"The Package" Treatment

There is a lone traveler, a teenage boy, trotting down the empty road. Carrying nothing but a package, he is calm but wary. He is already behind schedule--he should have reached the checkpoint an hour ago. The man was going to have his head for this.

The traveler stops dead in his tracks. He does a slow, deliberate check of his surroundings. The eyes--he feels them. He knows they are there, but he doesn't know where "there" is. He clutches the small box in his hand, standing still as stone. His eyes dart back and forth, waiting.

A nearby bush rattles ever-so-slightly, and not by force of the wind. He sees it.

The boy, without a moment's hesitation, darts down the road. Looking back, he counts two of them. He lowers his head and ventures on.

Suddenly, in the distance a great mass looms. Another squad of the enemy. The boy veers off course into an abandoned building. He takes refuge behind a rusty machine.

The boy checks the time--the contents of the package would expire in just five minutes. He needs to get out; exiting the locker, he leaves through the back door and meets a godsend--an elevator. He gets in and pushes the only button. Emerging from his musty confines, he cannot resist a cough. The enemies hear him; he runs.

The checkpoint is in sight! He is going to do it--he will succeed!

The shouts of his pursuers do not fade; they get louder. Maybe he isn't going to succeed. The boy feels a sharp pain in his ribs, followed by the feeling of weightlessness one gets from being airborne. The enemy is tackling him. He passes out.

The boy wakes up to the smirking faces of his best friends. They taunt him on his loss. He hands over the ball they pretend is a package, and in return they pick him up from the floor and dust him off. Laughing, the boys walk off into the distance.

Character in Time: The Shark Kid

The boy, clad in naught but his underwear, feels the frigid morning breeze on every inch of bare skin. He waits at the edge of the deck in eager anticipation. When he senses the subtle stirs of the shark six feet under, he dives in.

As the shark flails around impatiently near the bottom, the boy awaits his chance. Slowly but surely, it approaches. The boy swiftly grasps its tail; it does not resist. It knows the boy.

Although the two are nearly the same size, the shark has no difficulty zooming through the clear ocean. Its stamina seems infinite.

The same rush that the boy feels every morning arrives--the pure bliss that accompanies your one true passion. This is what he was born to do. This is what he would die doing.

Suddenly, he is assaulted by a flurry of memories. His first meeting with the shark years ago, his first ride with the shark, the first time he nearly drowned. Thoughts flow through his mind like the two in the water.

The boy awakens abruptly, the hours in the dream taking place in just a few real-life minutes. He begins to sob. Why must his imagination tease him so? Why did he have such marvelous, phantasmagorical dreams while he lived such a boring life? The boy weeps openly; his parents in the next room simply ignore him. They are used to this.