Midnight Alarm

c h a p t e r I

Zoro pov:

*beep* *beep* *beep*

A faint beeping sound interrupted my usual dreams of katanas. An alarm clock.

"...Arrghh..." I groaned and covered my head with my pillow, "...Is it...morning already?"

I tiredly push the covers off of me and stumbled over to my window.

"Go to hell, Sun... Nobody cares about you." I cursed and threw the curtains open, "...?"

It was still dark out. The cool night wind swept through the window and caused the curtains to flutter around me.

"Shishishi!" I could hear child-like laughter echoing through the silent darkness, "So you're my neighbor, nice to meetcha! My name's Monkey D. Luffy!"

A boy, around 16 or 17, sat on the railing of the balcony across from my window ginned up at me.

Surely, he was the one who set the alarm.

With a snarl, I said in my most aggressive voice, "piss off."

...

"So heya, the name's Monkey D. Luffy. I'm new in town. Let's all be friends!" That familiar voice and laughter filled the classroom.

I couldn't sleep a wink last night after I drew the curtains again. Even after I closed the window I could hear his cheerful voice lofting through the thick glass and disturbing my sleep.

I kept thinking, does he not know what piss off means? I obviously don't want anything to do with him, so why is he still talking to me?

"Okay, Luffy, you can sit next to Usopp. Front row, fourth seat." Our teacher, Mr. Shanks said and I buried my head in my hands.

Finally, I started to doze off in the middle of a lecture about how lucky we are to be young. But Mr. Shanks noticed and yelled at me.

"Zoro! Don't fall asleep on me now! I'm gonna have to write you up! And you know how much I hate doing that."

I muttered some incomprehensible words under my breath and complained, "But Sir, I'm tired."

"I am too, Zoro. But look, I'm not sleepy."

"That's because you spent the night at Mr. Mihawk's house again." My friend Nami called out and the class laughed.

"W-what? How do you know that?"

"I like to know stuff about people, helps me get money."

"Nami! Blackmailing is illegal!"

"It's not blackmailing if I haven't done anything yet!"

The usual arguments erupted in class and I lowered my head to my desk again in defeat. My eyes were closed and the loud shouting sounded like white noise. Everything sounded like noise in my head, blurry, nonsensical noise. Except for him.

"Shishishi! You look like you need some sleep, did you stay up all last night?"

...

Ehehehe...

A cliffhanger. I've always wanted to write one.

So this is my new book, Midnight Alarms. Ummm... Help. I have no clue what I'm doing.

Please comment, share, vote, and...umm... do other things that'll help promote the book.

(479 words)