Chapter 3: Hello There (General Kenobi)

He woke with a start and a feeling of insecurity envelops him. Looking around, he realizes he is still in an emergency clinic. Looking around he notices his parents.

'Looking back, they genuinely care about me, especially after what happened last night. I guess they just don't know how to express it to me,' he thought with a wry grin on his face. Glancing past the prone forms of his parents, he saw the bustle of the early morning influx of patients.

'Early morning?' he questions, peering down he sees his watch clutched in the hands of his mother, 'ah so I lost it, huh I wonder where… ohhh that makes more sense as to why they were so frenzied when they arrived. I must've dropped it by the car, and they assumed…' he smiled down at them before deciding he had had enough of the clinic and roused his parents from their stupor.

He anxiously put on the light blue billabong sweatshirt and looped the belt through his jeans as he rushed to leave the urgent-care clinic. The car ride home was almost silent but for the quiet noise of KAFE 104.1, a nervous tension hanging in the air. Jeramiah walked through the entryway, where he turned to the right and sat down in the well-lit family room. There are two couches and a chair in the family room all facing towards the widescreen television. He smiled as his parents rushed in to sit on the nearest gray couch.

Based on their expressions, he knew there was no avoiding that he had to tell them what happened, so he began by explaining how he was 'angry' at being kicked off the swim team. With a short description of the car accident, he went on to talk about how he got 'lost' in the woods and 'luckily' made it out of the park bleeding and battered. Purposely leaving out his darker thoughts and emotions, while completely hiding the existence of the orb 'No one would believe it anyway… I barely believe it myself!'

He felt tired. His body still ached, and his muscles were stiff and jerky… except for his hands which led to the conclusion that maybe the orb was some kind of medical survival super tool. 'Magic doesn't exist' he growled into his mind.

'Of course, it doesn't' his subconscious smirked back.

After explaining everything, his parents were much more considerate and even gave him his laptop just "for school next week." He trudged upstairs, taking a half an hour shower, barely recognizing how his muscles were soothed and how his body finally relaxed into the warmth. Without touching his laptop, he reached into his covers and wrapped himself up tightly, as he went to bed with his flannel pants and a thin t-shirt.

!WHOOSH! He woke with a start, quickly shoving off all the covers and sheets. Looking down at his wrist, he noticed the watch was reading 4:15 p.m. and leaped from the bed. He quickly shoved on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He knew it would be at least a 15-minute walk towards where he hid the weird stone. Thoughts whirled through his head as he shoved his left arm through the sleeve. The foremost thought is 'how do I sneak out of here.'

Later… "Mom I'm sorry I need some time to think, please. I can't just live in the house. I feel better, and I am in desperate need of fresh air, and I promise I won't go hiking at night. Besides, I'll be back by 5:30 probably even sooner."

"Fine but take your phone with you this time" she stated sharply as she handed over the old but well-maintained Google Pixel. Grasping it quickly and shoving it into his left pocket, he turned the doorknob and began to walk out of the front door.

"Jeramiah the rental will be here before school starts, and your father is already looking into a new car for you… Stay safe," she pleaded earnestly.

"Will do. Thank you" he nodded sharply then walked off towards the park.

Anxiety was mounting as he continued down the sidewalk. Towards the roundabout, his anxiety hit him like a sack of bricks. Jeramiah felt like each step was getting harder as the doubt festered in his mind that truly he hadn't witnessed the egg (he finally admits to his anxiety, thinking it's a daydream, that it could only be an egg) and that it was simply a figment of the imagination. He noticed that he was simply walking along the five-mile road towards the parking lot, hoping that the stone would be where he'd hidden it. He noticed the parking lot on his right and looked over to see the sign stating Parking Lot A, where he had previously collapsed. He looked around trying to find evidence of a disturbance.

After fifteen minutes, he finally discerned an area where the dirt was weirdly shoved off to the side. 'Could it be… I'm not crazy?' He finally looked around and located a fern with particularly damaged branches, lifting the larger leaves. He started to remove the twigs and felt a brush of warmth against his hand… The silky-smooth surface seemed to be alive, and he rapidly groped at it to get it away from the Earth's clutches.

With the orange ball of fire wrapped tightly in his hands, he set off back towards his home. The setting sun illuminated the sky with bright shades of pink and orange as he walked back, arms still firmly wrapped around the once again room temperature stone protecting it from the eyes of others. As he walked down E Shirley Rd, he realized that he couldn't just walk into the house with a giant rock without questions. He quickly hid the rock across the street between two trees.

Walking back inside his home, he stepped out of the darkness and into the warmth of home.

Twelve a.m. Shimmying out of bed, he reached out grasping his slippers from next to the bed. Lurching awkwardly at every creek of the floor, he anxiously tiptoed down the stairs and right to the front door. Hitching open the door at an agonizingly slow pace, he glided out the door and fingered the door closed behind him. He leaped across the front lawn and dashed across the street. He quickly swept over the fence of 4826 and bounded stealthily over to the pair of Douglas fir and grasped both hands tightly around the cherished orb. A strange chill flashed through his body as he pulled it into his chest.

Jeramiah snuck back in the same way he came, but his door closed a little too fast when he heard a noise in his bedroom… It was his alarm set at 12:15 in case he fell asleep. Grabbing the watch, he disabled the alarm function and grabbed his flashlight.

He began to run his hands over the surface of the oval rock. It was the same shape, size, and color. He wrapped his knuckles against the surface and heard a brilliant interior ringing.

'Curious, hollow. Maybe this is some government experiment like a revolutionized alloy that was tested to see if a small animal or insect could survive incredible impacts?'

"Nope even I think that's stupid" he whispered barely, keeping his talking low. 'The government wouldn't lose something this expensive and not go looking for it… so that still begs the question what is it?' (I am a Hobbit of Bag-End)

After peering over it for about half an hour and concluding that "it's just a strange rock," he tucked it inside of a pillowcase and jammed a bunch of clothes inside with it and buried it amongst the various pillows and blankets that coated Jeramiah's bed.

Daphne woke to the crow of a rooster at 6:30 a.m. She calmly got up from her sleep number mattress and went to get dressed in her informal tunic and leather breeches. Standing at the ready, she had a rapier tied in a leather belt around her waist and a dagger sheathed on the back of the belt right along her spine. With foggy blue-brown eyes that seemed obscured unless you were able to look up close within 3 feet, you would barely see how focused she truly was. Her attention flitted between every small detail from the waving of the grass to birds rising from the fields almost a mile away. Her dirty-blonde hair tied behind her in a ponytail.

She was named after the beautiful flower, Daphne Odora, but she was anything but delicate. From her firmly clenched jaw to her slightly bowed knees, she was ready to spring on any available target.

That target was her father. David Orinsson had trained his daughter to truly live up to her name Daphne Ferrum. Her moniker was simply "blade," but to those who knew it what it meant was she lived for and with the blade, trained from a young age by David who for years was Extrarius Mundi's (meaning: strange world) preeminent swordsman for one year. After a single year, he was knifed in the back tearing out all the muscles in his right shoulder and the wound never recovered completely. The disgraced champion of the global tournament was sent back to his own home in a small corner of the world in the region known as Alagaesia.

Meanwhile, the rest of Chulnia was concerned that a man from the line of the foreigners, the people of the 'dirt world,' could be so talented.

Daphne's' tanned skin stretched over muscles and sinews bristled as she rushed at her father, wielding his shorter but heavier longsword. David kept his right hand back in order to maintain balance and his left hand wielding his sword in an almost dancelike manner. Daphne rushed in and overstepped earning her a sprawling defeat. Climbing back off the ground, leaving her entire front coated in dirt, she grinned, "what a great way to spend thanksgiving."

Jeramiah woke up with a crick in his neck and grumpily stood up to grab a pair of jeans. 'Why does my neck hurt so badly?' he mentally grumbled. He went to hit the offending pillow and tried to pull back at the last second… It still hurt 'Damn rock'. Grumbling, he went downstairs where his parents were preparing for the family thanksgiving.

After three full days of the rock doing absolutely nothing, Jeramiah simply saw it as the rock, a meaningless stone that he, for some reason, was attached to.

'Near-death experiences do seem to impact your outlook on life. I realize I was being selfish, and although they reacted the same way they always do, they were only doing what they know as fair and right.'

"Life is not about holding onto the little things especially when they are meant for a benefit. Life is about taking what you're given and using that to the best of your ability" (As a Christian, I believe that the gifts you are given by God for a specific purpose. To serve his kingdom and that you should use said giftings to fulfill your purpose. I have no idea who is going to be reading this, so I just thought I would make that clear.)

He gave up holding a grudge against his parents and decided to simply trust they want to have his best interests at heart. He went downstairs to the smell of turkey and finally enjoyed the warmth that his family was willing to provide, but the distance he felt was still noticeably clear. The isolation was present, but something was making it easier to feel those around him, but he had no clue what. Thanksgiving was a blessing and since nothing else had changed, life seemed to pass by building up a weekly routine. He woke up, read books, played video games, and spent time with his parents. Eventually, the weekend ended, leaving him to begin school again and boy was he excited.