Basin Falls was just a small town located in the middle of nowhere. Nestled between two big cities in Upstate New York, there is nothing there worth noticing with its small population of around 2,000 people. A small river that ran through the middle of town was the dividing line between the east side and west side with the high point being the 10 meter tall waterfall right in the center of town. The only route to get from the west side to the east side was over the road bridge that connected right to the Main Street of town running north to south. This 4 way intersection also contained the only traffic light in town. The Shack's location was on a small road right off the Main Street. To get from the Shack to the bridge is about a 20 minute walk. Getting past the bridge to school was another 10 minutes. Laz was able to walk the route in about 28 minutes and walk through the front door of school by 7am. He didn't like being late but not because he was a good student. He just knew that constant lates led to home calls and that was something he didn't need. The bell would ring in 20 minutes so for the time being, he just wandered around without a place in mind.
Basin Falls junior high 8th grade was about as fun as it sounds. Although there were 6 grades located in the two story building, there were pitifully few students who attended the school. With only 91 students in the grade, there was about an equal split of boys to girls with only a slightly larger number of the latter. After having been here for 2 years though, he didn't have any real friends. It was due to this that he suddenly realized he didn't bring his phone this morning. Left with nothing else to do, Laz sat at an open spot in a courtyard and just watched the various students and couples going on their way.
"Hey, did you hear about the tree?"
"Yeah, did they say anything else about the boat?"
"Who cares about the boat? There is a giant fucking tree in the ocean. I hear you can see it from Florida."
"Yeah, there are posts all over my feeds from people sending a ton of these pictures around."
Laz was somewhat surprised by this group of girls walking by. What the hell? How could there be a big tree in the ocean? As he listened closely, he tried his best not to make eye contact or stare, as he knew that the best result would be a dirty look. Having left his phone at home, he had no way to check out if this was real or a hoax. This was probably the first time he ever felt to need for a phone and regretted not bringing it since he got it. Without someone to ask, he could only listen to others or wait till he got home to check it out. Laz had always been interested it strange things although he never got into the occult, voodoo or black magic. But things like aliens and science related crazy were an interest of his. He liked the real. Being a kid from a small town, he wanted more of the big open world and enjoyed learning about it. Not things from school that were controlled forms of brainwashing, but things that couldn't be explained with what was currently known. Why did he think school was brainwashing? Because creativity was frowned upon and the only thing people got rewarded for was memorization and application. Could someone graduate from high school with an art or music degree? Nope, they had to learn the same thing everyone else did and if they couldn't, it would stop them from going on with learning what they want to learn. This is why he hated school, but still went. For a system that was invented during the industrial revolution, its basically remained unchanged since. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. But whatever, what could he do?
Noticing the time on the clock, Laz got up and started walking towards home room. It was a pretty cloudy day, but the sun wasn't very welcome anyway. In early October, it wasn't yet cold, but it was far from warm. Getting back inside and walking down the hallway, Laz heard even more people talking about the strange tree in the ocean. Laz wasn't exactly convinced though. Internet fads had a way of becoming real until people got tired of the story. Then the actual facts came out. People posted on feeds and websites that claimed to report news only wanted to make a splash, not post real news. Until he looked for himself, he wouldn't believe. Only seeing is believing. Sitting down in room 101, Laz looked up from his desk and in the back corner, he saw two people making out while others were sitting around them with their phones, watching the news.
"Hey, you think this is like a sign of the apocalypse?" The tall blonde guy asked, looking up from his phone.
"It's a tree dumbass, not a zombie outbreak," replied Jesse. Jesse was "group leader" of this particular band of idiots. His dad was rich so he was naturally better than everyone else in his own head. The group were more like his followers and enforcers as even in a small town, people who had more liked power. The make out couple involved his friend Tommy and whatever flavor he had chosen for this week. She might even be in another grade for all Laz knew. Tommy was equally rich and if not for his preference of drugs and pussy, he would have been far more capable than Jesse.
"Lay off Jesse, you know he takes too many shots to the head to be smart, " Tommy replied. The tall blonde was named Alex and played sports since he was a kid. He wasn't great in any of them, but he played well in all of them. He would never be anything with sports, but it made him feel special. He was also Annie's boyfriend.
"Both of you shut up, he's perfect just the way he is," she said while smiling at Alex in the same way a master would smile at an award winning show dog. Annie was the richest of the three, her father worth over $100 million. The three of them had been friends since the 1st grade as their fathers all ran in a similar circle. They all lived in town as it was the perfect distance between two major cities. The truth was they hated each other, but they were the only ones who were on equal ground with each other. And their fathers didn't give them a choice.
As the bell rang, Tommy unglued himself from the girl's lips and smacking her ass dismissed her saying, "Get to class Karen, meet me later today." The girl started walking from away from Tommy with a smile and once she was no longer in his sight, her face lost all emotion while she mumbled "it's Kennedy, you fucking prick."