Interstellar Ross

Prologue

March 19th 2014

"Boys, I won't tell you again, buckle your seatbelts." Miss Lopez screeched from up the front of the bus, her voice adding to the cacophony of girls and boys giggling, snapping pictures on iPhones and the flicking of lighters from the very back of the vehicle.

"Stop taking photos of me Daniel!" Tori turned around in her seat, causing yet another bout of complaints from Miss Lopez.

"I'm not doing anything." He fell back into his seat, swiping with his thumb on his phone and laughing with his friends at the photos he had taken of his crush. He suddenly turned his head to look my way and I shifted my gaze to the fogged window beside me. The world outside was tinted in hues of blue and grey, homage to the dark myriad of colours that marked my pale skin.

I nervously tugged at the sleeves of my sweater, hyper aware of what even one pupil seeing me would result in.

"Daniel!" Tori continued to whine.

I looked her way to watch her reach over the back of her seat to snatch Daniel's phone.

Miss Lopez stood from her seat. "That's enough you two!"

Time seemed to slow to an impossibly low speed, the very Earth nearly breaking to a complete halt as a truck collided with the front of the bus. I watched in both sick fascination and horror as the bus began to turn, bags and teenagers who had neglected to buckle their belts fell towards the opposite windows. I watched the ice-slicked bitumen rise up to meet my window, glass imploding into the yellow shell of the bus and showering vulnerable flesh with shards of glass more deadly and penetrating than knives.

I attempted to shield my face as I rolled with the bus, over and over and over like I was a rag doll in a tumble dryer. A sense of newfound calm washed over me, a kind of quiet and stillness found inside the eye of a twister. Flickering images filled my vision, presenting realities to me with a blurred-almost dreamscape quality. I saw rain spattering a grimy cobblestoned street, swords clanging against one another, a chiselled model posing for a sculpture and a quaint field dotted with poppies and marigolds. The serenity winked away to darkness, leaving me to wake up juiced by drugs to numb the pain of two broken legs and a cracked rib. Little did I know it was only the beginning of pain and serenity, one forever always following the other.