Perspectives

Chapter 1

The detention hall of Hudson High School, the place where the school's worst criminals came to do their time. It wasn't the first time that Piper Douglas had found herself trapped in the hell that was detention, in fact it was the fifth time this year. It wasn't as though Piper ever did anything particularly bad, she hadn't gotten into a brawl in the middle of the hallway like Angie Middleton and Tania Jessup, nor had she been caught selling weed under the bleachers like Tommy Carson. She hadn't even back talked to a teacher, at least not this time. No, this time Piper was in for skipping too many classes, something that had become a regular occurrence for her lately.

"Hey Pipes." Piper heard a voice hiss into her ear from behind.

Piper whipped around to see Jacob Garner giving her his usual shit-eating grin. His long dark brown hair fell over his eyes, almost entirely concealing his bright green eyes that were as always, filled with a glint of mischief.

"Zach, Chrissy and I were planning on heading over to my house after detention gets out. Wanna come?" Jacob asked in a whispered tone.

Piper knew exactly what Jacob planned on getting up to at his house, especially since his mom was on a business trip and his dad wouldn't be back from work till late. They'd be breaking out the beer and the smokes, she was sure.

Ever since Piper had started showing up in detention, the "troublemaker" clique had started taking interest in her. Piper wasn't really interested though, the idea of maintaining friendships wasn't overly appealing. After her parents' divorce, keeping up with the relationships with her friends had seemed just tiresome.

"I'm good." She responded, not even bothering to pretend to consider it before turning back around.

"You're no fun." Piper heard Jacob grumbling behind her.

Piper ignored the remark and instead set her focus on observing the progress of the hands on the clock. Just a minute left until 4:30, and she'd finally be free. Not that she had any real plans for the evening, other than holing up in her bedroom.

"Alright, time's up. Get out of here." The gruff old detention monitor shouted.

Piper quickly snatched up her backpack from where it had been sitting on the floor next to her desk and pulled it on. She followed the crowd of kids out of the school. She was eager to get out of the stifling school, one could really feel the 85 degree heat in a school that refused to turn on the air conditioning unless it was at least 90 degrees out.

As soon as Piper stepped out of the school building she heard a voice calling her name. She turned to see her best and only friend, Naomi approaching her.

"Hey." The short redhead greeted.

After Piper's parents split when she was thirteen, Piper became distant from everything, especially her friends. After a while her friends just stopped trying with her, all except Naomi. Naomi was maddeningly stubborn, stubborn enough to put up with Piper's bad attitude and remain her friend. And though Piper would never say it aloud, she really appreciated that.

"Were you just waiting out here for detention to end this whole time?" Piper asked Naomi with a raised brow.

Naomi shrugged. "I had some homework to do so I worked on it over at the picnic tables. I wanted to see if you wanted to go catch a movie." She explained.

Piper let out a small groan, earning her a glare from Naomi. While Naomi couldn't be described as a chipper kind of person, her attitude was considerably better than Piper's. The only reason Piper ever did anything but laze around her house was because Naomi was able to convince her to do something else.

"Aw come on, you're so lazy. It's Friday, don't you want to do something besides sit around in your room for once?" Naomi asked, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"I'm just tired is all. Can't we do it tomorrow or something?" Piper asked hopefully.

Naomi narrowed her eyes at her friend. "I have work like all day tomorrow." She said crossly.

Piper let out a long sigh. Naomi was one of the few people that was able to easily sway Piper, everyone else struggled just to get her to even consider doing something that she didn't want to do.

"Fiiine." She relented.

Naomi grinned happily, unsurprised by her ability to easily persuade her friend. "Great. I'm gonna go use the bathroom in the school first though, I hate the movie theater bathrooms." Naomi said, shaking her head. The movie theater bathrooms had auto-flush toilets that Naomi claimed "put her on edge".

Naomi hurried off into the school, leaving Piper to wait for her in the burning heat. Most all of the kids that had been in detention with her had dispersed by now, as eager as she was to get away from the school and out of the humidity.

Piper could feel the sweat forming on her forehead, she was starting to wish she had worn shorts and a tank top rather than cropped jeans and a plaid shirt. Piper unbuttoned the black white and red plaid shirt, revealing the black undershirt she wore beneath it.

Piper noticed a patch of shade next to the wall of the school, provided by the small overhang of the roof. She stepped into the small shadow, not that it made a huge difference, it was still hot as hell, but it was slight a improvement she supposed.

Piper leaned against the wall and dug her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and turned on the screen. She was unsurprised to see that she had no call or text notifications, the only people that ever contacted her on a regular basis were her parents and Naomi, which reminded her to quickly send a short text to her mom letting her know that she wouldn't be home until later.

Piper sighed, wondering why Naomi always took so long in pretty much everything she did. Piper was not known for her patience. She resigned herself to playing a mindless app game while she waited. Though as she played, she began to notice a sharp thrumming sound in her ears. At first it was distant and barely noticeable, but steadily the sound seemed to get louder and stronger.

Piper let out a hiss of pain as the noise became suddenly painful in her ears. Her cell phone dropped from her hands, clattering onto the pavement with a crack. But Piper wasn't paying attention, she was too busy clutching at her ears, trying to block out the awful sound. However, the thrumming didn't seem to be coming from an external source, it almost seemed as though it was inside Piper's head.

Then abruptly it stopped. A ringing remained it Piper's ears, but the painful thrumming had finally ceased. There was an unsettling stillness, as though everything had stopped in preparation for something to happen. Piper pulled her hands down from her ears uncertainly.

And then suddenly there was a blinding flash of white.

Piper felt as though all of her senses were being put into overdrive, flashes of color danced in her vision and her entire body felt as though it was being twisted and sculpted into different shapes. Initially it was painless, but then suddenly her nerves began to feel as though they were on fire. Piper tried to scream but no sound came out of her mouth. The pain was quickly becoming too much to bear and Piper felt herself slipping into unconsciousness.