The pitter-patter of rain hit the classroom window as Aster looked out dreamily with a small smile on his face. He watched as the sparrows and crows flew by the window. The colors of the fluffy clouds framing the light greyish-blue sky.
He wondered if one day, he could touch them and feel if they were soft or non-existent at all. He let out a small hum as he wondered, unaware of his maths teacher making her way to his table and the eyes of his classmates on him.
'Those birds.. are the-'
"ASTER! This is the third time I've called you-!" the teacher said as she slammed a marker on his table.
"Eh!? Oh.. sorry Miss Audrey.." he mumbled as he fidgeted with his sleeve ends. He avoided eye contacted with the furious-looking teacher and instead stared intensely at the dull gray pencil without an eraser at the end, which had never seemed so interesting before.
He heard the teacher sigh and mutter something about children and their antics. She then said what he was fearing the most-
"Now then, tell me- what is seven multiplied by thirty-two?" she asked, with an exasperated tone.
Oh. Hey- that wasn't so hard! That was actually in the fifth-grade books! Heh- maybe this was the privilege of being an average kid. He refrained from sighing in relief, fearing she would ask something harder if she had heard it.
"Two hundred and twenty-four!" he replied with a small smile outwardly, whereas he was cheering inwardly and throwing a party.
She gave him a curt nod, which was as good as he could get from her- especially as he had little to no attention in class. You could say his attention span was worse than his peers, his being the worst among the children ranging from eight to twelve.
Aster sat in the near middle of the ages. Although it neared the youngest in the class, an eight year old prodigy- by the name of Celia. But she was snobby so he didn't like her.
The rest of the day went on as usual. He ate lunch with his friends, went home by bus, did homework, talked and ate with his parents and read a novel before going to bed.
He picked up the book from a series he had started reading a week ago. The book was good to say the least. It followed the story of the main character, Mabel Lovett, who fought against monsters with her husband, Soren Caddel. He liked it.
The book flowed well, and the author did an excellent job of writing it. His reading had become a routine for him.
The story went on about how the two protagonists fell in love and protected the world from monsters that came during and apocalypse and enemies when a war erupted between two regions.
The thing about monsters- he understood it. Of course they were in a conflict. In the book, it was shown that the monsters were mindless creatures with the intent to kill- and kill only. Aster had read and skimmed over the books over and over, hoping to see just a glimpse of where they came from- but alas, it was to no avail.
However, he didn't understand why the people went into war. Shouldn't they work together to fight against the monsters and eventually eradicate them? But then again, he thought over and over. He then came to the conclusion that either it was food shortage, overpopulation or they needed to retreat to a place from the monsters. This as well, was never explained in the series.
It upset Aster. He wanted to know. But then again, he couldn't do anything. He was just a reader. So he thought and thought of the endless scenarios that could've happened in the novel. The choices they could've made.
But he always mentally hit himself and reminded himself that this was a novel- not some game with choices- he liked imagining them though. It was fun.
However, despite the book revolving around Mabel Lovett and Soren Caddel, he liked this specific "villainous" character from the other faction of the war- the second prince of the Thalia Kingdom. He thought he was brave and cool.
His name was never specifically mentioned- but he knew the entire imperial family line had the last name "Sphinx". But here was the real question Aster had- he always went into deep research whenever he finished a book- and he realized this, the name "Thalia" from "Thalia Kingdom" meant 'to blossom' in Greek.
So then why was the last name- an Egyptian sculpture? By the looks of the crown prince- it was safe to say that the entire family tree seemed to consist of lean and handsome and pretty people. There were handsome men and women, as well as pretty women and men. He realized that he had to give it to the author- they kept the family tree diverse. And they resembled a flower more than some kind of statue found in Egypt.
Not that he was slandering the statues, nor was he trying to offend the author- but just why? The sphinxes look nothing like the people with their last name as literally "Sphinx"!
And they had a flower as a crest- and they were written to have the prettiest gardens, the rose garden being the family favorite. He was curious to know what it was like.
But he supposed it was not possible as the author had distanced themselves from social media and stopped accepting requests since long time.
He read with bated breath as he went through the very last book in the whole entire series. He scanned the pages with focused eyes and read them at record speed. Then-
"Wait. That's it? That's just how it ends?" he asked the air, baffled.
The nine year old stared at the page incredulously as if it had personally offended him- which it in fact, did!
Because- what do you mean, all of that was for nothing? Did it just end there? Why did everything die? What was that ending? What even caused it?
"Oh no, no, no! Author- you can't just say 'Then it all shattered.'- what's that even supposed to mean!? Is it a metaphor? Did the world literally just shatter!? What? Eh!?"
He stared at the hard book cover of the book and ran a finger over it. "New Beginnings" it was called. Well he wasn't seeing any new beginnings except for the either literal or metaphorical second Big Bang!?
He groaned and hit his head on the book, his purple-tinted black hair splaying onto the cover. He then sighed and put it back in gently into the set he had bought of the series and frowned as he stared at the set. He had read this for over a week now, and it ended with the most difficult sentence he could've ever gotten to decipher.
Sure, he could take it literally and be done with it- but the story had been so good- and it was left without a definite ending. Sure, it was nice to have a change and breath of fresh air to get to interpret the ending in any way- but it made it worse for Aster.
His imagination was boundless and he would've loved to know what had happened. But he shoved his disappointment away. He brushed his teeth, wished his parents a good night and tucked himself in bed.
He stared up at the grey ceiling and the doodling of animals he made on the walls and slowly drifted to sleep. He twisted and turned in his sleep on the soft fabric.
But he couldn't say the same for when he woke up.
"…"
He had waken up in a random but rather pretty and well-tended-to rose garden.