Chapter one: Haunted

"Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for."

-Dag Hammarskjold

My eyes shot open and I saw the pale blue light seeping through my blinds. I was sweating a river and gasping for breath. I quickly and worriedly looked around my room, waiting for this 'hunter' to jump out and tear me to pieces.

"Oh thank Jesus, it was just a dream!" I grabbed at my heart, feeling it's slowing but still rapid beating.

I jumped at a quite knock on my door. "What?" I grumbled.

"Szoaxs! We have school in like five minutes! C'mon get up!" My squeaky little sister yelled back through the door.

"What?!" I yelled to her then turning it to a whisper. "Damn that Nanase! She'll pay for waking me five freaking minutes before school!" I stumbled around my room in hopes to find some clean clothes. But of course everything was everywhere like a typical teens room, especially a guys.

"Hmm…maybe I decided to put some away." I walked over to my dark oak chest. One of the draws had fallen out and was now taking its new spot, unevenly, at the base. "God damn-it! I didn't!" I looked at the alarm clock across the small clustered room by my unmade bed that didn't even have any sheets on it. "What! Only two minutes! Forget it; I'm wearing these, clean or not!" I grabbed the nearest pair of clothes, quickly slipped into them and rushed into the bathroom, kicking Nanase out.

"Damn-it Nanase! Where did my tooth brush go?" I looked franticly through all of the draws.

"Calm yourself. And don't cuss…it sounds bad." She said with nonchalance, heading to the kitchen.

"I don't care how I use my vocabulary! Just tell me!" I incredulously started to go through the medicine cabinet by our mirror.

"How would I know, I'm not your mother." Sad thing is that she did sound like a mother. A mother talking to a three year old that is, and I hated it.

"Guh! Oh well…deodorant, deodorant! I need deodorant!" I ended up making a horrifying mess out of the once clean, black and pink, bathroom.

"Left drawer below you." Nanase yelled up from the stairway.

"Thank you! At least you're good for something." I sneered while putting on the deodorant.

"Bus is here!" I heard the front door snap close as Nanase apparently left.

"You have got to be kidding me." I darted out of the bathroom, ran down the stairs skipping a lot of steps, and skidded into the kitchen to grab my backpack. Finally, I was out of that crazy place.

"Well Szoaxy, I'll see you later!" Nanase shouted as she traveled down the street to the Junior High school.

"Yeah yeah…and don't call me that damn-it!" I yelled back to her, then turned to the front door of our pale blue high school.

I wasn't really afraid to show my emotions. Whether I was depressed, which was pretty much always, or happy, which was very rare. It showed up on my face. I mean what the hell; I had a bad reputation to start with anyways, so it couldn't really get much worse.

I passed some of the typical football jocks, awaiting the daily routine. 'Queer' 'emo' 'faggot', those three words is what I usually would hear from them. Bad thing was that I was not gay, so faggot and queer were out of the question, but I was emo. Well kind of. I looked it but, I didn't cut myself. I never could.

I was woken from my thoughts when I almost ran into the front doors of the high school. Our school was pretty big. No really big. Phoenix was a big city so naturally so was the school. Two stories high and a huge campus. We were known all over Phoenix as the Arcadian Titans, and our colors were royal blue and ruby red. Good combination I guess.

"Yo Szoaxs!" A deep voice greeted from behind me.

"What is it Ruth?" I kept walking away from my only friend, staring at the molted red and blue floor.

"Umm…what's up with you? I mean you look like shit." He stopped in front of me, scanning my clothes.

"Hmm? W-what do you mean?" I glanced down at my body.

"Well your hair is unkempt and your shirts kinda dirty…no let me restate that. Man, it's REALLY dirty." He pointed out. I guess he was right. I took a real good look at myself to only see that my dark grey jeans were severely wrinkled and I had a white band shirt on that had a few stains. It was one of my working shirts. I didn't even want to know what my hair was like. I looked back up at Ruth. He looked like his typical self. He was a medium height guy with dirty blonde hair that was decently long. To his chin at the least. And shocking blue eyes that everyone loved, unlike mine, which everyone thought were weird. They were an icy cold grey. Ruth's skin was of an olive color, that's where the German showed up. He was always happy and positive, yet again unlike me. I always wondered how we were friends. I was antisocial, disliked, and always quite.

"Well to answer your question, my da-! Umm…darn sister woke me too late." I started to walk to my locker again.

"Oh, you mean the really pretty, what 14 year old?" He questioned with blunt interest.

"Yeah, the Japanese one with big black eyes and long silky black hair, you know, Nanase." I tried to explain while unlocking my locker.

"Ah…yes THAT one! Yeah man, she sure is fine!" He snickered, enunciating on the 'fine' part.

"Hey, stay away from her okay!" I said with a hint of threat. I didn't like the thought of a 17 year old hitting on my sister. "Well, forget that. Man! I can't remember my schedule for my life!"

"Well it is only the, what fourth day of school. So I can understand." He too was scavenging through his locker, more than likely looking for his own schedule. I found mine under my huge English book and began to read it:

1st period: AP CALCULUS

2nd period: AP WORLD HISTORY

3rd period: READING PERIOD

4th period: AP ENGLISH

5th period: FRENCH 3

6th period: LANG. COMPOSITION

Why the hell did I have all these freaking hard classes? I jumped again when the bell rang.

I always hated math, nonetheless calculus. It was so boring. It's like I had read the book every night in my sleep, I knew it so well. And on top of that Miss Calizo hated my guts. Probably because I didn't really do anything in there except for homework for my later classes, and yet I still managed to get the highest test scores. But what I hated the most was that being smart gave every one else the privilege to bully you. So I came to the conclusion that no matter how good you are at academics, every one would hate you for being intelligent. Probably because they had just realized that they are idiots themselves.

As all of this was going through my head, Miss Calizo apparently called on me with her whiney voice. "Szoaxs, what do you presume to be the answer for this?" She pointed at the question on the marker board:

Tan 50' / Cos x – Tan 58' 150 / 3(√7 + 4)

"I don't know. A number?" I kept my head down, paying attention to the groves in the desk.

"Humph! Doesn't surprise me. Szoaxs is always too good for us." She mocked. "Johnny, what about you? Do you know it?" After that everyone's voices fade into a murmur as I went back to my weird thoughts. And no matter how much I tried, they always crept back to those bright red eyes and the icy voice of my nightmare. I involuntarily shuddered.

The bell rang and set us free from the tethers of math. I was surprised though that I didn't jump.

Even more that math, I hated lunch, for many reasons though. The first being that it was 12:15 p.m. and I was starved by that time. Two is that the lunch is so bad that you really DO NOT want to eat it. And the last is because I always sat alone. Loneliness was a bitch. It hurt badly, and you would think that at a school of at least 10, 500 students, I would fit in somewhere. So yeah, I had Ruth, but he always sat with the other hockey players. Laughing and joking together. I was more like an 'acquaintance' to him. Fine with me though, I was always used to being a loner. In San Diego I was alone too. I always seemed different, maybe because of my naturally snow white hair, my cold eyes, or the point that no one liked 'emo' kids. But here's the problem: all the other emo kids hated me also!

I stood in the lunch line for what seemed 15 minutes, got my tray and was about to start to walk to my table when I heard something. Sounded like a screech. I looked around me, seeing if anyone else heard it. But all I got were glares. Had I been the only one to hear it? I took another step and this time heard a scream filled with pain. I froze. Surely someone heard that, but everyone was still unphased. I must have been going crazy. I started to walk again, ignoring what I just heard when a current of icy air pooled around my neck, seeping down my back, giving me chills. I stopped yet again.

"Hehehe…oh death is only so close to you, my friend. Sweet merciful less death." I recognized the canorous frosty voice at once. It was the same on from my dream. It was following me. I was going to die, and no one would know how. Was that my fate? I dropped my tray out of shock and fear. The clatter of it ripped me slightly out of the immense fear. The whole lunch room was staring at me. How embarrassing. I bent over to pick it up.

"Sonny…don't worry about it. What happened to you? You look like you saw a ghost?" One of the smelly fat lunch ladies came over and picked up the tray for me.

"Oh…I'm just not feeling to well. Thanks for picking that up." I tried to cover the fear in my voice. Yeah…a ghost, sure we'll go with that one.

"Well why don't you go get yourself another plate. I'll clean this up." The lunch lady went to get a mop. I only nodded curtly. The lunch room went back to its normal gossip and whispering. More than likely about me now. I went and quietly grabbed another tray and sat down in my normal table.

So for the rest of lunch, I sat and picked at my hamburger that was bound to eat me. I no longer had an appetite after realizing that the voice from my nightmare was stalking me. Or did haunting do it more justice. Instead of eating I stared at all of the other students from my post in the back corner of the lunch room. I think this school had all of the clicks one could possibly have. Band geeks, whanna be's, posers, preps, cheerleaders, euro fashonists, foreign outcasts, druggies, nerds, anime freaks, gamers, skaters, metal heads, rockers, jocks, players and pimps, whores, mothers and soon to be mothers, good girls, gothic, normies, emo, punks, ego-tastic jerks, and the overall 'doesn't belong here kid' A.K.A. me. Yeah, a bit of a variety.

After lunch was my favorite class of the day, and possibly my high school life Language Composition. I loved to write and I guess you could call it my hobby. I had a 99 in that class if that alone tells you anything.

"Well good day my seniors! Do I have something fun for you?" Mr. Zickion greeted us with tremendous glee. He must have just graduated from college because he was only 22. Tall, skinny, with dark brown short hair. Kind of shaggy and he always put gel in it to either spike it or just make it thinner. Funny guy.

"Alright, so today is Monday August the 18. Our fourth day of school and you are going to write me something straight from your minds. Kind of like a short story, but with no ending. More like you took the first couple of paragraphs from a story. You have the whole class period. Start!" He instructed then sat down at his cherry wood desk.

'Emerald couldn't believe what she had just seen! Her two best friends, Skyler and Kail, just beat the living hell out of each other, sending both of them to the hospital! While all she could do is sit there and scream for both of them to stop. Kail, the one to start it, went to the hospital with probably a concussion, broken arm and leg, and some major damage. Whereas Skyler just hurt his arm and got a cut on his face.

Kail, the boy who was more like a gentleman with her favorite emerald color eyes, and was a brother to her, was also the guy who backstabbed both of them.

And then there was Skyler, the punk. The boy who she thought was a rebel, not one to protect her.

But what fumbled her most was when Kail accused her of murdering his mother. She couldn't do that, but yet he persisted and in the end pulled a knife on her.

Well at the least school should be interesting for Emerald tomorrow.'

"Alright students pass your paper up and umm…do whatever you want for the remainder of class. Except for drugs or skipping school. Or killing." I passed my paper up and went back to my awkward thinking.

As I was walking from lang. comp. to my locker to grab my skateboard and head home, Ruth came trotting up to me. His light grey Hollister shirt soaked.

"What's up man?" He shook his head like a dog to drizzle me with freezing cold water. I just stood and took it, staring at him.

"Not much. Why are you so wet?" I turned back to my locker and grabbed my custom Vans skateboard. I loved it and spent 70 on the beast.

"Ice hockey practice. We had a free day and messed around in our normal clothing. Cold but fun!" He shivered, once again sprinkling me. "So dude, what are you up to tonight?"

"Nothing. Just hanging at home, why?" I tossed my black and grey checkered backpack onto my back, and headed for the front gates, Ruth still following me.

"Well hey, you wanna come and hang with my homies?" His eyes lit up with happiness.

"Naw dude, Tsuki and Riyoka won't be home today, and I have to house sit. Sorry." Truthfully, I didn't want to hang with him and his friends. They were foolish sometimes and it would probably involve alcohol and driving. Dying was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. And on top of that, I was enormously socially inept. People say belligerent, I say shy.

"That sucks. Well we could bring the party to your house!" How did I know it was a party?

"No. I've got to go. DO NOT bring that party to my place! That's the last thing I need right now." I yelled to him as I skateboarded home.

I skateboarded up our curvy walkway of our medium sized red brick house. The vibrant green grass was starting to dull with the upcoming season. Why so soon? I jumped off my skateboard and walked up to the door to find that it was locked.

"Must have made it here before Nanase." I opened the door and stepped inside the very clean, elegant oriental house. Japanese was everywhere and kanji signs all over the walls. "Hello? Anyone home?" No one answered back for a couple minutes. I was beginning to not like being alone.

"Hello? Oh! Szoaxs, it's you!" I heard a crackly weak voice.

Grandpa!

Okay, so there it was, chapter one. Please review and tell me your thoughts. By Monday though, I should be moving my story to another location. I'll get chapter three up then I'll be posting the messenger on . I think that's it…lol. Anywho, thoughts, reviews, and the great much appreciated constructive criticism! Please. later!

- kakashifangirl51