Shattered Glass Chapter 2: The Raven
Raven
As I opened my eyes from my 17 hour nap, I realized some things. One, it was a Monday and that meant school. Two, It was eight-fucking-thirty and my mother didn't wake me up! Hell was she even here? I hopped out of my bed and quickly put on a pair of shorts and walked out of my room, nearly breaking the doorknob from my anger. I stomped my way to the main section of the house where my mother was sitting on the couch reading a book. I thought for a moment how ironic of an imagine considering how in the world she could possibly be sober enough to read a book, an actual novel.
"Well hey there! Aren't you going to be late for school? You do know it started an hour ago right" My mom swiftly said to me in a sarcastic tone. I didn't bother to dignify her with an answer. I was beyond the point of caring. Hell I didn't even roll my eyes or sigh. To me she didn't exist, and in my eyes she was a worthless piece of shit.
I grabbed my school supplies and headed out of the house, or what was by all practical definition a house anyway. To me it was just somewhere to sleep and nothing more. I turned around outside the front door and gently shut it, and for whatever reason I chose locked it.
I turned to face our yard and started to walk towards the school. It wasn't far away, maybe all of about 3 or 4 miles walking through the woods. I looked at my phone and saw the current time being 9AM and then looked to the sky. I was late no matter what I did. After a few minutes I just let my body take control of where it wanted to go, and started heading in the opposite direction of the school to the woodlands that bordered out town. I knew the place well, and it was the only place I would call home. It is where I spent a good majority of my time, well pretty much all. I found a little place in it that had a small spring, berry plants, and wasn't heavily covered with tress so some sun could shine through the canopy. It was like my own private beach really and no one knew about it but me... no one but me...
Hell what is the point of me only knowing? Sure it was nice to be alone... but there comes a point where one cannot take anymore.
Wait what am I thinking? Being alone was all I knew. I would not be able to return what someone could give me in companionship. Much less who would even want to waste their time? I have no idea what I want, or that matter what other wanted out of me...
*BEEEEEEEEEP* as a car came to a halt to avoid hitting me, unfortunately missing me by about 2 inches. I sighed cursing ABS brakes under my breath. I knew the car had them, after all it was a Merc C-Class. Did I even flinch? Or did I just stand there and face the car? Hell maybe it stopped because of the look I gave it. Either way it didn't matter. I was still alive, still breathing, and not at all shook up. The driver got out of her car and started yelling at me about how I should be paying attention and so on and went on to asking sarcastically if I wanted to die or something. I simply said yes to her when she asked that and continued walking without further discourse.
Speaking of which, where was I? I've always had a hard time in the part of town. I was never sure, given if I wasn't paying attention, if I was past Vermont street or not. For a town, I guess city now with its current growth and expansion, it had striking symmetry.
I thought back to the car scene, and visioned the lady's face in my mind. What did she care if I died or not. Ahh well I guess she would go to jail for murder, only logical reason I could come up with. That and maybe if she was religious that she would end up in Hell for "accidently" putting me out of my misery.
Maybe it's weird but I never get shaken up when I am in a near death situation. Maybe cause I've been in some many. I think now I am immune to death, that I was put on this Earth for a special reason, like some sort of Jesus reincarnation... Pfft Ha like he was even real to begin with. Religion is such a joke, all it does is contradict itself and there are so many interpretations that there was no way to know for sure which one was right. "Don't eat pork, it's not pure", "You can only marry one woman", "You can marry 3 women", "If you masturbate you'll burn in hell", "Treat other how you wish to be treated", "Homosexuals are evil be mean to them". I think I dumped all my religious morals somewhere around the age of 10. I believe that there is something up there watching us, brought us here, maybe crafted us, but whatever it is, or was, is far beyond what we could ever interrupt. Hell we cannot even manage to find the answer to immortality besides clones, which were for the very wealthy apparently. However at least we were in Space finally exploring it. We've only lost a few dozen ships to wormholes, well no one can say lost for sure. We still don't know exactly what happens when one goes into them.
Speaking of which, History was finally teaching something I found of interests, and that was how life was before the development of spacecraft, real spacecraft, not those shitty overly bulky and heavy rockets and "space shuttles" they sent up there. Getting into space wasn't the hard part after they developed the "Super-Conductive Renewable Energy Magnetic Rail Launching System" which is capable in theory of launching anything in space as long as it did not either: A. Did not exceed the Mage Anode Capacitor Output, B. Exceeded 1/5th the weight of the launcher itself, or C. Did not exceed the Super Computer's overall Teraflop output for Calculations. The last one has happened once in the history of the system being up, but the ship did manage to make orbit by linking its own systems with the main launchers, giving the system an addition 635 teraflops.
Hmm coming to think of it I am actually sad I am missing school today because they were going to talk about how the construction on the device came about. Oh well that's what I have a textbook right? The teacher is going to do nothing but repeat the words in a different fashion then what the book said.
I snapped back to reality to discover that I was at my private resort. How I got here without falling into a ditch or walking into even a spider web was beyond me. I love how your body can just take over completely sometimes
I rolled my backpack off my shoulders and let in fall on the sandy ground and walked down to the spring. Kneeling down beside it I looked at my reflection. Nothing is all I saw whenever I looked at myself. I had lots of good feature, such as green-hazel eyes, and nearly perfect teeth with no chips or misplacement. I also had cute ears for a wolf. However in all of that I was empty. Whenever I look into my own eyes, I see no light, no portal into my soul. To me they were voids that could only see the world, but nothing else...
I flatted my ears against my head and look up at the few trees that were slightly covering the area. I wanted to climb one and sit at the very top. However I knew I wouldn't, I was to scared. I always thought to myself "What if I feel out?". I wasn't scared of dying if I did; I was scared of living if it didn't kill me.
Something behind me shuffled some shrubs and flicked my ears back to determine what is was. I didn't really care to look, I was pretty sure it was some creature making it usual habitual rounds not knowing of my presence. Suddenly the movement stopped, much more sudden and heavy then a normal creature would.
I sighed and turned around to be quite surprised by the view. It was one of my "friends" I guess you could say from school. One of those people who will hold a 5, maybe 10, minute conversation in you confronted them but other than that they wouldn't care to talk to you.
"I would hardly expect you to come looking for me Alki. How in the world did you even manage to do so" I said with an obvious disappointed tone."
I turned around to look at him. He was just standing still, looking straight at me as if he was terrified and grateful I was there. Perhaps like me, he wandered aimlessly through the woods one day and found this place. Hell maybe that was what he did today even.
I cocked my head to the side as if letting him know I was still expecting a reply, which of course I did not get. He did however stop look at me and let his head and eyes slowly start to wonder to the horizon over the tree tops across the spring. He wasn't wearing any readable emotion after he turned away his focus, no cocked eyebrow, no smile or frown, just the expression of someone who didn't care about anything.
A minute later he ended his gaze and walked up beside me and stood there to my left. I wouldn't have minded it so much if he hadn't been so intimidating. He was a huge kitty, probably a panther; I wasn't really good with the feline variations of furs. To me they were all the same really. All I could do was tell the difference between Domestic Origin and Feral Origin.
I tried to walk away from him pretending to be focused on something else but he put his paw on my shoulder and gently dug his claws in just enough to make me stop moving. I was getting pretty concerned at this point so I turned to face him. He was still looking at the horizon but had his right ear fixed on my location.
"If you want to beat me into a pulp for being a 'queer ass fag' just do it already, I hate waiting" I said with cocky confidence in my voice. I really did hate waiting and I wasn't scared of a fight or being hurt. After all I was already beyond the meaning of hurt and physical pain would just be a minor inconvenience.
He turned towards me and lowered his eyes to my face. I was a good 6 inches shorter than him but I hated being looked down at; I would rather just be looked over when talked to. He squinted his eyes for a few seconds then closed them shaking his head slowly from side to side. I had no idea what he was thinking, nor did I really care. Why bother anyway, it's not like I knew him well, or anything about him. All I knew was his name, and that he was some sort of jock.
Opening his eyes he looked back at me, and smiled. I began bracing myself for whatever he could throw. However instead of feeling a punch, kick, or some sort of painful physical impact upon my body, he simply grabbed my arm and said in a deep purrful voice "You need to come with me"