Universe: 1

Outside the rain was heavy, it felt like the warm droplets of rain transformed into long fingers, drumming on your skull. The smell was distinct, damp forest floor, the scent wafted through the open windows of the house until it no longer felt like inside, but outside. The birds burst into unharmonised song between showers of rain, their voices like nervous chattering amongst the trees, spoiling what should have been silence.
This was of course, summer rain, the sort of rain that was a gift to the plants and the soil, after weeks of the sun glaring down at them. It was this sort of rain that was hard to resist running through after sunburnt skin heat stroke.
It was the rain that drove him out of the house for the first time in days. The new house that he little liked, far out of town, hidden between trees that soon turned into fields of yellow corn plants. He had ran trough the trees, hopping over their roots as they stretched out to trip him. The rain dripped onto his head, rolling off he surface of the leaves above and he was soaked to the skin, his black hair clung to his forehead. He had no idea what had urged him outside, but that morning an unsettling feeling fell over him. It left him restless, he had wandered around the house all day, he supposed he was going stir crazy, that was what his mother had suggested anyhow. "What a day to go stir crazy," she had giggled, holding a cake tin between her oven gloves.
He had kept running until he reached a tree stump at the edge of the trees, then he sat there, partly under the shelter of the trees around him and looked out at the field of yellow. He didn't like the new house, he had tried desperately the day after arriving to explore the surrounding area, but it just seemed very empty. There were a few other houses, scattered around, but he hadn't spotted any of the occupants of the houses and so he left them behind him. He hadn't bothered to revisit them in the week he'd been there, he didn't think any of the occupants would really want to know him anyway, he didn't suppose they were neighbours, so introducing himself had seemed weird and pointless.
He had secretly been hoping that some of the occupants might spot that they had moved into the house, so he had left his bike in the driveway to the house, to let people know they were there. His parents hadn't made much effort in finding new friends and neighbours, his father said that the whole point in them moving there was to find quiet, he said that if they introduced themselves they'd only get pestered. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, he didn't have many friends back home, he'd sort of imagined things being different for himself after moving, he wanted people there, some friend to watch films with or to go for bike rides with.
He wondered if many of the occupants nearby were his age, or if anyone his age lived within a ten mile radius. He'd also wandered down to the fuel station a couple of miles down the road to see if anyone was there, but no one was buying anything in the rubbish little shop, there was just a man sat at the counter, about his fathers age, chewing gum and reading a magazine he'd probably read every issue of for the past twenty years. He had tried to walk to the town but his phone rang in his pocket, his mother wanted to know where he was, she said she'd been waiting for him for hours, so he had rushed back home where he remained for the next five days until the day it rained.
The day it rained felt like a significant turning point in his life. Nothing much particularly happened, it just continued to rain as it had all day and twilight began to leak through the cracks in the clouds. He sat there for a while, it wasn't cold at all, the rain had been quite warm. He looked out over the fields and imagined what was beyond them, he formed a plan in his head, he decided that the next day he would go to the town. He considered maybe riding past the currently empty school and dreaming of what it would be like to go there. Then maybe he'd take his bike to some sort of Park, he'd ride past all the people he saw and would hope that someone would say 'hello'. Or maybe someone would walk out in front of his bike and he'd have to halt to a dramatic stop, then they'd have a discussion about how careless they both were and they'd laugh and next time they saw each other they'd strike up another conversation.
He decided that, that evening, he'd also start on his work, the fantastic novel he planned to write, just like the one his father wrote when he was the same age. His father had urged him to write one for years, there was nothing more he could have done other than pick up a pen and paper himself, or click away at keyboard for him.
When he left the tree stump, he felt as if he'd been given a new brain, it was if someone had reached into his mind and pulled out what was his and replaced it with something far better. "I have gone stir crazy," he muttered to himself as he strolled along the edge of the corn fields, preparing to retreat into the trees.
It was then he heard it, a soft scrape against tarmac, he turned his head to see a yellow coat walking across the pavement, carried on the shoulders of a brown haired girl, dragging her bike along beside her. She walked alongside the road, maybe twenty five metres away. She was humming to herself, an unfamiliar tune. She hadn't noticed him just as he hadn't noticed her for a moment. He could hear another sound too, a sort of blur of noises, until he realised it was the faint sound of music playing. He squinted and could just make out the white cord running up her neck and hanging from the ear closest to him. He waved to attract her attention, but he didn't spot her, then her back was too him and she continued down the road.
He didn't stay much longer after that, he began his run back to the house through the rain. Five minutes later and he was on the porch around the back of his house. He knew his mother would scream if he stepped through the back door with wet boots, rain actually dripped from his hair and his jacket. He pulled off the boots, he imagined a puddle of water to pour out, but instead his socks had just stuck to his feet and he was forced to peel them off too. He rubbed his hair with his hands, trying to stop it dripping, then he took off his jacket and slipped through the back door into the kitchen.
The room was empty, but he could smell food cooking in the oven. He threw his jacket behind him, out onto the porch. Then he carefully closed the door behind him, it barely made a sound. He couldn't hear much, he could hear the radio upstairs in his father's study. He assumed his father was working and his mother he assumed was sat with a book in the living room.
He knew his mother would scream if she saw how soaked he had gotten, so quickly he tiptoed from the kitchen to what he had decided to call 'the secret staircase'. It was no secret really, everyone knew about it, but it was the secondary staircase in the house. It could be found in what appeared to be a cupboard in what his mother called the utility room, but in fact was a room lined with shelves covered with various jars of food or glass bottles.
This staircase he felt was quite handy for him, it went straight up to the door of his bedroom, as the other cupboard like door that was the exit of the staircase was just across the very small corridor to his attic bedroom. The staircase had little doors that opened up on the three floors above the ground floor. He hadn't quite explored a lot of the house yet, he was sure his father's study was on the floor beneath the attic floor.
He quite liked his attic bedroom, it had a nice view that looked out over the tree tops, and despite it being in the attic it was a comfortable heat. He entered the room and quickly got dressed into some dry clothes, then he opened the window and held his rain coat out the window, he didn't know if they knew he'd gone out, but if they did he ought to at least pretend he had worn his coat.
Once his coat was soaked he placed it on the radiator and then sat down at his desk by the window. The rain outside showed no sign of easing, he could still hear it drumming the same rhythm on the roof as it had this morning. He turned on his computer, and whilst waiting for it to slowly start up, began pacing the length of his room. The window in the room, stretched across one of the walls. On the right wall from the door there was a wardrobe and a bookcase lined with books and pressed against the other wall was his bed. He had stuck a few pictures up, none of which really meant much, some reassuring faces of friends he barely knew, pictures of the trees in the park by his old house and his childhood dog, Dolly, who passed away five years ago.
He stopped pacing the room once he was stood next to his bookcase. He scrolled the titles, all of which he had read and then picked up a random book. He turned it over as if he were debating whether to read it or not, scanned the blurb and then slotted it back into position on the bookshelf. Even after only seven days of being at the house he already knew which book was where, they weren't even organised in a particular way. He liked books, his father wrote them and so he'd read them for as long as he could remember.
He heard the beep of his computer as it came to life and he turned to face it before walking back across the room to sit in the swivel chair by the desk. It didn't feel like long that he'd been typing away at the keyboard, listening to clicks as his fingers hammered the keys until his father opened his bedroom door.
"Been out?" His father asked, he shut the door behind him and walked over to the desk.
"Yes, sort of, I went for a walk," He replied, he turned in his chair to face his father.
"That's nice, you were out for a while though Oscar? Where did you go?" His father picked up a pen off the desk and began to click it, bored. He looked older than he was, his hair had gone grey quickly and little creases had started to appear on his forehead. There were some around his eyes too, although they couldn't be seen as they were hidden beneath the thick frames of his reading glasses. Oscar had never known anyone with a bigger brain than his father. Sometimes he was afraid that one day it would just start to grow uncontrollably and his head would swell to the size of a hot air balloon.
"I went down to the trees and had a look around, just exploring the surroundings, was Mum worried?" Oscar turned back to face his computer and continued to write.
"No, no more than usual, I told her you were here writing and that you said we mustn't disturb you." His father smiled, "It's like you read my mind."
Oscar grunted "I must be psychic. But no, I made a plan, I need to start writing more, I've abandoned my writing since we've got here, I thought I needed to get to work."
"Sounds like a good plan," His father's smile stretched wider across his face, then returned to its usual position.
"I believe it will be, provided I follow it." He replied, then they both sat there in silence for a moment. Oscar knew what question was dwelling in the air the one that was prepared to pounce off his father's tongue. It had become an obligatory question for him to ask every now and then.
"I'm fine," Oscar finally said, his father too nervous to ask.
"Good to hear," His father nodded and began to retreat, then quickly he added, "You know I sort of have to ask, don't you?"
"Yes," Oscar stopped typing. He didn't start to type again until he could hear his father's footsteps travelling down the stairs. He put on some music to drown out the noise of the rain, despite it not actually bothering him too much. He wasn't too much of a fan of music either, he listened to it and he liked it but it didn't bother him how often he heard it, and he usually just listened to the same few musicians and songs.
He stayed up in his room for a while, until it was actually verging on dark outside, it being summer it would still take another hour for it to grow truly dark outside. His mother called him downstairs to eat, he ate, then returned back to his room. He stopped writing then and began to plot out the next day in his head.

When he woke up the next day the first thing he noticed was how the rain seemed to have stopped pouring and in its place the sun was shining. He couldn't quite remember what time he fell asleep that night, but he was still in the previous day's clothes and the lamp was still on. He imagined he fell asleep quite soon after returning to his room. He grumbled to himself and pulled himself up on one elbow. His eyes found their way to the digital clock on his bedside dresser and his hand to the bottle of medication next to it. He popped one in his mouth, swallowed and then upon realising how early it was debated going back to sleep.
His plan was what pulled him out of bed five minutes later it dragged him across the room to the wardrobe to change clothes and then to the little bathroom on the attic floor. It was his own bathroom, it still didn't feel right that no one else went in there, he'd never really had his own bathroom before. He brushed his teeth and washed his face and then attempted to make his hair appear presentable.
When he returned to his room, he saw on his digital clock that it was far too early to even consider leaving the house yet, no one else was even awake, which was unusual as he was usually the last to arise from his slumber. So what he did, was sit on the balcony. He hadn't really visited it much since moving to the house even though it had really just been for him. It was on the attic floor, sort of wrapped around the side of the house to the back of the house, so it went in front of the window in his bedroom. However it could only be accessed from the side wall of the house, through a glass door just next to the bathroom door.
It was a luxury for him, on days when he wasn't feeling too good he could still go outside without straining himself. His mother had joked that the attic floor was like his own flat and that he wouldn't have to come downstairs if he had a kitchen up there. He guessed it was sort of like that, he really liked having the balcony up there. When he sat on the balcony, he sat really close to the edge, it should have been damp except the overhang of the roof protected from the rain the previous day.
On the balcony he could see the tree tops, it was similar to the view from his window, he realised that, but it came with all the additional things he loved, the air and the sounds. He sat there, watching the sun slowly creep higher in the sky until he heard his name being called behind him. He turned to see his mother through the window rush out his room and then a few moments later she appeared on the balcony. "Oh there you are! I panicked you weren't in bed! I thought something happened to you!" Her voice had gone high pitched, her cheeks had flushed red and her face was in a frown.
"No just sat here," He turned to smile at her.
"It's okay, I was just bringing you a coffee actually, here," she walked across the balcony towards him and handed him the mug, being careful not to spill it all over the place.
"Oh thanks," he took the coffee off her and took a long sip, "I'm going out today by the way, going to go to the town."
"Really? That sounds like fun," his mother sat down next to him, "The weather's not quite recovered today though, be sure you take a jacket."
"Of course," Oscar nodded, then took another sip of his coffee, he didn't much like the taste, but he felt obliged to start drinking it and he figured the more he drunk it the more he'd like it.
"What are you going to do in town?"
"I'm not too sure yet, I might get lunch, I dunno really, just though it was time I took a look around." Oscar nodded in the general direction of the town.
"Yes, I've only been to the supermarket so far, it seems nice enough, I've just been so busy unpacking I haven't had to chance to even think about getting out the house to do anything." She shook her head, "Maybe sometime this week."
"Yeah," Oscar couldn't quite remember what day of the week it was, it was one of those unimportant things that usually escaped his mind. "What time is it now?" He inquired.
"About nine-ish," His mother shrugged, "Why are you awake so early anyway?"
"Not sure," Oscar shrugged. He brushed his black hair off his forehead and then placed his empty coffee cup down on the balcony. There was a pause and then he announced that he should get biking down to the town if he wanted to make a day of it, his mother agreed, picked up his coffee cup and left.
His mother didn't work, his father earned enough from his writing to support them and so it was really all unnecessary. Sometimes his father went to meet with 'students' of his, people who he gave advice to, potential authors. Sometimes he got paid, of he didn't really know the person, but even the close friends he helped he usually got a free lunch or coffee from. He thought about this as he rode along on his bike after leaving his house. He thought he'd like to have a career like his father's. His father seemed to know so many interesting people. Sometimes they'd come and stay in the spare room at their old house and his father would be like a mentor for them when they had writer's block or just simply needed inspiration.
He liked it when the students came to stay, they'd sit in his father's old study until the earl hours of morning and talk about exciting ideas. Sometimes Oscar would sit with them and listen and watch until he felt his eyelids fluttering shut with tiredness and he fell asleep in the green armchair in the corner of the study, his dreams of imaginary characters running about their imaginary lives. Oscar had heard no talk yet of students coming to stay, he supposed it was still to early in the moving days for guests to come and stay, but he couldn't wait until one did.

(Thank you for your time! This is the first thing I've published on here, I'd really appreciate some advice. I'm four or so chapters into this, and I know plot isn't mentioned just yet so I'd like to mention that the story follows Oscar who discovers that he is able to move between universes.)