You would expect to feel the sun shining through your window to gently wake you up. That is, unless you’re a “Room Owl”, as my mom calls it. They are people who sit in their room all the time and do nothing but the bare minimum. Anyways I probably cant be writing about random stuff my mom tells me so, back to the topic. Duverville, a small town in upstate Montana is different. you never feel the sun unless you’re outside on the freeway. It’s kinda spooky. it isn’t like the warm glow that countless book writers stress about when writing books. no it’s a spooky cool glow that makes ya get the heebe jeebes. 

All of that isn’t why i’m writing in this diary for the first time though. Oh yea! If you’re reading this, it’s my diary. My Psychologist says they’re a good way to get out what your thinking. So, that’s what I’m doing. Every morning I try to recap my day, talk about my experiences and what I was thinking during those experiences. So, that’s what your reading. 

Anyways, this morning started out just like any other had for me. well besides one specific part. But, I’ll get to that in a second. Anyways I woke up, to a rather cold and quiet room as I did most days. Something felt off, though I couldn’t tell exactly what made me feel all tingly. 

So I woke up throwing off my blanket to the right and let out a big yawn. then stretching, I ran over to my alarm clock, that for some reason was unplugged. I was gonna be late for school. Frustratingly I sprinted to my closet, where I grabbed my emergency pair of matching clothing, for times like these, and went to the shower. quickly brushing my teeth after I was done, I practically jumped into my socks and shoes, forgetting to even tie my left shoe. I ran out of my room once again, dodging the light gray half wall that bordered my kitchen, and ran towards the coat rack. I had a nagging suspicion that it was gonna be especially cold today, and I wanted to be ready. Grabbing my coat I pulled it up to my collar bone before pulling my sweatshirt hoody up over my brown hair. I grabbed my backpack shortly after, before heading to the door. 

This is the first thing that happened today that didn’t normally happen. And when you lived in Duverville, nothing extraordinary happened. Until a moth decided to attack me. It was a big moth too, I can’t remember the exact size, so we’ll say about 3 inches across. It was gray, as most moths were but it had a pink like hue to it, which confused me and made it hard to look at. Swatting at it as it viciously attacked my face, a large scale war started. I threw shoes at it, and it replied with fluttering right next to my eyeball, making me scream and fall back, cushioned by my backpack. Oh yea, I suppose now would be a good time to say this, but I don’t like moths. Well, I’ve always been scared of them. Some phobia or something. But right now I had a bigger phobia threatening to ruin me. The phobia of being late to class. See, everyone in my grade but me had been late to class this year. Not only was this the last day of school, but it was also my birthday. Well, I couldn’t let that happen to me. It would ruin my appearance. I would become a laughing stalk. I just couldn’t let it happen to me. So frustrated beyond relief as a minute was wasted I yelled at the moth, “Get out of my WAY!” for some reason, it went charging into the wall before falling to the ground unconscious or dead. I wouldn’t worry about that though, I had a bigger problem. Based on my calculations I had to be at the end of the block in 10 seconds to be safe from being late. I wasn’t even out the door. 

I checked my watch while running out the door, slamming it behind me while charging across the lawn, which was a rule that I broke. “No walking across the lawn, walk on the path”. That’s what my dad said. Well, I couldn’t care less. It was rather cold out as I’d guessed but I couldn’t look upon the surprising day it was so far. All I had in my mind was to get to the end of the block as fast as possible. 

10, I was past the neighbors walkway. 9, I had darted past a pine tree that shrouded a tiny abandoned blue house in darkness. 8, I tripped on some broken sidewalk, which made my ankle twist, bringing me sharp pain. Ignoring it I hobbled down the road. 7, I had passed the second to last house and was mere steps from the point I had to make. With 6 seconds left, I had done it. I had made it to the end of the block.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yes!” I shouted hobbling down the sidewalk. I would still make it, and would be the only kid to be on time every single day of the year. Ah sweet relief. It felt good to go through a tribulation like that, just to win and feel as though you’d won the world, as well as just feeling extremely happy.

 Also, I just past the snack store. Sadly, I wouldn’t be getting any food today. I had 6 seconds to safely spare.

Walking across midtown, famously named because it was the middle of town, was probably the least fun for me. All the buildings and the factory provided a rather dull scene of what was supposed to be a historic area. The town was founded 200 years ago or something, on an ancient Indian battleground between two big tribes I didn’t remember. Some crazy mythology was related to the little area, something about the birth of all magic in the universe. wacky stuff I tell you.

Duverville was the most boring and non magical place on the planet. That is of course, unless it was so magical it felt devoid of any magic at all… Nonsense! That just wouldn’t make sense. I have to get back on topic. So yea Duverville was a boring place I know. trust me though in about 8 and a half hours, you’ll see how interesting this diary is. I mean your the one still reading to this point right? If you didn’t like the cool way I was narrating my Diary then, well, umm, whatever.

 “Yo Doug!” that was my friend Albert. Albert Hutchinson. “Yo Albert how ya doing.” “Oh you know, I got the settings page all finished and now, I’m waiting for your art to be finished. That reminds me, how’s the drawing going?” And he, was talking about the game we were making. I was the artist and sound guy. He took it all and slapped some code onto it using Gdevelop 5, a JavaScript game engine, and whabam had a game. The thing was that drawing takes a long time when you need to make animations for characters, and I wasn’t even halfway done. “I’m not even halfway done. I have our main character done, and the UI other than that though it’ll take time if i want the same quality of stuff. I’ll send them over via ftp ok?” “Yea you do that, so how’s life other than that. Are you ready to initiate The Plan?” 

 That is what I was Anxious to explain. See, everyone in school knew about my being able to not be late for a day of school. We both knew people would try to stop us. so with him being the giant as he was, we had a plan in place. I pulled out my phone and sent the message. I initiated The Plan. 

The plan was for me to send a message to him saying that not only was I sick, but I couldn’t find any clean shoes or socks. Then, I was going to hide under his sweatshirt, while he had his backpack on his back and a duffel bag in his hand with his music instrument. We intended for kids to ask to see inside the duffel bag and his large backpack, and that was where the magic happened. After they checked the duffel bag, they would ask him to take off his backpack. As he took it off, he would swing his other bag up over his shoulder, concealing me again as I sat still hugging his back. It was the perfect plan. Now all we had to do was see if it would work. And we were here. One block away from school. 

“Ok hop in man, he smiled and I nodded as I climbed up his massive back hugging my arms and legs around him. His jacket would conceal anything in the front of his body, and I was a thin kid, so I barely protruded from his back at all. Now all that was left was for him to walk a bit further, before zipping the duffel bag up and going into school. 

A loud bang is what made me sure that we had entered. and from the quietness everyone was watching him. i sat silently, breathing in when he breathed in as to remain invisible. “Yo where is he?” an older kid asked. “I- I don’t know Joe, he sent me a message saying that he was sick as well as he couldn’t find his shoes.” 2 more kids spoke up next. Let us see the duffel bag mate, we ain’t allowing him to be the only one in the school to go all year. it hasn’t happened in a decade, we can’t have it happen now.” “Sure here ya go.” was all he replied with. I heard the kids crowd around the bag as it was opening. Next I heard muttering as they all realized I wasn’t in there. I felt Albert pick his bag back up patiently. we were almost done. 

“ok, and now your backpack.” I felt joe catch his breath. it was like I could feel everyone staring into it, as well as into me. “O- Ok, Yea.” Albert purposefully sounded terrified, which caused a few chuckles as kids instantly thought that I was in there for sure. Oh how they were wrong. As he took the backpack off I felt very naked, and fought the urge to wiggle around. Then, I felt his trumpet hit me in the back. We were done. It was over. I heard yells of disbelief people laughing, taunting the people who wanted to stop me. I felt the backpack return after a brief moment. We were through. I knew that every kid in the school would stay down there waiting for me to show up. But little did they know, I was already there.