Door

Billy got up and began walking toward the door. "Where are you going, Billy?" his mother said. He turned to her, pointed towards his head, and made a circular motion with his index finger. "Make sure to pick up some bread on your way back." she said. He slammed the door on his way out.

Each step he took on the gravel path that lead to town echoed across the barren land that lay before him. Why did he do this walk everyday? Was the one piece of bread and jar of milk really worth so much trouble? He sighed. It was pretty hot today. The sun looked kind of different as well. It was a lot more red than usual.

After two hours of walking, Billy looked up and smiled when he saw a giant watchtower far off in the distance, the edge of town. He began to increase his pace a bit, and in no time he was standing in front of a ten foot high wooden gate. 

A voice came from above. "Who goes there?" Billy looked up and saw what looked like a kid dressed in armor, must be new. "Billy goes here!" he said. The guard pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and started reading down it. "No need to check," Billy said, "I'm not on the list." The guard dropped the piece of paper. Not on the list? He looked down at Billy. "Then I'm sorry sir, but I can't let you..." "Billy! I haven't seen you in a long time!" a big sounding voice said, from behind the guard. The guard turned around to see an extremely tall old man with a really long white beard dressed in pajamas. "Commander, you know this man?" the guard said. The old man laughed loudly enough to wake up the whole town, his voice echoing through the barren wasteland. "Do I know him? Do I know him? Why, he's my grandson! Hey Billy, how's old Waily doing?" he said.

Billy put his hands on his hips. "You know she hates it when you call her that, right?" he said. His grandfather let out another laugh. "But she's not here now, is she? What brings you around this side of the dump?" he said. Billy opened his pack and pulled out a small jar, showing it to the old man. "Ahh, supplies." he said. 

The guard stood there listening to the conversation. He felt extremely awkward. Shouldn't he be doing something? His eyes went all over the tower, looking for something to do, ah, the paper. He walked over and picked it up. Now what? He looked around. Nothing. Nothing to do. "Hey, Rich, why don't you open the gate." the old man said, to which he quickly replied, "Yessir!" he ran over to wooden panel with a bunch of levers on it. He looked at each lever carefully. Now which one was the one that opened the gate? "It's the red one." said the old man. "Right." the guard said, quickly. He pulled the red lever.

...