Barry's War

Prelude

   "Nice," Barry mutters from his sly grin as he sent a meme with the '69' punchline to two of his friends. Barry Bolton, fifteen years old and one of the youngest members of his class (despite his 'old man' name), quickly spied a glance up, to make sure he wasn't caught on his phone and not doing the classwork. This young man was an avid believer that nothing about the structure of his DNA would prepare him for life, and so he sat in determined defiance looking at his instagram feed. Eventually, his feed got dry and he saw old posts reappearing, so he pocketed his phone in his shallow trouser pocket and read the time. '11:54, almost there...' he thought gloomily. As if a cinder block had attached to the back of his head, he struggled to keep it afloat. So exasperated was his will to carry on that he even considered doing his work, his eyes begrudgingly staring at the sheet as if lasers were to burn it to cinders. 

  "Hey Bazzo," called out one of his friends, Adam, from behind him, "nice." They smirked to each other. Clearly Adam also wasn't in the mood for synthesizing proteins.  Unwittingly, Barry's brown-eyed gaze floated just above Adam's rounded face and locked into Cindy Bloom's green and blue eyes. So transfixed was he that he almost missed her wave of greeting. Hesitating for a moment, he reciprocated. Suddenly his back went from kill-me-now slouching to as straight as a fence post. His and Cindy's relationship was strange. At least to him it was, to her it seemed apparently clear-cut. Friends. That word boiled his gut and knotted it at the same time. They had known each other since year 7, and he had started to feel things for her in late year 9, when they had gone from acquaintances to close friends through a series of get-togethers and  an increase of his confidence. Sickeningly, he always was reminded of that time when he had failed to pluck up the courage to ask her out. The peak of their time together, as it was all downhill from there. Painfully, they were still close, just not as close as they were. Barry always felt like he had a million wasps parading in his organs; his eyes closed in defeated silence. 

  As he was in the middle of his love sick episode, a chair was pulled up next to him. His attention was snapped to his left as he saw a beautiful figure sleekly plonk down next to him. 'Shit,' he thought, 'oh no. Fuck.' Temporarily widening in terror, his eyes saw the body of Cindy. In only a few split seconds he adjusted his posture and fixed his face so he doesn't look to be dying from shock. She smiled her warm, inviting smile, "Hey man," she said, opening a conversation that Barry would not prefer right now, as he was right in the middle of brooding in hopelessness. 

"Hey Cindy, what's up?"

"Wow, you haven't done any of it either?" She joked, presenting an empty sheet of her own. They both laughed, as Barry scolded her in jest. In a flash, she returned the heat.

"Oh yeah? Well I don't need to do this because all of it is already confined within my noggin'" Exaggerated Barry.

"Yeah whatever man, I know as well as anyone that you're not that smart"

"I am offended, bitch"

"Be offended then, bitch"

  This banter continued for quite some time until they couldn't hold it together anymore and let their laughter rattle from their chests. Amid their laughing, Barry caught a glimpse of her creased up, laughing face. It almost hurt him how much he adored her. Wishing that this moment of intense happiness could last forever, their teacher, Mr. Washington, crept out of nowhere and shut it down instantly. 

"What on Earth is this?" Gesturing to their empty pieces of paper, he wore a mask of disappointment. So frowned was his brow, that he looked like he was wearing a hairy arrow pointing down at them. A hairy arrow of conviction. Without further argument or discussion, they were both deemed a lunch time detention. Exchanging glances, the two culprits were stifling their laughter. Mr. Washington walked away shaking his head, and Barry and Cindy let some of the steam out by laughing as quietly as they could. Barry thought it even funnier to mimic his eyebrows with two black white board pens and contorting his face into the grumpiest mess he could possibly pull off. His efforts weren't in vain as Cindy erupted into a boisterous laugh that shook the class. 

  The steam train that was Mr Washington angrily roared down the row and pounded his palms into the table. A single, "out," was all that was needed. Still attempting horribly to confine her laughter, she stumbled out of her chair and followed sir. Barry felt like the biggest prick running. Single-handedly, with the assistance of two whiteboard pens, he had thrown Cindy into bigger trouble. Worry rose through his body and seized his throat as the orchestra of indescribable calls and laughs from the class quietened down. 

  Suddenly, Cindy froze. So did Mr. Washignton. A piece of paper was suspended in mid-air that was originally breezed off a table by the teacher's clumsiness. Unease and foreboding seeped into the atmosphere. Fearfully, Barry looked around. His class was now a pantomime of still faces, mid laugh yet silent. The windows were a dark purple and oblique. Heart rate beating in his drums, he stood up, the scraping of the metal chair legs on the hard surface inaudible, mute. A shadow darted. Barry whipped round. Nothing.

A glass tinkered. Barry looked right. Nothing but a spinning conical flask.

A breeze shifted around his legs and fingered through his hairs that were on end. Barry slowly turned around again. 

  A shadow. Or nothing. A mixture of box stared back at him. There was nothing to see, but Barry knew it was something alright. Shifting, the weird shadow moved, latched to the wall by four limbs as if a lizard. Skulking across the corner of the room it was staring at Barry, who was too petrified to move or even breathe. It protruded from the wall, all four limbs stretched to their limits and yet it came closer. Barry managed a sharp step back as the thing came closer. A split opened up of pure darkness, forcing the 'head' of the creature to crease apart. He felt as though he was staring into death. 

  Mutely screaming, Barry's fright had seized him. The cold hand of fear clasped around his throat and froze his lungs and heart, that kept rapidly beating. 

  Slowly, the gap of nothing came closer and was looming over his head. What happened next was confusing. He was back in his chair. Lying in front of him was his work yet to be completed or even started. However what he saw in those split seconds was maddening. That weird creature, if it even was one, was seconds away from engulfing him. A cry like a dozen cats being forced under a hydrolic press from start to finish accompanied by an orchestra of crickets from a nightmare shocked through the air and a bright, blinding light invaded the room. All in the space of a split second. The cry lived on in his ears. The light remained in his eyes. The creature stained his mind. However this was but the beginning of his journey, as he sat mute and unmoving, watching Cindy, still giggling, exiting the class.