An Open Realm
Chapter 1: The Tale Begins
It was a warm summer’s day with clear skies ahead and the smell of freshly cut grass in the air, a perfect day.
Well it would’ve been if Milo wasn’t stuck on this stuffy, packed school bus, or if it had air conditioning and if he hadn’t got all that homework from his teachers.
‘So much to do, so little time’ he thought to himself, at least there was a silver lining, he’d be on his summer holidays able to enjoy his freedom.
‘As if,’ with all the homework and his parents constantly getting at him, there’d be no time for him.
Hopefully, Milo thought to himself, he’ll get at least some time to write his stories. Milo loved to create stories about adventures, fairy tales and heroes, it was his own little escape from reality.
Suddenly he was dragged back to reality as his ‘friend’ tapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s your stop,” he said to Milo.
“Thanks,” he simply replied, he moved through the row of seats and had this odd feeling that people were staring at him, but he just ignored it and stepped off the bus.
He took a deep breath of fresh air, finally glad to be off the bus, he stayed there till it left and waved his ‘friend’ goodbye.
He walked past a few regular looking two story houses till he finally reached his own home, like the others it was a dull white colour, beginning to go grey with the pass of time, it had four windows on each side and two dirt brown doors.
He opened the door and entered his home; he carefully closed the door to try not to make any noise as he sneaked to his room.
“Milo” called his mother, his shoulders slumped, he sighed and then headed to the sitting room. He found his parents sitting on the couch “Hey mam, hey dad” he sat on the single arm of the chair that was opposite to them. His parents greeted him with smiles, which meant bad news for him.
He felt their smiles always hid devious intentions behind them. “Hey son, we have good news for you,” his dad seemed pretty pleased which was a change. Then his mother spoke up.
“Me and your father decided it would be best if you got out of your room this summer, so we signed you up for summer school” she said bubbling with glee.
At that moment Milo wanted to let his face drop. He hated how his parents managed his life with their big ideas, he wanted to shout at them, telling them how stupid it all was. But he knew it would just end with a short argument and them getting their way.
He put on a fake half smile, “That’s... great. I’m gonna go to my room now.” He got up and went off upstairs while his parents were distracted talking to each other, he got in his room and shut the door.
“I hate it when they do this” he whispered angrily to himself. He didn’t want to go to summer school, he wanted to stay home and do what he loved, write stories of adventure, write about characters’ lives that were much better than his.
He had so many to write about, like Larvain the master thief, good with words and a quick thief. Or Sam the handsome bard who loved to play music for all. Or his most favourite, Y’ven one of the strongest and bravest warriors of all time.
What he wouldn’t give to trade his life for one of his characters, but that wasn’t possible.
He put his writing book and pencil down onto his desk, sat down and began to write about a new character, Fenna, a small ratman who was part of a big family; he was an astounding archer and dreamed of journeying far and wide across the land.
As Milo wrote he began to feel very tired, it had been a long day, his eyes kept closing and opening trying to stay awake but soon he fell fast asleep on his desk, dreaming of the heroes and lands he wrote about.
