Chapter 2

I woke to pain. Never before had I felt so sore. Even after the previous afternoon with the gang. I felt my head, and was met with a whole new wave of pain. Jerking in bed, I moaned in agony. I opened my eyes, and saw in double vision. Everything was hazy, almost like I was swimming in coconut milk. My vision began to falter, going dimmer, until I was blind. I tried to get up, but slipped in bed, entangling myself. I panicked, flipping around in bed as I tried to get a sense of where I was. It was at that moment Mom decided to come in.

*Thrumpd* My door always did that, but only Mom could make it sound that exaggerated.

Just as quickly as it had gone, it came back. I gazed at my surroundings, and instantly felt like a twit. Tangled up in my blankets, I was hanging off of the bed, upside-down.

"Wake up munchkin- oh. *Snrk*. Somebody got a bit tangled up last night." She said.

I looked through my cocoon to see my Mom at my door, as she was every morning. Unbelievably, I was no longer hurting. The moment she had walked in, it had left. It wierded me out to no end.

"Hmph," Was my only reply, partially because I was irritated, and partially because the blanket was tightened around my mouth like a gag.

"Well, un-mummify yourself and get ready for school."

I got the untangling portion done. But as soon as she left, the pain returned. I fell to my knees, and my mouth opened in a dry heave. Through the pain, I finally brought myself to put on my clothes. Whenever the loose t-shirt would rub against my body, new stabs of pain would shoot through me.

It was even more of a struggle to climb up the stairs, every step a brand new world of agony. Yet once I reached the top, and my brother, Dylan, greeted me with the usual silence, I felt fine again.

Mom's voice reached through the kitchen, "Hurry up Mark! Scarf down breakfast or you'll miss the bus."

"'Kay. Ugh, I feel like a sack of potatoes." The pain was gone, but I was still tired.

"You look like a sack of potatoes." Came Dylan's retort.

I turned to him, and said, "Actually, I look like a sack of coconuts. There's a big difference between coconuts and potatoes."

He sighed, and went back to eating his cereal.

I smirked on the inside. Only I could irritate him like this. I never insulted him, but out of sheer randomocity, I could get his knickers in a twist like that (snap for emphasis).

"Mark, you're going to have to leave now, you're going to miss your bus."

It was my turn to sigh. This happened too often in my opinion, waking up too late for breakfast. And school.

"Gaghaa!" The moment I stepped out of the house, the pain returned. I hobbled along, whimpering and moaning in anguish, filled with a suffering of every nerve in my body. Repeatedly, a steady beat would roll through my head, bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-bum. It hurt my head, more than any of my other afflictions. The beat was getting louder, louder, thrumping in my head, hurting, pain…

"Mark!" A voice cut through my agonies. Once again, the pain left me, leaving only a ghostly trace of a headache. I looked to find Sharon, a new friend of mine, waving to me from her house across the road. I smiled and waved back, but inside I was disturbed. What was going on with me?

I shook my head to clear it of any thoughts regarding the pain as I walked over to her. I had transferred schools recently, as the result of a move. We didn't move far, just from one point in the city to another, but it was a big enough move that I had to go to a new school, and I knew almost no one. A few people from my last school had also transferred, as they were on the edge of both districts. Still, even though I had a few familiar faces, it felt strange to be somewhere you never knew existed before.

"Helloooo! How are you?" Sharon asked me, in a British accent.

"Well, fine, other than the fact that I'm nuts." I replied with a sigh.

"You're always nuts. Normalcy is overrated."

"No, I'm being serious. I honestly think I'm going insane."

"Well, are you seeing things?"

"N-, no?"

"Do you hear the bees?"

"Wha-what bees!?"

"Then your fine." She said, as she stepped up into the bus.

I shook my head. If there was a person that could baffle me the way I baffled my Brother, it was Sharon. I migrated to the middle of the bus, where Sharon and I would usually sit.

"So, what you been up to?" She had that crazy grin again.

"Same ol', same ol'." She said.

"Yeah. I had a crazy dream last night. Wanna hear it?"

"Green one." Slug bug. Her addiction.

"'Course I do. When wouldn't I?"

I made a quick nod. "Right. So it took forever for me to fall asleep last night, and I was absolutely exhausted. The moment I fell asleep, wooooooo(quick slide whistle), down into REM straight off. It was one of those dreams where you're still in bed, dreaming you're awake. My window opened up from the outside, and a big robot came in through it. He asked me what my name was, and stabbed my leg, right her-oh." I had poked the part of my leg I was talking about, and it hurt.

"Ow, that… hurt." I pulled my leg up onto the seat, and she poked where I had. Repeatedly.

"Ah! Do you mind?"

"Not really," She said, as she continued to poke.

"It hurts!" I pulled the pants leg up to see what was wrong, "It's probably bruised from… whoa."

"You call that a bruise?" She said sarcastically.

No, I don't call it a bruise. Where I had been poked, there was a blue mark. A deep, dark blue, with an almost metallic look. Lines of silver snaked their way from the center, and they throbbed and swelled in a rhythm, bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-bum…

"One, two, three? Your 'bruise', it keeps throbbing one, two, three." She said, air quoting the bruise.

We just sat there looking at it, very still. After a moment, Sharon scooted away just a little bit. It was repeating the pattern, three beats, with Three beats in-between.

She scooted away a little bit.

"I'm… gonna cover it up now…"

She made a faint nod.

That set the mood for the rest of the brief bus ride, a strange, awkward silence, just like one from the movies. Of course, this didn't stop us from our daily round of slug-bug. Every time we saw a buggy out the window, we would tap the other person, stating the color of the bug.

"Are you sure you want to go to school with… that?" She asked as we stepped off of the bus.

"It's not like I'm disabled or something. It's just… weird."

Weird enough that I should have stayed home.