The Final Dreamer

The Stone

Later that day, just as I was getting ready to do some homework, I suddenly remembered the girl who had given me her phone number. Part of me didn't want to get myself involved with a girl who would just nonchalantly give her number to random guys, but another part of me wanted to learn more about what was going on between her and the guy who was terrorizing her. Ultimately, after some careful consideration, I decided to contact her.

"hey, it's Sebastian. you told me to text you"

"Oh, hey!! my name is Ariana, but u can just call me Ari ❤️"

I was somewhat surprised by how quickly she responded. I decided to cut to the chase.

"so, who was that guy from earlier?"

"oh, he's just an ex. don't worry about him."

I was yet again surprised, this time by her quick dismissiveness towards the situation. "This is clearly a sensitive topic for her. I think I'll hold off for now..." I said to myself. I decided to continue the conversation with some simple small talk.

"oh ok. so, what's your homeroom?"

"the same as yours, dummy. dont you remember me??"

I had somehow forgotten that she was one of the girls who called me cute during homeroom.

"oh yeah. i forgot, lol"

"what's ur lunch period tmrw?"

"i have lunch B tomorrow"

"me too!! u should totally sit next to me!"

Thanks to the school's block schedule, my lunch periods swapped every day. On A days I had lunch period C, and on B days I had lunch period B. I decided to take advantage of Ari's offer, as otherwise I probably would've found myself sitting alone... and, to put it simply, I really did not want to experience that feeling of loneliness again.

"sounds like a plan"

"awesome!! ❤️❤️"

I figured that this was a good place to end the conversation. I put my phone down and began working on my homework.

. . .

"Please... wake up..." A voice faintly uttered. Somehow, the voice sounded familiar. "Wake up... Sebastian..." I slowly opened my eyes and looked around. I seemed to be in a corrupted, twisted version of my new room. All of my furniture looked old and dusty, and the air somehow had a purplish tint. The walls, ceiling, and floor were dirty and cracked, as if the room was on the verge of collapsing after having decayed over the course of thousands of years.

I rose from my bed, which was abnormally cold and hard, and looked out the window. Overall, the state of the world outside was similar to the state of my room; frighteningly decayed. The streets were completely devoid of any trace of human life. Entire buildings were ravaged and ruined. The sky was a deep, terrifying red color.

"What the...?" I muttered. It all looked like something straight out of an apocalypse movie. Suddenly, I felt an indescribably strong urge to leave my room, as if an invisible force was beckoning me. Not knowing what else to do, I gave in to the urge and opened my room's door. In front of me was, as I had predicted, a corrupted version of the living room.

As I continued to traverse the decrepit apartment, I spotted an unusually flashy object resting on the kitchen table. It was a small spherical stone with a strange purple symbol etched into it. The stone was small, but it was surrounded by a large, ghostly aura. "Break it... Destroy the stone..." the voice uttered. I still could not see the source of the voice, but it didn't matter to me at that point. I felt a slight warmth radiating from the stone as I picked it up and thoughtfully held it in my hand. It somehow felt soft and hard at the same time. My breaths became deeper and heavier as I slowly tightened my grip.

Suddenly, the stone shattered into pieces, and I immediately felt an immense surge of power circulating through my body. My hand began to bleed as the broken shards of the stone pierced my skin. As the blood gushing from my hand began to drip onto the floor, I noticed that it was purple instead of red. Suddenly, I began to feel woozy. I cried out in pain as every muscle in my body began to ache, and then I collapsed.