A Sleepy Shop Owner

A few minutes before the boy wandered off…

A man in a suit was running across rooftops. His rusty red hair blew wildly in the wind . He would occasionally slip but somehow these missteps would lead him to gain distance from his pursuers.

His dim black eyes flashed golden while looking back. He muttered something and then swore. He spoke to his pursuers.

"Doesn't the Church of Stella get tired of hunting down petty thieves. All I did was coincidentally take a priest's wallet".

His words were met with silence then suddenly he looked down at his compass and pondered.

'Why is it telling me to go that way?'

He then turned his body and 'tripped' down the roof but at the last second propelled himself across to the opposite roof.

His pursuers calmly jumped to the other side along with him. Their bodies seem to weigh less as they cleared the gap with ease.

Their leader which seemed to be an older woman commented.

"We don't get paid enough for this shit!" she then muttered something and her eyes began to look like a starry night.

The rusty haired man suddenly felt as if he was being pulled back towards the woman. In this moment he suddenly felt unlucky and his feet didn't magically recover.

His body unable to naturally recover tumbled downwards and a deep thud was heard as it collided with the rocky pavement. His pursuers stopped and surveyed their surroundings. They felt something was amiss.

How could he just casually fall to his death? It seemed to be a coincidence or just pure bad luck. Something someone like him shouldn't experience unless there was some sort of external interference.

The older woman surveyed her surroundings even more carefully than before. She then began slowly walking towards the alley. The sunlight shined on her outfit.

Her clothing was an inky black decorated with stars. She wore a hood over her head and her eyes would twinkle like the stars every so often. The two on her sides were similarly dressed but noticeable difference was in phase of the moon on their chest. The older woman's chest had a waxing moon. The other two had a new moon.

All of a sudden a flash of light illuminated the alley and as quickly as it dimmed they reacted and sped towards the area. Unsure of what had transpired they knew that it wasn't good.

Jumping down from the roof they sighed.

The older woman glanced around. "There was someone else here..." she muttered under her breath.

She then searched the body and finally gazed down upon the man's head. Or what was left of it. Pieces of cranial matter and bone fragments drift in the pool of blood that slowly spread out from the body.

A young woman's voice rang from behind her.

"Awe man it just had to be the head"

Followed by a unnaturally deep voice " Whoever it was couldn't have gotten far let's just hope it's not one of those monsters."

"Which ones Noah?" the girls voice chimed back.

"The fictional kind" the alley way was now silent.

"Noah…Stell…shut up..." the older woman's patience was running thin.

"Were going back to the Church to report this incident".

"Yes Priest Rochelle" the two echoed. The woman then carved an inscription of a crescent moon onto the wall using a circular badge she removed from her pockets.

The moon was then surrounded by an archway decorated with stars and a gateway suddenly opened and they each steeped in. The Stars in the archway twinkled and the moon pulsated and it all disappeared like nothing ever happened.

Adjacent to the alleyway was a shopping district.

​People ran around selling different foods. Fresh fruit were being sold a popular sale was a Star shaped fruit called Jackfruit.

The average person in this area was usually lower middle class. The highest class of life in these areas were Valets to noble households who you could see recognize by their formal attire. They were often accompanied by guards. They walked around brazenly with their pistols and rifles in sight.

The streets however were impeccably clean and well maintained. The roads were a fine feature of this town. The bricks which blended together with the slightly darker terraced houses made the transition between road and home seamless. It was unclear whether this was on purpose or not.

The language of this place was also a bit odd. The locals spoke a language called Namoan. The dialect came of very aggressive and haughty when heard by foreigners but to locals it had a certain suave you couldn't get by speaking anything else.

However, the people of this country were actually kindest to foreigners as their pockets brought foreign currency which held more weight than the Namoan ruins. They were also easy scores if you picked em right.

Rampant racism ran through local communities and locals were often found degrading their fellow people in order curry favor with foreigners. Vendors spewed nonsense about their competitors goods knowing full well they got them from the same place.

However today was a very strange day in the streets of the small Island of Rollo in The Republic of Namoa. A boy wandered the busy street. This unusual sight attracted the attention of the tourists and other foreigners. It was a tacit agreement that the homeless and the tramps would stay off the streets during the light hours as it would scare away valuable customers from the district.

The locals seeing some homeless tramp distracting the tourists from their kiosks began to shout native swear words towards him. Most were untranslatable curse words.

Their remarks remained unheard. With his compass in hand the boy suddenly paused and walked into a dark alley. Seeing that they had finally got through to him the surrounding vendors went back to their routine. At the end of the alley was a store quite unlike any other.

The front door was in the shape of a bed flipped vertically on its face. The headboard dangled with dream catchers. The outside looked old and decrepit. Fragments of wood and debris peeled off of the frame.

The wood had long turned black and smell of must but the structure stood tall. Cracks that seemed to be filled in every so often spread across the door frame and on closer inspection was leaking a black saplike substance.

The doorknob however was rather comical. A Pink pillow with a crudely drawn smiley face.The boy twisted the pillow knob and entered the store. The door slammed shut behind him making a slight ring of the chime above it. His eyes regained some clarity and significantly dimmed. He looked to his left and right and wondered what was going on…

The room was decorated with ornamentations and trinkets. However, everything looked a bit odd there. From the books in the shelves about 'How to get effective sleep' and 'How to sleep while awake' this place just looked like someone's messy bedroom…

The boy looked around and dusted off a few covers before turning to leave.

Then a voice called out. *Yawn*

"A customer wow…Hi welcome to my shop. *Yawn* We sell dream catchers, pillows and anything sleep related I got it".

An audible thud was then heard.

The boys head swiveled to the counter and saw that the person who just spoke was…asleep?

He then walked closer to her.

Her built was relatively small. She looked almost underweight for someone who seemed to love sleeping so much. Her skin was extremely pale like she hadn't seen the sun in months. Her thick glossy black hair cascaded down to the floor but her face remained exposed. She didn't look much older than him.

Her eyes moved rapidly like she was dreaming and her close set eyes and her rosy cheeks blushed occasionally. However, the tip of her nose remained in constant blush and her lips were of average looks were abnormally dry.

The boy contemplated whether he should wake this teenager up. He looked her up and down. He took his stick out of his shorts. Then attempted to smack the top of her head with his stick. Right as the boy was about to strike her she suddenly woke up and shouted.

"That'll be 10 ruins sir! Thank you", noticing that there was no one in front of her she looked around.

Peering over the counter. She noticed a little boy whimpering on the floor. They each had an intense stare off before she made the first move.

"Aweeeeee are you lost little boy?" she then jumped on him her chest suffocating him making him unable to breathe. She looked down at his face and smiled. "Sorry"

She gently placed him down and patted his head. The boy reluctantly accepted the head-pat while puffing his cheeks in annoyance. She then bent down to his level and said her Black eyes suddenly turned deep and said

"What is a witch doing in my shop?"

A witch? The boys confused face was reciprocated with the same reaction. She face-palmed herself and realized she might have just attracted a whole bunch of trouble.

Seeing that the teen girl in front of him was as confused as him he gave a perfunctory response.

"I'm a man…."

Their staring contest from earlier resumed she then let out a breath. "kid…Uhm your special you've become a witch"

"but I'm a…." the boy cut in.

"I know you are *Yawn* Sigh…stay here for now I'll explain things to you when you're ready".

"Ok" he thought. This was better than living on the streets as a tramp. He looked at her and asked "What is your name?"

She glanced at him "My names Apathy Sliverlock"

She then looked at the boy waiting for him to introduce himself.

"My names Will. I don't have a last name…I'm an orphan". He was waiting for some smug remark from the woman on his situation.

However, when he looked up at her she was asleep?