Rhapshie's FF project

Pyroclast CH1&2
The fragments of shattered innocence
Flitted away with the wind

This blurred memory of crudeness
Winking at me, at you, at us; its eyes twinkled with pleasure
Hand to hand
Eyes on eyes

The fractured bond of relation
We cannot move on, we cannot turn back

My gaze dropped to the floor, ears buzzed with disturbing noise of chattering that everyone made. Playing with my fingers, I tried to pay attention to the notice on the trainstation to get an idea of when my train will come. My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as the next second struck. The busker, approximately three metres away from me, was singing some really classical music with his small guitar, not being helpful at keeping me awake. As much as I wanted to throw quarters at him to change the genre of the music, my brain sealed my body to the chair, to refrain me.
Rubbishes were decorating the benches, the tiles and the bins. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to see at all. Plastic bags and snack wrappers were being blown by the cold breeze of autumn, dancing its way in the middle of the crowd. Considering the amount of dirt around, I was considered as lucky to find a seat without some chewing gum or half-eaten sandwich or some random yucky looking liquid.
The train that I was waiting for would take me to my uncle’s house. I will be staying there, starting from today. I had my backpacks with me, filled with all school stuffs and the things to occupy myself inside his boring house.
My eyes fluttered opened when I noticed someone was about to pass me. And without knowing why, I lifted my head quickly, just to see a man was walking casually with red cloak. Before he could step one more time, my hand flew to grab on his. He turned his head with surprise and both of us stared at each other awkwardly.
“Master Sh–“ The man stopped in the middle of his sentence, being completely confused in the next second. His emerald eyes drilled at me in uncertainty, as if trying to remember my name, which obviously, he didn’t know.
“S-sorry!” I bowed down while releasing my firm grip. “My hand just moved by its own. Not usually like this.” I grinned weakly, trying to cover my embarrassment of grabbing a stranger’s hand.
“Have we met somewhere before?” He whispered softly. “My tongue did not finish its job properly at spelling your last name, I think. Something beginning with an S and an H? I never doubt my instinct.”
“Shan,” I answered. “This is creepy.” I laughed humourlessly. “What about your name?”
“Larten Crepsley.” He answered. As soon as that name struck my eardrum, I almost jumped on him. My action of standing up so abruptly proved everything. With shade of red on my cheeks, I sat back down, still resisting the sudden awkward urge to re-jump from my seat and hug him tight.
“Larten Crepsley,” I repeated, trying to get the feel on my tongue. “Larten Crepsley.” I said, once again, was extremely confused with how that name sounded so right on my mouth. I could just sit there, repeating his name thousands of time with the feeling of familiarity. I had met this guy somewhere and I was sure of it. “Mr Crepsley,” Now, that one really sent an electric pulse to my brain.
Before I could say anything anymore, the train that I had been waiting for arrived safely and soundly on the station, forcing me to get into its opened door. Saying a word of goodbye, I left in a hurry.

----

I was walking along the crowded school corridor with sense of unfamiliarity and uneasiness coating my whole body. Some guys and girls were whispering among each other while looking at me with smile on their faces. Then, they would wave at me and smile nicely. Even though the first impression of the high school was pretty good, the sun was hitting the insides quite intensely; it made such dramatic shadows on everyone’s faces, sinister ones, that is. I ventured slowly through the corridor, feeling the rush of wind from the opened windows that touched my spine, giving me the creep.
Everything seemed to blur when I saw a boy my age, arms crossed, was leaning on the wall near a door, giving me a frown of annoyance, when I hadn’t even done anything wrong to offend him. Unless me being able to walk was something to be envied of. I avoided his irritated glance and focused on the other side of the wall instead. However, to my surprise, my foot hit something hard like a stick, except softer, and I tottered, losing my balance. Time slowed down around me, giving me just enough periods to take a look at the satisfied smirk on his face, and his foot that had been stuck out purposely, just for the sake of it. Eternity later, I fell on my right shoulder with a loud thud that took everyone’s attention. Before anyone could realise it, he withdrew his foot and I could feel his eyes on my back, watching me standing up. Some students came to my aid and helped me up, asking if I was alright.
Shooting an angry glare at the one who tripped me, I shoved him hard and he un-crossed his arm, seemed to be infuriated by my action. He pointed his index finger at me, just in the middle of my eyes. “You better watch it, new boy. You don’t want to get yourself into trouble.”
“No. You watch it.” A voice echoed and I turned my head just to see a blond adult behind me, giving the other boy a warning with a stern look. “I can get you suspended for tripping and threatening him on his first day.”
The boy clicked his tongue in disgust before he retreated without any single word. For some reason, I wanted to run after him and apologise for my action before. But I decided that it was unreasonable and stupid as he was the one who started it all first. So, instead of doing such thing, I smiled at the teacher in front of me.
“We never tolerate bullying here.” He returned my smile. Now, when I looked at him from a closer view, his blue eyes and auburn hair just made my stomach twisted into a knot and I had to blink away tears from my eyes. My heart seemed to beat faster and my brain began to flash some dark, blurred, grained images inside my head like an old projector with ancient roll cassette being played on the big screen.
“Ah, sorry,” I muttered while rubbing my eyes. “Something got into my eyes. Anyway, how have you been?” After I said that, frowns formed on both of our faces and I realised I said the wrong thing. I just stated it as if we had met before. “I mean, uh. . . Thank you for that.” Both of us chuckled somewhat humourlessly and then, the bell screeched loudly, screaming the silent implication that hell has began. The hell of every kid’s life, school time.
Everyone started rushing into their classrooms, still talking. I could see people kissing their rollcall farewell to their lovers. It was kind of ridiculous. Not like you wouldn’t see each other after class. But, anyway, I got all the information I needed yesterday: my roll class, and all other subjects. Without any further ado, I walked into the right class (at least I think it was) and students began to form a circle around me, hitting me from every angle with thousands of questions. Fortunately, the teacher came and stopped the entire ruckus going on at once. His hair colour was the colour of ripe grape, glossy purple, tied neatly in a short ponytail, but the fringes on the sides were a little too short to be tied up, so he just let them fell nicely to cover his cheeks. I guessed he dyed his hair recently as I couldn’t tell what the original colour was, and there wasn’t any purple-head, was there?
“You might want to introduce yourself to the class, Darren.” He smiled nicely at me. I nodded awkwardly and stood in front of the class, countering thousands of curious eyes with just a pair.
“My name is Darren Shan and I . . . am new. I guess.” I scratched my head in confusion, not knowing what to say to impress and intrigue the class. The fact that my family died in an accident and I am officially an orphan? I didn’t want to start rumour in my first day, which apparently had been ruined by a certain someone, who was sitting on the back of the room, eyes drilling at me intensely.
“That is so cute!” Some girls giggled at my response and I couldn’t help blushing. However, I wasn’t listening to them at all. I swallowed hard as the one who tripped me back then moved his index finger in a straight line just in front of his throat, silently saying: ‘You are very, very, very dead, Darren Shan.’
Great. An enemy on my first day. What else could make me happier?
“So, what electives are you doing, Darren?” Someone threw a question at me. I had to reach to my pocket and retrieve the folded piece of paper listing my lessons. I skimmed through the page before I answered.
“Music, economy and sport studies.” Involuntarily, my eyes flew in the sight of my new enemy (yay) smirked at me, snickered silently. Without him having to say anything, I knew that I was going to be in one of his electives.
“Woah, dude, you’re stuck with him,” One of the boys laughed, pointing at the boy that I was looking at. And I realised that the Hades had come to take me with him. Instead of being with him in one elective only, I was going to spend all my elective times, approximately six hours a week with him. Also, if we count roll call, then. . . I will be stuck with him until next year (or even more) for at least seven hours per week. Hooray!
On the teacher’s command, I sat down on the only empty spot in the class, just in front of the boy. He poked my back and what happened next was unexpected. He smiled at me, giving his hand out to greet me nicely and I took his hand and shook it gently. However, in the next second, a sinister grimace was on his face. “Nice to meet you, Darren Shan.”
“What did I ever do to you?” I whispered, clearly cornered by his foul attitude towards me.
“Call it an instinct,” He retorted softly; then, we said nothing at all. I turned my back to focus on the board instead, silently wishing that he won’t do anything embarrassing to me.
However, not even five minutes later, he started kicking my chair and I was forced to tuck it tighter under the wooden desk, not giving any attitude towards his rudeness as I fully understood that it would only contribute to his amusement. I shifted towards my left and what came next popped my vein. He kicked the chair’s leg to the side and made me dropped to follow the gravity and once again, fell on my shoulder. Everyone switched their attentions from the teacher to me, who was on the floor. “What is your problem?” I exclaimed, glaring at him in an utter anger.
“Daren, settle down, please.” The teacher whispered.
“Didn’t you see that? He kicked my chair!”
“Please,” He looked at my eyes firmly and I knew he was serious. I fixed the position of my chair before sitting down, being totally annoyed by the teacher’s reaction.
“The teacher’s on my side. He had always been and will always do.” He snickered softly, pissing the hell out of me. It was the first day, yet, all I wanted to do was to strangle someone’s neck and throw him off a cliff. Come on, Darren! Brace up. You only got three hundred and forty days to go.
*
Even though all my other subjects suck ass, music was especially fun since I actually made everything backfired on the boy that had been harassing me all day long, namely Steve Leonard. He tried making fun of me by forcing me to play the piano. But too bad for him, I learned advanced piano and by me playing Limpid Luster just made everyone gaped in awe.
I said nothing to him, not wanting to make him hate me more. However, without even doing so, I could tell that he would be trying to bully me even more than before. Even though he put his usual facade towards me (being all grumpy, of course), I could sense malice from him.
“Darren, play another one!” All the girls squealed, surrounding me with excited expression all over their faces. Some boys were sitting down on the nearest seats, asking me to play some more game theme songs. And of course, it all contributed to Steve’s annoyance. I knew that he was on his wits end when he stood up from his seat, stomping his feet and left without answering any question asked by his friends sitting near him.
With a sigh of both relief and uneasiness, I swiftly moved my hand to dance over the keys of the piano, pressing them gently to play the tone of True Light, one of my favourite in front of everyone. I didn’t do music to impress people. I just do it for the sake of killing time, and the fact that I enjoy it a lot. My body faintly, following the rhythm of the instrument with both of my eyes closed, enjoying the peaceful sound of it.
When I pressed the last key required to finish the song, everyone cheered and my mind went back to reality. Steve was still nowhere to be found and that really scared me in a way, not knowing of what he would to me in the next lesson. Throwing a smile, I walked out of the music room to look for the silver-haired boy, and say that it wasn’t my intention, to silently ridicule his ego in front of the class.
My feet hit the hard tile of the school and I looked around to find the one that I was looking for. The music teacher went somewhere else, so I had the opportunity to sneak out. However, if I got caught, I seriously didn’t know what they would do to me. To be frank, I didn’t want to get into trouble on my first day. But really, who does?
Pushing the door to the backyard, I paused on spot. The garden was so green and clean. It looked so peaceful, especially with lots of butterflies and birds flying around. All that I could see was the colour green of leaves, dark brown of the branches and grey of concretes, creating a path around the garden. There were a few gazebos here and there, as well as picnic benches, and a fish pond. I stared into the transparent water and saw different species of fishes running around, chasing each other. For the moment, I forgot what my aim truly was. It took me at least five minutes to stop admiring the dazzle, and it was thanks to the water that soaked me from up above.
I looked up the tree to see Steve growling at me with eyes of hate. He had an empty glass on his hands, and I realised straightaway that he was the one who pour water all over me. I pressed my clothing to feel the coldness on my skin and I gritted my teeth in furiousness. Every word of apologies that I had created inside my brain was washed away by the water, and words of hate blossomed as replacements.
Without any warning, I took the nearest pebble and I threw it straight at him. He winced as the hard material pierced his cheek. Then, there was silence for three seconds before he jumped down from the tree, grabbing me by the collar.
“Foolish decision.” He whispered monotonously before he landed a punch that made the air rippled on my stomach. I fell to the concrete, arms clutching my stomach. Without any mercy, Steve kicked my waist and I plunged into the fish pond while barking my agony. “I’m going to kill you.”
I snapped. In a heartbeat, I had overcame the pain and proceeded to jump on him and tackled one of his feet, making him lost his balance and he toppled, falling to the hard ground. Thick scarlet liquid dripped from our mouths. I ignored the metallic taste that coated my tongue and I was sure he did too.
“You will regret today. Mark my word, Darren Shan.” He threatened me with his low voice before he withdrew from the garden, into the corridor.
The beautiful garden that took my breath away is now locked with bitter memory.