Reborn

It's Time

He sure is small...

Do you think he would notice if I took this from him?

He doesn't smell human! What is he?

Ashlie, don't say a word, you might wake him!

Everybody shut up! He's moving!

The sleeping male was startled from his slumber at the strange, unrecognizable voices coming from the universe known as reality. He was unaware for a moment that he was awake, soon realizing that his eyes were still shut, and opening them. He was in his room. It was still dark outside, he could see the stars shining outside of his window. After slowly sitting up, his gaze shifted from the glass panel that separated him from the outside world, to look around his room. Everything looked so different at night, shadows being casted upon his desk from the small transformers themed night light plugged into an outlet on his wall. But besides that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He saw no people to match the voices he heard, nothing seemed out of place. The only noise that he heard now was the quiet hum of the air conditioner working to push cool air throughout the house. A sigh of relief escaped his lips, and he moved to lay his back against his mattress once again. Strange... He thought to himself as he closed his eyes, slowly drifting back to a deep sleep.

But it continued the next night.

He looks so peaceful when sleeping...

Hey, do any of you happen to have a sharpie?

His skin is shiny. That's not normal, even for us!

Tommy, quit trying to draw a mustache on him!

Cory, be careful! You're going to break it!

And the next.

Should we keep coming back?

If we don't, how will I get to leave him his gift?

Tommy, your 'gift' isn't a going to make a good impression on him...

His 'gift' is literally just playing a stupid prank so the kid will remember him.

Hush, he's waking up!

And the next...

How old will he be?

Thirteen, I think.

Do you think we should do it then?

He'll be able to see us then. We won't be able to come back. It's either then, or never.

I agree. We need to go now, though, he will be waking soon.

Until the night before his birthday, when all of the voices joined together to say two words...

It's time.

He awoke the next morning in a cold sweat, huffing and puffing to catch his breath as if he had ran a mile. Pushing himself up from the bed and swinging his legs over to place his feet on the hard wooden floor, he sat there to think. Today is my thirteenth birthday. Today is a special day. But before he could do much of anything, something shiny caught his eye. His head turned to look over to his messy desk, a few dirty dishes from previous nights dinners sat on it. He had crumpled up papers with math equations on them littered all over the floor below the grey painted piece of furniture, along with design sketches of robots he had hoped to build one day and pencils across the surface of it. But what had really gained his attention, was a box wrapped in metallic golden paper, with a silver ribbon tied around it to keep it shut. A small note hung from the ribbon, but it was too far to read from his bed. So the boy stood up, hurrying over to the desk and sitting on his chair. He was careful to grab the unfamiliar object, holding the note up slightly to read it. "Dear, Dawn," it began, "Today is a special day for you, though you aren't aware quite yet of how special it really is. Today is the day your eye will be opened. Today is the day you receive a gift that very few humans receive. Use it for good, Dawn." It ended there. The note hadn't been signed by anyone, it had only been addressed to him. Who could have done this? The only people he knew that could get into the house were his mother and father, but the handwriting on this note clearly didn't belong to them. It was too messy, while his parents wrote neatly. So who?

He never opened the box.

Out of fear, he never even undid the ribbon.The strange box wasn't from anyone he knew, he had tried asking everyone he could about it.No one confessed to giving it to him.Not until ten years later, would he have the courage to open it. Not until his twenty-third birthday.