"I love you honey!" My beloved mother makes sure to say before I'm out of hearing range as I run to the school bus. Everything was rushed because I had overslept, but for some other reason I didn't feel obligated to reciprocate her kind gesture of words. Just a feeling of indifference as of late.
I walked underneath the gray, gloomy car port that laid off the back door where my dad made a garage area. Straight ahead was the yellow public transportation system known as my bus, parked in front of the mailbox. I walked a bit faster than usual, but didn't run, and saw the annoyed expression of the middle aged overweight driver as I came closer. The open doors and loud, obnoxious talking of the other kids was my morning greeting.
Without any words I step inside and look directly for a seat, preferably as secluded as possible. Nobody needed to be around me right now.
The very back seemed best. I could be alone with my thoughts and overpowering feelings and not push them onto anyone. Whenever I did anyway, even subconsciously everyone told me, "Jack you need help, Jack you're crazy, I can't be around you and blah blah blah!" Well it's just the ways that I feel.
Bumps and jumps along the stop and go trek to school rattled my thoughts harshly. I knew things would only get worse when we got to school when human contact wasn't avoidable. My inner pit of anger and irritability grew bigger and bigger just thinking about it. School. A man made hell for children.
As if we aren't already plagued with things at home that are ruthless and terrifying, but now it's your fellow peers plaguing you every day. It's sick...it makes me wanna wipe out all of humanity. But everyone knows! Silly little Jack could never do that.
"Alright, everyone out." The driver says with a nasal, emotionless voice parking the bus. I was the last out behind the rest of the kids. Driver saw me, I saw her. After that moment of eye contact I step out of the bus and begin to walk away but not before hearing her puny voice mutter, "Weirdo."
During school hours I pretty much zone out. While the teacher is speaking, she makes it impossible to listen and focus. Me, tapping my pencil on my desk randomly, shaking my foot with a stream of sweat flowing down my forehead as she torments me here. She...I don't know who she is.
I see the dry erase board at the front of the room with blue marker written on it speaking about geography, but my mind tends to warp the words into something horrible. My own curses, my own fears.
Flashes of her seemingly pretty face cross my vision mentally, but what lies underneath that outer beauty is grotesque. Almond shaped green eyes and silky blonde hair, as well as a clear light complexion complimented by an innocent, slightly matured smile. As quickly as she appeared, she vanished, only to return like a strobe light showing her true colors.
Her eyes darkened and grew full of hate and anguish. The dewy shine to her skin faded and became dry, lifeless. She no longer smiled, no her mouth elongated revealing decayed, pointed teeth and a blood-dripping tongue. This was right in front of my eyes, flashing in and out between reality. She'd come closer and closer until I couldn't take it and punched her.
"Jack!" A disrupted call of my name clears the horror from my mind so suddenly it took a minute for me to recover. All eyes were on me, I felt surrounded by everyone.
"Mr. Kane, could you please explain what that episode of violence was to the class? ...And I'm curious to know myself as well." What was he talking about.
"Well, um.." I thought for a moment, "what...exactly happened?"
The other kids fought the urge to laugh at me. "You're telling me you don't know what you just did? Punching the air and grunting in anger when there's nothing there? Really Jack? I wasn't born yesterday." There he goes, acting like I'm a liar. The sad thing is I really didn't remember anything that he said. Which unfortunately, only fueled my already angered flame.
The teacher's face twists into a disgusted snare before he sends me off to detention. I walked down the empty halls with clenched fists, fighting the feeling of wanting to hit him so bad. I'm not even sure where that inner fight came from...
As he explains to the teacher running detention why I'm there, I notice an open window on in the room leading to the autumn outdoors. I watch and make sure they were preoccupied as well as the few other students in detention who were asleep, before quietly but quickly making a run for it.
"Hey! Get back here!" They call after me but I'm gone. I'm gone like the wind.
I ran with a few scrapes under my hoodie sleeve from falling a story from the window. At least I'm free, for a moment.
With my hood raised and my hands inside the pockets, I carelessly walk across the parking lot and into the nearby woods outside the playground. I felt her presence beside me as I moved. She was following me. I'd pick up the pace, but she'd follow behind. Her breath invaded my space and raised unpleasant goosebumps on my neck. She groaned in my right ear, loud enough to freak me the hell out.
I took off running. I ran anywhere. Swinging to get rid of her, I ran deep into the woods. When I went to wipe the sweat off my face, I noticed a sticky liquid on my hands. In shock and terror I turn them over, they were saturated with blood from an unknown source. It stained my jeans. My cheeks.
I accepted my fate and searched for nothing in particular with a frustrated, confused and enraged mentality.
