Iceheart

You Know Something's Wrong When Your Nightmare Says Something's Wrong

NOTE: THIS CHAPTER WILL BE HEAVILY REVISED LATE

As the bus halted to a stop, Jason got up out of his seat. He was almost surprised that the bus driver didn't notice his scratches, but he figured he wouldn't. The bus driver didn't really care about the kids on his bus. Jason shrugged and walked off of the bus to see none other than Riverdale High School. His school.

Jason opened the doors to see a crazy mess of students milling around, to and fro, trying to get to classes. He sighed. It had seemed like a unique experience when he'd first started high school, but now, it just felt like the same drill every day, never changing. It felt like he lived the same day over and over again. Get beat up, go to school, get beat up again, head home, get yelled and potentially beaten up by his dad, eat dinner, go to bed. Same thing every single day.

Jason looked at his schedule again. He had scholl-chosen elective. Jason trudged off to Room 207. It was the third Wednesday of the month, so it was going to be a counselor day. He growled under his breath. He hated the counselor days. There was no choice, however. He opened the door and saw Ms. Mathers, the counselor, and the projector screen down. Ms. Mathers was showing a video. And that was never good.

"Good morning, Jason," Ms. Mathers said, tapping her foot. "I bet you have a good excuse for your tardiness."

Jason checked his watch. He was a few minutes late. He kicked his feet on the ground and looked down.

"Sorry ma'am," he said. "It won't happen again..."

Jason took his seat next to one of his only friends, Garth Maxwell. Maxwell was what you'd call someone who "walked to the beat of a different drum." He never had fit in. Short, skinny, glasses, unkempt hair, he was a misfit in all rights. He was always alone. That is, he was until he met Jason. It was their love of superheroes that caused them to drift together and eventually, become friends. That didn't mean that Maxwell couldn't lay into Jason, though.

"What on earth were you doing this morning?" Maxwell hissed.

"Nice to see you too," Jason scoffed.

"Your shirt is red all down the back," Maxwell said, "you have Band-aids on your face, you have yet another black eye, and you have bruises all over you. You got into another tussle with Jaxon, didn't you?"

"If you could even call it a tussle," Jason said. "I didn't even get a blow on him."

"Either way," Maxwell said, "you are going to get busted by the principal for fighting one day. Now I guess we need to pay attention, so we better get quiet."

Jason shrugged his shoulders and averted his eyes to the screen.

"Derealization," the video narrator droned. "A common disorder in teenagers, yet surprisingly not well known. It causes victims to feel as if the world isn't real, or that it's merely a movie playing around them."

The film continued to run on, but Jason wasn't paying attention. His head felt fuzzy. His vision blurred and filled with static. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was in a snowy wooded area. It was dark. Black and white. The wolf stood before him.

"What the?!?" Jason shouted, stumbling back on his feet. "How am I here? You only come in my dreams!"

"You feel it, don't you?" the disembodied voice of the wolf said. "The pounding head, the fuzzy feeling, the disconnected voices. You feel it driving through your head. The world almost feels black and white, doesn't it? Like a... movie, you could say."

Jason scowled at the wolf. "Oh no," he grunted. "You are not going to persuade me into thinking negatively. There's no way I am gonna believe that I have that mental disorder."