Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Startled awake by the sound of sweet, sweet freedom, I fell out of my chair at the cacophonous bell. No one worth talking to was in this room, so I sprinted to my locker, past the crowds of unnecessarily loud idiots. You’d think that when you have something to say to someone you were standing right next to, you could calmly tell them. But no. No fucking way for these monkeys. I opened my locker out of habit and realized there was nothing I really wanted from it again. Now that I think about it, I never needed to open my locker for any legitimate reason because I never kept anything in it. I’m too compact a person for a locker. I turned a corner past a bunch of giggling cheerleaders and then with a quick glance down the hallway, slinked into the AV Room. Within the next two minutes I was back outside with everything I needed and on my way to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going, bitch?” Someone shouted at me.
It was John and a couple of his friends, conveniently located in front of the main exit of the building.
“I’m going to Portugal you dimwit.” I told him sarcastically.
He laughed as if he thought it was funny, and his friends laughed too. They all looked at me the same. I recognized a few of the faces from back when I was a kid. I grimaced and understood. They were here because they disagreed. Not just disagreeing with me, but disagreeing with my existence. This time is different, and I’m a lot older than I used to be.
“You see Lee, we can’t let you leave. We’re really sick of you pretending you’re better than everyone.” John stated as if he was the mouth of all six persons thoughts.
“Yeah!” One of the other apes chirped in.
I was never one of much respect. These guys were really into the art of monologue I guess, so I took advantage of it. A few of the smarter ones caught what I was doing and moved to get in the way. I threw the tripod I had taken from the AV room at John’s head like a javelin. He ducked out of the way and a shorter kid behind him got hit. Poor guy. Sorry. Anyways from the right and left two of the grunts came to surround me. Unfortunately for them I had been expecting just this and had prepared for it. John stood back up to face me, but I had already set down the box I had been carrying and closed the distance between us. He looked really surprised, so I punched him in the gut, causing him to topple over out of breath. The two directly to the right and left of John were just as surprised since the moment the shorter kid was taken out by the tripod. No one expected a skinny guy like me to be a fighter, so no one prepared for it. They prepared for ganging up on a geek with good grades.
I suddenly got hit on the flat of my back, with a baseball bat. I hadn’t expected that. I fell to the ground, and quickly got my feet under me, biting past the pain and lunging up head first into the kid who was to the left of John. I caught him under the chin and he went down. I ducked as the baseball bat whizzed over my back again. Then when it came again I punched at it right where it starts to get thinner. I felt a flash of heat for some reason, and a bright blue, similar to what I thought I saw that morning in the glass. The bat broke where I hit it, and the two pieces fell to the ground. The conscious remainders of the group blinked once, then twice in unison and then bolted. I dragged the smallest kid who got knocked out by the tripod over to the wall and sat him up against it. I took out a sharpie and wrote “sorry” on his arm. John was still wheezing, so I pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911, then put it next to his wheezing mouth on the floor.
“Make sure they get someone to take care of both of them.” I told him, then picked up my stuff and walked out the front door of the building. Someone bumped into me on the way out of the building.
“Hey!” I said, trying to see who it was, but I only caught the end of a trail of brunette hair rounding a corner. Whatever I guess.
There had been a crowd behind us who had been silenced by the fight. I don’t think they had ever seen one with a decisive winner against six opponents. So I didn’t even glance at them, it didn’t matter what they thought. I walked out and down the front steps.
I carried both tripod and camera case with my left hand, and rubbed my head where I made contact with that kid’s chin. I couldn’t figure out where that flash of light came from, but I’m sure it was just a trick of the mind. I got to the bottom of the steps, and Trent was sitting on the cement railing to the left of the building. I looked over at him and nodded.
“Yo.”
“You bring the camera?”
I gestured at the heavy package I was carrying, and then wiped blood from my face.
“You’re bleeding, Lee,” Trent put blandly.
“It might not be mine. I didn’t keep track,” I replied.
“Oh. Well, okay. Let’s go.”
Trent was a good friend; better than most. In actuality he was just a respite against boredom. A guy had to keep himself occupied, you know?
Trent had both of our bikes, which I traded the tripod for one so the load was split between us. We rode down the main hill in our town and stopped at a convenience store to get some water bottles. Then we left and rode back to Trent’s house and out to his backyard. As we rode, the sky grew grayer the closer we got to his home.
We abandoned our bikes to a nearby tree and walked over to his old chicken coop. Once upon a midnight dreary before we were born there used to be several dozen fat hens that spent their lives as stock here, but they’ve been gone for a long time now. I put my things down against the green peeling paint of the coup and turned to Trent.
“You get the key; I gotta get props and Brittany,” Trent gave out a command.
“Fine.”
I walked a short trek across Trent’s large property. It used to be a farm, but now it had several houses on it for rent instead of cows. This only made it hard to walk from one place or another. The insecurities of man will forever be astonishing to me: the need for boundaries and fences. Every yard had fences between them, as if the rents of Trent’s parents didn’t have the ability to be civil with each other without boundaries. I went around to the back of the chicken coop and searched under a pile of bricks to get the key. I used it to open the door and sat down only after spreading outlines and scripts on the ancient dusty table.
We’ve had so many memories here, from the time we were young until now. In that yard, we set off fireworks every year for Fourth of July, and that tree over there is the one I ran Trent’s car into last year. The first time I came here we sat in this damn chicken coop and froze our asses off trying to get the stove going. It took like two hours while it was snowing out because our tinder decided to be wet, and it took till the last match to catch a twig on fire. We’ve had some of the best times together here, and some of the worst. I came here when my only girlfriend had just dumped me and cried until Trent told me about how stupid I was being and punched me in the arm. On another occasion, I had done the same for him. He’s always been that best friend who’s always around for a good punch. I think that’s actually what led us into filmmaking, when we were acting out parts of a play and punching each other when we messed up. We chose to make it into a skit, and it turned out to be our first train-wreck of a film.
Working as a filmmaker with almost no resources is pretty much a pain in the ass. Trent was reliable, don’t get me wrong. He knew how to hold a camera and get good shooting angles, as well as how to write a mean script. Being antisocial was a huge problem when trying to find actors and actresses, which tended to be rare. The only other functioning screen-player we had was Trent’s sister, Brittany. She was one of those high pitched kiddy-girls. Worst of all, she hung on me a lot.
Damnit, we need a working crew, not this dumb girl. Oh well, it’s bound to happen with a non-existent budget.
Well I guess I should explain as to why I’m in a chicken coop of all places. I met Trent eight years ago, and we used this place as a club house, then a fortress, and now a headquarters or hideout. We’re also working on a movie at the moment. That’s a hobby of mine sometimes. Most of the movies we make are pretty… pretty unique. Don’t worry, you’ll understand sooner or later.
So I started working on another script while waiting for Trent to return. This one is for a commercial that advertises orphans that paint themselves. Never mind that.
“Lee!”
It was Brittany. God she’s annoying, someone save me. She rambled about something or another while clinging to and shaking my arm.
“… do anything in school? What time is it? What are we doing today? Lee when are you gonna hang out with me? Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Lee. Hey Lee. Lee you’re not listening!” She whined into my ear, destroying one of my precious five senses.
“Alright already!” Trent, get her off of me! I didn’t say this part though.
Brittany is easily described as short, hyperactive, brunette, and slap-happy. Don’t underestimate her by her short stature. I have a feeling that if I ever got on her bad side she would seem a lot like that killer rabbit in Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail. She could out-smile a hurricane.
I realized in the middle of another of her outbursts that I was ignoring that she was starting to move from rambling to trying to get my attention.
“… been forever since I saw you last,” She was saying.
“It’s been less than twenty hours, jeez woman.” I rubbed my temples. So irritating.
“Oh, Right. So what are we doing today?” She shouted more so than she questioned, jumping up and down all the while.
Trent had just arrived, so I shrugged this question onto his shoulders. “What are we doing today?”
“The second fight scene,” came his reply.
Thank God. Brittany has to do camerawork for that, and not act. “Use a tripod Britt.”
“Oh fine,” she replied, beaming.
What are you smiling for you silly girl?
Trent shrugged at my confused expression.
“Do you want the sword or the gutter?”
“I want the gutter. I’ll go get it, you guys go set up the camera by the fire pit.”
“Right.”
“See you soon, Lee!”
“You don’t need to say goodbye you twit.”
“Oh, right. Hurry back.”
Ugh. I started over to get the gutter, slapping myself out of a stupidity overload. This trip was also a long walk. I didn’t mind though, Trent’s many yards were all very green and good to look at. It brought some peace to my mind before I would have to encounter another emotional train wreck in that girl.
“So stupid!” I said out loud to the trees and grass and shrubberies.
I arrived at Trent’s storage dump behind his third home, which an Italian couple who spoke no English were renting. Trent had a pile of old rain collectors under a bush behind their house. I looked for the straightest one to wield as a weapon. After grabbing a ten foot long gutter, I headed back towards the fire-pit and got into position. Trent was my enemy in this scene, so we stood opposite each other and waited for the cut to begin.
“3…2…1… Bullshit!” Britt gave the cue at the press of the record button. (The idea of using “bullshit” instead of “Action” was all mine.)
“So fool, you think that you have what it takes to defeat me, your darker side? There is no option for you anyways, for today you stand in line for your good share of death. There’s no way you’d stand a chance against me, a powerful overlord with the legendary Haruken sword. Prepare yourself.”
After this monologue and a battle cry, my gutter clashed with his sword and the fight was on. In the story, the Legendary Haruken sword was a black sword that had killed Trent’s character’s lover.
I was tempted to use corny lines such as “avaste ye, knave!” or “en guarde!” or “I will end you.” However this was supposed to be one of our more serious movies, if there ever was one.
So we spent a frustrating hour trying to film our fight from several angles. After we packed up I finally bid farewell to Trent and his emotional maelstrom of a sister, and rode my bike out of his driveway, turning to go home.
The road back home was a few miles, and I had to head back towards the school we studied at. Unfortunately for me, after the school it was one hill to go down, and the rest of the way was uphill to my destination. It didn’t matter if I took my time or not, I had a feeling that no one would really miss me if I took too long. I sighed.
The clouds came out to play around halfway into my tiresome trip. Damn weather, why can’t you ever be like a nice nerdy kid instead of a jerk?
I was about halfway up the hill near my school, which I had to cross to get home, when my bike chain decided to snap. How lucky of me.
“God Damnit! I just put that on yesterday.” I complained out loud, aware that no one was around to give a damn. I hiked up the rest of the hill, and to my dismay it started to rain. I had about three miles to go on the way home, so I sought shelter on the school grounds. I was so soaked by the time I got to the school doors that I could water Trent’s garden. The doors just happened to be locked. Could it get any worse? I felt very cliché.
I wanted to cuss out whoever was in charge of the weather.
So I ran out towards the track field and took refuge under a tree. In a foul mood now, I was sarcastically proud to be American or something along those lines. I was still upset that everything decided to be wrong all at once, but I took the time to sit and enjoy the rain.
Rain. It was a beautiful thing for me, and a depressing thing. From the very earliest memory, I could remember the rain; the smell, the feeling and the infinite of it. Sometimes it seemed like it could go on for years and years, or it could seem light and playful. Whenever I run out of inspiration and hope, the rain was a good friend there to comfort me. It seems that the most vivid memories of mine involved rain, almost always.
Besides, the school grounds seem too empty without it, too barren. The rain fell down like a comforting blanket of material over the blandness of the school grounds. The tree I was under was bent and old, not preventing much rain from landing on me, but I didn’t mind so much. Off in the distance I could see a figure running out from the woods at the edge of the school grounds… and a figure chasing the first one.
“Huh.”
The first figure seemed to be in distress, it looked like a girl. A damsel if you will. I’ve always wanted to use that. And what’s that? The second figure was a bull of a man, and he spout an aura of anger or hatred. I strained my eyes through the haze to realize that he was holding a… a knife?! It was some crazy big oriental knife; it didn’t look like it would taste pleasant.
Time seemed to move in slow motion for me. Ever have one of those moments of indecision where you’re trapped between going or staying, left or right, and it makes you almost mess up entirely? Well I was at the mother-load of indecisions and crossroads.
What should I do?
This was one of the first times in my life that I had any serious actions to have doubts about. The problem was that I had to make a move sooner rather than later because I couldn’t just do nothing. They were coming closer rapidly, and my field of vision seemed to be condensing. I don’t feel so good. There was some deep feeling of being noble for today inside me.
“Do something,” I told myself.
You must understand, just because I find everything boring doesn’t mean I never do anything. When I first came to school, I joined all the sports teams and clubs sequentially (which all turned out to be dumb). They kind of helped me along athletically I’ll admit. So why am I telling you this? Well I made like a quarterback and/or pitcher and chucked a fistful of fist-sized-rock.
I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t thrown that rock, how my life would have turned out, but I’ll never know. It soared through the air before force feeding the mysterious assailant with a bucketful of unconsciousness. The damsel spun around to see the would-be murderer unconscious and was clueless as to how it occurred. I hurried out to assess the situation.
“Hey, you okay?” I questioned her.
She seemed to have missed it. “Did you throw that rock?”
“Yeah that was me.”
“Thank you so much! I was so scared, help me hide his body.”
“Wait.
…
Hide his body? You don’t mean…”
“He’s dead, and deservedly. We need to get rid of him before things get worse. Oh jeez. This wasn’t anticipated. We need to hurry. Quickly, grab his legs.”
Anticipated? What are you rambling about? I helped her move the body, her face seemed paler than the corpse. I suspected my face was similar to hers after the strange sequence of events. I looked at the dead person, and realized with a turning of my gut that it was one of John’s friends. I chose not to say anything because I was afraid of answers.
She gave me a quick glance after the body was safely tucked under some bushes in the woods. After a double take she gasped.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You… you’re… no it shouldn’t be you. It can’t be. What do I do? Oh man. I need to contact them.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
She seemed lost for a moment, or trapped with indecision. She pulled a strange cell-phone-like device out of her pocket which made a beeping noise. Then she said,
“Come with me.”
She grabbed my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and proceeded to drag me at an astonishing speed across the track field. It was at that time that I really took a look at her.
She seemed athletic and well built, with deep hazel eyes and dark brown hair with black layering. She was cute, but… distressed.
“Where are you taking me? Who are you? What’s going on?”
It was at that time that I realized she was dragging me back towards the school.
“We’re going somewhere safe. I can’t tell you anything else yet, but I will, I promise. I’m sorry.” She sounded frantic.
The wind seemed to pick up suddenly, and the clouds above the track field began to spiral around the gaping black hole in the sky.
“Wha-?”
“Quickly, inside.”
The previously locked school doors swung open of their own accord and we rushed in. Things were starting to get weird I had to admit, but I wasn’t ready to admit that it was the first time I was interested with what was going on.
“I know this is confusing, but you need to trust me.”
Outside, the wind was starting to bend the trees. All the wind seemed centered on an axis at the hole in the center. It grew so loud that I had to yell for the girl to hear me.
“What’s happening?”
“I know this may sound like babbling, but it’s Odin. You killed his henchman, and he doesn’t want any evidence… or people to talk about it.”
“Odin? Henchman? What are you saying? I knew that kid. He was in school today, how the hell could he be a henchman?”
“Come here.”
She grabbed my forearms and stood across from me. She had a strong grip. I caught sight of her eyes then, they were enchanting and full of determination. I brought myself back with a question;
“What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving.”
“No, we’re standing, not even moving. What the hell is going on? Why won’t you answer my questions?”
Just then I felt a sensation like ice spreading from my arms at her touch. I looked down in surprise to find a fluidly-moving black conflagration steadily spread up both my arms and the girl’s arms. It began to cover our entire bodies. I was pretty weirded-out by now.
“What the hell?”
“No matter what, don’t tell anyone your name.”
“Why? And you don’t even know it. Why does it matter?”
“You’re Grim. Don’t forget what I said, and try to be true to yourself.”
I froze for a second. No one knew about that name except me and some little girl. My name is Lee to the world, but to myself I’ve always been Grim because when I was younger someone who cared about me called me it.
“How’d you know that name? What the heck? What are you talking about? You crazy person! What’s gonna happen? I demand a refund.”
“Smile, Grim.”
With that, the fire spread to my head and finished covering me. I glanced outside to see a column of blue light touch down on the track field, and then expand, consuming everything in its path. It was about to reach the school when the strange fire blindingly covered my eyes. With a sensation similar to feeling nothing, I tried to cut through the abrupt silence
Augh!
Everything went pitch black.