Fear of the Crowd

Chapter 1
Fireworks
A young boy, Cory Anderson. Afraid to be in crowds. Right now, Cory and his family are watching fireworks in a huge crowd. Cory starts freaking out, he is squeezing his mom like his life is about to end.

"You see that! Fireworks." A little girl shouted in the crowd.

Cory looked around at the huge crowd. He started crying in his moms arms.

"Hey, what's the matter Cory? There are fireworks!" Cory's mom asked.

Cory mumbled something.

"What was that? Cory's mom spoke.

"This large crowd is scary. Can we please leave?" Cory asked.

Cory's mom looked at her husband. She frowned. They headed for the car, Cory feeling horrible because he wanted to leave the firework show. But most importantly, Cory's goal was to get away from the crowd. And it surprisingly worked. His mom brought him to his room.

"Hey, what's the matter? Why did you want to leave?" His mom asked.

"Well I am afraid of large crowds. They- they make me feel weird. Like, something bad will happen. Like, i'll be lost in the crowd and nobody will be able to find me." Cory said.

"Ok." His mom said and walked out of the room.

Cory left his room, heard his parents talking about him.

"I think this is a sign of anxiety. I mean he's afraid of crowds, he told me he feels that if he is in crowds he will be lost. And we won't be able to find him." His mom said.

Cory ran back to his room. Sat there, said nothing did nothing. Until he fell asleep. He was having a dream. Where he was in a large crowd. It was a concert. Everyone has having a blast. Listening to all the music. Jamming out. He looked around.

"Heard you were afraid of crowds?" A person in the crowd said.

"There is nothing to be afraid of." The dark figure tried to grab him. That's when he woke up.

*Gasp*. It was morning. He sighed and headed downstairs. His mom and dad were there. Including his older sister"

Amara!" Cory shouted and ran forward to her. She chuckled.
"
Hey bud! How's it going?" His sister from college asked.

" I'm doing fine. I have school so I gotta go. I'll catch up later. Sorry!" Cory said as he ran out.

As he continued to walk to school his best Joseph ran up to him. He said nothing but. "Hey" and we continued to walk to school. He seemed pretty upset so I asked.

"Hey, you seem pretty upset. Is there something going on?" Cory asked.

"No. it's nothing really. It's just.." He pauses for a moment. "It's just, that I am tired. that's all." He said

That was weird, Cory thought. It sure looked like Jospeh was upset about something. But he wouldn't tell. But he didn't try to force him.

They continued to school. And went to class. The teacher, Mrs. Emily gave us a math problem to do before the bell rang, It was multiplication. 5x5=25 3x30=90. Pretty easy, he thought. The questions got harder. Like she made it to 12s but the bell rang. Everyone put their pencils down.

"Good morning class, today we will be learning about multiplication. I wrote a few questions on the board, would anyone like to try them out?" The teacher explained

Cory raises his hand. "Uhm, I'd like to try." He says.

"Alright, here is a marker. Do all of the questions." The teacher said.

Cory grabs the marker, and he starts writing all the answers. The teacher nodded.

"Good job Cory! You got them all right! Here is a sticker." Mrs Emily hands him the sticker.

He puts it on his sticker sheet. One more sticker until he gets the big prize. The music machine.

Cory has never been this happy. It sorta feels like his fears of crowds has gone away. He asked his mom if he could go see Maroon 5 in concert on Friday.

"Sorry, but the tickets will be to much money. And didn't you say that you were afraid of crowds?" His mom asked.

"Well, yes. But, I am in a crowd basically everyday. And I mean, today I walked up to the board and answered multiplication problems without any problems of my own. So I thought that my fear of crowds was over." He explained.

His mom stood there.

"Well, I suppose we can take you to the Maroon 5 concert." His mom said.