New York City: The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, The Capital of the World, etc. It's a place where small people come to do big things. Or a place where people reside to live out their everyday lives. Either way, everyone big or small has the chance to do or become something great. Sometimes, these great things appear seemingly out of nowhere and give an unsuspecting person a chance to do something amazing.
Alec Cindercloud, a 15-year-old boy with curly brown hair, has always been made fun of for his fantasy-sounding name. Even so, he's always been fascinated by the concept of magic. His father, Erick Cindercloud, has filled his life with magic ever since he was young. Well, not legitimate magic... more like fantasy stories and tales that Erick would explain in immense detail. The world that Erick set his tales in, Haevon, was almost like a real place to Alec. It was like Erick had lived there and witnessed every little detail. In his stories, he said there was a city just like New York City, but it was floating in the air. Its name was Kroywen Island or KWI. On KWI, there was magic everywhere and a prestigious magic school that trained the best mages in the entire world of Haevon. But that was only a story. Only Alec's imagination could bring that place to life. Well, maybe not forever. Soon, that place, that just seemed like a fantastical world inside of Alec's head, would become a place that is almost as close as his own home.
Oh, but who am I? I'm not the main focus of the story at hand, am I? For now, my real identity will be unimportant. Now, allow me to tell you this tale.
On the day this story began, it was dreary. An overcast, rainy day like any other. Alec had just finished running some errands for his father and was riding the subway home. He sat in the middle of the bench up against the big window with his black backpack covered in fantasy pins and umbrella next to him.
"Of course I choose the smelly car on a rainy day..." mumbled Alec in a grumpy tone.
The "smelly car", as he said, was a car on the subway that always had this odd stench resonating from it no matter how many times it was cleaned. The car also had a corner that was covered with mold and other unsanitary things. Honestly, it was a shock that it hadn't been decommissioned yet... Oh... sorry, I'm starting to get off topic, aren't I?
Well, let's fast forward a bit. After Alec got off the smelly subway car he walked down the street with the cold rain, umbrella in hand. The air was filled with that scent. You know that scent, the rain one? Some find it nice and others find it a little bit less than nice. As for Alec, he hated that smell. It reminded him that it was going to be a bad day. Along with the scent, the wind was cold and unforgiving.
The sound of Alec's boots stepping through the clear puddles played on repeat. Splish, splash, splish, splash.
As he walked through the dreary street, he sighed. "Why do these kinds of days have to suck so much?" he asked himself.
If you couldn't tell, Alec hated days with rain. Actually, he hated rain in general. It made the usual bright and sunny days ugly with dark clouds and smelly water.
Alec scratched his head with his open left hand. "Did I have math homework this weekend...? Ugh, I can't even remember..." he muttered. "I'm just gonna take a nap when I get home,"
Alec neared his home, the 2nd floor of a sub sandwich shop. As he stepped in front of the old door to the stairs, he noticed something blue peeking out of the steel mailbox attached to the brick wall. He stared at it with confusion, wondering why it was there and what it could be.
"The mail doesn't come on Sundays, though..." he said, squinting his eyes.
Curiosity filled his mind and he slowly opened the mailbox. It creaked screeched as the top of the box was lifted by Alec. Lying there was a blue envelope with a peculiar insignia in the middle. The emblem, an extremely fancy K with a star to the left of it, had that weird sense of familiarity to it, even though Alec had never seen it before. He carefully reached inside the box and pulled out the letter. It was addressed to him from Kroywen's School of Magic Arts.
He breathed in deeply and then slowly breathed out in annoyance while clenching his fists. "Guess those jerks are playing another stupid joke, huh...?" Alec growled, his temper becoming more and more scarce.
Without a second thought, he threw it on the ground and smashed it with his wet boots. Then, he ground it with the heel of his boot before slowly lifting it off. He stared at the letter, now damp and soggy.
"God, can't they find anything better to do?" he asked. "They even went out of their way this time to make some fancy logo... Damn idiots..."
Alec would always tell his friends and classmates about the stories from his father. But, some of the people who he told would only pester him. He had already received letters like this in the past, so it's only natural that he would toss it aside.
After staring at the letter for a few more seconds, he walked inside and slammed the door. At the time Alec arrived home, his father was on the 1st floor managing the shop. Erick, along with everyone in the shop, heard the door slam. One of the regulars, Tim, turned in the direction of the noise.
"Was that your kid?" asked Tim.
"Probably," said Erick while chopping tomatoes. "I asked him to grab some ingredients earlier,"
Erick Cindercloud was 40-something at the time. He had the staple middleaged dad beard along with a head that was slowly losing hair day by day.
Tim gradually turned back to Erick with slight concern. "You sure you don't wanna go check on him?" he asked.
Erick put the sliced tomatoes into a Tupperware case and casually shrugged. "I'll give him some time alone. I don't need those ingredients yet anyways, so it's best to just leave him be."
Tim took a refreshing sip of his coffee and gently placed it on a coaster.
"I don't have any kids of my own, so I don't really have much knowledge in this kind of stuff," stated Tim, looking down at his coffee. "But don't you think you should at least see if he's okay?
"If it was that big of a problem he would've come to me first,"
Tim chuckled cheerfully in response. "Yeah, I guess you're right. That's why you're the parent,"
Alec placed his wet boots and umbrella near the door and quickly ran up the stairs. He stomped through the quiet house before arriving at his fantasy merchandise filled room and tossing his bag onto the floor. Before, he was able to shrug off the letters he would receive from those boys, but this one really got to him. Alec stood in his doorway with his eyes shut, fists clenched and breathing heavily.
"I should've never told them those stories... If I never told them, I would never get these dumb letters..." whispered Alec.
He slowly opened his eyes and scanned his room. His eyes widened as he noticed what was on his bed. The blue envelope with the fancy emblem that he smashed laid on his bed, unscratched and perfectly folded. Alec took a step back in disbelief. Anxiety flowed through him as he realized what happened.
"H-how... how did they...?" he stuttered, taken aback by what he had seen.
Understandably, he had thought that the aforementioned boys had broken and placed another letter in his room. So, he ran around the house and checked all of the windows. They were all locked, even his own.
After making sure the windows were locked, Alec sat in his desk chair across the room from his bed. His room wasn't too large. There were only a few feet between him and the bed, but he still sat there and stared at the envelope.
"If no one broke in... then how did this end up on my bed...?" he asked. "I thought I stepped on this thing outside... but it's right here on my bed..." After a few more minutes of staring at it, he stood up and walked over to his bed.
He gulped and shakily picked it up. "Now that I look at it up close... this emblem looks pretty legit. It would be hard for a high schooler to design something like this,"
Some seconds passed and eventually, Alec decided to open the letter. He flipped it around and undid the seal. As the envelope opened, a quick white flash came from inside. A huge smile grew on his face in anticipation. Without wasting a second, he pulled the letter out and unfolded it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dear Mr. Cindercloud,
Hello, my name is Aem Pyre, headmaster of Kroywen's School of Magic Arts. This notice may come as a surprise to you but as the son of The Great Scorch Mage, you have been chosen to study at our prestigious magic academy. Now, I can only assume that your father has told you about our world that is separate to yours, so we would like you to visit our school immediately. We have much to discuss. Press your finger on the circle that is printed below this message to be sent over. I hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Professor Pyre
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Disbelief. That word is probably the best way to explain Alec's current emotion at that moment. His response to the letter was not words or actions, but tears. Tears started streaming down his face as soon as he finished reading the letter and he didn't even have confirmation if it was real yet. Even if it was fake, even if it was another prank letter that he despised... he believed this one. He had faith in it.
Wiping the tears off of his face, he motioned his right hand towards the letter and extended his index finger towards the mentioned circle. He carefully placed his fingerprint in the circle and after a few seconds a blue light appeared and traced around the circle, causing it to glow. Then, the letter floated out of Alec's hands and hovered in front of him... before folding hundreds of times in a matter of seconds and vanishing.
"Whoa..."
That was the last thing Alec said before everything went white. No sound, just pure white.
...
THUD!
Alec came back into reality after falling onto countless boxes from a few inches in the air. Dust filled the room and only one beam of light peeked through the almost closed blinds of the window. Slowly, Alec pulled himself up to a sitting position as his ears popped like he was going up a mountain.
"What the hell happened...?" he asked, rubbing his back from the pain.
He stood up and noticed the light coming through the blinds. The light was like a beacon to Alec. A beacon leading him into a new path of his life. A beacon that would not only change his entire existence but also make his dream come true. He tiptoed around the boxes and eventually made it to the window.
"Inhale through the nose... and exhale through the mouth..." he told himself.
He never actually did it, but he said it for some reason. Well, getting to the main event, Alec nervously reached his hand out and grabbed the cord to open the blinds. Then, he actually did inhale and exhale. If he wouldn't have then he probably would've passed out. He hadn't actually breathed properly for at least a few minutes. Sorry, I'm just delaying the inevitable, aren't I? Swiftly, Alec pulled the cord down and a huge burst of light filled the dust-covered storage room he had woken up in. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust from the sudden light, but, after they did adjust, he saw it.
Magic.