「Where am I...?」
The air is extremely stuffy causing the act of breathing to prove a difficult endeavor. Additionally, I can feel particles of debris hitting my face. I try to get a grasp of my surroundings but due to the dust and debris in the air I can't keep my eyes open.
「What is happening...?」
For some reason I find myself sprinting and, judging by the fact I keep being bumped into, I am not alone. We reach some sort of clearing and the air quality noticeable increases, easing the pressure on my lungs. I rub the dust from my eyes and take in my surroundings.
I see a mast, sail and all. I look beneath my feet, wooden floorboards. I look behind myself to the structure from which I came, I see a wooden cabin of sorts with several people sprinting out. On the whole, seems I've found myself on some sort of medieval era ship. I chuckle to myself,
「A pirate ship.」
I walk to the edge of the ship and glance over but, much to my surprise, what enters my vision is not the expected reflection of my humble visage upon the water's surface, but... sky. Well, cloud to be precise. I back away.
「Ok, not a pirate ship.」
I start to seriously consider my circumstances. I look around and see people dressed in modern clothing as well as people dressed in medieval garb. I can see a pattern in their behavior, those dressed in medieval clothing seem to be the crew while the others are non-combatants. I look down at my attire, casual clothing of the modern era.
「I guess I'm the latter.」
I see everybody's frantic panic and the man caught in the middle of it all. No doubt he is the authoritative figure amongst us but he doesn't seem to have a grasp of the situation. I see a large figure fly by and slam into the, what I now know to be a ship, which causes it to shake.
While the man-in-charge struggles to form some sense of order amongst the others I am much more interested in the figure wreaking havoc. I stare intently at the figure, it was too fast for my eye to process so for a while I only saw a blur. The figure eventually it did slow to a stop.
It was an owl. A huge owl. If the sheer size of the owl was surprising then the four back legs and large red wings were simply breathtaking. As I am admiring the creature a flash enters into my vision nailing directly into the neck of the 'owl'. I trace its trajectory back to the man-in-charge who seems to be holding some sort of weapon. It doesn't take me long to deduce its use.
「A harpoon.」
Well this simply gets better and better. The 'owl' wails in pain and charges the ship again. Judging by the chaos of the crew-members and the state of the ship, we probably can't sustain too many more hits like that. I take another step back and begin to contemplate what my role in this chaos is.
「How did I get here? Why am I here? What should I be doing?」
But before I could seek the answers to these questions I feel my body moving of its own volition. I take I few steps back and begin sprinting forward— directly towards the 'owl'.
I jump.
I fall.
I'm free-falling.
I don't know what compelled me to do what I just did and I certainly don't know what to do next. My heartbeat increases, breathing becomes difficult. I think I might die.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
In the very next moment—
〔Hwooooooo Haaaa.... Hwooooooo Haaaa....〕
I wake up.
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This dream was not new to me, I've had it before. Many, many times in fact. Each time for whatever reason I throw myself off that ship and I never stay asleep long enough to know the result.
「That dream is just too realistic.」
Don't get me wrong, I have dreams. Nightmares and wet dreams too.
〔Cough〕
The difference is, this dream is was just too realistic, and it was a reoccurring dream. I try not to think about it, though on the surface it may seem special, supernatural even, I've convinced myself otherwise. I had to, I've lost myself in nonsense like that before. I was unsatisfied with life. Unsatisfied with my social life, my family's financial situation,
「Hell, my family even.」
I blame my family for everything. That may seem irresponsible of me but you know— whatever. I was an illconcieved child born out of wedlock and my mother never lets me forget it. Though I say born out of wedlock it isn't as if my mother had any intention of marrying my father; my mother has 7 kids with 4 different men while my father has 7 kids with 4 different women. The two of them share three kids together (including me).
「And the winner for 'person with most siblings' goes to....」
〔drumroll〕
「Jordan Allen! With a grand total of 10 siblings!」
Yea, Allen is the surname of my father. Can't say it matters though, I don't have any attachment to my name whatsoever.
I don't live with all of my siblings; I live with my mother, step-father, and the two kids they share (surprise, she actually married one). I tend to get the Cinderella treatment, in the house I'm practically a fifth wheel and outside the house I'm seen as the black sheep of the family. Over time I've grown numb to the situation to the point that I can't be bothered by it.
I used to completely hate my life, everyone else had nice things that I could never even wish to have with my family's condition. I thought to myself,
「What do I have that other people don't have?」
And the answer was— nothing. I did not possess a single item that was unavailable to my peers, meanwhile they seemed to possess a ton of things that I could only dream of. So I looked inside myself.
...
In other words, I tried convincing myself I had super powers.
...
It was a truly low point in my life, I read fake threads on the internet of how to teach yourself telekinesis and spent my time in class trying to move a pencil with my mind. A truly low point in my life.
I no longer believe in the supernatural.
「It's just a dream.」I convinced myself.
But one thing didn't change, I still to this day believe I am different from other people.
「Alius... different.」
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Seeing as it is a school day I roll myself out of bed and begin my morning routine. Actually I don't do much, I take a quick shower, throw some cloths on, and brush my teeth. The rest of the time after that is spent shadowboxing. The funny thing is, I've never been in an actual fight, I don't know any martial arts whatsoever, and if you put me next to another 17 year old boy 9 times out of 10 their physique would totally eclipse mine.
But nonetheless I am completely enthralled by shadowboxing. When I throw a punch it feels completely natural. That doesn't change the fact that I have nobody to exchange blows with so truth be told I am probably, most likely, utter trash in a fight.
I glance at the clock and see it's about time to leave for school, I live about 2 miles away from school and it takes me, on average, about 30 minutes to walk there. It's seriously cold outside and I don't have much to do as I walk so I tend to think about things to keep my mind preoccupied, I think about casual things like time travel paradoxes, the meaning of life, and all of existence. You know, casual stuff.
But distractions cause accidents and I am no exception, I slip on ice a lot and my arms and legs become marked with scrapes and bruises. The pain was nothing though; I once read, "pain is but a passing thought" and it made sense. Pain is, quite literally, a passing thought. If you try hard enough you can simply ignore such minor injuries.
Cold too, even though it was in the 30's (Fahrenheit) I was comfortably enjoying my 2 mile walk in some cargo shorts (live and let live). This amount of cold couldn't bother me which is why it angers me when I hear my classmates complain about the class being 'too hot' or 'too cold'.
「I mean seriously, it's within 5 degrees of room temperature and they start complaining! Spoiled out of their minds, the whole lot of them...」
Generalizing? Stereotyping? Maybe. But I've yet to be proven wrong. But this only worked to further my believe that I differed from everyone else.
「Alius... of another kind.」