Chapter 1:

For the past seven years of my life I've been having these reoccurring dreams. They're the same every night. I'm in a small off white room with a hidden surveillance camera in the corner watching my every move. I'm sitting in a metal chair, in front of a table, with an empty chair on the other side. There's a window. It looks like a mirror to me, but I know that someone is observing me from the other side. In my dream I am waiting for someone or something to walk through the door. But that's the weird part of my dream. I wake up before anyone comes in the room. In my dream I'm scared. I don't know why, but something bad is going to happen to me. I never stay asleep long enough to find out.

I wake up every morning and try to forget about it. And every day keeps getting weirder and weirder. When I was three, my mom left my dad for some rich oaf with a mansion and everything she had ever wanted, and I was left all alone with my dad, in his authentic New York apartment. My dad has two jobs, and is never home long enough for us to have an intelligent conversation. Man being fifteen sucks.

I walk out of my room and into the kitchen in the same dirty clothes that I had been wearing the day before, carrying my black backpack over my shoulder with the big hole in the bottom, where all of my pencils fall out. I slide into a chair, across from my father at the Formica table, so my he acknowledges my presence, with his nose buried in yesterday's paper and his coffee mug at hand. I give a meek "Morning." and he doesn't put the paper down just grumbles "Yeah." Back to me. "Well I guess I'm off to school again." I try to say cheerfully. This time he doesn't even realize I was talking to him, and just stares at the sports section.

I stand up and walk out the door without grabbing my usual apple, and head down to the city bus stop, where I catch my ride to school. The rusty bench is still there waiting for me to sit on it while I await my chariot. I put on my headphones, and blast destructive music into my ears on volume ten. My head is down. I never make eye contact with anyone in the city. That's dangerous, some gangster might get offended by your look, and you'll end up in a dumpster, without your money or a cause. I don't need to watch the bus pull up for me to know it's there. I can just sense when it's coming. I walk on and find an empty seat in the back. I slouch down and put my hands in my pockets, and pull out lint, and sprinkle it to the floor like snow, watching it hit the ground without making a sound. And I hum a Christmas jingle.

The bus slowly drudges along to where my school is. I get off without saying a word, unnoticed, like a cobweb in the corner.

Outside of my school, Miller High, or as some like to call it, Killer High, there are little groups of people. Everyone is in a group of at least three. Even the nerds hang together. There are the populars, the loners. Well I guess there not loners anymore because all of the loners formed a group to become one big loner. There are the jocks, the jock's girlfriends, the bookworms, and the chess club.

I am the only one in the whole school who isn't in a group. I guess I'm not very good at making friends. Who needs friends anyway? I don't. All I need is my CD player, and my computer. That's all. I glide past everyone with my head still down and my black hood from my sweatshirt pulled up. No one notices me except for the occasional person glancing at me in disgust causing a break in their precious gossip.

I walk into class before everyone else, and take a seat in the very back. I cross my arms and bury my head in my chest, waiting for today's boring math lesson. I've developed a gift of being half-asleep, and half-awake during class. If the teacher so dares as to call on me because she thought I wasn't paying attention, I could hit her back with the answer to her "complicated" word problem.

Finally it's lunch in the cafeteria. A time for all of the groups to come together to show off there stuff, and claim the throne of "the best". I just sit in a corner, and wait for the bell to let me go to my next class. I've found that if I don't talk to anyone at all in one school day, time goes by much quicker, and I can just get home to my computer, and it's holy Internet.

I open my backpack, and pull out the mashed sandwich that I had not eaten the day before, peanutbutter and banana. I sit there quietly, and munch on the stale bread, sticky peanutbutter, and overripened banana sandwich. No one is sitting at the same table I am. There's plenty of room, but people seem to be intimidated by me. I've never actually managed to speak to anyone yet, but yet they still run away from me, before they even know me.

I become tense, a chill runs up my spine. Someone is watching me intently. They have been watching me all day. My gaze falls upon the open doorway of the cafeteria. There standing in it is a tall white man. He is in a black trench coat, and is wearing sunglasses. I look around the cafeteria, no one even realizes he's there. My eyes look back at him. He motions for me to come to him.

Should I? Should I trust anyone these days? Yet, somehow he doesn't seem dangerous. I shove my sandwich back in my bag and throw it over my shoulder, slide against the wall and walk up to him. He is maybe 6'5" a giant compared to my 5'0". "Follow me." He whispers, and cautiously walks around the giant cafeteria, to an alley behind the school.

He takes off his shades, and shakes my hand. His strong grip startles me. He introduces himself as Neo, and my eyes widen. "Neo? As in master hacker Neo?" I say fumbling for such simple words. He chuckles. "Yes Cyane, but right now that is not important. All that is important right now is your safety, and at this very moment you are in danger." "Cyane?" I repeat back to him. "H-How did you know my hacker name?" "It doesn't matter. I know why you don't make friends, and socialize. I know why you hide away from everyone in your room all night, sitting at your computer. I know who you are looking for, the man who can give you the answer to your question." I sighed. "What is the Matrix." "Yes, but there are others besides me who know who you are, and will find you, and hurt you. Watch your back, Cyane, they will find you." Neo put his sunglasses back on, and strode away, without another word. I was left there in awe.

The school bell wrung in the distance and I looked at my watch, an instinct even though it had stopped the month before. I didn't need to know the exact time to figure out that I was late for my next class. But I didn't feel like sitting through another science lecture. I walked off in another direction, and headed for the nearest computer. Home.