Prologue - Distant Dreams

So much of my childhood seems like a dream.

I lived somewhere so wonderful, with loving people and unbelievable technology. Nostalgia and desire for what I once had comes and goes. When I try to think of that place where I spent so many years of my life, and the people I knew and loved there, even the more difficult things seem like part of a bittersweet dream.

My family, my home, all of the things and people that felt as natural to me as breathing no longer feel like reality anymore, and I’m mostly content with that. I simply wish I could see certain faces again.

People who love me, and who I on one hand hope miss me and on the other hope forgot about me enough to be at peace. As they have become parts of a distant memory to me, so to do I wish that I’ve become the same for them. Someone to remember with fondness, and only a hint of melancholy.

My parents worked hard for me and my brother. They loved us dearly, but in our own ways neither of us were their ideal children, though realistically that could be said of most kids.

How do they all feel without me? Do they know yet?

My brother was passionate about music, art, and games, and spent a lot of time out and about with his friends, meanwhile my parents wished he’d spent a little more time on academics. He was clever, and multi talented in a way I found myself looking up to, but never one to try in school. I always wanted to spend time with him and his friends, despite the gap in our ages, and did my best time and again to get into the things he liked to be cool, like he was, despite the fact that I couldn’t really translate his style in a way that improved my own “coolness.” I wasn’t always successful in capturing my own interest with his interests, but regardless I was satisfied at the times where we could agree on something like a game and he’d let me sit with him in his room while we enjoyed those things together.

Is he worried about me?

My parents had some “weird, nerdy” interests of their own when they were younger like trading cards and roleplaying games that they shared with me where they could, but for the most part my fondest memories with them involved the times we all could go somewhere and do something, like fishing or long road trips. To a certain extent, while my parents did what they could to encourage me, and never held the expectation that I would be the most popular kid in school, the degree to which I was focused on my own interests and disliked by other kids at school seemed to me to be distressing to them. Maybe they were focused on their own struggles in school, and felt the need to ensure I didn’t experience the same bullying they did. This was probably our biggest source of conflict, considering the fact that my interests tended to coincidentally be useful for keeping my grades high. A lot of their focus was therefore on trying to help me become more social and active, with limited success.

I’ll never see them again. Are they okay?

I had a friend here and there at school, but time and time again they left me when their interest in me waned, and while it hurt me every time I simply reburied myself in books or whatever other interest had caught my eye. I was never afraid to be alone with a book or my new fixation. While there were times I certainly wished I had a better understanding of what others were thinking and how I could get along with them, with that same wish I could imagine a few things about myself, like parts of my appearance otherwise out of my control, that I would've wanted to change far more. Those same friends might or might not have understood that wish if I ever tried to articulate it to them.

Are any of them upset about me?

Most of my happy early memories involved spending time with my uncle and aunt at their house on the weekends and during breaks. I loved spending time with the rest of my family, but I specifically remember how my uncle and I used to spend hours and hours watching tv documentaries together, then more hours on top of that talking back and forth about animals, machines, history, or the strange new subject one of us came across in a magazine or book. I’d even talk his ear off about a new book I’d read about a set of kids building a plane or saving the world, ones he’d never have the inkling to read himself, and he’d always listen. Anything and everything was fair game. Even when we didn’t agree on something, he and I could spend hours explaining our viewpoints to each other, even coming up with new theories, and leave happy.

My uncle was one of the few people in my life who didn’t ask me to be quiet, or ask me to do something else, someone who was genuinely interested in the subjects I was interested in and was always willing to hear what I wanted to say. My dad was similar in this regard, sure, but he was more often busy or tired and didn’t have the same kind of time and patience my uncle had. My mom had less interest in those kinds of things, so while she tended to listen when she could she commonly had nothing to say in response, and instead we ended up talking past each other about subjects only one of us cared to understand.

How are they taking it? Is my uncle distracting himself with anything?

I had known my uncle my entire life, and even if I understood that other people around me didn’t have the same interests and fixation on those interests that I did, I had not consciously recognized how lucky I was to have someone who cared so much about me and the things that I loved. He had always been there, and some part of me thought he would always be there.

The same was true for the rest of my family.

I was only 13 by the time those talks, those car trips, and those times playing games in my brother's room came to an end, and only sometime after they ended did I realize how rare and wonderful those relationships were.

Maybe they were still there, thinking the same sorts of things about me. They weren’t the ones who disappeared, after all.

I was.

I couldn’t immediately panic, though I probably should have, when I recognized that I was alone in an unfamiliar place, and that everything about and around me was entirely different from the room I had fallen asleep in. The book beside me was gone, the covers over me, the pillow under me, the walls covered in glowing stars, and the roof plastered with old birthday balloons. Everything I knew had been with me when I’d fallen asleep, except the jeans and t-shirt I’d still been wearing from my school, and the book light and plastic toy in my pockets, were gone.

I was alone.

I barely took a few steps into the trees before I was face to face with something that had been walking in my direction just behind the treeline, whose body was about two times my size but in the shape of a lean bird with a long neck, articulate wings with clawed hands at their ends, and bright blue eyes that were focused in my direction. As I stopped and we stared at each other, I found myself mystified by the soft light visible from the dark blue flames lighting their feathers.