Once Upon A Dream ♡ Frerard

Three

2042, Frank: 13 years old

Frank had no idea where he was.

His surroundings were unfamiliar, but it looked and felt like soft green grass was underneath his feet. He could see his sneaker covered feet planted to the ground, but they were slightly dirty like he had walked a distance to get to where he was now. If he paid close attention, he could hear the bubbling of a stream ahead and the random chirps of birds in the sky and in the lush trees ahead. The sun was setting, the affect painting the horizon a light pink and orange with swirls of purple tinted clouds over the plains of grass Frank saw straight ahead.

Frank had never been to this place before. All of it was new, but it was so beautiful that Frank couldn't find any way to complain. He looked down at himself to see that he was wearing simple black jeans with a striped black and white long sleeved shirt. He tugged on the hemline of his shirt nervously, biting his lip and looking in all directions. The last thing he wanted was to get lost. After taking a few paces forward, Frank concluded that he was already lost and he had no idea which direction he had come from.

"Shit." He muttered under his breath. He looked down at the random wildflowers swaying in the breeze and started to panic. He did not remember how he got here, why he was here, and he certainly could not identify where he was. The glass plains and wild flowers did not look like the green that grew in Battery City - the green in the city was all deep tall grass and miles of trees with fruit or flowers upon the leaves. The color was dark unlike the lightness of the grass surrounding Frank. This was a field he had never seen before.

The place was beautiful, Frank wished he had his camera with him so he could snap pictures of all the gorgeous and unknown flowers in the grass, but it scared him to death that he was in the middle of no where.

There was no city in the distance, no skylight, no nothing. The temperature was lower than the city's and Frank was grateful that a long sleeve was covering his arms. There wasn't a sign of life anywhere, not animal nor human-

That was Frank's impression until his ears picked up a sound. It was carried over to him by the breeze, skimming across his skin and ruffling the gentle curls on the tips of his hair. Frank felt the wind brush through his eyelashes and the sound of soft singing was making its way into his mind. He could hear the gentle melody, the calming yet eerie voice of somebody singing to themselves. At first, the lyrics were hard to understand. But once Frank found the direction of the voice and turned towards it, he could hear that the person was nearby.

"Saints protect her now . . ." the voice sang in a trance like state, borderline whispering with their achingly sad voice. "Come angels of the lord . . . come angels unknown . . ." It was a male, Frank could tell from the deeper quality of the notes and the bit of rasping the voice made in its words. Frank felt his chest constrict from hearing the utter hopelessness the voice carried. But it was so beautiful, not in a way that the entire world would praise it for being perfect radio material, but in a way that it was unique, so different from what Frank had heard.

The person continued to hum the same tune over and over again. The haunting melody confused Frank, he had not heard it before, but he supposed that this song had a personal story behind it that maybe Frank would never know about. He walked closer to the voice and approached an opening through a tall collection of trees. The bark was rough and dark with age, chipping off of the trees. Frank hesitantly placed his hand on one of the trees as he got closer, quietly peering over to see who the person was.

Finally, Frank caught sight of a person sitting down with his back against a tree, looking over at the stream bubbling just a few feet away. It was a boy, Frank could tell from where he stood. He was dressed in a worn out leather jacket with a black button up shirt underneath it and his legs were clad in tight black jeans with holes in the knees. He had his knees drawn up to his chest as he stared at the water. His hair was a mop of unbrushed raven black hair on his head and his eye color was unidentifiable from where Frank stood.