1 Space Race (Chapter One)

(A/N: READ THE PROLOGUE IN THE PLACE OF CHAPTER FOUR FIRST!!! SO SORRY FOR THIS!!!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled story)

"One more, Aaron! Or should I call you 'cupcake', maggot?"

The words Coach Harrison yelled at me echoed throughout the entire gym, and I groaned out loud. I had been doing push-ups for the entire class time, instead of playing dodgeball with the others. As I did one more push-up, I could hear other students snickering in the background, especially from Austin Sowings and his group (read: cronies).

Who is Austin, you ask? Austin Sowings was pretty much the "king" of the school, if you could put it like that. He was a cruel student, pretty much a devil spawn. If you got his attention, you hoped it was because he wanted to steal your homework. Otherwise, it was to be his punching bag.

When I finally finished the push-up (I wasn't good at those), Coach Harrison sent us off to the locker room. Sighing, I was relieved that the day was over for me. Phys Ed was my last class for the day in the Rocky Mountain School, the private school where I grew up my entire life. I don't know why my parents put me here in this abomination of a school, since pretty much everyone hated me here. I do mean everyone, I wasn't joking. The students, the teachers, you name it. The last time I tried to ask for a pencil from a girl, said girl slapped me across the face for really no reason.

As I changed, I didn't notice the snickers behind me until it was too late. A sharp pain went through my back. In pain and a bit of shock, I fell on the ground, and I rolled over to see Austin and his cronies holding wet towels. Plus, they smelled. Do they know what deodorant is? I mean, seriously, it was like the inside of a pig!

"Guess what, crap hole," began Peter, one of Austin's cronies (you know what I mean by crap hole. This is a teenager's book, for Pete's sake), "you shouldn't have been born." It was common

knowledge that my parents had died from a shooting that should've killed me, too. Somehow, it didn't, and their wills said for me to go to the Rocky Mountain School, where they went when they were kids. It was apparently a place for the rich students, as each one met a celebrity. And I mean ALL of them. And to make matters worse, I was the poor kid, whose parents committed suicide so they could be free from their son, or so Austin said.

"Whatever, Peter. By the way, those towels of yours should be marked radioactive, or are you friends with sewer-smelling skunks?" I had some sass in me, I wasn't ready to be put into submission so quickly.

"What did you say?"

"I said that you need a bath, Peter. Have you heard of one, or is your brain made of gravel? Or better yet, skunks?"

Needless to say, that got me a whole repertoire of wet towel smacks.

"Shouldn't mess with the big guns, cupcake," drawled Austin, giving me a smack with his towel when he stopped. "Maybe you should go blubbering back home to your parents. Oh, wait! You don't have any! There're dead!" Laughing, he smacked me with his towel again, while his group laughed and watched. Normally, somebody would have seen this and would have reported me, but everyone in the locker room was just watching. A few were even jeering at me.

After a while of the lashes, I was in too much pain to fight back with words, and I was physically exhausted, so the group started to get bored. They tended to be angry when they weren't entertained by someone squirming, so they started to kick me while I was down, and when they were bored of even that, two of Austin's cronies lifted me up, and Austin started to punch and kick me repeatedly, each time with an insult to me and my parents, much to the entertainment of the group and everyone watching. Eventually, he stopped, stuffed me into my locker, which barely fit me, closed it and left with his group, laughing all the way (ho, ho, ho).

Great. Now I was going to miss dinner, and no one would care enough to tell someone that I was in here. I would have to sleep in here, miss breakfast and lunch, and wait until someone let me out from my gym locker. Would've been fun enough, except for the fact that the lashes, punches, and kicks, courtesy of Austin, would make the wait seem longer than it already was. Not to mention that I had a bloody nose and a bloody mouth. I bit my tongue a bit too hard while they were beating me.

I lost track of the time, and started to doze away to pass the time. At one point, I started to bang on the locker door so that somebody could hear me, but either everybody was at dinner, a rare feat (the teachers didn't enforce the rule that everybody couldn't go to dinner), or they were deliberately ignoring me. Knowing on how everybody treats me, it was probably the latter. At least my bleeding stopped and the pain went away a little bit. However, I knew that I was going to get a lot of bruises in the next few days, yet nobody would care.

That night, I had a dream, which was rare enough. I barely got dreams, and I couldn't remember the last time I had one. Thankfully, the dream was pretty good. I was dreaming that I was finally accepted into society, and my parents were alive. They would take me out of this school, and finally, finally I could be with my parents, free to travel the world. I had been confined to this school ever since I was left here, on the doorstep, and the only time I've been outside was when I had Phys Ed, which wasn't often, about once per week. And most of the time, I would stay inside and be punished for something I didn't do. One time, I was punished for stealing a pencil. That alone made me not eat for two days straight.

I was getting to the part where I said 'I love you' to my parents for the billionth time (corny, I know, but you try to live without parents), when I was suddenly pulled out of my locker. I looked at the nearest window, and it looked like it was nighttime. Great. Nobody bothered to get me out, and I missed an entire day's worth of classes, which would put me into another punishment I couldn't handle. I looked up, and there was a girl looking at me also, which was awkward, since I wasn't wearing my shirt, and my scars from Austin's beatings were there for the world to see.

The girl was around my age-so maybe 15 or 16- and she had blue eyes and black hair. She wore a blue hoodie, with black pants, so I knew she wasn't here because she forgot where the bathroom was or she sleepwalked. She looked like that she was prepared for letting me out. At her side, I saw a crowbar. Yep, she was definitely prepared. Either that or I somehow screwed up more than I thought I did.

"What are you doing here? You'll be expelled if you're caught here!" I whisper-yelled to her.

"I don't care," she whispered back. She didn't seem fazed by that fact. Brave or stupid, I didn't really care. I would've guessed the latter, though.

"Look, I got to go, alright? Thanks, and bye!" I said to her as I pulled on my shirt (I didn't bother to pull on my shirt in the locker, in fear of the shirt doing more harm than good to my body). I pushed her away, much to her displease (she fell onto the floor, so don't you dare say it was because I put my shirt on), and went to my room, which was, fortunately, near the gym. I heard her try to follow me, but luckily, I was a fast runner, with nearly limitless stamina, which was good when you needed to run from Austin. She was probably following me to make fun of me or something.

My room was bland, with just a bed, desk, chair, and a closet with all my possessions in it. And yes, there wasn't a lot. Just a few sets of clothes, a pair of shoes (the other pair I was currently wearing), and a trinket my parents gave me before they died. I wore that trinket ever since I could remember, and I couldn't remember the last time I took it off.

The trinket was a necklace, which had a picture of a ruby, cut into something like a rose. The necklace itself was made of-or so I was told-pure gold, with diamonds "weaved" into the golden threads. The necklace also had a large circle of gold with ruby-like stone in the middle, though no one could really confirm whether that stone was actually ruby. Thankfully, the school let me keep it, to remind me of that horrific day. I lied down on my bed, and looked at my phone, which I only used to tell the time, since there was no Wi-Fi. The staff strictly prohibited electronics for personal use, so the phone was school owned and they could tell if something happened to it, like installing an app. I looked at the date. April 24th.

Huh. Apparently, I didn't miss anything at all, and the girl let me out less than 6 hours of me getting pushed into the locker. But why?