Los Angeles - Milo
“You will never be ready for my reign” was the first thing I heard after I drifted off to sleep.
I found myself standing in empty plains, facing a man twice my size. He wasn’t a scary man due to his size, but rather his face. Deep, dark blue veins circled all around his cheeks and lower neck, making himself look like a river of blood. He wore a beautiful green robe, and besides all that spawned from his face, he looked like an ordinary guy. In fact, the bloody lines that went through his veins looked like a mask placed on this man from someone else. Like they shouldn’t be there.
I looked to my left, and I saw a woman that looked to be far older than I was… But then I looked at myself and doubted it was true. I looked to be just over six feet and wore silver armor so dense and heavy that it made me wonder how I could stand up with it all on. I had… muscles? Massive, tan muscles that should not be on the body of a six-year-old.
Where am I?
“No,” the woman beside me said in a cold, flat voice, “You will never be ready for us.” With no emotion, she lunged at him with a sword in hand. I braced myself for the clash of metal, but what I heard instead was the hilt of her own blade hitting the floor. She had dissolved into dust in the blink of an eye.
I looked back at the man and saw that he had his hand held out, and a dark sand-like material was floating out of his hand and trailing the dust that was where the woman once was. I looked back at him in horror, but he showed no reaction from what he had just done.
Sweating, my eyes grew too heavy and legs too weak to stay standing.
“Daaaad!” I screamed from the comfort of my blanket, shaking and sobbing. Nightmares as terrifying as the one I had will do that to you. My dad came running in, cradling me like a baby in a giant bear hug.
“It’s ok Milo, it’s ok…” He repeated until he let go of me. “What happened?”
I was sniffling in between breaths, “It was a nightmare - I was in a forest - there was a scary man-”
“Well it’s over now, kid,” he said to me, covering me in a hug as massive as my blanket, “I’m here now.”
I dug my face into his shoulder, “It was so awful - a girl died-” I said before he put a finger on my mouth, quieting me down.
“That’s a last-night problem, kid. A this-morning problem is getting ready for school. Come on, breakfast is downstairs.” He crushed me in one last hug, then tugged me out of my blanket left the room.
I’ve never been good with words; well, actually that’s a lie. I’ve never understood words. Sometimes I’d say these things that I neither understand nor remember learning during school. This is much more so in my thoughts because people think much faster than they speak. I feel like I’m smarter than I should be, or older than I really look. It’s strange.
With a toothbrush in my mouth, I pulled together a pile of clothes to wear for the day. An old solid-brown collared shirt, and a pair of cargo khaki shorts that Dad got me a couple of days before school started.
Being one month into school, I’d found that there are things I’ve begun to love about school and things I have not, neither I can say specifically of preference. School is an interesting thing; I personally see nothing of use to be educated (there, another word I have never known of yet I suddenly just used it: “educated”), but I’m sure the adults around me are forcing it for a reason.
After I had everything prepared for my day, I went outside and into the car where my dad was waiting for me with an egg sandwich. He handed the sandwich to me, turned on some classical music, and we made our way onto the road.
“So how has school been so far?” He asked me, making eye contact with me through the mirror every now and then, “Have any good friends?”
“Not really,” I started, “a couple people have talked to me, but I wouldn’t really call them ‘friends’ yet.” I saw him nod through the mirror, and he locked eye contact for what seemed like minutes.
“... Any girls?”
“Dad, no!” I rolled my eyes, and he laughed. Dad always had a genuine smile when he laughed, and I could always feel the emotion coming from inside of him. It’s what made me remember he loved me.
“Well kid, the time has arrived,” He parked the car as we pulled up to my school, Murphy Elementary. “Hey, Milo,” he said to me before I left the car.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be a stranger.”
“Ok.”
- -
First grade is extremely simple - probably why I have no feelings about it. It’s exactly what one would expect: kids running everywhere, boys on the opposite side of the room as the girls, some picking their noses and others picking their friends’ noses… And I’m sitting in the middle of it all watching.
“Hey, Milo!” I heard one of the kids say to me, “Wanna play tag with us? We’re giving it to the girls every time.” He made a face at the girls across the room, and then looked back at me, awaiting an answer.
“No, I’m good,” I said and tried my best to ignore him, continuing my exciting process of staring into space.
As our teacher, Ms. Moore, walked into the room, she was holding hands with a young girl that was my age - probably a new student.
“Everyone, settle down! Quiet!” The teacher waved a ruler at them like she was fending off ... well, a bunch of kids.
“I’d like to introduce everyone to our new student, Liz.” She pointed to the new girl she was holding hands with. She was looking around the room nervously like she was searching for something that wasn’t there. After a couple seconds, she looked at everyone and slowly raised her hand.
“Hi.”
No one seemed to care. They gave her a distracted wave of ‘hello’, and carried on with their snot covered game of tag. Liz ducked and weaved her way around the chaotic classroom, and sat a couple chairs next to me. Avoiding all eye contact, she dropped her backpack and curled into the desk with her head pointed to the floor.
From what little I could see after she dug her head into her desk, she was a very pretty girl. She had long, bouncy blonde hair that covered her head and arms like a hood. Wearing a worn white tee shirt that said “Dragons > People” on the back and clean blue shorts, I took a guess and assumed she was a fan of the fantastic. One thing that peaked out of the darkness of her hair-cave was a small red light, glowing from her wrist. I leaned in closer and saw a glossy, crimson red bracelet that orbited her left wrist. Slowly and very subtle, I watched her peek her head out of the barrier of hair she created, only to notice that I had been staring at her and she hid back in her desk again like a scared hamster.
What an interesting girl.
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