Darkness. Complete and utter.
No line to depict the horizon and no weight on my body. It was strange how light I felt in this endless void of nothingness. I took a moment to look down at my hands out of mere instinct, trying to make sure I was truly real, because somehow, I knew that everything else around me wasn't. No way could the rest of the universe have ended while I was asleep.
When I looked down at my hands, I saw that they were covered in a kind of liquid substance, which felt like sweat, but didn't have the same physical qualities. It was far stickier and transparent than sweat was. I looked back up at the void around me. The sigh was overwhelming. Seeing an infinite emptiness was far scarier than I could have ever thought it could be. I wanted to scream out to the void in an attempt to search for more life, but a feeling in my chest prevented me from doing so.
"Hey!"
Huh?
"Hey! Can you hear me?!"
A feminine voice shouted to me from everywhere. It was like I was sitting in a movie theatre with surround sound. This booming voice echoed to the edges of the void, if there even were any.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my body was hit with some kind of force. My entire featherweight torso shook as the blow landed, rattling my vision and sending me spinning in circles. The blow felt like a hammer had come slamming down onto my chest at high speeds. In other words, it hurt like hell.
I gasped awake, sitting up quickly as I exited my sleep state.
When I looked around at my surroundings, starting from the left, I was immediately familiar with what I saw. Right next to my bed was an oak dresser with 5 cabinets in a column from the top to the bottom. On top of the dresser was a very old lamp, which was covered in dust, and looked to have not been touched for years. Right next to the dresser was a mini wastebasket filled with crumpled up papers. The papers weren't anything special. Just a few diary entries I tried to write to keep myself occupied when I was bored. Thinking back on it now, I'm sure that some of those I had a REALLY good reason to throw away. On the leftmost wall, hung a series of large posters, all from anime. The first was Kazuma Satou from Konosuba, then Goku and Vegeta from Dragon Ball, then Vash from Trigun, then lastly was a poster of Rias Gremory from Highschool DxD. The last poster I'm not too proud of owning as a mature young man, but you can't blame a man for liking how a character looks. Right below the posters, pushed up against the blue wallpaper, was another oak dresser. On it, was a picture of my mom and dad, who had passed away from cancer a few years ago. I frowned as I looked at it. No matter how much time you take or let pass, death never escapes your mind, especially for your parents. I continued to look. On the front wall-
"THOMAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!"
I flinched crazily, flailing my arms in the air suddenly before bringing them to my chest out of instinct to protect myself. But my arms eased once I saw who it was that shouted. She had long brown hair that went down to her waist, and a white bow-tie that held together a ponytail. Her clothes were standard. A white button down shirt accompanied by a very adorable short skirt. This young and beautiful lady before me was Kira.
"How long do you plan to stay in bed? I've been waiting in here for you for 25 minutes already!"
Did I say beautiful? Sorry, I meant overly obnoxious.
"As long as I want to. As a young man, I should be allowed to sleep in whenever and for as long as I want to" I jabbed a finger at her "and you are NOT going to stop me from that." I said, staring her down with an intense look.
She crossed her arms and let out a 'humph' before leaning into her right leg sassily. You might be wondering why she was in my room, creepily waiting for me to wake up for 25 long minutes. Well, a while ago, after my parents died, I had been taken into an orphanage at the age of 12. From there, I started to get adopted by different families from different states, which led to me getting adopted more and more until finally I landed here in the comfortable town of California. The family I was staying with: The Galleno's, was a 3 person family consisting of Mr and Mrs Galleno, and their only daughter, Kira Galleno.
As I looked at Kira's stature, I couldn't help but smile. Even though we have only known each other for a couple of weeks, me and her have been getting along a lot better than some may think. She was like a real sister to me. But...
"...Sisters don't stand in their brothers room for 25 minutes straight watching them sleep until they wake up." I said jokingly.
Kira slightly gasped and re-aligned her posture, clearly offended by my words, but also blushed a little at the fact that I called her sister.
"W-well, I couldn't help but overhear you talking in your sleep, so I came to s-see what you were talking about! That's all!" She defensively replied.
Uh-huh.
Oh I guess I should mention that Kira kind of sort of looks up to me like her idol. When we first met, I had thought that I was just going to be leaving this family as quickly as I was going to like the others I had, so I didn't want to get too attached to her. Our first conversation should have been shorter, but once we started, we didn't stop, and we just talked for hours on end. That was when she told me that she had looked up to me because of how strong willed I was to be able to get through something like adoption hopping.
I was snapped back to reality by the sudden throwing sound of an object. Before I could react and defend my poor helpless self, a backpack smacked me square in the middle of my face.
"And don't get ahead of yourself, we may not be brother and sister by heart, but you're still technically my sibling..."
I took a moment to let the backpack sit on my face. Now, before the day has even truly begun, I have been hit by a girl technically twice already. It almost hurts to imagine how unpleasant high school is going to be-
Wait.
I threw the backpack off my face and jumped out of bed, not realizing that I had nothing but my shirt and underwear on. A few seconds after I jumped out of bed, Kira screamed briefly before turning her face away. Whatever it didn't matter, I had to start getting ready. I grabbed Kira by her shoulders and pushed her out of my room, her face as red as an apple. Great, now I have been hit twice by a girl AND have accidentally flashed one as well. Today really isn't my lucky day.
11:30 AM
Me and Kira walked down the sidewalk together. Kira was distanced from me slightly, and I knew why.
"Ok, look, I didn't know I didn't have shorts on, now quit acting like a kid." I told her in a demanding tone.
As I said that, people started to stare, so I had to keep my voice down. The last thing I would want is to have my reputation be crushed on the very first day of high school. Kira shook her head slightly and grew closer to me again. That's better. Even though I was fully aware of how high school worked, there was still a feeling of uneasiness inside of me, so, I did the only logical thing I could think of and looked to my older sister asking simply-
"What's high school like?"
Kira raised an eyebrow skeptically, almost in disbelief of my words.
"Didn't you use to go to high school?"
"Only online high school. I couldn't go in person because the family I was with at the time for my freshman year couldn't afford it."
"Hm..." Kira said, looking forward, thinking of a way to answer my original question.
"Well, High School is kind of like middle school except now you have a bunch of people who are looking for trouble 24/7, plus a bunch of teachers that assign more work than the human mind can comprehend while your sanity shrivels away every second that passes while you ALSO crumble into the depths of pure depression. Cool? We understand now?"
...What the hell.
I didn't want to believe any of what she had just told me and instead just decided to classify it all as a mere joke. At least then I could swallow the ever growing fear in my heart.
"Yeah I guess I understand. But-"
"Great! Now let's go, I don't want my little brother being late on his very first day!"
Kira exclaimed dismissively. I could tell she really wanted to get to school, for whatever reason aside from being late.
We hurried along the sidewalk until we came to a building that I thought was the XXL version of the Mall of America. The building was at least as tall as a skyscraper and as wide as 3 Mall of Americas. This absolute behemoth of a building was my new High School?! I must still be dreaming! It seemed almost too good to be true.
"Welcome to Neo Future High, the largest known building known to mankind architecturally."
I ignored Kira's words and started to imagine what kinds of awesome wonders sat in wait for me to obtain inside of the school. A full food court? tons of shops for students to go to for recreational time?! Cutting edge technology for students to use at their disposal during classes?! My excitement was beyond measurable. Before Kira could introduce me to the school anymore, I dashed as fast as I could towards the door, ready to get this soon to be amazing school year started!
"Hey! Wait for me Thomas!" Kira shouted to me.
I couldn't wait anymore. My urge to get this new amazing year started was about to come to fruition. Once I came to the front of the building, I stopped and looked up at it. It's height should have been overwhelming, but instead was so much more joyful.
I looked back down at the door and pressed my hands firmly against them. I took a deep breath and smiled.
"This is it. This is where my life finally becomes lucky..."
I opened the doors confidently.
"...or not." I said, depressed, as I looked at what the inside of the school looked like.