Through A Shattered Lens

chapter 1 High Life

"Atlas get down!" Polly shifted her eyes up to where he climbed higher and down to the hard concrete that could be his doom. 

Atlas looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes, then continued to climb. 

Polly inhaled, exhaled a long painful breathe and turned around. "I can't watch this." She folded her arms around her body.

"Do get a grip on yourself," Zoe wiped the flat of her nails over her sleeve and took a drag off of her cigarette. "He's just doing that to get a rile out of you." She walked off.

Polly followed in the dark, "Where are you going?" 

Zoe followed the length of the concrete wall and disappeared.

"I hate you both, why couldn't we just go to the movies like normal teenagers," she mumbled to herself. "Zoe?" She walked up the slight hill to find a circle of people near a bonfire. 

"What took you so long?" Atlas shoulder bumped her. 

She just shook her head. 

"Ah, don't be like that." 

"I was supposed to be home a half hour ago." She scanned the crowd for Zoe.

Car headlights made a semicircle to her left, it's inners full of her classmates. Smoke led her to the sound of a gentle strummed song, off centered to the crackle of blue embers. Unable to locate Zoe, a panic stricken look painted her face. 

"We just got here," Atlas grabbed Polly's hand from under her folded arms and pulled her and his smile closer toward the center of the two gatherings.

All Polly could think was that there were far too many people than she would have liked. Death grip on Atlas's hand, she bobbed and squeezed through, trying not to make eye contact or touch anybody. 

"Hey Polly!" A boy she didn't know stepped in front of her. His body severed her tether with Atlas. 

"Hey, a-" she smiled but wanted to do anything but. 

"See I told you she was too stuck up for you!" Brad, a boy she only slightly knew came to wrap his arm around the first boy. He looked awkwardly between Polly and the other. 

"What?" Polly felt the blushing heat spread across her cheeks. "I'm, i-"

"I,I,I,I,I...." Brad mocked "she's obviously mute," his fair blonde eyelashes almost translucent as they fluttered. He spun his smirk around to a group of his friends, taking pride in his taunt. 

Uncertain, she looked between where Brad was and her empty hand. She felt a bump and then a shove from behind her and it didn't matter, she had no way of avoiding the fall. She stumbled forward, her hip pitching to try and avoid any of them. It happened so fast. 

On the ground she lie still, dying of utter embarrassessment.

The crowd burst into hoots and hollars and jests and pushes to see. 

She wasn't sure how long she stayed there, the fall had done more than bruised her ego that was, until...until she raised her head to discover somehow, she had fallen, head, no face, no, nose-first into the menacing blonde Brad's crotch. 

The very moment she moved to jerk her head back, he placed his hand on the back of her head and began thrusting. "Oh Polllllllyyyy, ya, mmmmm, Polly, you can wolly my doodle alllllll day." 

K-THUMP!!!

Polly felt a harness clasped to her upper arm. 

She whipped her head up. "Let go, You're hurting me!" She caught the rage in Zoe"s eyes and felt the piercing of her stiletto nails into her flesh. Polly hurried her feet to try and make pace with her friend but her brain hadn't yet been able to catch up to the events at hand. A tug and a shove and she was propelled into Atlas's arms.