Obsidian

Chapter One

I was not able to tell if it were my coughing or the violent pressure throbbing on the back of my skull that had stirred me out of my state of unconsciousness. Becoming more astute, I realized I was in total pitch black. People use the term pitch black frequently but in this case, I could not see an ounce of light anywhere in my limited peripheral. My surroundings were hidden in the vast darkness. Pain chose to knock intensely at the back of my head as I realized even without seeing, that I was in a place of unfamiliarity. It was the type of deep black that not only affected your vision but threw your whole sensory balance out of whack.

"What the...", I heard a raspy, distorted version of my voice attempt to speak before I was immediately stifled by a raging cough. A combination of sawdust and moisture had tickled the back of my throat, cutting off the external self-monologue and giving me the second indication that I was not in a safe zone. I tried to sit up and no more than ten inches above, I slammed my forehead against a type of barrier that felt as thick as stone. The only reason I knew it had been wood was because of the splinter that broke off into my face as the surprise of the barrier had caused my body to collapse and return me to the initial position on my back.

Now fully awake, I bit down, trying to hold back cursing a novel of obscenities to the invisible enemy that kept me restrained in the obsidian blindness. I could feel the veins in my neck and head start to reveal themselves as a result of holding back the scream. This resulted in the pulsation in my head starting to intensify to another level.

Holy shit, the thought hit me. Was I blind? Had something happened to me and I was knocked out and now live in this state of darkness? Knowing what I know now, that was not the case. At that moment though, I could not think clearly and the memory of Kevin Neill popped into my head.

In the seventh grade, a kid that I had known since kindergarten had gone on a trip with his family to Costa Rica over Spring Break. Kevin was not normally considered popular but when you lived in a small town and grew up with the same shitbag kids hearing the same shitbag stories about blowing up watermelons behind the Dash-N-Go convenience store, or getting high in the woods with your older brother's stash and feeling up Veronica Whistler as she felt your package through your pants, stories like Kevin's catapulted him to the top of the popularity spectrum. While spending a day with his mom and dad and little brother on this guided tour through a trail called Blue Falls, or something like that, Kevin peered too far over the top of the waterfall and lost his footing. Falling and breaking a leg or arm would have been much better than what Kevin endured.

While Kevin did in fact break three ribs, his clavicle, and his left fibula while he plummeted down the rocky descent into icy water, he was shown mercy for slipping into unconsciousness after the shock of the first aggressive smack against the terrain leading below. His body fell into the river and the current had taken him quarter-mile south of where the trail had begun. From the rumors I remembered hearing, his parents were mortified and frantic, with his mom comforting a now-traumatized eight-year-old sibling that thinks his brother may be dead, and his dad trying to sprint down the trail with the appointed guide as fast as humanly possible without succumbing to an accident themselves. Kevin had luckily been whisked towards a freshly fallen tree and was now laying limp and wading while the two grown men ran to his rescue. I don't remember the exact part following that but while Kevin recovered, it was what happened after he had gotten home that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand now, even just thinking about it.

Kevin Neill had shown up to school the following week, looking like a bloated, pale, purple-faced raccoon. Kevin was entering puberty slightly later than the rest of his peers. He shot up six inches over Winter Break, which helped displace his obese frame to then just a moderately awkward, overweight thirteen-year-old. You could see him cringe in agony with almost every step he took as he walked through the school campus. During the fall, he had managed to avoid brain damage but still ended up with some pretty hard hits to the face. The doctors said his nose and surrounding bones like the orbital and cheek were not broken, yet had been severely bruised. Walking into English first period, one of the two classes that we both shared, he sported a contraption that made him look part-cyborg.