VOXISTALE: Novel Edition

Chapter 56

"Here's to another victory!"

A teen stood at the head of a lunch table, a milk carton in his hand. He was still wearing his football gear aside from his helmet. The rest of the table raised their milk cartons in a toast, cheering. Most of the table were the other players, and some were other students. Near the head of the table sat a grinning Rian, who proceeded to chug several milk cartons while Sadie sat beside him, sitting sideways in her seat with her feet on the spot beside her, leaning her back against Rian's shoulder as she texted on her phone.

"And here's to more victories for the Garden Goliaths for years to come!" The team captain raised another milk carton. Another toast was made, and Rian chugged down a few more milks. The Goliaths were Garden High School's mascots. They weren't the best or most prestigious school in Savory, but they'd just wiped the floor with their rival school in the last football game of the season, so spirits were soaring.

"C'mon Sadie! Chug with me!" Rian nudged his best friend, offering her an unopened carton of milk.

She looked at it, before looking to Rian. "I need something bigger if I'm gonna chug," she told him.

"Fair," he shrugged, opening the carton to chug more milk.

After some more celebration at their successful season, one football player on the other side of Rian nudged him. "Hey look, it's Stain," he pointed to a table opposite theirs at a boy their grade, though he was much smaller than any of them, with greasy black hair that covered his face, and pale, sallow skin. He wore mostly dark clothes, and had his nose stuck into a geography book.

Stain was every bully's favorite target. He had an embarrassing history (which consisted of many poop-stained underwear stories, hence his nickname), was easy to pick on, and had plenty about him to make fun of. When the football player pointed him out, several other heads started to turn to Stain. For much of the football team, Stain was a favorite "toy" of theirs. No matter how they were feeling, they'd pick relentlessly on the poor kid. Rian himself used to do the same, but after some convincing from Sadie, he'd stopped. However, he did nothing to stop his teammates.

Stain sat alone, not even noticing all the people who were now staring at him as he was engrossed in the book that seemed a little too heavy for a kid of his size to carry. Finally, the football captain stood up. "Lame Stain!" he hollered, making the boy jump and look over at them. Noticing who they were, he quickly stuffed his book into his backpack, hastily picking up his lunch tray and making for the trash cans to dump his food, which was barely touched.

Sadie gave the football captain a look; the same one she'd given Rian the first time she'd seen him pick on Stain. Frankly, she found the behavior immature, and rumor had it that the boy had it almost as bad at home as he had it at school, if not worse. After Sadie had convinced Rian to stop picking on Stain, she'd practically painted a target on her back for the football team to start bullying her, too—but luckily, she and Rian were quite close, and nobody wanted a kid as big and burly as Rian on their bad side- not to mention, a few members of the team found Sadie cute. All in all, she was pretty much immune to the bullying, and couldn't help but feel bad that Stain didn't have such a luxury. And yet, she didn't try to stop the rest of the team, though she didn't know why.

"Where you goin', Stain?" The captain asked as several players got up to join him in marching over to the boy whose true name everyone had forgotten. Rian elected to ignore it all, trying to eat his food while beginning to feel sick from all the milk. Stain tried to weave around them after putting up his tray, but was shoved by one of the players, and fell to the ground, his bag slipping off and sliding across the floor. "I said 'where you goin'?" The captain leered over the boy as he quietly made to collect his bag. While the boy was being picked on, Rian and Sadie continued to stay seated, pretending as though it wasn't happening.