Chapter 1:
I was walking down the hall reading Lord of the Rings when my crazy hell of a day really began. I was cornered by some sort of talking wall. "Why hello there Davey," said the large mass of muscle and testosterone known as Nick. My name is David Upton. I am what most people would call a "nerd". I am fourteen years old and go to Eastlake Middle School in Massachusetts. "How's life in fairyland?" He continued as he saw what I was reading. "Fine," I answered, "how's life in the asylum, you being a sociopath and al-." I was unable to finish my comeback as Nick grabbed my neck and pinned me to the wall.
"I'm a what, Davey?" Nick asked.
I began to choke as Nick began to squeeze harder and harder on my neck until he finally let me dropped to the ground with nearly no air left. He began to walk away from me when my stupid pride decided it had enough.
"You are a sociopath, noun, someone with a psychopathic personality who believes it is ok to kill for any reason," I coughed out, "Not surprised you don't know what it means considering you have the average intelligence of a sheep."
The moment those words left my mouth I regretted ever thinking them as Nick stopped in his tracks, turned around and punched me across the jaw. I tasted blood
"As much as I want to play some more Davey," Nick taunted, "I have to get to class like a responsible student, you better do the same. Sorry about that trip down the stairs!" He then ran away laughing
As the bell rang I got up and spotted my best friend, Lauren, heading to our next class, math. I ran up and forgot that my face was bleeding. When I caught up with her she looked like she had seen a ghost
"OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED?" screamed Lauren. Even though she had already figured out what had happened as it has happened many times before.
"I 'fell down the stairs' again." I said in reply, making air quotation marks while saying it.
"You really need to tell someone about Nick you know." Lauren said in reply
"This is when he is insulted," I said in reply, pointing at my face, "Imagine what that dick would do if I were to really get him into trouble. I would like to see him get kicked off the football team though."
After handing me a paper towel Lauren and I started to head to our math class. We had to run or else we would have been late. Around thirty minutes into the period the teacher left and Lauren handed me a note. It read "Hey, after school you want to head to the cave by the lakes? I found something there and I really want you to see it!" On the bottom of the note there were two check boxes reading yes and no. Seeing as my parents were out of town for the week on a business trip I checked the yes box and handed her the note back just as the teacher walked back into the room. Little did I know that I had just taken the red pill. I finished my assignment for the day and began to think about what Lauren had told me to do. I went up to the teacher with my assignment and turned it in. As I was about to tell him my troubles with Nick I then considered the consequences for what I was about to do. I decided against it and just walked back to my seat feeling worthless.
When the bell rang I ran out of the school before Nick and his 'dogs' could corner me and pick on me anymore that day. I met Lauren by the bike rack and we set off towards the lake. "So what did you find down in the caves?" I asked as we left the school grounds. "You'll see," she told me "Trust me this is gonna be worth it."
We hid our bikes in some tall grass and entered the caves. She led me down a long, winding cavern until she had found what she was looking for. We entered a large cave formation that radiated with some sort of energy, like the entire room was made of electricity. "HOLY CRAP!" I yelled. Before me was a large vein of some sort of Black and White Crystal. "That was my reaction too when I found this thing." Said Lauren "Come on let's take some and see how much we can sell it for!" We each grabbed a weak looking part of the vein and tried to pull a shard off. Somehow we had succeeded and we each held a perfectly cut crystal in our hands. "All right!" She yelled, "We can come back later with some tools to harvest some more but for now let's see if we can figure out what this is!" But as we began to leave I began to feel drowsy. I then lost all of my energy and fell onto the cavern floor, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lauren fall too.
