Pray Before the Dawn

Chapter One

Andrew grabbed Chris' tie and yanked it towards him. There was a strong, pink tint to his face and an angry glint in his eyes. "If you laugh at me in class one more time!" He yelled, eager to protect his social standing. "You laugh at me all the time!" Chris argued, trying to fight back tears as well as bullies. He attempted to block another slap to the face, pushing back hard on Andrew's chest but was ultimately tripped by Andrew's best friend Francis.

Two boys towered over him, once again, laughing and jeering. Chris fell face forward onto the ground, giving his knees a nasty thump as he landed on his hands. "I hate you!" Chris wanted to roar, though it turned into a sob, a sob that pleaded for the taunting to end. Andrew swooped down and grabbed a handful of Chris' curly hair. "Freak, you even so much as look at me funny, and you'll know" Andrew spat, lifting Chris only to throw him back down. With a satisfactory smirk, he and Francis walked off.

He was only thirteen, but he felt like the loneliest, most unlikeable kid in the world. Nobody to sit with at lunch, nobody to sit with on the school bus, nobody to hang out with at the weekend. Even his younger brother joked that he was the "cool" one and had about five friends around the house every other Saturday. Chris, on the other hand, hid in his room; paranoid that Andrew, Mason, Owen, or any of the other kids at school would hunt him down. Chris catching was what they used to call it when he was younger, though at least he had a few friends to play with back then. They abandoned him when it got worse.

Chris managed to pick himself up from the floor, snatch his satchel, and shuffle off to the library. Nobody went into the library, except Henry Weber who was also an outcast. Henry wasn't too bad. In fact, Chris liked Henry, but he was three years older and often had a very close friend around. He didn't need some lonely thirteen-year-old tagging along.

He was in his usual place when Chris opened the heavy wooden door. He did not look up from his newspaper as he spoke, his eyes speeding over the printed words of the latest economic movements. It was a worn-out routine. "Jeremiah?"

"No, Andrew" Chris responded, drying his eyes with his blazer sleeve.

Henry nodded, almost dismissively, concentrating more on the paper than on the young boy.

Chris took a seat on the far table. This was a shelter. Books surrounded him. Some dated back to the turn of the 20th Century, yet only he and Henry seemed to remember it existed. Chris felt safer here. The best part was the grand piano. It stood proudly in the right-hand corner, its lid locked for generations and markings of the past across its body. Though it hadn't been played for decades, Chris sometimes imagined himself winning the school over by doing so, and getting the lead part in all of the school plays afterward.

During school, if he was not escaping in fantasy, Chris was probably re-reading Sherlock Holmes. He loved those books dearly, though not as much as music, there was serenity in swapping hellish school for the backstreets of a Victorian London, cloaked in mystery. It was handy, as often his favourite music practice room was not free, to have found a much-needed escape through words as well as notes. He always carried a copy in his bag and sat down to re-read the Hound of the Baskervilles. He savoured every word.

"Are you going to attend lunch today, Christopher?" Henry later asked with his usual grandiloquent, yet distant, tone. Chris' posture stiffened, and he shook his head timidly.

"Not after Monday."

"You can't avoid the dining hall forever!"

Chris' eyes shot up; his expression was aggravated yet haunted. His hands clenched. Heart rate quickened. He was insulted. Did Henry understand how much the rest of the school despised Chris? Henry quickly realised that he had overstepped some unknown, personal boundary. His usual fixed expression was overcome by an apologetic pity, though he didn't invite Chris to know of it.

When Henry had left, the thirteen-year-old was accompanied only by the familiar silence. A grumble in his stomach argued against his decision to avoid the dining hall, but the muffled laughter that seemed to mock him asserted that it was better to be hungry than face another round of the usual torment.

Chris returned to his book. Tapping, bouncing his leg, and folding the corners of each page relentlessly, a fierce desperation began to tear him up. A caged animal aching for freedom. A firework unable to contain its sparks. Chris needed comfort. He needed music. It brought him solace. It was his strength. A small candle in never-ending, suffocating darkness. The thought of going to the music block midway through lunch made his knees weak. His chest hurt and skin spike. He couldn't risk it. There was every chance of a defeat. It was always a defeat. Chris cursed himself. He could feel his stomach dive and twist. Weak, useless, unlikeable. Why was he such a failure?

A seat pulled up next to him. "I don't think you're a waste of space, mate," a voice said, an arm pulling him tighter as he spoke. A warm, silvery, yet small voice. "You're better than them, Chris, you don't deserve to be treated like garbage," it continued. Not even Henry's leftover salad, as the packet landed with a snap on the wooden table, could break Chris out of the daydream. He savoured it; longed for it to be real. It hurt that it wasn't, and it showed. He tried but failed, to hide a slight trickle of tears down his face. His whole existence ached for someone to care about him. He couldn't deny it. His loneliness was tiring, and his constant state of sorrow, of self-hatred, fear, and misery, was exhausting.

The bell, signalling the end of lunch, woke Chris up from his sorry state. He'd spent much of lunch reluctantly eating the rest of Henry's salad, and staring at a wooden table apathetically. His lack of sleep had caught up with him, and as he rose to his feet his knees began to wobble. He had P.E.

Now, Chris had been a fairly athletic child. He much preferred English, History and Music, but his Dad had taught he and his brother how to play cricket and he quite liked table tennis. Unsurprisingly, though, he hated physical education during school. It was just supervised, compulsory harassment.

Chris was late to P.E. The trick was to sneak into the changing rooms when everyone had finished changing into their sports kits. Only the girls would still be getting ready, which meant he'd have the whole boys changing room to himself, and with any luck the P.E. teachers would forget he was there. One time he managed to spend the whole of the lesson hiding in the toilets.

"Rat's arrived," said one girl maliciously, still tying her shoelaces. Her name was Sophie, equipped with her shiny new polo shirt and usual greeting for Chris. Her friends around her laughed, and a few of the boys joined in.

Chris tried to avoid them. He found his way into the changing rooms and sat on the bench with his head in his hands. The sports teacher, Mr Barrett, told him to get changed as quickly as he can and meet the rest of the boys outside. Chris just wanted to lock himself away and pretend he didn't exist. With two hours of sleep, sports with 30 kids who shunned him was not what he wanted, or needed.

Across the way was a mirror. Chris could just see how pathetic he looked. His body was fatigued, with baggy eyes and multi-coloured bruises. He was pale from anxiety, whilst his face and stomach was still tinted from being hit several times on a daily basis. His trousers were torn from being chased and having to hide in prickly bushes. He couldn't stand the sight of his own self. It made the pit of his stomach drop further.

Chris' day carried on in much of the same fashion, and though the last four hours felt like four weeks, there was a welcome relief in the fact that his Dad was picking him up to take him to the vinyl store. That meant that other kids wouldn't try to batter him or chase him down the road. Freedom, at long last.