"I've decided you're not real, so you might as well just give up."
I lay down on the floor of the barn, panting and confused. I definitely did not expect a voice to answer back. After all, nobody had visited the farm in a while and my mom never told me that someone was coming. She always did that whenever someone visited, so it didn't make sense for a professor of all people to be roaming around the farm, much less in my little barn. Whoever this Professor Ozpin was, I had no idea. The only Professor Ozpin that I had ever even heard of was the headmaster of Beacon Academy, and there was no way that he would show up at some random little farm. He had a school to run and places to be. Unless Professor Ozpin was the man I had seen in his vivid dream the night before. Even that didn't make sense. How could someone from a dream that he had never seen before show up in real life? My dream by itself was weird, but hearing voices and seeing things is an entirely different level of weird. Really, it's more insane and crazy than weird in it's own right.
Even after I had caught my breath, I just lay there on the hay littered floor. I was glad that animals hadn't been in the farm to mess up the hay in years, at the very least. Still, everything from panic to confusion went through my head. Plus, falling and hitting my head on hard wood didn't help much. If the reason I was seeing things and hearing voices really was because I hit my head the day before, then I probably was going to be hearing and seeing a lot more soon. At least, that's what I thought anyway.
Where did that voice even come from? I asked myself, Why did he sound like he was...
I couldn't finish his thought and ended up trailing off instead. I couldn't really begin to describe what Ozpin's voice sounded like. It was deeper than my own, and it wasn't malicious sounding. However, it still managed to creep me out a whole lot. It sounded as if it was coming from everywhere, and yet no where at the same time, I had never been the bravest teenage boy in the world anyway. I've always been a very timid person. Maybe that's one of the reasons I've never wanted to be a hero or a huntsman. Still, I always was scared pretty easily. That would explain why I was lying on the ground with hay messing up his hair and scared of someone introducing themselves. At least there was an explanation. I couldn't figure out exactly what it was most that had scared me the most. Maybe it was the fact that I had no idea where the voice was coming from, or maybe it was the fact that I couldn't understand was happening at all.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath for a few seconds. Before I could do anything, I needed to calm myself down. Since my mother had responded to the noise, I figured she was worried about me again. Food would probably help me feel better, anyway. So, I opened my eyes and got up from the floor. I looked around for Professor Ozpin, but I didn't find anyone, even when I looked outside of the barn. Shaking my head in an attempt to focus my mind again, I took off my orange gloves and returned to the sink. While I washed my hands, I didn't even dare to glance at the mirror for a second. All I could do was look down at his hands and the water in the sink until I finished washing my hands and turned the old faucets off.
Whoever Professor Ozpin is, he can wait until after breakfast. If he exists at all, that is.
So I quickly made my way to the old farm house. I didn't want to think about whatever had just happened, so I focused on breakfast on the way there. I decided that when I got there, I would give his mom an extra big hug. That day's breakfast was special since I was relying on it and my beloved mother to help me forget about everything that I had seen that morning. After giving her a hug, I was going to drink his milk. Then I was going to eat my breakfast. Then I wasn't even going to remember my nightmare, or Ozpin, since I would be learning new things during his homeschooling. Because I focused on planning everything about my morning, I didn't have time to think about all the things that scared me.
As I stepped up the few stairs to the patio of the farmhouse, I could smell the wonderfully familiar aroma of my breakfast. The delicious smell of eggs, ham, and fresh baked muffins filled the air, and I could smell it even though I hadn't even walked in the door yet. I hurried inside and hugged my mom, just like I had planned. Mrs. Pine was a little startled by how quickly I had hugged her, but she returned the embrace lovingly. Her soft, wavy, dark chocolate brown hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and a smile grew on her freckled face as she hugged me.
"Hey, sweetie! Did you sleep well last night?" Mrs. Pine asked gently. When I didn't answer at first and instead opted to respond with a small shrug and a nervous smile, Mrs. Pine laughed. "Nightmare?"
I nodded. That woman could read me like a book. As I walked over to the table where his breakfast plate was sitting, I continued to talk with my mom,"Yeah. At least I have your amazing food to cheer me up!"
It was true that the food was amazing. My mom was a pretty good cook. Although, she was an even better baker than she was a cook. She was always the kind of person who would follow each and every recipe to a tea. That tends to come in handy with baking more than cooking, anyway. If you don't follow the directions exactly in baking, everything can go horribly wrong. Sometimes in cooking, messing up the recipe makes the recipe even better than it ever was before. However, Mrs. Pine never really wanted to try finding that out the hard way.
"My food isn't that amazing, sweetheart. Do you want to talk about it?" Mom smiled and laughed a little at my compliment. I could see that it made her feel better and warmed her heart.
I looked down at my plate and wondered if I should tell her what had happened that morning. I had managed to keep it away from my mind for a little bit, but then all of his worries and fears came back to me. Images of the murderer, the girl with the arrow in her chest, Pyrrha, Juane, and the man danced around my vision until I opted to just shut my eyes tightly. Professor Ozpin's words rang through my head, and I hated it. She clearly deserved to know about it since she was the my own mother, but at the same time she might think I was crazy. That would be the last thing that I would have wanted. If I told other people and they thought I was crazy, it wouldn't matter as much. If my own mother rejected me and sent me off to some mental asylum far, far away, I would never be able to handle that. Since my father was usually working, my mother was the closest person too me. Losing her because she thought I was mentally insane or schizophrenic was a legitimate fear. I wasn't exactly sure how sane I was myself at that point. How could I expect Mom to think anything different?
I hadn't even touched any of his food. I simply looked at it, thinking about all this. How would I even begin to describe what was going on to my mother? Nervous, my stomach started to hurt, and I began shaking a little. My nightmare and memories from what had transpired that morning wouldn't get out of my head. I started to feel sick. What if his mom even thought that he wasn't even worth sending to a mental institution for help and simply kicked him out of the house right then and there? I wasn't sure what was happening anymore. If I really was going insane, maybe I deserved it. After all, crazy people belonged in mental institutions or mental hospitals, not on a wonderful farm with the most amazing mom in the entire world.
I could feel my throat close up as I could feel hot tears rolling down his cheeks. I didn't want to cry, but I couldn't stop my tears either. At this time, I had been sitting at the table and had my fork in my hand, but I hadn't even touched any of my food. It was probably getting cold by now, but I didn't care at all. I was too upset to even think about my food anymore. I couldn't get the fact that my own mother might never want to be near me again if I told her what I had seen and heard. Maybe I was overreacting, but even just the thought hurt me so badly.
It didn't take long for Mom to realize that I was crying and not eating my food. The second she did, she immediately ran to comfort me. She pulled me into another hug and ruffled my black, messy hair while gently rubbing my back with her other hand. "Oscar, what's wrong?" she asked seriously worried, "Tell me what's the matter?"
I couldn't respond. All I could do was sniffle and continue crying since my throat was closing up due to my crying. I was so scared. Scared because I thought I might be crazy, but mostly scared that Mom might come to the same conclusion. I tried to say something, but it came out messed up and unintelligible. I opened my eyes and looked at my mother, who was still hugging me and rubbing my back.
"P-promise you won't...h-hate me?" I whimpered quietly.
At her son's words, Mrs. Pine's hazel eyes grew wide in surprise. There was nothing in the entire world that could cause her to hate him. There was nothing he could do in a million years that could possibly stop her immense love for her one and only son. He was her Oscar. Her stomach dropped and her hands were shaking as she squeezed the boy even tighter in her arms. There was nothing that could make the mother stop loving her son, but apparently there was something that might make him think there was. That scared her even more. Her blood ran cold when she thought that maybe, just maybe, she had done something to make him think that. If it was her fault that her son was sitting at the dining room table crying his little heart out because he was afraid of his mother hating him, she wouldn't be able to live it down in a million years.
She kissed the top of his head, and her voice cracked a little since it was getting hard for her to refrain from crying herself when she spoke,"I could never stop loving you."
This should have helped me feel better, but it honestly didn't help very much. After all, it was because I loved my mother so much that I was so scared. I never wanted to leave her, and I certainly never wanted her to think I was crazy. At that point, I felt like I had to tell the truth. In my mind, there were no other options anymore. Not after I had worried her by starting to cry. I had to tell her the truth, even if I wasn't entirely sure what the truth was. I had to tell her what I knew. She deserved to know. She loved me so much, and not telling her what was happening just wasn't the right thing to do.
So, I took a deep breath and started to tell her what was going on,"I-I heard voices and saw an old man in the mirror above the sink today. I-I'm not crazy, am I?"
I winced and closed my eyes tightly again, not wanting to see the look on my mother's face at those words. She didn't say anything, she just squeezed me tighter and kept patting my back with her right hand. With her left, she gently ran her fingers through my black, messy hair. I had been too preoccupied to even get all of the hay that had gotten into my hair earlier out. She just ruffled it out and let the little bits of hay float to the ground as she struggled to help me calm down. I guess she didn't really know what to say, so she simply stayed silent so that he could keep going.
I had really hoped she would say something, anything. In my mind, silence only made things worse. Instead of helping at all, silence just made me even more scared and nervous. The feeling was horrible and agonizing, and I hated it. Maybe her acknowledging his insanity might have been less stressful. That's just how much I hated the silence.
I quickly tried to fill the horrible void as I buried my head in his mother's shoulder between tears,"I-I'm scared, Mom."
Instead of doing schoolwork or chores, I spent the next few hours telling my mother what I had seen and heard. After the horrible silence, I just couldn't stop talking. I poured my heart out to my mother, and she listened to every word with nothing but love for me. She didn't laugh. She didn't reject me like I had feared, either. She didn't brand me as a schizophrenic, and she didn't call me crazy. She didn't question me. She didn't even worry about the fact that I hit my head on hard wood and might have hurt it. She didn't even question the authenticity of my words. She listened to my story and believed me.
When I was done telling my story, Mom smiled. I couldn't understand why of all things she could have done in this situation, she chose to smile. Her son was crying. There was no reason to smile at all. I was worried that she was going to never want to talk to me again, or maybe even worse. That was definitely not a reason to smile at all.
"It sounds to me like you're finally unlocking your semblance, Sweetheart."
I looked up at her in surprise, but I didn't want to believe her. It was too good to be true. She might have just said that to make me feel better, and every crazy person probably claims the same thing. I had never even heard of someone having a semblance like that. I decided he was better off letting her believe that and pretending that Professor Ozpin, whoever he was, didn't exist.
Hey! Thank you so much for your understanding about this week's chapter. I was probably going to have to split it up anyway, but still. Since this is coming out, I'm going to delete the note I left a few days ago and add it onto this week's notes. Again, I just don't have the time or energy to have done the whole chapter as originally intended. That whole scene is just way too much. Next week, I have half days because of exams. Then I'm on Christmas vacation! So I will definitely be able to get it done! I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are too.
Dear Readers,
Hi! I am so sorry that this is not Chapter 2. There is something I feel the need to address. I feel like it's only fair since I promised something to you guys. I don't want to leave you in the dark, feeling like I've let you down. I promise that Chapter 2 will be out on schedule on Saturday, still. However, a lot has happened so I can't exactly do what I wanted to. I wanted to do the whole scene where Ozpin tries to convince Oscar that he's not going insane and to save the world. It's a big scene, especially with what I planned to add in as well. It's very important for the future of the entire story. Things will reference back to that chapter in the far future, so it's very important that it is perfect for you guys.
That said, I have had a really awful week. I have to prepare because exams are next week, my voice is somehow so bad I can't speak without being misunderstood and hurting my throat even more, I've been swamped with homework, and today a threat was made on my school. Needless to say, I haven't had time to be working on one of the most crucial chapters. To make up for that, however, I will be putting part of the original plan for Chapter 2 in the impromptu version. I was going to have a scene or a few of Oscar throughout the rest of the day denying Oz's existence. It will be cute, but it won't be as big as what the original chapter was intended to be. Thank you so much for your understanding. I hope that I don't disappoint you too much, but then again why would you care about some mediocre addition to the cannon story that barely started?
Another thing I want to address is the fact that my school was threatened with a shooting or a bombing or something today. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Sandy Hook. A threatening message which referenced Sandy Hook was written in one of our bathroom stalls, but we have no idea who reported it at all. I go to a small school with only about three hundred fifty kids, so whoever it was must have had a vendetta towards our school. Threats usually come from the inside rather than the outside. Plus, if someone wanted to hurt a lot of people, they would go to a bigger school. We believe we are fine, and we will still have school tomorrow. If you or a loved one have ever been involved with either threats of violence or actual terrors, my heart goes out to you. Your pain is unimaginable, and I can't even begin to comprehend it. You should never have had to, and I am so, so, so very sorry. There is so much more to this world than violence, and only love will help us see that.