Skater Boy [thepencilprize14]

i

Gun rampages didn't happen in Stapleton. There was no particular reason for it - crime rates weren't any lower than everywhere else; it wasn't anymore of a safe haven.

They just didn't.

At least - that was what everyone had said, swearing it right up until the day that fifteen-year-old Lucas Wren had raged into school one rainy Wednesday, wielding an illegal pistol and shooting it at everything that moved. The school mourned the death of two of his fellow students just hours later.

Chester could still remember that day large as life. Two whole years had crawled by but he could still recall the sticky heat of danger, the choked cries of desperation. And he could still remember looking up at Lucas, the barrel pointed straight at his forehead.

But Lucas had warned him before that something was going to happen.

"Don't come in tomorrow, Chess," he'd said, his eyes large and serious as he'd tried to make Chester promise.

But Chester had just laughed. "Why?"

"Just don't," had been his rather dissatifying reply.

But despite the haunting look in his best friend's face and despite the reminder that Lucas had texted to him the next morning, Chester had turned up atn 8am on the dot - just like he always did.

Chess blinked hard. Sometimes, he wondered what might have happened if he'd heeded Lucas' advise on that terrifying day - he wouldn't have the scarring memories, that was for sure.

He closed his eyes, remembering Lucas and the crazed emotion in his irises and the drying blood on his fingers. He remembered when he'd screamed and pointed the gun at Chester - at his best friend.

"I thought I told you to stay at home!"

Chester had just frozen, half perched up against a rickety set of art drawers. "Lucas?"

But even though it was Lucas, it wasn't Lucas at all - the boy with the wild breathing and haystack hair wasn't his best friend. He wouldn't have pointed a gun at Chester - not in a million years.

"Go." His voice had been hoarse and tearing with pain. "I'm not going to shoot you, Chess," he said. "You're my friend."

So Chester had scrambled to his feet, his gaze never leaving this mad man's. "Why?" he'd asked but it had come out as barely more than a whimper.

And Chester had seen the hurt and the sadness flooding down and drowning him as his friend answered. "Because they hate me, Chess. They hate us. All they do is laugh - even Eden does, Chess. She's not supposed to laugh at us... Don't worry - I won't hurt her," he'd added hastily. "Don't we deserve to be the top of the food chain? Even just once in our lives?"

And even though Chester hadn't agreed, he'd understood. Because Lucas was right - he knew exactly what it felt like to want nothing more than to be invisible, to just hide away from the world. Because he too had days when he knew that it would be a lot easier to just not wake up than to face another labourous twenty-four hours.

"Okay," he'd said to Lucas because he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Okay."

And then he'd run away, shaking, trembling like an earthquake scoring a massive 10.0 on the Richter scale. And he'd just kept on running until he broke through the doors and into the outside, collapsing on the green.

"Chester? Chester are you okay? Are you hurt?" It had been a teacher - of course it had been a teacher, none of the students had actually cared about Chester Calthorpe - and Chess had shaken his head frantically.