p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 115%;"span style="font-size: 12pt;"Chapter One/span/p
p style="text-indent: .5in; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 115%;" align="justify"span style="font-size: 12pt;" Toby opened his eyes. He could hardly see anything given the dim light coming through his blinds. His alarm on his cell phone was blaring loudly, and he hastily turned it off and stubbornly lay in bed. He had been dreaming something, and it had seemed so significant at the time, yet the dream was already fading from him. Something about finding a man at the center of a maze. No, that couldn't be right. Wasn't it supposed to be a minotaur?br /br /He sleepily got out of bed. If he didn't get dressed and get downstairs soon, he wouldn't have time for breakfast before he had to go to middle school. He threw on a pair of jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, and ran a brush through his unruly blonde hair. Grabbing his backpack from his desk chair, he bolted down the /br /His father was already sitting at the table reading the newspaper while noisily slurping his coffee. For the life of him, Toby didn't know why people decided to drink that stuff while it was still so hot. Didn't they end up burning their tongue every morning? It wasn't like his dad was a Firey. /spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;"Wait, what am I thinking? Was that in my dream last night too? /spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;"He tried, but he really couldn't remember. He shook himself. Today was going to be a long /br /He didn't bother trying to talk to his father. They didn't have much in common anyway. For as long as he could remember growing up, his father was always so serious. He didn't appreciate Toby's passion for fantasy novels, or music, or playing Dungeons and Dragons, or, well, anything really. It was only when Sarah left for New York that his father began to settle down, though he would eye Toby suspiciously across the dinner table if he made a book reference or something of the /br /Toby's mother was not really around much for him either. Of course she cooked and cleaned and washed his socks, but she only ever really seemed to care about his father, and playing bridge with the ladies on Saturdays. The most he really dealt with her was at the dinner table at night, and even then she only payed attention to father, unless his school had sent a notice to them that he had done something dreadful /br /It wasn't really his fault. His first memory was that of a little goblin creature, poking him in the nose. He really didn't appreciate it when they tried that, and he would often cry. Occasionally the goblins would be terribly cruel to him, pulling his pants down while he tried to give a class presentation, knocking his beaker straight off the lab table, or even dancing around him if he ever tried to talk to a girl. He'd even met the King of the Goblins a time or two, while he was visiting for business. Apparently they'd hit it off, and King Jareth had invited him to visit the land of faerie at some point in the /br /When at the age of six they woke up on Christmas morning to the sound of live chickens in their living room, he proudly declared that they were a gift from his friends, the goblins. She became so concerned with his goblin fascination that she promptly send him to see a shrink. After many long hours, Toby realized that the shrink and his mother could not see the goblins he had made such good friends with at all. Eventually, he gave up trying to convince people about them, and thinking he was some sort of weirdo, people tended to shy /br /"Now Toby, don't get into trouble today, okay? You need to come straight home from school so we can be ready when your sister arrives." Toby groaned. He completely forgot that Sarah was supposed to be coming down to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with them. He wondered if she was going to hate it as much as he was. At least they'd have that much in /br /Truth be told, Sarah was already grown up by the time Toby started to know her. Their age difference was so vast that he often wondered what kinds of things she used to do when she was his age. Sarah was very serious about things too, having left the family as soon as she could to become a perfectly sensible lead accountant in a prominent accounting firm. She must have made a decent amount of money, because she often came back to visit. But whenever she came back, it would be without news of a man of any kind. Sarah was alone a lot like him, and he wondered briefly if that was the doing of the goblins too, or just because she liked it better that /br /He grabbed a package of Pop-Tarts from the pantry, and zipped out of the door before his father could chastise him into brushing his teeth. Nobody came near enough to Toby to make friends except the goblins, and the goblins didn't care. He yawned, still trying to shrug off the dream, and stepped out into the cold morning air. He picked up his pace, meeting up with some kids waiting at the bus stop at the end of the block, and was glad for once that he wasn't going to be late /br /Opening his Pop-Tarts, he pulled one out of the pouch, and bit into it happily. The goblins were nowhere to be seen this morning, which was pretty curious, but the kids around him paid him no mind, and went on with their conversations that clearly didn't involve him. Trying again to remember what his dream was about, Toby realized it was futile. He couldn't even remember what he had known when he first awoke. The bus arrived, and he shoved the last bit of his breakfast into his mouth, chewing it as quickly as he could before he got onto the bus. If the bus driver caught him eating on her bus again, he'd be toast. She eyed him warily, but he had already swallowed the last bit of jelly goodness. She closed the doors behind him, and he prepared himself for the dreary school day./span/p
p style="text-indent: .5in; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 115%;" align="justify"span style="font-size: 12pt;" Toby opened his eyes. He could hardly see anything given the dim light coming through his blinds. His alarm on his cell phone was blaring loudly, and he hastily turned it off and stubbornly lay in bed. He had been dreaming something, and it had seemed so significant at the time, yet the dream was already fading from him. Something about finding a man at the center of a maze. No, that couldn't be right. Wasn't it supposed to be a minotaur?br /br /He sleepily got out of bed. If he didn't get dressed and get downstairs soon, he wouldn't have time for breakfast before he had to go to middle school. He threw on a pair of jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, and ran a brush through his unruly blonde hair. Grabbing his backpack from his desk chair, he bolted down the /br /His father was already sitting at the table reading the newspaper while noisily slurping his coffee. For the life of him, Toby didn't know why people decided to drink that stuff while it was still so hot. Didn't they end up burning their tongue every morning? It wasn't like his dad was a Firey. /spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;"Wait, what am I thinking? Was that in my dream last night too? /spanspan style="font-size: 12pt;"He tried, but he really couldn't remember. He shook himself. Today was going to be a long /br /He didn't bother trying to talk to his father. They didn't have much in common anyway. For as long as he could remember growing up, his father was always so serious. He didn't appreciate Toby's passion for fantasy novels, or music, or playing Dungeons and Dragons, or, well, anything really. It was only when Sarah left for New York that his father began to settle down, though he would eye Toby suspiciously across the dinner table if he made a book reference or something of the /br /Toby's mother was not really around much for him either. Of course she cooked and cleaned and washed his socks, but she only ever really seemed to care about his father, and playing bridge with the ladies on Saturdays. The most he really dealt with her was at the dinner table at night, and even then she only payed attention to father, unless his school had sent a notice to them that he had done something dreadful /br /It wasn't really his fault. His first memory was that of a little goblin creature, poking him in the nose. He really didn't appreciate it when they tried that, and he would often cry. Occasionally the goblins would be terribly cruel to him, pulling his pants down while he tried to give a class presentation, knocking his beaker straight off the lab table, or even dancing around him if he ever tried to talk to a girl. He'd even met the King of the Goblins a time or two, while he was visiting for business. Apparently they'd hit it off, and King Jareth had invited him to visit the land of faerie at some point in the /br /When at the age of six they woke up on Christmas morning to the sound of live chickens in their living room, he proudly declared that they were a gift from his friends, the goblins. She became so concerned with his goblin fascination that she promptly send him to see a shrink. After many long hours, Toby realized that the shrink and his mother could not see the goblins he had made such good friends with at all. Eventually, he gave up trying to convince people about them, and thinking he was some sort of weirdo, people tended to shy /br /"Now Toby, don't get into trouble today, okay? You need to come straight home from school so we can be ready when your sister arrives." Toby groaned. He completely forgot that Sarah was supposed to be coming down to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with them. He wondered if she was going to hate it as much as he was. At least they'd have that much in /br /Truth be told, Sarah was already grown up by the time Toby started to know her. Their age difference was so vast that he often wondered what kinds of things she used to do when she was his age. Sarah was very serious about things too, having left the family as soon as she could to become a perfectly sensible lead accountant in a prominent accounting firm. She must have made a decent amount of money, because she often came back to visit. But whenever she came back, it would be without news of a man of any kind. Sarah was alone a lot like him, and he wondered briefly if that was the doing of the goblins too, or just because she liked it better that /br /He grabbed a package of Pop-Tarts from the pantry, and zipped out of the door before his father could chastise him into brushing his teeth. Nobody came near enough to Toby to make friends except the goblins, and the goblins didn't care. He yawned, still trying to shrug off the dream, and stepped out into the cold morning air. He picked up his pace, meeting up with some kids waiting at the bus stop at the end of the block, and was glad for once that he wasn't going to be late /br /Opening his Pop-Tarts, he pulled one out of the pouch, and bit into it happily. The goblins were nowhere to be seen this morning, which was pretty curious, but the kids around him paid him no mind, and went on with their conversations that clearly didn't involve him. Trying again to remember what his dream was about, Toby realized it was futile. He couldn't even remember what he had known when he first awoke. The bus arrived, and he shoved the last bit of his breakfast into his mouth, chewing it as quickly as he could before he got onto the bus. If the bus driver caught him eating on her bus again, he'd be toast. She eyed him warily, but he had already swallowed the last bit of jelly goodness. She closed the doors behind him, and he prepared himself for the dreary school day./span/p