Worlds Collide (Grant)

My eyes shot open, and I was welcomed by the sweet, emotional tones of Mozart. For once, I was excited for the coming day. Sun burst through the tattered curtains, light pierced through the drab environment of my room, and for once, the plain worn down room seemed a little less dismal. My heart began to race, filled with the possibilities that the day held, although, the most fantastical of all possibilities stood steady in its place at the forefront of my mind, the best part being that it was almost guaranteed to happen. I believed that today, I'd be blessed enough to see Aphrodite's greatest gift to mankind. I'd get to see Annabelle.

As if I were royalty approaching the long-awaited day of my coronation, I excitedly got ready for the day that rested before me, my heart full of hope, and my mind encapsulated within an endless multitude of thoughts centered around a single being. Annabelle. A woman who had such little effect on my life the day before now meant nothing less than the world to me. How was it possible? How could one person transform into my deity within the course of a night? I reflected back onto my childhood. The sight of my dead mother, and the memory of my father walking out the door the last time I saw him. Even when he stopped by last month, it was only for a few days and he was too much of a coward to look his own son in the eye. Perhaps I had spent so long believing that I wasn't worthy of love that I latched onto the first person to show me that I wasn't worthless. As quickly as that thought had entered into my mind, I shoved it back down the mental corridor it had come from and locked the door. In between bites of the muffin I had scrounged up for breakfast, I spoke to myself beneath my breath, as if to drown out the screams of my past. "Must just be love... Sure is crazy isn't it?"

I glanced down at my watch, and shocked by the time, leapt up from the beaten chair I was sitting at. I guess I zoned out for longer than I had thought. Now scrambling to get ready in time, I threw together my ensemble of the finest outdated clothes I could find before dashing out the door. In a few minutes, I'd get to see what may very well be the most attractive woman in the galaxy. I'd get to see Annabelle.

I stepped out into the rundown world of Akron, and began my walk towards the school. As I got closer to my destination, my pace began to quicken, my heart began to beat faster, and faster, as if pushing me towards destiny; towards the eternal companion which I was meant to find since the beginning. My heart pumping, and my mind full of memories from the night that our spirits danced, my journey towards Wailing High had concluded. I shoved open the door, and began to walk the halls in the desperate hope that I'd see her, but it was to no avail. The halls were filled with strangers and gradually, the aggressive beating of my heart faded into a dull, yearning ache. Perhaps in an attempt for the universe to distract me from the growing pain within my chest, the bell summoning me to the devil's cave rang out.

I walked through the doors of Ms. Langley's classroom and took my seat. The all too familiar screeches of our banshee teacher were without effect on my already worn down, lonely soul. The clock became a taunting, demonic idol, commanding my focus, while bringing me pain. The clock's second hand moved unrealistically slow, as if mocking me, each tick spitting into my face that I'd never escape from this hell. After suffering through what felt like several eternities, the bell rang out, and the bitter cup had passed from my lips. On my way out the door, Ms. Langley spat out at me. "Don't look so pleased Davis, if I were you, I'd take all the class time I could get. You are failing after all."

I shrugged off Ms. Langley's taunts and headed towards what I could only see as my saving grace. I had Mr. Yellum's class next, and best of all, I'd get to see Annabelle.

The walk to Mr. Yellum's class could've earned me the Olympic gold medal for speed walking, which I recently learned was a very real thing. Practically throwing open the classroom door, I stormed inside the room accompanied by an excited heart, seemingly ready to burst. Standing in the doorway, I frantically looked around from left to right, scanning the room for the reason I got out of bed in the morning. My heart that had spent so long rising up into my chest quickly descended into my stomach. Much to my disappointment, she was nowhere to be seen. "Grant, can I help you find anything?" Mr. Yellum's voice startled me out of my madness. "Oh, no thank you sir, I'll just be taking my seat now." Mr. Yellum stared at me quizzically for a moment before following me back to my desk. "You look a little sick, and I can't have my number one student falling ill on me. Are you quite alright?" he asked. I responded quickly, attempting to weasel out of the unwanted attention. "I'm fine sir, but thank you for asking." Giving another confused look, the kind teacher put a comforting hand on my shoulder before returning to the front of his class.

"Everybody, welcome to class," he began. Mr. Yellum scanned the classroom before continuing on with his lesson. I hope that you're all as excited to be here today as I am to have you here." The teacher pulled out a marker from his shirt pocket and passionately began to draw on the whiteboard, all the while continuing to speak. "I'd like to discuss with you all the meaning of reality."

Mr. Yellum's marker glided across the whiteboard's shining surface, and the numerous lines began to take shape. Laying before us was a rough sketch of a tiger. Having Finished up his illustration, he carried on with his lesson. "Ladies and gentlemen, would you be so kind as to describe this creature?" Hands shot up throughout the classroom, and a list of features were written next to the illustrated tiger. "Hairy, striped, sharp teeth, and a tail." Content with the small list, Mr. Yellum stopped calling on students and continued on with his lecture. "There was once a man who, being bored with his desk job, embarked on an adventure to the jungles of Indonesia. One night, the man sat around a campfire and a storm ferociously picked up around him. The sudden gust of wind was strange, although, not largely uncommon. Without fear, the man turned back around and again, began to tend the fire, at least, until he began to hear things. He heard rustling within the shadows of the jungle, and as he stared at the shadows from which the noise had come, he began to see movement. As he stared longer, and longer, he started to make out shapes and soon, found that the creature now terrorizing him was a tiger, bigger than any he had previously seen. The man rushed to his tent, and from within grabbed his gun. Not even stopping to think, the man pulled the trigger, releasing a bullet, and causing it to burrow within the chest of the tiger. Much to his dismay, the tiger didn't fall. The man, now fearing for his life, had no choice but to run. The man ran, and ran late into the night until he found a village to rest at. At sunrise the next morning, he gathered a party of villagers, and armed to the teeth to defend against what the man called "the demon cat," they journeyed back towards the man's tent. His belongings were untouched, and there were no traces of the tiger, in fact, the only trace of last night's event, was a single bullet hole, pushing through a leaf and forming a hole in the tree behind it."

Having concluded his story, Mr. Yellum paused, allowing the students to wonder at the meaning for his fable. "Now let me ask you, was the tiger real?" The class went silent, and seeing that he wouldn't be getting an answer, interrupted the silence himself. "Reality is much more fluid than we give it credit for. When that man saw the tiger, it was real. He made a series of observations, and according to all observations, it was indeed a tiger. The fear he felt was real, and thus, the demon cat was real. The next morning, a new series of observations led the man to believe that there was no tiger, therefore, the man's fear dissipated, and the tiger ceased to be." Mr. Yellum looked around his class, and began to notice the many confused expressions. In an effort to ease the class of their confusion, he started to speak again. "My point is that just because something is fiction, does not mean that it's not real. The many books we read become memories, and our emotions can become intertwined with that of those we read about. The books we read, whether they're fiction or nonfiction, they form our memories, they form who we are, and they can become our reality."

The rest of the school day was rather uneventful, and my hopes of seeing Annabelle quickly evaporated. I trudged through my classes, waiting for them to end, and in a place where I was meant to learn, my mind was filled with only one thought. "Annabelle… Where is she?" At long last, the final bell rang, and I was liberated from school, however, I was far from liberation of the mind. That same question bounced around in my skull, as if trying to break free from it's confinement and return to the very person that placed it there. I walked off the campus and began to walk towards the bunker. It was one of the only places on this earth that I felt I could go for peace.

The long walk was a much welcome comfort to my exhausted mind. The dull repetition of placing one foot in front of the other allowed my mind to explore its inner depths. I began to think of the characters from my novel, specifically, Edward Alisar. The prince was calm and collected, brave, and a skilled fighter. And then there was me. I was unlikable, unathletic, prone to overthinking, and poor. Edward never would've been so stressed about something as small as his crush not coming to class. For once, I wish that I wasn't so pathetic, for once, I wish that I could be calm. I wish that I could be like him.

As that last thought finished running across my mind, the world around me began to fade. The sidewalk beneath my feet became a soft bed of mud, and the buildings on either side of me appeared to go back in time. The satellite dishes vanished, and the roof tiles turned to straw. People appeared out of nowhere, pushing past me on the sorry excuse for a road with handcarts and donkeys in tow. Quite a few of them stopped to stare at me. Perhaps it was due to my strange clothes, or my face devoid of grime, but it seemed strange that I was an outcast even in my own imaginary world. Nevertheless, I suppose it wasn't all that surprising. Why wouldn't I be an outcast in my own daydreams? Knocking me out of my stupor of thought, one of the people walking by had pushed me into an alley, and shoved me up against a wall. The stranger's forearm was pressed up against my neck, and looking up at my attacker, I saw a vaguely familiar face greeting me. "Who are you, and where are you from?" The stranger growled. Perhaps I would've been able to recognize the owner of that face if I had time to think, but for now, I was panicking.

"My name's Grant Davis! I didn't mean any trouble!" I squeaked out. My attacker had yet to be satisfied. Their forearm pressed harder up against my neck, making it more difficult to breathe. "I'm from Ohio… in America," I gasped. As if attempting to save myself from the fear devouring my soul, I could feel myself losing consciousness, and the world around me began to fade out of my vision. The person threatening my life was swallowed into a charcoal abyss, and the ancient buildings around me vanished. I opened my eyes to find myself laying down back on the cracked sidewalks that are oh so prevalent in Akron.

I blinked what felt like a thousand times in a sorry attempt to clear my head, and sort out reality from what could've only been a dream. It was most likely brought on by my stress over Annabelle's absence. I picked myself up from the ground and continued on my way, heading to my shelter in the woods as if nothing had happened. The walk was slow, but as I continued nearing my destination, the image of the strange figure threatening my life kept creeping back into my mind. Who was the stranger? Why did they look familiar, and most importantly, why did it feel so real? Before I knew it, I had arrived at what I believed to be nothing less than my sovereign nation, tucked away into the woods. I had arrived at the bunker.

Almost as far back as I could remember, I've enjoyed the written word. As a child, I consumed books as a way to survive, and consumed them as a vampire would consume the blood of its victims, draining them of the life force necessary to live, and granting themselves the strength to continue on. Today, I was relying on the English language to support me more than almost any moment before. With thoughts of both Annabelle, and the stress dream that had put me passed out on the ground, I needed an escape. I needed to go to the home of the eternal throne. I needed to return to the Kingdom of Alisar.

I turned on the ancient generator, and greeted by the welcoming hum of gas powered electricity, I placed my laptop onto the untrustworthy table and began to type. As the words coursed through my body, being transferred onto the keyboard beneath my fingertips, Mr. Yellum's words seemed to take shape, and float in front of my eyes. "My point is that just because something is fiction, does not mean that it's not real." Could he be right about that? Could my world of imagination become my reality? And if God truly is the author of our salvation, am I not just as qualified as anybody to receive the title of God?

The words of Mr. Yellum sitting in front of me began to change, as if they were liquid. They swayed from side to side, and throbbing, evolving, they changed into something new. They were no longer the spoken words of my teacher and mentor, but the words which I had poured my soul into. The words which had created the story of Edward Alisar, the exiled prince, and heir to the Eternal Throne. The words which had created Alexandra Akrad, the unwanted princess, regarded as beautiful, yet deadly as the Oleander. The changing continued, and soon, they were no longer words at all.

The letters gathered together into a sphere, with a blackness resembling that of a blackhole, and the throbbing increased. I was stunned by what was taking place in front of me, and yet, I found myself unable to stop typing. My fingers continued to fly over the keyboard, and with every key that I pounded into the ancient laptop, color was brought into the sphere. The floating ball had lost its black exterior, and took on the most beautiful shades. Blue overlaid the majority of it, until hints of green began to arise, as if mountains were being raised up out of an ocean previously unknown to man, and from the green came brown, white, and a touch of pink. The only conclusion to which I could come, was that the very thing which I had created was no longer a book like I had planned, but an entirely new world.

The words which I had imbued with my spirit had become a globe of sorts, and suddenly. The movement ceased. I stared at the strange orb sitting in front of me for ten seconds...a minute...an hour...and as quickly as I could register what was happening, it began to grow- no, I had begun to get closer. The world around me disappeared and I was no longer sitting. I was flying. My speed increased, and wind blew past my face, as my body pierced through the clouds. I found myself once again losing consciousness, and right as darkness was about to overtake my vision for what felt like the thousandth time this week, I felt the ground beneath me. Rubbing my eyes in an attempt to wipe away what I could only imagine to be yet another stress induced dream, my arm reached my face. Strangely, it was far from clean. I found it to be covered in mud.

For the first time since my landing, I truly took in the world around me. The comforting concrete walls of my bunker had vanished, and in their place, stood the cracked, stone and brick walls of a world that time had forgotten. The strangeness of my location began to dawn on me, and right as I felt that I had no chance of understanding my circumstances, I found that this wasn't an entirely unfamiliar world. I had been here before. This was the alley in which I was attacked.

My eyes darted from side to side, expecting another assault, however, much to my comfort, I was alone, seeing only those walking down the main path in front of me. It's quite funny what one does when placed in an inconceivable situation. Some will shut down, whereas some will lash out at anything in the vicinity. As for me, I've always followed the words of Saint Augustine. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Pushing myself off the ground, I walked to the street. I still believed that I must be in a dream, after all, it wasn't the first time that something like this had happened to me. Come to think of it, I should probably talk to somebody about that, but either way, if this truly was a dream, I figured I might as well enjoy it.

Walking up the mud path, I began to take in just how impressive the human mind truly is. To think that each crack, and every piece of discarded straw half buried within the earth was a product of my imagination was impressive to say the least, not to mention the smell of either animal or human waste running rampantly throughout the air. I left the corridor of run-down walls making up the alley and entered into the main road. The crowd consisting of wagons, and filthy travelers was bustling, and those walking with me found themselves being pushed to and fro, the only escape seeming to be ducking inside of the shops lining the street.

With nowhere to go, and no clue as to when the dream would release its clutches on my mind, I walked for hours, taking in my surroundings. The putrid smell eventually started to fade and I actually started to enjoy myself. Eventually, having escaped from the clutches of the overcrowded jungle making up what I could only imagine to be downtown, I found myself in a park of sorts. The most gorgeous trees clothed in an emerald green stood over me, grass laid beneath my dirt caked shoes, and as if nature was making an attempt to improve that which was perfect, the sun started to set. The foreign world before me was set on fire by its golden rays, and for the first time since I had arrived, I began to feel sorrow. This dream that held the beauty of a thousand moons would eventually disappear, living on only within my memories.

I looked down at the ground, and a drop of water fell from the sky. I turned my head up towards the heavens, hoping to find the gray cloud that chose to rain on the flawless world around me, but I was left disappointed. I found the sky to be clear. "That's strange." I whispered to myself. "I haven't cried like this in years."

Even submerged in sadness, while the tears now filling my eyes turned my world unclear, the beauty of my circumstance was far from lost on me. I was captivated by its beauty, and perhaps, that explains how I was so caught off guard.

A gruff voice burst out from behind me, decimating the serene atmosphere in an instant. "Don't move." growled the stranger.

I was never the brightest person, and as a result, I turned around- or at least, I tried to. Almost instantly, my rotating head was met by a sharp pain shooting across my cheek. I was stunned, and yet, what surprised me the most wasn't that I got hit, but that the pain I felt was more than real. My body hit the floor, and as my vision wavered, I saw my attacker. Standing over me, was the silhouette of a man in black.