A LEAP OF FAITH!
A STORY OF COURAGE.
DISCRIPTION
This story is about a boy who has his fear of Failure and overcomes it while being trapped inside of his dream.
Chapter 1: Rude Lucas
There once, was a really talented boy whose name was Lucas Miller. He was good in everything, from his school to athletics, from studies to curricular activities, he was the best in whatever could be taken.
People have weaknesses of many things, water, heights, darkness, holes, dogs, insects, and even being laughed at (Gelotophobia: kind of a social phobia) but Lucas had a very strange phobia of failure. He could not bear to be defeated so he would risk his life but not fail.
One day Lucas had a match of 5 games; Table Tennis, Football, Chess, a Mathematics test (He was really good at maths too), and Basketball. These matches changed his entire life.
As usual, he kept on winning in all the four games and scoring the highest in mathematics, and this time, he also, came up with a new record of his in basketball 127–4 at that match. After the match, he started taunting his opponents that how badly they lost in basketball and made them really sad.
Chapter 2: Lucas Bad Dream
He came back home at around 9 p.m. that night (He usually did) as he was having some celebration with his friends. After coming back, he did not rest but called more of his friends to celebrate with him because he thought that he had become the ‘CHAMPION’ after defeating his Rivals by such a good score.
As it was 9 in the night, no one, except his best friend, Benjamin Luther agreed to come to his house (That to just for half an hour). They talked about unbelievable (For them unbelievable things). Benjamin asked Lucas, “What if you go inside your dream and get stuck”?
Lucas took it lightly and said, “I would simply wake up, it would be too easy”. His friend was fond of magic and did a trick after he left the house and began to laugh as he was one of the Rivals of Lucas in the basketball match.
That night when he was sleeping, comfortably on his soft mattress, he had a dreadful dream that he could not forget for the rest of his life.
“Where am I? What is this place?”, came a silent mummer. Lucas found himself inside a huge pit (A huge place) of lava with some pathways really thin and some really broad.
He thought he was in a dream (He actually was) and tried to wake himself up. He hit himself, came too close to the lava (He thought the heat would wake him up) but when he felt the pain by hitting himself and the heat, he understood he was ‘INSIDE HIS DREAM’.
He saw a clone of himself, laughing at his condition, coming towards him. The clone (In his dream) came to Lucas and said, “I am going to be the real Lucas and you cannot stop me, Ha ha ha ha… (Continued to laugh)”.
Lucas got shocked and as he got out of the shock asked him who was he and why had he done this to Lucas (Telling himself). The clone said, “If you want to get out of here, you have to play five games with me, the games you played in your matches”. Lucas thought that he would easily win all the matches and that it was a child’s play (Can easily be achieved) for him. The clone continued, “And if you win three out of five matches, you get to leave”.
As the first match was Table Tennis, they teleported to a large rock with a whole setup of Table Tennis with even a neutral Referee (Just a guess that he was neutral).
It was a 21 points match (It is) and as he was his clone, he was as good as Lucas and might have troubled him very much for the first time and Lucas struggled to win the match (Yes, WIN the match).
At the Table Tennis match, he also noticed that the clone had several hand and legs which he could take out whenever he wanted.
They had a tough match and the sound of smashes were echoing throughout the whole volcano. The score was 20–20 when Lucas hit his best smash (Which actually swung and then had a spin) he had ever hit in his whole life and won the match.
The clone screamed loudly and disappeared and Lucas suddenly teleported to a football field where the clone revived and got with him twenty more players which had played the football match with him before. He later realized that he was the Captain of one team and the clone was of the other. So they quickly went and chose the players (Lucas went really quick as he wanted to get out).
As Lucas had chosen the same team he had played with, he knew who would do what the best. So the match started, the situation was very intense as he was playing with his clone.
This time, he was losing. The score had become 8–9(Lucas-Clone). When Lucas realized that only 25 seconds were left, he raged and rushed towards the ball and then the goalpost and as he kicked the ball, the clone pulled him down and the referee gave Lucas a penalty kick with a goal. Lucas gave a view to the score board and saw that the score was 9–9.
He breathed for a moment and gave the ball a shot, …, and it was a goal. The clone, once again, fell down and disappeared with a noo sound and Lucas had, again been teleported.
When he arrived at the next spot, he was thinking, “What if I won this one too, it would be great, but why am I thinking (He was thinking in his dream) I will win, I am the best, but he is my clone, my copy, need to be careful ”.
“It is time for some chess “, said the clone in a spooky voice. A chess board with two stopwatches appeared from nowhere. The chess equipment was already set and as a voice of an alarm clock came, we started. He used his multiple hand this time to not waste any time. When Lucas had finished his turn, he finished his in like a microsecond and he had no rest of brain at all.
But this time the clone outsmarted Lucas really badly, as he finished his turns very quickly, Lucas did not had enough time to think and doing all this, the clone brought his pawn to the end, transformed it into the queen an eliminated the king of Lucas.
For the first time, Lucas had lost a match and this time the clone did not disappear but Lucas felt a very painful pinch on his hand (Which was as painful as hitting a hammer on the tip of the finger).
When Lucas felt the pain, it vanished after a second and his body started fading. Lucas understood that the clone wanted to be replaced by the real one.
Then they both teleported to the classroom where Lucas studies mathematics with even his math teacher.
They had a math quiz round and had a blue button in front of them. The teacher explained the rules that he would be asking three questions and whoever gives the answer of two first wins. The answer must be given by pressing the blue button.
Then the teacher asked the first question, “What is the answer when x3 + y3 + z3 = 42”. After ten fifteen seconds silence, the clone hit the button and said, “x = -80538738812075974, y = 80435758145817515 and z = 12602123297335631”. Then was and exclaimed reaction on Lucas face.
The teacher read out the second question, “There are Pythagorean triplets like 3,4,5 and 5,12,13 which can also be classified as x, y, z that satisfy x2+ y2 = z2, but do they satisfy x3+ y3= z3”?
Lucas immediately hit the button and answered, “No, it is not possible”. Now the score was 1 all and there was one last question left.
“find x when ax2+ bx+ c= 0”. There was a long silence and there was a sound of button being clicked,.
The clone who clicked it and said,” x= {-b +- √(b²-4ac)}/(2a)”. The clone won this match too, and still Lucas thought that it was just beginners luck and he will because he had made a high score in basketball. But he did not realize that he was competing against his clone.
This time Lucas did not feel any pain after losing but he noticed that his body had faded so much that his whole skeletal system (All bones) was visible.
They teleported to a basketball field with players lined up. As usual, Lucas picked up the players he played with before and saw that Benjamin, who was his enemy in the match he played in real world, was the captain and noticed that the clone disappeared. Then Benjamin came to Lucas and said, “As you know that I am a professional in doing such sort of things and now, if you lose this match, you will disappear from the real world and if you win, you get to leave your dream”.
Lucas understood that if he had not teased Benjamin, this would not have happened and they would had been friends like before. Lucas had a sign of FEAR OF FAILURE on his face.
Doing so, the match begun. The first basket scored was by Benjamin and was a 3 pointer. This made Lucas even more nervous as it was an intense GAME OF LIFE for him. At around half time, the score was 45–67 (Lucas-Benjamin). After half time, Lucas had almost utilized all his power in jumping and running here and there.
When only a minute was left, the score was 123–122 and Benjamin
took a shot and made the score 123–124. Lucas became very nervous and saw that his eyes were blurring out and every thing was getting dark. He took the ball at 4 seconds left on the timer and took ‘A LEAP OF FAITH’.
After he took the shot, everything became black in front of his and he fell down and felt some more pain on his hand. When he woke up the next morning, he saw that he had his hands were between his toy railway line. He was still thinking about the dream.
Chapter 3: His Fear Of Failure
Lucas realized that there is not a single person in the world who can win everything. There is always that one thing that a person is afraid of.
That day, when Lucas went to his school, he noticed a thing which ate him throughout his life, Benjamin went missing. By this, he understood that Benjamin lied about the deal as he too had the FEAR OF FAILURE, the fear of loosing to Lucas and staying in the dream he created.
