Young Writers Society

Untitled as of yet. Enjoy to those of you who know me already and to those of you who are just beginning to read. i have not yet edited this yet for mistakes in grammar, but will do soon. Tell me what you think I will edit during this run to improve basics.

I

I took the canister out of my old faded green book bag. Shaking it a few times gave me a sense of what I was actually planning on doing. This was it. The big night. The rain was beating against the wall I was kneeling before. In the darkness of night, against the brick wall, I knew no one would notice me. Just the way I had planned it. I hesitated, as always when I am making the decision of a lifetime, which doesn’t happen that often. In the end I knew this was inevitable. They had asked for it. Hadn’t they? I reassured myself that they had and began to shake the can. Popping off the lid, I knew that my heartbeat was in tune with the rain. What a thrill. What a rush to be here of all places. I glanced over my shoulder, hearing a nearby car pass by, splashing its way off to some unknown destination. I closed my eyes and remembered the time six months ago when I had begun this crusade.

I always remembered a quote one of my close friends told me. He had looked at me directly after watching terrorist attacks on the television, sadly smiled and said “If we can find a reason or a way we are different from each other, then we will find a way to kill or harm each other.” For months I pondered this single line as if it were a prayer I was learning for church. I just never truly comprehended what it meant until about a year after hearing it. It was April 14th.

It all really began when I woke up that day. I knew it would be like any other day but for some reason this day seemed a little bit more relevant then other days. Perhaps because it marked my sixteenth birthday or perhaps it was just the fact that I had endured one of the worst nightmares of my life. I sat there at six in the morning breathing through my mouth, which, due to modern day technology, was filled with a bluish retainer that hardly let me speak. I wiggled the plastic and metal pieces out of my mouth and tossed them on my nearby bedside table. I heaved myself up and walked towards my door only to realize I had locked it. I have a fear of being attacked when I am the most vulnerable. Locking every door around me and placing neat traps was a quick way to relieve such worries before falling in a normally dazed dream. Stepping into the lit bathroom, I had to cover my weak morning eyes. I trudged on through the small sink-room in between the hallway and the bathroom only to quickly shut and lock the door behind me on the shower room. In the murky little room, I turned on the shower and sat on the floor to turn the nights events over in my mind. What was this thing keeping me up, haunting my dreams? Closing my eyes in a hard concentration, I could almost pinpoint exactly what it was but right at the instant I thought I had it, it shriveled back into the depths of my mind. Giving up the thought, I quickly undressed to let the warm water cleanse me of my horrifying thoughts. Relax, clear your mind of everything and the truth will reach itself to you. The words of one of my dearest teachers in my high school. Like the first of many quotes that infiltrated my brain, I let it swarm through my thoughts, seeing new meanings to it and hoping to one day be able to pull such interesting pieces of inspiration. The water unfortunately effected me in the very least, leaving me with a sense of an external clean while leaving my internal black spotted. Triangle. The thought of a triangle seemed to pass between all my vivid dreams. As I was dressing myself back in my room, I realized for the first time that this triangle had changed since the first few nights I began seeing them. The first vision was one of a pure white triangle with strong border against a black background. A very plain dream, I do admit, but recently the dreams had begun what seemed like a twirling spiral down to the very vaults of hell itself. The triangle had started to tear apart at the corners leaving something that represented a triangle, but did not really seem to fit that definition any longer. Just this night, the corners had faded entirely out leaving three lines which seemed to mean something that I was still not being able to register.

These thoughts cramped my mind while during my quick breakfast. Then thinking of my parents, I began to wonder where they were. My father was a tall, strong man who could be considered the everyday American. He was smart, don’t get wrong, but there always seemed something lacking from his life that it seemed like he never really wanted it to be there. He worked hard all his life and got almost nothing but a family out of it, as many people do. My mother was a small gentle woman. She was English in nature and spirit, and commonly told anyone who asked. She was proud to be who she was. I had a brother who was away at a prestige college, but for now he was not on my mind. I leaped up the stairs to find out what was going on with my parents situation, only to find out that I had woken up an hour early. I believe it dawned on me when I knocked loudly on my parents door and yelled something along the lines of “why aren’t you up?” They yelled back that it was six instead of seven. Don’t have to be at school till eight-thirty. So what am I going to do from now till when they are ready to leave? I began to walk back to my room when I suddenly felt a chill cross over the back of my neck. Every hair stood up on my body and I jolted around to see what had made the chill. Nothing was there, but there was a broken silence that anyone would be able to notice. I was sweating now, which did not seem possible since it was only a chill that had touched my skin and I had not been doing a serious physical exercise. Slowly, I back away towards my door and quickly closed it and locked it. I hated having to deal with doors that could be opened.

In the end this method of survival was probably the most useless form created. Deep in my mind I knew that if they were in my house, they would not mind breaking a couple of doors down. I lunged onto my couch trying hard to forget the event in the hallway, but it seemed like my dream and it somehow had intertwined to give me one hell of a morning. It did not bother me to have an enjoyable morning. What did bother me was to have a morning where I woke up panting then had a stomach churning experience in the middle of my hallway. I turned on the television trying to get away from these dreary memories that felt like happened years ago already. My television buzzed on with a low hum and the picture of an old man in front of a podium was the first other person I saw that day. It said “breaking news” on the bottom of the television screen on the news channel. Isn’t it always? I smiled slightly to myself before turning the television up to hear what this gray haired old timer was talking about. In an instant, anyone would understand this to be more talks about the war that we were currently in and may have changed the channel to something more cheery. However, this was not me. I turned it up so I could hear the mumbled, muffled words of the skeletal looking man. He was skinny with age lines streaking from one side of his forehead to the other. His expressionless face told me that the war continued with more death and destruction. I turned it off after only a minutes time. I couldn’t stand the thought of war. It seemed so pointless to me. There was a knock at my father walked into my room with a very tired face and a coffee cup in his right hand that said “Best Dad Ever.” Presents from your children expressing how much they love you may often lead to becoming crazy. I remembered reading that somewhere. I knew it wasn’t true but for a moment I was floating inside my head with the idea of how little people really know about life. He grinned stretching his unshaven skin to reveal a mass of closely packed white teeth. I hated him for those pearly whites. “Be ready to leave in ten.” With that, he trudged out the door.

Ten minutes later, we walked out the door towards the car in the parking lot. I soon wondered why we weren’t going out the garage like normal. The thought quickly entered one ear and drifted through and out the other ear. Not that big of a deal. After getting inside our Mercedes Benz C-Series, I started to get the funny feeling that something was changing about me. I couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what it was, but as we were driving silently up to my school, I casually glanced out the side window and saw the sign that represented our school name. It was an ivy branch that was a dim shade of green with the words Western Creek written fashionably in cursive. I always wondered how a new school could look so worn down and dirty. The walls were vandalized past repair with gum and pieces of trash were littered throughout the facility. Welcome to teenage hell. Please stop by our gift shop and pick up a tee shirt to remember your stay. Walking out of the car, I noticed that the flag was at half-mast. This hardly ever happened since the war had begun. This seemed to bother me as I pushed open the brown doors and moved swiftly into the two thousand capacity school. Luckily for me, the capacity meant nothing to our school division. Two thousand four hundred was the last count to my knowledge. Weaving my way in between the crowds of potheads and moving faster towards my first class I stretched towards my first class, I had reached the lounge of the nerds on the first hallway. I never actually called them nerds because I believe that the choice of names used in high schools is wrong to define a human being. However, these were the teenagers that seemed to bask in the glory of being a nerd. They did not know me. Not many people in this school knew me and that was the way I liked it. I didn’t know that in less then half a year, I would be the most popular person from the school. However, that was not today.

Today happened to be April 14th, my birthday. I had told myself that I would have friends from all classrooms and hallways running up to me yelling “Happy Birthday” or perhaps a few guys coming towards me and punching me on the shoulder seventeen times. One for good luck. I smiled as the clique teenage image appeared in my mind. I must have saw it on television at some time or another and wondered what it would actually be like. Sitting down in my Algebra 2 class, I never thought I would see the day when totally everyone I know had forgotten I even had a birthday. It’s the day back from spring break, maybe they are just getting back with their friends I love it how the mind can almost make you hear exactly what you want to hear. I smiled a weak smile to try to cheer myself up, yet I knew there was no hope.

I turned to look around me, noticing once again that I sat by myself. Loser. I love how the mind can also sometimes, only sometimes, tell you the truth. At this I let out a slight laugh and reached into my book bag to reveal to the world around me a copy of The Divine Comedy. Gotta love those pleasant comedies that I read. At this I smiled and began the first page. I am a strong believer that you can see if you will enjoy the book by the first page. The first sentence of this already seemed to entice me to keep reading. It was early I told myself and I was the only one in the class. I brushed my hair aside. It was parted in the middle and it remained long, even to reach to below my ears. Keeping it out of my face was something that I had a trouble dealing with but to fix this problem, I could casually tuck my hair behind my ears. The room seemed quieter then it naturally was and for some reason I no longer felt I was alone. Looking up for my dream in the book I saw him for the first time. He wore a dense shirt that did not seem to truly show off his physical characteristics well, but I could tell that he was thin and lean. He had a unshaven face that did not fully come in for certain areas but made him look a bit older. He wore loose, torn jeans that looked as if they weren’t the type you bought from a store. These, he had torn by use. A smile was shining across his face and he eyes were automatically welcome and kind. He seemed to be marveling at the fact that I was even in the class. I stared at him blankly for a few minutes wondering what he may be thinking. He had long hair like mine but it was ruffled to one side and it was scruffy and a dark shade of brown that make him look like he had just woken up. Finally, he broke the silence between us. “Hey. Enjoying the book?” I smiled and looked at the cover of the story. It was a true masterpiece. I glanced back at him and smiled. “Yeah, it’s a great story.” At this, he walked slowly over to me with his hands in his pockets and he sat down in the seat next to me. “My name is Jack. I am new to this school and I know no one.” I looked up from my book cover to notice he was looking directly in my eyes. A rare trait for this generation. “My name is Chris and I don’t know anyone either.” His green eyes shone when he smiled. “Well, you know me now.” At that, he started unpacking his things on the desk next to me. He didn’t carry a book bag like me but more like a briefcase. A real one. I hadn’t actually seen one in years.

“So Jack, let me see your schedule and I can tell you what level of hell you will be located in.” He smiled at that and looked at the book. Thank God he caught that one. He flipped open the briefcase and handed me the schedule from out of a flimsy notebook. The notebook was the only thing in the briefcase (excluding of course the pencil being held in the top utensil holder.) Taking his schedule from his outstretched hand I saw something that shocked me enough to put the piece of paper down and stare at him with an expression of horror. There was a disconnected triangle on his paper that was the exact duplicate of the triangle that had haunted my unconscious. How could he? My mind raced for an answer, but I seemed to be drooling in his general direction and that was the first thing my mind clicked into changing. I quickly snapped my gaze back to his schedule before he turned his head to ask me a question. “So how far into the depths of hell have they stuck me?” He smiled again. He smiles a lot. I scanned quickly over the names of the four teachers he had, noting that I knew only two of them. How could he have had the same vision? I turned towards him and replied with “ Mrs. Detree is a good teacher. She teaches Algebra well.” Liar. My mind seemed to spit out at me. “Well at least I know someone now to keep me company,” he said through a smile. Again with the smiles. “Unfortunately for you, Mr. Rail is a tough gym teacher, or so I have heard. Although, you do have a second class with me.” I pointed to our similar English class, remembering that I had no friends in that class either. “The other teacher I don’t know too well.” I handed him back the paper and quickly added “What is with the drawing?” He looked up from writing notes from the board at the schedule and smiled weakly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Try me. I shot him a reassuring look and nodded proving it was alright for him to tell me the truth. “ I saw it in...in a dream. I know it sounds stupid but I just saw it this morning.” Well you were right. I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you. Its too unreasonable. My mind raced with things to say about how I shared this dream with him and somehow the fact that we were connected in some freaky spiritual way. “That’s cool” was all that seemed to leave my mouth.

Neost.