Ch. 1 – Birthday On The Boardwalk



It all started on a perfectly normal day in the middle of summer – the sun was out, and crowds were heading to the beach. Just a typical day in the seaside town of Amber Cove.

Well, except for the weather. It was scorching that day.

In the middle of the afternoon, Dante lay sprawled across his bed, exhausted. All he could do was stare at the ceiling fan, its spinning blades doing all they could to keep the temperature down.

“This has to be some kind of new heat record,” the twelve-year-old said to no one, sweat perspiring on his forehead.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to do anything other than complain about the heat. This was summer break, after all, when every kid – and even some adults – tried to get in every ounce of fun they could!

In this heat, though, the only thing he could do was lay still.

Dante’s phone rang, jarring him from his thoughts. He flipped onto his front so he could reach over and pick it up. The screen flashed the picture of a dark-skinned boy dressed in soccer gear with red dreadlocks grinning back at him.

“Mateo,” he said after quickly answering the call, “Hey, what’s up?”

The next instant, he jerked the phone away from his ear as a sharp voice nearly deafened him.

“Where the heck are you? We’ve been waiting here for almost thirty minutes!”

That wasn’t the voice he’d been expecting.

“Taya?” Dante asked cautiously, “What are you doing with Mateo’s phone?”

“I’m here too, dude,” came a much calmer voice, “you’re on speaker.”

“Good to know,” Dante said, returning the phone to his ear. “Anyway, what’s this about expecting me?”

Mateo chuckled on the other end while Taya groaned in exasperation. “Seriously, Dante? Don’t you remember what we were talking about last night? You do remember what’s happening today?”

Dante stared at the ceiling again, his brow creasing as he tried to let his mind go back to what they had discussed the previous night. They had been co-oping on Battle Splat 5, and one of their last matches took them late into the night.

It hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Oh… Mateo’s turning thirteenth… and we were meeting up at The Grill….”

“Got it in one!”

Dante groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead. How in the world could he have forgotten his friend’s birthday?

He tried sitting up and then remembered the heat making movement almost painful.

“Hey… I know it’s your birthday… but it’s hot right now, and it feels like I can barely move a muscle,” Dante said, flopping back into place.

His friends were silent for a moment.

“Hey, man, it’s cool,” Mateo replied, “and it is pretty hot out here right now.”

“Sorry,” Dante said, “I promise I will make it up to you later.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Taya added, her voice sounding disturbingly cheerful, “we saw Jessika earlier. We can ask her to join us instead.”

Dante’s brain stalled for a moment. Images of a girl with long, blond hair and an absolutely perfect smile appeared in his head.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat.

“I’ll be there soon.”

“Great!” Taya replied. “We’ll see you when you get here!”

+++++

Dante was ready in record time, told his parents where he was headed, and was off.

Earlier in the school year, the gym teacher at school had told him that he could have been a shoo-in for the track team. On that hot summer day, Dante took what the teacher had said fully to heart and put an extra twenty-five percent into sprinting.

He ran out of his neighborhood, along the road, and eventually entered town. Not long after that, he was running along the boardwalk, dodging the crowds of people and whizzing past the shops.

It wasn’t until he was near the end that Dante stopped – covered in sweat and panting hard – in front of a restaurant decorated with palm trees and Jamaican flags. A large sign boldly declared the place as The Big Island Grill, but it was known as ‘The Grill’ by its most loyal customers.

Seeing how Mateo’s father ran the place and was head chef, it quickly became a favorite haunt of Dante and his friends.

Sitting at one of the dozen outdoor tables were his two friends. Mateo wasn’t wearing the soccer gear from the picture, but his red dreadlocks were unmistakable. Next to him was Taya, a girl who was part Chinese. Today her lengthy, black hair tied in a ponytail.

She had her phone out and was looking closely at the screen. When Dante stopped next to their table, she tapped it and beamed at him.

“Ten minutes and thirty-five seconds! Take off, let’s say, four or five minutes for getting ready, and I think you’ve set a new personal record from your home to here!”

Mateo gave him a sympathetic smile, pushing a tall glass filled with a purple-colored liquid to him. Dante was familiar with the mixture – mango, pomegranate, pineapple, watermelon, and various other fruits made it naturally sweet without any added sugar. Plus, it used a coconut water and green tea infusion, which made it a better recovery drink than most sports beverages.

“Thanks,” Dante said, his voice hoarse, before taking several deep gulps from the glass.

Taya leaned forward and smiled as he sat down. “So, aren’t you going to ask where she is?”

“Huh?”

“Jessika?”

Dante nearly choked on his next gulp, managing to swallow it down painfully.

While he coughed, Taya gave him a smug expression before pointing. “She’s over there with her friends if you’re interested.”

Once he cleared his throat, Dante slowly turned his head to look.

Sitting five tables away, in a shaded part under the awning, was a group of four girls he recognized from school; all of them were cheerleading team members.

Dante’s eyes zeroed in on one seated looking away from him; her blonde hair seemed to glow in the sun. She wore a plain white shirt, tan shorts, and a light green jacket tied around her middle.

He quickly looked away, silently hoping none of them had seen him, and quickly took another sip.

Mateo leaned in closely, an amused expression on his face. “Are you finally going to ask her out?”

Dante stopped just before he could take a sip, not wanting to repeat his previous blunder.

“Not going to happen,” he sighed, “there’s no way Jessika would want to hang out with someone like me. I mean… look at her. She’s perfect.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Taya pointed out, “not until you try.”

Dante smiled darkly. “Yeah, like I’d ever have the courage to even walk up to Jessika, let alone actually talk to her.”

Both his friends gave him disappointed looks.

“We’re here for Mateo’s birthday, right?” Dante said quickly, trying to change the subject. “I mean, it’s not every day that you turn thirteen!”

Almost as though on cue, Mateo’s father came out carrying a large cake, singing happy birthday. Dante and Taya joined in as the red velvet masterpiece was set down.

“How does it feel to officially be a teenager?” Dante asked once Mateo blew out the candles.

“And older than us?” added Taya. “Not long until you drive us around in your own car.”

“Oh, hush,” Mateo said, waving them off with a laugh.

Mateo’s father couldn’t stay long, things were hectic in the kitchen that day. He supplied them with a sizable Jamaican jerk chicken pizza to share before wishing his son a happy birthday and disappearing back inside.

It wasn’t really much of a party – three friends hanging out, going over the plans they had for the summer, and just having fun. By the time they were wrapping it up, it was the middle of the afternoon. Jessika and her friends had long since left while they weren’t paying attention. Dante didn’t know if he felt more relieved or disappointed at this.

After saying goodbye to Mateo’s father, they decided to walk along the boardwalk and see if anything was interesting.

Nothing really grabbed their eye until Taya stopped them fifteen minutes later. “No way!”

They were at the end of the boardwalk closest to town and had a good view of the shops along Main Street.

At one corner was a red brick building with large windows covered in posters of movies, games, and comics. The large sign proclaimed the shop as Beachside Books, one of an expansive chain, and a particularly favorite hangout spot of theirs.

However, the thing which drew their attention – and the reason for Taya’s outcry – was the banner that had been string up over the main entrance: Closing Soon, Major Weekend Sale.

“They can’t be closing!” Taya said, horrorstruck. “All the best deals on games always come from here!”

The others agreed with her. They quickly ran into the store and soon had their worst fears confirmed.

“I’m so sorry,” Justin – a clerk about five years older than Mateo – said with a sincerely apologetic smile, “there’s just no way we can keep up with all the big-name stores everywhere.”

“But that’s not fair!” Dante said, “Where else can we find such a diverse assortment of cards and video games?”

“Or all the good, classic movies?” Mateo put in.

“Or the collections of obscure comics no one’s ever heard of?” demanded Taya.

“Guys, guys, I get ya,” Justin said. “Unfortunately, there isn’t anything I can do about it. We’re on our last couple of days as it is.”

The three friends were put out by this.

That is until Mateo stepped up.

“Well then,” he said, his eyes gleaming as he looked at his friends, “we’ll just have to make the most of the store while we have the time! Who’s with me?”

Dante and Taya agreed, and soon they were scouring the store, checking every corner and shelf they could find.

It didn’t take them long for them to find treasures. Mateo found a limited edition expansion pass for Demiurge of Discord. Taya found the last few books she had been looking for from the Dinotopia collection.

On the other hand, Dante didn’t find anything until he walked down an aisle in the back. Most of the shelves were bare here; many of the items that remained were things that had been unintentionally hidden for years.

A small cardboard box with faded colors and worn edges was sitting half behind a magician starter kit. It looked like it had been passed around for years before ending up on an out-of-the-way shelf.

After staring at it curiously for a few seconds, Dante reached over and picked it up. It didn’t weigh much, and he heard the faint rattling of something inside.

He held it up to get a better look at the cover.

On top of a green, grassy hill that overlooked an ocean stood a group of the strangest creatures he’d ever seen – one looked like it was a mix between a shark and a dog, another could have been a baby unicorn, and one even looked like a human-sized squirrel wearing green Templar armor.

They were all looking off into the distance like they were about to go on some grand adventure.

Above the figures was the title:

Nibiru Horizons

He flipped it over, looking at the back of the box.

The planet Nibiru is under attack from powerful enemy forces and needs your help! Lead a group of resistance fighters on the attack; recruit members, assist in developing their extraordinary powers, and help them evolve into stronger beings who can defend their world. Collect the cards and play the game online!

It was a standard description designed to pique interest and promise a grand adventure. If Dante had to guess, it was drawing inspiration from similar games that had already come before.

He wasn’t an expert, but even he knew quite a handful of card games had come and gone; many of them had gained popularity for a time before fading into obscurity, just like this one, which apparently hadn’t withstood the test of time and more popular titles. Not all that different from this store, he realized.

This final thought helped him decide. He was going to buy this obscure video game.

---

I managed to finish this first book all within a year... which is a best personal record for me ^^; while I have rewritten parts of it several times, I like to think of this as the first completed draft... meaning I'll have a few more to go before I consider this publishable material (just wait for a few chapters in, and you'll see what I mean).

Inspiration for this series comes from the number of anime/cartoons that came out in the 2000s that were all trying to be the next Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh, usually with a card game of some kind and sometimes even a toy gimmick - you'll see how that plays out later on :D

As far as problems with this chapter, I can see pleanty of parents not being too happy with the part where Dante (a twelve year old kid mind you) goes off on his own to meet up with his friends.

It might just be a minor thing, but what do you think?

Read and enjoy ^_^

~Aaron