Chapter 1
A breeze of wind whistles through the open window, blowing the curtains sideways, knocking the Tracy McGrady bobble head on to the floor next to the bed. It hits the metal leg, making a high-pitched noise. While it echoes around the room, a squeaking noise starts coming from the bed. On the bed lies a sixteen-year-old teenager shaking his right leg rapidly. His skin color is close to bronze, he has a buzz cut hairstyle, and wears no shirt, just blue ripped jeans. The teenager’s eyes are open and staring at the ceiling with his arms laying behind his head, wondering how the first day of school is going to be tomorrow. It’s his sophomore year and he is overly excited, but his face doesn’t appear that way. He has no facial expression at all, just a plain face. He takes a long breath in and pauses for a moment. He then releases the gasp of air and rolls over to his side. Then the memory of his love engulfs his mind since he will be able to see her tomorrow. She went to Florida for the summer to visit her family. They haven’t talked for the two weeks. but he hopes she gets home safely and will let him know she’s back. This memory fuels his excitement even further until a smile appears. The thoughts about her sweet silky skin brushing upon his leave multiple butterflies within his stomach. But then he’s interrupted by a loud female voice coming from downstairs.
“Orion! I’m going to work, are you going anywhere?” she asks in a rushed tone as if she is running late. He then turns his head toward his bedroom door and clears his throat.
“I don’t know mom. I think Leon is going to the park so if he calls me or whatever then, maybe,” Orion replies.
“Ok! Well don’t forget to take your key and lock the door,” she adds, opening up the front door.
“Alright mom, be careful when going to work and I love you, I’ll see you later,” he yells. The front door closes, and Orion jumps up out of his bed. He then walks over to his dresser and grabs his phone off the top of it. He notices that Leon has called him a few times within the past hour. Leon had been Orion’s longtime friend when they were just six years old. They are the same age, and their birthdays are seven days apart; Orion’s birthday is May 31st, and Leon’s June 7th. He looks at the clock, and it shows that it is 2:48 p.m. He quickly calls Leon back, while still trying to figure out what he is going to do today. Leon picks up the phone, and a weird thudding sound comes from the phone, as if he dropped the phone, followed by someone blurting, “Jesus, is it broken? No, it’s good.” Then the person puts the phone near his ear and speaks. “What’s up Orion? I've been calling you all day!” Leon complains.
“I know. I was on my bed thinking and my phone was on the dresser, on silence,” Orion explains as he paces around the room, looking for a shirt to wear.
“Well look, I’m at the crib so come over so we can find something to do,” Leon demands in a bored tone.
“For sure that sounds like a plan. Do you know if anyone is going to the courts today?” Orion asks, moving his rolling chair away from his study desk.
“Demetri told me yesterday that he was going up there today, but I don’t know if he is still going,” Leon explains as an incoming call comes to Orion’s phone. He then looks down at his phone and sees a number with which he is unfamiliar.
“Hold on Leon, someone’s calling me.” Orion interrupts as he puts Leon on hold. After switching over to the incoming caller, a gruff voice speaks.
“Hey what’s up bro,” the random caller greets, as Orion thinks to himself, who is this, and what does he want?
“Who’s this?” Orion replies gingerly.
“It’s Demetri,” he answers back. The name quickly reassures Orion and makes him feel better.
“Oh, hey bro, what’s up? Whose phone you are using?” He questions as he notices his bobble head on the floor.
“I was calling to see if you trying to hang out or practice for the tryouts to get on the team this year, and I’m using my older sister’s phone.” Every year there are tryouts at Orion’s school for the basketball team. Last year, Orion, nor his friends were able to join the team. The coach at that time didn’t like the idea of having first-year students on the basketball team because he believed first-year students were too young for his coaching style. A smile slowly forms on Orion’s face, causing him to let out a little laugh. He then picks up his bobble head off the floor and places it back in the window.
“Hell, yeah bro! Leon and I were already talking about going up to the courts right before you called,” Orion replies excitedly.
“We all should go, so I can show you how to really play basketball,” Demetri jokes as they both laugh at the same time.
“Alright, we will have to see about that.” Orion says, looking out the window. Such a beautiful day it is, he thinks to himself. “Imma be t-mac and you can be anybody and ill still tax yo ass,” he boasts while flexing his right arm, looking at his reflection in the window.
“Boy! Don’t. Don’t make me pull a bron bron and put you in a poster,” Demetri vaunts.
“Yeah, about that, you can’t even jump that high,” he renounces, laughing afterwards. “But Alright bro, I’ll hit you up when I pull up at Leon’s,” he adds as he then fixes up his bed until it’s nice and neat.
“Are you going to emery park? Or y’all going all the way out to Manry Park or Dudley Park?” Demetri asks indolently.
“Actually, I don’t know where we’re going, but when I meet up with Leon, I’ll call
you and let you know,” Orion assures.
“Ok, that sounds good, I’ll see you-” a click then happens in the phone, cutting the connection between the two. Orion quickly looks at his phone, confused, and puts it on standby in the process.
What happened? He ponders to himself shrugging his shoulders afterwards. He then walks over to his closet and opens the closet door. An old shoe box falls in front of Orion, almost hitting him if he didn’t quickly smack it away. All his nice shirts are hanging up neatly, with variety of shoes on the bottom organized like folders in an office cabinet. He then picks up the fallen box and puts it back on top of the other shoes boxes full of more sneakers. He then surfs through the colors organized by blue, to red, to black, and white shirts. He stops at a long-sleeved grey shirt his mom bought his dad before he died in a car crash as a gift. Orion was only four years old when it happened. A price tag still attached dangles from the right sleeve. He examines the price tag, showing the same $25.89, he has read since he was younger. He takes it off the rack and rips the price tag off for the first time. He throws the hanger on the bed, putting on the shirt in the same instance. He hears a noise coming from out his door with his head halfway in the shirt. He turns his head, looking in the direction the noise is coming from, and quickly finishes putting on the shirt. The noise sounded like a crash, but the noise didn’t stop. He inches up to the room door, so he can hear the noise better. He then sticks his head out and looks down the long hallway to the staircase to his left. He sees nobody around, so he walks quietly down the hallway, looking to his left inside his mom’s room. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he notices the sound is coming from below him. So, he goes up to the top of the stairs, passing the closed door to his right that leads to the small library full of books and magazines collected by his father over the years. He goes down three steps, takes a left, and goes down twelve more, hearing the noise clearer now. To him it sounds like something is on fire, but there isn’t a smell of burning furniture. Just the smell of Timbuktu incense that lingers for several minutes. He gets to the bottom of the wooden steps and goes straight through the doorway
and takes a left through a huge opening with two big carved elephant tusks, one on each side of the opening. He enters the living room just to be relieved to see that it is only the television; it’s on a static channel. “The volume must be too loud,” he mutters to himself then quickly, his mind fills like water, and he wonders if maybe it’s going to rain today. So, he walks over to the couch looking for the remote. He glances at it sticking out the middle of the cushions and grabs it. He starts pressing the button to change the channel fast. as he Surfs through all the channels looking for the weather channel, a pungent smell of his mom’s incense roams the room, with a hint of vanilla, cedarwood, and myrrh. He passes a channel that catches his eye. He changes back quickly, and the channel has a lady standing in front of a crowd of people in mixtures of green colored clothes, throwing green confetti all over the place. Also, you can see a few people standing in the crowd with Cleveland cavalier jerseys on and emerald snapbacks with a flash logo on the front.
“Hello everyone, it’s Susan Bradley here, reporting live in downtown Cleveland in front of the Daiton C.O community center,” she reports while the crowd behind her is raving in excitement. “We are all gathered here to celebrate the three-day long festival for the worldly phenomenon, better known as the green flash,” she continues. “Nothing is known as how, and what causes this phenomenon to happen yet. Though scientist hope to find what causes it to happen within the two days we have left,” she adds Optimistically. “When the whole world will see flashes of green light beautiful to most, it may be scary for others The Daiton’s believe that souls pass through our world to the spirit world. While conspiracy theorists believe a range of gaining powers to the world ending.” The whole crowd lets out a collected OOO! It almost sounds like a giant horn of some kind. She laughs while looking back at some of the crowd members. A young man behind her looks astonished to see her notice him, and waves over to her vigorously. “Once again we are here at this three-day long celebration.”, she says, putting the mic up to her mouth with a flirtatious smile, waving back at the young man. Orion then shuts off the television, as he realizes he doesn’t care about the weather nor the celebration anymore. Though he did notice the sun beaming down on the crowd of people. He then throws the remote across the couch and heads for the front door. He passes through two huge carved elephant tusks, and a huge fish tank on the left with several fishes in it, and a wooden pyramid with twelve drawers. Each drawer gets bigger going to the bottom. He grabs his keys out of the little basket by the door on a nightstand, and as he opens the door a gust of wind blows gently into the house. He closes it, locks the door behind him, then the smell of freshly cut grass enters his nose, giving a delightful pinery aroma. The smell of summer, he ponders while standing on top of the three stepped stairs. He walks down the driveway, observing everything in sight. The trees dancing in the wind, the automatic sprinklers systems waving back and forth, and even the mail carrier dropping off mail in people’s mailboxes across the street. Then
a couple blocks over, a few gun shots go off rapidly, and right after, a car skirts off in a speedy fury. He sighs and shakes his head, disappointed. “Cleveland is just getting worse and worse every day,” he thinks to himself before jumping down the three-stepped stairs, and then one after another his feet step in front of each other. He watches all his surroundings as he walks down the street. His hands deep in his pockets, and his head looking in every direction, he takes out his phone and sends a text to Leon. It reads, “aye bro I’m walking to your house right now so get ready.” He then puts his phone back into the pocket of his ripped jeans and keeps on walking. He passes a black man watering his lawn, and what look like his children are in the street playing basketball with a broken hoop. "Aye de’von," Orion yells, passing a young kid waving at him.
"Aye Orion ya heard them gun shots?" De’von asks, smiling at Orion. Orion stops for a moment and turns his body toward De’von.
"Yeah, you know who that was?" Orion replies.
“Most likely doozer, he just got out not too long ago,” De’von explains walking over to Orion.
“Damn man,” Orion says disappointedly as he gives a handshake. “How you know its doozer?” Orion asks, tilting his head sideways.
“Well, word around the block says someone set him up,” De’von explains as he looks at his other friends play in the street. “And that’s why he went to prison several months ago,” he pauses after looking back over to Orion. “Well, that’s what I’ve heard.” He shrugs his shoulder.
“Well shit, I hope he is coo ya feel me?” Orion says generously.
“Yeah, but you know how it is in the hood” de’von replies holding out his hand.
“Stay in school little dude.” Orion demands before giving him a handshake again.
“Yeah whateva,” De’von rejects the idea of school. Orion giggles for a moment as he watches De’von run back out into the street to his friends. He gets back on track, and heads to Leon’s house. About halfway down on the next block, he takes a short cut in between
these two burned up houses. Both yards look abandoned and untamed with wild grass growing several inches longer than the other houses on the same block. He opens a metal gate into the one with the untamed yard, and his phone buzzes inside his pocket. He then reaches into his pocket to answer the phone, and it is a text from Leon: “Ok bro I’m in the shower just come in, my mom’s home.” Orion replies with a short message: “Bet.” Putting his phone back into his front left pocket, he keeps walking toward the backyard. He opens another metal gate Halfway between the two burnt houses. After closing the gate behind him, he hears people talking, laughing, and being obnoxious. He creeps up to the edge of the house and looks cautiously to the backyard. then the smell of rotting garbage enters his nose. “Oh god!” he whispers to himself in disgust. He then notices he is standing next to a garbage can that’s been there for the lord knows how long. He covers his mouth and nose with his left hand as he sees five people who look as if they are in their late teenage years. One of them is about 5’6, Caucasian, and is wearing a dark grey Indians hoodie; he sparks a joint. Then, quickly, the smell of cannabis overwhelms all other smells in the area. The taller one next to him is the one laughing and grabbing his stomach. He looks like he stands 6’3 and is Mexican. He's laughing so hard he falls over, making the others laugh at him. Orion giggles a little, but not too loud. He doesn’t want to bring attention to himself. There’s another Caucasian teenager sitting on the right side of the Mexican, and he is several pounds overweight. Then the last two are African American with a similar height to Orion, but one is lighter in skin tone with a fade, and the other has long dreads and is dark skinned. After analyzing all their faces, he finally notices the teen that sparked the joint is Terrence Grey. Terrence is a guy that never liked Orion since they were younger. Then the dread-headed guy sits down on a white bucket and notices Orion watching from a distance. He then gets up, way quicker than Orion thought he would, and gets the other four guys to notice Orion. Orion then comes out with his hands up, trying to show that he means no harm. But when Terrence notices it’s Orion, he is instantly infuriated.
“Aye cuz that’s the guy I told you about that jumped me,” Terrence says angrily. The dread-headed guy looks back at Orion with the intention to kill in his eyes.
“Aye bleed! You jumped my cuzzo?!” He yells, getting ready to charge toward Orion.
“Hell, naw I aint jump nobody,” Orion yells back, keeping his distance.
attention to himself. There’s another Caucasian teenager sitting on the right side of the Mexican, and he is several pounds overweight. Then the last two are African American with a similar height to Orion, but one is lighter in skin tone with a fade, and the other has long dreads and is dark skinned. After analyzing all their faces, he finally notices the teen that sparked the joint is Terrence Grey. Terrence is a guy that never liked Orion since they were younger. Then the dread-headed guy sits down on a white bucket and notices Orion watching from a distance. He then gets up, way quicker than Orion thought he would, and gets the other four guys to notice Orion. Orion then comes out with his hands up, trying to show that he means no harm. But when Terrence notices it’s Orion, he is instantly infuriated.
“Aye cuz that’s the guy I told you about that jumped me,” Terrence says angrily. The dread-headed guy looks back at Orion with the intention to kill in his eyes.
“Aye bleed! You jumped my cuzzo?!” He yells, getting ready to charge toward Orion.
“Hell, naw I aint jump nobody,” Orion yells back, keeping his distance.
“Aye yo bullshit, he jumped me,” Terrence points at Orion while the other four guys are staring at Orion with every intent to kill. They all lunge at him, and within that second, Orion sprints to Leon’s house. ...
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