Eddsworld: Revolution 0

Prologue

"I'm not sure if I can go. My mum.."

"Come on, mate, she can't let it slide this once?"

This was a conversation often had in Tom Reyes' day-to-day life. His mates—primarily his closest, Edd, would invite him out and he'd have to turn them down. It got frustrating, but Tom would have to tolerate it. What else could he do? Sneak out and get grounded? No way.

With the way Edd looked so sad as he tried to urge Tom into disobeying his mother, he almost wanted to, but he couldn't totally relent now as he stood in the phone booth. "I.. Guess I can call her." he tried to negotiate out loud. He stood there for a moment, fiddling with the cord of the payphone.

At his silence, Edd brushed his hair out of his face, reached into his pocket and whipped out about ten quid. He handed it to Tom with the slightest smile, who simply nodded as a thank you.

He inserted the currency into the booth and dialed the number. His heart was already pounding at this point. He hated conversations like these, but he hated letting his friends down, too.

He could hear those friends chit-chatting over the sound of the phone ringing.

"This is wasting our time, I feel." Tord commented. That guy was really annoying, at times. He could be worse, but Tom never fully understood why Edd had chosen to befriend that.. bum.

"Don't say that! It's not his fault that his mum's.." Tom couldn't tell if Edd was trying to avoid insulting his mother or if he just wanted Tord to fill in the blank.

"A wad?"

"That's mean!" Nearby, Tom could hear his friend Matt jump to the defense of his mother.

"It's true." Tord argued.

Tom shushed the Norwegian rather loudly just as his call was finally picked up.

"Tassy, is that you?" A hushed, feminine voice beamed through the phone. Tom hated that nickname. Simply too babyish.

"Mummm.." He squeakily replied, cracking a rather forced smile. He could hear Tord snickering nearby, as if he'd been able to hear exactly what was being said on the other end of the line. To be fair, considering how many times this specific scenario happened, all he really had to do was guess.

The conversation following the interaction was typical. Lots of back and forth, Tom's mother repeatedly warning him about the dangers of being out late and begging him to be home early until Tom eventually squeaked out an "Okay! I love you! Bye!" and slammed the phone back into place.

***

The trudge to the forest was long and tiresome, taking up quite a bit of the time that Tom was even allowed out. It began raining pretty early into the walk too, so the boys were now either holding their schoolbags over their heads or sinking within their scratchy, uncomfortable uniforms in an attempt to shield themselves. Neither did too much to help, and those wearing their bags as hats were more than likely just getting their homework soaked rather than truly protecting themselves from the weather.

It hadn't helped that their school-mandated shoes were not made to handle this sort of disordered weather, and the hard breeze had caused Tom's skirt to flow backwards multiple times. He was cold. This was terrible.

Eventually, the boys arrived and quickly ducked under some trees. Like the bag shields and thin dress shirts, this did little to fix their situation.

They stood in front of an old, rundown looking building. It'd been condemned years ago by the looks of it, the windows and door boarded over with wooden planks. The address number was missing. It was unclear why this random house sat alone in the woods, left to rot, but at least it gave these outcasts a way to spend their free time.