Chapter 1

A young lad, no more than 18 years old, and fresh out of high school suddenly snaps back into a cognitive mind. The lad is named Joshua Maximus. He looks around him, but only sees darkness at first.

He's about 6 feet tall, with a rather skinny build, thanks to his genes. His muscles are toned, but not bulky at all. He has short, red, naturally spiked hair. His eyes are green with a brown tint, so that if viewed by a person with bad eyesight, they'd swear that his eyes were brown, but a person with good eyesight would be able to tell where the brown ended and the green began. He has a light brushing of red facial hair.

Slowly, a light forms and with it, a figure. The light isn't too bright, but it isn't dim either. The figure in front of Joshua, who at first he mistakes for a power ranger, as he tends to dream about when he's been watching the television show all day, but then, as the light illuminates this figure, he quickly realizes that the figure isn't a power ranger or even one of the foreign counter parts. He looks over the figure and sees that instead of a spandex like uniform, the figure is wearing a painted plate based armor that closely resembled that of a futuristic soldier. The armor is black with a green tint to it, and on the center of the chest an odd looking symbol is placed. The symbol, though familiar, is unidentifiable to him. The figure speaks, but only for a moment.

"You are the one. I am sure of it. Your time will come, soon." The figure says.

Joshua is perplexed by what the figure has said, not quite sure what to make of it. He's the one? What does the figure mean? But before Joshua can get out a response that consists of more than a single word, his dream abruptly ends, and vanishes, replaced by the darkness of the back of his eyelids, and the sound of his alarm blaring. His mind tells him that he was dreaming, and that his alarm is going off. It is morning yet again, and time for him to awaken.

His eyes slowly open. His vision, though blurry at first, adjusts to see him staring at his alarm clock, which reads 7:00 in its calculator like form. The numbers are red, and there's no dot indicating that he's in the evening, but the dot to the alarm glows brightly. Closing his eyes again, he slams his hand against the top of the alarm a few times, until he is able to locate the silence button and turn it off. He slowly pulls the covers over his head and groans, not wanting to wake up.

His attempt to go back to sleep is soon thwarted by his roommate barging into his room and forcing him back out of his tired state.

"Joshua, Earth to Joshua! Time to get up! We have to get moving!" His roommate says as he barges into the room.

He pulls the covers off his head to see his roommate. His roommate is named Phil and stood about six foot five inches. He has the build of a wide-receiver, though he never works out, nor plays sports. Phil is a black man with short black hair and dark brown eyes. He is wearing the lower half of a costume with a pair of socks, and is nude from the waist up. He has a towel draped around his shoulders. Phil has a bit of hair on his chest, a light coating at most, and is standing there with a stupid grin on his face.

"Where?" Joshua asks, unwilling to get up.

"The Convention! Where else?" Phil says. "Did you forget that it was today?"

Joshua groans and pulls off the covers the rest of the way, and sits up. Joshua had went to bed in his boxer shorts, and nothing else. Joshua's skin is a slightly tanned Caucasian that honestly looked like it would rather burn than tan. Joshua rubs his head as Phil turns and walks out of the room.

"By the way, the coffee is hot! Get into your shower before getting your costume on." Phil shouts from the other room.

Joshua looks over at his closed closet door. His costume hangs from it. He had decided to dress as the character Buster Red from Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. He had spent weeks in the designing stages, and even longer in sewing and making of the costume, and it was at a level that anyone would be proud to wear it. The helmet sat on his bookshelf near his closet, and he had only put on the finishing touches a few days ago. He had checked it the night prior to make sure it wasn't sticky from the Acrylic paint. He gets to his feet and slowly walks over to his mirror, looks at his body for a moment, wishing that he had been built more like one of the heroes he idolized so much. He worked out every so often, but couldn't put on any weight. He sighed before opening his closet door and grabbing his towel off a shelf inside. He then walks out of his room and into the bathroom to shower. He doesn't see what seems to be a distortion following closely behind him.

A little while later he walks out of the bathroom, freshly showered, but still half awake. He has his towel around his waist and his boxers in his right hand. He walks back into his room and closes the door. He tosses his boxers into the hamper and thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns to look, nothing is there. He shrugs the feeling of being watched off, and pulls off his towel. He walks over to his dresser and grabs a fresh pair of boxers. Again he thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye, but nothing is there. He pulls on his boxers and begins pulling on his costume slowly, making sure everything looks alright, and when he looks over to see his bedroom door is open.

"The hell?" Joshua says.

"Problem bro?" Phil asks as he peaks his head inside the room.

"Did you open my door?" Joshua asks.

"No, I thought you just opened it." Phil says.

"No. I was all the way over here." Joshua says.

"Weird, maybe we have ghosts now. Either way, finish getting dressed and we'll get moving." Phil says.

Joshua goes back to getting his costume on as Phil pulls his head back and heads out to the kitchen. Joshua pulls on the jacket and gloves before strapping on the foam Morphin Brace to his arm. He looks at himself in the mirror, checking out his costume again, before pulling on the custom made belt and grabbing his helmet. He walks out into the kitchen where Phil is making a couple slices of toast. Joshua sets his helmet on the counter. Phil is dressed as Buster Blue, minus the helmet which is sitting on the counter next to Joshua's. Joshua walks over to the coffee pot and pulls out a travel mug, and begins pouring his coffee into the mug. He puts the pot back in the dispenser and walks over to the fridge. He opens it, grabs the Coffee-Mate. He walks back to his mug, and opens the Coffee-Mate and pours some in his mug. He closes the Coffee-Mate and puts it away as Phil finishes buttering his toast. Joshua walks back over to his coffee, grabs a spoon from the drawer and stirs the coffee.

"You certainly took your time getting dressed, Joshua." Phil says.

"Well, Phil, when you look as good as I do, preparation takes time." Joshua says.

"Yeah. Sure. Grab your coffee, and let's get to the convention. I want to make it to some of the tables before lines get epically long." Phil says.

"What're you having autographed this time?" Joshua asks.

"My newest drawing, depicting all the characters that the actors portrayed that happen to be showing up today." Phil says.

"You did another one?" Joshua asks.

"Well, my last one didn't turn out half bad, so I figured: Why not? Besides, they're always happy to sign unofficial stuff." Phil says.

"That's true. Well, let's get going." Joshua says as he tosses his spoon in the sink and puts the top on his mug. "By the way, I was kind of hoping that you'd try to get them to sign the sexy one."

"What? No, that one isn't leaving our apartment." Phil laughs.

The two of them head out the door, grabbing their helmets and lock up behind themselves before walking out to Phil's white truck. Phil hits the unlock button on his keychain and they get in. Joshua takes a sip of his coffee, before setting the travel mug in the cup holder and buckling up. Phil buckles up and checks his mirror. He sees a distortion for a moment in the reflection, but then it vanishes.

"What the hell?" Phil says as he looks in the rearview mirror.

"What's the matter?" Joshua asks as he sets his helmet at his feet and grabs his cup of coffee from the holder.

"I could've sworn ... never mind. I think I just need some more sleep." Phil says.

"Speaking of sleep, I had this weird dream last night that I have to tell you about." Joshua says.

"The one about the chick with the six tits again?" Phil laughs.

"No, this one was different. Almost ominous in nature." Joshua explains.

"Really?" Phil asks.

"Yeah. It was just some armor wearing warrior that reminded me a lot of a power ranger, who told me I was the one." Joshua explains.

"But Joshua you are the one! The dumb ass one that likes to sleep more than do anything else." Phil laughs.

He starts the truck and pulls out of the parking lot, heading towards the convention. The two of them listen to the radio and keep sort of silent as they drive to the convention. They pull into the convention parking lot and hop out of the truck. The birds in the nearby park are chirping in the trees, and the sun is slowly making its way overhead. Joshua chugs the last of his coffee, and sets the cup in the holder. He grabs his helmet and shuts the door. He pulls on his helmet as he walks around to the front of the truck.

"Hey, let's only refer to each other in our ranger designations unless we're alone today." Joshua suggests.

"Sounds fun, Joshua. I mean Red Buster." Phil says.

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

Don't Change - Book 1: Beginnings

Joshua L. Edwards

$0.99