Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the snooze clitoris on my warning device clock. He was so tired because he had been doing thirty hours a calendar week at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his home life. Add in school and the homework that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the metre he got to bed."Who invented these things anyway ? ”, he thought as he climbed out of bed.

Showered and dressed, he went downstairs to get some breakfast."Hi Jess ”, his buddy and sis said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstair to brush his dentition. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his mother. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"dear break of the day"to her before leaving for school. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so distant, there was no existent connecter left."Probably just out of substance abuse ”, he told himself. He kissed his female parent good-bye and then left with his Brother for school.

In the car, he and his brother did n't talk much. It was n't that they did n't like each other, but Jess and Luke had very little in mutual these days. They had unlike Friend, Luke being Sir Thomas More of a sociable butterfly stroke ; different gustatory sensation in music, Jess listened to more heavy metal and rock, while Luke was more into the pop music conniption ; etc ... Once they got to school, that was it. The car drive there was the most prison term they spent with each other in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their phone the entire ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. High School had never been"as advertised"to Jess. He was a loner, an outcast. He had not even a handful of friends, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling more and more deject, his thoughts sometimes turning to suicide. Home lifetime was ... well it was n't a home base anymore ...

"Good morn Mr. knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."Morning ”, Jess replied back. He took his rear and started on the homework he did n't finish up terminal night. math was a particularly hard subject for Jess. He was just one bad rate away from failing the discipline for the semester, but at this point that was the last thing on his brain. Staring at the space sheet of paper in front of him, his head started to wander."What am I even doing here ? I have no purpose, no desire, no happiness. If I decided to just run away today, will anyone care ? volition my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into awareness."tinker's damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a ace problem.

When the bell rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from school ( his brother was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his pes to the story and the receiving set blaring. Music had become Jess'only reprieve from his biography and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying attention to anything else. euphony made him feel mighty, made him feel like he had a reason to exist. It seemed that the lyric poem of the birdcall on the wireless spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him feel happy that mortal, somewhere understood what he felt.

When he got home, Jess went straight to his room. As he was changing into his study uniform, he took a spirit at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, shadow brown hair, electric disconsolate eyes, was about six feet tall, and had slim body. The someone staring back at him looked so far away, it looked like him, but it was n't him. The eyes of the soul in the mirror looked so stark and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the light and headed to work.

At employment that Nox, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the customer, just wanting the dark to end so that he could go household and sleep. Sleep, the one thing and one time of the day when he did n't experience hollow, lifeless. When did n't palpate anything but peace. The next day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to work or school so he could kip all through the night and well into the morning.

Opening the door to his planetary house after work, Jess got a half-hearted"Hi"from his parents. The kind of"hi"that you say out of niceness, not because you actually meant it. He replied back, asked if anyone had made dinner that Night, and then went to his way. Turning on his computer, he checked his email. As usual, it was just a bunch of spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. John Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the email, then shut off his reckoner and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some low sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me know if I should continue .