Milo groaned as he rolled out of bed. He stood up and stretched, checking behind his back as he did so. Oftentimes he felt like he was being watched.He always checked whenever he got this feeling, even if he knew it was just paranoia. He snatched his work uniform off the floor and hurriedly got ready. He didn’t want to leave the safe haven that was his bedroom to face society, but if had to, he wanted to leave quickly. He wanted to leave before he was confronted by his mother. 

“Milo, Hurry up or else you’re going to be late,” His mother shouted towards his room. Her shouting was followed by her cursing Milo under her breath, something about him being ungrateful and lazy. Milo just rolled his eyes, snatched his bag off the floor, and stormed out of his room. As he walked past his mother he’s sure she was yelling at him for his attitude. He wasn’t listening, of course, and cursed her under his breath as he walked out the door. 

As soon as he left his house, the world was silent. It was an eerie silence, unnatural. While he was too busy lamenting to notice, the silence seemed to be following Milo. It was following him. It was following him in the form of a bird. An owl to be specific. This was not odd in the fact that it was a Northern Hawk Owl. This was odd because, besides Milo, this was the only living thing to be seen in this exact moment. There were no joggers, no dogs in backyards, no bugs on the ground, no stray cats waltzing through yards, there was nothing. Nothing except the bird and a terribly unaware Milo. 

Milo dragged himself to work in this silence. He didn’t notice this silence so he spent most of his walk wondering why the neighborhood pool was even open. It was the middle of September. It was downright cold. He knew he would waste the next five hours of his life doing nothing. Maybe the occasional kid would come by and swim for thirty minutes. Other than that he would be utterly alone. This was not to his total dismay, he just wished he could be utterly alone in the comfort of his own room. It was hard to be a lifeguard when there were no lives to guard. 

When he got to work he checked his watch, it read 3:33. Twenty-seven minutes til opening, Four hours and fifty seven minutes until he can go home. He rushes through his opening tasks before the pool officially opens. His watch started to vibrate to indicate it was time to open. The vibrations were unusually loud. It was no different than a clash of thunder on an otherwise silent night. 

When Milo opens the garage door, he is met with a child standing there. The kid looked young. He glanced around to see if there was an adult nearby. No one else was in sight. 

“Hey kid, how old are you?” Milo asked in his usually monotone voice.

“I’m nine!” The kid smiled as he held up nine fingers. Milo debated whether or not he 

should let this kid in. He sighed, deciding he didn’t care and tilted his head as an indication for the child to follow him. 

The bird watched this interaction. The child was another obstacle to get Milo’s attention. The bird quickly flew from its perch in front of the pool to a perch on the side of the pool. It allowed a better view of Milo and the child. Its eyes followed Milo as the pair entered the pool area. It watched how Milo slouched in his designated chair and pulled out a book to read. It then brought its attention to the child and watched how the child urgently jumped into the pool. The splash that followed disturbed the silence. 

This was when Milo caught wind of the disturbance. Each splash that came from the child in the water was far too loud. He placed a bookmark in the book he was reading and placed it on the table next to him with caution. He looked around and finally noticed the lack of bugs on the ground and birds in the sky. He noticed how the trees stilled. They weren’t dancing through the wind as they always did. He looked at the tops of the trees where the branches thinned to make sure they were actually still and it wasn’t just a light breeze. The branches remained frozen. 

He rose from his seat and slowly turned in a circle. There was not a sound to be heard beyond the barrier of the pool, he realized. The only sound to be heard was the obscenely loud splashing of the water. Milo was uncomfortable. He caught sight of the bird. Even from a distance he could see a terrible scar that ran down the bird's right eye. Then the bird made eye contact with Milo. He was suddenly filled with fear. The bird was watching him. It was the thing that was always making him feel watched. It had to be. It couldn’t be. Birds don’t do that. Maybe they do. Nonsense, it just happened to be looking at him when he looked at it. Right? 

Milo had to tear his eyes away from the bird so that he could be returned to the fabrics of reality. His eyes immediately darted to the child. The child appeared oblivious. There wasn’t much Milo could do based on a ‘feeling’ and one creepy bird, so he sat back down. He sat rather slowly with an intense focus on the child. He couldn't shake the feeling the bird gave him. He kept his eyes focused on the child, but kept looking at it from the corner of his eyes. 

He spent what felt like hours focusing simultaneously on the child and the bird. He didn’t know why, but he had a fear pounding at the back of his head. It was screaming at him to get the child out of the pool area, to send him home. He couldn’t do that. There was no probable reason to ask the child to leave. He would get in trouble and possibly lose his job. 

After several more minutes, Milo realized the bird was gone. He couldn’t ignore the voice yelling at him to remove the child any longer. This was more important than his job. He, as calmly as he could, made his way towards the child in the deep end. He stood there until the child caught his eye and came towards the wall.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I am going to have to ask you to leave,” Milo said as calmly as he could with his most authoritative voice.

“Why?” The child asked as he furrowed his brow.

“You’re just going to have to trust me and leave,” Milo said urgently, he didn’t have time to explain this ‘feeling’ to a nine year old. 

“No,” The child simply replied before going underwater and swimming away. Milo just stood there a minute, hoping the child would come back around. When he didn’t, Milo just sighed and walked away. The child wasn’t wrong for ignoring his pleas but Milo was so violently irritated. Why wouldn’t the child listen? Did he not see that Milo was trying to help him? Milo had questions popping in his head like this until he once again reached his seat. 

He all but flopped into his chair. Milo was feeling several emotions at this moment. That was a struggle for him since he was only used to feeling one. He was fearful, he was angry, he was aggravated, these were just some of the major ones. 

As Milo sat, his eyes on the child were more focused than before. He stared intently at the child as he carelessly swam laps around the pool. This was until he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. It was something by the water. Upon closer inspection he realized that there was something in the water. He immediately jumped out of his chair and started shouting at the child to get out. He called for the child but the child didn’t seem to hear him. In fact, by the time the child looked in Milos direction it was too late. 

The child was dragged under the water with a violent jerk followed by a large splash. He was gone and was replaced by a steady flow of red on the surface. His blood. This did not stop Milo. For some reason he believed the child could still be saved. There wasn’t even a stutter in his step when he dived into the deep end of the pool. 

He let out a gasp once he was below water. Then he quickly remembered that he is, in fact, underwater. The child was momentarily forgotten as he took in the scenery around him. He was in the deep end of the pool, but he was also in the ocean at the same time. It was as if he wasn’t at a pool to begin with. It felt like he swam too far off the shore of the beach. The water put a deep blue tint on everything. There was a coral reef that went as far as the eye could see. There were schools of fish swimming as if this was their normal habitat. It was, in a way. If Milo could speak, he would be speechless. 

“You can breathe, but you must not panic,” Milo heard a voice to his left say. Hesitantly, he turned towards the voice. He did his best not to panic once he met the source, but he was met face to face with a shark. There was a tiger shark in the swimming pool. The whole of the pacific ocean was in the swimming pool. Then he noticed a scar on the shark's right eye, same as the bird.

“I- Wh- How is this possible?” He stammered. He watched the shark with fear and curiosity.

“That is beyond your comprehension,” The shark said as if it was the most simple thing in the world. Well? Did it speak? Its mouth did not move but there was a voice to answer Milo’s question. There just seemed to be an understanding that it belonged to the shark, considering how it was looking directly at Milo and had yet to react towards him. 

He had to be calm at this moment, he could not freak out. How was that even possible? Anyone else would have scrambled to get out of the water and run as far away as possible, but not Milo. He stayed. His entire world was so small just this morning, he was living in his own little bubble of misery. Now he is face to face with a shark, a top predator, and the vastness of the ocean. 

“Why’d you kill that kid? What are you? How are you here? Why are you here?” Milo was shooting off questions left and right. 

“You will learn what I am with time,” The shark only focused on one question. 

“And everything else?” Milo prompted.

“For you. The child was an obstacle to get to you. I am here for you. I have been watching you for a long time now, Milo,” Milo was shocked by the use of his name. How did this thing know my name? Why is it watching me? How long have I been watched? These thoughts and more raced through Milo’s mind at the speed of light. He had so many questions, yet so little time. 

“Why are you watching me?” Milo settled on asking, since he now knew the child could not be saved. 

“Your cynical perspectives have been a source of our interest for years. How could one be so dismissive and bleak in a world so full of beauty?” It was hard to determine whether or not that was a rhetorical question.

“I don’t know what that has to do with me,” Milo growls towards the shark, suddenly feeling defensive. He knew that he should not anger the creature that has taken the form of a man eating shark, but what was its place in degrading Milo? 

“I would like to understand you. I would like to understand what you find so miserable about your existence.” Milo’s defense was replaced by a dumbfounded look

He just stared at the shark in disbelief as he tried to retain that information. He wanted to be mad. He wasn’t that miserable. Was he? He started to reflect on his life. Surely he was an average amount of miserable. He thought about his attitude towards waking up in the morning, his attitude as he left for work. He thought about his attitude towards doing anything that wasn’t secluding himself as far away from society as humanly possible. Oh god he thought what a miserable life I have led.

“How are you going to understand me?” Milo asked after a long stretch of silence. 

“I am here to present to you the opportunity to come with me. With that you will be in an environment of constant change. You will never remain in one place for long. You will be surrounded by things that are beyond your understanding, but it is all a part of the process of understanding,” A beat of silence, “You may come with me or you may return to your normal life. This decision is up to you, but your answer must be final” The shark said. It did not elaborate more. Milo did not expect it to elaborate more. 

The silence stretched on as Milo thought, as he considered. His life will be forever changed no matter what. He will forever have this experience with him, if he chooses to go back to life. Either way a child died. If he goes back to his normal life he will have to deal with the repercussions of that. He will definitely be out of a job and struggle to ever get another one, if he isn’t in prison.

If he goes he could lead a whole new life. He would never see his mother again, that was a fact that he was okay with. However, he would miss out on a lot of life's major moments. He is so close to graduating highschool and he would give that up to become a science experiment. Thirteen years of school would become a waste in a matter of moments. He wouldn't have the opportunity to go to college and start anew. He can start anew now. His life could be different. It could be better. It could be beautiful. 

“Alright,” Milo stated, “I’ll go.”