I wrote this as one of my daily writing exercises, and decided that I liked it enough to edit it and post it here. I hope you enjoy it.
It had been nine hours since his had power gone out. His had laptop died shortly afterwards, and his phone was going to die soon. There was no TV, no Wi-Fi, no way to warm up food, and no way to turn on the lights. His Twitter feed told him that the power would be back tomorrow, but there was still 5 hours until midnight, and the sun was a long way from crossing the horizon.
Hiccup looked out his window. There were kids playing in the park outside, and adults talking as they walked their dogs or played with them in the field. Even the teens his age were out talking to one another, sitting on a bench or walking around. It seemed that he was the only one who wasn't.
He couldn't draw, either. It was too dark in his room to see his drawings clearly. The sun was angled away from his window, so only a few shafts of light made their way in.
It looked brighter outside, and Hiccup wondered if it was finally time that he left his room and stopped staring at his smartphone screen. It wasn't like he could do anything else. Everything interesting took electricity, anyways.
It was worth a shot.
Hiccup grabbed his notebook, dropped his phone off on his dresser, opened his door, and, after a moment's debate, went outside.
A breath of fresh air hit him as he stepped through the threshold, something he had missed after so many days inside. A light breeze blew against his face, warm despite the setting sun outside, and rustling the bushes and trees as it went by. He could hear the children louder now, yelling and shouting as they ran around, and if he listened closely, he could hear their parents whistling for their dog, and the nondescript talking of other people his age.
Hiccup held his notebook casually to his left as he surveyed the land, looking for an empty bench to sit on. Those in the park across the street were full of parents watching their kids, but they were shouting too loud over there for him to focus anyways. The benches on the smaller lower park were full, too. The ones under the small gazebo next to it were as well. Finally, he saw one in the distance, across the large field overlooking the town below, and began to head towards it.
He started off slowly, walking down his stairs carefully, cautious step by cautious step. He began to jog steadily once he reached the trail surrounding the field, heading towards the bench he'd seen from his porch. Soon he began to tire, and not long after his muscles began to strain.
When he finally got to the bench he took a quick break, leaning against its metal arm and breathing heavily. He wasn't very active on the best of days, and over summer he had rarely even gone outside. Calling him out of shape would be an understatement, but eventually he caught his breath, sat down and opened his notebook to the first unfilled page.
Looking up, it didn't take him long to decide what to draw. The view in front of him was astonishing. The entire town was laid out before him, rooftop after rooftop going on for miles, not a single light on in that distance. Past that he could see the towering masses of the 21st century cities, their metal buildings dwarfing the surrounding forests, closer to the sky than they were to the ground, and illuminating the world around them for miles. Even farther in the distance he could see the blue tint of mountains, taller than even the tallest cities, rising into the clouds.
He began drawing his town, sketching in the closest houses piece by piece. No detail was too small; whether it was a ladder propped against a roof or a tear in a fence where a dog had forced its way through, everything was included. Then he got to this cities, which he drew exaggeratedly futuristic, extending their skylines far above the clouds and lining them with neon lights high up into the air.
Then he heard a sound behind him: footsteps against gravel, steadily approaching him. He pretended to be involved in drawing as he heard someone sit down besides him and drop their backpack in the gravel next to him.
The forest was next. He wanted to accentuate the cities and the rise of automation, so he'd draw it thinner then he usually would, and shorter, too, to emphasize its heights-
"That's a cool drawing."
His heart stopped. That was a girl's voice that had just complimented him. He tried not to look startled as he tore his head away from his notebook and looked at her.
It was Astrid Hofferson.
"Thanks," he told her simply. That basic scripted response was all that he could think of at the moment.
He knew he should say more than that. Maybe compliment her hair, glowing in the setting sun, or praise her style, though she was just wearing her usual blue t-shirt. At the moment, though, his mind could only focus on one thing. Astrid Hofferson had just complemented his drawing.
Suddenly, it was the most important drawing he'd ever done.
She was looking at it now, analyzing every detail of every building as her blue eyes traced across the scene. His heart was hammering, racing faster and faster for every minor mistake that he could see.
"It's not quite finished," he blurted out, hoping that she'd judge it less harshly. He still needed to fill in the trees.
She was prepared with a counter. "What's done looks wonderful though."
His heart skipped a beat. Astrid Hofferson was complimenting him.
Her eyes flickered between the drawing and the third closest house, and she smiled.
"You even got my dad's armory down," she stated, amazed.
He didn't have even the faintest idea how to respond. His drawings had rarely been complemented by anyone, and every response he could think of was bland and generic. He didn't want to close her off by acting uninterested in what she had to say.
"Hiccup, are you ok?" She asked him. She looked almost concerned.
He shook himself out of his stupor.
"I... I'm just not really used to people complementing these," he told her truthfully. "Though, to be honest, I really don't show them much, either."
This time, she looked confused, like what he said was a puzzle she had to figure out.
"Why?"
He paused. Why didn't he? He knew how. The few people he'd shown had been very interested. He knew he was good – or, at least, he thought he was – and the people he would be showing it to wouldn't be art scholars ready to criticize all the errors with his lighting.
Truthfully, he answered, "I'm always too worried that people won't like it."
He wondered if she could relate.
"Hiccup, this is one of the most beautiful pieces of art I've seen, and it's not even finished," she told him. "I know it's scary, but I promise, nobody is going to dislike it."
His heart was going to explode. Coming from Fishlegs or Tuffnut, he would have been deeply moved. Coming from Astrid, he felt like he could take on the world.
He looked at her, her bright blue eyes meeting his, and smiled.
"Thanks."
He hoped she could feel the sincerity behind the word.
As the afternoon went on, he continued to draw, filling in the blank space with forests and rivers until he could barely see the ground. He filled the sky with a magnificent sunset, beaming through the clouds as it stretched across the horizon. All the while, Astrid watched silently, enjoying him draw as he filled in the final pieces of his work.
By the time the sun had set he was finished, and he signed his initials in the bottom right as he did with all his works. Before closing it, however, he paused.
"You can keep it, if you want," he told Astrid nervously. He hadn't told anyone this before. He'd never really thought that his drawings valuable enough to want.
Astrid smiled. "I'd love to," she told him.
Carefully, he tore the page out of his notebook, and handed it to her.
"Thanks," she told him as she took the page gingerly and looked it over once more.
"Anytime."
Hiccup went back to his house feeling better than he ever had before. He went to bed with a new resolve, and he woke up the next morning smiling.
He'd never been so glad that the power had gone out.