Red and blue lights spun rapidly while an endless whine filled the streets. The ambulance shot through the dark avenues, tilting as it turned corners. Despite the bad weather the vehicle raced down the roads at an alarming rate. Blood stained the white sheets of the stretcher as well as the skin of person laying helplessly in it.

The EMT worked diligently to provide Roxas with the necessary care but everything he did had no effect. Roxas groaned and turned his head, he could feel something over his mouth like a mask. There were voices again, they reminded him of his mother, why couldn't they just shut up and let him sleep?

"We're losing him!" The EMT yelled and pulled out a defibrillator to revive him. One charge: Roxas' body jolted up and his heart rate remained a low pulse. Second charge: his body leapt again and his heart rate continued to drop.

"Roxas!" That voice- Axel; since when had he been there? Roxas meekly opened his eyes, the one glimmer of hope that he may survive.

Axel had his eyes on Roxas's the entire time, had his heart been on the monitor it would have jumped. He wanted to apologize to him but before he could get the chance Roxas let out a lasting sigh.

His head dropped to the side, the heart monitor screeching out a single note...


Roxas turned on his side, trying to keep his movement's minimum not wanting to pull himself from the lull of sleep. Though it was tepid in the room the warm sheets were much more alluring and he would not pull himself from their comfort. But as much as he wanted to fool himself he knew he was starting to wake up, and with good reason. Three words: first day of school. Logic knowing it was four; he didn't give a damn about logic.

"Roxas, time for school!" AH! Not what he wanted to hear, he's mother's grainy voice stabbing into his eardrums.

Fuck off. Roxas turned over and screamed into his pillow, his mother's voice was still as irritating as ever! Sometimes he wondered if he should just shoot himself in the ear.

Getting over it he buried himself beneath the sheets seeking their warmth. Just five more minutes…

"Roxas!"

"I'm up already!" He screamed, dammed his mother and her insistence whining. As though she should already know he was awake . Normally every year he started off dressing his best, but this year was crap. Besides, it's not like anyone would know what was new on him or not. To them it would be all new, but that didn't matter either.

Sliding out of the covers and walking wearily across the room he pulled off his plain white T and replaced it with some random shirt. Then scanned the room for pants and pulled them up over his boxers. Mission accomplished, now he could get those extra few minutes of sleep.

------

Coming out of his room a few minutes later he saw his brother sitting at the table; looking all clean and neat, his clothes fresh and washed. While his mom worked in the kitchen getting a quick breakfast on the table.

"Good morning Roxas." She smiled and set a plate of eggs down for him.

"Morning…" He utterly tiredly then sat down, Sora looked at him with bright eyes.

"You look like a mess." He laughed.

"Yeah so, and what are you all dressed up for?" He resorted noticing his brother wearing his favorite outfit. Honestly Roxas thought it looked ridiculous. All black, Sora was not a dark person. The outfit was adorned with weird belts, buckles, pockets and straps coming out everywhere. All of them in either red, blue or yellow. Evidently he also noticed the yellow was the same shade as the school color. Just great...

"First day of school of course, I want to make a good impression." Roxas growled but said nothing and stuck his fork violently into his eggs. School better be the only thing Sora was trying to make a good impression on.

"Roxas do you have all your materials for school?" Tifa asked.

"Sure" he meekly replied.

"Well you better hurry up; the bus will be here soon to pick you up."

"That wasn't so bad was it Roxas?" Sora asked as he stood outside of the bus waiting for Roxas to unboard.

"Death ride of hell Sora." Roxas replied and fearfully let go of the handle bars down the steps. His body felt weak and his bones hurt.

"Oh come on, that semi truck ended up missing your side of bus."

"Sora, do you think before you speak?" Roxas asked and glared at his brother. Sora rolled his eyes and grabbed him by his backpack.

"Come on!" The two didn't brother with socializing since they didn't know anyone. Sora helped Roxas to his first class then left him. Great, there was about one other student in the room. He guessed that it was a person who had no social life and studied all the time but still barely passed the class. No way would he be bothering with them.

He rested an elbow on the desktop and laid his head in his palm, wondering how much longer he would have to sit here. The teacher was wrapped up in their work at the moment. About 20 minutes later the bell went off and the busy sounds outside increased. Some students came in, in short segments one after the other. Everyone took their seats, gathering with familiar faces, completely oblivious to him.

"God I hate algebra!" One of the students sitting beside him yelled, though in the noisy classroom it went unnoticed. Roxas looked over to him; it seems he was talking to a kid sitting behind him. But then the kid turned his attention on him, "don't you?" he asked.

"Well yeah, I mean if it's hard."

"It's all hard! Why do we have to learn this, I mean when are we ever gonna use this stuff?" The kid groaned and slunk back in his seat. "So what's your name?"

"Roxas."

"Hey Roxas, I'm Hayner, and the kid behind you is Pence." Roxas nodded back at kid 'Pence' in short acknowledgment.

"Haven't seen you around before," Hayner said.

"Yeah, I'm new." Roxas stated awkwardly.

"Cool, what lunch do you have?"

"Second."

"First, damn oh well. So when did you move here?"

"Just last month, it was my mom's idea." Roxas was starting to feel uncomfortable, he didn't usually get this close to people after just meeting them. But he remembered all this therapies with Zexion and learning to assert himself. He smiled causally and got more relaxed. When Pence joined the conversation, Roxas learned he was actual smart but took this class to be with Hayner. With Hayner's however behavior that wasn't hard to figure out how he ended up here.

"Yeah, we use to live in a small town too." Hayner noted "It was military placement for the time being, but after my dad quit we stayed there about two more years before coming up here."

"My dad was in the army too."

"That's cool did he retire?"

"No..."

"So is he still in the force."

"Uh- yeah over seas."

"Oh really where at?"

"Afghanistan."

"Dude bummer, when's he coming home?"

"We're not sure yet."

"Sorry about that dude, hopefully soon though right?"

"Yeah, right." Roxas smiled and began fumbling though his bag as means of distraction. Some of what he was said was true, hopefully they would avoid this subject from now on.

Classed carried out, the teacher was pretty cool despite being old. She didn't assign homework and even though it was a math class they were starting off with an art assignment.

His next class was actually art though, and according to his map it was on the other side of the building. It wasn't a huge walk but the halls were crowded as hell. The one minute bell rung by the time he was out the doors and he had to run down the alleyway to make it before he was late.

"I'm not late am I?" Roxas asked his breathing a bit harder than normal. Running was no problem for him but he wasn't use to lugging around a big bag.

His teacher didn't seem to hear him; instead she was off chatting busily with the students. As peculiar as that was Roxas didn't make a big deal of it, if she didn't notice he wouldn't be marked late.

Talking his seat Roxas looked around the room, it was quite large and filled with very warm in colors. Announcements hired on the TV and after a quick good morning the students on the screen stood up for the pledge of allegiance. Roxas stood, some students also got up while others remained sitting. He wanted to sit down as well, but for very different reasons.

He wasn't lazy, uncaring or thought he was 'too cool' to do the pledge like some other kids did. After talking about his dad, it brought back painful memories, and for that he would not say the pledge. He did however stand with his hand over his heart as a sign of respect.

"Okay class! Nice to meet you all for those of you who don't know me I am Ms. Bhed welcome to art 101!" Roxas gave the teacher a disturbed look. She spoke loudly with too much enthusiasm, and one thing he noticed that was distinctly differently from all the other teachers is that she wore no makeup. Her eyes were natural and looked narrower since he was so use to the mascara and eye liner that bolded and widened their appearance in other women.

She was clean and very organic looking, in fact her entire look screamed: hippie!

She quickly assigned the class to do a personal scavenger hunt: where they had to find people in the classroom who had done activities written down on the piece of paper handed out. It felt extremely elementary to do such a thing but it counted for a grade. Afterwords they discussed class expectations were strangely extremely flexible and lenient. Part of the final grade was doing outside activates involving cultural arts for two hours over the five month semester. Like visiting a museum, seeing local band concert, watching a school play and many other events. Never before had he had a teacher who encourages that sense of open and choice community.

The liberalness of it all made Roxas smile, he wasn't an artist but this class had a lot of freedoms. Looking over he noticed a sign in the window of the second exit door. The light outside highlighted the paper and from a reversed image he could make out the letters GSA and a rainbow. He rolled his eyes; he had no problem with homosexually except the nauseating stereo type that went along with it. Not to mention the aggravating bright rainbows associated with it. Whoever thought of that concept should be shot, twice. He swore to God, if Sora started wearing rainbows because of his new found orientation he would beat the living day lights out of him personally.

As he left for his next class which was English he noticed a lot more kids hanging outside of classrooms. Did this school not care if kids were skipping? Strange thing was that everyone seemed to be doing it; maybe it was some fad he missed out on? Whatever, he went to class and found a seat in the back corner of the room and waited for class to begin. Suddenly the bell rung again, Roxas looked up puzzled as students started to pour into the room. The bell had gone off ten minutes late. Then it clicked; this was the ten minute gap in his schedule, it must have been break. Well not like he had had anything better to do.

Unlike his math and his art faintly as well, students came in at a more promptly manner. It was however is first single grade class, while his other two were mixed. The teacher stood in front of the class and introduced herself. From her behavior he could tell she was a new at this. She looked way too young to have been doing this job for long. If someone like him could tell she was fresh meat surely the other kids would waste no time tearing her apart. She dressed nicely, a clear sign of self-respect and appreciation for her job. She had short brown hair, and something about her eyes seemed a bit off. But over all she looked like a nice person, what a shame.

"Good luck" Roxas thought grimly as he listened to the rest of the lecture. She was so open, so full of hope and new ideas it made him pity her a little. High schoolers are ruthless and love nothing more than tearing apart good people, especially adults who they blame for their problems. That was never a problem at his old school however since everyone was practically family.

Disrespecting your teacher was like disrespecting your parents, and parents there aren't the pushovers like other parents now of days are. Teachers thought no less and infiltrated a high mortality among its pupils. "If you can't get in line, they'll get you inline." Roxas smirked briefly at the old memory then noticed a girl a few desks away staring at him oddly. He glared and looked away covering his face with a scowl once more.

His next class was History, another single grade class and conveniently right across the hall from English. That meant he didn't have to rush and he was able to relax during his four minute passing period. Roxas opted to stay in the class again and wait. It was pointless to go outside when he didn't know anyone.

The history teacher was a bald and heavy set man. He seemed friendly but all the teachers were putting on that act, his seemed less sincere that his prior female teachers. It was then Roxas realized this was his only male teacher so far.

Was the staff mostly built of females? He certainly hoped not, it's not like he didn't like women but the last thing he wanted was more motherly figures in his life. One was more than enough, and guys as strangers never tried the whole bonding thing so he was safe there.

Speaking of male bonding, he certainly hoped he wouldn't run into Mr. Lumore the vice principal. He cringed at the old memory, things had not gone well at all that meeting, he better remember to watch his back.

The expectations for this class were simple, just some homework and basis class work. Seemed this guy just wanted to do his job and get it over with. Fair enough Roxas thought, so long as he didn't bother him he'd cause him no trouble.

The bell rung ending fourth period and Roxas knew it was time for lunch. He was grateful that he wouldn't be alone; he just had to find Sora. He headed to the first obvious place, the cafeteria but he couldn't find Sora among the masses. He figured locating his brother would be easy since he was wearing that ridiculous outfit. Honestly how could their mother have let him leave the house in that thing?

Roxas gave the cafeteria one quick glance over. There was no way he was going in and embarrassing himself by searching through the tables a second time. He was young enough looking already and he didn't need the title freshman misinterpretedly stamped on him.

He went back into the main building, already feeling lost but cautious of finding his way back to the main hall. He was surprised when down the first west wing there was Sora having lunch with a bunch of kids he had never seen before, along with that prick from orientation! Roxas growled and stormed his way over to his brother. The group of strangers looked up him with puzzled expressions.

"Sora, where have you been?" Roxas demanded

"Oh, hi Roxas! Sorry I forgot we were supposed to have lunch together. These are some new friends I made. This is Kairi, Yuffie, Vaan, Olette, Zell, Ashe, Tidus and you remember Riku don't you?" Sora said happily.

"How could I forget." Roxas grunted apathetically.

"Why don't you join us for lunch?" The girl named Kairi said.

"Yes, we'd love it if you joined." Said one of the other girls with brown hair and bright green eyes; Roxas looked away from them as he spoke.

"I can't, I have other arrangements, I was just, worried about Sora is all."

"How sweet of you to look after your brother, and here I though you came to stir up trouble." said the oldest looking girl.

"What's that's supposed to mean." Roxas spat, fixing a glare on her not caring about manners.

"She's just teasing you Roxas!" Sora butted in quickly, afraid his brother's temper would ruin things.

"You'd better get back to your other friends Roxas, wouldn't want to keep them waiting would you?" Sora added trying to gain back control of the situation.

"Yeah… right." Roxas said lowly then left.

The group watched Roxas walk away then carried on with their meals and conversation.

"What's up with him?" Yuffie asked.

"There's nothing up with him you guys, it's just we're going through some hard times at home and Roxas isn't taking it well."

"It doesn't mean he can't lighten up." Ashe added: being a senior there was a certain commanded respect the lower grades owed them.

"It's not like that okay; it just, our dad died two years ago and Roxas still hasn't gotten over it."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Riku said sincerely

"Just give him some time, he's not really trusting anymore and I'm really the only person he has."

"It's okay Sora, it's not your fault or his, we understand" said remarked Olette with a kind smile.

Roxas's next class was science; the teacher seemed well enough but there was defiantly something bizarre about him. He couldn't make out what it was yet, but there was definitely something there.

Despite that, Hayner was in this class as well. Roxas was glad to see a familiar face, which was an added surprised since it was a freshman class and Hayner had told him he was a sophomore. Roxas quickly went to the empty desk beside his and sat down.

"So, have you ever passed any of your classes or what?"

"Hey, we're both stuck in freshman math and science; I dunno what you're talking about not passing." Hayner came back

"Hey, I didn't choose my math class and frankly science has never been my forte."

"Not with words like that it won't be."

"Your grammar is terrible."

"Shut up."

For some reason this class seemed to drag on, despite there being no actually work for that day. Maybe it was just knowing they were only one period away from freedom.

Roxas was lucky because his next class was a free period, actually it was a study hall but with no homework he was free to use the computers and wait for the final bell.

He had a nurturing female supervisor for this class but she didn't actually teach. Neither supervisor did. He was more interested in the male teacher however; he had a good aura to him and a lot of wisdom. From the start you could also see he had a great sense of humor. He had a hard to pronounce last name though: Bal-th-i-er or something.

As a whole, the day had gone quite well, no homework expect for classroom expectations sheets and fees. His teachers seemed nice and he had made some new friends; Hayner and Pence. As he sat comfortably in the air conditioned room a sense of dread fell on Roxas.

He had to ride the bus home.

All characters are from Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts.

Question of the chapter: (for Americans mainly) Do you stand for the pledge of allegiance in school? Why or why not?

Question2: (everyone) Do you think rainbows should or should not be associated with being gay? Should there be made a new symbol?