Forgotten Light

Part 1 – Fighting Darkness

"Wake up! Wake up you fool!"

Max opened his eyes, already awake when the rude voice decided to ruin his peaceful quiet. The bright blonde boy sat up and sighed, pressing his bare feet to the cool tile under the bed he slept on and standing, arms raising in a stretch.

"I'm up I'm up" He mumbled aloud, running a hand through his hair as he shuffled over to his basic brown desk, opening one of the drawers and taking out appropriate clothes for the day. He was woken up at the same time every day, the voice never ceasing to give up on that aspect of his life, and damn was it annoying to be woken up at five-twenty-seven every morning, even in the summer. Max walked through the door of his room and over to the bathroom across the hall, a little to the left, setting his slightly dirty clothes down on the pale grey counter and looking in the peeling mirror.

"Hello there Maxy" He said to himself, noticing his eyes looked like a paler blue than the usual vibrant emerald, "Damn me!" He cursed aloud and unscrewed one of the tap handles just enough for the pale brown water to spill out the spout, Max's hands diving under said water and splashing it over his face, cleaning off his sleepy stupor, soon redressing himself in two-days-ago's clothes.

Max walked down the hall and turned into the living room, heading over to the singular chair firmly nailed to the wooden ground and seating himself upon it, eyes swinging up to the paper-like television set straight across from the blonde, Max's lips turning to a curve as he watched images and heard voices of various humans saying lines long rehearsed and memorized, redone and remade again and again. Max thought about how the whole world revolved around 26 letters to his knowledge and millions upon billions of numbers and sequences, how the words he heard were sounds he associated to things, they could really mean nothing yet they meant everything.

Max turned his head when he heard the slide of a plate, eyes fluttering more open from their half open quiet thinking way as he noticed a ceramic cup and plate, filled with food he didn't wish to identify as anything other than slop. "Crazy what they feed us here huh? Dogs in a cage..." Max hummed and stood, feet walking over the ground, that to his wonder didn't crunch under his feet like he thought the paper and twigs should have under a pressure such as human weight. Max slotted that snippet of thought away into his, 'to read later' list and bent to pick up the plate of food now placed at his feet, bringing the food to his nose and taking a long sniff, mouth curving into a sad laugh at the brown slop, fingers curling around what felt like a sandwich and bringing it to his mouth, taking a small bite.

"Huh...not bad..." He remarked and ate the rest of the sandwich-slop, dropping the plate from where it suspended in his hand in the air, spotting a piece of the shattering plate falling into his steaming water, smiling widely, "Throw it Maxy" he hummed as he picked up the cup and turned, walking over the now tile ground and raising the cup by its handle, feeling the scalding water washing over his head before he threw the cup with as much force as he could, seeing it shatter against the wall, a laugh jumping to his lungs as he ran over to the cup, picking it up again and throwing it, watching it shatter all over again, "You know you could be put in a hospital for how crazy you're being!" Max whooped joyfully and slammed his foot against the plate, watching it fly across the room, now noticing his head was wet. "Oh bother" He hissed and growled, suddenly walking back over to the chair and sitting down, pouting.

"That wasn't very nice" He whimpered and looked at the TV again, watching the channels changing quickly, again and again a new face popped up, maybe an advert for the latest vacuum cleaner, there was even a porno, yet Max didn't have the chance to catch context as voices and sounds bombarded his mind, some screams, other laughs, even more talking.