After graduating high school my life has not been as liberating as I once thought. The idea of breaking from the shackles of high school as soon as I graduated lingered as I got the piece of paper that I’d spent fourteen years obtaining. The reason why it’s not thirteen years is because back in my freshman year I started getting bad grades because of an incident that was going on in my life. That isn’t all. I got into a fight with a classmate over a stupid quarrel, which led to my suspension because supposedly I knocked her out. I don’t think many people know this when fighting, but you black out because people exert too much of their adrenaline. Anyway, if you can’t tell already my life has been, how should I put it, really boring and repetitive. I feel as if my days are becoming more and more monotonous and I barely have any friends who want to hang out with me since they have their own lives. 

In an effortless decision, I came up with the idea to visit my father in my hometown. It’s been over a year since I’ve last seen him and I feel like he is the only person who can bring up my spirits when I’m stressed. Right now he lives about three hours away from me and I’m thinking about this being a surprise visit. My home is something that I’ve worked super hard to obtain because of how pricey a house in California is, but I have to make do with a small apartment because it’s the cheapest living area that is closest to my father. The apartment’s low water pressure and dirty ceiling can already describe what kind of shabby shack I’m living in. I’ve had many problems occur within this apartment that I probably spent more money fixing this crap than actually paying for it. I look around the living room thinking back when I first came here to view the room. Back then I was ashamed to have something as battered as this, but now I feel comfortable calling this place home. I grab my car keys, open the creaking door, and make my way downstairs since the elevator is still on maintenance. I leave the apartment complex and find my worn-down car. Now, to find my dad.

By the two-hour mark, I start finding myself stuck in traffic and my mind wanders off on my way to the town where I grew up. My childhood consisted of a loving home with me and my father but with no mother in sight. To this day I don’t know the full story. My dad will tell me what happened but I can tell he is lying. He has a strange habit of twitching his eyebrows when lying. The car in front of me advances and I wait some more. I grab my phone to see if my dad messaged me. Nothing. I put my phone back in the center console. I turn my head to look at the grasslands that separate me and my father. The very few trees that seem to have no place to belong in such a desolate place. The sky was now turning marigold with a hint of azure, mixing to make a perfect shade of lilac. The sky was just an endless canvas. I look back on the road and see that the traffic is now vanishing. I soon go back to a steady pace that will be able to let me arrive home around 10 pm. 

As leave the highway and enter Bridgewood, the town in which I grew up, I roll down my window and am met with a refreshing aroma of the people who inhabit this town. Rich flowers growing in the corners of the road and sidewalk, the smell of those flowers sweet and delicate with a slight hint of fresh cut grass in the distance. The park is full of kids playing in the monkey bars and the merry-go-round. I look back to my memories of those kids' playing and how I was once like them, how I wish I could go back to childhood and hide from the adult world. I take in everything I see of this town that I’ve missed so much and finally make it to my road. The road that my childhood home is on. The one that my father resides in. I park on the side of the road, close the door, and just smile as I look at the olive green two-story house with a white porch and brown stairs leading to a red door. At the side of the house is a 2022 Dodge Charger, my dad’s dream car that he bought recently and bragged about over the phone. My father is currently the deputy sheriff in our town and everyone adores him for protecting this town eight years ago when a group of criminals known for terrorizing small towns invaded. This criminal organization has many mysteries surrounding it like who’s leading it? Is there a caste system where normal looking civilians are actually criminals in disguise? Even to this day, he’s still trying to find out where they were and what their goal is, since they are most likely thriving right now in the shadows, but the problem is that have fled America to another country. That’s the most recent news that is currently being broadcast and what makes our small town so popular.

As I come back to reality from my daydream, I can see my father inside working on his laptop from the window. It’s most likely the case he’s been working on since that day. I head to the front door ready to meet my father as I tidy up my hair, but as I am about to knock I hear talking inside, one that doesn’t resemble my father's. The voice had a rasp to it. I don’t want to bother him while he has a visitor present so I wait. I reminisce back to the past as I look at the fresh-cut grass where I once stood barefooted trying to complete the task my father assigned me, giving him a strong and hard slap on the cheek. I had to innovate my techniques from previous fights to catch him off-guard and create unpredictable moves, while also trying to protect myself from my father’s soft strikes. That memory is one that I always look back on to reflect on how strong I’ve gotten from my dad’s training. 

Loud yelling and noises of glass breaking emits from my home. Curious, but still wanting to stay hidden, I jump the fence that leads to my backyard, quickly head to the shed, and grab the ladder placing it under my old bedroom window. I never locked it for this specific reason. Luckily my father never noticed I left it unlocked, which he should have started checking after catching me sneaking out to enjoy a night out with my friends. I look around my rooms seeing nothing has changed and quietly sneak to the stairs and look into the kitchen which is right next to the front door. I can see the unknown visitor and my father no longer present at the place of the quarrel. I no longer keep up my act of surprising my father and head downstairs. I halt when I hear a silent noise coming from my father’s home office. Without hesitation, I head to the kitchen to grab the sharpest knife in the holder, and dash inside the office, noticing no sign of the cause of the noise, I investigate further searching for any signs of a struggle. Newspapers fill my father’s office, looks like he’s been keeping tabs and looking for any secrets hidden in the pictures. He was desperate. After all, he knows mother was kidnapped. I looked further and see that my father’s laptop screen was open, but blackened due to inactivity meaning he was in a rush and had to leave his office. Papers are scattered everywhere showing signs of a fight. My heart lunged to my throat when I noticed red on the floor. Lots of it. I run through my home, desperately checking every nook and cranny when I catch something in the corner of my eye. My eyes widened when I saw my unconscious father being escorted to a bus by men and women wearing normal clothes to not attract any unwanted attention to themselves in case anyone witnessed this. They’re experienced, not people who half do their jobs. I’m dealing with professionals, which is why my father has been struggling to track them down for years now. This means I shouldn’t not care about his safety either. I head back to his office and see where he left off in his research. My first instinct is to look at his laptop for any location of where they may be located. I look through files and nothing. Of course, he wouldn’t leave such important information to be easily accessed. I’ll have to search for it myself as if I were my father. His fate is up to me to decide.

I roam around his office for any secret compartments: under the desk, under the blocky chair, under the carpet for any hidden trapdoors. Nothing. I think for a moment, not realizing how futile this search is. Why would my father hide his research in his office? He surely must have added some compartment or room while I was away. Like an ideal treasure cove hiding away from the pirates. I look in obvious and complex places until I find anything standing out.

At this point, I’ve spent an hour looking but still don’t have any signs of any new information. My feet are sore from running to the point that I’m clumping from muscle soreness. As I’m walking to the living room from the kitchen, my dragging feet stumble upon a sudden step in elevation, not noticeable to any outsider, but this was my childhood home and I surely don’t remember any weird kitchen tile one cm taller than the others. I go into the garage, find the toolbox, grab a screwdriver, and head back to the mysterious tile on the kitchen floor sticking the screwdriver between the square tiles. Trying to nudge the forceful obstacle in my way, I start to shake from the predicament I’m in. It just hit me that adversaries just stole away my father. All this time I’ve been dealing with these problems like an adult, but what if just for a day I was able to go back to being a child? That was what I was expecting out of this trip after all from the start. I just wanted to visit my childhood home and meet the man with whom I shared memories with. All of that is ruined now. I pulled off the kitchen tile, and underneath it was a compartment. I’ve found it.

I waste no time thoroughly scanning through the notes and research my father spent years obtaining. I then see bold red ink on one of the papers caught my eye. It reads.

“The Masqueraiders are the ones who did it. Finally, It’s time that I came looking for you Marlyn. 3-21-29. 46°08′N 64°46′W Moncton, Canada” 

I double-check the haunting words trying to make sense of it, then locate a tiny handle at the very bottom of the compartment, opening…another compartment.

“Wow… you outdid yourself, Father.” I compliment as I grab the storage box inhibiting the second compartment. It strangely has wrapping with weird markings on it.

I carefully open the box by removing the rolls of wrap and flipping the box open.

Inside I find...nothing. What was so important that you had to hide this deep in the pile?-

Suddenly white smoke started flushing out of the storage box, covering an intimidating growl along with a menacing figure emerged from the small box. 

“Shut up puny ingrant,” A husky voice reverberated my eardrums, “Why do you dare open my sacred box?”

I squinted my eyes trying to make out the little figure in the air that stood 10 feet away, but I couldn’t until I realized I could just blow the smoke away.

“No! Stop that! You shouldn’t see me! My presence itself should be enough to kill you! Get away from me!” He protested as I swiped away at the air and finally saw the source of the voice.

In front of me stood a stunning creature, like a fluffy snowball with horns on its head. Its fur was super white and soft looking, making it look pure. It had two horns that curved out from its head, like little crowns. The horns shone in different colors, making it look magical. But what got me were its eyes. Big and dark, they looked like they held secrets of the universe. Even though they were dark, they felt warm and friendly. The creature wore a one-shoulder toga, like the ones people wore in ancient times, but it was a light shade of brown. Looking at it made me feel like I was seeing something from a whole different world, something full of mystery.

“By the sound of your voice, I figured you were going to look like a goblin, but you’re surprisingly much more..cute?” I blurt out from astonishment to the creature the size of a football in front of me. 

“What brung you to me, ingan?” The creature said with a sneering tone.

“Why should I tell you? What if you’re working with the Masquraiders and know something that I don’t?” I replied.

Whatever this creature is, I can’t trust it at all. Why was my father keeping a deity hidden in the kitchen floor? Did he know what was inside the box? Or was he this desperate?

“What do you do?” I probed the creature.