"Hey, don't just doze off like out of nowhere! We need you to carry our snacks and drinks in your bag once we are at the Morkiss Museum."
"Wha—huh?"
Nate's attention was immediately broken by his sister, Nallie, and her rough nudges to the forearm. He saw Dad driving the car and Mom right in the front passenger seat. Being inside the car gave him little room to dodge her strikes of impending doom.
After last night, during the night of September 18, 2996, regarding the Fadens that were faced off in the fitness gym after Nate went there to look for clues to why Sam keeps missing his class and avoiding Quad Four as a whole, he thought about how the bounty, Colten Marsnip, agreed to teach him the ways of the Theomic and to fight, but on the condition of fighting three Fadens. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to find three of them in Standart City, and how the bounty hunter would know his tally, but Colten said before that he has some sort of effect on the side that makes him know the "kills" that someone had committed, whatever that means. It could probably mean more side abilities for his bouncing bullet gun Theomic ability.
Although the way he now sensed his aura when he appeared in the fitness building, having a power from the green crystal made you really different, being... it felt like being a Theomic Being rather than a Human Being.
"What 'wha—huh' what?!" his sister demanded with a second nudge.
"What?!" Nate said.
"Huh?!" Nallie said.
"Be quiet, you two, you're big kids now, aren't you?"
Mr. Elfirm, first name Jakob, barked at the squabbling children in the back seat of the gray sedan they were in.
"If you two are going to argue with each other for the ride," the father said as he peered in the mirrors for the blind spots, "at least wait until we actually get to the museum; the distractions are already enough as it is, with the rushing cars from the sides..."
Ah, the Morkiss Museum. The intellectual and cultural institution of Standart City, known as the place to find the history of the first settlement of the city to the sprawling skylines that the citizens all know today. Besides entertainment places like Honoway Mall, the museum is also highly visited for its assortment of rare artifacts from past ages, attracting citizens from other countries.
Although cool to most academic individuals, the trip to Morkiss Museum was really more sought out by Nallie and Jakob. Nate wished to use his time after school to gun for more encounters for Fadens so he would get stronger and help people that were getting attacked by them, boosting the chance for an encounter with Colten, but this time he wasn't able to easily convince his parents to stay at home.
For his father, it was a chance to see the grand opening of new exhibits, specifically the ones of the ancient times of Beach Bych Island, a large landmass floating eastward of Standart City's shorelines. He really likes his history, so much that he personally has his private book collection largely filled with maps and journals of long ago.
Nallie, in particular, wasn't hiding her enthusiasm at all. "Eeeeeehhhh, I can't wait—I am literally going to explode from the excitement." In fact, she was increasing her excitement each mile the car drew closer to the destination.
Good for her. That just leaves less time for other things to do.
Mrs. Elfirm, first name Bethani, chuckled with a hint of cheerfulness at the sight of her family. "You two, my precious children, would eventually grow up and have your own lives, but you'll all still be my babies that I took care of since birth."
Leaving out the rest of the distant conversation with his sister and parents, Nate let his eyes wander off into the horizon of the sky, imagining himself if he were able to teleport to a location far away from the comfort of his car seat.
After a couple of long minutes that seemed to stretch to their maximum time within each second, Nate finally opened his eyes to see the familiar parking entrance of the Morkiss Museum, and there were a lot of cars parked inside—must be for the new exhibits that were going to open up. Besides the Beach Bych Island one, he wondered what kind of areas were now open to the public, not that he liked to go to this place for that reason, of course.
The gray family sedan parked in an empty spot, and the family went outside to take in the fresh air from being cooped up for so long. The second Mom went out the door, she stretched her arms but yelped when her muscles looked a little too red. Dad came to help her relax her legs while Nallie skipped towards Nate.
"Hey, big brother," she said playfully. "Ready to see the mystical displays in each room of the museum? It is definitely going to be 'awesome sauce', am I right?"
Nate turned his head towards her, trying to understand the last part of the sentence she uttered.
"Awesome sauce? Is that supposed to be a word?"
"I mean, I saw you and your other friends play that new game that Manson guy bought last year, and he said that word too," His sister explained. "Speaking of, you're always watching people without saying anything to get their attention. It's like you're watching Manson play one of those games he bought over, without exchanging a single word."
"In that situation, I'm more of a simple game genre than those hardcore ones," Nate stated.
Nallie suddenly turned away, walking towards the museum before stopping, her back still facing her brother. "And just so you know, someone had to clean up the mess you made when your friends came over that day... So clean up for yourself next time—you are the older brother after all!"
Nate shrugged to himself as he tried to understand what Nallie meant by that. His memories were a bit hazy with unimportant things from the past year, so he brushed the matter with his sister aside and went with his family inside the front entrance.
The doors automatically opened up and in return gave the view of the waiting area for visitors of the museum. There were a few chairs left available, so the Elfirm family claimed a few of them. The other seats were filled up by the other visitors—children playing tag with each other while the older grown-ups sat around talking amongst themselves.
Dad went over to the long line leading to the front desks to pay for the tickets to see the exhibits. Mom grabbed a magazine nearby and began to read while Nallie did schoolwork that she brought with her from home. Nate always wondered how Nalle could be so focused on homework while the family was at a time of relaxation and enjoyment, but he guessed that she could handle it all academically.
With nothing to do but sit, Nate waited with his legs outstretched, staring at the checkered ceiling above him.
He and his family waited until his father finally came back with tickets in hand. Dad held up four tickets with some sort of red, detailed stamp in the middle.
"I finally got the tickets! Looks like we might go to the special exhibit after all."
"Eeeehhh!" Nallie squealed and jumped in the air several times, as though she won a large monetary prize. "Can we go to the Beach Bych Island exhibit? I heard it has a really cool ambience with the whole place, like you're actually on the island itself!"
Mom, on the other hand, saw the concerned look on Dad's face.
"Honey? Is something the matter? Is it about the tickets?"
Dad frowned as he stared at the tickets.
"The person at the front said that we could enter the main part of the museum as general admission, but the exhibits that were just opened up are strictly enforcing that time-designated tour groups can enter only—no one is allowed to freely enter the grand opening of the new exhibits without a special red stamp on your ticket."
"And for the new rooms...?" Mom asked. "What's the time for our tour group?"
"Based on what the ticket says, we have to line up for around an hour."
Nate's heart sank to the bottom of the sea. "A-an hour, are you serious right now?"
A whole hour just to wait for some exhibits that would probably look bad, despite how much people hype up the whole thing, his teacher, Mr. Mouch, included. His mom sighed in disappointment at the bad news, but Nallie remained enthusiastic about the whole thing.
"That's okay," she stated. "That gives me more time to observe the things that I already viewed a few months ago with my friends."
Mom cheerfully grinned at his sister's bubbly demeanor.
"You are right about that one, Nallie. In a way, this would definitely make the wait even more worth it since we are already viewing the art here as a family. Oh, it is just the perfect family activity for everyone."
"I guess that's taking advantage of the 'grand opening' description," Nate muttered under his breath. "Using the excitement to get people all over the city to flock over to see anything new... anything that isn't ordinary."
The four of them entered the true entrance of the museum, where they passed security inspections without any problems. Then the family was finally inside, with many doorways leading to many different rooms of blocks of text to read over, making the mind numb.
Before anyone could say anything, Nate chimed in first about what he was going to do.
"Hey, so... Can I go around the whole place by myself? I am feeling a little bit adventurous after waiting around for so long back in the room."
"I don't think we should split up," Mom stated. "In my opinion, all four of us should stick together and appreciate the arts here as a family."
"I don't mind." Dad read over the ticket's contents once again. "Nate could use his alone time as a way to connect himself more to the things here—to improve his history so that he could do well on his history class assignment.
"That's... that is true..." Nate's mom admitted. "Alright then—Nate, I want you back here next to the bathroom since that is the place where all of us would meet near the time for our tour group to enter, alright."
Nate nodded.
"Also, you better not do anything stupid in this place that would get us all kicked out. I will seriously kill you before we even reach the exit door!" Nallie growled.
He held out his hands defensively. "Yeah, I know—I got it, okay."
"Then it's clearly settled," Dad announced. "We'll meet up before the time, so focus on the importance of the time."
Dad, Mom, and Nallie went to the first room they saw while Nate went to the floor art gallery. He wanted to have some time to himself, hoping there was at least a chair that he could sit on to wait until the time was up.
He wondered if there was a chance to sneakily hide somewhere in one of the rooms of the museum, where no one in the family would notice his disappearance and go through the new exhibits without him. Even so, his mom would have to be indifferent to him for that plan to succeed, since she would have loudly called out his name in front of everyone present.
Just the thought of that situation happening because of his laziness made him cringe, so he abandoned his plan of hiding out and went to stand around in the art gallery. Looking at the artworks that were plastered on the floor. Nate zig-zagged through the pattern of the paintings for at least thirty minutes before getting bored and going to a nearby bathroom after an urge was felt.
Nate went into a different room, this time with paintings stuck to every wall available. Almost all of them had a figure of some historical person in the middle of the frame. The backgrounds between the paintings were fading quite heavily—some of them even yellow in color.
A large painting he came across was an older-looking man, loomingly looking over the balcony as he gazed upon the horizon above the calm sea currents. However, in the corner of the painting, there was a monster as small as a human toddler hiding behind a baby carriage—reaching forward with its hand towards the man. Noticeably, the skin was grimy and scaly like a reptile. Why would there be a monster hiding in the dark, if someone would discard the fact that it was a mindless predator out to eat anything in sight?
"Everything is one big contradiction, isn't it?" said a voice nearby.
Surprised at the sudden interaction with Nate, he quickly turned around to see a guy standing right behind him. It wasn't just any random guy, as he carefully studied her face and saw that she was someone he knew. An orange-haired classmate with overwhelmingly navy blue clothing from Standart High, to be exact. He was somewhat interested in the painting in front of Nate, despite the latter blocking his view, since Randall continued to stare through like his eyes were capable of X-ray vision.
"The Morkiss Museum could very well be the biggest place with things and stories, ranging from being unordinary to something extremely alien-like. The whole place contradicts the ordinary aspects of Standart City..."
It was Randall. Another fellow acquaintance in Mr. Mouch's homeroom math class, Randall Evans. He was a fairly straight-laced student with a knack for history class assignments.
"Randall? Is that you? What are you doing here?"
"Isn't it obvious?" asked the guy. "Like everyone else, I'm here to study up on the history of the place. The different times and ages of Standart City. How everything that made the city as a whole started right here."
Nate moved out of the way of his view. "Is that so?"
"Like, how can a city that is desperate to be so ordinary if there are weird things that are happening all over? It doesn't add up at all."
The weird things that happened to Nate were his sword, Rupture, and the Fadens that were running around the city. There were also the green crystals that seemed to connect everything weird. But obviously, he couldn't say these things in front of Randall, knowing that he would involve innocent people in dangerous things if he were to carelessly explain things without much of a thought.
Nate instead looked over to another painting; this time the frame contained two lightbulbs, one of which was broken and the other lit up. It was definitely a weird choice to paint, making him sigh in confusion.
"Well, I don't know about the city being desperate about anything, but right now in the museum, the person who collected these definitely has some weird taste in putting these out for the public to see."
Randall chuckled. "More like the museum director here wanted to keep these things to themselves."
"Because they like the paintings here a bit too much. Probably cannot live without them."
Nate looked at the clock near the ceiling and saw that it was almost time for the tour group his family was in to go.
"Sorry," he apologized to Randall, "but I really gotta go, since I have the tour group for
"Check out Beach Bych Island there inside; it was really cool."
Leaving the art section of the museum entirely, Nate quickly jogged back into the area where his family would meet after a period of time had passed.