Decision
I awoke the next morning, groggy. Staying up passed midnight would get any 10-year-old sleepy, but besides that thoughts kept running through my mind. Scath. Masked. Trigon. Azar. Leave family and friends, or forget what the man in the mask said.
I had to make a decision today. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked at the clock. "Ahh!" I said. "9:30! I'm late!" I jumped out of bed and made for the door when my mom caught me.
"Slade, I called the school." She said. "I told them you were sick. Don't worry." She took me back to my bed and tucked me in.
"Why did you tell the school that?" I asked.
"Because you're never late like this and you never sleep in." She replied. "You must have something." She stood up and made for the door.
"Mom," I called.
"Yes, dear?"
"If you had to make the chose of doing something good or staying with your family, which would you choose?"
She was disturbed by my question. "Slade," she said, "are you hiding something?"
"Of coarse not." I lied.
She came back and sat on the foot of my bed. "It depends. If it's something you know has to be done, then maybe you might have to. But if it's just something you want to do, then you have to make up your own mind." With that, she got off my bed and went out my door. "Good-bye, son."
"Good-bye, mom." I was left alone. Left to ponder the words of my mother. If I had known that that was the last time I was ever going to see my mother I would've said something more. Minutes seemed to pass like hours. After what seemed like an eternity, my father returned home.
"Slade," my father called.
"Yeah, dad?" I replied.
"Boy, your mother wanted to give you this." My dad handed me a silver necklace with a gold "S" hanging on it. "I don't know why she gave you that, but take it anyway."
That night my mother did not return. I didn't know why at the time. I remember having a hilarious time watching my father attempt to make dinner. He tried hamburgers, those looked like charcoal after ten minutes. Eventually we just ordered pizza.
That night, I lay wide-awake in my bed. Watching the clock. Once both hands reached the 12 I rose from my bed and headed for the window. Once I got to the window I stopped. Before I left I grabbed the "S" necklace and hung it around my neck.
I went strait to the street corner and waited. After only 15 minutes, Shaun came out of the darkness. "Has your decision been made?" He asked.
"Yes," I said, "I will join the Masked."
"Then come with me." Shaun led me back to the alley and opened the same door. When we walked in, we walked right passed the mural and came to an elevator.
Shaun pressed the down button and as we waited, I noticed his uniform had changed. Instead of the full front left side of the shirt being orange, only the upper left corner of the shirt was orange now. "Is that a new uniform?" I asked.
"Yes." Shaun replied. "This is the uniform of a warrior." The elevator arrived and the doors opened. I was surprised that he had gone from apprentice to warrior in only 24 hours.
We entered the elevator and I said, "Which floor are we going to?"
"None of these floors." Shaun said. He opened a second panel that had a half-orange, half-black button on it. "This is the floor." He pushed the button and BAM! The elevator was moving sideways. After only 10 seconds, it came to a stop and the doors opened.
Standing outside was the man in a mask.