Stray Bullet

Chapter 1: "Alone in a Crowd"

by HotPocketCrotchRocket

A/N: Each Chapter will alternate between characters. This chapter will be told though Dylan Klebold's point of view.

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I am your holy totem
I am your sick taboo
Radical and radiant
I'm your nightmare coming true
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I sat alone at the very back of the cafeteria in Columbine High School, halfheartedly eating the burnt cheeseburger provided by the school for lunch. People used to come over and ask me if I felt okay, or if I wanted to come sit with their friends. I accepted once, but of course after the first couple minutes they forgot all about me. I sat there the next day, and they ignored my presence except to stare at me as if to say "Why are you still here?". After that day, I began sitting as far away from others as possible, and nobody has ever bothered to sit with me since.

At first I felt lonely, but soon I began to resent them. Sitting with only whom they considered the most high class and popular people, eating their lunches while forever competing for that one moment of self aggrandizing glory in which they hog the intellectual spotlight, holding dominion over the entire SHALLOW....POINTLESS...conversation.

Having finally finished my lunch, I left the cafeteria to head to the library until the end of the period. If I was quick enough I could use one of the few computers in the back.

'SUCCESS!', I thought, seeing all three computers vacant. Logging on to these school machines took forever, but at least it was worth it. The librarian never payed attention to who was using them, or at least assumed we were doing class assignments.

Several minutes later the computer was usable and I had started up Netscape, but before I could even type in a site, I heard Eric Harris' voice for the first time.

"Hey Douche bag, move over"

Great, another jock asshole to brighten my day. I wasn't taken aback by his attitude, he was the same as everyone else.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? I was here first", I replied angrily.

"Number one, my name is Eric", He said narrowing his eyes to glare at me, "Number two, that's my computer"

My first reaction was to punch this jerk right in the face. I was never good at fighting, and I would just get in trouble. I didn't want my parents angry at me for getting suspended. You could say I wimped out, but I thought it best to just move over and make him happy.

By time I'd logged on to the next computer, there was only ten minutes left of lunch. I was entertaining myself playing minesweeper, until curiosity got the better of me and I peeked to see why Eric was so hell bent on using that particular computer. There he was, blasting away through DOOM, and on the school computers!

"Hey Eric, how did you install that? I tried before but every computer in the school blocks installing new software"

"Simple", He replied, "I brought the game files from home and added the registry files manually. They figure we should be too stupid to find the registry anyway."

I admired the way he found that loophole in the schools security so easily. I had obviously misjudged him, and upon second look it became obvious he was different from the rest of the jocks and preps that made up our school in this Colorado suburb. He was about six feet tall with short black hair. He wore a black KMFDM shirt with a pair of blue jeans. It seemed that we had at least two things in common, DOOM and taste in music. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

I was broken from my thoughts by the bell signaling the end of lunch and the start of the next period. We both shut down our computers and began walking from the library.

"My name is Dylan Klebold, by the way", I said nodding my head in his direction.

He stopped, and stuck his hand out to me. It took me a moment to realize he wanted to shake hands, but once I knew I grabbed it immediately. I only hoped I was gripping firmly, the way my dad had said a man should be able to shake hands.

"Lets start over from the beginning then. I'm Eric Harris, it's nice to meet you. Starting tomorrow, lets play DOOM together."

I smiled and continued down the hallway to my locker. I took a look at my new schedule, and confirmed that I had Computer Applications starting this quarter. I made my way to the computer lab, and to my surprise Eric was already sitting at a computer in the far corner waiting for it to load.

"You have CA this period too?", I asked.

"Yup, starting today. I hope the teacher doesn't give much work, I've heard it's all just typing."

Unfortunately, our conversation was interrupted when the teacher approached the class as soon as the bell rang.

"Now everyone please log in to a computer using the first three letters of your first name, followed by your last name as your username and your student number as your password." she said.

The class all managed to log on, and several minutes later the teacher began her actual lesson.

"Now please go to the big button at the bottom of your screen that says 'Start' and click it. Good! Now everyone please find where it says 'Microsoft Office 1995' and go to 'Microsoft Word'. Good!"

Eric and I both heaved a heavy sigh and rested our foreheads on our palms.

This was undoubtedly going to be one of the most boring classes of the day. We would likely only be given simple yet time consuming tasks, and to make it worse we were to sit in front of computers that could so easily be otherwise used to entertain us!

I felt a wave of melancholy at the thought of an entire quarter filled with useless tasks designed for the morons we go to school with, but I quickly recovered. I felt strangely happy as I looked over at Eric with his head in his hands, because for the first time in so long, I finally had someone I might be able to call a friend.