The next week, Mom and Dad both came with me to Master Chang’s Tiger Academy. It was finally time for my promotion to yellow belt. The place was filled with parents, families, and other loved ones. Though most of the promotions were in the lower belt levels, the night had students from every belt.

  “Please be seated,” Master Chang addressed the audience. “Tonight, several students will be graduating to the next rank. We will start with the newest students and progress up the ranks from there.”

  He turned his attention towards us and away from the audience.

  “Students, please sit in the back,” he commanded.

  All of the students found an open spot to sit on our knees. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing—and that was probably the point of it. Even so, we sat in rows to each side, leaving a narrow aisle down the middle for students to file down when it was their turn to demonstrate their skills.

  “White belts to the front,” he ordered.

  I stood up with the three others at my level. We walked single file through the aisle and lined up in front of the other students.

  “We’ll start with your forms,” he said. “Eddy, you go first. Come up to where I am standing and face the audience. I want you to show them what you have learned.”

  “Yes, Master Chang,” I said.

  I walked with as much confidence as I could muster. Inside, I was very nervous. I hated having people watching me. The standard advice of imagining everyone naked or whatever did nothing for me. By the time I finished my musings, I had reached Master Chang. I turned on my feet and bowed to the audience.

  “Begin,” he said softly.

  I walked forward and punched as well as I could. Then came a block, a kick, and another punch. Then I turned left and repeated the motions. Each step was carefully choreographed to show off how much I had learned so far. When I was done with the form, I bowed to the audience again.

  “You may sit,” he said. “Next we have Nick…”

  The other three completed their forms one after the other. When the last of us finished, Master Chang turned to face us—and the audience behind.

  “You have one final task before you move on: you must punch through a board,” he said to us.

  He raised his head to the audience to explain further.

  “Here at my school,” he said, “we don’t use thin boards than anyone can snap just by bending them. No, we use ones that are an inch thick—yes, even for the little ones. I want to make sure they all understand how much responsibility they have now that they know how to fight properly. I don’t want any of my students starting fights. I want them ending fights only after diplomacy has failed.”

  He picked up a board. I was fairly sure I could snap it by bending it. While it wasn’t super thin, the grain ran horizontally—a good, solid punch would go right through it. It would probably hurt a bit, but I wasn’t too worried. He handed the board to one of the higher belts before doing the same with three more boards.

  “Please line up facing the wall,” he said. “I want good clean punched from each of you.”

  He waited for us to get set in front of one of the students with a board. Mine was held by a teenage boy. He crouched and braced the board, waiting for the signal and the punch.

  “Punch when you are ready,” Master Chang told us.

  I got set. I pulled my arm to my hip. I stepped forward and launched a strike at the center of the board. I remembered what he had told me about punching through the target instead of at the target. My fist flashed forward and broke through the board. I could immediately feel my knuckles burning from the impact. I ignored the pain and smiled. I bowed to the teen and he back at me.

  “Good work,” Master Chang said when everyone had finished snapping the boards. “You four are officially yellow belts. I want you to go back to where you were seated and watch what the next rank does. That is what you will be learning from your next class onwards.”

  “Thank you, Master Chang,” we said in unison with a bow.

  I walked back down the aisle with the others. I saw Mom and Dad wave and smile. I nodded in their direction but otherwise heeded Master Chang’s instructions. I kneeled at the back with the other former white belts. I watched the yellows, the oranges, and the other belt ranks do their ever increasingly complex forms. They were required to show not just their level but their mastery of the previous forms as well. When they showed their mastery, they were given a stripe on their belt. After getting enough stripes for every form at their level and lower, they would be given the opportunity to gain the next belt. I figured I would be going to these promotions fairly often if I was going to get up to a black belt before the reset happened.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Mom and Dad mobbed me when I received my new belt from Master Chang following the end of the ceremony. I hugged the both of them. I was just glad to be on my feet again—my legs were cramping after kneeling on the mat for almost an hour.

  “Great job, kid,” Dad said.

  “Look at you!” Mom exclaimed. “Already a yellow belt!”

  “Thanks,” I said to both of them.

  I was a little bummed that there hadn’t been a quest for ranking up. I missed getting those for the easy experience.

  Two years passed in similar fashion. I kept up a rigorous schedule of martial arts, growing plants, shooting guns, and completing quests. I was about halfway through being a red belt and would soon be on to brown in a few months. I’d learned a lot about fighting strategically and I’d gained some pretty good reflexes as well.

  Grandpa Milton and I had gone through two cycles of planting and harvesting. Although our plans didn’t increase my day-to-day experience gain, I made a significant amount more from the yearly harvests. The bonus from the skill I’d purchased made everything so much better. One experience extra thousands of times added up to a huge surplus. I had almost a million experience!

  Grandpa Joe had moved to an outdoor range with a lot more open space to shoot in. This gave me plenty of opportunity to get good at aiming down iron sights out more than 200 yards. With a scope, I was accurate as far as the rifle was effective—which depended on the weapon, the caliber, and a few other things. I was proud of my accomplishments and felt like I had a healthy respect for guns. I knew my way around them—how to clean them, how to shoot them, how to handle problems—and figured they’d be a solid asset when the monsters came.

  Mom and Dad found new love in that time—or at least the seeds of what might become love, at least. They each found a boyfriend and girlfriend respectively. To me, the two newcomers seemed nice enough. They weren’t the same as the ones I’d known the first time through my life, and having them around led to complications with my secret. Mom and Dad promised not to tell—which was fine—but didn’t say the new lovers wouldn’t move in at some point—which was decidedly not fine. They were yet another obstacle that I would have to tiptoe around to keep the circle of people who knew as tight as possible.

  It was around this time that I finally got another quest. While not super long-term like the school one had been, nor as lucrative as surviving the attack had been, I was excited to finally have a good goal and reward.

  I’d found out from Master Chang a while ago that there was a yearly tournament held in winter. The first two times, he said I wasn’t ready.

  “The tournament is for advanced students,” he explained. “When you are in the advanced class, I’ll be watching you to see if you should go. You’re young and so you will face students from other schools who are roughly your age. When you are ready, you will have your opportunity.”

  This year was my first chance to prove myself in a tournament. I talked it over with my parents and they agreed that at least one of them would be able to go with me. That I got a quest for it sealed the deal. I also asked them about purchasing a skill or two in order to do better in the tournament. Options included Wrestling, Punching, and Fighting.

  “I think you should try to do this on your own without the skills,” Mom said. “They might help you, but I’m not sure you’ll get the value back.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dad said, echoing Mom’s words on another day.

  I took their counsel to heart and decided not to get any skills for the tournament. With my stats and years of practice, I was already the best at sparring at Master Chang’s—other than the master himself. Without the stats, I figured I’d be average at fighting—the increased reflexes and power made a huge difference.

  Two weeks before the tournament was my twelfth birthday—and Christmas. Unlike in the past, my parents weren’t acting like two-year-olds lobbing shit at each other when they thought no one was looking. They were able to come together and celebrate my birthday together. This year, we had both Christmas and my birthday at Mom’s place.

  I woke up early and peered out the window. For the first time in years, it was a white Christmas. I saw the eerie glow of the freshly fallen snow in the predawn light. I always enjoyed the peaceful—yet creepy—feeling that came with new snow at night. The way it reflected light made the world seem brighter than it otherwise should have been.

  Mom had left my stocking hanging from my door. I went through the gifts there and used them to occupy my time until dawn broke and everyone woke up. I ate some candy and read one of the small books stuffed in there. The rest of the time I spent on the now-ancient laptop tending to my writing commissions and completing some quests. Finally, when the sun had been up for more than an hour, I heard Mom and her boyfriend—Ken—stirring. That was my cue to get up and go downstairs.

  “Good morning,” I said on the way down.

  “’Mornin’,” came the sleepy reply from Ken.

  Mom was downstairs in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

  “Morning, Eddy,” she said. “And happy birthday!”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “’Morning to you too. Whatcha cookin’?”

  “Birds nests,” she replied.

  A birds nest was made by taking a slice of bread and cutting out the middle using a water glass. Then both the part with the hole and the small disk that had been cut off were pan fried in butter. The hole got filled in with an egg—whose yolk I always managed to break. I loved them even if I was terrible at making them.

  “Awesome!” I exclaimed. “Presents after breakfast?”

  “Yup.”

  I sat and ate with Mom and Ken. Dad, his girlfriend, his parents, and Grandpa Joe weren’t due to come until around lunch time. I was looking forward to seeing everyone get together for the first time in a while. Mom and Dad’s new lovers had met each other and seemed to be on friendly enough terms—even if I was the only real connection between them.

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