Seer (TomTord)

Adversary

The beginning of his day was marked. The unpleasant ring of the alarm was usually the first thing he heard each day; signaling a different misery than before. He let out a miserable sigh and opened his eyes. The journey across the room seemed irrelevant, but if he did not turn off his aggravating alarm, his father would wake up.

'And that's exactly what I need today.'
He thought irritably. He usually preferred to escape to school without a bruised skull.

The scraggly teen slowly pushed his thin cover to the side, and stood, quivering at the chilling temperature. On dreary winter days like this, he would almost prefer to stay in the toasty warmth of his bed.

He feebly set his feet in front of each other and felt the chilling cold of his wooden floors nip at his calloused toes. A few steps further, and he was by his nagging alarm. He quickly turned it off and clutched at his bare arms.

Pale goosebumps were edging up his thin body from the chill. Reaching his beaten-down dresser, he proceeded to dig around in his riot of multi-colored clothes. The teen finally decided on a simple pale-green shirt, and pulled it on along with a dark blue pair of jeans.

He barely noticed the small rips in the knees of his pants, but it hardly mattered. By the end of the day, anyways, they'd be more than rips. Most likely, he suspected, jagged tears.

He quietly opened his pale curtains and cast his blackened gaze over the dark neighborhood. Few street lights lit the small area, but it seemed every nook and cranny was available to the eye. Glittering white snow decorated everything in his sight. The dim moonlight reflected off of it and shimmered in his eyes.

The Cimmerian teen exhaled and turned away from the window. He was briefly aware of his breath fogging the glass, but what did it matter? It was a useless memory; a fragment of his life that all led up to nothing.

He checked the clock again and reached a hand towards his sky-blue backpack. He gripped a strap and slung it over his shoulder in a swift movement. He was better off walking to school. The bus only brought limitless nightmares and pain.

He slid his favorite pair of shoes—his only, a black and white checkered pair that he had long outgrown—onto his feet quickly and exited his room silently. He wandered down the hall of his trashy house to the front door.

He rarely ate breakfast in the morning. He had too much anxiety about how hellish school would be. So, that being said, he would just get ready and exit the house. Today was no different. It was never different. The only differences in his days were the people who wanted to use him as a punching bag.

He opened the door, wincing as a slight creak emerged from the rusty hinges, and walked out into the chilled snow.

The wooden door closed softly behind him, and he took his first step into the cold, white powder littering the ground. His first reaction to it was to flinch away as some of it found its way into his shoes. But the teen simply shrugged it off. It wasn't even close to today's torture.

He trudged through the glittering snow and left a trail of sunken footprints with every lift of his foot. Yet again, another small detail that had no point in life but to take up one's fragile memory. His breath created small clouds in the air when he exhaled, giving twinges of warmth as they hit his face again. His mind became immune to the details of his stroll, creating a zombie-like trance.

Icicles hung from anywhere they could find leverage. Icicles on gutters, icicles hanging from cars, icicles towering above the snow; but, of course, the little facts were of no use, so he ignored them.