The Life and Times of Zac Claxon

Chapter 1 - Before.

 Before I start, just wanted to say I dedicated this to VanillaShake6. She's a great friend, but most of all you should read her short story, Seconds of Chaos. It's absolutely awesome. And she's new to wattpad, so make sure to point her in the right direction.

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I’m trapped. I’m stuck in a solid gray box with walls all around me, obstructing my movement, changing my body from what it really is. I want to get out; I want to open up and stretch my arms and move my body naturally. But I can’t. I can’t because I move I make outside the box will distance me from the light and slowly befriend myself with the darkness.

I must reach the light. I must. But in order to reach the light, I must contort my body perfectly into the shape of the box. 

Even though I can’t.

I can’t because I am not me. These actions are not mine, these movements unclaimed by any person. This face is not mine, it never has been nor do I hope it ever will be. These thoughts may be mine, or may not, for I am thinking them from behind a net through which only the most minute of thoughts may slip.

Who am I then? I am not me, nor am I you. I am not him, nor am I her. I am them. My actions are shaped by theirs, my body controlled by their bodies. My thoughts are pushed to the forefront of my mind by their thoughts.

I am not me. 

I am not you, or him, or her.

I am them, and they are not me.

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My mouth has changed.

I know what you're going to say, funny way to start a story right?

But it has. I don't know whether it's my new shaving style, or whether it actually has changed. It used to be different. Turned up in the corners as if I was always smiling. But now it's almost turned down on the edges. Can you believe that? The ever-smiling little kid now has a permafrown. Oh, the irony.

I was being sarcastic with the irony thing by the way. In case you haven't yet realised, I speak fluent sarcasm.

Anyways, back to the point. My name is Zac, I'm sixteen years old and I live in a little british town called Switch.

At least until yesterday.

My name is Zac, I'm sixteen years old, and I live in Chicago. Chicago, Illinois to be precise.

That's better.

See, we just moved here. Literally just.

I bet you expect me to go on about how awesome Switch is, and how much I miss it, and how much I didn't want to move right?

No.

I'm going to go on about something else: how much it sucked. I mean, don't get me wrong, Switch is a great place and all, but I hated it. Mainly because of my friends.

Oops, did I say friends?

I meant something else. Something-else-that-isn't-very-nice.

I think it was the constant jeering. I mean I had close friends, but i don't really think I could call them real friends. They had that kind of cheerleader mentality, when you do the slightest thing out of the normal and they would look at you in disgust. They'd judge every movement you made, and would find a million and one ways to label and criticise you. Some of it was friendly, and I could understand that, but alot of it went over the top. And they acted this way with everyone, not just me.

It's not like I could just choose another group of friends either. Why? My school was small. Real small. Like, a total of 30 people in the freshman year (well it was a british school so year 10. Two form rooms). I suppose, in my efforts to be accepted, I changed. Alot. I was no longer the little kid who was always smiling. I started doing really stupid things that, for some reason, I thought would get me accepted.