This chapter is set before the movie. Pierre is 13 years old and has been at Fond De L'Etang for a year and a half.
He stared at the blanket bunched up at the end of the bed, nothing in his mind, just empty.
Pierre was sat cross-legged on his bed looking into nothing after another day of 'school'. Getting up (after never having slept in the first place), getting through lessons and chores, getting yelled at when he spaced out and stopped, getting punished when he decided to act up out of boredom and when thinking about the aimlessness of his life got too much, then going back to the dormitory to lie down and pretend to himself that he was asleep.
Nothing will ever change and when it did change, after he left the school to live his own life, he knew it would be bad. What was the point?
It was thoughts like those that reminded him to feel a little bit again. He was scared. He didn't want to die, what would that do? He could only be alive once. But sometimes when he really thought about it he realised that both options were completely pointless anyway, at least one way he didn't have to try anymore.
It was times like these when he was sat up in the dormitory his mind either racing with thoughts about how completely pointless he was here and trying to keep his panicked breathing and crying quiet enough so the other boys could sleep, or his mind was completely still, viewing the negative thoughts in his head coldly without really paying them full attention, that he realised;
He was completely aimless in life, he had no ambition, he had no skills and had only one person in the world who cared for him.
His mother.
He knew she was disappointed in him, he had always been too much to handle to the point she had sent him to a delinquent school.
It was after one instance in particular, when he was 11, still at a normal school, where he'd set a small fire in the school bathroom to burn his school books in, he had been so angry at the school for not teaching him anything and then he'd got up and left it all burning. The damage wasn't serious but still his head teacher had expelled him and suggested Fond De L'Etang.
It wasn't just for the fire that he was sent away, he was always in trouble for yelling at teachers or fighting other students, once he'd even attacked a teacher. He had been angry there, but now he was panicked and yet somehow at the same time he was emotionless.
It wasn't that he ever wanted to be bad it was just that he already understood what they were being taught and it was maddening to be spoken to so condescendingly. There was no point in him being there to learn nothing and to get angry when they thought he was stupid for not focusing.
So he acted out.
And disappointed his mother.
He decided that it would be better for her if he was dead. She might not realise it at first and she would probably be upset, but he knew she'd be better off. She wouldn't have to live and work so close to the school, she could get married without having to worry her husband cares weather she already had a child, she could pretend that he never existed and have new children that were functional and didn't upset people, but mainly, she could focus on herself rather than worrying about what a disappointment he was.
Then he realised, in the darkened dormitory that it would be better for everyone including himself if he just died.
