Darklight

Chapter 1: Who? What? Why?

The days to come. The days that have come. Today. This is among the plethora of subjects which go inside and out of my mind when I am lying awake in my bed during an hour which I should be deeply asleep. I spend hours upon hours of my days thinking and very little else, if anything. It's possible others think as much as I do, possibly even more, but there is not a surefire way to tell.  I certainly have friends in my life.  Most of the time, however, they will be quick to roll their eyes and cast aside whatever thoughts I speak aloud.  So what do I do in a world where very few are willing to hear my stories? Nothing, usually.

"Matt!" called out a nasal, flat voice clearly belonging to one with masculine qualities.  This was my friend AJ. I knew he had something ridiculous, yet likely unimportant to say. "I was online, and I saw that I could buy a really cool-looking shield!  For only fourteen dollars!" He told me with a wide, crooked grin upon his face, his teeth slightly yellowed.  AJ was a tall, lanky teenage boy with pale, olive skin, and he wore thick glasses over his dark brown, almost black eyes.  He was wearing a heavy black-and-white striped hoodie, with the white stripes faded into a sickly yellow beneath a layer of dried sweat and dark food stains. His hair was wiry black, and he had allowed it to grow into an unkempt and tangled mess, imbued with heavy grease from not showering in a few days. 

Yeah, this is typical AJ.

"Cool story bro!" I called back to him. In the digital, virtual realm of the vast sea known as the internet, the phrase "Cool story bro" would be considered an insult. Here, it was still an insult, yet at the same time it was also a compliment. I have full understanding that that made no sense, but at the same time, it did.  

The two of us were sitting outside, on the gray concrete ground, during the lunch hour.  It was  a crisp autumnal afternoon, and a gentle and cool breeze would brush against our shoulders and kick our hair up into the air every so often.  We had positioned ourselves in front of an old, metal door painted with a discolored red, beginning to fade and chip off with age.  The front of the door was stenciled with a black "34" in the center.

"So do you think I should buy it?" AJ asked me, still wearing that goofy smile upon his face.  It was quite rare for him to smile in such a manner and for so long.

"Sure, dude." I replied, looking back down at the ground.  Honestly, it was not up to me whether AJ should invest in that shield or not.  However, fourteen dollars? That was more than what I paid for a used copy of my favorite video game (which was outdated when I bought it, by the way), which was fourteen dollars and thirty cents. Yes, the economy during this time was slipping and unsustainable.

"All right! I'm going to carry around that shield and look so cool with it!" AJ laughed before going back to a blank expression on his face as per the usual.

Oh, AJ.  This particular instance must have been some sort of outlier, as he was almost always rather deadpan and cynical.  He also had a pretty infamous reputation for being almost cartoonishly antisocial, and some students often incorrectly speculated for him to have a hit-list for the students at the school.  Despite all of this, he was also one of my best friends at the time. Honestly, I think he still is.

"Matt! So how awesome would it be to go on an awesome adventure full of pasta, birds, cats, and cuteness?" a higher-pitched, feminine voice asked from behind me on the concrete ground.

This... was not AJ. 

I turned around to look into the eyes of Susy, a friend of ours.   She was a teenage girl of about my height (five-feet six-inches), with long red-orange ginger hair which went down to her shoulders and a pale, almost white face riddled with freckles. Like AJ, she wore thick glasses upon said freckled face. Her blue jeans were torn and ripped (specifically at the knees), and she was wearing a fitted, solid black t-shirt as I'm almost positive most of her  shirts were. And she was obsessed with yaoi, or romance between two male fictional characters. Again, I am almost certain she still is.