I woke up from my alarm, my eyes crusted over and my dried drool making the smell of my mouth rancid. My dark, curly hair invading my pillowcase like a soldier ready for war.

I got up slowly on my creaky bed, the dim sunlight intruding through the window blinds into my exhausted eyelids. My weary legs walked over to the bathroom as if I was a zombie in The Walking Dead.

I quickly brushed my teeth, thinking about what sort of crazy dream I just had.

Seriously, what was that absolute mess of a dream?! It all came to my consciousness like a flash in the pan. But I had no clue what it truly meant yet.

I got back to my room and opened my closet, my dusted over clothings, which there were very little of, were displayed on plastic hangars. I flipped through each piece of clothing like pages in a children's book. I tried to put them on correctly.

However, because I was so tired since I had just woken up, my clumsy self accidentally knocked over a box. Within that box contained a small journal I used to doodle on.

And when I mean doodle, I mean I just scribbled the words "I learned from my mistakes" over and over again. I had a remarkably strict mother growing up, although she calmed down the more I grew up.

"Hm, what's this?" I asked myself obliviously.

As I opened the journal and flipped through the pages, I decided to stuff the journal into my pocket as a sort of diary. Which in retrospect sounds a bit childish, but oh well.

I was only a kid back then, did you really expect me to not do childlike things?

I got ready for school, which sounds way more straightforward than what I did which consisted of barely getting back up from bed. I pushed that bothersome sleepy feeling deep into the back of my brain.

I put my school clothes on, consisting of gray trousers, a red button up shirt, and dark shoes that click-clacked whenever I walked. I looked like an old WcDonald's worker.

I got out of my room, closed the door behind me, and proceeded downstairs where my mother was cooking breakfast. As I go to the kitchen, she asks me,

"Hey honey, how was your sleep last night?"

"Pretty good mom, I just had a strange dream is all. What're you cooking today? Please say it's one of those world-class pancakes that you make once per year!" I responded.

"You wish sweetie. But no, instead I made some scrambled eggs. Want some?" My mom asked me.

"Aww, sure," I stated, a depressing tone filling my voicebox. Those pancakes were exactly what I needed right about now, especially since it was my first day at my new school.

Speaking of my new school, I better say how I got to this institution in the first place. After all, it was the most prestigious high school in the county.

While previously I had gone from school to school due to my mother working different jobs in nursing and taking care of elderly people. We stumbled upon an opportunity of a lifetime where my mom could find a stable job in this town called Altandor. Meanwhile, I could go to this school due to my grades being so lavish to the point of getting a scholarship.

Looks like studying all of the time instead of living life with my friends back in middle school paid off after all!

After I agreed to the scrambled eggs, I grabbed an orange carton from the fridge and headed to the table where I ate my scrambled eggs alongside my juice. They were still absolutely delicious, even if they weren't pancakes. After that, my mom packed my lunch and told me,

"Hey, I'm sorry for this, but can you take your bike to school today? The car is at the mechanic because apparently, your brother took it for a ride yesterday without realizing that there was a whole broken bottle outside the driveway."

"Pfft, he's so dumb! And sure, I'll go take my bike. I wanted to ride it to school today anyway, so it's a great coincidence!"

I then went to the garage where the car usually stood with its chipped painting and its consistent coughing enging. Of course this time, it wasn't there today. So instead, I looked for my bike which was at the back end of the garage.

Then, right before I rode on my bike, I found a table and began writing my first entry in my journal, just out of pure fun.

Who knows, it might be my last entry:

"Hello, I'm George, a 13-year-old boy who's living with my lone mother. My father had joined the military a while back and sent us letters that meant nothing but deceased words. I also live with my two annoying siblings, but I'd rather talk about them later."

"I live in a world that is overrun and controlled by just one family, the Redwood family. The year is 2313 and in my world, my outlandish world in North America District 11, the Redwood family has been controlling the world for... who knows how long. This blood-spilled lineage monitors our every single move in this town called Altandor and it's harrowing to say the very least. Nothing you can do wouldn't be trailed all the way back to your hands. There's no privacy, no real protection no matter what they say."

"But enough about this family, I'm heading into my first day of high school and I'm really excited! Especially since this is the first school where I'll hopefully stay for more than three months! I cannot wait to make new friends and see my old ones there like Steve and Fron, which I fortunately heard that they're going there too. Anyway, I gotta ride my bike now since I gotta be there by 7 and it's 6:40! Gotta go, cya!"

My sloppy handwriting would've made any doctor jealous.

And y'know, I never knew at the time that that would be the first and last entry of my childhood. How stupidly optimistic I was.

After I wrote my entry, I got on top of my mechanical bike and rode it out of my garage after I had opened the garage's door. Leaving the door open, I rode my bike by the paved asphalt of Altandor, taking in the natural scenery around me.

It was gorgeous as beautiful, common nightingales chirped over my head in continuous syncopation with relatively healthy, birch trees overflowing their branches high above my head. I turned across my street and hopped onto another.

I spotted the high school on an elevated hill peering over this small city we called Altandor. So, I sped up my bicycle, narrowly passing through a few other students, and just luckily stopped right at a bike parking spot illuminated by virtual signage.

I was now inside Altandor Redwood High School.

I saw a few familiar faces here and there from my previous middle school. And I mean very few faces as I only saw one kid I randomly talked to last year stroll past me and enter the building right next to me.

However, that didn't stop me from entering inside the black-painted brick building, hoping for any sort of map of the school. I parked and locked my bike by an automatic locking system and took my backpack, which carried very few things other than just a notebook, and a Scruplot.

If you're wondering what a Scruplot is, it's a device that tells you the activities that are going to happen throughout the day. It's shaped like an annoyingly enormous tablet that I could hardly fit into my backpack as I entered the building of the high school.

Once I walked inside, I spotted the cafeteria near the right flank of the building as well as a map written at the entrance of the cafeteria. I moved myself to the map, taking in the absolutely bland scenery around me with pasty, white walls covering most of what my eyes saw.

I inspected the map closely, the building I was in was namedthe 'B building'. Meanwhile, there was an A, C, and D building as well. The main office stood in the A building while all of the classrooms were settled in the C and D buildings as well as cafeterias in each of the two buildings. The gym and the library were supposed to be near the D building and the teacher's lounge area. I barely thought about each of these locations though as I entered the cafeteria.

This cafeteria was extraordinarily different than the ones I was used to. And the ones I was used to were rusted down and barely had any upkeep whatsoever by our administration.

However, at this high school, the janitors and the lunch ladies seemed to love keeping things squeaky clean as it was utterly spotless and pristine other than the people talking in the cafeteria loudly. The cafeteria was also made of marble, entirely of marble, even the seats which were rather off-putting.

I looked around the cafeteria. The bathroom stalls were to my right while a massive window stood tall at the end of the cafeteria, gleaming a fireball of the sun right to the our eyes, supplying the cafeteria its light.

Whoever built this cafeteria knew what they were doing!

I sat down at the nearest table and looked around the marbled cafeteria, looking for someone that I might've known in middle school. Yet, most of the faces I caught sight of were ones I didn't recognize one bit. I began losing hope my face scrunched up in such a way only a grandfather could replicate.

I leaned my head downwards to the tabletop. My mouth twitched with the taste of loneliness. That feeling has encapsulated my entire being recently, even if I had two other siblings.

I wished I could recognize at least one person, even if that face was vaguely remembered inside my head.

That's when I saw him.

He had his signature, muddled glasses on, and dark brown hair. A large book on his left hand and a Scruplot tightly grasped in his right hand. He also had wired headphones on and wore a plaid jacket over his school uniform. I knew him extremely well from middle school and we were close friends, I only hoped he recognized me.

The guy's name was Steve. If I remember correctly, he hated to be around people and was incredibly introverted. So introverted in fact that in most of my study sessions, he went with me to our middle school library, which was rundown like most things were at that school.

He also retained a lisp, but I think he was able to control that by the time we graduated middle school. He also had a special kind of laminated braces the last time I saw him that transformed into an igloo. Yeah, strange, I know. But oh well, he thought they looked cool.

Steve was walking aimlessly past the crowd of ravenous students lined up for breakfast. It looked like he was trying to find his way through the school t somewhere in particular. Although, if I had to guess, judging by the way he was holding his stomach. He was probably looking for any food to digest..

So, I shouted out to him,

"STEVE!"

I hoped he could hear me past the entire crowd yelling out whatever happened during the summer. I never exactly had anything to do in the summer and just slept and walked around aimlessly throughout my home. I suppose the students here were more outgoing than I was.

Meanwhile, Steve skimmed around after I had called his name and I waved my hands in the air to signal to him that I was at one of the countless tables here. As expected, due to the crowd being so large, he wasn't able to even see nor hear me screaming his name repeatedly by this point.

I took matters into my own hands and leaped up from my seat, which was more like a way to grind my bottom. I ran into the crowd and picked out Steve from the entire bunch, leading him to one of the marble seats as he sat down and adjusted his glasses.

I realize now that him having glasses was surprising. Everybody else during that time, even now, used contact lenses.

Anywho, his face lit up from looking directly at me. He said with a relieving sigh,

"George! Oh my goodness, how have you been!? I feel like it's been forever since we've sheen each other!" He exclaimed with a bizarre lisp on 'sheen'.

I was just as excited as he was since he was able to recognize me. I also noticed that he had improved his usual lisp from middle school over the summer.

"It's been going good man! How about you?" I asked him back. The crowd started to disperse around the cafeteria as everyone simultaneously quieted down, though I had no idea why at the time. Steve replied in a wavering pitch,

"Uhm, not so great, I'd say."

"Why's that?" I asked him. His eyes began welling up with tears as he set down his massive backpack and took off his hat. He scrunched up his hat and placed it on his lap while he said, tears rolling down his face in a zig-zag down his face,

"My—sniffle!—parents uh, uhm..."

He was barely able to put the words in his mouth as he choked up on his tears.

"Hey, it's alright. You don't have to tell me what happened to your parents, okay? I'm just happy to see you. And when you feel like it, you can tell me about what happened." I stated, a solemn frown forming across my mouth. He wiped his tears with his scarf and said back,

"Heh, you always know what to say, don't you?"

"Pfft, well not always! Like, remember last year when I was trying to see if that girl was choking or not? I was trying to understand her for a solid minute before I ever realized that she had her hands on her neck!"

"Ahaha! I remember that! Everyone behind your back called you 'Mr. Oblivious' ever since that day." He stated. I must admit, I was a little embarrassed over that.

"What!? Why didn't you tell me?" I asked him.

"Well, you were always busy with your studies and didn't have a social life apart from me and your friends, which were very minimal. So I thought that maybe you just didn't care." He stated, putting his backpack onto his lap on top of his hat. I hesitated for a moment, saying in part,

"Fair enough. I don't think I really would've cared in middle school. But from now on, you have to tell me who's calling me what behind my back! Promise?" I asked him, putting up my pinky in the air.

"Promise." He stated, intertwining my pinky with his as we slumped down on our benches and chuckled.

"Remember when we used to do 'pinky promises' all of the time?" I asked him.

"Yup, and the funniest thing is we probably broke over half of those promises." He stated. We both shares another chuckle before we finally blew up into a full-on laugh. It was nice laughing with him again, especially after all of this time apart from one another.

After we had laughed all we could, he asked me,

"Hey, do you still have that hair clip I gave you? The one that was small and pink? I know I gave it to you as a parting gift for your sister. But believe it or not, I need it back. My sister got angry that her favorite clip got stolen even though she barely uses it."

"Yeah of course, man! I'll bring it with me next time we're here."

"Sweet,"

Just then though, an announcement came over the intercoms in the building.

"Now that everyone is silent, please stay seated at the Cafeteria areas in your accorded buildings for ten minutes while everything is being prepared in the auditorium. Thank you and please be respectful!"

The intercom shut off afterwards and the cafeteria exploded with noise once more. The noise got so bad that we had to move our stuff and ourselves to the far side of the cafeteria where the fire exit was and where there was a little less noise.

Steve quick left to the luncline that was basically empty by this point. He soon came back with soggy pancakes and an equally piss-poor milk carton.

"So, how was your summer?" Steve asked me once he sat back down. He shoved a piece of his nasty-looking pancakes into his mouth, chewing on it in disgusting syncopation.

"It was pretty good, hardly did anything though," I stated.

"Yeah. . ." He gulped down his pancakes, alongside his likely expired milk, and asked me,

"Oh! Did you know wayyy back then, like hundreds of years ago, they used to have something called 'iPhones'?"

"What were those?" I asked him,

"They were like these little pocket screens that had all these magical games and videos on them! Too bad they were banned around two centuries ago." He stated.

"If only we lived back then!" I exclaimed. Steve, being the absolute nerd he was, stated,

"You shouldn't say that! Do you know how many wars there were back then? Not to mention the bloodshed and war crimes that were committed on a daily basis. Hell, we're lucky we're not in a war right now as we speak!"

"Calm down, Sherlock I know. The world is crazy." I said, picking up my Scruplot from my backpack to tell the time.

"What about this school huh?" He asked me out of nowhere. He liked to ask me things from seemingly out of thin air.

"Hm? Oh yeah, it looks pretty cool. Though, I haven't seen any teachers or even the principal." I stated.

"Yeah, they're probably going to introduce themselves at the auditorium though, so we should be fine." He said, twisting his hat out of boredom.

"Hey, wait a minute," Steve said, staring directly at something, or rather someone, down the hallway where the fire exit was.

"George..? Is that?" He poked at me, I looked to where he was now pointing and spotted a girl around our age. She was wearing her school uniform, being the same the boys wore, alongside an overhanging yellow sweater that had muddy patches near its bottom. Her filthy shoes displayed on the floor like a slobby skunk.

And if that's who I think it was, I wouldn't exactly be too shocked at her appearance.

"Dude there's no way that's her right?" He asked me once more.

"I'm uh, just not sure. Wanna go talk to her?" I asked him. Of course, I knew the answer before I ever asked. He shook his head side-to-side violently.

I sighed and left my backpack behind as I put my hands in my pockets and walked over to her. She was just staring at the ceiling and sitting down on the floor. OnceI stood next to her, she retained a confused look on her face, asked me immediately,

"Who are you?"

"I'm uh, George. We used to go to the same school last year?" I said to her questionably. She still seemed obscured so I persisted on, hoping to jog her memory.

"You used to call me Mr. Oblivious?"

Still, nothing. I sighed and said, rolling my eyes,

"You always tried to copy me and Steve's homework."

"OHH!! My bad George, I had a rough vacation so I could barely remember anything last year." She said, standing up and patting her shorts down from any dust.

"It's fine, I get it. Here, let's go back to my table. You can see Steve again and we can talk about how rough your vacation was 'Troublemaker'!" The reason I called her that is the exact reason you'd think.

Once we got back to our table, Steve was utterly radio silent. He acted just like a French mute would.

"Hey, do you remember me?" She asked him. Steve merely nodded and rummaged through his backpack, looking for something in particular. She settled down next to me.

The girl I called over was named Emily, in middle school she was known as the 'Troublemaker' and what I mean by that was that she always caused trouble.

I mean, no shit. Why else would she be dubbed that title?

No matter if it was something as small as a fire alarm or as big as causing an actual fire. I remember at one point in 7th grade when she decided to fire off a firework in the middle of class.

The reason she did that in the first place was because she wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom, which I guess is a little understandable, but still. She would've been expelled immediately by our principal and teacher, Mr. and Mrs. Foyager, yes they're married, it's strange. However, her somewhat wealthy family were able to bribe them out of her explosive situation.

How wealthy were they? . never was able to figure it out. But I bet that's how she ever got to this school. She didn't have the grades, the sports scholarship, or fame to get into this school.

"Hm. Hey Steve, why are you so quiet?" She asked him. Yet he still wouldn't respond as he continued to rummage through his backpack.

"Steve... Steeve." She persisted.

"STEVE!" She finally yelled out.

"Shut the hell up, Emily! Finally, there it is!" He finally pulled out what looked like a wooden box.

"A wooden box?" Emily and I asked him at the same time.

"This isn't just any wooden box! It's a box my father gave me for good luck. Genuine good luck." He stated, closing his eyes and pushing the box toward his chest. We decided not to press him on what the box was or what it contained in the slightest.

"Alright, well I'm gonna go get some breakfast. I'm honestly starving since I skipped my breakfast at home," Emily stated.

"And why would you skip your breakfast at home?" I asked her.

"Because George, I at least want to be on time at school for the first day to get a good impression! Before forever being late to classes." She stated with a smile, strolling over to the breakfast line which were packed with people.

"Well, we're freshmen now, no longer the big dogs we were at middle school!" Steve exclaimed at me all of a sudden.

"Please, don't ever say big dogs again," I stated, going back to my Scruplot to check the time.

I glanced back up at Steve. His face contorted in all of his miniature wrinkles. Even if he was only thirteen, he looked like he was in his forties. His mindset was also in that aged transformation. His parent's death had taken toll to his very soul. I just hoped he could recover.

Because believe it or not, Steve was and probably still is, the only friend outside of my family I know who I've ever trusted and deeply cared about. He was the only guy I could trust during those times back in middle school. Now, I might need to rely on him one more time if Emily kept sticking around with us.

"Yo, I'm back," Emily said, setting down an amassing tray of food.

"Uh, Emily? Are you sure you can eat all of that food right now?" Steve asked her and he was right. The food was reaching such an elevated height that it was bigger than Steve's whole hiking backpack.

"It's fine, don't worry! Don't you guys know that I won the Lovingstead County eating competition?! Now please, lemme dig in!" She stated ambitiously, absolutely demolishing her stacked food within seconds. Steve and I stared at her in astonishment.

And as if it was magic, one second it was there, the next second it was completely gone.

"Ahhh! That was delicious!" She shouted, a small group was watching her in disbelief as was me and Steve. She threw her trash in the dumpster, coming back to us in a stroll.

"What? Are you guys shocked? Astonished? Maybe even a little—"

"Perplexed?" A student asked from one of the many groups in the cafeteria. He walked right over to our table and stood next to Emily.

"Uh, yeah? How'd you know I would say that?" She asked him.

"I guess you can call me a mind reader!" He exclaimed.

"Uh huh, sure." She said, slightly apprehensive over his sudden approach. Steve seemed absolutely mortified at the guy standing near our table and quickly tapped my shoulder. He waved his hand to signal to me that he wanted to whisper something.

So, I placed my ear close to his mouth where he whispered in a squeaky voice,

"Do you know who that is?!"

"No, obviously not. I didn't do my research on every single soul that came into the school unlike what you probably did, Steve." I stated back, my somewhat crooked teeth glimmering in the sunlight.

"Well, you would be correct in that assumption. However, you still don't know who she's even talking to!"

"Alright, then enlighten me. Who is this guy?" I asked him back. He looked to his left and right, slid the sweaty palms of hand and finally stated,

"That's the Jack Broker. You know..? The Middle Linebacker of the school? He put one of Marshawn Lynch's descendants on the injury reserve with a clean hit! They nicknamed him the 'Soul Taker' for peeps' sake! He runs a 4.3 40-yard dash! He's a two-time Frolin county winner and also won the Super Cup with his fully equipped football team. He's an absolute legend!"

Even though he said this, I still truly didn't care. And this was mainly because I didn't even follow sports or rumors about sports players. So, I just responded,

"Sick, he's buff and he knows words like 'perplexed'. He seems like a cool guy to me."

"No, you don't understand! This man is a full-on beast if you get on his bad side!" Steve was shivering as he said this. I swear I remember him saying those same words before, although I just didn't know who said it.

"Just listen, we'll be fine if we just act calm and right now, you're shaking in your seat. So, for right now, let's just introduce ourselves and say hi to each other. That's the least we can do! Plus, Emily's already doing that!" I stated and I was right since Emily and Jack were hitting it off instantly as they had already introduced each other's name.

Then, as if compelled by a force none of us had known yet. Jack asked Emily with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile,

"What's your favorite color?"