It's early evening, and the crickets begin playing their tune in the quiet night. Elly is sitting on the swivel chair he uses to study, his head resting on the soft cushion, with his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
His room is neater than a normal boy's room, his bed in the shade of cloudy white all tucked in and neatly folded. There are some posters on the wall with some pictures of him and his two cousins, Abby and Shaine. He simply loves his cousin; only having two older brothers who seem busy all the time, he feels like having two younger sisters when he's with his cousins.
"Elly, dinner is ready," he heard his mother yell from the dining room.
He stood up and walked down to the dining room; his brothers are 7 and 8 years older than him, so he doesn't see them quite often. Their house is painted in plain white with black windows; the front porch has two wooden chairs with a circle-shaped table made by their eldest brother, who is an architect.
The day went on and ended in a flash; Elly didn't go out of his room the whole time. He just stares blankly at the ceiling or the wall. His eyes are a bit tired from using his computer, and he ended up sleeping on his chair.
The rays of the sun creep inside Elly's room with their warmth, and his eyes flicker open from the light's brightness. He let out a small groan, feeling his neck a bit stiff; he did fall asleep on his chair without anything supporting his head.
He quickly took a bath and wore his uniform; his mind is pretty blank, and he tends to space out.
"You seem to be under the weather, son. Anything wrong?" He looks at his mother, who is focused on her breakfast.
"I'm fine; just don't feel like it today," he said, standing up in his seat. He grabs his backpack just beside his chair.
He kisses his mother goodbye before leaving for school. Their school is just a few blocks away from their house, so there's no problem walking without being late for the first period.
The minute he stepped out of their house, he took a deep breath, taking in the sweet morning scent. The cobblestone path, which led straight to their school, passed a ton of houses, each with different colors and designs. The morning newspaper was getting thrown on the front porch of each house by a young boy on his bicycle. He is well known by the people in that neighborhood because of his kindness and, of course, as the newspaper boy.
With a smile, Elly waves to the boy. "Morning there, Sulley."
"Mornin', I saw your cousins in front of their house," Sulley said with a smile and threw the newspaper on Elly's porch.
He looked up ahead to see Abby and Shaine just by their mailbox, wearing their neat uniform. Abby waved to him the minute she realized it was him; the innocent act made him smile.
"Mornin'," his smile is small but sincere.
Abby and Shaine greet him back each with a smile. They started walking side by side, their shoes clicking with the cobblestone in each step, almost making an unseen rhythm.
Students wearing the same uniform were coming from different houses, each bidding their family goodbye and running off to walk with their friends. The school they attend is a well-known university in this part of the city but not that famous among other universities.
The sound of loud footsteps came from behind the three, almost like running in a hurry.
"Good morning, Elly," said a boy with ash-brown hair who jumped on Elly's back for a piggyback ride.
Another boy appeared behind them and pulled down the boy on Elly's back. Shaine smiled at them and gave them each a fist pump.
"Way to ruin my morning, June," Elly said with a sarcastic tone.
June is a childhood friend of Elly's since elementary school and also a soccer player; his hair is a calm shade of ash-brown with long bangs that he sets aside with a clip, his eyes are black like a raven's feathers, and he has a pointed nose and dimples on both cheeks.
"Quite as ever, aren't you, Alex?" Shaine chuckled, elbowing the other boy.
Alex had been a fixture in Elly's life since elementary school, a bond forged on the soccer field and solidified over the years. With neatly trimmed black hair and calming light brown eyes, he cut a composed figure—right down to the red spectacles perched on his sharp, pointed nose. His pale complexion only served to highlight the natural color of his lips, giving him a striking, almost delicate appearance.
However, that quiet composure vanished the moment anyone mentioned Shaine. His stoic mask would shatter into a flustered, stressed mess at the mere mention of her name. His crush had taken root back in freshman year when Shaine and Abby first transferred to the university. They had fled the city and its troublemakers, seeking the peace of a school closer to home, unaware they had captured the heart of the soccer team's most reserved player.
The moment Shaine stepped onto the pitch to try out for the team, Alex's composure had shattered. In a moment of pure, unprovoked panic, he let out a sudden shriek that echoed across the field, causing Shaine to fumble her practice goal in surprise. Despite the spectacle, Shaine remained blissfully dense, never once connecting his odd outbursts to the way his gaze lingered on her during every drill.
As the group trekked toward school, trading stories of their weekend, the lighthearted mood shifted to genuine shock. When the sisters revealed that Shaine had been unconscious for nearly an entire day, the boys' eyes went wide—though it didn't take long for the concern to morph back into mischief, with Elly leading the charge in teasing a visibly spiraling Alex.
The time passes by quickly, and it's already the third period. Elly's class is a bit noisy due to the absence of their teacher; he just stares out the window, watching some students having their gym class. He closes his eyes and opens them after a while, and his eyes grow bigger to see a different scenario: it was a small town with a big fountain in the middle, and people were walking around carrying baskets or sacks, and the second he blinked, it was the school grounds again.
"Hey Elly, let's have lunch; the teacher is not going to come anyway." June happily pulls his arm and runs out of the room.
During lunch, he is spacing out because of the unusual event earlier by the window, which was unbelievably impossible.
"Hey Elly, what's up with you today?" His thought was cut off by June flicking his forehead.
Elly groans and rubs his forehead. "Dude, that hurts."
Alex is taking a bite out of his burger and then speaks up. "You seem to be spacing out a lot today." He took another bite and continued talking. "That's so not like you."
Elly takes a sip out of his juice box and sighs. His mind is playing tricks with him; he didn't answer back. Instead, he looks around the cafeteria; there are only a few students around having lunch and chatting away their lunchtime in the cafeteria.
During the first two periods of the afternoon, the soccer team claimed the field for their permitted practice. Shaine stood out as one of only three girls on the squad, her energy mirroring the boys'. Elly was mid-stride, skillfully dribbling the ball toward the goal, his mind focused entirely on the score.
Then, the world buckled.
In the blink of an eye, the green turf vanished, replaced by a cold, unrelenting stone path. A massive, looming gate towered over him in a place he didn't recognize. Panic surged through his veins like an electric shock; he abandoned the ball—and his senses—sprinting blindly into the unknown. He squeezed his eyes shut against the impossible sight, and the moment he forced them open, the field rushed back at him with a violent thud as he collided head-long into a teammate.
He stares at the sky, feeling a bit relieved that everything is back to normal; blood slowly slips out of his nose, and he can feel a bit of stinging inside his nostril. It got worse when he began to feel dizzy along with his vision getting blurry.
They were both sent to the infirmary for them to rest from the impact. Elly stares at the white-painted ceiling before groaning and holding his head.
'What the hell is wrong with me today? '
He rests his head on the soft pillow and closes his eyes, remembering what happens whenever he relaxes and shuts his eyes: instantly he opens his eyes to find himself somewhere he doesn't know. He's on a small hill that can overlook the small town from earlier; his head is resting on a big root out of the ground.
"Elly!"
In the blink of an eye, he is back in the infirmary; the voice that called him was Shaine's by the door, along with Abby, who is wearing an apron from her home economics class.
The two walk up to his bed, both with worried looks.
"Sorry I didn't come earlier; Coach talked with me for a few minutes," Shaine said with a small smile.
Abby settles down on Elly's left side of the bed; a small smile creeps to her small lips along with a chuckle. Her hand digs up something inside her apron pocket and pulls out a small plastic bag with a pink ribbon; inside it are freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
She gently hands it to Elly with her cute smile. "Something to make you feel better." She stands up and starts to walk to the door; before closing the door behind her, she looks back and smiles once more. "I got to get to class; see you guys later."
Shaine then stands up and smiles at Elly. "I need to finish practice before my next class starts; I'll check up on you after," she said, earning a nod as a response.
He is left alone in the infirmary; the guy he bumped into was sent home due to almost losing his conscience. The crunch of each bite he takes from the cookies is all that makes a noise inside the small room.
He let out a chuckle. "How sweet," he said, staring down at the cookie.
The chocolate chips were still slightly soft, melting against his tongue with a richness that felt like a direct counter to the cold, metallic dread still lingering in his chest.
He leaned his head back against the thin infirmary pillow, watching the dust motes dance in a stray beam of afternoon sunlight. For a moment, the world felt steady again. The sterile smell of antiseptic and the distant, muffled shouts from the soccer field anchored him to the present.
But as he reached for a second cookie, his fingers brushed against the small pink ribbon Abby had used to tie the bag.
The silk felt unnaturally cool.
Elly froze, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at his hand. For a split second, the pink ribbon didn't look like fabric at all. It shimmered, the edges blurring into a faint, glowing violet; the exact same shade as the sparks he'd seen in his "vision." He blinked, and the effect vanished, leaving only a cheap plastic bag and a bit of ribbon.
"Just a concussion," he muttered to the empty room, though the lie tasted bitterer than the chocolate. "The nurse said I just hit my head hard."
He took another bite, but the crunch sounded different now—heavier, like stone grinding against stone. He thought of Shaine, out there on the field, probably lunging for the ball with that same stubborn focus. He thought of Abby, sitting in a quiet classroom, her apron pocket likely still smelling of vanilla and sugar.