Vagary

Chapter four

   Monday meant school, school meant bullies and bullies meant discomfort. The walk to school was always a slow laboured one, as I tried to force some enthusiasm into my lagging spirits. Today the most exciting thing that happened on said walk, was somebody throwing a can at me, giving me the excuse to use some very strong language and gesticulate wildly. 
  My first subject that day was art which was a relief because I got on well with the teacher and she let me come in early. I would sit quietly in a corner and draw things that could be clues towards what had happened to me. Today I drew the park scene with all of it's lush greenery and even Prozac in the distance but while therapeutic it didn't offer any conclusions. In the corner I wrote those words that had ridden to me on the wind. 
    During class we were instructed to paint an abstract piece with lots of colours. I decided to use the sounds in my dream that didn't fit and try to put them in colour form. The mechanical whirring had a bluish grey tone while the phone ringing had a plainer yellowish colouring to it.
"Oh Christian that's amazing," Miss Adeline breathed gazing appreciatively at the landscape. 
"Thank you Miss.
"You should really enter some art competitions."
"I might just do that," I nodded smiling slightly before collecting my things and leaving the room.
The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully up until gym. I sat alone at lunch and glared at anyone that tried to sit near me, I glided through my classes with casual disinterest and I tried to avoid people in the corridors. Gym always went one of two ways great or terrible. In sports that involved physical contact like rugby (that's football to you Americans), wrestling and dodge-ball, guys always ganged up on me. They liked to torment that weird kid because it gave them a good laugh. While in sports that involved a lot of running I excelled. 

I was scrawny and skinny so I was a lot more agile than the lumbering oafs around me, who dragged themselves up and down the sports hall like a herd of elephants with headaches. Today was basketball and I was excited. The coach, who clearly had a hangover threw us into two teams and let us get on with it. We had no positions, no plan and the competition was fierce.
    I must have ran the length of the court fifty times before the game was over. I was too short to score but I was always ready to snatch to ball from the other team and get it up the court. So tired but victorious I got changed and headed out of school.
The school was fairly old and outside it looked dilapidated. Far worse however was the car park where people hung out after school much to the staffs dismay. Packs of guys united in malevolence drank and smoked, nobody having the courage to stop them.  As a direct result of this the place is absolutely trashed. There was litter everywhere, wrecks of old cars, various worrying stains on the tarmac and graffiti on every structure. The only thing that still valiantly stood it's ground against the thugs was a fence that ran around the perimeter of the parking lot. The strong metal bars had proved to be too much of a challenge for the miscreants, though that didn't mean they hadn't tied to destroy it. In some places the fence had been hacked at making it jagged and sharp. I always made sure to walk clear of that fence.  

   I trod carefully over the broken glass making as little noise as possible but to no avail. "Hey Gareth look it's Craze-tian,"a deep voice boomed out and I mentally sighed. Turning around I saw a tall guy with hard mean eyes. This was Jace leader of all things bully. 
"Hello Jace."
"Now now Craze-tian, that is no way to address your superiors." Really we were going to do this again?
"Afternoon Jace sir," I spat the last word like it was poisonous.
"Dear me I think we may need to teach barmy boy here a lesson," he tutted and his cronies smirked standing up. 

   To Jace's left his usual henchman Chuck stood. He was a brick like structure built with nothing but muscle. Unfortunately the brick had a head and that's where the resemblance ended and he began to look a lot more like a bulldog. 
  They inched towards me saying things like "here mental, mental,"and "we're going to send you to a small, white room with padded walls," very creative stuff.
   At this point I knew my advantages and my many disadvantages to this confrontation. So I turned and ran... straight into something very solid. Someone from another gang had crept up behind me to join the fun probably angling for a spot in the big leagues.  He was similar to brick man an equally muscular guy but with golden hair surrounding his face that reminded me of a lions mane.
   "Lost something," he said to Jace though was still looking at me, with the curled lips of a cat toying with a mouse.
"Nice catch Leo, be a dear and bring him over?"
Leo tried and failed. I thrashed around and as his grip on me loosened I kicked him where it hurt and prised myself free. I ran again only to be confronted by a wall of bodies. Jace's gang formed a ring around me the only gap being the part that the fence covered. Jace stood in the middle grinning a grin the Cheshire cat would have been proud of, as he wagged a finger at me. 
 "No, no, no, mad man you're not going anywhere."
"Look I don't want any trouble," I whimpered shrinking back nervously.
"Unfortunately you've found it little man. Grab him Chuck."
I fought but to no avail and I was captured. I began to get extremely claustrophobic, I-I couldn't breathe. The strange mechanical sound from my dream filled my head and I started to shake. A flash of bright light came and went as Chuck loosened his grip a little.
   "Jeez this guy is more unstable than I thought," Jace said but not in concern, it came out as a chuckle. "I think he needs a hug... pass him around boys.
    I was thrown from person to person around the circle. My body had gone limp from all the stress and I fell around like a rag doll, my back clicked repeatedly and my clothes were torn. My eyeballs rolled in my skull and I was so dizzy I thought I was going to faint. That is until I stopped very suddenly.
   A pain exploded from my back and chest. I looked down and nearly threw up.  A jagged metal spike protruded from my torso entering through my back and going clear out of the other side. Blood seeped slowly from the gaping hole landing on the floor with an audible dripping sound. All that was dulled though by a realisation. There was a door in the back of my mind with something behind it, something that had been locked away for a very long time. I tried to reach out to grab the handle but it was getting further and further away. I knew this was what was causing me to fall but everything was getting blurry.
   "Oh my god we went too far. Somebody call an ambulance,"  Jace shouted his voice suddenly high pitched and fearful. His usual cool composure was gone.
    I made one last attempt to reach the vital memory but I slumped falling deep into unconsciousness.