FlowerBloom 02
My dad pulled up a little ways away from the airport, abandoning my mother's car here as one final petty act towards her.
It was a shit move, but she had a GPS tracker in there, so she could come find it herself no problem. We grab our stuff from the trunk, double-checking to make sure we didn't leave anything, and head to the entrance of the airport.
I thought about how we're actually going to get anywhere and stopped to ask my dad about the details.
"Oh that's right, here," he said pulling out a ticket with information, dates, timestamps, and my name labeled at the top signifying that this was my ticket for the flight.
I thanked him and matched his speedy walk so we wouldn't miss the plane. One of the timestamps telling when the flight was scheduled to leave showed that 6:34 pm, it was 5:58, meaning we only had a few minutes to get there.
Dad kept turning around to look at me, searching my face for an emotion I'm sure wasn't ever going to be there.
In the past, I had been unpredictable with spontaneous and random personality, I have anger issues that go unchecked due to the fact that I haven't spoken up about.
I imagine the reasoning for the frequent check-up was to make sure I wasn't angry, and I'm not. As big as a change it may be, leaving your hometown of 13 years because of the death of someone that you've never even met before, I'm just fine.
We arrive at the airport gate 11E, taking our shoes off and putting our things into the tub that they provide us with for examination. They take our suitcases and had them sent off to the shipping service where they send them to the designated airport.
After that was done, we take our belongings and rush to the flight attendant standing at the entrance of the airplane. She oversees our tickets and takes them seeing as they weren't fake.
She then points to the entrance telling us we can go in and my dad breathes a sigh of relief, happy that we didn't miss the flight. We would have had to wait for another 3 hours, something I'm I would have offed myself because of.
We board the plane making our way to the 6th row in the back. My dad pushed his backpack into the holding space of our seats and claims the seat in the middle. I take the window side. I wanted to see the plane take off, it's always exciting when it does.
The flight attendant comes by making sure everyone's in their seats, we a moment before the airplane took off so I decided to do some last minute research about FlowerBloom City.
Scrolling through the site giving information to the state we're traveling to named Neapolis, there wasn't much information on the city itself, never mind the state. Apparently, this state only just recently became one, so not much was known about it.
There were rumors saying wild things about it like how a bunch of unexplained murders take place, how people go missing constantly and end up in this state, or about the...
"Sir, you need to power off your phone, the plane is going to take off in a few moments." The usage of the word "sir" dragged my attention towards the attendant as I eyed her.
"Ma'am, please refrain from using gender-specific terminology for my child, they're non-binary," my dad said noticing how off-putting it was to be called sir.
The attendant stared at us in disbelief before scoffing and turning away. What the hell?
"Jeez what a prick" I sneered after her. "Sorry that happened kid. People just seemed to refuse to educate themselves and would rather be arrogant" my dad apologized.
"Don't be, it's not your fault. Thanks for actually trying."
My dad nodded and turned his attention elsewhere. Staring out the window, I watched as the plane began to move on its wheels to gain momentum before taking off.
I didn't realize how tired I was from everything happening today. I laid my head down and drifted to sleep.
The sound of my shoes padded through the forest I was running through. I didn't know where I was going or how I even got here. Leaves crushed and crumbled beneath me, the sound of growling was everywhere around me.
I had no idea what was going on, my heart pounded in my chest wildly, everything around me seemed to spin.
The sound of paws galloping behind me could be heard indefinitely among the other sounds in this forest. My fleeting breath, my beating heart, the sound of the leaves crackling, and my adversary were the only things to be heard throughout the entire forest.
Voices sounded in my ear. "You can't run from the truth Xen, acknowledge who you are and where you come from. Where you truly come from." The voice distracted me from seeing where I was going and I tripped over a damned stick, tumbling forward and landing on a tree.
I sat up pressing my back against the wooden frame of this humongous tree and faced forward. "Who Are you! Face me!" I yelled, adrenaline pumping through my entire body.
From behind a tree produced the figure of a wolf, one far bigger than that of an average-sized. Its luscious fur looked soft to the touch. It was a blend of black and brown covering the entirety of its body as it stalked towards me like a predator hunting its prey.
I shrank back into the tree, the size of this creature blowing any confidence I had away along with breeze the that blew through my hair and the beast's fur.
My instincts told me to run, but my heart told me to stay. All the while, the voice in my ear grew louder and more aggressive with each step the wolf took.
Soon enough, the humongous creature loomed above me. Its glowing yellow eyes staring intensely at me waiting for any form of movement. I knew that running would only lead to another chase, and I could already feel the numbness spreading over my leg for pushing so hard.
I accepted my fate, to be mauled alive by this magnificent unseen creature. The wolf lunged at my throat aiming to tear it out. Before any contact was made, I jolted up from my seat in the airport. My breathing fleeting once more, I tried to regain my nerves.
I looked to the right and saw my father with his head back snoring ever so lightly. I smiled, the sight calming me down. He hasn't been resting lately, understandably so, but it's nice to see him relax.
The white light of the moon shone through the moving plane's window, I sat up looking outside of it and watched as we soared above the clouds. The sight made me relax further, it was beautiful. I wished to be able to touch and glide through such a thing.
I settled back into my seat on the plane, laying my head gently onto my dad's shoulder. I drifted back into sleep, letting darkness cloud my vision.
I woke from my dreamless by my father shaking me lightly. He removed his hand from my shoulder once he saw I was awake.
"Hey, good morning Xen. We got get up, the planes landed" he whispers gently grabbing his backpack from the compartment above. I nodded, stretching and standing up from my seat.
I step out into the row following behind my dad, he gets out his phone and begins calling someone once we've left the plane.
"Yeah, it's Joseph. We've landed and we're going to baggage claim to get out suitcases. You're picking us up? Ok good. see you then."
He gestures me onward to follow him once more. I searched the signs looking for one that directed us toward baggage claim for our flight.
"There," I pointed "baggage claim that way." Dad nods and heads toward the direction of the arrow.
Immediately after getting off the plane, I got a weird feeling in my bones. There was definitely something up with this place.
As I walked with my dad, I looked around at all of the people who were stood in the airport. They were buff, they were skinny. They had clothing that looked ancient, and clothing that looked futuristic. It was like a clash of times.
We arrived at baggage claim and waited for our suitcases to protrude from the machine. I spotted my black suitcase rolling onto the moving platform and waited till it was close enough to grab. My fathers came soon after mine, once held, we made our way towards the exit of this airport and waited until our ride was here.
My dad squeezed my shoulder lightly and smiled at me brightly, he was happy, I could tell. I returned a small smile of my own. Things were gonna be interesting from here on.