Dan keeps his eyes on the floor.
No one wants to see him, so he helps them and makes their job easier. He's too tall to be inconspicuous, and too well known to avoid attention completely, but at least if he looks away he can't offend any of them. Although, his presence is probably offensive enough to them.
Not even the teachers want to go anywhere near him. He doesn't blame them, he's sure that they're not comfortable having an impure in their classes. The only reason he gets away with going here and not being in one of the 'special' schools (more like prison camps, but no one says anything) at the other side of the city is his parents, and how they are like the people around him. Normal. He was an accident, a mistake. Part of him wishes that his mother had just gotten rid of him when she had the chance.
He trips a little on his feet, and curses. Of course, he would be remarkably clumsy. He, the very person that needs to be as invisible as they possibly can. Falling over in the middle of a hallway crammed with teenagers wouldn't exactly be the best method of keeping himself hidden.
Still, he's survived six years here. He can survive this one too.
For the first time since he walked into the building this morning, he glances up and looks around. Everything is very much the same as it always was. The walls are high and painted a strange cream colour. Peppered along them are examples of the pupil's art work, pictures of smiling students and motivational words. 'Everyone has talent' he reads. He's tempted to mutter 'except me' under his breath, but decides against it. Talking to himself isn't low-profile.
Maybe he does have talent, anyway. He's not half bad at the piano, even he can admit that. It's just not the type of talent that they're talking about. That kind of talent is the talent manufactured before the students are even born, the talent found in their genes that their parents pay for. The technology is so cheap nowadays that there are so few people like him - naturally conceived children without any engineering - and he can feel how much everyone wishes there were no people like him. He's not normal, he's a freak. Unclean. Impure.
He squeaks as he bumps into somebody. Freezing in his tracks immediately, he looks up and sees a black-haired boy, fringe hanging over his face, and his blood runs cold. Phil Lester. A pure, a normal. Shit.
"I'm s-sorry-" he stammers, but someone in the gang of friends laughs and steps forwards, past Phil. Within seconds he's right in Dan's face, his green eyes matching up to Dan's own dull-brown ones, and a hand is grasping the collar of his school shirt.
"Did you try to talk to one of us? Look at that, an impure having the balls to talk to one of us," the boy sneers. His face scrunches up as he does, as if he's suddenly smelt something bad, and Dan's heart drops. Still, he says nothing.
"Nothing to say for yourself? Come on then, we'll teach you a lesson," the boy growls, pulling Dan along down the corridor. A cheer erupts from the other students, many of them barely eleven years old, and Dan tries to stop tears welling up in his eyes. They probably don't know what's going to happen to him, but the worst part is that even if they did they wouldn't care. No one does.
The entirety of the gang follows them down the corridor, the sound of Dan's shoes squeaking as they're dragged along the floor resonating in the hall. He recognises all of them, even the boy holding onto him, as from his year, people that he's never spoken to and never absorbed the names of. Apart from Phil, the boy that won last year's mathematics challenge that Dan had been forced into by his parents.
Dan's heart thuds in his chest as he's hauled into a bathroom. This isn't the first time, he knows what comes next. Tears that he can't stop fall down his cheeks and someone bursts into laughter as they point it out.
