[b]November 4th, 2019
6:20 AM, ET
Burnley, Gotham[/b]

[hr][center][h3][color=#ff4fcb][u]Hex[/u][/color][/h3][/center]

There were so many, bright and burning and so, [i]so[/i] far away. They called to him, beckoning, they wanted him, begged him, just for a minute, come and stay for a moment, just come and [i]see us[/i].

There, a planet, big and bright and purple, with two rings of violet energy orbiting it in an ‘X’ pattern. He was on the surface, a great big… thing was… pushing buttons? On a large featureless disk. It turned, and another entered, this one was not a machine, it was- it was a- her eyes!

[i]”You are not ready.”[/i]

[hr]

Tommy  jolted up, sweating and breathing hard. Just a dream. A very freaky dream. Maybe he should stop falling asleep with magical runes scattered everywhere. All across his sheets were torn out pages of incomplete or incorrectly designed runes, arrays, matrices, and off to one side, teetering on the edge of his bed, was a sketchbook filled with the actual correct ones he’d managed to make.

He groaned and flopped back down bonelessly. Magical rune induced nightmares, great… he actually did feel kind of great, despite the weird dream he felt oddly more refreshed than usual.

He shot a suspicious look to one of the closest pages. Magic rarely did favors, best not to let it happen again.

"C'mon on, Tommy! It'll get cold soon!" Right, his Dad was calling him, and judging by the smell it was time for breakfast. He rolled out of bed, scattering papers everywhere, but only rolled his eyes and ignored them. He’d pick them up later, in the meantime he was he was hungry. He didn’t bother dressing appropriately before heading downstairs, simply pulling on an oversized tee he definitely hadn’t stolen from his dad, and a pair of basketball shorts. He could change after he had a chance to shower.

He hoped forward with a slight grin, shoving a slice of bacon into his mouth in the same breath he offered a nonsensical morning greeting.

At some point his phone appeared in his hand, and he began checking messages and chat boards. Someone was trying to tell him about Ando again, a lead he’d investigated, but dismissed; Ando had nothing to do with Anodites. Pads had a new design for him, some kind of odd bat inscription at the base of it, but the runes checked out after a quick glance. Anna had texted him, she’d be in most of his classes this semester- she was smart, and she’d liked their first geometry class together, and then Tommy had waxed poetic about hexecontahedrons, and stellations, and sacred geometry and corrupted her into as big of a shape geek as he was. Oh, and look at that, another email from Bex demanding he sign up to all three clubs she was currently leading; D&D, GSA, and the dreaded chess club. With any luck he'd make the swim team this year, whose meets always coincided with chess clubs meetings.

He could dream anyway.

He rolled his eyes, pretending he didn't have a fond smirk on his face, and set down his phone, giving his breakfast and his dad his full attention; “Anything interesting?” He asked after noticing the paper, resigned to the fact his dad would probably never use the app instead.