Misfortune

The most hellish lesson on planet earth

As usual Alric's registration had been fairly quite only the occasional look of sympathy from people before his first lesson which would be maths with the worlds most boring teacher Mrs Paylor.

The bell rang and everyone grabbed their bags and left for first period. As he left the room he saw the group that he had been dreading seeing all morning. It consisted of six rugby players and four football players who had all been friends from the start of high school, they were protected by the PE teachers and got away with anything and everything since the head of the school taught PE. They were all dashingly handsome and had girls throwing themselves at them, no matter how disgustingly they treated them. They also had rich parents and were set for life, they always had the best things and made sure everyone knew it. They embodied everything Alric hated and now he was their target.

They saw him coming and he swallowed the fear, anger and repulsion he felt as he walked past doing his best to tune out anything they said.
"How's the drunkard?" Shouted the leader of the pack, Darren, as he passed.
"Drunken dad, drug addicted and prostitute mum, no wonder you're so fucked up." His right hand man, David, shouted following Darren's lead. The group laughed as Alric pushed through a crowd of people to escape the torment, but he knew full well he couldn't, they were in his lesson and were scattered all around him. All had easy access to ways to torment him and it was all too easy for them to do it.

Alric turned a corner and pushed open the first door getting into his lesson as soon as he could and taking his seat in the centre of the room. Mrs Paylor was already there and the rest of the students filed in over the next ten minutes. Last to enter were the pack of jackals all of whom gained very big smiles when they saw him.
"Hurry up boys take your seats and get your books out, you're late." Mrs Paylor scolded the boys. They sniggered but did as they were told.

As the lesson started Mrs Paylor started rambling on about vectors and transformations and half the class looked as if they were about to fall asleep. Behind Alric James, one of the football players, grabbed a handful of Alric's long black hair and yanked it, dragging his head backwards at an awkward angle. The position was incredibly painful but he refused to let it register on his face though and kept it as blank as he could.

"Come on fight back, you know you want to." James chided, slapping him in the face.

"Please, let go of my hair." Alric said with as much kindness as he could force.

"Only if you hit me first, you scumbag."

"James what are you doing!" Mrs Paylor screamed, "Get off him this instance you're staying after school with me!" James just smiled as he let go and shouted to his friends:

"This guy won't even stick up for himself, he's a fucking coward. Drunken dad, whore druggie mum, and a coward, rounds out the set there doesn't it." Alric just put his head down and got on trying to work his face as blank and unreadable as ever as everyone laughed. Beneath his exterior was a writhing pool of anger and hatred at what the world had given him to deal with, he wished he had the power to end this torment and repay them the pain and torture they were giving him.

A few moments after the laughing stopped a jerk went through his chair. As James started kicking it. Alric ignored the kicking and continued trying to work through his questions when a shoe came flying through the air and hit him in the back of the head. That was the final straw. Alric got up turned around, shoe in hand, and slammed it down on James is hand causing him to cry out in pain. Three years and that was all he was going to do as he grabbed his bag and barged out of the classroom.

He was halfway down the corridor when a hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him into an office. The leering face of Mr Barrymon was stood at the door. The headteachers office door locked and I knew my day and possibly my life was over.