CHAPTER 1
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
I sighed to myself as the rain began to pour down on me on my way home from Collage. Another day, another person bullying me into doing their homework for them.
My name is Daniel Dearing, or Dan for short. I guess you could call me a bit of a geek. I was roughly about 5"10 in height, with a mess of dark brown hair, as well as a pair of thin glasses to boot. I wasn't particularly strong, more lanky than anything else. I had recently turned 20, only staying on collage because I couldn't get the resources I wanted anywhere else.
I lived in the heart of Dorset countryside, practically in the middle of nowhere.
My mother ran a small Bar, called the Kings Ransom. My good for nothing Father had left her for another women, leaving me with a mother who was drunk most of the time and in bed with a hangover for the rest of it. How the inn managed to cope was beyond me. I guess it was mostly thanks to me. I would do my best to study during the day, during the night however, you could usually find me at the bar. Serving drinks when needs be, and reading a book under the bar whenever the people gave me a chance.
As I slumped through the door, I noticed the Bar was unusually quiet, only a few sparse people in the corner, my mother behind the bar, drinking deeply from a wine glass.
When she caught sight of me, she slammed down her glass on the bar, giving me an evil look.
"Where have you been boy? You should have been home hours ago! The bar don't run itself, you know!"
I sighed and slumped upstairs, "Sorry," I mumbled, "I had to go to the opticians in the next town, someone broke the lens of my glasses."
"The Hell they did!" She screeched, grabbing the nearby wine bottle and sloshing more wine into her glass, "I bet you broke it yourself to get out of working! And where do you think your going?"
"I need to change," I said quietly, dragging my bag behind me, "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm soaking wet."
"You get back her Daniel Kennedy Dearing! I can't run this bar in...hic...my state."
"I won't be a minute," I muttered mutinously, and before she could retort I had slammed the door shut.
I sighed as I leaned against the back of my door. It was true, someone had broken my glasses, but the kindly people at the Opticians could do nothing for them, and so I had left, the large crack still evident in the lens.
I changed slowly into a pair of plain grey trousers, along with a white polo shirt and black jacket.
As soon as I had changed I slowly trumped down the stairs and behind the bar, only to find my mother, unconscious, the wine bottle dripping all over the floor.
"I hate my life" I thought to my self as I took out a mop and began to carefully mop up the dark liquor around my mother, before carefully leaning on the bar and taking out my favourite book, Treasure Island.
I loved the story with all my heart. The story of how young Jim Hawkins was given a map to Captain Flints Trove. How he boarded a ship to find it, and befriended Long John Silver, only to be betrayed by him, and so on.
I read page after page, seeing no one had come up to order another drink since my mother had passed out. After about quarter of an hour however, she woke up.
I was far to engrossed in Treasure Island to realise, in fact it was only when she grabbed it out of my hands did I realise she was awake.
"What's this hunk of rubbish?" she slurred out, flicking through various pages.
"Give that back mother it's mine," I said as calmly as I could.
"Why are you reading such trash? Why don't you read magazines like anyone else you age? You shouldn't be reading shit like this."
And before my very eyes, she began tearing up the book in front of my very eyes.
"Hey stop that, that was a present!" I practically wailed. My Optician had given me the book for my fourteenth birthday, seeing my mother had forgotten and the rest of my relations were either dead or didn't want to know. The Optician had always been very kind to me, bending the rules to get me new glasses when he could, and sometimes giving me money to help me through my miserable life.
"Rubbish," she retorted, "who would want to give you anything for your birthday?"
I was furious. That book had been my favourite.
With out farther warning I stomped out of the bar, grabbing my wax jacket as I went by it.
"Where do you think your going?" My mother practically screamed at me, "Get back here, NOW!!!"
As I opened the door I glared back at my mother, my eyes full of malice.
"Make me," I said quietly, before walking out into the pouring rain.