Luke walked outside, leaving his mom in the kitchen thoughts of their conversation playing out again in his head. Luke felt like today was the start of something important to come and definitely something that he couldn’t fully explain. The thought that if he concentrated hard enough about what was wrong he might be able to reach out and touch it. His footfalls were the only sound this morning as he walked from one street to the other, the school only being a little less than a mile away. This walk had been cathartic to him in the past, a way for him to destress and not bring life to school with him or vice versa. He liked the idea of keeping school and his home life separate, even though with his mom always working and him in sports it felt like his life was mostly filled with school and activities there.
Luke had grown up in the area, never knowing a different town. Polk was small and quaint. It had its perks and its determinants. Small towns were always like that full of Charm but everyone always knew everything about you. Luke had been no different growing up. His mom being a single mom was always something brought up to him throughout grade school, but him now being a senior the only thing of note people stopped to talk to him about was wrestling as he was not only a captain but undefeated this year. Newport didn’t have many other sports but wrestling always held a special place in the heart of the town. This made him known but anything but popular in the grand scheme of popularity at a small town's high school.
As he turned the last block and the school was coming into focus, he saw the same crowds as always lounging about out front of the school talking drama, who's dating who, and what assignments were coming up later in the week. As he made his way in the main entrance he was accosted from behind by the only real person he could call a real friend in this tiny little town. “Hey dont hit me so hard there Ben, you know we have the meet this week.” Luke said with feign annoyance. “Well maybe you shouldn’t keep yourself so drawn into yourself and someone couldn’t sneak up on you so easily.” Ben said as he hit him the arm again a little one two combo.
Luke and Ben made their way inside heading to their lockers. “Guess what, my mom actually said she was going to try and make it this week, I can only hope she does it for the first time this year.” Luke said to Ben as he began grabbing books out of his Locker he would need for the first half of the day. Ben chuckled a little, saying, “ Well one can only hope the Beautiful Rebecca would grace her presence as this prestigious institution we call a school.” Luke rolling his eyes, ya know Ben you need to get over this crush you have on my mom. It's been like 12 years now and could be excused when you were little but now we are graduating. I'd appreciate a little respect over here.” Luke said this with a serious tone but knew Ben was only trying to rile him up so couldn’t keep the stern look he held for long. “Oh stop being such a baby, you know I dont disrespect you, I just hope that once we get into college I'll finally find someone not from this town, and hopefully just as beautiful as your mom”, he said quickly slamming his locker and running off towards his class as Luke was about to smack him side the head.
Luke, shaking his head avenging to pay back the little shit closed his locker and made his way to his first class with Mrs. Chapman, his History teacher. As he walked in he took his usual seat in the back letting the voices of the class drown out his thoughts of vengeance. Mrs. Chapman came in not long after everyone sat down, and began a lesson on modern mechanisms of war that was raging within other countries around the world.
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Luke let himself be drawn into the lesson learning about concepts surrounding the different wars waging around the world and how war seemed to be inevitable in some way over the years for things like nations expansion or progress. Luke wouldn’t say he was enthralled by the lesson but listened anyway. He still hadn’t decided whether he would go to college yet even though he managed to get into all the schools he applied to or if he would take a non-traditional route and join the Military. It always seemed interesting to him and he always felt like he needed some kind of purpose to push himself. Before his thoughts could manifest further the bell rang, and it was time for English. As he made his way to his next class he started to get the slightest headache and by the time he sat down in Mrs. Writes class it was a full blown migraine.
The world seemed to have shifted into different hews; it was like the world around him was monochrome and the voices of his fellow classmates and teacher seemed to be heard from a continuously expanding distance. All Luke could do was grip his desk and hold on. Although Luke was having what could only be an existential crisis noone around him seemed to notice. This lasted until the bell rang to release him from the class which hit him like jumping into a frozen lake.
Luke shuttered and realized his body was covered in sweat and he was breathing hard. Mrs. Write seemed to have finally noticed that he was struggling and as others shuttled their way out of the class room she squatted down at the edge of the desk. “Luke, are you alright? You were completely fine throughout class and just now as the bell rang you let a soft gasp”. Luke looked at her in confusion, “What do you mean I seemed fine since I stepped into the classroom I felt off and I could have sworn I was shaking most of the class.” Mrs. Write, looking even more concerned than before. “Luke, you even answered some of my questions. I mean look at the paper in front of you. I asked the class to write a short essay using their imagination to create a fantastical world they could see themselves living in.” As Luke looked down, the teacher also took a second glance to actually read what was written, and they were both stunned to see that only one word was written on the page, over and over again. The word, Neverworld.
Luke walked out of Mrs. Writes class as fast as his legs could take him. Heading straight to the locker rooms. He knew he had another class before the first half of the day was truly over but the weirdness of the last class, and the weird essay he seemed to have written that he had no knowledge of was concerning enough he needed to cool down in a shower for a bit.
He walked past Ben who was waiting to go into their next class together, giving him a brief, “I’ll see you later, and yes I'm fine”. Ben acknowledged him with a little bump on the arm and Luke continued his walk. He walked down two halls and into the gym which on the other side was the locker rooms until suddenly it was as if a sledge hammer had come down onto his skull. It stunned him and he fell to the ground hard. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before, worse in every way to the migraine from before. He mustered what strength he felt he still had and made his way slowly cradling his head to the Locker room. The one benefit was that no one was in the gym as they were all in class.
He slammed open the locker room door quickly tossing his bag down and made his way to the sink where he let the water get cool. The pain now radiating from his head to his toes. Like a heartbeat pulse traveling from one part of his body to the other. Looking up from the water flowing from the faucet he looked at himself in the mirror and the image that looked back at him seemed to burn into the fractals within his eyes. He screamed as the pain increased to a new height, his body going rigid as he fell to the floor, the image of nothingness burned into his Soul, an ever evolving shroud of darkness that had reached through the mirror to grasp his heart.