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~ Chapter One ~

A NEW DAY BEGINS

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It was dark and cold.

So cold his finger tips were numb by his sides and feet felt frozen to his socks.

The boy's footsteps echoed in the dark hallway, the sound bouncing down the length of the darkened passage and back to his ears. He was walking, his feet moving without his consent until the recollection hit him that he had no clue where he was or knowledge of how he got there.

With his feet now at a standstill he glanced a look behind himself. The same darkened corridor met his eyes with the same blue hue lingering around the edges.

He wanted to freak out, but something inside propelled him to move onwards, like a magnet pulling his body down the corridor. He again wanted to have a meltdown but once more something about this place made him feel calm and relaxed, like he was meant to be here. In a way it was comforting, so going off this relaxing hunch, he allowed his feet to lead him onwards.

He walked for a while, maybe five minutes until he came across two large doors. They took up the entire space on the wall, their wooden frames painting in the same blue that coated to walls and floors, except with silver embellishments and details. With the pessimistic side of the boy's brain muted for the time being, he slowly opened them with a grunt, the hinges creaking with what he could only assume was years of neglect.

Inside, was revealed to be a large blue room. Nothing remotely of interest caught his eye, but he still took the plunge and ventured deeper, the large doors closing after him with a loud bang. Ignoring the sound, he stepped into the center, a small almost unnoticeable symbol carved into the floor. His eyes traced the edges until his fingers got fidgety and he crouched to get closer.

With a spared glance back to the doors, his fingers brushed over the symbol, but upon contact, the room trembled. The blue hue increased around the edges of his eyes as did the lights, except the light was coming from him, starting at the tips of his fingers edging all the way to the center of his body. He shivered with pleasure, the feeling being alike nothing he'd ever felt before.

He wanted to laugh, but instead his eyes were drawn to a new sound: A deep pitched buzz fizzing around with no apparent origin point. Spinning in a circle, his eyes glazed over every inch on the room, only stopping the search when a beam a bright blue shot out from behind him, grazing past his left ear so close the ringing remained long after the beam had vanished.

Only, as soon as the first beam disappeared, another four sprung to life from elsewhere, each missing his body by millimetres every time. Now with a new fear to concentrate on, the boy froze, the fear of getting hit by one of those... lightning bolts causing his body to stiffen up.

As the buzzing sound increased, so did the amount of bolts filling the room. He whimpered, his eye catching one of the beams ricocheted of the far side of the room and head straight for him. With no time to react, he could only watch as the bolt flew towards him, piercing through his body with alarming speed and pain. He screamed in agony, the pain almost unbearable until-

"Jay? Jay! Wake up. Oh, Ed dear, Jay's having nightmare again."

Jay woke with a start, a fresh cold layer of sweat dusting his forehead. A gulp of oxygen was forced down his body as his blue eyes met his mother's worried ones. "Mom?" He breathed.

She smiled sympathetically and raised a hand to rest on Jays cheek, "Oh dear," She sighed, "You okay, son?" Edna asked, her thumb brushing across his undereye where undoubtedly tear residue lay.

With a nod of his head, he reached over to his nightstand, his hand wrapping around a glass of water and gulping it down in one.

"What was it about this time?" Jay's father, Ed, asked from the doorway to the boy's room. The older father walked quickly over to his son and placed a hand on his wife's shoulder giving it a comforting squeeze.

Jay blinked deeply, allowing the memories of the pain flood through his mind before quickly pushing it out with a shake of his head, "I... I can't remember." He mumbled raising his right-hand rub at his eye. It was a rarity that Jay ever lied to his parents, but the last time he told them about this recurring dream they overreacted in the most parent way possible. Two therapy session a week for two months and a major cut back in his screen time - that wasn't something Jay would like to relive again.

Going even a day without his videogames is tough enough.

The boy caught his parents sharing a concerned look but chose to ignore the hidden words they seemed to communicate within it.

Instead, he focused his attention towards his Starfarer clock sat on top of his nightstand. The large numbers reading 06:37 in dark blue lights. Realistically, Jay didn't need to get up for another twenty minutes, but he had no desire to end up back in that cursed corridor, and besides, with the extra time he could devote it to tinkering with his inventions, he had been meaning to sort out the wiring of his automatic car-washing robot.

He pulled his bedding free from its tangled mess around his legs and stood to his feet, both his parents watching intently as their son moved over to grab some clothes for the day. Then, he reached for his small towel folded on his dresser and sent his parents a small, hopefully reassuring, smile, "I'm just going to go shower." Jay announced, hoping they'd also brush pass the issue of his nightmare and carry on with their days.

Ed nodded, and with a hand on Edna's back, he guided her out of the room, shutting the door with a small thumbs up.

With them out the room, Jay's shoulders slumped, and smile dropped. He sat back on the bed, head dropping into his hands as he once more relived the events of his dream. Again, this nightmare was something he had been experiencing for the past two years now, and with no apparent sigh of it stopping anytime soon, the young boy had sadly just learnt to live with it.

As a minute passed with him in deep thought, he finally shook himself free from his mind and headed towards the shower. With the cold water pushing the dream more from his mind, he was able to relax. After quickly drying off and pulling on his clothes, he grabbed his brush to tame his wild bed hair and then brush his teeth.

Once satisfied with the days look, Jay strolled into the kitchen. His parents weren't present so he assumed they too were outside doing their daily upkeep chores of the junkyard. Riffling through the sparse cupboards, he pulled out some bread and slotted it into the toaster, before jogging outside into the morning sun.

Jay loved inventing, it was just his way of calming himself from all the stress of school, as well as the school bully: Morro. He secretly love living on a junk yard because he could spend all day building machines and creating new way to improve his and his parent's life. But whenever one of Jay's friends or family come over he always pretend to hate it here. He don't know why, but his guess was that it could be a bit embarrassing since most of his friends live in sophisticated townhouses, whereas there he was, living in a rundown caravan.

Jay heard the toast pop up and placed the wrench down he'd picked up a little earlier and made a mental note to finish fixing the car engine when he got home from school.

After he finished his toast he went to grab his bag. Thankfully, he had the foresight to pack it the day before as he unsurprisingly had got a little carried away with tinkering and now was behind schedule to arrive on time for school. Jay grabbed his bike from the small shed around the back of the caravan, kissed both parent's goodbye and headed off into the dessert.

The ride was painfully long, but when the gates of school finally came into view, Jay hoped off his bike and walked it into one of the bike posts and secured it with a lock.

His hands adjusted the straps of his bag as he scanned the green patch of grass in front of the school to pinpoint where his friends were. He immediately spotted them in the usual meeting stop and started to dodge his way between other students to get to them.

Jay had only walked a few paces before his attention was pulled elsewhere. A girl, one he'd had never seen before, stepped out of a car, her big blue eyes instantly drawing his away from where he was walking. His steps halted, the whiplash he received by his abrupt stop enough to send ripples of pain up his legs. With Jay's mouth embarrassingly hung agape, he watched as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder, her knee-high red dress blew slightly in the wind, as did her short black hair. She mumbled something behind her, an older looking boy with dark brown spiky hair and a red hoodie following her out the car, a bored, almost irritable expression on his face.

Jay immediately assumed they must be new - no way would he forget a face like hers.

It's only when he felt someone push him from behind did he lose track of what he was thinking and fell to the ground. Unfortunately, to make his situation worse, all his books went everywhere as did his homework that he spent all weekend on, flew away in loose pieces of paper.

He didn't need to look up to know everyone was laughing at him.

"Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to play on the ground, dipshit?" A harsh voice called from behind Jay. His words weren't new, they'd been spoken in his face multiple times over his high school career.

Jay turned to glance behind, his eyes meeting with Morro who cackled with his unruly group of friends. His usual attire of a dark green tank top and ripped jeans a very unwelcome sight this early on a school day.

"What is your problem?" Jay asked, trying his hardest to keep his voice firm and confident.

Morro scoffed "Ohh, look at you, finally standing up for yourself? Cute." He said laughing even harder. His friends followed suit, as did all their other peers. Stupid herd mentality. "Well, if you're so confident, come on then... Stand up."

His taunt was unforgiving. Jay knew he was just being a bully, but the overwhelming need to prove himself was too much to ignore. His fists clenched, however, as he went to stand, Morro's large shoe placed itself on Jay's back, forcing him down once more.

"Pathetic..." Morro mumbled, holding Jay in place for another few seconds before walking off with his friends.

Jay rolled onto my back, the cool tarmac flooring a nice feeling against the hot embarrassment that flared at the looks and giggles the surrounding students gave him. No one offered him a hand, not that Jay expected any different. Whenever anyone gets picked on by Morro, it's an unspoken rule not to intervene lest they want to be the next target.

So, Jay just lay there, not really sure of what to do with himself. He was too far away to shout for backup from him friends, but too frozen in place to start to pick up his discarded belongings. Thankfully the warning bell rung, and everyone headed for their homerooms. Talk about being saved by the bell. Yet even with everyone gone, Jay still couldn't bring himself to get up. He didn't want to for that matter. He just wanted to stay there forever and die of hyperthermia or something. Wishful thinking in the summer, He was aware.

A few minutes passed, and Jay heard footsteps coming towards him. They were quiet at first but got louder the closer the person got. Jay couldn't be bothered to raise his head from the floor to see who it was. In all honesty, He could already take a good guess as to who it was. The schools head principle, Sensei Wu, was lenient on many things, but allowing tardiness was not something he took kindly to. No doubt Jay would be walking away from this encounter with a detention slip and even more bruised ego.

However, his curiosity peaked as the approaching person made no sound, no announcement of their presence like Sensei Wu would normally do. His eyes opened when he heard the rustle of paper and thump of books as his belongings began to be picked up from the floor.

It's only when this person started speaking that Jay realised it wasn't who I thought it was.

"Um... Are you okay?" Said a feminine voice. That was enough for Jay to raise his head, his blue eyes meeting the large ones of the same girl he was ogling at earlier. The same feelings of astonishment breezed over him, and he felt his words leave his body entirely. The girl crouched by Jay's side; his scattered belongings clutched in a messy pile in her arms.

"Um.. Y-yeah um..." Jay stammered, wanting to slap himself for sounding so lame.

The girl didn't seem fazed by it and just smiled. "Sorry for not stepping in earlier, God I hate bullies. I'm Nya by the way," she smiled as she extended her hand. Jay took it and she pulled him up to a standing position.

"Uhh, J-Jay," The boy mentally cringed at his own voice. Of all the times to be cool, NOW was the time.

"Well, hi Jay," Nya grinned, holding out the pile of books and paper, "Here's your stuff. I'm not sure if that's everything, but it's most of it."

"Um... Th-Thanks, you didn't have to do that," He mumbled, smiling back at her more timidly.

Nya shrugged, "Of course I did, it's like I said, I just hate people who feel like they can just push others around, you know in my old school I found that standing up to the bully really helps," She winked, making Jay's heart flutter.

"Thanks for the advice, but no one stands up to Morro" Jay sighed, shoulders slumping at the depressing thought.

"Well maybe you sh-" She was cut short by someone calling her name.

"Nya! Sis? Where are you?" Both teenagers' heads whipped to the entrance of the school, where the voice had come from.

"Kai, I'm over here!" she shouted back as the boy with spiky brown hair - Kai - came running out of the school. He stopped in front of Nya, almost blocking Jay off whilst giving her a irritated look.

"Where did you go? The principal wanted to speak with us before we went to our first lesson?" He said giving Jay an untrusting side eye.

Nya sighed, folding her arms and moving to stand next to Jay, a light hand placed on his shoulder. The contact stiffening up his body. "I was just helping-." She went to say but was cut off.

"Nya," Kai sighed, "We can't be late, come on."

Nya scoffed, "Since when were you afraid of being late" She raised a questioning eyebrow and poked him in the chest. "And anyway, I was just making a new friend, speaking of, Kai this is Jay, Jay this is Kai, my older brother."

"Hi," He grumbled not looking away from his sister as he reached for her arm, "Come on, let's go."

"Hi," Jay replied, feeling a little awkward.

Nya struggled a bit in his grasp before giving up and letting her brother lead her towards the school. She looked behind her, meeting Jay's eye "It was nice meeting you Jay." She called before being dragged into the school building and disappearing from his sight.

Jay smiled to himself, "Wow," He breathed as his arms went weak. Unfortunately, that meant all his previously collected books and papers fell free from his clutches onto the floor once more.

Though Jay found it hard to care.

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word count

2.7k

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