stuff.
After a bit I noticed a hole being burned into my face from John who was staring lasers at me, but I chose to ignore him for a few more minutes. Soon I became unable to continue daydreaming, so I took a hint.
“Yeah?” I asked him blandly.
“How the hell can you be passing with a four point seven five average with all honors if you’re sleeping in class?” He almost shouted. Or maybe I was just tired and it felt like a shout.
I seem to get a lot of that kind of attention. A lot of the people asking that kind of thing don’t like me so much. They think I should be failing, but I’m not because I’m too smart. I never really had to put effort into school, and I never applied myself to the higher academics.
“Does it matter?” I replied in a bored tone.
“No not really. It’s just not fair that the rest of us have to work our asses off just to pass these AP courses while you ace them by sleeping. It’s frustrating.” He definitely sounded frustrated.
“I sleep because it’s so God damned boring, and I pass because it’s so God damned easy, and you should stop asking questions because you’re getting God damned annoying.” I said each word very clearly and louder than a whisper.
At this point the teacher stopped teaching. Appalled at my language, he started lecturing me but I ignored the old fruit. John also ignored him, and ignored my animosity.
“Life doesn’t always have to be boring you know.” John stated bluntly.
Yeah, you’d know.
I just didn’t say that out loud. After I didn’t reply he tried questioning me again.
“Hey.” He dropped the word from his mouth.
I sighed. “What?”
“Do you ever do anything fun outside of school?” He asked innocently.
“John and Lee! If I have to talk to either of you another time I’ll—”
I waved my hand at the social studies teacher for him to shut up before I continued.
“No. It’s not any of your business anyways.” I told John, but the teacher must have thought I was talking to him.
At this point the wrinkly old bastard took on a shade of angry mauve and threatened us with suspension if we didn’t shut our “traps.”
This was school life. Every class was a reoccurrence of the previous class and once in a blue moon someone like John would talk to me about something pointless. Recess wasn’t any fun since all my friends, the few that I had, were in class group A while I was in C, so we had different recess times.
Apparently sometime after my overactive imagination went away during my childhood, I got really dull. It didn’t really go away though, it just changed shape. Now I daydreamed and didn’t do anything about it.
While I spent a lot of time waiting for something important to happen, something was brewing. Deep in my subconscious I felt imminence, a dark anger foul and sick and endless heading towards me. It was on the fourth day of my sophomore year of high school that life changed completely. It all started during a dreary Tuesday on my walk home.
I woke up due to a streak of warmth cast along my face, and opened my eyes to a small stream of drool. I could see the sun reflecting onto my face in the miniature pond I created. Through the window I saw the glow of my strangely blue eyes. My friends used to tell me they glowed, but I could never catch it when I looked. The times that I did I didn’t truly believe it was anything more than my imagination.
It was cold on the other side of the third floor window. The sun was still shining, probably oblivious to this measure of hypocrisy. The weather where I lived back then was always changing, always unexpected, but most frequently it rained. From what I remember, as a kid I liked the rain, but sometimes I feel like I hated it. It never really snowed in the winter, so I never got a chance to bond with that like I did with rain. I enjoyed the rain the most because when I was standing outside in it, no one else wanted to.
Back to where I am, second period (a.k.a. science class), is quite unpleasant to wake up in for two reasons. First of all, I’m wondering why I’m not in my bed and why I'm so uncomfortable. Secondly I’m wondering why the teacher is yelling at me.
“Lee! Wake up. If I catch you sleeping again you’ll be sent to the office.” He shouted as if something was terribly wrong. You gotta admire people like him, always managing to find the energy to shout. Hate the weeds, admire their tenacity.
I hadn't really listened to Mr. Acapella and had no intention of starting this late in the class. I stared out the window yet again, and thought I saw a glimmering outline of something in the distance. I squinted to try and get a better look, but it was gone.
Oh well. I wish something interesting would happen to me.
I remember thinking that, but if I had known what would come to be, I would never have wished for it.
The monotone voice of Mr. Acapella droned through my skull for about twenty more minutes before class finally ended. The entire time I spent scribbling endlessly. He announced a few things at the end of class, something about assignments, and apparently there is a test this Friday. Who cares?
The only redeeming part of my daily imprisonment was that I managed to have the same seat in every class; the furthest to the back, closest to the window. Perfect. In the next class I quietly secluded myself to the optimal back seat like usual, preparing for another session of hypnotherapy. This one was labeled social studies. I always wondered what social studies would be like if we studied more than one source of information, instead of a "trusted" publisher. I don't know what it is about me, but I always manage to be the annoying person who always doubted society.
It turns out that social studies would be one of those classes where I couldn't sleep because I was deep in thought. I never understood what my daydreaming meant back then. A lot of it included violence, fire and death. Just flashes of things that seemed dramatic. I used to want to write a book about it, but I don’t really have the time or drive to do it. I daydreamed about a lot of random stuff.
After a bit I noticed a hole being burned into my face from John who was staring lasers at me, but I chose to ignore him for a few more minutes. Soon I became unable to continue daydreaming, so I took a hint.
“Yeah?” I asked him blandly.
“How the hell can you be passing with a four point seven five average with all honors if you’re sleeping in class?” He almost shouted. Or maybe I was just tired and it felt like a shout.
I seem to get a lot of that kind of attention. A lot of the people asking that kind of thing don’t like me so much. They think I should be failing, but I’m not because I’m too smart. I never really had to put effort into school, and I never applied myself to the higher academics.
“Does it matter?” I replied in a bored tone.
“No not really. It’s just not fair that the rest of us have to work our asses off just to pass these AP courses while you ace them by sleeping. It’s frustrating.” He definitely sounded frustrated.
“I sleep because it’s so God damned boring, and I pass because it’s so God damned easy, and you should stop asking questions because you’re getting God damned annoying.” I said each word very clearly and louder than a whisper.
At this point the teacher stopped teaching. Appalled at my language, he started lecturing me but I ignored the old fruit. John also ignored him, and ignored my animosity.
“Life doesn’t always have to be boring you know.” John stated bluntly.
Yeah, you’d know.
I just didn’t say that out loud. After I didn’t reply he tried questioning me again.
“Hey.” He dropped the word from his mouth.
I sighed. “What?”
“Do you ever do anything fun outside of school?” He asked innocently.
“John and Lee! If I have to talk to either of you another time I’ll—”
I waved my hand at the social studies teacher for him to shut up before I continued.
“No. It’s not any of your business anyways.” I told John, but the teacher must have thought I was talking to him.
At this point the wrinkly old bastard took on a shade of angry mauve and threatened us with suspension if we didn’t shut our “traps.”
This was school life. Every class was a reoccurrence of the previous class and once in a blue moon someone like John would talk to me about something pointless. Recess wasn’t any fun since all my friends, the few that I had, were in class group A while I was in C, so we had different recess times.
Apparently sometime after my overactive imagination went away during my childhood, I got really dull. It didn’t really go away though, it just changed shape. Now I daydreamed and didn’t do anything about it.
While I spent a lot of time waiting for something important to happen, something was brewing. Deep in my subconscious I felt imminence, a dark anger foul and sick and endless heading towards me. It was on the fourth day of my sophomore year of high school that life changed completely. It all started during a dreary Tuesday on my walk home.
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