A Strange Man

T-2 Days to Incident

#At school - morning

The next day, as Tom's mundane, regular life of trouble and torture continued, he kept thinking about what the homeless man told him before he suddenly disappeared. Tom couldn't explain what he saw. A curtain of shuffling zeros and ones appeared in the thin air like magic. It looked like a doorway to a different dimension. When the curtain was about to vanish into the thin air just like it appeared, the man peeked-a-boo.

Lesseter had a bizarre smile on his face. "Boy! You were kind to me! You're lucky because I will bestow a gift on you! Be prepared!" Saying this, he entered the void and disappeared behind the gradually fading curtain. This curious and terrific event left Tom speechless.

Pig and Snake couldn't bring out even a faint "ah!" from Tom's mouth today, as he had been deep in his thoughts about that homeless man and the mysterious event, "A gift? What gift? But wait! Before that, who was that man anyway?" His train of thought didn't lose its track even when he was on all fours and Snake was beating on him.

"What is this? Our Tommy isn't fazed at all today! What's the big secret, you punk?"

"Hmm. Are we even treating him right? Then why no response, Shitpiece?" Pig was sitting on his TomThrone. But Tom's mind was trying to discern the bizarre story the strange homeless man told him about. His mind went back to that evening.

*****

T-1 Days to Incident

#After School - at the park - Flashback

The man was sending rings of smoke into the air. "Tangible yet intangible at the same time. The ring vanished, but it was there. Amazing, isn't it?" he said, looking at Tom, who was having a hard time following his thoughts. He continued to release the ring into the air, lazily.

"Isn't it, though? I mean, you are smoking. No offense, but you don’t strike me as a man with a sane state of mind, sir." Tom didn't know where his courage came from, but he felt no hostility coming from the strange man. He suddenly sat back and said, "But I will tell you a true story. A story about a strange world."

Tom was looking at Holmes with curiosity. "True story? Well, sir, I’m all ears. I love stories!"

The man sat comfortably on the bench, reclining on the backrest, looking up toward the sky, and making rings of smoke. "Tell me, boy, what do you see up there?"

Tom looked up and reclined on the backrest of the bench as well. "I see a few blinking stars, a big black sky, and some floating clouds, but no moon today. But what about them?"

"Do you believe what you see, boy?"

"What do you mean?" He thought this strange man was now telling him that even his eyes were playing tricks on him!

The man laughed, "Boy! What do you see on your skin?"

"Skin? Hairs!"

"Wrong! You can only see what your naked eye can see. There are millions of bacteria on your skin protecting you!"

"Ewww! Bacteria on my skin!"

"Boy! You need to pay attention during your biology class!"

"I'll try, please, continue!"

The man coughed a bit and took his time releasing a massive ring. "Everything is made from particles. If you break this earth apart into molecules, you will find even finer things. But you can't see them. Does that make them non-existent?"

"I guess not!" Tom wasn't sure where the man was going with this.

"So, if I tell you, there are ones and zeros floating all around you—the people, the lives, and even this world—all part of a massive role-playing game on the computer of a very powerful being, and all you are doing is just playing the role assigned to you—will you believe me?"

"Where did the role-playing game come from now?"

The man released his smoke, but this time it was in the shape of a 'Question mark'.

"Wow, you can even make something like that?" Tom was seeing this spectacle for the very first time in his life.

"When you look at this world, don't you think it's unfair? Don't you feel that no matter how hard you try, you can't really change anything? And there are only a few super rich and successful people enjoying everything that came to them so easily."

"Oh! Yea..! I feel that every day!"

"That makes you an NPC—non-player character."

"Well, in a sense, that does sound true!"

"Look at your life! You get beat by Pig and Snake. That never changes. You have never tried to fight back, have you?"

This sent a chill down Tom's spine. "How did you know all that? Who are you, Mister?"

The man laughed out loud, "Tom! Who do you think I am?"

"What do you mean? You are a homeless man."

"Is that all you see?"

"Is there anything else?"

The homeless man looked at him and asked, "Do I look like a homeless man now?"

Tom was dumbfounded. The man was wearing a very ancient-looking long white dress, like a saint or pious man. But only for a second, and then his clothes reverted to his homeless garb. Tom rubbed his eye. Maybe he was seeing things in the dark.

"Yes, what you saw is right."

"Are you a magician?"

"I am someone who can turn you into a player and give you the control you need in your life. Wanna do it?"

"You are actually scaring me a bit! You're making some outrageous claims, Mr. Lesseter!"

The man reclined on the backrest and began an even stranger story.

"There is a world beyond a dimensional curtain. The world of the red moon is a strange world—a world you have never heard of. People call it Aboron. Only occasionally, people from Earth travel there by chance when they die or fall into a coma. You can only travel there if you are summoned. A very curious world, isn't it?"

"Aboron? A world of the red moon? You are not making any sense."

But the man continued without responding to Tom's retort.

"Aboron means 'veil'. It is a mystery because whoever went there never came back to tell the tale. You are a lucky boy!"

"Why?"

The man laughed and puffed up the smoke.

"The time in Aboron is many times faster than the time on Earth."

"How is that possible? Faster time?"

"Boy! According to one of the ancient books, one day on the judgment day will equal one thousand years on this earth. And it’s true for Aboron, to some extent. So, if you went there and became strong, you can still be a teenage Tom here on Earth. Yet you will inherit all the strength you gained over there in Aboron, but you may never want to come back!"

"Why?"

The man didn't answer, "Tell me, boy! Do you dream?"

"Of course, I do!"

"What do you dream of?"

"To have the power to change my life!"

"In Aboron, your wildest dreams can come true."

"Wow!! Really! I can become strong if I go there."

"You can! Do you want to go?"

Tom again threw a skeptical look at the man and said, "Is it possible? Sounds nice but could be fishy!" He thought, “Who knows what kind of weird thing this man will do to him? Better steer clear!”

Like the man could read his mind, he laughed loudly. "Kid! I'm not doing anything weird to you! Tell me, do you want it or not? Cross that out. I've decided. I will bestow a gift on you. You'll get a free pass to Aboron, should you ever want to go."

Then the curtain emerged, and the strange man disappeared into the void as if he were never here. Tom was speechless, and his jaw dropped. He slapped his own cheek. He even pinched himself a few times to make sure. "So, I'm not dreaming! Then what did I eat today that caused this kind of hallucination?" He had a hard time wrapping his head around the things that happened right in front of his eyes.

There was a nearby bench, and an old couple had been eyeing him for a long time.

"Excuse me! Did you just see a man sitting beside me?"

"What are these young kids smoking these days? What man? You have been talking to yourself since the beginning! We saw it all! Should we report you for illegal possession of hallucinogenic drugs?"

“But don’t you smell something nice?”

The old folks tilted their head and tried to smell. “Oh!” They were immediately surprised.

“Yes, the Man you couldn’t see, said it’s the smell of musk!” The old folks blankly stared at him.

"Sorry, it's my fault. Thank you for your time." Tom quickly moved away and started walking back to his house. He was still in disbelief! “It was all in my mind?”

*******

T-2 Days to Incident

#Morning at school

“Yes, that night it was all a hallucination! I was tired and beaten badly. That was the reason behind it. But what about the smell of musk?” As Tom's mind veered back to the present, he felt Snake's stick beating his backside once again. It singed. Somehow, the pain was a bit stronger today. Was it because he had expectations from the homeless man? That there would really be a world called Aboron?