Reverie

Chapter Three

My dad wants to speak with me!?

My dad barely ever wants to speak with me. He's always too busy with important things and paperwork to care about domestic things.

Bewildered, I make my way to the living room. My father sits in the armchair across the room from me as I turn the corner. He gestures for me to sit across from him. He looks worn, like he hasn't had a good night's sleep. I sit awkwardly in the armchair across from him, waiting for him to tell me what's going on.

"Leo, do you think you can manage on your own, without us?" He asks me.

"Of course," I assure him. After a pause, I add, "I'm sixteen, dad. I can manage a few days."

"Good," he replies.

Silence.

"Where are you going?" I ask. I think it's safe for me to assume my parents are going away on vacation.

"We're not going anywhere," My father tells me. "You should be asking where you're going."

Wha..?

"...where am I going, then?"

"Central," he says, smiling. "You're going to study there for the rest of this school year."

"The rest of this school year," I echo. "That's, like, nine months, dad. Central's expensive."

"It's not too expensive if you live there for a longer period of time," he points out.

"So... when is this happening?"

"The day after tomorrow," he tells me.

"You could have told me before now," I say, harsher than I mean to. "Maybe I'd like to say goodbye to my friends or something."

"If you had friends," someone says behind me. I turn around. Joyce is standing in the doorway.

"You're a nice person, Joyce," I mutter sarcastically.

Teresa appears behind Joyce and drags her away by her arm. I hear her say, "we've got stuff to do, Jo."

"So I'm leaving the day after," I say, mostly to myself.

"Yes," he replies. "You should start packing."

"Yeah. I'll go pack. I'll be all ready and set for the day after," I assure him. I desperately wanted to get out of that conversation.

Instead of packing when I get to my room, I sit, completely silent, on my bed, staring out the window. I need some alone time. I focus on the curtains and pull them closed, darkening my room until it's almost impossible to see anything. I close my eyes and enter my imagination, forming a world existing only in my mind.

A/N: in case you're wondering, this is (kind of) an actual thing that is actually possible. Look up 'mind palace'.

I wander in this world for hours, forming towering waterfalls, wide valleys and dramatic cliffs embroidered with the sound of crashing waves, until eventually, I fall asleep. My subconscious takes over, and suddenly I'm flying at a dizzying speed through the realm, circling once around Central Island and landing there.

There's a lavish home in front of me, not unlike the ones I'd seen in my textbooks. I push open the door, revealing a dark room illuminated by a single shaft of light. Behind that shaft of light stood a person.

He had short, light hair, topping a roundish face. His face was hidden in shadow, outlining his nose and cheekbones. He stepped out into the light, and I was sure I'd never seen him before. There was one thing that stood out to me: his eyes. They were misty blue, piercing and clear. They completely wiped out everything else around me like a swirling mist was surrounding us, and everything else was suddenly irrelevant.

Through all the reverie floated a name.

Seth.

For some reason I really like cliffhangers... wow that's such a Moffat-ish thing oops

-Ughrble