Prologue: Dream a Better Dream
I remember a movie I watched when I was a kid. Though corny, as a nine year old boy, I wouldn't really care about that; it just looked cool. Now, I never understood the point of putting a theme or a moral into the story of a film meant to entertain little kids, as obviously the underlying message will fly over their heads. Yet, this one always stuck to me: "Dream a better dream." The word "dream" always amused me as the English language has been quite a confusing language since its birth. According to Freud, dreams are manifestations of our internal Id and allow us to act out our internal desires of sex and violence; thus allowing us to maintain our sanity in consciousness; learned that in my college psychology class. On the other hand, dreams are fantasies that you desire and wish were real in your life; it's also another word for goals and aspirations.
"Miles!" called out a deep male voice, "Miles Alexander!" it called again. A giant thwack sounded in front of my face causing me to jolt up.
"Whaaa!?" I gasped.
The scruffy teacher loomed over me with this shirt ladened in wrinkles. His baldness gave me a huge death stare. "I told you I do not tolerate sleeping in my class!" he barked, "Just because you're ahead of the class does not give you any special treatment. Go sit outside; betcha that'll keep you awake at least."
Being ahead of the game isn't all that's cracked up to be. Seniors look down on you, like you're not supposed to belong. Sophomores your age tend to gaze at you like some of freak, like that level of excelling is alien. Teachers are hit or miss, but they mostly assume you're some cocky asshole that thinks they're better than everyone else. And here I am, just kicked out of my government and politics class...in the middle of summer. I didn't choose to take this class, it was forced upon by my parents; and they're the reason why I'm stuck in this educational predicament. The sun was beating down on me pretty hard, and it didn't help the concrete trapped all the heat. I complain, yet I refuse to cut my reasonably length, messy brown hair. It also didn't help I was wearing a black vest hoodie...in the middle of the summer.
Inside the classroom, I can overhear the discussion going on. Today's topic was current events going around the nation or area. I can recognize the voice of a girl in the classroom, reciting a headline from last week's LA Times: "Psychiatric hospitals see rise in check-ins" It's funny; here we are in a small town in Southern California. Dalestown is its name; a population of about 20,000. As the saying go, if you're born here, you're either stuck here forever, or move on with your life...only to come back later down the road. If you looked on the map, I'd be surprised this run-down place will be there at all. However, ironically we are quite famous for one thing: the psychiatric hospital on the other side of town. "Alexander Psychiatric Hospital" is its name. Yes, Alexander, as in my last name. My family owned that hospital since this town was first founded. Recently my grandfather died from shock, and my parents had to move here about a year ago to take over it; I lived with my aunt in New York, just moved here 6 months ago.
The school bell ringing snapped me out of my trance. I looked up and saw hordes of students starting to move out of classrooms, towards the center of the school where the cafeteria is. My pocket watch showed the time of 11:45, it was a Tuesday so chicken nuggets was today's special. As I stood up, the teacher came out and stopped me from taking another step.
"Miles!" he called out. I decided to humor him and listened to what he had to say. He approached me, with some form of concern in his eye.
"Look, I know it's tough being here; being stuck with all of the seniors that couldn't graduate last year. I understand, that you'd rather be doing something else out there instead of sitting in here listening to me talk. But hey, you have to think about what kind of rewards will come out of this. You can graduate early, and just get out of this town; go back to New York if you'd like! I can't tolerate you sleeping in my class. It's disrespectful, and disruptive to the other students in my-" Before he could finish his thought I decided to walk off. "Wait, I'm not done talking!"
In response I walked up to him and handed him a packet of papers. "This is the rest of the week's work. I'm leaving now, and don't expect to see me in class this week. Just mark me as present, Mr. Samuels."
"You can't do that Miles!" he yelled out, "You will come to class! I can't do what you ask-" his voice trailed off as I got farther.
That lecture managed to take away my appetite, for a bit that is. Upon leaving the school grounds, I checked my watch again: 12:03. From the distance I heard a lot of clamoring down the street. Tons of people and tents were conglomerated in one area, with bustling resonating throughout. I decided to go check out the hullabaloo, and was irked when I found out I had to pay a five dollar entrance fee.
"Welcome to the Clock Festival!" the table girl greeted me. She looked a few years older than me..
"Hi," I just quietly replied, "What is this thing?"
"I've never seen your face around here. Normally in Dalestown everyone's seen each other at least once. Are you new here?"
"I, moved here around six months ago. So yeah, I'm still pretty new."
"Well, the Clock Festival is a week-long celebration of our town's anniversary. It was yesterday, 200 years ago that our great clock tower, Father Joseph, first chimed, thus signaling the settlement here. I hope you enjoy your time here!"
"Thanks," i said as I turned around. You learn something new everyday.
I mingled around the festival at a steady pace, checking out the sites. Various vendors displaying their products, local organizations giving demonstrations, a stage live with performers from a local dance school currently doing some kind of story-telling piece. As I walked around the festival, I started seeing some faces from my school; I could feel eyes glaring at me, judging me. Even outside of school, I wasn't very welcome.
"Hey, isn't that the new kid?" I heard a female voice whisper.
"Yeah, what's he doing here?" replied a male voice.
"Isn't he supposed to be in summer school right now?" I heard from a male voice later down the road.
"He's probably done with it, seeing how much of a life he doesn't have," chuckled his jock sounding companion. I turned my head a little and glared at him. He immediately shut up and took his buddy to somewhere else. Being tall helps, along with being from New York; everybody assumes you came from the bad side. Oh it's quite amazing how groupthink works.
Another few blocks and the conversations started to sound different.
"Hey, did you hear another person died of shock yesterday?" said a girl voice.
"Yeah, it was up in a mental hospital in Irvine. Poor guy had a heart attack in the middle of the night. That's the seventh one this week. Something's been going around," elaborated her friend.
"First the apathy syndrome thing last year in Japan, and how people dying in their sleep?"
"Wait," interrupted the girl friend, "In their sleep?"
Deducing that this conversation is quite interesting, due to my family owning a "mental hospital" and everything, I decided to just buy a burger and sit down within eavesdropping distance.
"Well, the victims first testified they had terrible night terrors for a week. Then insomnia kicks in, which causes them to check into a sleep doctor; who redirects them to a mental hospital to get it checked. During the research, a week after the insomnia kicks in, the victims start screaming randomly. The doctors think they were lucid dreaming and were trapped in sleep paralysis. Though, I've never read anything in psychology class about sleep paralysis being terrible enough to kill them."
Getting the information I needed, I finished my burger and continued my mingling. Lately at the family hospital, a lot of people were sent there for sleep issues. Seeing as this case has been going on for a month now,, doctors have been sending them over to our place due to the advancements and abundance of we have. In turn, my parents haven't been home in over a month, as they have been researching this.
My pocket watch read 1:15 as I entered the novelty vendors section of the festival. Various quirky "shows" such as the "World's Largest Alligator," or the standard name on a grain of rice filled this corner of the street. I powered my way through the crowds of onlookers, when a familiar face was approaching. It was a girl, black hair in a ponytail with a blue stripe going down the right side of her bangs that are bushed to the side, fairly medium height, and moderately average curves. She sported a black skirt, white button up blouse, and a star hair pin. Behind her seemed to be a kid, around our age, with shorter messy grey hair, blue eyes, and had a pair of headphones around his neck. The look on the girl's face looked as if she noticed me, which was followed up by a brisker walking pace. I immediately walked up to her, and was greeted by a quite one-sided hug.
"Silly, you can't hug with your hands in your pockets!" she greeted. This is Alyssa Lee, the new junior class president. A direct descendant of Robert E. Lee, she inherited her ancestor's leadership skills and made our class the highest budget class, and with the highest test scores so far. She was one of the first people that looked beyond my circumstance, and became fast friends; one of the few few friends I have in this town. I looked her in her green eyes, and gave her a drowsy, blank stare.
"C'mon, lighten up! You've been stuck in school all summer so far, so we haven't had a chance to hang out!"
"Even if I had time, I don't think we would hang out," I muttered.
"Oh, don't be like that!" she pouted, "Your parents are always working so it must be lonely at home. My boyfriend and I could always come over; Scott's been wondering where you are! He's been itching to play that fighting game with you again."
I turned my attention to the blank faced guy standing next to her. He was just standing there, with his eyes closed, moving his head to whatever music was in his ears.
"This is Krono Alberts, he's a new student here. The student council was having our annual summer training, and our adviser assigned me to giving him the tour of the town. Thankfully, the Clock Festival was today!"
He raised his head and returned my stare at him for the next few seconds. Deciding to break the silence, I decided to initiate conversation.
"Hi, I'm Miles. I'm kinda new here too, nice to meet you."
I was met with silence for a second, until he opened up his lips. "Hey, I'm Krono." And he returned to his music. Not much of a talker I guess.
Alyssa waved her hand for my attention. "I'm sorry, but can I ask you to stick with him for a few minutes? I need to run over to the school council's table and check in with the adviser." Before I could even respond, she ran off in an athletic sprint, "I'll come back and find you!"
My sigh of annoyance was met with words from behind me, "Energetic one, isn't she?" I immediately looked behind me and saw Krono putting away his headphones.
"I apologize for being rude," he followed up, "She was so talkative, it felt wrong to….interrupt."
"Yeah…"
"Well, now that we're stuck together, would you like to accompany me until she comes back?"
Krono and I strolled along the road, maneuvering around the very unaware bystanders. We chatted about each other, and I came to learn we share common interests. His family is into psychology as well, and recently transferred to "Alexander Psych" to work with my parents on the case. His grades were good, and had a few close friends from back home, but now this new place feels very alien to him. I admit, I saw a little bit of myself in him; I knew what that was like. Thankfully, his family moved here during the summer so he doesn't have to go through the awkward phase of transferring mid term like I did; that gets really awkward when a class full of seniors suddenly have a sophomore in their class.
Anyhoo, we continued our walk and soon noticed the vendors thinning out.
"I was quiet, cause her friendliness kinda overwhelmed me. Like, I was too scared to make friends with her cause she came on too strong." explained Krono.
"Don't worry, she's like that to everybody," I chuckled, "I remember my first time meeting her: She immediately ran up to me, grabbed my hand and pulled me to meet Scott."
"Her boyfriend?"
"Yeah, she figured that having a few people meet me right away would get me acclimated to the new environment. All it did was annoy me and give me a round of Tekken. Gosh, Scott's been trying bug me to play against him ever since."
"You beat him?"
"Oh no, I lost. But according to him, I gave him a pretty good match and it was rare to see anyone play that well against him. Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing."
Krono chuckled at the remark. "That's the only way to play a fighting game, just go with the flow…" He randomly stopped and turned his attention towards a tent; a blue tent. "This place looks interesting, let's check it out."
Upon entering the tent, our entire world went completely blue. It felt like a whole other universe in here, yet. The room seemed bigger, and the patterns were moving (that might have been my imagination. It was hard to tell). Yet, it was clearly the tent, a tent, a small normal looking tent. In the center was a table, where a cloaked person was sitting. "Welcome," greeted a young female voice. The stranger took off her hood, which revealed a girl with grey hair and yellow eyes. Her complexion was soft, her faces smoothed out, and she gave the most curious expression. The blue cloak she wore hid her figure, but seeing her face was enough. And I saw Krono was a bit awe-struck...though his blank face wasn't -that- expressive about it.
"Would you like your fortune told?"
"I mean, I guess it can't hurt to have some fun." Krono responded as he reached for some pocket change.
"Oh no," the girl intervened with a wave of her hand, "You two will be free of charge. Business has been a bit slow; no person nowadays really believe in fortune telling. Besides, I can tell you two are...different. But I can't put my tongue on it."
Krono looked at me with a questioning stare. I responded with a shrug of a shoulder, and I frowned my face in the universal sign of "Whatever man, it's up to you."
The girl looked at Krono first, and pulled out a deck of cards. She had him shuffle it, cut the deck, the works; and had him hand it back to her.
"You will be first," she said, as she fanned the deck on the table, "Now please, see what fate has in store for you in the future." Krono took a finger and pushed out a random card in the middle of the deck. The girl picked it up, revealing some kind of silhouette of a wandering man with a travel stick. On the bottom of the card was the number zero. "Oh my, The Fool. Your future is filled with limitless possibilities, as there will be no pre-determined paths for you to take. You determine your own future through whatever actions. Though, with all this potential, there will be no doubt something great will happen to you."
Krono looked at her with his blank stare again, trying to process everything he just heard. He looked at me with a confused and doubting face, only to say "Your turn."
The girl handed me the deck to shuffle. After a few reps, my hands cramped up or something (I don't know how but I somehow lost control of them), and dropped all the cards on the floor. Beginning to kneel down to pick them up, the girl lunged forward yelling "Wait!" The surprise caused me to spring up and raise my hands above my head. I looked down at the cards and saw what she meant: all the cards were face-down except two. One with eyes and a flame underneath them labeled (I); the other a skull with two scythes labeled (XIII).
"That has never happened before. The cards, forsee a struggle for control of something in your future. The Magician knows your latent potential, untapped, but you have the ability to benefit from it. Yet Death awaits you. Whether it be metaphorically or physically, Death tells of constant change in your future. I cannot determine what will happen, but be prepared for immense changes in your life; ones you bring upon yourself, and ones thrust upon you. Could it be greatness, or doom?"
My head starts to throb a little, very mild discomfort swarmed into me. I looked at Krono, who seemed to be experiencing the same thing, though I don't think his is as extreme. "T-thank you, miss. That...gave me some great insight. Krono, I think we should keep….our eyes open for opportunities." He gave a nod and we started heading out.
"WAIT!" cried out the girl. She got up and rushed towards me, bringing her face close to mine. "There's something about you, that I can't put my tongue on." She looked into my discomforted eyes intently. "The cards see something special in you, both of you. I hope your destinies will be what you desire."
At that moment, she closed her eyes and planted her lips onto mine. My eyes slowly close as the headache went away. A mere second later, she broke off and gave me and Krono a look of excitement. Silence fell upon the room briefly before she spoke:
"Your fate, is in the cards."