Lifeguard

“Lifeguard” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Zhetpis Adil Almasov, Nazarbayev Intellectual School, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan.

Lifeguard

One day, I was walking home from school and suddenly saw that someone went out of some strange portal (nowadays, portal is a common thing). When I saw it, I began to run away. I ran, tried to run away from someone or something strange and unknown. But, it turned out that he, she or finally it was able to teleport and speak all languages, and for this reason he, so let it be he, could easily find a common language with me. And I, in turn, loved paranormal things very much, so Anubis — the God of Ancient Egypt with the head of a Jackal and the body of a man did not surprise me a lot. I asked him “What are you doing here?”, and he replied “Adil, listen to me, you are the only hope of the mankind!” Then he disappeared. All day I was in confusion because of his words, "Only hope?" What did he mean by these words???

Sometime later strange things happened to me. A group of people who were wearing very unusual things similar to Greek people’s togas, bowed me and uttered a strange phrase in a language that was not similar to our language, then I took the phone and recorded it to further show this video to my friend, expert in all languages, and the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize. Weird events began to occur in my life: all the animals began to avoid me; during sleep I was haunted with the same dream… Everything was different and mysterious because of that meeting. My whole life was like an adventure film.

It was exactly 3 months after the meeting, there was no change… but who am I kidding? There were some changes, but they were all in a bad way. I was expelled from school without telling the reason. I was rejected by friends… no, I still had one, I forgot about him, yes! “I’m not alone”, I was thinking…

The next day, I went to him, I was sure that he would help me, but when I came to his house, I saw only a note on which it was written “Adil, I know what's happening to you, you probably met someone or something not from our world, and to get everything in place, you have to do what I’m going to tell you. Now it’s 17:39 and after 27 minutes and 17 seconds you should be near the red car which is in the 407 metres to the west from your location. Good luck, my friend!” I was always amazed with his mind, but now, Ben, I love you. I immediately began my journey to the west, and at the same time I asked myself the question “The only hope? What hope? What did he want to say?...”

I came to the point and I was shocked: all people, all things around went to this portal and did not return, that was the reason for the missing people. Looking around, I saw Ben. He looked at me with a smile while waving at me. I wanted to approach him, but he told me "Bro, wait for three seconds, take 2 steps left, then 15 steps in my direction, stand still for 6 seconds, take the lying stick and throw it with all your force in the direction of that house. OK?” I tried to do everything as Ben had said, but I did not take 15 steps, I did only 11 steps and almost could make the silliest mistake in my life. But again Ben, my reliable friend, saved my life! How did he do it? Then I started to think "Hope? Maybe he confused me with Ben? That can make sense". He started to kill one by one all those scary creatures, not giving them a slight chance to escape. Then he said, "Adil, you're next," I was surprised, I thought he was just joking and replied, "Sure, let's just first finish with these ones". When we killed them all, he told me "Adil, well, the teleport will close in just 15 hours, and the monsters don't stop until we close it. Wanna be a hero?” I replied, "Me? What about you? You wanted to kill me” I said laughingly. Then Ben just laughed and said "Choose, a quick death and hero status of humanity, or a long and very painful death from my hands and the end of the world? I think the answer is clear, so you'd better hurry up". I said, "Long and painful death! It's better, I know that if I close the portal, then the world ends. Do you think I'm stupid? The monster told me who you are, what you do and what you need to do to make it all stop! And so Ben or if you like you better "Killer of 25 planets" or "Destroyer of galaxies" or "the Man who betrayed everyone in order to become the best!". I didn't kill anyone, I only gave them strength, bringing their health to a minimum and giving a part of yourself, you're caught!"

After 3 seconds, I was killed by the monster. But that does not mean that we lost, I gave my blood, what they fear. We didn't lose. I, no, we saved the world. The last moments of my life were very interesting. I saw Ben made a mistake for the first time in his life, saw how the monster died and finally found out what the meaning of life was...