Renner groaned as his phone alarm blared, waking him from his sleep. He turned over while slapping his hand furiously on his phone’s screen hoping to hit the snooze button. Eventually, the noise stopped and he let out an exasperated sigh as he sat up in bed.
Unfortunately, he had school, and even worse it was Monday. Of course, he stayed up the previous night playing games with his friends. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, slowly lifting himself up and to the dresser. Putting on anything warm and cozy, he stepped out of his room in a green sweatshirt and a teal pair of sweatpants.
Shrugging at his outfit’s assault on the eyes he walked out of his room towards the kitchen. As he walked into his kitchen he was met with his father making coffee in his pajamas. His father stood in the dimly lit kitchen wearing plaid pajama pants and a gray shirt as the coffee machine sputtered out its last few drops in a plain white mug. Renner swooped by grabbing an already full cup of coffee.
“Thank you very much.” Renner quipped to his father.
Mark, his father, sighed out “Good Morning to you too.”
“I’m going to head out early this morning to help out Mr. Nelson with prepping the event flyers.”
He was in a math club at his high school and had to prepare for an upcoming fundraiser. Mr. Nelson, a kind old man, was his math teacher and the club advisor.
“I thought you were going up tomorrow to help out?”
Renner replied, “I was but Nelson said he was going to start printing and putting up fliers today, and I didn’t want to make him do all that work by himself.”
“Alright, well I guess I’ll see you after school”
Renner went over to his front door, which was not far from his kitchen in this cramped apartment. He and his dad lived together, his mom had passed away seven years ago when he was nine. Renner had just celebrated his 16th birthday at the beginning of November. It still hurt him to not see her standing with his father, laughing and making jokes. Realizing he was staring blankly at the dining room, he shook his head and went to grab his backpack off the hook next to the door. He turned around and said his goodbyes, waved, and walked outside.
He stepped out onto the cold streets of Baltimore. The wind whipped at his face as he walked; it was nearing the end of November so it had gotten drastically colder. His school was only four blocks away—so I shouldn’t freeze before I get there. As he approached the school, other teens started to join him on the sidewalk. There were only a few since it was still quite a while until school started. Renner scanned the small crowd of kids walking to the high school.
Eventually, he spotted his friend Michael walking ahead of him. Michael was a couple of inches taller than Renner’s 5 '10 " stature and much lankier.
Renner jogged up next to him “What are you doing here?”
Michael, startled, turned around and said, “Woah, I’m here for band, what are you doing here this early”
Renner said “I figured I would do a kind act today, I’m going to help Mr. Nelson with the Math club flyers. Wouldn’t want him to keel over when nobody is there to notice.”
Michael cheekily replied,” How kind of you to provide such a service for our institution.”
Renner laughed at that, the so-called “institution” was barely much of anything. Looking up at the small dismal building. It had cold gray stone walls, two stories tall, but didn’t go back more than two hundred feet. It was unbelievably cramped, especially when all of the kids rushed to different classes during the day. Walking around the inside, the air had a stuffy, humid quality that made you want to take off your clothes even in the winter. Overall, if I get a chance to get out during the day—I’m taking it.
As Renner and Michael walked in most of the lights were on, barring a few corners or bathrooms. Most of the teachers had already arrived and unlocked their rooms, dropped off all their bags, and settled into their office chairs. Renner looked up and sighed, releasing a breath of annoyance at the upcoming day. It was Monday—why did I have to wake myself up early on a Monday?
Michael looked over at Renner’s disapproval after walking into the school. He smirked and said, “Already regretting your choice of being the model student?” Michael stopped for a second and continued “Now you know the agony of my life; coming in early so eventually, one day, I can hope that our school band isn’t terrible, just kind of bad.”
Renner grumbled, once Michael started talking about how bad the band was, it would never end. He released another groan of agony as Michael kept on his rant about another kid not tuning his cello correctly.
They kept walking down the hall until Michael said a quick goodbye once they reached the band room. Renner kept on walking until he made it into his math classroom. There, in the back shuffling through stacks of papers, was Mr. Nelson; he turned around once he heard Renner walk in.
Mr. Nelson spoke up, ”Good Morning Mr. Renner, thank you for coming in so early to help an old man out.”
“It’s no problem Mr. Nelson” Renner waved his hand “Where do you want me to put up the flyers?”
Mr. Nelson hummed slightly while touching his chin, “You can put them down the front hallway and over in the cafeteria, and also make sure to put some in the entrances to the bathroom.”
Renner set down his bag in the back corner and went over to where Nelson was standing. He grabbed two stacks of paper and some scotch tape then headed toward the doorway, he said, “Alright, I’ll be back before class starts so I can grab my bag.”
“Ok, I’ll see you then,” Nelson replied.
Renner walked out of the classroom and into the hallway and started to get to work. He started on the far end of the hallway closer to Nelson’s and worked his way down. After, he went to the bathrooms in this hallway, and posted his flyers on the wall next to the doorway. He continued this process for the rest of the halls, only putting a few flyers in each one, and kept up the pace until an influx of teens came through the door. He started to head back, posting a few flyers in missed spots.
Once he made his way back to Mr. Nelson’s classroom, he quickly stepped in to grab his bags and saw Nelson in the back prepping for class as a few kids entered.
He spoke a little louder to let his voice carry “I’ll see you in math class Mr. Nelson.”
Nelson turned slightly “I'll see you then, and thank you for your help, young man.”
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“You’re welcome.”
Renner continued to walk to his first class of the day, Chemistry. The chemistry teacher was not nearly as nice as Nelson, but as long as you did your work she would be less mean to you. He stopped by his locker to put away his bag, and then quickly made his way to the chemistry lab. Once he made it in he sat down and waited for class to start.
The first half of the day went by normally for Renner. Just writing notes in his notebook and the occasional quiz. Nothing notable happened in any of his classes, except for a kid getting sent to the office for not following lab safety rules. Finally, the bell rang for lunch and Renner did not wait any longer. He immediately got out of his chair, swung by his locker, and headed for the lunchroom.
Once Renner made it in he scanned the room for Michael. Eventually, he spotted Michael at their usual spot in the far right corner across from the entrance. The lunchroom was not an extremely large place. It was about the same size as a typical high school gym. Renner waited through the lunch line to get the meal of the day, a plain hamburger patty between two whole wheat buns.
After he got out of the line he made his way through the cafeteria dodging the crisscross of chairs pushed into the walkway. Renner finally made it over to their spot and plopped into a chair.
Renner said, “How’s your day been?”
“Ok, Nothing special just got assigned another essay by Mr. Miller.”
“Same here, just waiting till the day ends so I can take a nap, I don’t even know if I got more than 4 hours of sleep.”
They both continued to talk about random topics for a short time before they turned to their phones. Both of them sat there scrolling through social media. Michael suddenly spoke about some news story he’d read, “Have you seen the news about a storm killing like thirty people? Pretty sad stuff, they can’t even get much help out there.”
“Huh. No, I didn’t, where did it even happen?”
“In a small town in Algeria.”
Out of interest, Renner looked up the story on Google and skimmed through it. It was strange which is why it was garnering so much attention. Over 30 people drowned in the middle of Northern Africa—a desert.
These stories have been popping up lately, seemingly absurd weather events that should never happen.
Renner replied after his quick search, ”Apparently it’s a result of climate change. Nasty weather as a result of an unstable climate and air temperatures.”
Michael just nodded and said, “I mean I’m no meteorologist, but that sounds kinda plausible. I mean soon enough the world is gonna be like that one movie where Nicholas Cage is running around during the end of the world.” He paused, “Don’t worry though I’ll put you in my apartment building's underground laundromat. There we can brave the apocalypse.”
Renner chuckled, “Yeah, I mean we’ll have plenty of rats to eat and we can use lint to knit blankets.”
Michael pretended to look hurt,” My apartment building is so clean, there is no way my wonderful community would let such a thing happen.”
They continued to talk for a bit before the lunch bell rang and we had to leave. Renner only talked to Michael one more time during last period when they both have math. Renner headed back to his locker and grabbed his books, getting ready for his next class. He had Spanish class after lunch so he headed there, weaving through the other teens in the hallway.
Once he made it in he sat down and prepared himself for class. While he waited, he thought he smelled something, almost like burnt toast. Looking around, he saw absolutely nothing burning, maybe it was from another class in the chem room. Mrs. Hoover walked into the room, with her head raised high, the first words she said out loud was “Pop-quiz today on unit one. Hope you’ve been studying.”
Now that was exactly the reason why I hate Spanish class. Good thing I finally decided to start studying somewhat regularly in case of an event like this.
Renner sighed in annoyance with the rest of the class, nobody complained. They knew complaining would probably make it worse and they would end up with more work.
Renner struggled a bit on the test, spending a little while longer than most people. However, almost everyone else just skimmed through, picked random answers, and called it a day.
The quiz lasted the whole class period, so Renner finished after everyone had left for their next class. He got up and placed the quiz on Hoover’s desk and then went to leave the room.
As he was stepping through the doorway, he started to smell “it” again. It wasn’t much like burnt toast anymore, it smelt like burning plastic and a little metallic as well. He kept his pace and tried to ignore the smell but it just got worse. No one else was in the hallway because he was late, so he couldn’t tell if anyone else noticed too.
Step after step it got worse, and it started to make him feel nauseous as he crept further.
Then suddenly the smell stopped.
He continued forward to Nelson’s room almost in arm's reach of the door. He put his foot forward one last time and reached out for the door handle.
Only as his hand reached out—the door was gone. His eyes seemed to spasm in their sockets trying to register what had just happened. Not only was the door gone, everything was gone. The floor and the walls around Renner had just faded away in an instant. Too fast for his eyes to even comprehend what had happened.
He turned his head up to look around him and thought he somehow had ingested a drug. Maybe it was through contact, I’ve heard about people touching doorknobs and dollar bills on the ground and then dying of an overdose. That could’ve just happened to him, hopefully without the dying part.
He started to look around: there were sharp boulders that had a red-gray tint to them. While the ground below him was also composed of red-tinted gravel. Above him a darker blue sky loomed overhead, and in the distance large craggy mountains jutted into the sky.
Renner stood still, almost in a state of shock as he looked at the world around him. There was no way this place was on Earth. Strangely though he had no problem breathing, nor was it extremely hot or cold. Where am I?
Almost as if the universe understood his distress and decided to mess with him some more, like this was some cosmic joke, a screen appeared.
It hovered in the air in front of him.
Renner had no idea if what was happening was real, hopefully, this screen–probably some hallucination–had answers. So he began to read.
[Welcome #a@$&a]
[You have been moved to the first battle on ball Sarion. You have been selected from your species as a response to ;$dho)& that are &)(;:: into your ball. As per the agreement your species signed, your people are to be given training and protection against the coming ##=;()&. You are looking at-]
The screen closed abruptly while he was reading, and soon after another smaller one appeared.
[Sorry for any inconvenience.]
[Generative language models are still processing new EARTH languages.]
The screen closed again.
Then two screens appeared.
The first was similar to the screen before but the other one caught Renner’s attention more. It had a red outline and was flashing white every few seconds.
[LEAK EVENT]
[Caution: User level does not meet the criteria needed to handle the event]
[Primordial energy is starting to leak into the surrounding area. Distance: 50m]
[Event Info: DENIED]
[User, you are advised to leave the local area for your safety. Spontaneous disassembly and reassembly of your atomic structure is imminent if your position is maintained. Possible CHARRED encounter likely. You do not meet basic skill requirements to fight.]
[Remaining in the immediate area increases the likelihood of death to: Absolute.]
[Time remaining until event: 00h:14m:30s]