call of the crows

𝟎𝟏 ━ friends who became enemies

JUST OUTSIDE
WEST VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL
8:00 AM
2 HOURS BEFORE THE BRAWL

HE WHEEZES, TRYING TO catch his breath. But just as he almost gets it, it's punched out of his lungs once again. Santos coughs uncontrollably as another kick to his stomach comes to crash down on him. At this point, he could barely see; his vision was blurred and he couldn't get up no matter how hard he tried. Then, he heard his voice.

"Never act like we're buddy-buddy ever again!"

Santos continues to breathe heavily as he lifts his head up to look at the blurred image of his former friend. His red, spiked mowhawk takes away attention from his face, but Santos always looked at his face. He had grown used to looking at him, even when they distanced from each other. But right now, the sweet, timid kid he used to be friends with was gone, replaced by his evil, poor imitation of the original.

Santos coughs weakly, "Eli... P-please..."

Eli crouches down in front of Santos' face and grabs his chin. "The name's Hawk. Never forget it." He harshly shoves Santos' face against the wall. Eli stands back up and spits on the floor. "Alright, we're done here." Hawk says as he ushers his new friends to follow him away from the bloodied scene of the alleyway.

Santos sits up against the brick wall, inhaling weakly. As soon as Hawk and his friends are out of sight, Santos does his best to stand up on his own. Now, should he go to the hospital or to the nurse at school? Hospitals cost money... School nurses, not so much. School nurse it is. The entire walk towards the nurse's office Santos was thinking about Eli. How did everything come to this? He wasn't sure why he always asked himself that question. Santos knows the moment their friendship went sour; he just wasn't willing to admit it. Instead he would always opt to tell himself that one day, he woke up and everything was just different.

THEN.

Santos was one of the many new kids to attend West Valley High School the year prior. He was a sophomore who was expecting a very different school than what West Valley High actually was. Santos thought this would be like his other high schools: rough, low budget, not the best classes, littered with gangs. Santos had always been taught that you need to stick with the tough guys to survive.

So, that's what he did in the past. He would go to extremes to prove himself to these people, to gain their trust and their protection. Santos wasn't a seasoned fighter by any means, but he knew how to throw a punch. And one punch is enough to get a small time high school gang interested. That is what Santos was expecting from West Valley. But, he was sorely mistaken.

At West Valley, the rich and the well-liked ruled. Santos was not rich... Or well-liked. He had never been the charming type of guy despite his decent looks. He had always been stand-off ish and closed off towards others. And now, he didn't know how to properly socialize with people. This was a completely different playing field and it wasn't level for Santos from the very beginning.

So now, the new strategy was to become invisible. Don't talk to anyone, don't get involved in anything, don't draw attention to yourself. It was going good the first couple days until Kyler appeared. Kyler Park was a textbook, disney channel original movie bully.

On Santos' third day of school, Kyler poured milk all over his head in the middle of the cafeteria. Now, everyone's calling Santos 'the Milkman' or 'Señor Leche.' People give him cartons of milk, intentionally spill milk on him and fill his bookbag with milk. That was just the first week of school. He hoped that going into the second week, people would forget about him again. Essentially, he hoped for a reset in the entire student body's brains.