Chasing Corruption

Prologue: The Daughter (Braen)

Something warm trickles down my lip. The impact of the punch is starting to set in; a slow painful feeling creeping outward from my nose. The pungent smell of sweaty teenagers from the humid locker room is slowly cut off and I fall to the ground. A dark fog swirls in, blacking out my vision slowly, yet consistently. I feel myself falling; falling into a deep, shadowy abyss of unconsciousness. Only able to make out the faintest of voices. Screaming, yelling, and one high voice that somehow sticks out to me in this madness. Who it could be? I don’t know. It has a ring to it, a magical jingle that I’ve never heard in my life. I grasp at the edges of the abyss, trying to listen harder, only finding that it is getting tougher to keep my grip. The sides crumble and my hands slide and a moment of weightlessness harbors in my stomach. I don’t feel anything when I hit the cold ground.  

A single beam of light streams through some white blinds, projecting through my closed eyelids. Distant beeps ring in my ears, probably from a machine. Beep, beep-beep, beep. The sterile smell of a hospital drifts into my nose and my eyes fly open. I push myself straight up into a cream-sheeted firm bed. I look around at the impossibly clean, square room and notice a small woman dressed in white by a machine.

“What—what’s going on?” I ask her, my voice cracking and wavering. The woman looks up with her old face and places an index finger on a single button located at the top of the tall gray machine.

“Oh, it’s nothing dear,” the woman replies, smiling, “Just go back to sleep. You’ll feel better after some more rest…” And with that, she presses the button and clear fluid streams down a tube connected to the machine. It flows down to where the tube connects to the inside of my elbow. When it reaches me my vision goes black yet again, and I fall dead to the world once more. 

“Braen Foster to the office please. Braen Foster to the office.” The dull voice of the receptionist blares over the school intercom.  Usually everyone in my class would regard me, glancing over and–mostly just the girls—smile. I look up from my biology report and observe my class. Everyone is looking down, scribbling on their paper or writing notes to their neighbor. Mr. Gabon is sitting at his desk with the dreaded red pen and scowling. The only thing I can hear is the distant drip of the fish tank filter. This class isn’t usually this quiet. I stuff my papers into my backpack, slide out of my desk, and walk up to him.

“Uh, Mr. G, can I go to the office? They called me,” I ask him, and he nods and waves me away.

I walk out the door, looking back to see if anyone was looking at me yet, but not one single head turns my way. Weird.

I saunter down the empty hallway, my footsteps echoing off the dirty blue lockers. I decide to take my time, because a call to the office generally isn’t a good thing. And that’s why I’m confused. I have good grades, I haven’t been in any fights (lately), and I don’t see any reason that someone would be mad at me. Maybe it’s just some paper work or something I need to take home to my parents.

 I approach the office door and take a deep breath. My school (Conley High School) is pretty old so it doesn’t surprise me that a long, loud screech drawls out as I push the door open. I walk around a corner and come to the receptionist’s desk.

“Name?” she asks, not looking up from her computer.

“Um—Braen Foster.”

“Principal Poughton would like to see you in his office.”

“Alright.” I walk past the receptionist and down another hall. The walls have tons of pictures of old and current staff members and some are really creepy, to be honest. Near the end of the hall, I spot a picture of Mr. Sepulchre, our old janitor. Some say that he was a ghost and died at this school by falling off a cherry picker while fixing a light outside. Apparently he came back to haunt the kid who broke the light in the first place. While Mr. S worked here the “second time,” we hardly ever saw him and most thought he worked at night so we couldn’t see him as a ghost. I don’t believe it.