Tales of the Lorekeepers 01 - Rise of the Red Dragon

through the smoke that separated the dream world from his own. For a few seconds, he seemed to juggle both worlds, before finally making the decision to remain in the plain and unexciting, albeit very much real one.
    For a brief moment, he wished that one day, he could choose the other option.
    He slowly dragged his body out of bed, carrying half the cotton blankets with him. He looked around his bedroom, remembering it was a weekday and that he had school. “Sammy, are you up?” his mother called from downstairs.
    “Yes, Mom!”
    “Okay then, I’ll make breakfast.”
    Samuel took a hot shower, where he remained a little longer than he should have, enjoying the hot water and the peace of the moment, his mind free of homework, school, parents and everything else. Once he was done, he put on a jeans and a t-shirt of his favorite band, Weezer.
    Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
    “Son?” said his dad. “You’re going to be late if you do not hurry up.”
    “What time is it?”
    “Seven fifteen.”
    “Crap!”
    Samuel hurried out of the bathroom, almost running over his father in the process, then barged into his bedroom and quickly threw his things in his backpack: schoolbooks, the comic books he had already read. As he was leaving the room, the dice caught his eye, and he tossed them in the pack. He had art class later in the day and they could be a nice project if time permitted.
    Samuel ran down the stairs, nearly breaking his neck doing so. In the kitchen, his mother had already poured him a glass of orange juice and spread raspberry jam on a couple pieces of toast. He drank the juice in one gulp and ate the toast without even sitting down.
    “One of these days,” said his mother, “you’ll have to learn to get up earlier.”
    “I know.”
    “Don’t forget your sister is coming over for dinner tonight.”
    “But I have plans with Lucian tonight. We have to get our costumes ready for the cosplay.”
    “You can do that some other time, young man. It’s your birthday and your sister made the trip from Boston in order to be here.”
    “Fine …”

    He kissed his mother on the cheek and ran outside, slamming the door behind him. The bus stop was about a hundred yards from his house. Already, there were a few kids standing by it, including Lucian. Farther down the street, Samuel saw the yellow bus make the final turn and come his way. The boy imagined a duel between himself and the yellow beast, to see who would make it to the stop first. His fertile imagination gave him a little boost of energy and he quickly covered the distance, almost crashing into Lucian as he reached the bus stop just a second before the bus.
    “You know, kid, I would have waited,” said the driver to Samuel as he climbed in.
    Samuel smiled back at the elderly man and made his way to the back, where his friend had already sat down.
    “Here,” he said to Lucian, handing him a few comic books. “I read these last night. I thought you might want to have a look at them.”
    “Any good?”
    “You’ll love Cain, the Ogre Eater . The others are pretty awesome, too.”
    “Thanks. Hey, did you sleep with your precious dice under your pillow?”
    “Shut it! No, I did not sleep with the dice.”
    “I still think you should have gotten the crossbow. That thing was absolutely mind-blowing!”
    “Will you let it go already? If you like the crossbow so much, ask your dad for fifty bucks and go get it yourself. Speaking of the dice, I brought them with me. I’m thinking we could try to work on them in art class. Maybe you can help me design symbols to paint on them.”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    Art was after lunch, and Samuel daydreamed through the morning classes, thinking about his dice. The nicest thing about the art class was the teacher, Mr. Sanchez, who would typically spend half the period teaching certain techniques and then let the students work on personal projects for the remaining time. It did not matter what the project was, as long as it involved art in some way. Samuel got out his dice.
    “We should start by painting some symbols on the sides,” said Lucian. “Let me go get the acrylics.”
    “Hold on a second, Lucian. I don’t want to run the chance of ruining the dice. Acrylic might be a little permanent. I want to make sure we can remove whatever we put on the dice, without damaging them.”
    “Sam, they’re not real bones.”
    “I know. I just think we should be careful, that’s all.”
    “Fine,