I'm Not the Chosen One

Not again, I thought as I stared at the frozen over lake. The fact it was frozen wasn’t the strange part—lakes do that every winter, obviously—the issue is that it was summer. I poked at it with a stick. Yup, frozen solid.

Maybe that should have freaked me out more than it did, but I grew up around occurrences like this. You see, my town is a hotspot for strangeness. Things like this just… happen. So, a lake freezing over in the middle of summer was weird, but it wasn’t that weird.

I feel like I should mention I’m not the “chosen one” or whatever of this story. I’m not even in the chosen one’s circle. I’m just trying to get through senior year, apply to college, and get the hell out of this unnecessarily supernatural town nobody else seems to notice.

So, I didn’t do anything about the lake. What was there to do? I just turned around and walked back to my house.

I’m not sure who the “main character” is, if there’s any—supposedly there aren’t main characters in real life, but it’s hard to believe that when you constantly feel like a background character in a bad YA novel. I don’t want to be the main character of this story, though. This place is a train wreck; I don’t envy whoever they are at all. I’m fine being in the background. A lot less pressure that way.

I waved to my mom as I walked in and went upstairs to my room. I flopped down on my bed and turned on the tv. Apparently sharks were swimming in the sky, but that was being overlooked since the county fair was opening. I switched the tv off and opened my laptop. At this point I already had a few colleges picked out, all far away from here. Applications weren’t open yet, but I had already worked on a few possible essays. I looked them over again, just to be safe (they were my ticket out. I had to make sure they were good). When I was satisfied, it was time for dinner.

My mother was home by then, and my mom decided to make a simple meal of tomato soup and popcorn. While I despise my unnatural town, I do love my family, and will miss them when I leave. I’ve tried convincing them to move multiple times, but never succeeded. They don’t think this place is weird! But I guess if I can’t convince them, there’s nothing I can do. I hope they realise on their own some day, but I’m not counting on it.

The three of us settled onto the couch and turned on an episode of The Great British Baking Show. We were well into an episode when I noticed my soup was starting to bubble.

Then a hand was shot out and grabbed my face.

My soup had spilled as I tried to pry it off. My moms were shouting; my mother managed to dislodge the hand and threw it across the room. The hand crawled away out the open window, never to be seen again. The three of us stared on.

My mom turned me towards her, scanning my face for damage.

“You see why I want to leave now?” I asked.

She let out a nervous laugh. “Darling, I don’t know what you mean.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “A hand jumped out of my fucking soup and attacked me!”

“Language,” my mother scolded.

“Just… just don’t mention this to anyone else…” I don’t think I’d ever seen my mom that scared.

I shook my head and walked back up to my room.

I feel like I should revise what I said before. People know this town is weird, but no one will ever talk about it. I don’t know why. It feels like they're all scared of something that's preventing them from speaking, but I can't figure out what. You’d think this would make me the chosen one, but none of the weird things happen to me (aside from the hand thing). It’s rare I’m even near them.

And that’s why I need to leave. I don't want to be trapped in fear like everyone else.

This isn’t what the main character would do.