Paraworld Zero (2 page)

    Smiling, she brought out a necklace she’d been wearing beneath her blouse.
Attached to the gold chain was a medallion—about the size of a silver dollar, ebony in color, and
beautiful in workmanship. The colorful lights reflected off the metallic pendant as she placed it
on her son’s bare chest.

    She looked at the doctor and whispered, “Give him this.” Then she closed her
eyes and died.

    The smoke and colorful lights soon dissipated, leaving the small room cold
and lifeless as before. Everyone remained silent. Not even the wind outside dared to make a
sound. The storm had finally ended.

Chapter 1
    

    

    Two knives, protruding from the knuckles of a leather glove, vibrated above
Simon’s sweaty forehead. The boy, small for his age, desperately held on to the man’s
wrists.

    “I have you now,” his assailant snickered as the tips of the blades scraped
against Simon’s glasses. An evil grin spread across the villain’s scarred face.

    “
Never!
” Simon shouted.

    With a sudden eruption of energy, he threw the dark man off and leapt to his
feet. Demonstrating perfect form, Simon kicked the menacing glove and shattered the twin blades.
The second his foot landed on the ground, he spun in the air and sent a crescent kick hard into
his opponent’s face.

    Simon walked up to his fallen enemy, who by this time was cowering on the
floor, and proclaimed, “As long as there’s good in the world, evil will never prevail!”

    A tumult of cheers and clapping came from the ecstatic crowd nearby. Confetti
filled the air, and young girls swooned around the scrawny boy, asking for autographs.

    A TV reporter with a microphone ran up to Simon and announced, “I’m here with
Simon Kent, who just saved the city of New York from certain doom. Simon, I have just one
question I think everyone here would like to know the answer to: Why are you in your
underwear?”

    “
Wh-Wh-What?
” he stuttered.

    “Why are you in your underwear?”

    Simon looked down and realized he wasn’t wearing anything but his
glow-in-the-dark Batman boxers. Looking up, he saw the crowd of pre-teenage girls and boys
laughing at him.

    “Do they give you special powers?” the reporter asked with a smirk. She burst
into laughter.

    “
Simon——Simon!
”

    Simon opened his eyes and found himself sitting at a desk in Mr.
Bartholomew’s seventh-grade English class.

    “Nice of you to join the class, Mr. Kent,” the teacher said. “I think we have
time for one more book report. Why don’t we have Simon go next?”

    Simon’s heart sank. He took a puff from his inhaler and fumbled around in his
fanny pack. A handheld video game machine, erasers, old candy corn from Halloween, a couple of
extra batteries, some chewed-up pencils, and a few quarters, but no book report.

    “I—I can’t seem to find it.”

    “Mr. Maloy.” The teacher turned to a neighboring classmate. “What happens to
students who forget their homework?”

    The boy, caught off guard, thought for a moment. “Um… they get
detention?”

    “No, no, no! Well, yes, in some cases—but that’s beside the point.” Mr.
Bartholomew turned to his favorite student. “Jenny, can you help us out?”

    “Certainly,” she said in a superior voice. “They fail.”

    “That’s correct. They fail. Anyone who thinks he or she can just sleep
through life—or my class, for that matter—has another think coming. You can’t expect to succeed
in life if you—”

    Just then, a wonderful ringing noise flooded Simon’s ears. It wasn’t a pretty
tone by any means, but to Simon, it sounded like a chorus of angels swooping in to carry him away
from the horrible situation. It was the school bell.

    All of the kids jumped up to leave, but Mr. Bartholomew stood his ground.
“You can’t expect to succeed in life…” he said loudly to get their attention. The students
paused, and the teacher finished his lecture with, “…if you don’t
apply
yourself.” He directed his last comment specifically towards Simon.

    

    

    Children from seventh to twelfth grade stampeded through the hallways to get
to their classes. Simon felt like a dwarf among giants, not just because of his low status on the
totem pole but because of his unusually short height. He was a sickly boy with plastic-framed
glasses, thick chestnut hair, and a slightly crooked nose. His legs were birdlike, and his ears
seemed to stick out too far from his head.

    His only love in life was playing video games; it was the only thing he was
good at. He could outplay just about anyone, and he knew it.

    “Simon Kent,” a slow, cold voice sounded from behind. Simon cringed. He stuck
his face in his open locker, hoping the person would go away.

    “I heard about what happened in English class. Mrs. Trimble will be so
disappointed in you… She may even take away your video games.”

    Simon turned around to face the sophomore behind him. “Y-Y-You’re not going
to t-t-tell her, are you?” Simon stuttered only when he was really nervous, and the thought of
having his most prized possessions taken away simply terrified him.

    “Oh,” the older boy said melodramatically, “I’m sure she’ll find out sooner
or later.” He chuckled as Simon squirmed.

    “Hey, Butch,” came the sultry voice of Sara Parker, the most beautiful girl
in school. Two large boys followed her: Buz Atkins, the biggest kid in school, and Spike Peters,
the oldest kid in school. No one knew how old Spike really was, but rumor had it that he’d been
held back three years in a row. “Are you coming over tonight?” Sara asked, her lips
pouting.

    “Yeah,” said Butch, “I’ll be there.” He smacked Simon on the back. “See ya
later, punk.” At that, he walked away with Sara, leaving Buz and Spike behind to torment Simon.
Both seniors laughed maliciously, but Simon didn’t know why.

    Tall, handsome, and full of muscles, Butch was the envy of all the students
in school. He always knew what to say to make people like him or do what he wanted. Sara, his
girlfriend, was just crazy about him—and everyone else was crazy about her.

    Even as a sophomore, Butch was the star quarterback and held awards for just
about every sport Simon could think of. He wore his letterman jacket every day to display his
many achievements. On top of all that, a flock of students consistently hovered around him,
basking in his glory.

    But Butch had a dark side that only a few knew about. Simon had lived with
him in the foster home—often referred facetiously as “the orphanage” by many of the children—for
almost three years now, and he was keenly aware of the horrible things Butch would do during his
sadistic mood swings. For example, one time Butch poured toilet cleanser into Simon’s ant farm in
retaliation to a simple quarrel; the poor insects never stood a chance.

    Unlike Simon, Butch entered the orphanage at age twelve. His parents had been
abusive. Simon remembered one day overhearing Butch tell the younger kids a story about how he
had been locked in the basement for two weeks without food and how he had to drink from the
toilet to survive. Simon doubted the validity of his story, but then again, there might have been
some truth to it.

    “
Ouch!
” Simon yelped. Someone had just kicked him. “Ouch! Stop it!”

    Everyone—especially Buz and Spike—seemed to be attacking him. The kicks
weren’t dreadfully hard, but for a small person like Simon, they were earth-shattering.

    Simon dropped his books by accident, and when he bent over to pick them up,
he received two more swift kicks from behind. The teenagers broke into laughter as Simon’s face
smashed into the hard tile floor. His glasses broke and a trickle of blood appeared from a tiny
cut above his eye.

    Tripping on his books, the young boy fumbled for cover while the bullies
followed in pursuit. Desperate, he rushed to the emergency exit and flung open the doors. A loud
warning bell echoed through the hallways, but Simon didn’t hear it, for he was already
maneuvering his way through the parking lot.

    He found himself running down a busy street. Normally, his first instinct
would have been to head towards the orphanage, but another building drew his attention
instead—the video arcade. A sign at the door read: No Students Allowed Before 2:00 PM.

    His watch showed 1:23 p.m., so he sat down at the edge of the curb and
counted the reasons why nobody liked him. He even surprised himself by the extensive list he
created. How could someone be so unloved?

    As the minutes passed by, he noticed a bunch of large black ants attempting
to carry a green leaf with a nest of caterpillar eggs attached to it—a food source that would
sustain the insects for some time—but the leaf hardly budged. Simon gazed in amusement as a
family of smaller ants kept walking onto the leaf, weighing it down. Perturbed by this, the
larger ants would let go of the leaf to chase off the smaller ants, but as the big ants were
lured away, the remaining small ants monopolized the leaf until they too were forced away by
their larger cousins. The two types of ants fought in this manner, over and over. And after
several minutes, the leaf hadn’t moved even one centimeter.

    Suddenly, a screeching tire rolled over both groups of ants. Mrs. Trimble had
just pulled up. She rolled down her window. “Simon, let’s go home.”

    “How did you know I was here?”

    “This is where I’d go if I just had a bad day,” she said with a warm smile.
Simon got into the station wagon, and they drove off.

    

    

    The orphanage, which was really just an old two-story home, belonged to Mrs.
Trimble, a kind, elderly woman who loved her job very much and loved her foster children even
more. But since her husband’s recent passing, she had been forced to reevaluate her position as
overseer of the foster home. She wasn't as young as she used to be, and she found herself relying
more and more on the aid of her niece, Maggie.

    Although she took care of a handful of adolescents, most of her affection
centered on Simon. She even enrolled him in karate lessons to help raise his self-esteem. Some of
the other children in the foster home thought she showed favoritism, but Simon knew the real
reason she paid so much attention to him: He reminded Mrs. Trimble of her son.

    After attending to some menial tasks and thanking her niece for babysitting
once again, Mrs. Trimble walked into the children’s bedroom on the second floor, holding a bottle
of alcohol and a clean rag. Simon was sitting on the edge of a well-used bed, playing a video
game on his handheld device. A tiny six-year-old named Dimitri sat next to him and watched in
awe.

    “Dimitri, what have I told you about getting too close to the other kids?”
Mrs. Trimble scolded. “The whole reason you stayed home from school today was so you wouldn’t
make anyone sick.”

    “Sorry.” The little boy sneezed. Dimitri was a cute blond-haired boy with a
good heart, deep blue eyes, and a stuffy nose.

    The boy exited the room, but Simon didn’t seem to notice; he sat in his own
little world, covered by shadows. Mrs. Trimble turned on the light, but the room didn’t brighten
very much because three of the four light bulbs had already burned out. She noticed the sheet of
paper taped to Simon’s back. It read: Kick Me!

    “Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Trimble exclaimed, pulling the paper off his back.
She turned the sheet over and read the first sentence of Simon’s book report. “Who would do such
a thing?” Simon didn’t even look up.

    She dipped the rag into the alcohol. “This may hurt a bit.”

    
She wasn’t kidding!
Simon thought. His cut stung as she patted the dried blood on his
forehead. He flinched to remind her of the pain but not enough to stop himself from playing his
video game.

    Mrs. Trimble removed his broken glasses. A spider web design ran down one of
the lenses, while the warped frame pushed the other lens out of place.

    “Simon, why do you insist on wearing these things? You know you don’t really
need glasses.”

    “You wouldn’t hit someone with glasses, would you?” he asked dryly, not
moving his eyes from the video display.

    “Of course not.” She pulled open a drawer that contained a slew of
eyeglasses, most of which were damaged, and tossed the broken pair in with the others. The old
woman fumbled around the drawer until she found a good pair. She put them onto Simon’s face. “So
you think the kids at school will stop hurting you if you wear glasses?”