The Continuing story of Matt

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If you are lost, welcome. I suggest you make

a cup of tea, take a comfortable seat and - enjoy.

This is the story of   The   Adventurer

I

My name is Matt. I'm 17 years old and I go to a high school like every normal teenager.
I want to share my story with you.
You, who ever you may be. People who are interested about my story. If you're looking for a regular book for teenagers, where a girl finds ”the right one” and they start going out right at the end of the book and it's all fantastic and everyone lives happily ever after you can just put this down and find another book. I said that I go to high school like all other normal teenagers. I just didn't mention that quite the opposite of normal.

When I was 15 I was on a holiday with my sister and our parents in Scotland. Unfortunately, when a passanger was taking our regular family photo, which would be send to several relatives so that they could see that our family is just as happy and joyful as any other family, I happened to misstep and fell right into the lake. I preseume you've heard about the Loch Ness monster. You all know that it is a tale and someone has made it up just to scare the kids.

That's what I thought when the water was foaming around me and pushing me deeper down the lake. My breath was blocked because of the cold water and right then I saw it. I am not kidding, it was the Loch Ness monster. Some sort of a combination of a dragon and a dinosaur: the legendary seamonster. The fact that I'm here, telling you this story is all because of my sister. She jumped right after me and pulled me back up.

That doesn't make me very ordinary or different from other teenagers. Unless if I were some sort of an idiot, I could be ranting on how I had almost rosen from death. Or I could be the loser who almost died by falling in a lake, lost the ability to swim and got saved by his own sister. Or I could be the freak who runs around the school telling everyone I had seen the Loch Ness monster “for reals”.

No. Something happened during that “drowning-experience”. Something strange that I can't explain. After that I've been having these weird absence seizures which last for few seconds. I am staring at one point and I can't hear anything. This doesn't sound weird enough? At this point you maybe thinking of reading another book and you're sorry you didn't choose Hobbit from the shelf. Or even worse. You've waisted money on this book and now you want to throw it out of your window or shove it under the swinging coffee table which spills the coffee if someone accidentally leans on the table.

I'm asking for patience. After you've read this book, you can dry flowers between the pages by all means, but please, finish my story. It'll only take a moment, I swear on my mom's life or else the Devil can take my soul.

During these weird absence seizures I'm not here. I don't mean just mentally, that's why it's called absence seizure, when you're not here mentally. I also mean physically. Ahh, what I mean that my body is not going anywhere. It doesn't disappear or turn invisible. It's like a “shell” on its current position. But I do disappear. I may disappear for several minutes, hours, days or even for weeks. Though I haven't been on an “adventure” over a month yet. At first I couldn't decide for how long I would disappear but now I'm getting the hang of it. I've been practising. At the beginning it was really annoying because I didn't know what was happening and how I would get out of the place I was. Now I can decide if I want to enjoy the show or leave before the real partying starts. (Yet) I can't decide where I will go and some of the places have been quite scary, others really boring. On the tip of your tongue must be a question right now: “Matt, where do you disappear?” or maybe: “Where are you going, you twat”.
 

I will tell. But I must warn you at this point that no, you will never find me in real life, you are never going on an adventure with me, and you can never experience anything like me. For what I know, I'm the luckiest guy who's walked on Earth. 

II

My frist adventure happened almost right after I had fallen to the lake. We were sitting on a car on our way to the airport. We had just left from Inverness at the dawn and we had a long way to drive. If you're some sort of an expert at geography or you know all the Britain's airports, or maybe you live in Inverness, you won't believe me when I say it's a long way. “Ten miles isn't that far by car”. No it's not you smartass, if we would've been going to the Inverness' airport. But we weren't. Our ah, so lovely but desperate parents thought that a fun trip from Northern Britain to the very Southern Britain by car would save our holiday. That is very pathetic even from our parents. And I think that holiday was propably the last one we would ever go with our parents. So that in the future none of their kid could fall into a lake and almost die. Actually I've been wondering why our parents haven't wrapped cotton and bubblewrap around us and stored us in a dark and soft room where nothing can harm us. You must understand that our parents loved us (and still do) very much. Doctor had told my mother that they couldn't get any children but then my sister was born and then me, a year after. That's why our parents think of us as the eighth and ninth Wonder of the World and that's why they act so protective.
We were not far from Aviemore when suddenly I felt a pain in my chest, like someone was poking me with tens of needles right at my lungs. This is of course a metaphor, I don't actually know how it feels when someone pokes your lungs with needles. But that's how those “pinches” felt like. I don't know if I breathed more heavily or what but the pain was over before it had even started. I was thankful never the less because it felt like hell. Little did I know that I would feel it again multiple times. Can a man pity himself? In this case I would pity myself. No, I don't think people would let me feel sorry for myself after they know where I was heading.
 

After the painful experience, I fell. Not really because who can fell if they're sitting on a car? Must a big loser to be able to do that. So, I fell, figuratively, and everything went black. When I opened my eyes I noticed I was standing in the middle of a group of people and each and everyone was wearing very oldish clothes. Now, I don't read history that much so I can't tell from which era or century those clotes were from but I do know that nobody uses them in the 2000's. So I was standing in the crowd and thirty feet away was a man on a horse. His face was painted blue and white.

"... and dying in your beds, many years from now. Would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance? Just one chance? To come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!"

The crowd was cheering loudly and I stared at the man on that horse. I was confused, because who wouldn't? First you are sitting in a car with loving (and singing) family, and then suddenly you're standing in the middle of the moor with hundreds of people who wear strange clothes and yell about freedom with their faces painted. I was looking around and I noticed a man not far from the crowd wearing very normal looking clothes, and he was holding a camera. A movie camera! I took few steps towards him and a lady next to him waved her hand at me. I didn't understand what she wanted so I jogged closer.

"Go back you idiot! What do you think you're doing? This is the twelveth take on this scene! At last everything is great, that diva is satisfied, and now someone insignificant assistant, here only for the day, runs towards and looks directly at the camera." That lady snapped behind her teeth and shaked her head.

If possible, I looked even more confused. I pointed at the camera and then the man who was now cantering back and forth in front of the crowd.
 

"Stop, stooop. Cut it. CUT! Let's take it again. Someone's trying to be the Queen over here." Yelled a black shirted guy to the megaphone a bit further away. The man, cantering on the horse, rode towards us, hopped off on his horse and stared at me. I looked at his face and I noticed he was William Wallace. No, no, of course not the REAL William Wallace, you numnuts. When there was movie cameras in 1200's? Ahh, forget it. So, that man was playing William Wallace. He was Mel Gibson. I looked at Gibson's face, he stared at me back and cursed heavily.

"Do you realize, that took was FANTASTIC. What ever made you lose your character, I can assure you, if it happens again I will personally kick you out of this movie." Gibson stared at me like he wanted somekind of an answer.

"Eerm, yeah. Sure Mel. I mean Gibson, mister Sir?" I stuttered. He looked at me for a while and then declared he wanted to take a short break because I had ruined his great perfomance. During the break (which took an hour by the way) they gave me a real sword and an “enemy” with a real sword as well. This was because I needed to practice my nonexistent sword skills. When Gibson appeared back to the set, the man who had the megaphone yelled “ON YOUR POSITIONS” and all the actors run back to the hill. They all pushed me to the hill and I was bit baffled because I just noticed I was wearing the same clothes as everyone else. I presume I was wearing them the minute I got in this part of the world.

The crowd cheered again after Willia- I mean Gibson made the speech. They shouted and made noise. Then all of a sudden, the guy next to me took my sword, which was still the “real deal” unlike the others actors's because how was I supposed to know it was meant to change to a fake one. So that man took my REAL sword and thrust it right through my stomach. The pain was unbeleavable. Remember how I told you about the needles and the lungs? Yeah, I would've gladly taken that pain than this horrible feeling. Blood welled from the wound whilest I fell on my knees watching the sword still stuck on me. Then I looked at the man who had... well, killed me. His eyes got round when he saw the blood and he pulled the sword from my stomack and dropped it on the ground. He screamed like an animal, though no one heard it because of the hundreds of actors were yelling “hurray”. I could feel my mouth filling up with warm and rusty tasting blood. I couldn't do anything but look at that man, while he tried to stop the blood flowing from the huge wound on my stomach.

"It's okay... It's okay, it was just an, an accident" I mumbled and gravely picked up the sword the man had dropped few seconds ago, and I held it in my hand. He watched me fall on my back and a scary rattle escaped from my throat when I tried to take a deep breath failing miserably because my mouth was full of blood so I ended up couching it all over me. I couldn't keep my eyes open when the man tried to keep me awake by shaking me on my shoulders.
 

"For freedom." I whispered. 

III

I took a deep breath and was amazed when I could breath normally. I glanced around myself and saw the Aviemore's sign again from the car's window. Mom turned around on the front seat, looked at me and sang “If you're happy and you know it clap your hands” and clapped her hands. I looked at her trying to realize what had happened, had I dreamt? I hadn't left the car. Time hadn't passed more than few seconds because our parents were singing still that song and we passed Aviemore's sign just now. Good God, am I going crazy? If I had fallen asleep how on earth it had felt so real? And my death, that definitely happened. It was way too painful to be a dream. Mom sang still so I did what my sister had been doing all the way from Inverness: put on my earphones and turned my head over the autumnal woods. I took a deep breath and felt flashing pain in my stomach. I lifted my shirt up and saw a great purple bruiser where the sword had sunk.
Unbelievable. I know.

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The story will continue when I have time to translate more of it in English. So stay tuned if you liked it. Comments are welcomed with open arms, suggestions on my grammar as well - I'm not native English speaker.
Thank you
- S