Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector by Matthew Cronan

rising and falling at a breakneck speed.  He felt an unusually strong energy flowing through his body.  In the middle of the road under this dark night sky, he felt it take over him.  He felt himself lose control.
    “Hey, General Dumbass!” Max blurted out.
    Gorthon spun around; his face resembled one of shock mixed with disbelief.  Max’s hands were radiating bright blue. They pulsated with every beat of his heart.  Max extended them out in front of him, pointing them toward the beast.  Gorthon’s beady eyes grew as big as saucers.
    Bolts of blue lightning shot forth from Max’s hands and blasted into Gorthon’s massive body.  The creature was thrown 20 feet through the air. His massive body hung weightlessly in the air, and Max saw the ugly red eyes of the beast go black.  Finally, he crashed into the hard ground.  The momentum rolled Gorthon over once, and then twice, before coming to an abrupt stop.  Under the two red moons that hung low in the foreign sky, the beast laid there motionless. 
    Max stood still, staring down at his hands as if they were some alien life form.  His hands were still glowing blue, but not as bright. The color gradually faded, returning his skin to its pink fleshy color.
    In the distance, smoke rose from Gorthon’s body. An odor of burnt hair filled the air.  Max walked slowly toward the body.  He held his hands out in front of him, waiting for the beast to pop up at any moment, like a crazed serial killer at the end of a slasher movie. 
    Gorthon didn’t move.
    As Max attempted to flip the gigantic body over, he thought he heard more footsteps behind him.  He pivoted around, but there was nothing behind him.  The city still sat in the darkness, and the fields to his left and right remained quiet.  In the distance, he thought he heard voices.  He thought he could hear someone whispering his name.  He closed his eyes and tried to listen more intently, but the voices had grown silent.
    Max turned back to Gorthon, but the creature’s body was no longer lying helplessly on the ground.  Instead he towered over Max with the giant sword cocked back far over his head; the blood covered edge of the blade shined red in the moonlight.  Max had no time to react.  He stared up at the beast who smiled down at him.  Gorthon swung the blade down.
    Max screamed as he sat up in his bed.  He quickly flipped on the light beside the bed and hastily surveyed his surroundings.  There was no Gorthon.  He was no longer in Arressnia, but rather the comfort of own bed.  His sheets were damp with the same cold sweat that enveloped him.  The red digital display of the alarm clock read 4:15.  He had only been asleep for a couple of hours.  His feet were achy and sore, as if he had been walking for miles. An odor of burnt hair hung heavy in the bedroom.

Chapter 6
Daydreaming in English
     
    The next day at school, Max couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment Gorthon was going to come bursting through the classroom door.  In English, he sat staring at the door nervously.  He had never had a dream so real or so vivid before, and even now he wasn’t quite sure that he was completely awake.
    The English teacher, Mr. Shook, rambled on about the results from the recent test the class had taken.  A week ago, he had assigned the class to read The Odyssesy.   Max wasn’t overly concerned about his grade; he felt quite confident that he had done well on the test.  He had always been a bit of a bookworm, so he fancied any opportunity to escape from his sad little world to hunt at the footsteps of Mount Parnassos alongside Odysseus and his uncle.  He relished opportunities to be aboard the Pequod, chasing down the elusive great white whale with Captain Ahab in the deep waters of the Pacific. Hanging out with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect comforted him. Joining Project Mayhem allowed him to escape. These adventures took his mind off of his mother passed out in the living room, or his