The Heirs of the Stars: Rebellious

Chapter One: Mindilynn's POV

I shivered and pulled my gray jacket tighter around my body as the air conditioning unit blasted in my World History class. Most of the students, excepting solely those boys who were trying to prove that they were "manly", were hugging themselves and rubbing their arms to try and get warmth back into them. Even though it was summer, no one could help but loathe the broken air conditioner as it blasted unrelenting waves of icy gusts into the classroom. Indeed, our teacher, Mrs. Trenton, had even opened up the windows and the doors to try and give the frigid breezes someplace to go, but to no avail. However, we wouldn't have to deal with such trivial problems like broken conditioning units anymore. In just a few minutes, we'd finally be out free from Midvale Middle School. In just a few minutes, we'd all go from freshman to sophomores as the summer began, stretching out before us like the endless waves of the ocean.

"Hey Mindilynn," Laura Lowery said, sitting next to me. Her brown hair, while slightly frizzy, cascaded in gentle waves down her back like a flowing waterfall of hair. She too was bundled up in a jacket, hers peach-colored and remarkably thin. Underneath it I could just see a thick-sleeved tank top from track earlier in the year. She was rubbing her legs, exposed by the shorts that went halfway down her calf, but even the cold couldn't dampen the excitement lingering behind her blue eyes the color of deep ocean waters. We had become friends in seventh grade, when we were in the track team together, along with Desire Lambert and Ralph Mattson, two of our other friends. Despite the fact that Desire was currently in Leadership, and Ralph was in General Sciences, we had decided to meet up after school to go to the hospital before heading back to Desire's house for a movie night. "I can't believe that we raised so many funds. It's crazy how many people opened their hearts to donate to help Colson."

I gave her a slightly weak smile at the reminder. Colson was gone, stuck in a comatose state, very possibly for forever. "Yeah, it's pretty crazy."

The day that I found out about Colson's condition, I had gotten to school the same as most others, the biggest difference being the lack of Jonah and his cronies. Colson had apparently gotten footage of what they had been doing to me that night in the alley, and as many as could be identified were temporarily suspended, if not in temporary juvenile detention like Jonah. I'll admit that they had done worse things to me before, things so unspeakable that I tried my best not to ever mention or think about them, so I was glad to see them caught for once. The aftermath of the night of the alley attack had led to me to spend a few days out of school, recovering from miraculously light injuries considering the whole "brick-to-the-head" bit. Apparently that was a really easy way to die, yet the wounds I sustained were almost laughably tame, leaving only a bump and an incredibly mild concussion in its wake. When I had gotten to school that day, I tried to find Colson to thank him before class, but he was nowhere to be found. Not far into the first period of the day I was called down into the counselor's office, along with David Chandler, Laura, Desire, and Ralph. At first, I thought that they wanted us to tell them for the billionth time what had happened that night, but I was quickly proven wrong. They told us that Colson's body had been found underneath a billboard on the road and, that while he wasn't dead, he was stuck in a comatose state indefinitely. The doctors couldn't identify why or what had happened to him, and nothing they did seemed to improve his situation. Later, Desire had come up with the idea to start a fundraiser to support the studies on him. Today, we were going to finally turn in our funds, some eleven thousand four hundred twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents, at least if I was remembering correctly.

"Mindi? Hello, is anyone in there?" Laura asked. I blinked a few times to clear my head. Now wasn't the time to go on thinking about that. With any luck, they'd fix Colson. Somehow. Laura slightly frowned in concern. "Are you okay? I said your name about three times before you even noticed me."

I straightened myself in my seat and absentmindedly pulled my long ebony hair in front of my shoulder to braid it. "Um, I'm fine. I just got lost in thought that's all."