I awoke to the sound of the shower being turned on. It took half a second to remember where I was sleeping, another quarter to make the link, the remaining quarter before the water hit me was filled with thoughts such as 'oh fuck' 'why me?' 'If there's a god he hates me' and other such ideas.
IT WAS FREEZING!!! Damn it, the god damn leech must have turned the heat dial right down!
I literally leaped out of the bath, and promptly slipped on a bar of soap that I knew hadn't been there when I'd gone to sleep, I fell banging my head on the sink, I'd never fallen unconscious before this point, ever! Yet I'd read enough to know the black dots and fading borders were sure signs I was going to be out of it for a while, as my vision faded I saw Lucile standing over me looking immensely satisfied, even more distinctly I remember my last thought before I finally went under, 'I'm going to be late for school'.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 4 hours later...
I woke... my head was instantly throbbing; it hadn't been a refreshing sleep by any means.
I jolted up onto my feet, she wasn't there. Which was lucky for her because I was fully intent on killing her at the time. I checked the clock 11:00 which if normal sleeping patterns applied meant I was unconscious for 4 hours. Still as excuses went for getting out of school this was a good one, now all that remained was to admit myself to hospital with a potential concussion.
I swore that when I caught up with her I would kill her.
The rest of the day was uneventful, although I did find a note saying quite simply 'I'll be in touch'. Still as long as she wasn't annoying me I was fine with it. Strange that I was more focused on her single minded torment of myself than the possibility of her killing me. No actually that made perfect sense. My ability to think and formulate clearly was my most prized ability her annoying me disrupted that, thereby removing clear thinking which involved worrying about imminent death, and a single-minded focus on removing the cause of such a problem.
The next day my life was back to normal and my career back on track.
Wednesday was swimming after school but that to was uneventful,
Thursday passed in it's usual dull manner with a small amount of smoke from the science lesson being the high point of the school day, Judo also passed without major incident.
Friday was the usual mix of looking forwards to the weekend and struggling to stay awake.
Saturday, my personal favourite, get up at 7 have breakfast get dressed, etc, etc, etc,and by 7:30 be at the local leisure centre for karate, at 9 quickly run to the other side of the centre for karate then at 10:30 walk home.
A quick bowl of soup later and I turned on my laptop and began surfing the internet, my 1st visit was to one of my favourite websites, .net where I spent the next half hour drooling to see if there were any new developments on zero point energy or exoskeleton technology, sadly nothing new but I live in hope.
My daily research done I moved onto online gaming, Runescape for around an hour, half an hour of AdventureQuest Worlds, then 2 hours alternating between games on Kongregate.
At 5:30 I cooked a small dish of pasta then ate it, then I read till 7, rereading a rather well thumbed copy of Brisingr. My reading done I went to Judo – the high point of my average Saturday – the walk there was refreshing though this time I didn't use my shortcut staying in the well lit areas, I arrived at the club just in time to put the mats out, and I might add to have a heart attack.
The good for nothing, rotten, foul, fiend! How did she do it? and more to the point why? I sighed, it was going to be a long session. I was utterly correct, throughout the training session an invisible battle of wills took place, the session started with the usual warm up, a jog round the mat.
The usual set of drills during the jog, sidestepping, sprints, running backwards and breakfalls, then the coach John making up some excuse gave us all 20 press-ups, now 3 years ago I would have practically collapsed at this now it was easy – also made a point of doing a few press-ups during the session on my fingertips or knuckles – then once those were done we started our practice throws (throws where you go into the throw but don't actually throw them)
Despite my best attempts I somehow got paired with Lucile, depending on what she knew of judo this could be quite fun, to my utter joy it turned out she knew next to nothing, so all I did was the most ineffective throw in all existence till we moved on to actual fighting (No need to give away any pointers)
I knew that despite her lack of knowledge she'd still wipe the floor with me, particularly as she'd spent most of the time watching the others train. But you know what...
...I was absolutely correct, it was hopeless, I got thrown with sacrifices, combos, forwards and backwards throws, leg grabs, almost every throw I knew was used on me in that one small session that I might as well have been Uke (the person thrown in practice) than a combatant. John was impressed to say the least, this continued throughout the session – though I managed to get something in on groundwork, strangles and normal turnovers failed to work but I did disable her once or twice with armlocks.
At the end of the session after putting the mats away I walked down my park shortcut.
I stopped halfway down and waited for the inevitable confrontation, no I hadn't lost it, considering the trouble my bloodsucking associate was going to I very much doubted she would kill me.
I heard a small rustle which if it was the expected person was definitely deliberate.
I waited calmly for her to make her appearance, the slight rustle to my left occurred again, I saw the leaves move slightly out of the corner of my eye, a slight smile at the attempt to unnerve me was my only reaction.
This time a rustle occurred on both sides of me, now that was unnerving and definitely not good for me, for despite her speed even she couldn't circle round me in that amount of time without having to take a path that would let me see her – even in this gloomy half-light, nor was she capable of being in two places at once which meant...
Both my arms were grabbed by my as yet unidentified assailants, from either side. With the 2 of them restraining my there was little I could do. A 3rd walked out of the bushes, I'd recognise that silhouette anywhere. Looks like Louis still held a grudge over losing a fight with me in Yr 7 and had decided to use the gang of thugs he now led to achieve his ends.
"Hey Louis, long time no see." To my credit my voice sounded steady and casual
"Shut up, scum!" his voice filled with hatred I definitely hadn't earned, my jaw ached as he punched me in the mouth.
"Still a coward I see, you need 3 friends just to be brave enough to even try and –" the rest of my sentence was cut of as he punched me square in the stomach.
"Listen you piece of shit, if you think you can goad me into a one on one fight then your an idiot." He stated flatly.
"Square root of 625?" I enquired; well if I was going to take a hiding I might as well goad him as much as possible.
"Eh?"
"Thought not, you never were very smart Louis."
That's when the two thugs holding me pushed to the floor before each kicking my squarely in the ribs, Louis joined in, I fought back at first landing a few good hits in but all too soon was lying in a ball with my arms protecting my face as the three cowardly thugs continued to kick me till I was unable to move, tom y credit I didn't whine or whimper even when my rib rebroke , my left forearm and several ribs soon followed.
Finally after what seemed like an hour but was probably 5 minutes they stopped. It was over, I would probably be found in the morning, bleeding internally, close to death and almost hypothermic but I would still be alive.
I vaguely heard Louis tell the two still unidentified lackeys of his to scarper while he finished up.
Finished up? What more damage could he do without killing me? Obvious answer, he couldn't! He had never intended to let me survive this, he'd merely enjoyed giving me a beating. He grabbed my shoulder and turned me onto my back, a switchblade in his hand.
"I can barely move and you're still not capable of fighting me unaided." I wheezed trying to put as much contempt in my voice as possible; I think one of my ribs may have punctured a lung.
"Actually I was going to let you die on your feet," He sneered, then he roughly lifted me and propped me on my feet against a tree, far easier to stab me when I'm standing I presumed.
And so the steel glinting blade stabbed forwards closing the distance between me and it at an alarming pace, despite the fact I'd always told myself I would look death in the eye when it came I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the final burning pain to end all my pain.