Leo

I gaze up at the sunroof in my bedroom. Ever since I was a kid I had that sunroof, and every night I gaze up at the stars before bed. Sometimes it actually takes me a while to fall asleep because I zone out at the stars and think about that day. This time I was just looking at the stars, not thinking about much. I see this group of stars, and my mother says its a constellation named after me, Leo. That’s my name if you were wondering. Well I saw it in my sunroof, but I swear all of a sudden it flashed brighter than any other stars. Like it was just as bright as the other stars, and the constellation flickered. I sat up in my bed and looked around. All of a sudden there was something next to my bed. It seems really big, as if it were a vase. I check my clock next to my bed, just to see if my mother would be asleep, and the clock shows about midnight.

My mother went to bed already. Crap.

I get out of my huge bed and see this thing in more detail. It looks like a box, with weird markings all over it. I try to pick it up to see it under my sunroof, but the thing is really heavy. I decided I’ll try in the morning to pick it up and I went back to my bed and fell asleep. Still took me a while, but eventually I passed out.

I should probably explain who I am. I’m Leo, a twelve year old kid growing up in the mountains of Arizona. I don’t go to school, yet own hundreds of books in my big room, the biggest room in the house actually. My room has the bed in the center, a bookshelf off to the left, a desk right across from my bed, and my closet across from the door, which is right next to my bookshelf. I also own a laptop but rarely use it outside of reading. I should probably stop talking about my room.

Also according to my mother, there is something special about me, which makes sense considering I don’t leave the house. I have no reason to, since there’s no stars on the ground or something. If you haven’t realized, I’m a big astronomy nerd. Everything in my room is based off of the stars, even my desk. My laptop has little star stickers and I arranged them with my constellation on it.

Okay, I’m done explaining about myself. I wake up the next morning to the smell of my mother making pancakes. Today must be a weekend day, as my mom doesn’t have work if she’s making breakfast. I hop out of bed and glance over to where the weird box thing was and it is there. I tell myself that I would look at it later. I’m hungry anyways and I want to talk to my mother. I go downstairs to where my mother was cooking and she looks at me and smiles.

“Hi honey, how did you sleep?” She asked me.

“Oh I slept well. I looked at the stars and found that constellation that you named me after.” I said, fixing myself some food and then I sat down to eat. I suspected something to be different, but maybe I was thinking of the box.

“I’m going to work late today. I’ll leave in an hour, so you get the day to yourself.” Mother said. She wasn’t eating, so I guessed that she must have eaten before I woke up. I nodded and once I was done eating went upstairs. Right as I got upstairs I grabbed the box and tried to get it on the bed. I used all my force to pick it up, and eventually I succeeded and got the box onto my bed. I hopped onto my bed as well and tried to open the box. Thing is, this box doesn’t have an opening.

“Alright, I’m leaving! Love you!” I hear my mom say, followed by the sound of the door closing. I’m still trying to open this darn box until I start inspecting the exterior. Looking at it, it looks like that Kokopelli guy, the god of love or something. He’s quite popular in Arizona, and my backpack has a few pictures of him, but I don’t pay attention to a lot of native stories. But this box had a similar depiction of Kokopelli, but it looked different. I start to feel the pictures and I realize these aren’t pictures. These are carvings. That made sense why the box was so heavy, because it was probably made of stone or ceramic. That also made sense why there was no opening as well.

Luckily, my mom got me some tools for my birthday last year, probably for some moon rock kit. It came with the things that could open this box. I go into my desk and find the tools, but when I go back to my bed, it had a crack on it, just big enough for me to put my hand through and break off a large chunk of the box. Suddenly something started glowing. I looked in there, but the light was blinding, so I waited until the light died down to the point where I could see what’s inside the box. When I looked inside, I saw three things; a letter, a bag, and a glove with a yellow gem on it. I took the letter and started to read it.

Leo.

You are one of the chosen twelve that were given a power at birth. You must meet up with us soon. The gauntlet will aid you with coming and will teleport you to our destination. Your presence is requested and therefore mandatory.

A power? I never thought that I had powers! I looked at the glove and realized it was made of metal. The gem that was yellow must have been some type of teleportation gem. Finally, I took the bag out and found it had a book and a dagger. I ignored the few other things and opened the book. It seemed to be in some ancient text that I could barely understand. But there was a piece of paper that fell out of the ancient book. It was folded and was yellowing harshly. I unfolded the paper to find it was an incomplete map with a note on it.

For the next leader of the zodiacs. You will need this.

From Leo.

Another Leo? This must be the person I am supposed to be, but a leader? I never went outside, don’t have good leadership skills, and overall don’t know how to communicate.

Anyways, I grab the glove-no, gauntlet- and put it on. Right as it rested on my hand, I imagined what the place looked like and fell into darkness.