Warped

PART ONE: A BIRTHDAY WISH

It was the day of Blaize’s tenth birthday and he looked forward to spending it with his beloved mother. He had not seen her for months and he missed her dearly. He loathed Avery’s job for tearing them apart. He missed his father more than anything in the world and he hated being kept caged up at the Wisdom Institute for Gifted Youngsters.

Blaize’s best friend, Purity, hated being at school as well. She hated the medicines they were forced to take after every meal as she felt that they made her weaker. She and Blaize had devised ingenious ways to skip the medicines altogether and trick the staff into thinking that they were still taking their medicines.

As a result of skipping the medications, both Blaize and Purity began to feel stronger. They performed magical fetes they had previously struggled with even better than they’d thought they were capable of. However, Blaize knew that if they weren’t careful, the staff would soon be onto them so he urged his best friend not to give them away by performing too well at tasks assigned to them.

On the momentous day of his birthday, his mother came to see him and spend time with him. She baked his cake herself and jovially sung happy birthday to him as she did every year. Avery then asked her little boy to blow out his candles and make a wish and be careful with what he wished for it might just come to pass.

The ten year old only had one wish- that his family had never been broken apart in the first place and that they were together forever. He blew out the birthday candles on his cake as he wished upon every star that his wish came true. Nothing appeased him after that because he knew his mother would inevitably return to catching ‘baddies’ and he would be abandoned as was always the case.

Later that night, his mother tucked him in, giving him a sweet kiss on his forehead.

“Sleep well, my little Prince. Dream of the stars,” she said lovingly.

“Mama, please don’t go. Please stay with me,”

Avery not only nodded to his request but soon lay next to him. Blaize held onto her with all the strength he could muster, silently crying in his mother’s arms. He spent all night wishing and praying that their lives were different and that he and his family were whole and had never parted to begin with and when he arose, he began to weep that his mother was inevitably gone yet again as he predicted she would be. He wept for a long time before opening his eyes and noticing that he was in a completely foreign environment.

Terrified, he began to scream for help and who better than his own parents bursting into the room to his rescue to heed to his plea.

“Papa?” he surprisingly asked of Emre, completely flabbergasted to see his deceased father in the flesh.

Emre immediately rushed to his side and scooped him up in his arms protectively as his mother scanned the room for any possible threats.

“Are you alright, Blaize? What happened?”

“Papa- how are you here?”

“Blaize, honey, what do you mean by that? You know I’d never let anyone hurt you or your mother,” his father answered Blaize surprised by his query; checking to ascertain that he was not ill.

“You’re- you’re supposed to be dead, Papa. How are you alive?”

“Blaize! Don’t say such horrible things about your papa!” Avery chastised him.

“But Mama, Papa died, remember? He died and we had a Wake for him and we were all really sad and we all cried very much, you most of all, Mama,”

Emre shook his head. “You poor thing. You must have had a nightmare, my sweet son, I’m so sorry. Avery, I’m afraid this is a very severe case and the only cure is at least five scoops of ice-cream for breakfast for our little man, stat,”

“Ice-cream? For- for breakfast?” Blaize asked his father excitedly.

Emre smiled and nodded setting his son down on his own two feet. Blaize turned to Avery and she said, “Very well. I’ll allow it but only because you’re the best son we could ever ask for and are so very brave after that horrible nightmare…”

Both Blaize and Emre jumped up and down for joy before racing out of the room towards the living room downstairs. This house looked nothing like their previous house, Blaize noted. Something was very different about this strange place he was in- it was almost as if he was in a dream world.

Blaize hoped he would never wake up from his lovely dream. His mother and father were both there with him and they seemed so happy and in love. Soon after that, his grandparents, Anna and Ember came to visit and with them, his Aunts Erabelle and Cindy, Penny and Elisabeth and his Grand Aunt Emilie and Grand Uncle Travis with all his cousins.

Soon after they arrived, his maternal grandparents, Aurora and Leal came to visit with some other Aunts and Uncles he had never met before, all brothers and sisters of Avery. Then Blaize knew he must be dreaming for sure because he knew his real grandparents had been killed before they had had a chance to have any more children. Blaize was afraid to wake up from his fever dream because he didn’t want them to go away.

Everything about this strange new dream world appealed to Blaize even as he went around exploring his new home, admiring and loving every new aspect of it. As more moments passed by, this dream began to feel more like reality and he had to pinch himself severally to ascertain whether he was truly awake and not just dreaming. Blaize was surprised that he didn’t seem to ‘wake up’ and that pinching himself truly registered in his mind.

After having a delicious meal made by his beloved mother that night, she tucked him in before turning away to exit from his bedroom. However, she lingered on the doorway before returning into the room and sitting on the edge of her son’s bed.

“Blaize honey, something doesn’t feel… right,”

“Mama, what do you mean?” Blaize asked alarmed.

“I feel as if… As if something has changed… Like… Like I am living some other person’s life,”

Blaize shook his head vehemently denying his mother’s assertion. “This is how it should always be, Mama,”

“Blaize, do you know something you are keeping from me?”

The child shook his head vehemently denying his mother’s inquiry.

Avery nodded and sighed. “Well then, good night, sweetheart. If you get any nightmares, you can just come and sleep with me and daddy, okay?” she asked. Blaize nodded and she kissed him tenderly before standing up from the edge of his bed.

Avery then walked away and shut the door firmly behind her before walking towards her own room. She found her husband waiting for her in their room.

“Emre, does something seem a miss to you?” she asked him.

” A miss, you say? Not at all, Avery. Why do you ask? Is anything the matter?”

“I- I don’t know how to explain this, Emre but I feel as if… I feel as if something isn’t right. I have the most curious case of Jamais Vu,”

“Maybe you’re just tired? How about a massage?”

“No, no… That’s okay. I- I just feel so strange,”

“That is quite concerning, my love. Maybe just sleep on it?”

Avery nodded but could barely get a wink of sleep that night. Everything felt so foreign to her like the very universe was different somehow. When she did manage to get some sleep, Avery had vivid dreams about living in a strange Sphere together with Emre and the rest of their family whose personalities did not match any of the ones she was supposed to know. The dreams somehow convinced Avery that her son knew more about what she was going through than he was letting on…

TO BE CONTINUED…

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