Sword Guy

Sword Guy Part 1

‘AMELIA!’

‘WHAT!’

‘DO YOU WANT TO GO FOR A WALK?’

‘SURE.’

‘WHY ARE WE YELLING’

‘I DONT KNOW, YOU JUST STARTED TO!’

Cleo runs up the stairs at lightning speed. Not really but I am 13 so I can exaggerate. I slowly get up off the floor where I had been not so comfortably laying. What can I say? I can be lazy when I want to.

Walking up the stairs I can hear Cleo talking to her mom but from here, all it sounds like is mumbled warnings. Stuff like ‘ember to brin-’ and ‘careful o-’. We go on walks all the time and nothing has ever happened. I don’t understand why she says the same thing every time. 

As I slip on my shoes Cleo comes screeching to a halt beside me while holding a… what is she holding?

‘Hey, Cleo?’

‘Ya, what’s up?’

‘What are you holding?’

‘Oh, this? It’s a taser, my dad is being SuPeR overprotective today.’ She lowers her voice so that only I can hear. ‘I am just going to leave it outside on the steps then grab it when we get back so it looks like we brought it.’

‘Okay sounds good.’

We step outside into the warm sunlight. It feels nice considering I am always cold. I might have to actually take off my hoodie. Cleo walks over to the front steps and hides the taser in the bushes beside the front porch. Personally, I really like her house. It’s not big but it does have a really homey feel. Always smells like freshly cut wood and cinnamon. Sounds like a weird combination but it makes sense considering her mom is a baker and dad is a lumberjack. I am snapped out of my thoughts by a hand waving in front of my face. 

‘Amelia? Amelia? Hello? Anyone home?’ 

‘Sorry just zoned out for a minute.’

‘Okay, just the normal way we go?’

‘Yep, that works.’

We start to walk down the street. Our conversations come naturally. Even in the silence, it is a comfortable one. We walk, talk, laugh, and just, in general, have a good time. A few people give us weird looks but we are used to that by now. The entire neighborhood knows who we are, Cleo has lived here her entire life and I am over here all the time so it’s like a second home.

We get to a two way and turn left to start heading back home when we see an odd sight. There is a man in all black and camouflage knee pads standing on his lawn a few houses down. I whip out my phone and turn on the voice recorder knowing that we might end up needing this in the future.

‘Cleo, do you know who th-’

‘I have no idea who that is. What is he doing?’

Looking a little closer you can see him waving his arms in the air almost as if saying turn around? Cleo looks behind us thinking he means that there is something behind us. 

‘I think he’s telling us to go back the other way. What do we do?’

‘Well we can’t exactly turn around, can we? The other way leads into town.’

I realize that there is only one solution. Keep going.