Light the Way

92%

August 3

To be honest, I've never been good at this kind of thing – you know, keeping a journal, writing down my feelings, being committed to a book and a pen. I like to live life in the shallow end of the pool, skidding quickly across the surface of any deep end just in case it tries to yank me down. You could consider me immature, selfish, cowardly for not wanting to face the real truth of my emotions, but really, I just have a terrible fear of drowning.

That's what my friend, Ryan, said today at school: "Stop being immature."

And naturally, I defended myself. "I'm not being immature," I said. "I'm being realistic. Lower Sector is nearly light-less. Even if the Black Wave hasn't come to us yet, logically it will."

"That's nonsense," Ryan said. Ryan has been my friend for about a year. I never used to like him – he was too cocky, too smug for me to ever even consider him a friend. But then last year, fate threw us together. He'd just been dumped by his long-time girlfriend who had screwed with his reputation, and I had just happened upon him, sitting on the stairs in an empty school hallway while everyone else was out at lunch. He'd begged me to save him from the embarrassment of sitting by himself, and being the good-hearted person I was (and still am, hopefully), I let him sit with me. One thing led to another, and suddenly he was an honorary member of the group. (Note: I use 'group' loosely here. Before Ryan joined, it was just Mia and I).

"It's not nonsense and you know it. Didn't it feel darker last night?"

"No. It's a children's story, Kiran," Ryan said, grabbing some books from his locker.

"It's on the news!" I exclaimed.

"And you believe the news?" He shut his locker door and turned to face me. "Tell me, have you even been to Lower Sector recently?"

"No," I admitted.

"Exactly," he said, and walked away.

He's not the only one to deny the Black Wave exists, either. No one believes it. It's almost a wave of its own: a wave of ignorance surging through the school. And I can feel it pulling on me, too. When you're up against so many opinions, all strongly pointing to the opposite of what you believe, it's hard not to start doubting everything. Is the news just making it all up? Was the darkness last night just a figment of my imagination? I feel like the world is screwing with me.