p style="text-align: center;"strongChapter 1/strong/p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris ran into his classroom. His teacher looked up. /p
p style="text-align: left;""H-Hi. Sorry I'm late," Harris breathed./p
p style="text-align: left;""Do not interrupt my class like this ever again," snapped Mr. Merlot./p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris looked down as he walked past the faces of giggling, whispering students. He slid into his chair and kept his eyes on his shoes. They were old and filthy. The soft grey colour was beginning to wear off. emIt's too bad,/em Harris thought. emThese were a really nice pair of— /em/p
p style="text-align: left;"His thoughts were interrupted by Mr. Merlot's sharp voice. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Who would like to tell Mr. Miller about what we have just discussed?"/p
p style="text-align: left;"No hands were raised. Not even a single one. The room grew quiet and Harris felt his face burning with embarrassment. He was always embarrassed easily and his teacher made no effort in making him feel less awkward. After a long moment, a thin arm shot into the air. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Yes, Miss Lockwood?" Called Mr. Merlot./p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris immeadietly reconized the girl. Scarlet had deep brown eyes with matching coloured hair and a faint strip of red in her hair. She turned to Harris. "We learned about fractions," she said confidently. Harris tried not to let out /p
p style="text-align: left;"/p
p style="text-align: left;"- - - /p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris was sitting in the school grounds, drinking his soup. Scarlet dragged her friend over to him. He looked up. "Hi," she waved to him. Harris stirred his soup. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Hi..." he said skeptically. He was taken aback when the two girls sat beside him. /p
p style="text-align: left;""This is Feather," Scarlet gestured to the girl on the other side of Harris. She opened her lunchbox./p
p style="text-align: left;"Feather had light brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. She smiled at Harris. He smiled back. Harris had never had any friends since the incident with Ariana, Daniel Owens' sister. Daniel was Harris' best friend and he thought they would be friends forever — until he accidentally got Ariana into a car accident. It had been a warm fall day and Harris told Ariana to follow him down the street. As soon as he got to the other side, he called for Ariana. She laughed and crossed the road, and just at that moment, a car came out of no where and ran her over. /p
p style="text-align: left;""So, do you want to come over later?" Harris asked suddenly. /p
p style="text-align: left;""Okay," Feather grinned./p
p style="text-align: left;""Alright," Scarlet said after a moment's hesitation. /p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris got up to put his lunchbox back in his locker, when a tall boy with piercing pale eyes looked into Harris' grassy green ones hungrily. He punched Harris' face. "That's from Daniel," he laughed. /p
p style="text-align: left;"Harris made an effort to get away, but was pinned against the wall. "You really thought he would just forget about what you did, Miller?!" /p
p style="text-align: left;"Without thinking, and without warning, Harris punched his stomach./p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
