Six Steel

Chapter 1: Pistol Roulette

The Norman sat on the table in the middle of the room, its shadow dancing from the nearby candlelight. Five boys sat in a circle around the gun, exchanging quick glances with each other, each assessing the situation they had haphazardly placed themselves in.

One of the boys was thin, with a pair of square glasses that tended to slide down his nose and cause him to periodically push them back up along the bridge of his nose so that they wouldn't fall off. His hair, which was cut about mid-length (for practicality), was primarily blonde, save for a large spot on the back of his head that was a shade of dark brown. The other four at the table would make fun of him and the brown spot on his hair, which he would explain was something he had been born with. None of his friends could argue this fact since they had not been there for his birth. However, they retorted by saying that since they were not there for his birth, how could he not just be lying? Circular conversations like this would go on for many hours among the group, but the boy with the glasses didn't mind. This was not the time for these considerations, either, as his eyes were fixed upon the candlelit revolver on the table, stroking his earlobe, a habit that had formed at some point in his life and now was a permanent mark of his character. His name is James Westin.

If you were to move counter-clockwise from James, you would see a small and timid boy who wished he had chosen far more different friends than the ones who encouraged him to play this very unsafe game. He frequently found his fretting drowned out by the other boys' excitement to engage in dangerous activities. Most of the time, he could find solace in James' wisdom since he was older and more well spoken than most of the other boys in the group. However, James saw this specific game as a form of psychological play and more interested in how he could mentally bend his comrades than the dangers of pistol roulette. The only real reason the timid boy spent time with everyone else here was for safety in numbers in a dangerous place like Alten, and because his brother was already friends with everyone in the group. His name is Patrick Craw, and he swore to himself that he would find new friends if he made it out of this game alive.

The large shadow looming to Patrick's right was the next boy in the group. At first glance, you would think a grown man had somehow befriended a group of teenage boys, which would also make you wrong and incredibly presumptive. The large boy had simply struck an unbelievable growth spurt that produced copious amounts of muscle about his entire body. It seemed at some point that the body had given up on finding places to store the teeming protein in the boy and had started cramming muscle anywhere, like clothes in an overstuffed suitcase. There was a pronounced bend in his nose from missing a step on a staircase and subsequently smacking the affected area on a banister. However, he tells anyone who asks that it was from a fight with a crocodile. He wasn't sure what a crocodile was, but people looked impressed when he said it, so he didn't mind. He now stared at the gun blankly. His name is Carter Marlin.

If you continue moving along to the fourth boy, you'll realize the stark similarities between him and Patrick. It would almost be as if Patrick had suddenly developed an unmoving confidence in everything he did and wanted to impress the other boys in the group with any new skill he could produce. This was not Patrick, however, it was his twin brother who had invited Patrick to join the group of wild boys in the first place. He looked up to every boy in the group and always pushed himself to catch up to them, even though he was the youngest one in the group with Patrick. Even now, he stared intently at the pistol on the table, and his hand started to twitch, fighting with himself about whether or not he should grab the gun. The moment stood as he pondered his action. His name is Max Craw.

So far, you have been introduced to four of the five boys at the table. Four of the five boys sat in a circle around a Norman dramatically lit by a candle flame. Four of the five boys pondering over who would be the first to grab this gun sitting before them. These were the four boys who didn't reach for the weapon first. Not even Max, who had finally swallowed his anxiety and went for the gun, but nowhere near as fast as the one who did get the revolver. The one with the pistol now held the barrel to his head while candlelight illuminated his ice blue eyes, which were covered partially by the mess of curls cascading from on top of his head. Determination was etched through every feature in his face, and every other boy caught their breath as they waited for the game to begin and possibly end with the one who now held the gun to his temple. His name is Parker Sticks.