Just another day in the life

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

“Already?”, I turn off the alarm ringing on my phone.

“The dream was just starting to get spicy.”

It’s a Monday. That means the cycle starts all over again—class, assignments, project work, class, assignments, project work, over and over and over again. I grab my toothbrush and make it to the common washroom area, there’s only about a few other guys there, it’s 6AM- most people wake up at 7 but I like to start early, not ‘cos I’m a hard worker nor because I’m grinding for something in my life…. just because that's the way I like to do things.

After I finish brushing I head back to the room and grab my bucket & mug to get to the showers first, hot water runs out fast (that’s another reason I wake up early). I turn the corner to the bathroom to see no one there.

“Score”

Not really, most college students postpone bathing till as late as possible, taking bath in the morning like me is a habit only found in a rare few… but once again I don’t do it to be on a CEO schedule or anything…I just wanna get rid of my bed hair as soon as possible.

I finish taking bath, put on a new pair of clothes my mom bought me last time I went home. It was summer vacation and a beautiful one at that…God I love summer vacation, no responsibilities, no projects no-

“Hey Sid, you daydreaming again?”

I turn around to see who nudged me but I don’t really have to, I could recognize that voice even if I was wearing headphones... that’s how loud he is.

“Good morning Mike!”

“Morning”

“You started working on your NLP project?”, he says.

“No, I’m postponing it…I want to but what’s another project?”

“You gotta start as soon as possible dude, that’s how you let the professor know you’re serious about it.”

“But I’m not though…”

“I know that! But you gotta butter up your professors dude, you’ve been here 4 years you can’t keep up that nonchalant attitude forever. No company’s gonna hire you with all that smug energy you got.”

No company huh… what makes him think I wanna be hired in the first place… companies just use their employees by luring them in with the promise of money or whatever. They don’t care about if you have a well-balanced life or not, or if you’re doing well or if you even like what you’re doing for them, as long as they get what they want you’re just another cog in their butt-ugly machine… and if by chance that cog stops moving or is affecting their machine in any way- off it goes, replaced by another cog or worse something else… Why does he want their approval anyway?

“Dude! Stop spacing out, let’s go…you don’t wanna be late”, he says.

“Sure.”

We make it to class in time with five minutes to spare, everyone in class looks bored out of their minds, if someone isn’t scrolling on their phones they're trying to get some sleep. Not to bring it up again but that’s another reason I wake up early and try my best to keep up with my daily tasks, just to get enough sleep at the end of it all. God I love sleep!

“Good morning everyone! Please take out your notebooks”, the professor says.

“Hey Sid!”

Who’s it now?

“Sid!”
“Oh hey, Nina”

“I forgot my notebook, could you lend me one of yours?”, she says smiling stupidly.
“Yeah sure”, I say pulling out a notebook I use to doodle on during class.
“Thanks! I won’t write anything on it… it’s just for show you know”
“Yeah, it’s alright I get it.”
“Thank you!”

Nina… why couldn’t she just ask her boyfriend for a notebook anyway. Why does she have to take mine? I guess the idiot didn’t bring any books himself.

Each class goes on as dryly as the last. Machine Learning, NLP, Data compression- all the names sound the same. They sound devoid of life, no beauty in it whatsoever.

“Let’s go dude it’s lunch time!”, Mike says.
“Coming coming!”
“We gotta make it back fast, we got chicken in the canteen today… you keep dilly-dallying and the queue is gonna get out of hand”
“Gimme a second, I’m coming!”

I throw my pencil case and the notebook I'd been doodling in during all three classes into my bag and me and Mike run back to the canteen as fast as we can. It’s not a long walk from the academic building to the canteen but Mike insisted we run back- he gets really agitated anytime he has to wait in a queue. Luckily for him we didn’t really have to, when we got there, there were only 2 other people in front of us waiting to get served lunch.

“Chicken! Chicken! Chicken”, Mike says happily, spinning his plate in his hands.
“You really do love the canteen food huh?”, I say.
“Not really… I just love chicken!”

We eat the meal in silence, Mike was too busy watching a show on his phone and I was too busy staring at the blank wall in front of me. My silent pondering only broken by Mike’s voice.

“Dude! You gotta see this”, he says while holding out his phone to show me something.
“Doesn’t this actress look like Nina”, he says.

“Nina from NLP?”, I ask.
“Yeah! Doesn’t she?”
“Kinda…”
“She totally does dude!”
“If you say so.”

He goes back to watching his show and I go back to eating my food in silence when I realize- Nina never did give me my notebook back. Ugh! This is annoying. I guess I’ll ask her during my lab class at four.

We walk back to the dorm after finishing up lunch, Mike walks next to me in a zombielike daze- staring at his phone while he climbs up the stairs (It would be impressive if it wasn’t so dystopian). I make it back to my room, take off my clothes and change into something more comfortable and close the curtains and fall onto my bed exhausted. I got class again in 4 hours, I can squeeze a quick nap in there.

My eyelids feel heavy and before I know it everything goes dark as I drift off to sleep...

***

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

I wake up and quickly turn off the alarm blaring on my phone... I lazily fall outta bed and throw my bag over my shoulder, slide my phone into my pocket as I turn to head out the door. I slowly throw open the door to my dorm room and step out into what should be the corridor of my dorm building but I feel my feet touch something softer instead.

It's grass

"That's weird."

I hear the faint sound of my door closing behind me as I stare up at what seems to be a meadow that stretches on for as far as the eye can see. There seems to be no person in sight just an endless plain of grass and flowers. 

"Where in god's name am I?"

I turn around to re-enter my room only to find the door that was there a second ago is now missing.

"Well great!"

As my helplessness to alter the situation slowly starts to dawn on me I slowly start to walk further down the meadow in case that leads to any more clues about my current predicament. I've watched plenty of TV shows where the main character gets transported to another world. Isn't there usually a pretty girl or something that greets them when they get transported?

"You there!", a voice booms in my head.

There she is I think to myself as i turn expecting to see a fairy descending down to tell me I am the long lost hero of this land or something along those lines. With such hopes in mind I turn around only to be met with the empty meadow behind me.

"Up here!", it beckons to me.

I stare up into the blue sky to see a creature hovering way up in the clouds. It seems to be some sort of bird but it's way too far up in the air for me to tell exactly what it is.

"Hello?"
"What are you doing in the training grounds at such an hour?", the voice sounds in my head.
"Training grounds?"
"You shouldn't be out here all by yourself."
"...well if you could show me a way out I would gladly leave.", I say politely.
There is a brief pause.
"Very well", the voice sounds in my head again.

I see the creature descend onto the meadow as its form slowly appears to become larger and larger and that's when I realize I was mistaken about it entirely. The closer it gets, the more its individual features become apparent., the first thing I notice is how large the body of the creature is, the second- sharp wings with pointy edges that flap violently, the third a long lizard like body and finally it's overall red color. 

The dragon hovers slightly above my head, it's flapping wings generating enough force to throw me off balance but I hold on as it slowly lands onto the meadow and lays in a sleeping position. It looks even more astounding this close-up, its bright yellow eyes, its scaly red skin and it's thick black horns, scales running down it's back all of it looks like it's straight out of a fantasy novel. I stare in awe at the creature, the effect only to be broken by a figure sitting on top of the dragon. Clad in armor from head to toe, it's hard to discern exactly who the person is but from the overall shape of their figure, they seem to be a human.

"Hello? Were you the one talking to me?"

The person sitting atop the dragon does not reply but simply begins to take off what looks to be a harness and slowly dismounts off the dragon landing onto the meadow and takes slow steps in my direction. As they appear closer I notice the armor is squeaky clean, not a dent or scratch anywhere, whoever this person is they for sure haven't been in a fight. The armor wasn't anything special, it looked like your bog-standard knight armor, the head gear resembling what most knights in medieval times would wear, other than the armor itself, the knight carried with him a shield and a sword which were slightly more peculiar than the armor itself. The sword seemed to be a bright purple in color and the color within it was fading in and out in a wave-like pattern that made it seem like it had some sort of magical property and the shield had a giant symbol on it that resembled the letter "Q". Just as I was about to double check whether it looked like a "Q" or an "O" I found myself staring up at the knight who was now standing right in front of me.

"You gonna take the helmet off?", I ask.

Without replying to me, the knight lifts both their hands to their head and slowly tears off their helmet. My expectations were shattered, I saw myself staring up at a young man who seemed to be in his 20s, he had dark black eyes and perfectly trimmed sharp eyebrows, his hair fell over his forehead and had a streak of yellow going across it but the rest of it seemed to be black. He was very handsome and I had to look away because I felt self-conscious for staring so long.

"What brings you here?", he says.
"Were you the voice in my head?"
"Yes, that was me. Now answer me, what brings you here?"
"I have no idea, I was in my room a minute ago, I stepped out my door and found myself standing in this meadow."
"That seems awfully convenient.", he says in a doubtful tone.
"It's the truth, I swear."

He looks down at me almost as if he is sizing me up, his eyebrows twisted in thought before he replies.

"No matter what reason for your being here, you have to leave. If any of the guards see you they would report you to the king.", he says sternly.
"Well I don't know the way out...", I reply.
"Nevermind that, hop on Fantasia here and I'll fly you out", he says pointing to the dragon who snorts a puff of smoke as if to concur with him.
I reconsider my options for a moment, either I follow this dude with his multicolored hair or I go off by myself and get lost in this unknown world or if what he says is to be believed then apparently some king is going to come after me.

He leads me to the dragon and hops on with ease and holds his hand out to help me mount it, the dragons body is even bigger up close and it seems a task to get on it, I put my leg onto the giant harness and slowly climb onto the dragon's back. The harness doubles as a seat for whosoever wishes to ride the dragon and is big enough to fit multiple people on top of it, what's interesting however is that there doesn't seem to be any reins to steer the dragon however. While I was busy pondering how my mysterious colored-hair companion was going to get the dragon to do his bidding he turns to face me.

"My name is Jo Swallo, it's a pleasure to meet you", he says.
"This is my partner Fantasia, he's 5 years old.", he continues while rubbing the dragon on it's back.
"What is your name?"

"I'm Sid. Sid Mist, nice to meet you as well.", I say while trying to maintain eye-contact.

He nods and replaces his helmet atop his head again, he then leans over so that his head is hovering over the nape of the dragon and almost immediately the dragon starts flapping its wings and slowly starts to take off, you can see each flap of it's wings throw a dozen petals from the surrounding flowers way up in the air. I hold onto the harness which has these handles running down it's sides as the Fantasia takes off into the blue sky.

"How are you controlling it?", I ask.
"Her", he says.
"What?"
"Fantasia is a female"
"Oh."
"As for how I'm controlling it, I'm sure you learned all about it in school have you not?", he asks.
"Can't say I have..."
"Each dragon and its rider are mentally linked."
"So mind control?"
"Not so much mind control as mind communication.", he corrects me
"That was also how I was talking to you earlier."

We fly through the sky in silence, whatever this world may be their skies look much like ours- a blue expanse riddled with fluffy white clouds, the wind flowing through my hair adds to the atmosphere and for a moment I forget I am not in college and I'm lost in this dream-like world and all my questions and concerns melt away as I stare into the endless blue of the sky. I had to collect my notebook back from Nina today, wonder if I'll ever see Nina again.

"We're almost there", Jo says breaking my train of thought.
"And where is that?", I ask.
"I'm bringing you over to my friend's house, you can stay at his place for today and go back to yours whenever you wish to.", he says.
"I would take you back to my place if I could but the commoners aren't allowed anywhere near the Knights grounds, as I'm sure you are already aware.", he continues.
"Who is your friend?", I ask.
"Gig Ithai, he's a very friendly Elefantian, we studied together when we were in school."
"Elefantian?"
"Yes, Elefantian- The ones with the trunks you know."
"Oh yeah, Elefantian", I say pretending to understand.
"Look, Could you remind me which country we are in again?", I ask as smoothly as I can.
"Country? We are in a kingdom my friend."
"And which kingdom is that?"
"The wonderful kingdom of Quinly, of course!"