Blackstone Academy: The Rogue

1. Troy Roman

Troy (Male P.O.V) 

Date: September 14, 2238

"We're sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you breaking news." A robotic feminine voice blared from the speaker mounted at the front of the classroom, shattering the silence.

Automatically my mouth moved, silently reiterating the words I had heard over a thousand times. I could recite what happened in each excruciating minute of the thirty-year-old video without missing a single detail. Don't worry. I won't. I'll just summarize it for you.

A severely pixelated man with a plastic grin on his blotchy face would appear on the screen.

He would remain frighteningly calm as he mindlessly read the teleprompter informing the audience to stay inside as grey, thin beings with soul-sucking black eyes ran rampant through the streets, attacking everyone. 

Everyone.

Age, wealth, race, sex didn't matter, and you could pray to whatever God you wanted, but they still came.

No one group was left unscathed as the vile bastards ravaged the human population, effectively positioning themselves at the top of the food chain.

In a matter of days, they disrupted everyone's lives, forcing them to work together to survive.

Survive. That's all they could do given the circumstances.

The black block letters stamped across their picture would label them as mutants, but I preferred the spawns of satan.

Promptly after the final word left his lips, his plastic grin melted as realization sunk in. Staring slack-jawed into the camera, he would scratch his head, messing up his hairpiece. Then-

"Please stand by." The robotic voice spoke again.

"You have to be kidding me! How many times are we going to watch this video?" I mumbled, slumping in my chair and folding my arms loosely across my chest.

"Pause video." Mr. Lennox, the instructor for the class, spoke the command to the sixty-five-inch interactive board at the front of the classroom.

The video froze on the anchorman with his lips slightly parted before he could utter a single word as Mr. Lennox unfolded his long, lean body from behind his desk and stood before it.

He lowered his black square-framed glasses to the tip of his nose and leered at me over the rim. I unconsciously swallowed as his piercing, steely blue eyes pinned me to my chair. "Do you have something you want to share with the class, Troy?" He asked, causing everyone to turn and look at me.

Shit.

I thought I had whispered that, plus I sat at the back of the class with only one other student sitting near me, and he hadn't reacted to my question. Mr. Lennox must have super hearing or something. 

"Yeah, uh..." I cleared my throat and looked around at my classmates. Most of them seemed indifferent to the situation, but a rare few were practically begging me with my eyes to voice my opinions.

I glanced at my feet, sticking out the other end of the desk, and weighed my options.

Keep quiet or say something?

Remaining silent would keep me out of trouble, but nothing ever changes if you don't fight for it.

Fuck it. I sat upright in my chair and returned my attention to Mr. Lennox.

"Yes, I do. We watch this same video every single time we come to this class. And it does nothing but reminds us of the lives we lost. Instead of providing us with information beneficial in our fight against the mutants. Like their origin or..."