1 Chapter One: Silence

I awake from a deep comforting sleep. The alarm on my nightstand is ringing like it always does at 7:00 in the morning. I slam the sleep button as hard as I can and convince myself to get up from the bed. It's Friday, and I need to be out the door by 8:30 AM for school. I crawl out of bed and drag myself over to my desk, it's a mess (as usual) with D&D boxes and books, my phone sitting on top of the pile. I check my phone to see about 50 messages from the group chat I have with my friends. Not bothering to care about what they sent. I lazily crawl into the bathroom and I brush my teeth twice with my electric toothbrush, and swirl blue Mouthwash for five minutes and spit it out in the sink. It tastes horrible but I still do it anyway.

I walk out of the bathroom, now almost fully awake from the stinging pain of the mouthwash. I step back into my room and change into some clothes. I put on a black shirt with Hurly emblazed on the front in bold white letters, then throw on some black socks and random underwear, then throw on some pants that match my shirt, 2 thin white lines going down each side, everything else in between is black. I don't usually like to wear black, but today I felt like it.

I run downstairs and see my Mom leaving for work. She's a teacher at a school 45 minutes away called Osprey, she teaches the kindergartens every year. My parents divorced 7 years ago, so half the time I live with my mom and the other with my dad. We all live in the same city, but that just makes there hatred for each other stronger. My Dad is some sort of businessman whose job has to do with stocks, I don't really care enough to ask, every time he starts explaining it I end up getting bored and stop paying attention. I say goodbye and kiss my Mom on the cheek. As she leaves, I hear my sister walking through the upstairs hall to the bathroom. Every step she takes sounds like a pounding drum, she doesn't know how to be quiet.

She's a bratty 12-year old cry baby who's scared of everything. She always has "Friend issues" as I put it, with other 12-year-old girls exactly like her, desperate for attention. She has light brown hair and dark brown eyes with white skin tinted with freckles. She very rarely brushes her teeth and due to that her breath always smells like shit. This disgusting child's name is Alexa.

I walk over to the counter and get a peanut butter bagel ready for me. That's all I ever eat in the mornings. I'm sick of eating cereal, it makes me want to throw up. That's how sick of it I am. I've had cereal for breakfast every day until one day I grabbed a bagel and completely cut myself off from cereal.

The bagel pops from the toaster and I get the peanut butter jar out. I then spread the peanut butter all over it. I put everything away and I eat at the table alone, it was peaceful.

I finish up and notice the time on the oven, it is only 8:07 so I have time before I have to leave for school. I grab my phone from my pocket and message my friends if they want to play D&D that Saturday (it's Friday).

Ainsley responds first. She said that she can come. And I remind her to bring her dice and character sheet since she forgot last time. Ainsley is super smart and has short dark brown hair. She's also the party's (party means group) Wizard. And she wants to be a biochemist. A biochemist creates vaccines and researches microscopic things, like cells and stuff, I think (that's how smart she is).

The next to respond is my best friend Tate. He always responds 'Yes'. He's smart and short, he has freckles all over his face and dark brown hair. 'I can, but what time?' he asks 'I have a hair cut at 4 then''.

I responded to him 'Maybe around 12, till 3?'

'That works' he texts back

Tate is the party DM (dungeon master) but when not DMing he plays as a monk.

Dani responds after, saying that she could come, that's all she said. She is the group 'Psychopath' and loves to abuse me and call me gay. She has blonde hair and swims competitively, also she has blue eyes. She's the party's Rouge (thief, assassin, same thing) because it matches her personality perfectly.

Cherry messages 'Of course I can!' She is the nicest and is also the group therapist. She likes plants and greek mythology. She is the group Druid which fits her pretty well (plants and stuff). She very rarely calls me gay. And yes her name is Cherry, like the fruit. She's barely taller than me and has brown hair with light brown eyes.

The person who responds next is - Fran (Franny, Francesca) she's small. I called her an elf once and she got mad at me. She calls everyone "bestie" and she tells everyone she loves them, and it wouldn't surprise me if she was serious. She has brown curly hair and shit brown eyes. She's like a smaller cherry. She plays as the party Bard because she loves music and being annoying, just like a bard.

Then there's me. My name is Carson Roberts. I'm 5:8 and I have long dirty blonde hair. I have white skin and forest green eyes (which are always hidden behind my hair). I rock climb outside every Saturday and inside every Tuesday. I love to read and write (my favourite book is The Hobbit). I play as the party Ranger, I don't like forests though, and I don't like to hunt or anything so it doesn't, it doesn't fit me well, but it's fun to play as a Ranger, for the roleplaying ideas.

Alexa finishes her cheerios, which makes me gag, and we start to get ready for school. It is June 11, and school ends on the 25 in Ontario this year so everyone is excited about the summer, especially after last year when the world had to go on "lockdown" because of Covid 19, thus starting the term "Covids a bitch". The vaccine came out early 2021 and Covid got eradicated. There are theories for how it started -China's secret experiments, the wet market in China selling either a bat or some scaly anteater-looking thing, and so many more, but nobody knows what really happened.

I put on my running shoes and get on my bike, with my sister behind me I bike toward the forest trail near my house. It's in between 2 neighborhoods and it reaches almost everywhere in the city, it's the only way to get to the school and there's no bus to take (for some reason the school refuses to put a bus here because it's not 1 mile away). The forest was deep and thick with tall trees that seemed to go up forever. My friends and I bike these trails almost every day to go to our Fort. It was hidden deep in the woods, and it was huge. We call it a "Zombie Fort" because we have a fence of sharpened sticks around the perimeter with rusty barbed wire running through it. Inside the grounds, we have a huge community Fort, and each of us have our own houses, which are a decent size too. We spend days out there and today we plan to spend some hours out there after school. We need to fix up the fence a bunch, and just to relax.

We get to a fork in the trail so I say bye to Alexa as we split up. She needs to go to the public elementary school while I go to the public high school, which are in the exact opposite directions. She yells "Bye Carson!" as she bikes away, without looking back.

I arrive at school after biking on the gravel trail. Teenagers are running around, pushing each other, huddled in groups, even some of the older grades are standing in the smoking section. In the middle of the field, I can see my group of friends all standing in a big group. I go over to join them but they all start rambling about some special "Moon water" that didn't make any sense. Tate, Ainsley and I know that what they say about stuff like this defied all science so we didn't believe them.

"Not this crap again!" I remind them "I've already proved to you that the moon is not, in any way, connected to the water. It's the moon's gravity pulling the water to make waves."

"But it's the moon's energy through gravity that pulls the water," Cherry edged closer to me "thus proving how water and the moon are connected" Cherry almost whispered in a scary calm way.

"Carson just give it up," Ainsley advises, "her proof is the hardest proof to break, none. If there's no proof then the people are too stubborn to take real proof as an answer."

She's right, I know that, but it was still annoying hearing about 'crystals' and 'moon water'. "Fine," I answered blankly.

There were about 15 or so kids in our group but I am only really good friends with about 8 of them, the other teenagers in our grade have their group. Like 2 parts of a country. We talk for a bit then when the bell rings we enter the high school.

We were all in grade 9 so the school is sort of new to us, other than the fact that school is almost over, so not that new. The school is 2 floors, and the roofs are shallow, so when I walk through the doorways I have to crouch to not bang my head (I hit my head hard when I first started this year) since the ceilings are so low. This school is more sporty than other schools but none of us want to go to the catholic high school, the only other high school close to us, since we live in a small city, about 50,000 people, and most just come up for the summer or weekends so our only option was to come here.

My first class of the day is Math. the evil Madam Jose (she's not even French, teaches it. She's small but don't let that fool you). She has short dyed light brown hair to keep her grey hair away. She screams at the entire class when one person is talking out. She gives us a test every Friday, a different subject each time might I add, so nobody would get good at a subject. It's like she is trying to make our lives hell. I share this class with Fran and Tate, who are both better than me at math.

As we walk in I see her sitting on her desk glaring at all of us as we enter. Why would someone like her even want to be a teacher if they can't stand teaching? I sit down in between Fran and Tate and wait for Madam Jose to call out 2 random people to hand out the test. She calls out "Carson and Taylor. Would you hand out the tests?" she asks like it's a question, but if someone were to refuse or say they can't, she'll go ballistic. I walk up to her desk and grab the pile of paper and start handing it out to half the class (Taylors got the other half). After I finish I walk back to my desk and start the test. Madam Jose has 2 rules that she reminds us about before we start

"Just to remind the class, if I catch anyone cheating or talking to each other during the test, you will automatically score a 0, otherwise known as an F" she is evil, I understand removing some marks, but an F, just remind the person.

"The other thing is, if more than 1 person scores an F, you all score a 0." In this sentence the class goes wild, most of the kids in this class are dumb, they just decided to take Academic courses because they over estimated themselves. (there are 3 courses to take, Academic is the hardest, it's the one I and all my friends are taking it leads to university, Applied is the middle it usually leads to collage, Locally Developed is for people will get a minimum wage job as soon as they finish high school after highschool, and progress from there).

The only thing I can do is complete the test, it isn't that hard and only takes me about 15 minutes to write it out and double-check it. I was the third to complete the test (Fran first, next Tate, finally me). We have to wait at our desks for an hour, we aren't even allowed to draw, write or read, all we are allowed to do is sit down silently.

After one of the most boring hours of my life, Madam Joss finally lets the class go (most of the class has done the test). We have 5 minutes to get to our next class so I say bye to Tate and Fran as we head in opposite directions (they both have geography now). I wait at the science lab door for Ainsley, she's the only other person I know who takes the same science class as me. She arrives after 2 minutes and Ms. Petras opens the door and lets us in. There are only about 8 of us in the science class because most teenagers take this time to 'Study' which is just skipping class. But everyone who skips science is missing out. Ms. Petras is a great teacher and we have a science experiment every 2 weeks. The rest of the weeks are learning about the subject that the experiment will be about. Today were starting a new subject, vaccines and the immune system.

Ansley and I sat beside each other in the front row and listened to her explain how vaccine works

You see, after Covid-19 there was a lot more trust in vaccines. Almost all the anti vaccers turned once they realized that it actually worked. Most of the population got a shot, and the virus was unable to fester anymore since there's not enough people it could infect.

"Vaccines work by training the immune system to recognise and fight pathogens, such as viruses or bacteria. Today we will be learning about how they work. Well start with the basics of the actual Vaccine today and move on to talking about the immune system soon"

Ainsley is squealing, she just can't contain herself. I'm not planning to be a biochemist but I can feel how excited she is to learn about something that really affects her future. "This is perfect!" She screams at Ms. Petras.

The teacher smirks "I thought you'd like this subject Ainsley".

"Ms. Petras?" I ask without raising my hand

"Yes?" she asked back, a smile still on her face

I start talking. "What exactly will the experiment be?"

This complicated stuff, it's not something that could be easily grasped. And it's not like we could actually make our own vaccine. She always has an experiment, every time we have a subject she always gives us an experiment, always.

She starts explaining what's happening "Actually Carson, i thought that instead of an experiment this time, we could have a field trip. I thought that since you guys didn't get any last year, you guys would like one this year. Well be going to the University Of Toronto biochemistry lab and learn by a real biochemist. I'm going to hand out the forms at the end of class, we'll be going in 2 Fridays from now. "

I'm baffled. This is one of the first real field trips we've had in almost 3 years. Ainsley must be thrilled, going to the place she wants to work. I look to the left of me and see her taking deep breaths in and out to calm herself and try to make herself not start screaming all the questions that she wants to be answered.

And with that, the bell rings for lunch. We walk out of the class saying "have a nice day Ms. Petras" as she hands us the black and white papers containing all the information for the field trip. Ainsley and I walk to the cafeteria and wait in the food line next to each other. Up ahead we see everyone else almost finished waiting in the line. It takes about 10 minutes but I finally get to the food lady and she gives me what I ask for. "Some mashed potatoes, fries and a hamburger." She puts what I order on the tray I'm carrying and I hand her 3, 5 dollar bills.

Usually, I pack my lunch, but today I feel like having something other than last night's leftovers. I'm so sick of having to eat leftovers, even though it's a different thing every night (most of the time), it all sort of tastes the same to me.

I thank the food lady and walk over to the table where the rest of my friends are sitting, with Ainsley behind me. I sit down beside Tate and Max. Max was late for school and he doesn't like to play D & D. He says it's "extra nerdy" coming from the boy that knows everything about Minecraft, I don't think there are many ways he can get lower. He has greasy black hair that goes down to his shoulders and ghostly pale skin. He can be pretty stubborn sometimes and doesn't understand the big picture most of the time, sometimes he makes scenarios to just skip a math question, But he is a good friend.

Across from Max is Charlotte. She has dark, almost black hair. She loves Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

Ainsley and I started to tell them about the field trip we were going on in science. After we tell them everything, they all look bored and tired so our conversation starts to change into 5, 1-1 conversations, this usually happens at break since everyone has something to say to somebody else . As soon as I finish my food the bell rings for recess.

Honestly, recess is boring. Our group isn't sporty so we just huddle and form what we call a "Mushroom Cult Circle'' where we talk about secrets and gossip and play games like "Who Would, or Truth or Truth" (you just tell the truth). We sat out in the green grass field, older groups either huddled or playing sports. After we got bored of just sitting on the ground we start playing some cult activities, such as- Never have i ever, Truth or Dare, Tag, Making fun of Carson, Whos most likely to, and many others

After that, the bell starts ringing and I say bye to them all except Dani since next is writing. We are in the same writing class so we usually work in pairs for projects and stuff. The subject right now is literally just us writing our own books (which is fun) with some lessons about foreshadowing, character arcs, and such.

I walk in, grab a dictionary and do just that. We started the subject yesterday, and we have till the end of today to figure out what we want to write about. I'm really good at writing, but my problem is coming up with something that I want to write about. It has to be 30 pages in google docs, and we have till the end of the year. I just sit there and when the bell rings for the next class I still haven't come up with anything

Next class is the last but worst class of the day, Mental Health. It sounds fine, but it's taught by an unprofessional hippie that didn't even go to teacher's college. It's so boring, all she ever does is ask us a question, but then completely change what the answer is. This one time she asked us if we would "rather be a police officer or doctor" and after we all gave our one of 2 possible answers (or so we thought) she said, "You don't have to be either, you can be anything you want." I think that's stupid. She asked us a question, police or doctor, she didn't say that we could be anything, she just tricked us to make herself look smarter, when she's an idiot that has to resort to tricking teenagers to look smart.

I walk into her classroom and find granola bars on our desks. Confused, I look the class for an answer. MS. Simone stands at the front of the classroom and starts blabbering "all of you just sit down at your desks and wait for instructions. Do not eat the bar." I walk over to the desk assigned to me and look at Ainsley (Her and Charlotte are there) for answers. She doesn't have any, that's what her look says back. I look up at Ms. Simone, the "teacher" starts explaining what we were supposed to do with the granola bar in front of us. "I want you all to use your 5 senses and explain them to me. Smell, feel, listen, look, and after all of those taste it." I did what she asked (this class is worth 2 credits for some reason, yet it's mandatory). I started by smelling it, all I could smell was the sweetness from the chocolate chips inside, not the oats, or the palm oil. Afterwards, I felt it with my middle finger. I can feel the rough texture of the granola bars oats, the smoothness of the chocolate chips, and the stickiness of the palm oil coating. Then I concentrate on all the details of the granola bar, I can see the yellow shimmer of the palm oil, the extra small chocolate chips. Lastly, I taste the bar, (I've never really liked them much, but I don't dislike them, I just don't like eating them) and the sweetness of the chocolate chips overpower it all, even though there mini, and when I take a small bite without the chip it tastes plain like eating rice on its own.

After that, she started speaking to the class again "I asked you all to do that so you can learn to resort to your senses." That was a waste of 3 minutes. I don't understand why our mental health teacher is teaching us that, but I don't understand much about Ms. Simone. She's like Cherry, but way worse and not as nice.

After, whatever that was, she started teaching us about actual mental health for once. Which goes on for about 45 more minutes until the bell rings for the last time of the day. I walk out of the class while MS. Simon says goodbye to everyone, not caring, or wanting her to notice me.

I wait beside Fran and Charlotte at a huge oak tree in front of the school, for the others to come out of the school, and when we're all huddled up together we run to the bike stands and hop on, ready to leave to go to our fort deep in the forest. It isn't too far from anyone's house so it's never really a pain having to bike back. We veer out of the parking lot and go onto the sidewalk that directly takes us to the trails.

After dodging people trying to walk on the sidewalk in peace for about 8 minutes we finally get to the trail, which runs deep into the forest. We don't hesitate as we ride onto the gravel trail. We keep on riding through the forest, farther and further away from humanity, closer to our little world that we only know of.

We finally arrive and we all park our bikes at our garage (a big square made of logs for our bikes). As we pull in I realize I forgot to bring water, again. I can do fine without it but it's a nice refresher on a hot day like today. I was supposed to fill my backpack with a bunch of plastic bottles to keep here.

We have a lot of work to do today, so we start by splitting up and searching for sticks, then we will sharpen them and stick them into the ground, to extend our fence all around the fort. I find a large clearing, filled with long sticks, so long I have to make 6 trips dropping off the sticks that I brought over 5 at a time. After that, we all sit down and start sharpening both ends of the sticks. Before I start I take in my surroundings, I've spent so many hours staring up at the leaf-covered sky, breathing in the cold, yet relaxing, forest air. A smile fills my face, something I don't do often. After that relaxing break, I got back to work, pulling out my swiss army knife my Dad got me last year for my birthday. It's red, with my name engraved on it and has about 50 different tools in it.

I start sliding the knife tool against the end of the stick, eventually creating a sharp point at one end, then I start working on the other end, and when that's finished I place it in the pile where everyone else has put their sticks, and start working on the next stick. "Hey Dani, don't stab yourself this time." I warn her. The last time we were sharpening sticks she stabbed the back of her hand, the wound is almost finished healing now, but it'll scar.

"I'll try not to fuck up my hand again Mom! thanks for the reminder." she snarls at me sarcastically. She called me "Mom" for 1 reason, 1- being that I'm the group medic (I have a medkit hidden in the fort in case someone gets hurt or something) so I usually deal with the injuries, like a stereotypical mom,

"Screw off psychopath!" I joked (Dani can be, crazy sometimes, to put it lightly)

The others just listened or had their conversation as this is going on.

"Just cause you came out as bi doesn't mean I'm not going to stop calling you gay." (another thing she does, for absolutely no reason). She finishes her sentence with a cool knife trick in which she twirls it around her fingers and ends it with the knife scraping on her wood, sending it into my face. It doesn't hurt or anything, it was just to annoy me, which she is a master at.

I get tired of the heat from the sun slowly baking me alive, so I run into our community fort and grab one of about 13 plastic water bottles. I twist open the cap and suck it all down through my throat. It's warm, not ice cold, the way I like it. but still refreshing.

Suddenly, shit happens. Hayden, Caden, Quinlan, Parker, Liam and Zach pull their bikes up about 20 feet from us. They must have followed us here; we are too far off-trail to be a coincidence. "What the fuck do you want?" asks Dani obviously pissed.

"Oh we just came to visit, 'some of our friends from school.'" Parker speaks in an almost threatening voice.

I decide that I should join in the conversation "Either fuck off or have fuck with us." Even though that sentence makes no sense, I see that it hit them where I wanted, a threat.

" yu know that yu can't stay at yur 'Fort' forever, and when your gone, well come." Parker isn't the best at, words.

Dani can't hold back anymore and releases all her building-up anger. "If you fucking dare!" She screams at him while walking up to him "I'll beat you to a pulp myself!" She grabbed Parker by his shirt and lifted him to her face "Are we clear?!" She more tells him than asks, in a scary calm voice.

As Parker is small, he is extremely high off the ground from his perspective, as such, he felt out of place being that tall. "Let go of me!" He spits in her face while yelling at her, with anger and fear. Dani throws him to the ground, and after he hits his head on a large stone while sliding on the grass, he yells, while running back to his bike (with the others in his group close behind) "You're fucking crazy! You know that! I'll call the police or something!" He starts biking away, back to the trail, probably back to his house, maybe to the police station.

Dani, hungry for a fight screams at them as they run away from her "You pussys, get back here and fight me! Basterds!" She turns around with a smile on her face. I'm not surprised though, Dani loves a good fight.

"Do you think they're gonna break the fort?" I ask, worried that it might be true.

"No way In hell, not after what you did to them here today Dani!" Fran cheered "I think we'll be fine for a while now."

Were they all smiling, happy that they finally got what they deserve? They're dumbasses, who think they can get away with terrorizing kids younger than them, beating up the ones that refuse to give up their money, for them to buy drugs. They deserve a lot more than that, and I hope they get it.

At this time I'm sitting down in a nearby field (this land used to be farmland, but 40 years ago a law was passed and all the farmers had to plant trees here and move out, I think). I'm daydreaming of beating up Parker's gang, then my thoughts drift to a discussion that my class had last year. In grade 8, I was in Ms. Scicluna's class, she showed us some quotes or something, and asked us if we agreed with it. If I remember right, the quote was something like "Others actions are to be watched, understood, but not always repeated." This was the first time that a teacher asked us if we agreed with the quote or not, half the class did, the other didn't. Most of the kids that are in my friend group were in that class, and we were divided. Then Ms. Sicluna asked us to give an example, and try to explain our choice to the class. I was on the "not agree with side", this was just a longer version of "Do to others what you would do to yourself." in case you're on the other side, let me give you my example, what I said to the class "don't get me wrong, people should be good to each other, but that's just a fantasy. Humans are desperate for power, they'll do anything to make themselves feel strong, the normal human at that. If you were a judge, and you had to decide whether to kill a murderer,electric chair, who killed one person would you? Well, that side of the class obviously wouldn't, but what if the murderer killed a child, or your sibling, or your parent? When something gets personal to a human, their choices get clouded, when you think of it, the correct solution to that problem would be to kill the murderer. If all humans are equal, then that stops your choice from being clouded, you'd have to think of a child, and the murderer as equals, and see that the murderer deserves that sentence." After that, Liam Hammond, my classroom rival to be better then, (we were like Kira and L) starts talking about some religious shit like "God created us all as equals, but he loves all of us, so to save any life, no matter what they did, would be to follow the love of God." I have my theory for it all but I'm definitely not an "anti-religion person" I'm just an atheist.

For some reason, that memory always brought a smile to my face, even though it was a dark topic, that was the first time I've been treated as an adult, and my opinion could be truly, fully, shared with the class. We never did find an answer to that question.

I eventually doze off, on the comfort of the green grass, with the 23 degrees weather as a blanket on me. It's the best sleep I've ever had. I awake an hour later, by Fran shaking me wildly. "Wake up Snorlax!"

I sit up tiredly, itching my arm. Then I realize what time it is (I could see the sun across the long fields) it was about 5:00 PM. I needed to leave now. "Shit, we gotta go," I mumble as I jump up.

"The others are already, they sent me to wake you," she informs me as we run to the garage. "We let you sleep, you looked peaceful." I have looked or felt peaceful in a while, now is a rare occurrence.

"There you are!" Dani yells at me "we gotta go, now". The reason for the rush is every night at 5:30 on Poplar road all the people that get home from work drive down that road, at that time. It was way too busy to cross not as they would even let us and there are no crossways.

We all start biking, not as fast as we can, but faster than normal. Little pebbles being thrown into my face by the back wheel of Danis' bike. I simply just veer to the left a bit and I'm In the clear.

We eventually get out of the thick green-covered woods and turn into the pathway split. We all stop, and as we're about to split up, I ask "When are we going to meet tomorrow, and also where?" I already know, but I just want to make sure.

"Idiot, we've been non-stop talking about this for a week, just so nobody would bring it up today. Today was supposed to be our last normal day, with Ainsley." She's harsh, but it's all true, I shouldn't have brought it up. "Tomorrow at 12:30, we're all supposed to dress nicely (not fancy) and say goodbye. At the fort." She snickers once, then starts talking again "it figures, tomorrow it's supposed to rain, all day" She looks sad? No, disappointed? Wrong again. There's not quite a word for how she looks, it's not sad, but it wasn't disappointing.

I said bye to everyone that didn't turn here (which was most people) and kept biking, towards home. All that's left with me now are Dani, Cherry, Max and Tate. We all live in the same neighbourhood so we walk to school together every day.

The trail connects to the neighbourhood's main road so it's not very far at all. From there we have to plot up, Dani and Cherry live on the Northside, Tate on the west, while I'm on the south.

Tate keeps going straight on the trail while Max and I turn left, Dani and Cherry turn right.

He turns down into his driveway soon after the split up, so I have to keep biking for about 5 minutes on my own.

I turn into my black driveway and look up at my house. It's dark, full of back and grey colours. My mom says that it looks good, but it looks goth. People that walk by probably think a bunch of twilight reading vampires live here.

I park my bike inside the garage and walk inside through the garage door, shutting it then as well.

I'm greeted by my cat, Salmon. She rubs up on my legs. I pick her up like a baby and walk over to the grey couch. The inside also looks goth, with grey paint on the walls, dark grey floorboards, white carpet. I set her down on it. She presses up against a pillow and sleeps instantly (she's lazy).

I walk up to my room, swing that my sister is home, she bikes back on her own after school. I open my door and see my blue painted walls, it's the least goth place in the house. I lay down on my bed and grab my computer. I'm about to watch Attack on Titan, which I do, I'm a secret, and I probably shouldn't, but I know what I can handle, for things like that, when something stops me. Not the feeling that I shouldn't watch it, but the feeling like there's something more important to do.

Instead of going into Netflix, I go into google docs, switch my account to my private one (the other is school-owned), and start writing more of my story. I usually do it for fun, it was what I'm good at, it's my hobby you could say. It's fun, and it's how I spend most of my time without getting bored. To create characters and worlds that revolve around anything you want it to, that's what I find fun.

After that, I just lie down in bed until my Mom gets home. I check Reddit a couple of times, Instagram and discord. Then I get bored and walk down the stairs to greet my Mom. I say hi, and she asks how my day was. I tell it went well, and escape down the stairs, into the basement. I walk over to the TV and click the power button on my Nintendo Switch, the best console ever, other than the Wii. I have special controllers that my grandparents got me (my old ones broke, they were grey) for Christmas one year, they are dark blue and light green. It's connected to the TV so I start playing. My spare time is spent playing games, my friends and I spend days playing Minecraft, and Tate, Oli and I have epic Super Smash Bros battles (I play as Chrome). I'm probably the worst, but not by much.

I just message Ollie and Tate if they want to smash, then after making a sex joke we go into discord VC and play. After about an hour, then Mom calls me up for dinner.

I see a large lasagna sitting on the oven, after just being cooked. After serving my self a plate I quickly wolf it down. The lasagna is delicious, the long thick noodles, plus the creamy sauce and cheese. Once it's all in my stomach I set the plate in the dishwasher and walk back upstairs to message my friends.

They almost always have a discussion or conversation at this time, so I always try to join in. This time it's all about Ainsley trying to explain The Cure to everyone on the chat. I joined in and explained everything in,"less detail" (not science words). Turns out it's all over the news and the internet. Just suddenly one of the most important things ever created by humanity is beginning to be known. Nobody even knew it was being made until it was practically finished.

Turns out the internet is calling it multiple names, most popular is The Cure, Gods Blood, Life's Liquid, Eternal Juice.

Meanwhile, the anti vaccines are having a hissyfit. Creating articles saying that this will damage your brain and organs, what bullshit. Anti vacciners are nothing more than idiots that act as if they know something that others don't because they get a sense os superiority, when really they are just hurting themselves and the people around them because they're too stubborn and stupid to change their minds.

The internet is freaking out over all this. Thousands of videos being uploaded about The Cure, all trying to break down what it is. But that's the weird thing. All these people are talking about what it is, but not what's in it. Nobody has even said a thing about what makes up the cure, except for the Anti vaccines. Who's taken it to be their responsibility to "protect" humanity against the effects of The Cure. Saying that it'll give diseases and autism, just more shitty lies.

After about an hour of doing nothing, my Mom knocks on the door and brings in a glass of water. She sets it down on my nightstand and then takes a sip. As she sets it down she accidentally knocks it over and it lands on my carpet floor. The glass doesn't break but all the water spilled by the time I try to save it.

I get some paper towels from the bathroom and clean it up. I'm not thirsty at all anyway so it doesn't matter. I read for about 20 minutes and then sleep for the night. Slowly shutting my eyes and having a deep yawn, I peacefully fall asleep. My sleep is silent, no disturbances, no dreams, no awakenings. Just Silence