Chapter 1

Gregory wanted to spend the last moments of his life in the park of Elm City. The nostalgia he had of bringing his children here to play and moonlight walks with his wife was too tempting for him. The autumn air chilled the side of his face while Gregory walked down the pathway of the park. He found his place where he would watch his children from afar on a bench underneath a tree that’s leaves had turned red and yellow.

While sitting on the bench, Gregory could only stare at the passing people with utmost pity. It was a curse that the wool had ever been lifted from over his eyes. As his eyes scanned the park’s people, he wondered how many lives they had lived, unbeknownst to their real identities. Did they even have any identities? If your person was made of lies, then what was your true self at this point? 

Gregory didn’t even know what his true self was. All the middle-aged man knew at this point was that, no matter how much he wished for his wife and child to return, Gregory would never see them again. All he could do now was spite the very ones who took them away. 

While strangers passed him as he slumped on the bench, he slowly fidgeted his right pant leg. The object that he had stowed away there was jostled out. The cylindrical metal device was speared directly into the soft ground beneath him. With his right foot, he drove the device’s sharp end into the soil near the pavement until Gregory made sure less than an inch of it could be seen. 

Now they’ll never get their hands on the strongest Access Armor. He thought. Well, I did what I came here to do. What next?

Gregory shook his head.

Next, I wait for them to get me. Gregory thought. I don’t have it in me to go on anymore.

He scowled up at the night sky. He remembered how as a boy, he had begged his father to buy him a telescope. Gregory had to wait two birthdays before he was able to get his hands on one. Afterward, he would spend hours gazing at the white gems twinkling brightly against the black void of space. He would always try to assign meaning to the celestial beings he could see, wondering what waited beyond them. What fantastic delights would humans find once they reached them?

Now that Gregory knew, he hated his fascination with space and what it contained. It turned out not to be a wonderland, merely a cover for all the worst of man’s fears. If he had known what he did now, he would have hated looking at the great beyond with his telescope. It wasn’t a question of what laid beyond but what that beyond took from you. And Gregory wished he never found out what lay ahead for them.

He waited for what he supposed must have been half an hour, and a familiar face showed up. When he glanced to the side, he found a man in a long coat with jet black hair and sideburns walking toward him. Gregory’s spirits immediately fell while he paradoxically felt a sigh of relief. He could have kept running and continued fighting, but it was all futile in the end. He didn’t want to be a hero. Gregory just wanted to end it all.

He stood up and walked up toward the man with a stern gaze, a faint smile crossing Gregory’s face as he did. As they stared each other down, it was as though they became invisible to the people around them. The pedestrians never even considered walking around, like their presence was non-existent. There was a pregnant pause in the air before either of them spoke.

“Where did you hide the Absorption Armor?” Kyle asked. 

“Who knows?” Gregory asked. “After what I did with it, there’s no telling where it is. The person I gave it to is long gone by now.”

“Be serious with me,” he said. “And tell me who you received it. If you don't, I can guarantee that the Fulir will order you to die.”

“Well,” he replied. “When a man’s family is taken from him…”

A few tears blurred his vision.

“He has nothing left to lose,” Gregory said.

“I see,” he said.

Light blue scales quickly grew over his black business suit. When the reptilian scales grew over his hand, a giant dragon mouth replaced his hand. The eyeless, azure dragon head sprouted a long neck that sprang forward towards Gregory. Just as the last sense of his consciousness was lost while he was being decapitated and the teeth of the beast sank into his neck, the only thing he could feel was relief. It was finally over, as Gregory didn’t have to go on any further in this existence.

As his blood pooled from the remains of his throat, the pedestrians in the park continued to walk about normally. His bleeding, half-decapitated corpse was nothing. Gregory could see Kyle walking up to him as his vision blurred before towering over him. His scowl was intense enough to scare a grown man, but for the brief time he was alive, he could only feel the opposite.

“Are you happy?” he asked as he stood over the dying man. “Your immature little show of rebellion did nothing. Fulir will not be damaged in the slightest, your family will not be returned, and no one will remember you were even born. Was it worth it?”

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He didn’t even have enough fight to gasp for air as his world was shattered long ago. He looked back up at his assailant without intimidation or confusion as he neared the last few seconds of his life. Gregory didn’t regret dying, only that the last thing he saw was not his loved ones.

“Absolutely.”

 A sullen Aaron walked through the park, his backpack feeling more and more like a burden with every step. While he usually came to the park in Elm City to admire the natural beauty, it was too cold for him to feel comforted. With his parents out of town for work, Aaron had no one to spend the week with. Every friend he’d known was left behind after they moved. This couldn’t help but exacerbate his isolation.

The young man plopped himself on the empty bench underneath his favorite tree. Usually Aaron would stare up and admire just how deeply green its leaves were but now could only observe the dying foliage’s crimson and dull yellow. He expressed his anxiety by rocking his feet back and forth. All he could think was how this season of his life matched this particular cycle of the external weather. 

Personification is what my English teacher would call it. Aaron thought. Or would that be another literary device? Like imagery? Darn...making me think about the essay we have to write over The Great Gatsby by Tuesday. And by next Friday, I have to turn in a paper about the social commentary in the Scarlet Letter. I heard in eleventh grade all you read is books about adultery, but I never thought such a scandalous subject could be so dull. Seriously, who cares about wealthy upper-class muckety mucks cheating on each other? I may as well be reading a novelization of Keeping Up With the Kardashians...if schoolwork does anything, it makes me realize how little I know what I want to do with my life…

That thought scared him more than anything. It felt like an itch in the back of his mind that wouldn’t go away no matter how he scratched it. Something about Aaron’s life, his reality, felt like something was amiss. Like there was something he was overlooking or didn’t have. 

Aaron felt like there was a crucial piece missing. As often as he talked it over with his mother and father, they didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about or merely said it was because Aaron was young. His mother told him that it would go away once he found the right career path. 

But it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel as simple as not knowing the right career choice. It seemed like every time Aaron looked up at the sky on a clear day or night, that itch would become more severe. When Aaron looked up at the beautiful day with just a few clouds hovering over him or the night sky lit up with countless stars, it felt like that missing piece was something bigger waiting for him. As far as he was from the sky, it felt like it was just a little way beyond him. So then, what was it?

Forget about it. Aaron thought. It’s probably nothing.

Just as he began thinking about how much he would dread the paper before he felt his foot hit something. He testingly bumped his foot against the object again before looking down beneath the bench. He found that rising maybe less than an inch out of the ground was a silver-colored spike. 

Odd place for a sprinkler to be. He thought.

Curious, Aaron reached an arm below the seat and pulled it out of the ground to find it slid out relatively smoothly. He found it was a long, round object with two sharp silver points at each end. Instead of the body being metallic, it looked somewhat organic, its smooth green surface almost like a plant of some sort. Some dirt covered it but after rubbing the soil away, he found a few buttons surrounding the gadget.

It looks like a weird...artificial thing that’s...also natural. He thought. Wonder what it’s for?

He opened the backpack hung at his side and threw it in. Aaron planned on asking his father what it was when both his parents returned. However, he realized it was unlikely they would as it was too strange to think of any use for it. And if it was of any value, why would someone bury it in a public park?

What a trivial mystery. Aaron thought. Probably not even worth my time to think about. It’ll go great with my miscellaneous collection.

He looked around at people in the park to find most were leaving. Aaron could see why. The weather was getting colder, and the wind was kicking up something fierce, causing his black hair to whip at his forehead. A stray, brown leaf blew into his face, the moisture on the underside slapping his dark skin. The young man sighed as he stood up to walk back home before it worsened.

However, for the first time in his life, Aaron could feel like that missing piece was a little bit closer to fitting in.