-z-

Once upon a time...is usually how princess stories start. But how do you start a ninja story? I’m more comfortable with a ninja story than a princess story. I should learn to adjust. After all, I am going to meet a princess today. Not a “daddy’s little princess.” I’m talking about a real-life actual princess.

My room is still dark. I don’t even remember waking up. I just remember drifting slowly away from my dream like I was being pulled by some invisible rope as the story was just getting good. It was a princess ninja story.

I was standing on top of a dusty castle. An old grey stone one like you see in picture books, and it was sunset. I remember because the sky was exploding in strange colors. They say you don’t dream in color, but I know what I saw. Green. The clouds were oddly different shades of green.

I was wearing a long pink skirt; the flowy kind that juts out from your hips into a big hoop. My shoulders were almost as poofy as my head. In short—I looked ridiculous. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

At least I still had on my black mask. It strapped across my nose and mouth while leaving space for my eyes and wrapped around my head just below my hair. 

In my hand I held a katana sword (which is especially weird, because it’s my least favorite weapon to use). I would much rather have my hover staff, but I can’t control my dreams, I guess. Although not my choice weapon, I couldn’t help but admire its decorations. The handle of the sword was in the shape of a flying dragon, the blade coming from its mouth. The curve of the gold followed what would be its mighty whiskers, and it's emerald eyes glistened in the light. I knew the perfectly formed blade was the sharpest thing I would ever hold.

Suddenly, as if ripped from the sky...ninjas, all clad in black with a rival clan’s emblem shining on their gis. I readied my stance as well as my sword.

An epic battle followed. 

The first ninja came at me in full attack, nunchucks whirling. I sailed over his head and landed a spinning kick to his back. He crumpled, face first into the stone floor of the castle. 

The second ninja tried using his rope and grappling hook like a whip, but I swatted every attempt away with my katana. When I was close enough, I wrapped the rope around my forearm and heaved a pull forward. His feeble figure came flying toward me, and I knocked him out with a ferocious head-butt. 

The third ninja seemed like the more experienced fighter. He twirled his two sais in his hand as he studied me. I squinted my eyes in the setting sun.

He came at me, a fury of twirling steel. The clash of metal echoed off the hard castle walls. I seemed to have an advantage at first, but he got the better of me. The sword flew from my grasp and shot into a tower above our heads. I rolled away from the attack at the last second. The pebbles and dust from the impact on the ancient stone walkway flew up in a slow motion cloud.

Lifting the front of my long dress, I sprinted across the walkway of the castle wall to retrieve my weapon. I mean, seriously, subconscious? How am I supposed to fight in a dress like this? 

The first ninja, whose butt I’d kicked earlier, started to his feet. I jumped and used his head like a trampoline to reach a flagpole above. From there I backflipped until my hand grabbed the sword. The momentum pulled the sword away from the wall and I landed on the opposing walkway in an awesome crouched ninja pose. 

I mean, the flip of my hair as my eyes connected with the sai-armed ninja was just epic! I could imagine the red graphic framing our eyes like in a manga comic.

He pointed his sai menacingly at me and yelled, “Doragon masuku o toru!” At least, I think that’s what he said. His voice was very muffled and heavily accented. I even speak Japanese very well, but I still couldn’t understand it enough to translate it.

Whatever he said, I took it as a challenge. I positioned myself, letting him know I’m up for the fight.

We both jumped simultaneously to battle in mid-air. 

Then…

I’m awake. No incredible battle, no vibrant sunset. Just the darkness of my small room. I’m never one to rise before my alarm, but today is different.

Today’s the day, I whisper to myself. Usually I would look into the dark ceiling, frustrated and angry that the morning so soon came to interrupt my beauty sleep. Today was different though. Today was the day of my first task.

-z-

If I was like most girls, I’d probably be greeting the morning with a smile and a giggle. Birds chirping in the window and all that stuff. 

I guess I don’t know how most 12 year olds’ mornings go. I can’t even understand how to smile that way. Cheery? Convinced that everything’s going to be alright? My life is surrounded by uncertainty.

Sure, there’s a routine. For the past two years, it has been the same routine:

Wake up. Brush your teeth. Brush your hair. 

Game face on, I whisper again as my feet swing to the side of my bed, narrowly missing the wall of my small room.

“Lights on,” I say loudly. I know by saying this, the countdown has started. Thirty seconds until it begins. Thirty seconds until my sweet solitude is interrupted. Just enough time to rush to the sink, splash water on my face, and watch the water slowly fall around my dark eyes. I brush the long strand of pink that dangles in my face back to its place among the black ones and around my ear.

Pink, I think. Why did they have to give me a pink strand of hair? 

All the other girls got different colors: Blue, magenta, seafoam green. I get stuck with my least favorite color. 

This is just part of my morning routine; staring at my loathsome hair strand. Just one more annoying thing they stuck me with. The most annoying, I know is just about to make his appearance. My eyes close again to enjoy the precious moments of silence until…

“Good Morning Z!” An annoyingly cheery voice sounds from behind me.

I keep my eyes closed facing the mirror and hear the familiar whirring approach. I try, really I try, not to make that face. But still, when I open my eyes to face my reflection, my naturally annoyed face is staring back. 

Coming into view from over my shoulder is my robot partner. A floating pest. An electronic nuisance. Met.

“Did you get a good night’s sleep? Big day today! I’m so excited! Our first journey! You’ve been training so long for this!” Met chirps as he floats up over my shoulder right next to my head. A reminder that he is not only a robot, but also a helmet I’m supposed to wear not only when I’m in my tasks, but also every time I ride my hover staff. I hate being told I have to wear him. I have no choice but to listen to him then. 

They say he is designed specifically for me. I wish I could roundhouse kick the engineer who developed him. They made his voice high and squeaky. His pixel eyes across the visor animated. His temperament peppy, accentuated by the smile-like curve the metal makes. One word that describes him is “cute.” I hate cute.

I don’t have a younger brother, and I never will, but if the stories I read about a little brother are true, then Met is programmed with all those “little brother cliches.”

“I’m ready for my first task Met,” I say with no intention of masking my authority. I slide toothpaste on my toothbrush.

“Oh, it’s going to be a great day,” he beams, zooming to the other side of my reflection while I unfold my ninja mask. “Good morning, good mooooooooooornig—”

“NO!” I throw up my finger, narrowly missing him, “No singing. I don’t like singing.”

He drops a bit. “Sorry, Z, I forgot.”

I go back to brushing my teeth, spitting the last bit out with my finger still in the air. Just a way to emphasize my point of no talking.

Next in my routine: Get dressed. Wear your mask. Never forget your mask! 

I take the moment of silence to wrap my ninja mask around the bottom part of my face so that only my coal-dark eyes show. Met is quiet while I strap on my gi and ready my uniform, jet black with my signature (and nauseating) pink accenting the edges and a pink sash across my waist. It’s when I pull back my hair that he starts to talk again.

“Breakfast time! We are having toast and fried egg today.”

I am having fried eggs and toast, microchip brain! I think but don’t say. I may have hurt his robo-feelings by making him stop singing earlier, and he needs to be at his best on today of all days. As much as I hate to admit it, I cannot finish my task without Met. Not only is he useful for safety, you know, being an actual helmet, but he also provides tactical advice and most importantly has technology which pinpoints my location for...the return home...it’s hard to explain.

Begrudgingly I pull a smile from deep within. “Yay! Eggs and toast,” I mutter as I finish my ponytail.

It’s now time for the last thing in my morning routine before I head out the door. I don’t know why I do this. It’s almost a compulsion now. I reach down my hand to the counter, through the clutter of hair ties, mangled brush, old cups, and used dental floss to the unicorn.

I know it’s a little cheesy, but of all the items in this room, this is the most valuable. A small ceramic unicorn. The little thing is plump and vibrant with color. If it was really alive in the wild, it could barely move, let alone rear up on its back legs, the front ones kicking wildly like a vivacious stallion.

The gold paint on the tip of the horn is nearly completely rubbed off. This is because of my routine. You see, every morning before I leave, I touch the point of the unicorn’s horn with the pad of my finger. It’s almost like I can’t go on with my day without this simple action. Some may call it obsessive compulsive. You could even say its superstition. But there’s some weird connection there. 

I don’t remember much from my life before coming here four years ago. I remember flashes of my room back home, the room I shared with this unicorn. I remember it was bright in the morning. The sun would come in through the thin curtains, illuminating the colors of the rainbow I had around the room.

So different from the dark, windowless square of my dorm. Those brief seconds touching the unicorn’s horn take me back to that bright place—

—then I’m back in the present. Breath out the past, and inhale the future.

The future where I am the winner.

 I pull on my gloves. Black and tight.

“Time to go,” I say out loud, more to myself than to Met. 

 I stride into the white, artificially lit hallway with Met puttering behind.

End of the hallway, last door on the left is my room. The one with the soft LED glow of pink above the door illuminating a big bold letter Z. Right across the hallway from a door which has Y above it in an LED light that used to shine maroon, now dark.

I pass by the room marked X which used to glow purple and another that once shone a burnt orange W. All these girls are gone now.

Turning the corner, we walk past more monuments of darkened signs. 

V

U

T

S

It keeps going through the maze of this long hallway I’ve had to walk everyday for the last four years. I’m one of the last here. One of the last selected too.

But I’m still here and they aren’t.

I pass under a sign that I’ve seen every day for four years.  I know we all came here for a reason.  And it is not because of some stupid competition.  It's not because I’m training to be the best ninja.

It’s something more.  Something bigger.  Something that no young girl should have to feel depends on her..but somehow I do.

WILL YOU BE THE ONE TO SAVE THE WORLD?