The Ordinary Little Boy By: Elijah Ryne
One ordinary day, in an ordinary little house, in an ordinary little town. There lived an ordinary little family with ordinary little rules. Such as, no screaming indoors, no fighting, eat all the food on your plate, change your clothes every day, make your bed every day after you wake up, and finally, no one, no matter what, under any circumstances, can be outside after 12 am. With these rules, the small, ordinary family lived ordinary lives for three generations. That is until one small, ordinary boy who, on this ordinary day, was playing with his ordinary friends, but his friends had an unordinary idea. That idea was to sneak out at 12 am and play when there were no small ordinary rules. So at 12 am, this small, ordinary boy tried to get out of his house. He was too loud to sneak out a window, and he knew his parents were probably awake. But since he was such an ordinary boy, he decided to walk out the front door. He left his room, quietly tiptoeing to the door. When he reached the door, he slowly opened it. He gasped and quickly shut the door behind him, for what this ordinary little boy saw was not his ordinary little neighborhood, but what he saw was an extraordinary world. In the darkness of this extraordinary midnight world, he saw the most beautiful things. Short of breath, he slowly looked around and beheld beautiful scenery which included mountains, rivers, and valleys. He beheld these beautiful sights, and he could swear that he could hear a sweet, soft, and beautiful song. Silently listening, he wandered into this new, beautiful world, until he heard someone crying. At this moment, this ordinary little boy was stupefied, for the crying which he thought he had heard was impossible in this amazing midnight world. So, as any curious little boy in this situation would do, he sought out the source. This ordinary boy wandered for ten minutes in marvel, looking at this amazing world, continually forgetting and remembering that he was looking for the source of the crying. Then he heard a shriek and angry voices. He was still baffled by how anyone could be anything but happy in this beautiful midnight world. Soon after, the little boy heard the cries; he had grown too tired to continue marveling at this wonderful world and wandered back to his ordinary home. With every step back home, the marvelous world started to revert to its normal, ordinary self, until he got home, opened the door, and snuck back to his bed. The next day, the ordinary little boy went to school without his ordinary friends. All throughout the day, he thought of them, and whether they saw the extraordinary world he did last night. His head was filled with ordinary thoughts after lunch, as if he had forgotten his friends. He came back home without any idea of where they were and why they were gone. The ordinary little boy had slowly and subconsciously grown lonely, but he was even more curious about the extraordinary world which he now adored. Caught up in thought, the ordinary little boy seemed to ignore or not notice the panic that the town was going through due to the report of five missing children that had just disappeared. The town was calling it the work of some kidnapper, or maybe it was the work of a sinister cult. The reason for their disappearance kept growing in absurdity. Even though the reasons were absurd, they had no idea how ordinary their guesses looked compared to the truth. Soon the school was shut down. The next seven ordinary days were the same. The ordinary boy was still wondering what the extraordinarily marvelous midnight world of which he had beheld two weeks prior was. Then he remembered the beautiful midnight world, and then the cries and screams, and he wondered about why the midnight world was so beautiful and why at every other time it was so ordinary. So the ordinary little boy decided to go back to that marvelous midnight world that night at 12 am. The ordinary little boy broke that ordinary rule once more, and as he opened the front door, he again gasped in amazement. Wandering through this immense and beautiful world, he started to realize that there was someone singing in a beautiful, yet, at the same time, dangerous voice. The voice was singing a pleasant song, and the ordinary little boy continued his adventure. The voice soon became two, then three, then four voices, everyone singing an increasingly harsh and evil song of their own. Then the fifth voice joined the chaos. When it joined its partners, the chaos cleared and the song was clear. They were singing of pain, death, and torture, yet at the same time, happiness, joy, and acceptance. The ordinary little boy was disturbed, but he continued. Then again, one after another, the voices disappeared, but not in the same order. The first voice started to fade, then the second, then the third. With each voice’s departure, the song grew both more beautiful and more cruel and evil. The fourth voice disappeared, and the only song to hit the ordinary little boy’s ears was a strange mix of elegance and malevolence. The voice and song were made for each other, the extraordinary world now grew beautiful, yet it was somber; a quiet dread grew on the boy. The ordinary little boy was wondering how anything could be so moving, yet horrifying. For the first time, the little boy understood what he was seeing, for he was no longer blinded by amazement. There in front of him was a cliff; the fall was eighty meters. At the bottom was a field of dark green grass, and there wiggling through it was a small, weak stream. One kilometer away was a lush forest. To the east, was a mountain range that went on forever. The moon produced a fair silver light that illuminated the world in front of the boy. He was then immediately scared of the cliff. He stumbled back as he finally realized the grass was not green. In fact, there was no grass. What lay in front of this boy was a giant grey snake. The snakes’ giant heads were in front of him, staring into the boy’s eyes. The ordinary little boy, like any other one, decided to run to the safety of his home. With every step back, the singer’s voice grew more savagely elegant. The story its song formed was portrayed as if it was happening now. With every step, the song lost its happiness, its joy, its acceptance. It was a song of all the evils in the world, and it was sung by the most evil voice. The ordinary little boy started to cry. He realized that he missed his ordinary home, his ordinary friends, his ordinary world. He continued in panic to his home. Somehow, not alerting his ordinary family, he snuck in and returned to his room, only to crawl and hide under his covers. He was mortified, for he couldn’t forget that song, nor could he forget that horribly beautiful voice. He started to shut himself in his room. The voice and its devilish song, even after four months, has not left his head. No, in fact, it had never stopped singing, he realized. At this moment, the song and voice seemed to lose their savagery, yet in exchange they gained a woeful sense of yearning. The ordinary little boy now yearned to return to his extraordinary midnight world with its tranquil magnificence. Again, he decided to sneak out, once more through the ordinary front door. But when he turned the door handle and walked through the doorway, he gasped, not in amazement, no, it was horror. He saw the most horrible and gruesome things. On his front lawn were the corpses of his now unordinary dead friends. In his backyard there were torture devices that were being used, such as gallows and guillotines. The worst of it probably was the horribly beautiful song. So the frightened ordinary little boy did what any other frightened ordinary little boy would do and ran back to his room and jumped into his bed, but he could still hear the horrible voice singing songs of death and hate. The next, seemingly ordinary day, wasn't quite so ordinary for the ordinary little boy. He still heard those horrible songs. So the next night, at 12 am, the ordinary little boy went to the front door and opened it. This time there was a dark figure staring at the ordinary little boy. This figure was tall and wiry, about as thick as telephone wire. Around it, there was a dark shadow emanating from it. The shadow flickered back and forth like a flame. Without noticing, the ordinary little boy began walking towards the figure. While crying, the ordinary little boy heard a beautiful, horrible, sad song. The ordinary little boy, understanding his fate, fell to his knees. When he did so, the shadow took his life and the figure carried the ordinary dead little boy into the ground.
