Our story begins in the chaotic depths of a young boy’s bedroom. This war zone of a hobbit hole belongs to none other than Aero Larken, a plucky young redhead with way too much time on his hands. He’s hunched over his laptop, typing away at the speed of sound, trying his darndest to outlast an internet troll in a battle of obnoxiousness. He’s officially lost his chill and is now falling victim to the sinister clutches of some nine-year-old on the internet. What an absolute embarrassment to society this boy is. Luckily for him, he’s about to go on an amazing adventure! Is he fated to journey to a mythical world? Will he fight against the forces of evil? Perhaps he is destined to save humanity and the world as we know it! As a matter of fact, an epic quest may just come knocking on his door.
Suddenly there is a knocking on his bedroom door. “Aero I swear to God if you don’t take the trash out right now...!” his mother yells.
Aero’s attitude gets the better of him and he snaps back with, “I’ll get to it later! Go away! Don’t you know I’m busy?!” It should be stated that Aero only shouts at his mother because he’s enraged by the internet troll and his baseless insinuations. Unlucky for him, his mother is a raging she-demon with a thirst for blood.
“That’s it! I’m coming in there!” She tries the doorknob, but it’s locked. Aero dreads what comes next as he turns towards his door two seconds too late. Momma Larken kicks the door straight off its hinges, a seemingly impressive feat. Aero swallows hard, knowing his mother is scarier and far more impactful than any trolling nine-year-old. Her blazingly bright red curls only help foreshadow the demonic hell Aero is about to be thrown into.
“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Aero tries desperately to dodge her but fails horribly. She drags him out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and leaves him in front of the door to their garage.
Aero has lost this battle, but he refuses to lose the war. Defeated, he enters the garage, hits the button, and cringes as the garage door screeches open. The garage is an absolute junkyard, a cramped storage area for everything under the sun and then some. There’s no room for a car and hardly any room for the garbage bin. Getting that hunk of plastic out of that pigsty is going to be next to impossible.
After about 25 minutes of unnecessary labor and exhaustion, Aero finally manages to get the garbage bin out to the curb. That’s when he sees his crazy girlfriend waltzing right up to his house with purpose in her step. This “nice” young lady’s name is Joslyn, and she is, for lack of a better word, bananas. Although that’s just Aero’s opinion at this point.
Aero and Joslyn started out as friends, good friends even. They did everything together, and she was the one he could confide in. He considered them to be fairly close, but Joslyn thought they could be closer, so she suggested that they should start dating. That’s where it all started: her obsessive texting, their exhausting dates, the hand holding, the kissing, the assumptions, the accusations, ect. Aero tries his very best but he’s never been really good with relationships; they just don’t make a whole lot of sense to him. He wishes things could go back to the way they were before.
The redheaded teenager is snapped out of his reminiscing when the girl opens her mouth. “Why haven’t you been answering any of my texts or calls, are you with another girl?!” The truth is that he just doesn’t want to talk to her. He has a hunch that he just can’t reciprocate her feelings. He wants to, but maybe he just isn’t ready for a relationship. Of course, all of his guy friends are in relationships. They’re all juniors and seniors in high school after all, it’s kind of status quo to have a girlfriend. Aero doesn’t think that a “mandatory” girlfriend is the right way to go about loving someone.
“No, I’m not with another girl, my phone was just dead. I was busy dealing with internet trolls, you know how I can get. Why don’t I take you out for lunch to make up for it? I’ll ask my dad if I can borrow the car, sound good?”
“I suppose.” Joslyn seems snippy. Something’s up, Aero can tell. He wonders if maybe she’s going to break up with him. He decides that’s probably wishful thinking.
After heading inside, ducking out of his mother’s view, and slipping down to the basement, Aero is finally able to ask his dad for the car. Of course his father says yes, because he’s a really cool guy. Aero tiptoes back up the stairs, does a ninja dive roll towards the garage just for shits and giggles, and escapes the demon’s lair. He swears he hears his mother breathing fire in the background but he ignores it.
“Alright, ready to go?” Aero asks politely.
“Sure, whatever.” He was really not liking Joslyn’s attitude right now, but it’s not like it’s unusual. Aero hops in the driver’s seat and Joslyn sits down in the passenger’s seat. They make sure to buckle up because safety is very important and Aero feels naked without a seatbelt on. Joslyn has tried to get away with not wearing her seatbelt in the past, but Aero refuses to drive anywhere if she’s not wearing it.
Aero mentally curses the fact that the radio is broken in his dad’s car, because the two teenagers end up driving for 15 minutes in complete silence. Now, he knows for a fact something is up.
They reach the fast food place known as Ribbit’s and Aero parks the car. They head inside and order a couple of burgers, some fries, and two milkshakes. They sit down and wait for “Larken” to be called. The time has come for Joslyn to break the silence, asking the hardest question for Aero to possibly try and answer, “Do you love me?”
“What kind of silly question is that, we’re dating aren’t we?”
“Yeah but do you actually love me?”
“...Of course I do.”
“You hesitated.”
“Did I?” The world ceased functioning, or at least it felt that way; time seemed to stop as 60 full seconds passed by in pure silence. Aero continues, “Why do you have to ask such difficult questions anyway?”
“It shouldn’t be a difficult question, either you love me or you don’t.”
“Love is complicated! I’m freaking 17 years old Joslyn, I’m not exactly a pro at this whole ‘love’ thing.”
“Neither am I but that shouldn’t matter!”
“What?! God, you make zero sense.”
Just as their conversation starts to get heated, the fast food employee behind the counter yells, “Larken!” and Aero gets up to go grab their food. He grabs the food and reluctantly sits back down at the table. He starts digging in, unwrapping and devouring his burger in order to avoid the horrible conversation that Joslyn started. He was not prepared for her to open this can of worms, but he knew it was going to happen eventually. After all, they’ve been dating for almost 7 months now and Aero was pretty much done pretending that he has feelings for her.
“I think we should break up.” Joslyn finally said it. She finally said what they both had been thinking; they needed to break up.
Aero stopped eating. “I… I think you’re right.”
“I’m going to text Megan to come pick me up.”
“Alright.”
That’s that. Aero can’t believe it’s just over. It was like she had ripped off a bandaid; it was practically painless, at least for him. He doesn’t want to think about how Joslyn will cope with this change. He doesn’t want to think about the fact that the two of them can’t just go back to being friends.
Megan arrives and Joslyn grabs her food and heads out, leaving our redheaded protagonist to eat by his lonesome. He doesn’t mind. A weight has been finally lifted off of his chest. He takes a deep breath and finishes his burger and fries in a newfound peace. He decides to take his milkshake for the road and hops back into his dad’s car, finally comfortable in the silence sans the bananas ex-girlfriend in the passenger seat.
And so begins the journey of a seemingly normal ginger teen. What wonders does his future hold? Will he find another girlfriend he actually has feelings for? Is he looking in the wrong places, for the wrong people? Will he ever actually end up in a mythical world? Will he crash his dad’s car? Will he evade his monstrous mother? Who knows! The only thing that’s for certain, is that this is the beginning of something truly magnificent.
-End of Chapter 1-
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