A message from Mercury Angel II:
This is one of my English homework that surprisingly turned out to be quite fun to read. The title basically gave a good summary of the short story. I've made a few changes to the story. I've decided to change the main character to a demon-white-wolf-boy named Igaire Icemountain, instead of plain old boring me. If you have problems with the change, don't read the story and then report possible abuse. If you do that, then you have no moral. ^_^ By the way, I'll be very glad if you submit a review. This story is dedicated to my English teacher; it would never have been written if he hadn't given the assignment.

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THE WORLD AFTER TWENTY YEARS

BY ANNIE CHEN

For Mr. Montgomery

Igaire woke up and found himself lying at the top of the mountain, where he first saw the weird fellows. The memory was still clear in his mind, but somehow, he felt like he had fallen asleep for a long time. The weird thing was that he had only lingered there for one night, and he had already being covered by filthy moss and dust. His boots and clothes had became so small and uncomfortable that Igaire would have thrown them into the deep trough on his way back, but remembering he was not on a deserted island all by himself, Igaire kept them. As the wolf-boy stood up and stretched, he suddenly felt a lot taller than he was yesterday. Thinking that he was still half asleep, Igaire ignored these signs and casually find his way back to the city.
Igaire observed the changes of the city as he walked down the streets that he used to be familiar with. The paths looked almost entirely different from what they were just a day before, and the whole city could very well be compared to a gigantic maze. The houses had disappeared, and there were tall buildings instead. The cars on the road were strange and were not the ones Igaire knew. Igaire goggled at the people who walked by and was extremely amazed at the new style of clothing they wore. It was then that the wolf-boy realized how different he was from these people, how he had become an foreigner over one night.

After getting lost several times, the poor moonlight-haired boy finally found his place. What he did not know was that the place had become someone else's property. His house was gone and in front of him stood a magnificent shopping mall.
"Impossible!" Igaire uttered and became paralyzed. His wide lavender eyes focused on the splendid building as its customers went in and out, and in and out, and in and out...
Later, when Igaire had gotten over the shock, he wandered into the shopping mall to buy some new clothes for himself. The wolf-boy happened to walk pass a long vertical mirror and saw a distorted ugly reflection of himself. He stopped dead in his middle of vigorous strides, his eyes fixed on the piece of glass. Looking back at Igaire inside the mirror was a man around thirty-five, with ragged clothes, torn boots, and disheveled hair the color of dirty snow. Igaire recalled he looked like a sixteen-year-old the day before.
"How did I get so old? I cannot believe this!" Igaire gaped at his ghostly reflection and slowly extended his right hand to touch the cold hard smooth surface of the mirror. "Yet this does not seem like a dream at all."

Igaire was paying for his new clothes at the counter when he became determined to find out what happened during his little nap at the mountain top.
"Excuse me, what year is it now?" Igaire asked the cashier, who stared at him as if he was a mental patient.
"Why? Don't you know the year is 2023?" the man replied and threw weird glances at Igaire.
"2023!?" Igaire recited loudly. He grabbed his new garments and hurried out of the store.
"Sir, you forgot your change!" the cashier called and waved at Igaire with the change in his palms. Igaire heard then man clearly, but did not care a least bit about his change at the moment. He left the shopping mall and stood in the middle of the sidewalk pondering on what he should do next. He noticed there was a telephone booth nearby. He ran into the phone booth, opened the phone book, and searched for his folk's new phone number. He picked up the phone and dialed the number he found in the phone book. Igaire waited impatiently until someone at the other end picked up the phone.
"Hello, this is Igaire. I'm back."

~ ~ ~ THE END ~ ~ ~

Igaire: Thanks for reading! Please review!