Destroy the Earth • L. Valdez

01- Syrinx Jumps Off the Grand Canyon

Leo

The woman in his dream was undeniably beautiful. Her black hair spilled down her chest in waves and continued flowing well past her ankles. The dirty white cloak that covered most of her head did nothing to take away from her beauty.

Leo would have thought she was the prettist woman in the world if she hadn't looked so out of place. She wore a dark green dress, the bottom of which scraped against the wet mud beneath her. Though to her credit, she didn't seem to mind the dirt.

"It's pretty, is it not?" The woman's voice sent a chill down his spine. Her looks were comforting, and she radiated a calming energy, but her voice undid all of that. It was sweet, overly so. Her voice reminded him of the tone his case worker would use to try and soften the blow of another family not wanting him. Spoiler alert: It never worked.

Looking at her, Leo should have felt happy, or horny, or literally anything besides what he was feeling. But when he looked at the woman, all he felt was a sense of familiarity.

A sense of familiarity that he couldn't place for the life of him.

"Who are you?" He tried to speak for the first time. Leo was 75% sure he was dreaming, and most of the time, his dreams didn't end very well. Most contained images of a burning orange, devouring everything in its path. But a common theme within those dreams was the fact that he couldn't speak. This time, though, was different.

Leo's voice was deeper than usual. Not too much deeper, but it was enough to be noticable. His body was different too; His clothes felt tighter than they ever had. Growing up, Leo had never had a lot of meat on his body. At least, not enough to strain against a shirt. And while he still wasn't pushing Jason levels of muscle, it was much more than he was used to. If he flexed he could even feel an incoming six pack!

'This really is a dream!' Was the only thing he could think. Everything he had ever wanted to change about his body, was changed. Well, maybe minus the lack of height, but there wasn't really much he could do about that. For the first time ever, he didn't hate how he looked. He didn't feel the need to be funny just to compensate for his looks (Or lack thereof). It was perfect.

He could do wihtout the creepily familiar woman who he was pretty sure was trying to seduce him, but other than that, this dream world was perfect. He never wanted to leave.

Then he woke up.

More specifically, he woke up to the silky voice of the Wilderness Schools resident asshole: Syrinx King.

"I'm just sayin', you're all bark no bite." King allowed her country accent to slip out as she growled at the girl in front of her. It took Leo a moment to recognize the girl being berated, his mind still reeling from his weird dream, but he soon identitfied the girl as Isabel: Jason's simp, Piper's tormentor, and the worst girl Leo had ever met.

"I'm all bark?," All it took was three words. Three words and Leo could alreay see the coffin shutting on Isabel's disfigured body. "You sit here everyday and preach this 'Oh, I'm not scared of anybody' bullshit, but half the time you're the one backing out of fights." True, but Leo had been around long enough to know that the truth meant nothing to the girl.

King was a girl that fascinated Leo from the moment she arrived at the Wilderness School. When Syrinx first walked into the cafeteria, she was talking to a girl in clothes too loose for her body and a haircut too raggedy to be an accident. A girl he later learned to be Piper McLean.

Despite them arriving together and talking as if they'd known each other, the two girls couldn't haven't looked more different. Piper held herself with an air of practiced aggression, like she was ready to defend herself at every given moment. Even though she tried to hide it, Leo could tell she was pretty. Standing next to King, though, she looked like some bum he would have found sleeping on a bench downtown.