School, a house of learning and study meant for preparing students for the rest of what life had to offer them. Bullshit. High school is the most God-awful, cliché, petty, excuse for a social life that most people would not voluntarily choose. When presented with the options of a root canal or seven hours in a building meant for the sole purposes of physical ridicule and psychological demoralization, Crystal knew which one she would choose. She was not thin, and pretty, and stupid. She was smart, and witty, and sarcastic…and not precisely thin. Thus, education was a chore for her, and everything that came along with being fifteen with a bunch of other fifteen year olds was a nightmare.
The first day at Duriarb High School was a strange adjustment to Crystal. After her old school, Eastnut, had burned down, many students were transferred to Duriarb, the “split school.” Not that Duriarb was a bad school; it just had two different schools in one. Even the building structure suggested such a fact. The school looked, from a top view like one big H. On one side was the “normal” school, where most of the Eastnut school students had been transferred. The other side is where the…“special” students were. Crystal didn’t exactly see what was so special about them. Yeah, most of took medications and were diagnosed as people with ADD and other kinds of learning disabilities, but Crystal thought all teenagers had problems. She guessed these kids’ parents were just rich enough to prove it (That damn testing was expensive!)
In the school parking lot, before school started, is where most students hung out, regardless of which side of school they were on. Crystal didn’t know if there was any kind of segregation between the students (they all looked the same because the school required uniforms) but Crystal supposed she’d find out soon enough. Some of them certainly did have better cars, though. But any parking lot where a Mercedes-Benz is parked next to a Ford Aspire is an unbiased parking lot.
Milling through the various running cars, loud radios, engine revving, and students frantically scrambling to complete over-summer reports, Crystal found her old friend, Daniel. Daniel had attended Eastnut as well, and had a natural talent for making people laugh. He was as skinny as a rail, much to Crystal’s jealousy, and wore glasses. One could describe him as a walking broomstick wearing a mushroom hat, since his sandy brown hair formed a mop on the top of his head, no matter how he cut it. Daniel’s flamboyant nature had lead many to believe him to be a homosexual, but his perverted humors soon made them think twice.
“Hey, Crystal, smashing sex last night! Can we do it again!” Daniel shrieked loudly enough for the whole parking lot to hear.
Crystal laughed, but then yelled, “In your dreams, Daniel, and my nightmares.” She didn’t need everyone thinking that she was as easy of virtue as that.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Someday, my lady love, someday,” Daniel finished the act, then switched to a normal mode of conversation, “So, did you get your schedule yet?”
“No,” Crystal said, “nobody from Eastnut did. They say there will be an assembly especially for us this morning.”
“Aha, they’re trying to mark us separate from the rest of the student body,” Daniel declared.
“That’s just a paranoid assumption,” Crystal said.
“Is it paranoid if I’m right?”
Just then a thunderous roar ripped through the air. Papers went flying, people slammed their car doors shut, and with a paint job to dazzle the eye, a huge dark blue Tahoe swerved neatly into a parking space beside a four-runner.
The driver of the four-runner leaned out of his window and shouted, “Troy, you little pansy, you couldn’t take me on!”
The Tahoe driver, Troy responded, “Yeah, but you couldn’t catch me in that hussy V-6!”
“I’ll teach you not to dis V-6 power!”
“Hey, Troy! Give me your report, I need to copy it,” another voice shouted.
From Crystal’s point of view, she saw a boy with brown hair coming up to the line of cars. He must’ve been tall, because Crystal knew that the over priced sports utility vehicle would’ve hid a person any shorter. As it was, she could only see the boy’s head.
“What report? We had a report?”
“Hey, did you guys look at your schedule? I think we all have Ms. Hoffmann again this year,” said another voice, belonging to someone Crystal couldn’t see. Many groans followed the statement.
The stone disc from Kaine, concealed in her pocket, which Crystal had felt inclined to take to school with her for no reason at all, glowed. The warmth spread, sending tendrils of a very important thought to her brain, but just as she was on the verge of making some crucial understanding Daniel said, “Hey, Crystal. Is that a flashlight in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
“YOU PERVERT!” And the moment was lost completely.
The assembly was one big crock of meaningless drivel about how they were no different than the rest of the student body and how they’d grow used to the change in no time. Crystal didn’t believe a word of it. Changes were meant to be in effect permanently. Even if everything went back to normal, nothing would be the same. That was how things were supposed to be. Changes were for the better, for the good, for…. For…
For what?
What was going on? The older she got the harder it was to pay attention to the babble of teachers. Stupid assembly, stupid school…why couldn’t Crystal have just stayed where she was? Crystal suddenly had the feeling to cry. She didn’t want to change; she didn’t want to face all that was ahead. She felt as though she was watching some hideous mortal wound forming on her body and now there was no way to stop it.
Why the hell was she thinking these morbid things? She was just going to a new school, meeting some new people, and she would get a half-assed education and go to college to party. That was normal; that was fine. Nothing went any deeper than that. It was completely superficial, not…not…destiny.
And at that thought, the disc glowed again.