The Tragedy of Evil

3 months before

Have you ever heard of the phrase "prove your battleskills"? I doubt that anything could describe a situation concerning this sentence better than the first day at a new school. It means everything to you. A million questions fill your head, drowning your thoughts, eliminating your concentration in the core and getting you to lose your nerves.

Will I be okay here? Will the people like me? Will I get home safely without having broken into tears already? What do I have to do to be on the good list? And - will I even make it to lunch break?

All these question must seem vaguely familiar to you. Everyone has wondered about the answers to those at least twice in their lifes. Getting to primary school and then the more feared one ... high school.

Of course, Luke Cassil asked the same questions. In fact, he wasn't able to think of anything else but the next break - hoping these lessons would soon be over and gotten through with the least amount of pain. And as always, he was the one welcomed like monsters were. With as much hatred as we could manage. Well, from the most of us. To me, he seemed like a lost kid. Lost, angry and, most of all, scared.

Luke dug his fingernails into his palms, clinging to the feeling. He would get through this. It was the first day at a completely new school. That meant he would be able to get a new chance. Not like his old one, where he'd unintentionally come out in front of his whole school and the principal had almost called his father. He'd gotten him to simply suspend him on cause of unproper behaviour.

Not that it wasn't obvious, but it seemed like his Dad wanted to shut out the truth for as long as possible. So he had just nodded at the paper and thrown it into the trashcan. Luke had stared at him.

"I wanted to get outta here for months," his Dad had said. "How would you like a new city, huh? A new school?"

Luke had swallowed. To be completely honest, he was afraid of the idea. He had built this minimal measure of a life here. He didn't have any friends, but at least he'd been safe here. And he could be sure no one would hurt him.

On the other hand, that was the exact problem, too. He wasn't seen. No one at school looked at him. It wasn't like they were scared of him or simply were disgusted by him - no, even then they looked at people. But there, he was over-seen. No one simply cared. He didn't exist.

He had looked down and to the floor, not knowing what to say. He wasn't even sure what he was thinking. Like every time when he was at home, he couldn't manage to speak out loud a simple sentence.

"Kid?" His voice had sounded more threatening then and he swallowed immediately, nervous. "Luke. Look at me when I'm talking to you."

Luke had raised his gaze and stared at his father in a dull way that had scared himself. His Dad had shook his head in a way that assured Luke, he was in fact disgusted. His father looked at him like he was something that had just come back from the dead and crawled out of a swamp.

"So? I asked ya a question, kid."

"Yeah," Luke said, but there was no emotion in his voice. He didn't feel anything, either. Just hollowness where something had used to be. "I guess I'd like that."

"And?"

Luke had stared at the floor again, memorizing the strange patterns in the wooden ground. Like faces, staring up at him to meet his gaze. Faces that were screaming.

"I'm sorry for not answering right away."

"Right away," his father had snorted in disgust again and put his hands on his hips. "Why ya talkin' like that, huh? Always those ... noble phrases, these idioms. You can't talk like a man? Can't even behave like one. You sound like a stupid mewling girl, kid-o!"