Official Chapter 1

Note there will be POV changes throughout this story

Peter's POV

One Week Earlier

I can tell you the exact moment my life went to hell.

It started with waking up that morning.

"Peter!" My mom called as she smacked my head with a gross towel that she used after her work out. Her name was Natasha Romanoff and she was an early riser. She worked out at like six in the morning until like ten every morning and that towel was more of a whip than a towel. It, actually, hurt a bit.

I groaned at the awakening and blinked my blue eyes. It was far to light in this room, I wish I had something to close the curtains. "You've got school in 45 minutes. Breakfast is downstairs." She said, whipping the towel around her neck before heading back downstairs to the home gym.

"Do you mean cereal?" I mocked. The thing about mom was that she had everything going for her, smarts, looks, strength but she wasn't the best cook in the world. Usually I had to do the cooking instead.

She stopped at the doorway. "Yes." Then walked out.

I sat up and fisted my eyes until the sleepiness sensation wore off. Unfortunately, it never did. I was still tired.

Whoever thought about having school at 7:30 in the morning was crazy. I can promise I'd be much happier to learn stuff that I don't care about with three extra hours of sleep. In adult logic, by getting up earlier it meant that you didn't stay up later.

Well I'm the perfect example of how that logic is flawed. I like late night TV… shoot me.

However, my mom would probably say the same thing if she didn't work late and therefore was never home. She was a cop – I mean police officer. She hated when I used the slang terminology. Something about not respecting cops or something. I'm not sure.

Either way, she was one of those people who drove around all night looking for crimes, which sometimes took place, but usually came home having given out about $500 dollars-worth of traffic tickets.

Yep… it was always fun learning how to be safe on the road at 15, right as I got my drivers permit… Actually, it sucked ass.

Most kids went to Drivers Ed for three days to learn how to drive and pass the test. Me? I got a special course of about three weeks to learn everything and I mean everything. Including, every street sign, road sign, pedestrian, even the ins and outs of the car itself (which was pretty cool, all things considering), she also made me memorize every street and all the ways home from almost any corner of the state. She even tested me! How dumb is that?

I can tell you, I was more prepared for that exam, than for any other exam I've ever taken in my 15 years of life. And don't even get my started on the whole "driving hours" thing. In case some of you didn't know, you had to log hours that you drove every time you did. By the time you got your license at 16, you had to have like 50 hours of daytime driving and 20 hours of nighttime. Seems simple, but let's just say she tripled that.

I guess it hasn't been that bad so far. I get to drive almost everywhere (with her in the passenger seat, of course). Still, she is such a backseat driver that I'm starting to want to the break the rules just to see if she'd give her own son a ticket.

Enough about that though, I had to get ready for school. Getting up was a struggle. First, I had to leave this nice warm bed to brace the cold room. I slid out placing both feet on the floor. Once I got this far, normally, it was easy sailing. Today was just not my day because instead my foot caught on the tossed away blanket and I fell. Luckily, I caught myself with my hands in an almost perfect plank before my face kissed the ground.

I easily pushed myself up. That gymnastic training truly paid off when it came to fixing my clumsiness, that's for sure. That's another thing you should probably know, I'm a gymnast, been doing it for about seven years now when I was socially inept and my mom felt the need to put me in a sport. I guess team sports for socially awkward people was – well – awkward. So, I needed a sport that I could still meet people, but wasn't "technically" a team sport as in my scores didn't completely depend on others.

I changed into dark jeans, a white t-shirt, a light blue overlay shirt, and sneakers. Going into the bathroom, I brushed my dark brown hair until it was a little less spikey from the norm and brushed my teeth, you know, the usual.

Picking up my backpack, I stowed away all the colorful folders, books and papers, as if the colors made "learning fun" and walked out. Unfortunately, I never did pick up the blanket from the floor and I tripped and fell again, this time not catching myself quickly enough. My back landed roughly on my back with a thump and I felt the wind get knocked out of me for a second. With a groan, I picked myself up.

My feet tumbled down the stairs until I turned to enter the kitchen. Grabbing a cereal box on top of the fridge I sat down for breakfast.

Mom came in a few minutes later to check that I was up and ready to go. "Ready for school, Peter?"

"I guess." I answered, shrugging, milk trickling out of my mouth as I did.

"Don't forget you have practice today." She reminded me. The biggest problem with mom was her lack of emotion. She'd laugh sometimes, and smile sometimes. But usually, she was serious which made it quiet around the house.

"I know."

"What's wrong?" She asked, sitting down at the table next to me. She sipped her water.

"Nothing. Just tired." It was true. There was nothing wrong.

"I heard to fall upstairs. Are you okay?"

"Fine." I glanced at her. "Tripped over my comforter."

"I guess that means you didn't make your bed before coming down."

I shook my head. I knew she wouldn't care. My room was mine. I could do anything I wanted to it, if it didn't look completely disastrous and didn't destroy the structural integrity of the place. Besides, there was no reason to make a bed that would be ruined at the end of the day. Instead I just closed the door so that the house itself looked clean.

"How'd that exam go by the way?"

"Same as usual."

"Did you read the book this time?"

"I just hate literary books. Why do they have to be so boring?"

"They're supposed to teach you critical thinking, problem solving, and life lessons."

"Well there is a central theme in every single one of them." I started.

"What's that?"

"That the world sucks and that there's nothing you can do about it."

"I don't think they're about that." She shakes out her short, curly, bright red hair.

"Really?" I looked at her confused. "Brave New World – about a society who doesn't believe in naturally born children. Basically, about how terrible the government is and how terrible we are that we allow the world to change into something like that. But at the end, nothing really changes. Spoiler: the guy dies. A.K.A. The world sucks. Heart of Darkness – about a guy who realizes that white/rich society sucks but that all the other people are simply barbaric. Spoiler: the guy dies. A.K.A. The world sucks. Invisible Man – about how African Americans are treated during segregation. Spoiler: the guy dies. A.K.A. The world sucks."

"Even Shakespeare wrote about how terrible the world is, but he did it iambic petameter format. Spoiler: everyone dies! This doesn't include, Lord of Flies, Huckleberry Finn, Tale of Two Cities, or The Great Gatsby."

Throughout that entire stupid rant my voice begins to climb higher in both loudness and pitch. If anyone heard me say any of this out loud to the public, I'd probably be criticized for my lack of culture or intellectual aptitude that I couldn't, for the life of me, enjoy these stories.

Honestly, when a book, on more pages than one, basically tells you that the world is a terrible place simply for the fact that we live on it, it's hard to enjoy them. Give me a good comic book any day.

I've always wondered what would happen if teachers gave us more modern literature, even comic books. Yes, I'm well aware that'd never happen and I'm not talking about Harry Potter, either. I'm talking about a book that was, I don't know, from this century. I mean every book has a central theme, right? Probably ones that are very similar to those from the literature before, just written in a way that the average person in this day of age would understand while still enjoying the story.

Though, yet again, if I said that I'd probably be called entitled by the older generation simply because of the fact that I can't handle that strange language and are unwilling to work for it.

The basic idea is that I'm not very good when it came to English class, it was probably my worst subject. "So, of course, I got a C on that exam. So, I'm just happy I passed." I told her, calming myself down.

"Come on, Peter. You had to enjoy reading at least one of them."

"Huckleberry Finn wasn't bad, neither was Tale of Two Cities or The Great Gatsby. But Lord of Flies was definitely the worst, in my opinion."

She pushed a small hair out of my face. "You shouldn't be so harsh."

I groaned and slammed my head on the table, nearly spilling milk a cereal all over. "Didn't you ever have to do this stuff?"

"Yep." She answered, simply. Then took my cereal bowl and walked to the sink. "I did and I probably complained about it too."

"I just don't get how telling us the world is such a bad place makes us want to work hard for it."

"It's not about wanting to, you've got to."

"Don't go all motivational speaker on me, please, Mom."

"Peter," I could tell she was looking at me. "There isn't much to sugar coat, the world is a terrible place. But, it's a good place, too. It's about noticing those bad things and trying to make them better."

I buried my face into my hands. "I feel like that just causes more trouble."

"Sometimes. But," She gave a strong squeeze of the shoulders from behind. "How would you know if you didn't try?"

"Stop…" I groaned. It was weird when parents got sentimental. My mom may be a police officer and all, and her job "technically" is supposed to stop the bad guys to make a better world. But what's the point when more people are born and more people commit the same crimes as the one before. To me, it's just a never-ending cycle.

I kind of wish that the world was more like a comic book. Sure, you had the villains that constantly returned, but it seemed like, other than those choice-few, the rest of the people were good. The city would be happy and carefree until the next large attack when the selfless superhero would save the day and make peace in the city once again. That sounded much better than the constant nagging that the world was bad from all of these high-school literature books. The worst part was that nothing was ever solved in these school books. It's not like a mystery comic when the main character seeks out a killer and eventually captures him. No, these books simply made note of the problem, but never gave the answer to solving it.

I suppose it's because there was no solution. But that just made the whole thing more confusing and a lot harder to write a five-page report on.

Mom released my shoulders, choosing to go back to her work out. "You better leave soon." She called out the door. Not even a smile.

I sighed. "Right." I grabbed my bag and jacket from the closet and made my way out the front door. "Bye, Mom!"

Taking a step out of my front door, I tried to clear my head with a deep inhale of freshly, slightly-polluted air. The neighborhood was nice. It was a suburb of the big city of Queens, New York. The houses looked similar in structure but they each had a different vibe depending on the occupants.

I always found it interesting how a handful of people either overly took care of the front yards as if they were compensating for something and how another sort completely disregarded their front yards because they just didn't care about life. Most of the lawns, however, were somewhere in that happy medium level. Just green grass and a tree, maybe some flowers. Our lawn was like that: simple and easy to take care of.

One lawn in particular always struck me as over the top whenever I walked by it. It was another similarly structured, white house. This house, though, had a giant, koi-fish filled, fountain in the center and small bushes surrounding the fountain. Then there was the greenest grass I've ever seen in my life. The kind you see in movies or in pictures. After that, following the line on their driveway were large spiral trees. On their front porch, which was enclosed except for two sides, there was a life-sized picture of a guy planting rice, as if that was completely normal to see in New York.

In summary, the lawn looked incredible – strange – but incredible.

I walked a few blocks before running into the stop light that separated the neighborhood from the city. Midtown High was just a few short blocks from the mouth of the street.

In all honesty, I didn't hate school. I just hated certain parts of school. I liked science and math. I was pretty good at artistic stuff, mostly photography and, I, especially, liked seeing my friends for the majority of the day. I didn't even mind gym all that much. Gymnastics has kept me fit so I don't have to worry about crippling anxiety of being in gym class. I could keep up for the most part.

But I hated English and I really hated this guy named Flash. A.K.A Football Star turned School Bully. He was probably one of the three biggest guys in school and he just loved coming after me.

It's not my fault I tend to be socially impaired, Flash takes that as an opportunity to pick on me a lot. Too bad, I didn't take self-defense classes like Karate, because, unfortunately, other than running and leaping, I can't say I'm too exceptional in the fighting department.

Which means it shouldn't have surprised me when I got shoved into my locker within the first ten minutes of the school day. Good thing I wasn't small enough that the door could close. But I was small enough that it could latch.

I waited. Within in the minute a bang shook the metal locker door, unhooking the latch and falling open. "Stuck again, Peter?" She was confident and sarcastic.

"Yeah." I brushed myself off. "Thanks, MJ."

"Why you let him do that is beyond me."

"If you have a suggestion on how to kill a bear while somehow destroying all the evidence, I'd love to hear it." I wave my hands to amplify the – mostly – sarcastic comment.

She scoffed and walked off as confident as ever, her red hair blowing strips behind her. Her green eyes, determined but somehow soft and pretty. Jeez, I'm a weirdo. Let me ask you, was it weird to have a crush on a girl you've known forever? Because I think I may be the only one.

Then something dawned on me. She didn't laugh at my comment, not even a little. "Do you have a suggestion?" I looked at her, suspiciously.

"Hurry up, Peter." She called behind her, still refusing to answer. It took me a second to realize I hadn't moved. Not cool, Pete, not cool!

"Coming!" I said back, jogging to catch up. As we bobbed and weaved through the students and randomly placed trash cans, we caught up to Harry as the three of us entered the classroom. Now, Harry is truly the best, best-friend I could ever ask for. Even though he's super rich, he somehow still manages to be cool and collected. We're like brothers.

"Sup, Pete!"

"Hey, Harry. What's up?"

He bumped my arm with his elbow. "What do you think we can do with my dad's penthouse and $1000 dollars for the weekend?"

I shrugged. "Order all the pizza we ever could want and watch ninja movies while we act out the scenes." I hoped.

"Lame, Pete. I was talking about a party. A major rager!"

"Harry, you just had a party last weekend." Mary Jane reminded him.

"Yeah, but my dad comes home on Monday, which–."

"Which probably means you should make sure nothing gets trashed." She interrupted. You could see the playfulness dancing in her eyes. I knew it well; my mom shows it on rare occasions, but I never forget it. Mary Jane flipped her hair over her shoulder, collected her books so that she had a better grip of them, and stepped into the classroom.

Harry looked awe struck, which made me chuckle a bit. Mary Jane had a way with doing that to people. Sometimes it was her looks, or her smarts, or her smile, or… and I'm babbling. Harry glanced at me. I eyebrowed him and smirked, giving him a slightly shrug. "You don't have time to replace anything."

I walked off. I could hear Harry behind me, silently adjusting his own backpack before following me in.

The final bell rings at exactly 2:30pm, which is exactly three minutes and twelve seconds from now. You could tell the rest of the class was anxious. It was Friday, which meant weekend.

The teacher, however, continued until the bell, like always. Teaching must really be painful. I'm sure they want to leave just as much as we do, but they have to continue to talk to kids that aren't really paying attention anyways. At least their getting paid to be here. Not that much I suppose.

Have you ever noticed how some teachers love their jobs and others simply do it because of the need for work? I have. What I've also noticed was that the teachers who love their job, influence their students to like the class. At least most of the time.

I'll admit there was this teacher last year that kind of made me like English. That's because she never judged people on being stupid, because English is extremely opinionated. She'd give you a grade that you deserved based on the argument you presented, rather than having the most knowledge on the book, itself. It was a good system that didn't punish students based on having a full understanding of a completely opinionated subject, in which there is no full understanding.

The bell rang, clear and loud. Immediately, students began packing up in a rush and the clang of chairs to desks made the room almost unbearably loud. The teacher of course tried to explain that "the bell doesn't dismiss you, I dismiss you," kind of thing. It doesn't work so well when 50% of the class is already out the door though.

I was one of those people. I had practice after school and had to go home and change. Plus, with my mom probably heading to work, I'd have to walk which was a good 20 minutes extra.

Unfortunately, I'd also have to account for Flash waiting outside the door. I never understood why he didn't just leave like everyone else. He must really get a kick out of me bleeding on the ground, literally.

I shuffled to the side hallway and out the side door instead. It was the best way to avoid him. With any luck the security cameras would catch his confused, ugly face when he realized I left. That would be plenty incentive to hack into the school security systems.

The walk home was uneventful. I listened to my IPod most of the way. Stopping only at the traffic light. When I walked into my house, I noticed my mom perched at the edge of the couch. "Hey, mom."

She didn't respond. Clearly, something on the television was more important than me coming home. I dropped my backpack on the stairs and turned into the family room where she was sitting. I walked behind the couch and rested my arms there, tuning into the news report on TV.

"Recent DNA tests have matched up with seventeen-year-old, Katelyn Milson. She was last seen leaving her part-time job at the mall Sunday night," the reporter said. "The family has asked the community to keep safe and watch for suspicious figures." She continued to talk to her co-host after that, showing empathy for the family and community.

"Poor girl." I said.

"Yeah." Mom responded. "She was the daughter of Tom Milson, one of my colleagues. I worked on several cases with him, she used to bring him coffee on Tuesdays."

"I'm sorry." I look at her, though she doesn't turn around.

"Couldn't imagine that one day, your child is happy and alive and the next their dead and their bodies found in the worst of places."

"That would be pretty sad." I empathized. I stayed there for a few more moments until the reporters changed the subject. "I've got to get ready."

I went upstairs to change into sweats and a tank top. No, I'm not one of those tight-fitting, frilly kind of gymnast. They're just not as comfortable as these.

I grab my gym bag and hopped down the stairs. "Peter!" I hear.

"What's up, mom?" I call from the doorway.

"Be safe!"

"I will! Have a good day at work!" I closed the door.

How'd it go? Did you like it? I know there wasn't much in this chapter but a few rants but everything plays into the plot.

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