Okay, here's the third chapter. I wrote a lot of this today, so I hope it is to you guys' (and gals') liking. It means a lot to me to see ANYONE reading this, and it will mean even more if someone comments. That would make my day, hint hint. Enjoy!

Current music: Concrete Angel - Martina McBride

---

Sleep did not come easily that night.

I tossed and turned for what felt like an eternity. Two dueling forces, anticipation and anxiety, fought with one another for control over my mind. In a way, I was at war with myself, and I felt convinced it wouldn’t end well.

I could hear Michael in the bed next to me, snoring. He was sleeping the sleep of the fairies, and why shouldn’t he have been? He had to drive me to the airport through some of the worst traffic in the world. When I was about to give up on getting any rest and resolve to sleep on the plane, I eventually dozed off. At this time, I dreamed about my parents.

In my dream, I was five years old again, playing with a model train set in my bedroom. At this age, trains had been my hyperfixation - something was awe-inspiring about the station downtown that my mother had driven me past a handful of times. Particularly since so many destinations were serviced by it, carting so many people off to wherever they needed to go.

My mother opened the door, swinging it gingerly as though she couldn’t be bothered to use any more force. And she gave me possibly the most pained look I’d ever seen.

It did not matter that I was neurodivergent, nor did it matter that I was only five years old. I knew what those vacant eyes meant, what was signaled by the way her mouth hung open. She couldn’t muster the energy to be cheerful.

“We need to talk, Austin” were her exact words.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” I enquired tearfully.

My mother sighed. “You’re more observant than many give you credit for, Austin. But to answer your question, honey…it’s probably best that we go into the living room.”

So I followed her downstairs, with my mother holding onto the railing a little more tightly than usual. She gestured at me to sit across from her on the floor - what they called “criss, cross, applesauce” at my transitional kindergarten.

“Where’s Daddy?” I blurted out. Although I wouldn’t have been able to articulate this at the time, I couldn’t help but notice that my mother was delivering some important news without my father by her side. Clearly, something had happened.

And that’s when I noticed the tears in her eyes. Droplets of water coursed down her face, wetting her lips to no small degree. She was clearly doing her best to mask her emotions, but it wasn’t working. Not well enough.

My mother sighed again, presumably trying to find the best way to deliver the news without shocking me too much. Quite frankly, that ship had sailed.

“Well, Austin, Daddy isn’t here right now. In fact…”.

One of my classmates at TK, a boy I was on decently good terms with, had mentioned that his parents didn’t live together. This was the first I’d heard of divorce, though I did not yet know the word for it or have any idea as to why a married couple would split.

“Is it like Jackson’s parents?” I enquired. “Are you…”.

“We are not splitting up, Austin. Your father is…underground.”

In hindsight, this was the wrong way for her to phrase it, and I think even she knew it. Not only was it a way to beat around the bush, but it also further traumatized me; in years to come, I would occasionally envision my father trapped in a coffin underground, banging against the tomb’s doors yet unable to surface from the grave.

My five-year-old heart sank. “He’s…?”

“Your father passed away earlier today” my mother responded tearfully, though every other word was followed by a loud sniff.

“Passed away?”

“It means he isn’t going to be around anymore,” she told me.

You need to understand that I didn’t really appreciate death yet. I’d never met my grandparents, so I hadn’t experienced losing any of them. (I would later learn that three of them had died before I was born, and the fourth had emigrated to Germany to work in IT.) The point is, I didn’t fully grasp that I would never see my father again.

Indeed, at age 5 I didn’t assimilate the finality of that word “anymore”. I remember asking my mother when I’d see “Daddy” again.

“Well, some people say that there’s a place called heaven” my mother told me, fighting back sobs. 

“Heaven?” I asked, trying to hold out any hope that I might get another piggyback ride from my dad one day. 

“Yes. They say it’s in the sky, and that there’s a set of golden gates you pass through to get there.”

“Can I take a train there?” I wondered aloud.

“Well, you shouldn’t want to go there,” she said. “At least not yet. You have so much life to live on Earth first.”

“But how does one get to heaven?”

“There are these vehicles called chariots, pulled by animals called horses. They’ll carry him into the sky, and then he’ll be in heaven. He’ll be reunited with those he’s lost.”

“Reunited?”

“It means he’ll get to see them again,” my mother explained. “And he’ll get to sail across the galaxies, and he’ll be in a place without pain. He’ll experience love like no other.”

“I love you” I told my mother, leaping off my chair and climbing into her lap.

“I love you too, Austin,” she replied. “But the love he’ll have in heaven is nothing like mine. It’s so much more intense.”

“How do I know it’s real, though?” I asked. 

“You just have to have faith,” my mother replied. “As long as we love and cherish your father, and honor his memory, he will never truly be gone.”

What I remember from the next few days is the following:

I recall a funeral at which a man spoke in a language I didn’t recognize. He was adorned in a colorful cloak and several elaborate pieces of jewelry, and he prayed toward the heavens as the casket was lowered into the ground.

I recall lots of food being sent to our house, soups and salads and homemade pizzas. It was more food than we could possibly eat, and much of it went to waste. Ironically, my father, supposedly an environmentalist, would not have approved of this as a way to honor his memory.

I recall a memorial service a few weeks later, held at the same church (though my parents weren’t very observant and only attended church on special occasions.) At this service, several of my father’s best friends spoke about what an excellent, upstanding man he was.

And I recall learning later that he’d been killed in a drive-by shooting. Allegedly a member of a gang called the Sharks had decided to prove himself by provoking the public with a random act of violence - my dad’s murder was exactly that. And, as I would later learn, no matter how many lives were lost to the carnage, the laws would never change. If anything, things would get worse until the United States was a total warzone - then again, you could argue that we were already there.

Some would say that losing one of your parents at such a young age forces you to grow up quickly. That it makes you tough via requiring you to adjust to a difficult new reality.

However, this is a lie. At least, it was in my case. I felt the urge to hold my mother more tightly than I had before. My father’s sudden death was a reminder that even those people you thought were invincible were anything but. 

---

I woke up in a cold sweat, my sheets and pillows having been soaked through with perspiration. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was back in the studio apartment I shared with Michael.

“M…morning” I sighed.

“Get up, Austin!” Michael exclaimed sharply.

I was still ensnared in my dream despite being very much awake at the same time. As I looked from side to side, I noticed the wild, thrilled look in my roommate’s eyes.

“What happens today?” I asked weakly.

“Don’t you remember? You won a Silver Ticket last night, and you’re flying to Boston today to take part in the Animal Antics Championship!”

“Oh, right,” I muttered, sitting up in bed. Although I hadn’t slept any longer than usual, my joints felt incredibly stiff.

Michael frowned. “For someone who practically just won the lottery, you certainly don’t look like I’d expect you to. Oh well - you’ll be a lot happier once you’re on that plane.”

“Maybe I will be” I said blankly, far from eager to tell Michael about my dream. Who wants to admit that they’re reliving something that happened when they were five years old?

“You’ll probably want a shower first. You seem to have sweated right through your sheets. Are you sure you’re feeling alright, Austin?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, wiping some moisture off my forehead. “I’m ready to go to Boston.”

“Shower first,” Michael insisted. “I don’t want you to be all sweaty in the car, let alone on that plane.”

I did as I was told, scrubbing my body from head to toe. I can’t say that the shower made me feel good as new, but it was still refreshing, and as I wiped the sweat and grime off my body, I was basically washing away the grief that had been reignited by that vision.

“Can we have breakfast first?” I asked, my stomach growling like a lion.

“There’s no time,” Michael insisted. “The next flight from LAX to Boston leaves in three hours, and -”.

“Do we really need that much time at an airport?” I enquired. (It should be clear that I’d never been on a plane before.)

“Yes, we do. It’s LAX, Austin. You just know it’s going to be a zoo any time of day. Not the best airport in the world, or even the country.”

A few minutes later, with just a single backpack containing the bare necessities of life, I left the apartment with Michael in tow. We took the stairs, of course, and made our way to the parking garage, where my roommate’s ratty old vehicle lay.

Although it was early in the morning, traffic was pretty heavy on the way to the airport. Like much of the city’s infrastructure, the freeway looked as though it might crumble into nothingness at any moment. Indeed, construction was everywhere on the streets of Los Angeles, but I had a sinking feeling that nothing would ever be enough. The rest of the world had high-speed rail and immaculate subway systems, but America insisted on keeping her gas-guzzling cars and trucks. 

Speaking of fossil fuels, the US was technically still in the Paris Climate Accords from 2015 after President Joe Biden (2021-25) had renewed the country’s participation in the agreement. However, President after President of both parties had refused to comply with the terms of the agreement, resulting in us being sanctioned to high heaven. That was one reason for America’s decline, though it was mostly self-inflicted.

Anyway, our transportation infrastructure was not up to snuff, and it showed. By my count, it took nearly an hour for us to reach the airport’s domestic departure hall, which was (predictably) clogged with people. 

“This is where we part ways, Austin,” Michael said, patting me on the shoulder. “I wish you the best of luck in the tournament - win something for me, will you?”

Right away, I was seized by the reality that if I didn’t earn lots of money in the Championship, my roommate would end up on the streets before long. And those aren’t streets you want to be on, trust me.

“I’ll do what I can to help pay your rent” I promised him.

“Don’t worry about the rent. Apparently it’s been paid.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you sure about that?” Clearly, that would be cause for celebration, but I had my doubts as to this claim’s veracity.

“Yep. Landlord emailed me - our rent is paid through the next few months. I guess Mr. Coventry’s a man of his word.”

“That’s amazing news!” I exclaimed, practically jumping up and down. As it was, my foot wiggled considerably on the floor of the departure hall, an act some would call “stimming.”

“Yeah, it is,” Michael replied with a smile. As my own stress had grown last night, his  stress had been vanquished like a dragon at the hands of a heavenly sword.

“Really, I’m happy about that” I told my roommate. “Like, seriously. Imagine if you were left with the rent to pay all by yourself - I don’t think I could live with myself if you ended up evicted.”

“Don’t worry about that, Austin. We don’t have time for this. Just look at the flight board - you still have to check in!”

“Right,” I said blankly.

“So get in line at the Delta counter. Then you’ll go through security and all that to make sure you don’t have a bazooka or whatever.”

I snorted. “Like someone would be dumb enough to bring one to the airport.”

“You’d be surprised.”

After that, Michael left my side, and I got in line. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to figure out what to do on my own. However, I quickly discovered that I just had to mimic others and blend in as best I could until I reached the front of the line.

Less than an hour later, I sat in front of my gate, clutching the boarding pass that had been printed. The airport had been crowded, yes, but it wasn’t as much of a zoo as Michael had predicted, and I found myself tremendously relieved by this fact.

I’ve still got an hour before it takes off. That’s surely enough time to log into my account and see if it says anything special.

Would that be a good idea, though? You’re not going to blend in as easily if you do that.

Of course, by now practically everyone in California was addicted to virtual reality. Really, I couldn’t blame them - actual reality was pretty damn depressing.

So I donned my headset. Upon performing the calibration sequence, I found myself staring directly at the face of my lion.

His name was Saclux, which I’d come up with on my own. There was no particular reason for the name - it just sounded pretty badass. And that was what I wanted to project toward the world: Toughness.

My Persona’s stats were prominently visible beneath its avatar. The majestic mane cascaded down either side of his face, and his blue eyes glinted in the artificial light created by the headset in this virtual world.

This lion is badass. He is brave. He’ll get to run around in his natural environment. And none of those things apply to me…

“Dude, snap out of it” I heard a male voice mutter.

For an instant, I thought it was Michael. But my former roommate was likely still stuck in traffic on the way back to his apartment. Meanwhile, here I was at an airport for the first time, about to take off for the greatest city in America.

“Huh?”

“Economy class is about to board,” the man insisted.

“Wait, right now?”

The man, a balding fellow whose name tag identified him as Mr. Burns, narrowed his eyes. “Yes, right now.”

“But we still have almost an hour!”

“They board planes well before they take off, you know” Mr. Burns muttered. “I thought you would know that if you’re a seasoned traveler, especially if you go to Boston frequently.”

I shrugged. “It’s my first time, actually.”

“Oh, it is?” 

I nodded. You might say that it was unwise of me to reveal this information so soon, and you’d have a point. However, in my current state of anticipation, there wasn’t much that could knock sense into me.

“In that case,” Mr. Burns continued, “just get on the plane. Note that in Boston, your actions will earn you points.”

“Like, experience points?”

“They’re just called points,” my new acquaintance muttered. “But yes, the more points you gain, the higher level you will be. And levels determine a lot - better chances of getting a job, faster service at restaurants, preferential treatment when it comes to housing, you get the idea.”

“Huh” I said blankly.

“I don’t blame you, young man” Mr. Burns replied. “It’s quite something to get adjusted to, but I’m sure Mr. Coventry can help with that. You see, I work for Beantown Games, so I know a thing or two.”

My mouth hung agape. “You work…for Beantown Games?”

“Most people in Boston do, in one capacity or another. It’s the reason the city’s doing as well as it is. But they say it might fall into the same trap as Detroit.”

As we got in line to board, I asked Mr. Burns what he meant by that. This is what he said:

“For some time in the twentieth century - quite some time ago, mind you - Detroit was America’s Motor City. But as soon as the automobile industry collapsed, the city largely collapsed with it. Boston would do well not to put all its eggs in one basket.”

“So you’re saying that Boston’s in trouble, too?”

As Mr. Burns handed his boarding pass to the woman at the gate, he gave me a rather anxious smile. 

“It’s the country’s beacon of hope. But just like another type of beacon, it’s meaningless if there are no other beacons. Read into that what you will.”