Universal Merlin

1.010

It was dark as any day, when the sky was filled with thick dark clouds, that Merlin was coming home from school. The sky was dark and nothing bore the light of the sun, it was almost pitch black, the day was Friday the thirteenth in October. He always heard that odd things happened on Friday the thirteenth, and he believed it.

Odd things did happen on those days for him, to name a few an egg once fell on top of him from out of nowhere, he woke up to find a dead mouse in his shoes, he walked outside and had a sudden downpour of rain, and a myriad of other odd things happen to him in his life. Though one thing he did know was that his birthday was on the thirteenth of July. His birthday to him seemed auspicious, both lucky yet unlucky.

Merlin sat there on the playground swings across the street from the orphanage looking up at the sky, wondering what life would be like if everything was completely, totally, utterly, different.

Merlin was sitting there on the swings rocking back and forth, back and forth. Looking up at the sky, thinking that today was the usual dreary day, it would rain soon at least that is what the weatherman on the radio had said.

Merlin sighed and got up, if he did not get inside now he would be left outside in the cold. He walked up to the street looking both ways reading himself to cross when he noticed movement behind him in his peripheral vision.

Merlin turned to get a better look at what caught his attention. It was the swing he recently occupied and it was moving on its own.

This made Merlin feel uneasy, however, he disregarded going inside to investigate this phenomenon. He walked over to the swing bent down and touched one of the chains only to nearly be hit by the swing. Merlin looked around to see if anything else was off. Though it had not rained there was a puddle under the exit of the slide.

Thinking that it would fun, Merlin continued to explore the oddities that were being shown to him. It was fully dark in an hour, yet Merlin had not noticed and had used the full moon's light to continue to explore.

Merlin finally got bored as the predicted weather came to pass because all of the oddities were either halted or covered up by the storm. He sat under the playground looking at the little waterfalls falling off the edges when he got the bright idea to talk a walk in the rain.

He walked through the rain back up to the road and stopped. He saw a Penney lying face up, "Pick a Penney up and all the day you'll have good luck".

Humming to himself, he crossed the street to sit under the tree. Merlin sat down in the most shaded area that was still dry. He held up the penny and tossed it in his hands then caught it. He practiced a few disappearing acts to amuse himself, it was the basic cion in the ear type of 'magic'. Merlin grew on board with his distraction quite quickly and wanted to do something that would be worth something in life.

Merlin decided that it was time to fall asleep, but no matter how hard he tried he could not. He felt an urge to go back to the playground and explore. It was as if his mind knew that his destiny was calling him, so to get whatever was going on over with he left the tree to go back to the playground.

As he stepped foot into the playground area that feeling went away leaving Merlin thinking that he had gone insane. Nothing was there, and it was the same old playground as it was with the oddities. He continued to walk toward the edge of the playground next to the forest thinking that whatever brought him to the playground had mistaken the playground for the forest.

Merlin went on his merry way along a path that he had made a long time ago, it was then that he realized that there was another oddity, it was a tall black rectangular stone. The stone was a little taller than himself and seemed like a black hole, absorbing all the light in the surrounding forest.

Merlin tentatively stepped closer to the stone. "I guess odd things do happen on Friday the thirteenth!" He was beginning to feel like this was the oddest day of his entire life. That was saying something about today as his life was not normal. He himself was like a living ghost that just was there and then was not.

Merlin held out the Penney as if it would save him from the strangeness that was taking place around him. Then he waited, nothing happened he looked around the stone to see if anything odd was happening near it as well.

Merlin threw the penny at the rectangular black stone expecting it to bounce off, contrary to known logic it disappeared.

Merlin blinked and stared hard at the stone. If what he saw actually happened then if he threw a leaf at the stone it should disappear as well. While thinking that he realized that if a coin could he should as well. Reveling in that thought Merlin decided to try out his theory, cause anything could be better than the life he was living now.

Disregarding any potential dangers, Merlin walked up to the black stone and put his hand out to touch it. His hand went through, then he preceded to step into the black stone.