Niyati Pancholi / Sputnik Photography
Glitter and pompoms.
A woman with long, silver hair walked towards him holding a globe with an eye in it. It was peering straight at the young man. The eye was dark and wouldn’t blink. The woman got on her knees facing him and put the globe above her head. Light ran through the globe until it was too overwhelming. He was floating in a blinding white light, then the eyes began appearing, all staring at him. The world began to laugh. A soft, girlish laugh all around.
Roger Brown woke up with a jump! Looking all around himself, he sighed. Thank God, he thought, he was still in his room. Checking his phone, he noticed he woke up five minutes before he needed to and silently cursed himself. The worst feeling that could ever happen was happening. Like many, he hated waking up before his alarm and only with so much time when he couldn’t go right back to sleep either.
Not healthy at all for a growing boy! And with this being the first day of his new job helping old man Miller with his bait shop, he was nervous enough as is.
Roger groggily made his way through the morning routine before he finally started rushing to his job. He had recently moved to live with his grandparents in a small town called Redirt Falls. He honestly loved the place. It was peaceful and green. It felt so homely. He rushed through a small trail leading to his job, except on the way, he tripped over something. He looked down, clutching his knee, which he felt was bruised now. He gasped and fell backwards onto the floor, trying to rush to get away from what he saw.
It was the globe. It was the eye. It was just looking up at him when the sound of rusting took his attention away. He looked up to see the girl he had seen walking around from the bushes. They both saw each other and screamed. Then, Roger passed out from shock.
When he woke, he was lying on the sofa of Mr. Miller. He got up to move and felt a pang of shooting pain in his head.
“Boy, you’re up?”
Old man Miller was in the room putting an ice pack onto his head. He came and sat in front of Roger, and before he could prepare himself, the girl also came out and sat down next to Mr. Miller. Roger had no idea what to do, so he just stared.
“It seems my niece saw you hit your head and when she came out, she scared you.”
Mr. Miller having a niece was news to Roger, as previously, he was sure the only relative he had was a daughter in the city. The girl just nodded. Mr. Miller made more random talk, excused Roger from doing anything today due to his injury and got up to handle his business, leaving the two alone.
Roger stayed quiet.
“I apologize for scaring you. I’m sure you must be confused. My name is Aerene and I have bent the memory of your friends here to talk to you,” the girl said.
Roger nodded.
“I am from a different land. A different planet. It seems you’re the one who has been chosen by our all-seeing eye for help,” she said, materializing the globe in front of them.
“Help?” Roger croaked out his question, extremely confused.
“Yes, well, we have a universal team working together to help us keep inter-global peace. The Eye sees who is worthy, and I came to recruit them. We can create human money to give you an incentive as well. You will live your life as normal, but you will have to come help us when we need.”
“W-What? Wait, what am I supposed to do exactly?”
The girl laughed. Her laugh was very similar to the laugh he heard in his dream, but not exactly.
She showed him a watch on her wrist and she aggressively pressed the button. A gust of air filled the room and made Roger close his eyes due to the air pressure. When he opened his eyes again, there stood Aerene in a blue full body suit with a blue full face coverage helmet.
Right in front of Roger was probably impossible. Yet, he had never in his life been more excited. He immediately got up and hugged the girl. This was the beginning of his life. A new life. A new year for him.
A new beginning for a hero. Just like you. Happy New Year’s, dear readers.
