Chapter 2: Fern.

After that little "incident" with that boy who wears a white bear hat, Fern kept walking like nothing had happened. He could not believe that he had collided with him, what's more, he was the one who crashed first without even seeing where he was going, but...that did not matter, after all it was his problem and he did not care much to know because he was sad and he could not understood why he was out at that time of the afternoon. He should not be in school? Well, he must have been there too, but unfortunately he had been expelled, and that was due to a problem he did not want to talk about.

He pulled out his phone and saw the time...12: 38 p.m., it was getting late to go to rehearsal on that day! He quickly put his phone in the pocket of his jacket and started running to the place where he had to meet his friend Marceline and her band to start rehearsing.

Hi, well...I don't think I need to introduce myself, do I? Anyway, my name is Fern. I'm sixteen, now I'm going to rehearse with Marceline and her band, I know I'm coming late but it's not my fault, okay? I will quickly answer a question that will surely be formulating in your head: Do I go to school? Of course not. I was expelled so I don't have to go to school, support my teachers or listen to anyone...

Fern kept running, crossed a street with the light in green dodging as best as the cars passing by, the drivers yelled at him but he did not care about it, never did, turned in a corner on the left and finally came to an abandoned cellar where Marceline and her bandmates were waiting for him.

"Fern! Where are you? We were about to start rehearsing without you" said the black long haired girl, a little annoyed by the tardiness of her friend and bandmate.

"I know I'm late, again...but I swear this time it was not my fault" Fern replied, tucking a few strands of blond hair with green tips.

"I don't want to know what happened while you were coming here, but I'll tell you one last time, respect the rehearsal schedule. I will not tolerate you being late again; Fern" Marceline said, taking a deep breath and releasing the air to calm down a little "well, never mind, go and prepare for the rehearsal"

"Yeah, whatever "boss"" he says with sarcasm, he ran to one of the speakers to plug in and tune his electric guitar a bit before starting that day's rehearsal.

I can do whatever I want, I can go wherever I want and also stay awake until any time of night or even unveil myself ... in other words, I am a free spirit ... at least most of the time or when Marceline is not controlling me during the essays.

"Hey, Marcy, what song are we going to play today?" Asked the drummer of the band thinking that maybe she had something planned to rehearse that day.

"Um, now that you say it...I had nothing in mind but..." she replied "I think we could play some dark wave theme, something like...um...The Cure do you like that idea?"

The other four remaining members of the band (two girls, the drummer and Fern) started talking to each other and agreed to play a dark wave song with her. Marceline smiled because his friends liked the idea, connected his bass to the amplifier and pulled the microphone up to his height, the drummer struck three times his drumsticks and everyone began to play the song "Mint Car."

They spent the remainder of the afternoon rehearsing "Mint Car" and playing different songs from The Cure for a long time until the sun went down and it was almost night, but it seems that none of the guys in the band realized of it, when they touched the time it seemed to fly around them and they had no notion of what was happening in the world, what's more, they could continue rehearsing for days and maybe that did not matter.

"Ok, I think that was all for today...are we practice here at the same time tomorrow?" asked one of the girls in the band looking at their teammates and their leader.

"Of course, let's just hope that a certain person who is here is not late again," Marceline replied, although she could not deny it, sometimes she was too late for certain places.

"I told you to be late, but it was not my fault" Fern explained again "listen...I...I was coming to rehearse when..."

"Yes Yes. I understand... you don't have to explain it to me again, man."

"Well, if everyone understood then...I think I'll go home, I have nowhere else to go" Fern disconnected the guitar, he put the strap with which always loaded the guitar behind his back, that way avoided being stolen or even worse, falling and breaking.

"Are you sure you want to leave? Why do not you go out with us tonight? We will go to a very good party that is a bit far from here" the band's drummer told him.

"You know that I cannot refuse to go to a party and more if is far away, but-" Fern tried to sound friendly, although that was not a part from his personality "the rehearsal was exhausting and all I want to do is get home and rest"

"All right, then we'll see you tomorrow"

Fern said goodbye to his bandmates with his hand, left the cellar and began to make his way back home.

When he got home, it was totally dark. He had already got used to entering when the lights were off; after all, no one had been waiting for him on the last two weeks. He walked down the hall, kicking some old magazines lying on the floor along with paychecks, letting his guitar rest against the wall, and headed for the living room.

"I'm home!" the boy screamed, but as he expected, no one answered him.

He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge that was now disconnected not because the light went out, but because the engine was damaged and had no money to fix it, took out a can of soda and closed the door of the fridge with a kick making it shake and the paint on the kitchen wall peel and fall to the floor on a small mound of dust.

He reached the living room, sat down on the dirty old sofa. He took the remote control, turned on the television, hoping to find some interesting channel to watch that night or maybe he would watch whatever was in front of him until he fell asleep, something that rarely happened...

He started zapping with the remote but there was nothing interesting to see, all the channels showed the same thing: static. In the end he left the channel thirty-four that also showed static like all the others.

"What a waste... fifty-nine channels on TV and all of them show the same thing..." Fern thought. For a long time he sat on the couch watching the static of the television while he took his soda, when he finished he stared at the screen and listening to the deafening noise that produced this when there was static by a signal failure until his eyes hurt due to fatigue, he saw the time on his cell phone and knew it was 2:39 a.m.

How long had he been there watching the static on the TV screen? He did not know, he did not care to know. He took the remote control, turned off the TV and went up the stairs to go to his room to rest, as he walked down the second floor hall of the house to go to his room stopped to see his parents' room...it was empty, now he did not care to know where they were so he just went to his room.

As he stepped in, he took off his shoes, leaned back on his bed facing the ceiling without changing his clothes, and gradually closed his eyes until he fell asleep.