Brian McAdams had just turned twenty five. He was just your average guy. Except for the fact he had little friends. He did have friends, but most of them had pretty much ditched him and he hadn't heard from in awhile. The only real friend he seemed to have was his best friend, which was basically a forced friendship due to the fact he was the son of his uncle's friend. But the two got along well. The reason for his lack of friendships was mostly due to his lack of confidence. You see, Brian was an extremely shy person and found it difficult to start up conversations with people, with one person, let alone large groups. Which had resulted in where he is now in the friendship department. This one day, Brian was walking home from a meet up he had gone to, to try and improve his confidence. But that had done nothing for him. He was still just as shy and anxious as ever.

  I'm a loser, he thought to himself, I've hit this age and I can't even strike up conversations yet, I was standing around aimlessly like a lost puppy dog. What's the point?

  He gave a little sigh, looking up at the sky then almost tripped on something. He looked down to his feet, and noticed there was a small ring. Brian bent down to pick it up, and began to look around, wondering if someone might have dropped it as he walked past them. But there was no one around to be seen. He shrugged, and put the ring in his pocket as he continued heading home, thinking about how sad he was.

  When he arrived home, Brian walked into his room, closing his door, and pulled out the ring he found. He sat down on his bed and analysed it. It was very small, but it was a cool looking ring. It had a sort of round red orb-like gemstone in the middle of it. It was strange, Brian had never liked rings like these before, but for some reason, he really took a liking to this one. He decided to try it on, to see if it would fit and suit him. He slowly but carefully began to slide the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand. As the ring slid to the bottom of his finger, it began to glow, which frightened him a little. He blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't actually seeing things. But he wasn't. The ring was glowing, and then it started releasing some kind of black smoke out of the red orb. The smoke started to form a shape, whilst still connected to the orb. The shape it took was the body of a ghost-like creature.

  "What—what's happening? Who-who, or what, are you?" Brian asked, terrified.

  The smoke-like creature grunted, and shook it's body around, then opened two white eyes, staring at Brian. It smiled.

  "I'm Solomon," it said, "I'm the embodiment of the ring you're wearing"

  "The embodiment of it..?" Brian asked, looking down at the ring.

  "Yes," Solomon replied, "You see, that is, I am, no ordinary ring. I hail from a distant world, an alternate reality known as Tzarphis"

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  "Scarface..?" Brian asked.

  "No, no, Tzarphis, T-z-a-r-p-h-i-s," Solomon spelled it out for him, "Tzarphis"

  "W-what are you doing here, why did I find you?" Brian asked.

  "Apparently you were chosen" Solomon stated, tilting his smoky head.

  "Chosen..?" Brian queried, still quite weirded out by the whole situation.

  "As The Confidanteonce" Solomon replied.

  "Con..con..confi..what?" Brian said, trying to pronounce the word.

  "In simple terms, The Confident One" Solomon explained.

  "What?" Brian asked, simply confused.

  This spirit ghost-ring thing must have got it wrong. There was no way he was this Confident One person.

  "The Confident One" Solomon repeated.

  "No, no, I got that bit, " Brian said, "But you must have it wrong. It's not me. I'm not this Confident One. Heck, I'm not even confident in the slightest. I'm the most, the most shiest, quietest, most awkward person to ever exist. So the ring's wrong, you're wrong, it's not me"

  "I have been an embodiment of this ring for millennia," Solomon said, "It is never wrong. Never has been and never will be"

  Brian wasn't going to argue with this cloud of smoke, as much as he wanted to, because he was afraid it might have the ability to do something to him. Especially while the ring was still on his finger.

  "Okay, okay," he said, standing up from his bed, "Say I, Brian McAdams, the most ridiculously shy, not confident at all, person in the history of the universe, were this Chosen One. Why? What for? What was I chosen to do?"

  "Deliver this" Solomon simply said as a cloud of black smoke formed a hand and threw Brian a scroll.

  Brian caught the scroll, and looked at it puzzedly.

  "Deliver it? Where?" Brian asked.

  "To the Kingdom Of Tzarphis" Solomon simply said.

  "Why can't you do it?" Brian asked the spirit.

  Solomon coughed awkwardly, clearing his throat.

  "I, uh, I, er, I'm..I'm unable to take spirit form in Tzarphis," he said, "Even if I was, I cannot leave the ring, I am always attached to it, how do you propose I get there when the ring cannot move without another person, hm?"

  "Okay, fair enough-" Brian started but Solomon wasn't finished.

  "Every time there is a most important, very important, urgently important message needed to be delivered to the Kingdom, the ring flings itself out of Tzarphis reality and into this world, and chooses a Confidanteonce to face the tough travels and obstacles through Tzarphis, with their utmost confidence"

  "I keep telling you, I'm not confident!" Brian yelled.

  "The ring seems to think you are" Solomon said, tilting his smoky head.

  "Well, it's wrong!" Brian said, annoyed and started pulling the ring off.

  But it wouldn't budge. No matter how hard he tried. He gave Solomon a frustrated look.

  "What now?"

  Solomon looked away awkwardly before speaking up.

  "Wearing the ring is sort of like an acceptance," he said, "Once the Confidanteonce has placed the ring on any of their fingers, they have basically agreed to do the task set. In your case, deliver this message. The ring is unable to be taken off until the task is completed"

  "Then I have to do this, despite my lack of confidence" Brian huffed.

  "Like I said, the ring disagrees about that" Solomon said.

  "Yeah, yeah, let's just go, how do we get there?" Brian said.

  Just then, Solomon started shrinking, his smoky body slowly dissolving back into the orb of the ring. Once he was all gone, there was a small portal that had formed inside the orb, which suddenly opened up very large and sucked Brian in.