Harsh Realm

Part 1

"I'm just an ordinary human, but I don't feel so ordinary today"  -Ordinary Human, OneRepublic

Part 1

        I felt the car stop moving beneath me, so I sat up and looked out the window at my new home. God, moving sucked. All that packing and unpacking, loading and unloading, sorting and organizing, lifting and rearranging. It was an exhausting process.

        To make matters worse, it was the middle of the school year. Not that I cared about school, but I hated the thought of having to adjust to a new place and new people. I glanced up at the brick house, and then immediately back down, wanting nothing more than to look up and see our apartment building back in Portland.

        I roughly blinked my eyes to rid them of sleep and pulled my headphones out.
 

        “Hey hon, will you grab that sage from the glove box?” My mom Susan asked my other mom, Jill.

        “Sage?” I inquired. “For what?”

        “It’s supposed to get rid of unwanted spirits. I’m going to spread it around in case there’s any ghosts lurking around those halls,” She chuckled in a way that told me she knew she sounded silly.

        “Is it too late to go back to Portland?” I foolishly asked Jill. They both laughed.

        “Afraid so, dear. We’ve already put a payment down. This baby is ours,” She said triumphantly, like she’d just won an Olympic medal.

        “Hate to break it to you mom, but this baby is way too old to be a baby. Great grandmother is more like it.”

        “Oh Nathan, quit complaining and get out of the car already,” Susan pleaded.

        I did as I was told, and climbed out of the back seat of our Subaru, stretching my aching body. It screamed in protest, extremely cramped from the long drive to Bellevue. Because my body was aching so painfully, as I badly as I didn’t want to be there, I preferred there to the car.

        I took the time to examine the house then. Two stories, made up entirely of bricks except for the concrete stairs and porch. The front yard was enclosed by a giant black metal gate, which was sadly taller than me. All of the windows on the bottom level were made of a color stained glass, similar to the windows in big churches. Only the second level windows were ordinary, showing off the age of the house.

        I wasn’t really happy about the move, and to show my disdain I gave my mom’s a hard time. Stood at the end of the walk way leading to the house, I closed my eyes and clicked my heels together three times, all the while shouting,

        “I wanna go home.” I rubbed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them I’d be met by our old door man standing in front of me, but instead all I was met with was a migraine.

        “Okay Dorothy,” Susan chuckled, “get over here and help us unload this U-Haul.” They walked past me, both with boxes already in their hands. I sighed as I looked into the back of the moving truck, questioning why we needed so much stuff. I slid a box labeled Nate’s Room out of the truck and into my hands.

        I was just stepping onto the porch when Jill was coming out for another box.

        “This move will be good for us, you’ll see,” She insisted, ruffling my shaggy dyed blonde hair as she descended down the stairs. “Your room is upstairs, first door on the left.”