The Lake of Trials

(1) Good Morning to the Lost

 I remember waking up in a soft bed with a strange boy right there next to me under the covers. Shit, no no no no no no no no no no. I pull up the covers praying to... I don't know... that we're still wearing clothes. Whoever that prayer was to, it worked; both myself and the strange boy were wearing matching striped pajama pants, although unlike myself, he was missing a shirt. Ooh, lucky me... whoever me was.

Slowly sitting up, I had the urge to look around. The room we were in had a simple layout; four walls painted a mint green, a door to my left, a window to my right revealing a lake shore a few stories down, and in front of the bed was a wide dresser with six drawers and a mirror on top. Through the mirror I saw the state of my terrible bed head. Extreme tangles starting at the roots of my black hair went all the way down to my mid back where my hair eventually began ombre to an electric blue. My olive skin had goosebumps all over; what is happening to me? Then I heard my bed mate stir.

"Man, Yoli, what the hell did they hit us with in that last round?" He sounded angry but it wasn't directed at me. I looked back to see him sit up and oh good glory, those abs were wonderful. Taking me by surprise, he laid down again, but this time with his head in my lap. It felt reassuring, like we've done this many times before. "I still can't believe we won. Oh, by the way, how is your abdomen holding up?"

He reached for the hem of my shirt, making me jump. Slowly, as if not to scare me, he stood up on the bed, moved right in front of me, and sat back down so that we were face to face. It was only then that I saw all of him. He looked like he was a mix between white and some sort of asian. His own hair was drawn back into a ballerina worthy bun, the same black color of what I assumed was my natural hair. While standing he looked to be around five feet three inches. Once he sat down, I was able to see that his eyes were light brown, single lidded. There was a lot of acne on his forehead, but it didn't look to be anywhere else. Had I chosen to look down, I would see his beautiful abbs once again. But now a new part of his body I hadn't seen before drew my attention; about two inches to the right of his adam's apple was a line of stitches that went from the start of his jaw line to the base of his neck. "What happened to you?"

His eyes followed mine till he realized what I was talking about, "Don't you remember...?" he sounded almost hurt that I didn't, "You had a front row seat." An image popped up into my head of him hitting a burly man that was wielding a knife with a hardcover book, The Problem with Newton, but not before the man went straight for his throat. Jason! I yelled, Please be okay, you need to be okay.

"Jason."

"That's my name. Now you have to tell me how your abdomen is. He got you too, you know. Should I replace the bandages?" Why was Jason fighting the guy?

"Were you trying to protect me?" the words were bitter as lemon on my tongue.

"Only in the same way you were trying to protect me. Also, Yoli, why aren't you calling me Jax?" So I had fought for him, maybe with Jax; presumably against the knife guy.

"Why do you call me Yoli?" Was it my name?

"Geeze, how hard did you hit your head when you fell down? I've called you Yoli since we've met, which I'm pretty sure was two years ago on the academic decathlon team. You didn't like me deviating from Yolanda at first, but just a few weeks after we met, you had everyone calling you Yoli too." All I did was give him a look of confusion, a few seconds in and his head fell. "Damn it, those green eyes are telling me harder than the rest of us thought." The rest of us?

"Who are 'the rest of us?'" I made air quotes with my fingers.

He held up his hands haph-hazardly, "First, Let me check out how your abdomen is doing. You were flinching a lot throughout the night."