!*!Poof!*!
"Tonight's homework is to finish your board games based on the Greek wars. We'll be playing them tomorrow and Friday." Mrs. Petridis, the history teacher, announced. It was only three days until school ended, and Mythri was counting down the seconds until it finally arrived. All she wanted to do was grab a book and read it forever. Unfortunately, time had decided to take a vacation, turning the clock five times slower.
She so badly wanted to escape the endless droning of her teachers that she felt that two more moments in her school would drive her over the edge of insanity. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but it was really driving her nuts. She felt as if she could swallow up the words of a fantasy book with the thirst of a person stranded in a desert for days on end.
Except for one thing: she didn't have a book, and it was killing her. Mythri knew she couldn't survive on fanfictions and TV forever, her life practically depended on books. Okay, another exaggeration, but you get the point. Thirty one… Thirty….. Only half a minute until school was out. Twenty six, twenty five, twenty four…. Mrs. Petridis could dismiss them twenty four seconds early, couldn't she?
Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen… She could almost feel the anticipation that hung in the air. The continuous sound of the clock ticking didn't help. Her foot began tapping in unison with the clock. Five, four, three, two, one…. "Class dismissed."
Energy jumping inside of her, Mythri resisted the urge to run out of the classroom yelling "FINALLY!". She would like to keep her reputation as a reasonably sensible person, even if her friends already knew that it wasn't true in the slightest bit.
Grabbing her backpack, she made her way to Mrs. Petridis' class, which was her homeroom as well as history classroom. She sat down at her desk, and began drawing another unicorn. She didn't know why, but she had an undying desire to draw the equestrian creatures at all times, similar to her obsession with books. The only differences were that her unicorns were never even slightly good, and it was probably a phase.
When she'd started drawing the legs, she saw movement through the corner of her wide framed glasses: Violetta. She was the only fangirl Mythri knew, face-to-face, that she got to see often. Their major fandoms were different but Mythri didn't mind. Her other friends, Kylie and Alice were soon seated next to her as well.
Kylie liked reading, and was an amazing artist and animator. Alice and Mythri did not share any common traits, but as they say, opposites attract. Suddenly, Violetta said "I published a new story on Wattpad the other day. Did you see it?" Mythri nodded. They prattled on like this until their buses were called, Violetta talking (and singing, but that's not important) and Mythri listening and nodding.
!*!Poof!*!
After boarding the bus, Mythri had her usual conversation with her friend Ashley, which consisted of Ashley asking "What's up?" and Mythri replying with "Stuff." Then she proceeded to stare out the window, thinking. Gods, how I would love to meet characters from stories. Mythri was always fantasizing what would happen if she met characters from books, movies, TV shows, and even ones from her own stories.
Yes, Mythri was a writer. She was planning on writing a story about her thoughts, how she met characters from her stories. Would she just say "Hey person who saves the world at some point, I created you!"? She'd read about that sort of attempt in the Land of Stories, and that did not go well. Long story short, the author and his sister got thrown into the brig of a ship. Yes, I know, sounds fun.
After a while, she got bored mulling over the possibilities. She decided to listen to the seventh graders, as they always provided some sort of twisted entertainment. "*@!" That might have not been good idea. She had momentarily forgotten that the seventh graders also liked using… colorful language.
Bored once again, she looked up, only to realize that she was nearly home. She was just outside her neighborhood, 'Alpine Echo'. The bus pulled into the neighborhood, stopping a few times at other houses before finally stopping at her own.
Skipping up her driveway, something shiny caught her eye. Drawing closer, she discovered that it was a yarn bracelet woven with a golden thread. The string glinted in the sun, really standing out against the white of the yarn. Mythri held the bracelet up to the sky. It radiated pure power, unlike anything she'd felt before.
Just holding the bracelet sent tremors through her body, and it was only a thin barrier of sanity that kept her from releasing the energy the bracelet emitted. Mythri blinked once, then twice, attempting to see if the image before her was truly there. She dropped the bracelet into her bag, intending to deal with it later.
She rushed inside, unsure where to keep it at first, but eventually deciding to keep it in a box that resided in her room. Mythri was troubled about the whole situation. What could she do about it? Who could she tell? Ashley? They saw each other the most out of her friends, but Ashley knew of her obsession with stories, and would probably think Mythri had officially gone crazy. Same problem with her brother and most of her other friends.
In the end, Mythri found that keeping that a secret would be the best option. Besides, she didn't to face her friends if they didn't feel the energy coming from the bracelet. Then they would definitely think she had gone insane, and she wouldn't like that very much.
That night, the bracelet would occasionally send out pulsing power that Mythri and her budgie,Thunderbird, could both feel. It finally stopped when it was nearing midnight, and by that time she was seriously regretting her decision to keep it in her room.