The Myth and The Guardian

Austin was due to leave for Harvard University in three weeks’ time which meant he would finally get a break from all of the visitors. The night after Dr. Wilson and Dr. Farmer left, Austin thought about how much he liked them. Dr. Farmer was strictly business for the most part, but he knew how to have fun. His sense of humor was similar to Austin’s. Dr. Wilson was the one Austin liked best out of the men, and the reason for the favoritism was obvious. Dr. Wilson was a brilliant man, but there was an innocent quality about him that Austin found fascinating. It appeared that he had lived and understood the corruption of life, but he did not allow any of it to break his faith in people.

Austin thought that spending time with Dr. Wilson would prove to satisfy his love of puzzle solving. He knew for a fact that the man thought differently in the most appealing way, and the time they spent together would be a learning experience. Austin had already developed a few theories for the man’s optimism. The first theory involved a stubborn faith for some religion or god. The second theory involved the man meeting someone who changed his life for the better. The final theory involved the man having a bad childhood, but now has a family that helps him love life again. Although all of these theories were probable, there was no way to know the truth without getting to know the man.

The next morning, Austin was awakened by the sounds of his own screams. His nightmares were getting more intense and making it harder for him to get a full night’s sleep. The images were of horrific scenes of people being brutally murdered by some sort of creature with red eyes. The eyes were the only part of the creature that Austin could see in the nightmare, but the screams were for some people that he seemed to know in his nightmare. Austin was wondering if the people in the nightmare were perhaps his parents. He had read that dreams and nightmares are commonly the brain’s way of trying to remind people of an event that has happened or that the person subconsciously wants to happen. Austin knew that the latter part of that explanation could not be true. He would never wish harm upon anyone who breathed and walked on this planet. The only two possible conclusions were that the nightmares were simply nightmares, or they were what had happened to some people he loved. This left the genius vexed because he did not know of any creature with red bloodshot eyes that had a tendency to kill humans. He thought about this for a long period of time and finally convinced himself that it was prudent to move on and forget the nightmares before his obsession began to control him.

Later on that day, Austin was sitting underneath the big tree in front of the orphanage and overlooking the notes in his notebook when he began to go into some sort of trance. He whispered words that he did not understand and had never heard. The moment the trance no longer had a hold over him, he noticed that he had written down phrases that made no sense. The phrase read:

“Nací de la luna.”

The second phrase read:

“Para proteger el sol del mundo.”

The final phrase combined the two phrases reading:

“Nací de la luna para proteger el sol del mundo.”

Austin was in shock as he had no memory of even writing the words down. He knew that they appeared to be Spanish, but he had no idea how to speak Spanish.

“I cannot write in a language I have never learned.” He said to himself aloud.

He then remembered that there were no limits to what he had learned or could learn. Austin was beginning to become afraid of the way his brain developed. He hoped that this would be another situation when he did not know something one minute and all of a sudden his brain would understand completely the next minute. He waited and waited, but he could not read the words he had written after an hour. He ran into the orphanage and showed the writing to Mrs. Davis. She could not speak Spanish either, but she knew that her assistant Jessica was fluent in the language.

Jessica was a tall slender woman with dark hair and thin glasses who wore no makeup and dressed rather dull, but she was still extremely attractive. She returned from her lunch break to an impatient Austin. The boy was going crazy trying to figure out the meaning of the words without any help in hopes of his mind learning a language without actually having to learn a language. Still, he proved unsuccessful at this task. Jessica was filled in on the situation by Mrs. Davis and was delighted to help. She looked at the words and began to look confused.

“Please, tell us what it says” Austin asked politely in hopes of hiding his frustration. Jessica looked again and responded:

“It has to be a mistake because the sentence does not make any sense at all. It reads: “I was born of the moon to protect the sun of the world.”

They all paused for a moment to think, but none could find any meaning within the words. Austin took the notebook out of Jessica’s hands and stared at it for a moment. He then hid his frustration by saying:

“Who knows what this brain of mine will be able to do next.”

Mrs. Davis and Jessica simply smiled impressed smiles as they watched the boy walk away wondering about his genius. Austin returned back to his position under the big tree in the front yard of the orphanage, but he did not give up his wondering. He stared at the words intensely a few more times repeating the meaning inside of his mind. Finally, he threw the notebook to the ground out of anger and said the phrase aloud:

“I was born of the moon to protect the sun of the world”.

Austin then fell to the ground in agony trying to reach for the source of the pain which was directly below his left shoulder blade. He screamed louder as the pain grew more intense and caused his eyes to tear up. He then saw Mrs. Davis hurrying towards him with a frightened look on her face before he lost consciousness due to the pain.

Austin woke up on the couch in the living room of the orphanage to a nervous Mrs. Davis. He did not have time to ask any questions before she yelled his name and gave him a tight bear hug. She asked the boy ten different questions without giving him time to answer any but the very last one which was the most important. After she asked him if he was feeling well for the fourth or fifth time, she then yelled for an equally frightened Jessica to tell the policeman on the phone that they would not need an ambulance sent over. Finally, Austin managed to calm her down and ask her what happened to him. The still slightly nervous Mrs. Davis went into a rant about how she should be asking him that very same question and how she nearly had a heart attack when she heard him screaming.

The woman, who obviously cared for Austin, would not stop talking about how she felt chills when he had lost consciousness. Austin assured her that he was feeling fine again and another three times before she seemed to believe him.

“What do you remember before you passed out Austin?” Mrs. Davis asked the boy.

Jessica was now in the room waiting anxiously for him to answer the same question. Austin thought for a moment and then finally recalled the scene in his mind.

“I was angry that I could not figure out the meaning of the Spanish phrase I had written down. I threw my notebook to the ground in frustration and yelled the phrase out load. The next thing I remember is falling to the ground because of the pain I felt on my back below my left shoulder blade.” Austin replied as each second replayed inside his head.

“Well, let me take a look at your shoulder blade to see what happened.” Mrs. Davis said in a curious voice.

Austin stood up from the couch, turned his back to the two women, and lifted his shirt over his head.

“Well everything looks normal to me” Mrs. Davis said in a reassuring voice.

Austin was almost certain that there would be some sort of mark or bruise in the spot he had felt the pain. He then decided that it was best to not talk about it anymore and just allow everyone to calm down.

Mrs. Davis had made Austin promise to stay inside for the remainder of the day in case he hurt again. Austin decided to spend some time reading books until he felt like writing in his notebook again. The event kept replaying in his mind over and over, but he tried not to allow Mrs. Davis to know anything about it. She was worried enough about him without having to add his obsessive nature to her list of worries. Austin had seriously contemplated reenacting the event to see if the same pain would reappear, but he would have to wait until another day. Mrs. Davis was an old and kind lady, and Austin did not want to scare the woman any more than he had done earlier that day.

When it was finally dark outside, Austin decided to take his shower earlier than usual. He wanted to get to bed and try to sleep in hopes of forgetting about the events of the day. He thought about what had happened as the warm water washed the dirt off his body. He let the water run over the spot on his back that had ached for about three minutes. The heat from the water made the spot tingle for a while. The sensation was far more pleasant than the agony that he had felt earlier that day.

As he was drying himself, he noticed that the tingling sensation did not go away for a while. He then turned his back slightly toward the mirror in the bathroom and stared at the spot. He did not see any bruising or any other signs that could be the reason for the pain. He was about to turn away from the mirror to finish drying off, and that is when he saw the mark. It had appeared within the blink of his eyes, and it did not hurt at all.

Austin thought he was imagining this mark at first, but he stared at it, and it did not go away. There, on his back, in the spot that had caused him a great deal of pain, was a mark that look like it had been branded into his flesh. He tried to rub it off with the towel he was using to dry himself, but the mark would not fade away. The mark was darker than his skin and was in the shape of the letter C. After studying it a few more moments, Austin noticed the detail of the mark and how it looked more like a clipped toenail than the letter C. Finally, he had to force himself to admit what the mark really reminded him of and resembled. Even though he did not want to say it aloud, he knew that the mark that had appeared on his back was completely identical to a quarter of the moon.

Austin did not sleep well that night, but he had a great deal of time to do some much needed thinking. The moon mark on his shoulder was unlike anything he had ever seen or read about in the many books he favored. The things that were happening to him lately were of the scientific fiction nature, but the fact that they were indeed happening disproved the fiction part of his theory. He could not bring himself to tell Mrs. Davis about the mark that had appeared on his back. She would undoubtedly force him to see a doctor, and he would have to explain what happened. The strange way in which the mark appeared would inevitably cause him to become a lab experiment for some scientists, and he would end up in the very place he had been trying to avoid since the discovery of his intelligence. Due to all of these probable outcomes, Austin had decided not to tell anyone at all about the strange mark that mysteriously appeared and now rested on his back.

For the next couple of days, Austin stayed inside and allowed himself to obsess over the strange happenings in his life. He began to become frightened about what may happen to him in the following days, weeks, or months. There was no equation or theory he could follow that would determine the next event. He was not even sure if anything else of the strange nature would happen again. The only thing that he was certain of was that if something else should happen it could not happen around anyone else. The mark mysteriously appearing completely shattered the boy’s logical thinking. He actually found himself wondering if he would learn to fly, develop super speed, or become a real life version of some famous cartoon. Austin could only hope that nothing else would happen, and he could find a way to keep his life on its current path. He did not want anything interfering with or ruining his plans to become the youngest multiple PhD graduate of an institution as prestigious as Harvard.

The following night, Mrs. Davis woke Austin from another nightmare. He had experienced the same nightmare over the last four days, but he still did not know what to make of them. He managed to convince her that he had a nightmare about monsters which at this point was not entirely a lie. The same creature with those blood red eyes had appeared in this nightmare. The creature always killed the people but would never harm him. Austin knew from the feeling he felt during the nightmare that the people meant something to him, but he did not know what the nightmare could mean. After Mrs. Davis had left, Austin decided that he would not go back to sleep that night. Instead, he would lie in his bed and try again to figure out some of the weird events that had taken place. He got up out of his bed and snuck into the living room area and rested on the same couch he had slept on his first night in the orphanage.

The room was dark and quiet as the boy rested and thought about everything. The mark, the pain, and the nightmare were all somehow connected, but not even he could figure it out. As he allowed himself to become lost within his thoughts, he felt the same tingling on the mark that he had felt when it appeared. The feeling was a bit warmer this time, and the feeling became more intense as he continued to concentrate on the nightmares. His eyes began to burn a little as he continued to focus his thoughts. Soon, he could see the images in his nightmares as if they were happening right then. He was walking in the woods alone, but he was screaming words that he could not hear. It appeared as if he was searching for something or someone, but he could not hear anything that came from his mouth. He walked and walked for the longest time before something inside of him made him turn around.

The creature with the red eyes was standing behind him staring into his eyes, but the creature did not have a body. There was just this human-shaped darkness that seemed to hold up those fiery eyes. As the creature stared at him, he was not afraid of the image he was seeing. He felt calm and fearless as if he had seen this strange apparition of a thing before now. He glared back at the creature with more intensity than he believed he had inside of himself, but the creature did not move or blink. It was determined to stay there and stare at Austin with those red soulless eyes. As Austin stared harder, the creature started to develop human features.

First the fingers and arms began to become more human. Next, the body began to appear more solid and lifelike, but the skin color was like something from a dark parallel universe. Finally the face slowly began to develop features. Austin could feel his heart start to race with excitement as the creature continued to become human. The mouth and teeth started to form with the same strange paleness of the arms and hands. Austin could literally hear his own heart beating as the face was mere seconds from becoming visible.

Suddenly, the scar on his back began to throb in more pain than it had the first time. Austin fell to the ground screaming in agony once again. He tried to look up at the creature, but he could not make his eyes focus as a result of his own tears. He could not control his breathing and his muscles began to ache and burn like they were on fire. The next moment, there was no more pain and no more creature.

Austin found himself awakening on a cold damp ground in the woods. Austin jumped to his feet and began to search nervously for the creature. His mouth was dry, and his hands could not stop trembling. He began to walk toward the street light that he could see in the distance. He could hear bugs making noise, and the loud crunch of twigs snapping as he stepped on them. He could not decide if what had just happened was a dream or reality. The creature was gone when he opened his eyes, but he was still in the woods with no memory of how he had gotten there. The pain in his shoulder was real, and the creature was too vivid to be the product of his imagination. Although these were his thoughts at the moment, he could not be sure of any of it because his brain was stronger than most. He could have had a dream or nightmare, and his imagination could be more powerful than a normal person’s imagination. His thoughts were beginning to contradict one another because he knew for a fact that he was walking in the woods at that very moment.

Austin made it to the road and the shine of the street light. He recognized this location which made everything seem even stranger but believable. He was now in the same place that Officer Jones had first found him. Everything that was happening meant something, and he knew that he had to figure it out soon. He also knew that this location meant that he was not far from the orphanage. He had to hurry and try to make it back before daylight. He did not know what time it was, but he knew that it was still dark. Mrs. Davis would have a panic attack if she woke up and found him missing again. He began to run as fast as he could in hopes of forcing his body to make it to the orphanage. The orphanage was only a little over a mile away, and he could make it without stopping. He could not stop thinking about the creature and the nightmares as he ran, and soon he was standing in front of the orphanage.

Austin snuck quietly inside of the building and immediately grabbed bedding for the couch. He would have to sleep there or take a risk at waking the other children. The boy was exhausted from the running and the strangeness of the night. He could not believe what was happening to him, but he had no choice but to accept it. Something or someone was calling out to him in his dreams, and he had to figure it out. The only problem was that he had no way of knowing where to start. He was just as confused as he had been when the nightmares first started. Austin tried to form a foundation for his thinking process on this matter, but everything led him to a dead end. He had no choice but to give up on it for now, and the defeated and exhausted genius finally fell to sleep.

“Nací de la luna para proteger el sol del mundo.” The creature was whispering in the most fragile and frightening of ways.

Austin was running at full speed on dark nothingness which resembled the creatures form. He would move left and right, but the creature was always near him. In front of him, behind him, and beside him the creature appeared at will. Austin could not shake the monster at all, and the monster knew which direction he would run. The creature wrapped its shadowy body around the boy, and Austin could not breathe. He struggled to break free from the creature, but it was as if the creature knew his every move. Austin began to fall into the dark depths of nothingness at a speed that made his stomach turn. He was falling faster and farther into the depths of the creatures dark essence, and he began to scream at the top of his lungs. The scream was a loud and long winded scream with enough volume to wake everyone in the orphanage which is just what it had done. Mrs. Davis was standing over Austin shaking him awake. Austin woke up in a cold sweat feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. As he breathed short quick breaths to calm himself down, he finally snapped back into reality and managed to whisper:

“It was just another nightmare.”

“Austin, you have to talk about these nightmares to someone.” Mrs. Davis said in an overly concerned toned.

Austin was barely paying attention to her because of his own thoughts. The recent nightmare was enough to make anyone nervous and frightened beyond the point of description, and Austin could not hide his reactions to the nightmares anymore.

“Mrs. Davis, I am fine. The nightmares are just extremely intense because I cannot understand what my brain is trying to tell me. My brain has to work harder to help me understand so it is doing strange things with my subconscious. The fact that they are getting worse could be an indication that I will uncover a repressed memory about who I am.” Austin said trying to be convincing.

Mrs. Davis thought for a moment that the boy was lying to her, but she did not want to call him a liar. The fact remained that he knew more about the topic than she ever could. She finally agreed that he did not have to talk about them, but she could not hide the fact that she wished he would. She never ceased to be surprised by her affection for the boy, but she knew that he would not be there much longer. The fact remained that Austin was not like the other children she cared for at the orphanage, and she could not treat him like any normal child. Austin was a genius, and he could make rational decisions about his own life no matter how inexperienced he was at living.

Over the following week, Austin had completely stopped having the nightmares. He was now having the most beautiful dreams of scenes of loving families enjoying being around one another. He spent most of his time imagining what it would be like to be a part of the families in his dreams. He considered Mrs. Davis to be a mother to him, and he knew she felt strongly about him as well. He knew that the dreams were a major reason for his thoughts on family lately, but the main reason was he would be leaving for Harvard in a couple of days. He would have to say goodbye to this woman who had been so kind to him. She was more upset about this fact than Austin which was evident in her recent actions. She would eat breakfast with him every morning, talk to him at night until she felt tired, and took pictures of them together on a daily basis. She was happy to know him, and he felt honored to be a son to her. Austin enjoyed the time he was spending with Mrs. Davis, but he was also anxious to live his new life. He could not wait to see Drs. Wilson and Farmer again. He wondered how they would react when he finally told them about his most recent decision.

On the day of their arrival, the entire orphanage and staff waited to see Austin off. Mrs. Davis was continuously on the verge of tears, but she fought them off until the boy was leaving. The moment she hugged him goodbye, the kind old lady burst into tears. Austin assured her that he would call and keep her updated on what he was doing. She even made him promise to visit her whenever he could which he immediately agreed to do. As the car began to drive away, Austin waved goodbye to Mrs. Davis and stared at the orphanage. He knew that he would miss the place soon, but he forced himself to smile as he thought about the adventures that awaited him.