A King in the Making
Chapter 1: The Subject of Desire
revised and edited 07/14/2022
My name is Evan. I am a 7-foot-tall, 32-year-old man with green eyes, thick-lensed glasses, and light brown hair. My brother Alva and I live in our childhood home together. We both work at the tram station in the city. I'm a 'head mechanic' at the station. As a head mechanic, I'm expected to coach apprentices so that they may eventually become certified mechanics themselves. Since my promotion to my current position, work was mostly trouble-free.
'Mostly', being the keyword.
It was mid-May in the year 2017, and the most recent time I had read on the clock was sometime between 4 and 5 PM. I was getting lost in my work under a trolley, alone in the tram station's repair bay. All of my apprentices were gone, sent home earlier in the day so they could prepare for important tests the next day. All of the bay doors were open, the lights were dimmed down and the ceiling fans were on low. A gentle breeze made its way through the bay doors and soft white noise came from the large fans overhead. Everything was so serene, I could've stayed well into the night and I wouldn't have ever noticed. I might have even fallen asleep on the creeper right there under that trolley if it weren't for the obnoxiously loud-
"SqueeeeaK"-!
Startled by the sudden break of silence, I dropped the tool that I was using right past my head and onto the cement below me. A loud, yet short-lived metallic clang rings out through the returned silence. For a moment, I remained frozen in my working position, my heart pounding in my ears. After what felt like a good 4 minutes, I decided that I should probably check on what caused such a ruckus. With one hard shove against the trolley's undercarriage, I was sent rolling out from under the car and into the open area of the repair bay. Slowly, I sat up and turned myself towards the source of the interruption. I was truly expecting someone to be standing there, maybe rummaging through my tools, but to my surprise, there wasn't anyone. The only thing that stood out to me was my locker door. It was cracked open.
Possible solutions for my situation started to play through my head as I took in my immediate surroundings. Maybe someone else had been in the bay with me, messing with my things and hiding once they made detectable noise. Or perhaps it was as simple as something heavy falling out of my locker, pushing the door open as it fell. I did have an awful tendency to carelessly overstuff my locker, so the latter seemed to be the most believable explanation.
I pushed myself up off of the creeper and onto my feet, then snagged the nearest, cleanest towel. Using the towel, I wiped my hands clear of grease. Once I was satisfied with my cleanliness, I launched the now definitely soiled towel into an old paint pail by my workbench. By chucking the towel, I had hoped to make enough noise to scare any possible stowaways that could've been hiding under my workbench. As I then continued to approach, I watched for anyone running away, and when I got up close enough to touch my bench, I quickly peered underneath. Seeing that there were only tools and boxes, I was able to confirm that there wasn't anyone hiding. By now, I had ruled out the idea that someone other than myself could be in my workspace. I just have to figure out what fell out of my locker.
Slowly, my locker door was pulled open. The hinges squeaked faintly during the process. At first, only one small notebook fell out of the locker and to my feet. Prematurely, I let out a small chuckle and, regretfully, I abruptly swung my locker door wide open. That one notebook falling coupled with the sudden movement from the locker door led to an avalanche of useless junk tumbling out of the locker and to the ground. Thankfully, just as quickly as the spill started, it stopped. However, the duration of the landslide did not matter. A surprisingly large pile of junk was laid out on the cement in front of my locker. Seeing the mess, I brought my hand up to my face and tightly pinched the bridge of my nose, sighed, and then rubbed my eyes, pushing my glasses up onto my brow momentarily.
Yes, my mystery jumpscare had finally been solved, but in its place, a new problem arose. Before I even attempted to tackle the mess I had made, I decided that I should first take a moment to check on the time. My attention was turned to the digital display on the wall, it read 6:53 PM. It was, at that time, way past my usual working hours. That was all the more reason to simply leave the mess for the next morning. Since the whole locker shinanigan began, my patience had thinned immensely. I was certain that more problems would rear their heads if I took the time to try to clean the mess at my feet. So with that being said, it would be best to leave.
With my mind made up, I shut my locker door and take a step closer to the miscellaneous pile on the floor, doing my best not to step on anything. My backpack was on the far side of my locker, hanging on a hook. To get it, I reached over the front of the locker and snag the bag by a shoulder strap. I successfully unhooked the bag from the other side of the locker and tossed it over one of my shoulders. Usually, I would change out of my dirty uniform before going home, but I was too tired and didn't want to stay at work any longer. I shut down the repair bay by closing the large garage doors and turning off the ceiling fans. At the exit, I took a moment to pat myself down, ensuring I had my house keys, cellphone, and wallet before I left the shop for the night. All items are confirmed to be with me, only then did I hit the lights, leaving the repair bay in absolute darkness. I step out of the dark repair bay and let the door shut behind me.
After clocking out and returning my station keys, I caught the next tram home. There was nobody else on the trolley with me at this time and the ride is about 30 minutes long, so I decided cleaning out my backpack would be the best use of my time. I shrugged the bag off my shoulders and rested it on my lap. The zippers are undone easily and with very little noise. Once the bag is opened, I pulled out all of its contents and placed them all on the empty seat beside me. There are plenty of old, useless repair reports in the pile I pulled out. There are also some old, ruined earbuds, a pair of underwear I had accused someone of stealing long ago, and of course my pristine envelope.
Wait, what?
Pristine envelope? I don't remember that being in there. I would have certainly remembered putting something like that in my bag. Yet, in my hands, I held a mysterious envelope that is off-white in color. On one side, the envelope has a golden sticker. It seems to be keeping the seal flap closed and when I flipped the envelope over to inspect it further, I find that my name is written in beautiful calligraphy on the face of the envelope. The writing is done in some glittery red ink. I tilted the envelope from side to side ever so slightly and watched as the red ink shimmered in the tram's bright cabin light.
'I should open it.' I thought to myself. And without a second thought, I did open it. Carefully, I peeled off the sticker that was on the seal flap and then flipped said flap up so that I could access what was hidden inside. There is a letter inside. I pulled out said letter and something falls out of it and onto the floor of the trolley car. I decided to retrieve what fell after I read the letter. Nobody else was here, so there was no reason to scramble over something that was in no danger of being ruined or stolen.
Two sheets of paper are unfolded, they are fully white printer papers with a printed message on only the front sides of the pages. I adjust my glasses on my face and began to read…