BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I woke up, back in my soft, warm bed, tangled in my sheets; the comforter had been unceremoniously tossed on the floor. Everything from my dream was gone. The hill, the man, the booth and, thankfully, the nausea.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The pizza. Man, I was hungry.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Why didn't I eat that pizza?

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

It wasn't until then that I realized the beeping was my alarm clock. Yes, I still use an alarm clock instead of my phone. I needed a distinctly loud and obnoxious tone to force me out of the bed in the mornings.

BEEP! BEEP! Click.

I silenced the hunk of plastic and yawned. What day was it again? Friday? No, Saturday. Why did I set my alarm on a Saturday? I must have turned it on last night without realizing it, too tired to remember that I wouldn't need it. I looked at the dimly lit numbers on the clock. Seven AM. I sighed and got up. There was no harm in getting up early; not to mention that the dream I just woke from had shaken me and I didn't want to drift back asleep only to have the same dream again or to continue it from where I had left off. Shrugging off a shiver, I stretched and rose from the bed.

I slipped into a pair of blue jeans and pulled on a green tee-shirt with three golden triangles that were center-placed in a design that many people would recognize. Zelda was my favorite game franchise and merchandise for the game was a fairly common Christmas or birthday gift from anyone who knew me. The famous golden triforce was emblazoned on many of these gifts, like this shirt. I didn't care much for shopping so I tend to use whatever I had until it was so worn that it would tear while I tried to fit my head through. However, this shirt was still relatively new and had no wear and tear yet.

I greeted the morning with eggs, sunny side up, toast, just a bit too burnt and bacon. Okay, it was turkey bacon. What? I'm on a diet...sometimes. I chased it all with a cold glass of chocolate milk, the wonderful premixed kind that I bought by the gallon. I liked breakfast. They say it's the most important meal of the day, but for me, it's also my favorite. There's just something about eating right when you first wake up that feels comforting. While I ate, I checked my phone for any messages.

I had three texts. One from each of my two best friends and one from my sister, Sidra. Sidra and I tried to keep in touch ever since she had moved to Tennessee for her degree. Whether it was little tidbits about our day or just a random joke, we tried to text a few times a week. We were never really close, but before she moved we had agreed that we didn't want to drift any farther and that we'd try to keep in touch. Our texts were a way for us to keep each other in mind and still have some fun with each other. My last text to her read:

The next time you see me, I might be in prison. Thinking about joining a mob to keep the drummer next door quiet. All my neighbors are doing it.

Sidra had responded with:

At least you're making friends that'll help you hide a body.

Her new text read:

Roommates suck. Wanna bring your mob friends over and help me hide a body?

I wrote back saying:

Oh? Joining the mob too? You should, we have cupcakes on Tuesdays. What's up with your roommates?

I checked my messages from Tommy and Michael next. Both had mentioned pretty much the same thing; Michael would be working later than usual so lunch at Bingo's was pushed back a half-hour. I gave an affirmative response to our delayed lunch plans and finished breakfast. Then I got up to do some dishes, which had piled up over the last few days. I usually did some light cleaning on Saturday mornings to maintain my apartment's semi-cleanliness. After the dishes were in the drying rack I wiped the counters and swept the floor. Satisfied with the rest of the apartment's tidiness, I decided to work out a bit before I took a shower.

I had gotten into doing some morning exercises while the television was on. My job requires me to occasionally lift heavy packages, so I found it useful to be at least somewhat fit. Not that I had abs of steel or anything but I had been in decent shape for as long as I can remember.

When I was little, my parents wanted me to learn some way to defend myself since I kept coming home with bruises; they had suspected that I was the victim of a bully and I had never told them otherwise, even though it wasn't true. I had liked climbing the jungle gym outside and was embarrassingly clumsy on it. They had enrolled me in several different self-defense classes before I finally found one that I liked: boxing.

While I was not a boxing prodigy by any means, I had enjoyed the rhythm and flow of the motions, plus it helped me keep in shape and helped with my hand-eye coordination; no more bruises while climbing. Almost ten years later, I kept up with boxing, but just as a personal hobby.

When my coordination had improved back in those elementary days, Tommy and I had gotten into a sword fighting phase. It was never practical but we had fun, and I'm sure it had something to do with us keeping in decent shape. I don't remember where we got those wooden swords, but we'd have long battles, pretending to be the heroes of our favorite stories. I was usually Link, from The Legend Of Zelda but Tommy often chose from a variety of characters from his favorite game franchise, Final Fantasy.

Tommy and I didn't fight with wooden swords anymore but I still had mine in my apartment. It was hung on the wall, broken at the cross-section from the last time we had battled. I still remember hearing the 'Pop' sound it made; I had expected it to crack and splinter, but it was a clean break. After that, we decided to retire our blades for the finer things in life. Like pizza.

After an hour of working out while watching reruns of the sitcom Friends, I took a shower. I've heard that certain places and doing certain things can give you good ideas; or at least help you think more clearly. The shower was one of these places for me. I guess the sound of water rushing down and the mindless task of washing and rinsing lets my mind relax and focus all at once.

Visions of the bloody man came to mind. It had looked too real. My jaw instinctively tightened. Why was this dream still so vivid? Most of my dreams faded quickly after I woke up and those that I could remember I definitely couldn't recall with such detail.

I was at the pizza place when everything had happened. Part of me wondered if it would happen again, now that I was awake. No. I shook my head, spraying needles of water all around. It was a dream. Let's not let my imagination run too wild. Still, I had a strange feeling about today.

It was hard to shake the ominous feeling when small oddities throughout the morning kept me feeling slightly out of place. My first trip outside of the apartment was to take the trash and recycling down to the community dumpsters a few yards from my building's door, but when I stepped out of my door, my drummer neighbor ran into me.

"Sorry," he said, taking a step back. "Didn't see you."

I told him not to worry about it and we made our way downstairs. He was usually polite and attentive. Sure, he had no sense of when was an appropriate time to play loud instruments in the morning, but outside of that, he was a great guy and often spoke with me about video games or music. But today, he was quiet and didn't say anything. Almost like he already forgot that I was there.

I shook my head. He probably just had a lot on his mind or was in a hurry to get somewhere. Just as we were both about to leave, he slipped through the main door, letting the door swing shut behind him. I had been close on his heels since he was the type to open doors for people and the glass almost hit me in the face. I squeaked out a startled shout as I backed away, which caused him to do a double-take and open the door for me.

"Sorry," he said again, reopening the door. "Don't know where my head's at today." After an awkward goodbye, we went our separate ways, but my mind was already over-analyzing the event.

My steps slowed as the thought of the hooded figure from my dream came to mind. He said that things were going to change and during the dream, my friends and everyone else seemed to ignore me, treating me like I wasn't there. Shaking my head, I mentally berated myself and continued walking. I was being too weird about this.

I got rid of my bag of trash and dumped my bin of recyclables, then turned back to my apartment. I still had a couple hours before Tommy would be by to walk with me to Bingo's. On my way, I noticed Mr. Mycolf enjoying his morning coffee while sitting outside with his dog. I waved and Mr. Mycolf waved back but the dog did not react to me, which was strange. Mr. Mycolf's dog always barked like crazy and wagged his tail thirty miles an hour every time he saw me. I stopped and decided to investigate.

"How are you Mr. Mycolf?" I didn't know his first name. He always introduced himself by his surname.

"Oh, fine," he said, eyeing his dog curiously. "Ol' Joe here must be tired. He's never this docile around other people."

I crouched down and pet Joe behind the ears. No reaction.

"Come on, Joe," Mr. Mycolf said, "You know Xander." Joe finally raised his head and his tail began to wag furiously. I relaxed a little as I continued to stroke his ears and neck, but I almost lost my balance when he started to bark. That's when I noticed his head moving as if tracking something behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to find a biker cutting across the parking lot. Mr. Mycolf either didn't notice the biker or assumed that the dog decided to warm up to me. "Good boy, Joe," he said, patting the dog on the head. "You know him, he's a good kid." Then he turned his attention to me. "You see the news lately?"

"No," I said, standing up, "why?"

"People gone missing."

"Like runaways?" I suggested, but briefly remembered what Paul had said yesterday about people going missing.

"Naw." He scratched the back of his head. "This is lots of people. Three just last night and more the day before that. Family, friends, co-workers, nobody can find'em, so now they're on the news. Thing is, the news are sayin' that they've run away. I don't think so."

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Kidnapping," he stated flatly.

"Wouldn't the family have gotten a ransom note or something?"

"Depends on what they took'em for. I've seen this before, about a year ago, when I lived in the heart of Georgia. Five people were taken from a small area. All last seen in different locations and they didn't have nothin' in common. Different races, ages. Men, women. All five just gone in about two days time. No ransom note there either. None of them came back. The news said they were runaways too."

He paused, letting that sink in. I've never been very good at keeping up with the news, but I had never heard of a mass runaway thing before.

"I knew one of them," he continued. "Demi Seer. Pretty girl. I think she'd be about your age. Sky blue eyes. Had a scar on the side of her neck; got it from a bike accident when she was a kid. Happened in front of my old house. I lived next door to her family. She'd help me keep the weeds out of my lawn and I'd give her some money for the help. She was a good kid. Loved her parents and they loved her. Had a job she liked; goals with her life. Then one day, poof." Mr. Mycolf paused. "Never saw her again. Her parents put their house up for sale around the same time I did." He grunted. "Well, look what I've made out of this sunny day. I went and made it cloudy. Sorry, Xander. Ignore this old fool's conspiracy theories. You go on with your day. Just be careful."

I nodded my head, looked at Old Joe, who was still not looking at me and said goodbye as cheerily as I could, but at the same time, feeling odd and a bit down. Mr. Mycolf was a level-headed man. I didn't expect him to be such a conspiracy theorist. It made me wonder if he was right; maybe the missing people didn't go willingly.

When I reached my apartment on the second floor, I went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. I washed my face with water and fixed the muddy blonde mop that I called hair. Blue eyes stared into mine. Yup, it was me. I reached out to touch the face in the mirror, half expecting my hand to go straight through. Nothing strange happened. Everything seemed normal.

I shook my head and pointed to my reflection, "You're being weird." I pat my face gently. "Relax. It was just a dream. Stop overthinking it."

This did nothing to ease my unease, since I don't typically give myself pep talks; at least not out loud. My mind kept flashing back to everything that was happening today. My neighbor and Old Joe seemed to not notice me and then there are those weird missing persons reports. It all made me feel like I was going to be the next one to end up missing. I decided to do something to get my mind off of the strange things. So, I chose to deep clean my apartment. I kept my apartment clean enough for guests to come by, but some areas were neglected. My fridge hadn't been cleaned in a while and the bathroom was a bit of a disaster, so I put on some music and got to it.

When I was finally satisfied with the progress I had made, I sat on the couch to relax. Phil Collins was on the stereo singing "Take Me Home". P.C. was my dad's favorite musician and this song reminded me of countless occasions during which we'd belted out the lyrics at the top of our lungs while driving, looking like fools to everyone we passed. I missed my parents. Looking at the clock, I decided to call them.

"Hello?" A familiar voice called out from the receiving end of my phone. She had a gentle alto and sounded tired.

"Hey mom. Is this a good time?"

"Oh, Xander. Yes, your dad and I just got home. How are you?"

"Good. I keep forgetting the time difference. What time is it there?"

"A little after six," she said with a small laugh. My parents were in Russia, helping the locals as missionaries. It was a new career choice they had made, shortly after I had finished highschool and gotten my own place here. "How's school and work?"

"They're fine, nothing new. Actually, Tommy and Michael are going to help me look for a new place to work on Monday."

"Did something happen?"

"No. Just ready for something else." There was a pause on the other line and I knew she was suspicious. I was never the one to invoke change. "Anyway, what have you two been up to?"

"Right now, we're helping fix homes for some of the locals. Mostly, a lot of roof work, but we've helped with some other home projects too. We were painting today. I wish I had thought to take a picture of your dad," she said with a laugh. "He had left a bucket of paint on a ladder and knocked it over as we were cleaning up. He was absolutely covered."

"Oh no!" I chuckled, "Were you painting inside?"

"Yup. It got everywhere! Your dad said he'd fix it tomorrow. He's in the shower right now. Did you want to talk with him?"

"No, that's okay. Just thought I'd call to say hi."

"Alright, dear. Sorry, but I should get dinner. We were going to grab something on the way, but after the paint drop, we went home first. Stay safe, okay? Love you."

"I will. Love you too. Have a good night. Say hi to dad for me! Bye."

I sighed. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that my life here was kind of boring, really. Mom and Dad were out in the world, trying to make a difference. Sidra was down south making her dreams a reality. What did I want? Tommy and Michael got me to agree to look for a new job but now, I was wondering if there was more; like it had opened up the floodgates of change. I shook my head and told myself to be content. I told myself that I liked my routine, even if I wasn't sure if that was true. Part of me really did like my schedule. It was easy and had room for fun to keep things upbeat. But there was a voice in the back of my mind that was telling me that there was more to life than what I was living.

Maybe it was the gamer in me, or maybe the child in me, but another part of me wanted some kind of adventure. Some danger and excitement. Maybe that's why I liked keeping up with boxing so much. Keep me in shape for the unknown where a princess would need me, and only me, to save the world from some kind of monster. Definitely the kid in me.