Chapter 1: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

- North Phoenix Preparatory Academy, Phoenix, Arizona

-August 24, 2022

"Joe Schatten A+!"

After the math teacher said this, the entire class fell silent.

In a short time, everyone turned to look at this young man with black hair and completely black eyes, who always sat alone in the back, shadowy, dark part of the classroom where the sun didn't reach.

This young man is 16-year-old Joe Schatten, the only one to get an A+ on all of his exams since he entered high school.

Instantly several of Joe's young female classmates began to murmur among themselves:

"Wow, he did it again!"

"Yes, as expected from Joe!"

"I'm not surprised anymore, he's just different from the others"

" Gosh..., if only he wasn't so cold..."

"Huh? You! What are you saying? His cold personality is what makes him so unique!"

"That!, he's not like other guys, his cold and dark personality is unique!"

"She's right, no doubt that personality makes him look even better!"

"Right, plus he can also be very kind and joking around, you just have to get to know him better."

"Yeah, yeah, that, plus did you see those completely black eyes that are so unique about him?"

"Isn't it because of a disease?"

"What does it matter, they look beautiful on him."

" Geez, yeah, they look so good on him!"

"Maybe if you asked him out on a date you might get a chance to meet him..."

"What, you better stop daydreaming woman, everyone knows he's not interested in that kind of things"

"Remember he even turned down Emma and Olivia, the two most popular girls in school, what makes you think you have a chance?"

"Umm... It's true..."

"Come on, don't be sad, it's not that bad, the good thing is that at least we're not likely to see him with another girl"

"That, oh and today is his birthday, he's already 16!"

"Yay, I already gave him some chocolates".

" I gave him some candies..."

While the girls kept commenting among themselves what things they had given Joe, the boys on the other hand were also whispering about young Joe:

"Damn..., family with money, he's popular and has good qualifications..., I really envy him!"

"How the hell can he be good at everything!"

"No idea, I've wondered that ever since I met him!"

"Yeah..., he's so good at sports I hear all the clubs want him to join!"

"And he's also the best student this school ever had..."

"He even turned down the two hottest girls in the school"

"Maybe he's gay?..."

"Hmmm, it's a possibility, but I understand that he was in a relationship before with a girl two years older than him but they broke up"

"Yes..., although no one knows what really happened between them, they were only there for a few weeks."

"Maybe she broke up with him..."

"Or he with her..., nobody knows..."

As the rest of the class continued to mutter about the young man with the black hair and eyes, Joe just nodded to his teacher and quietly grabbed the exam.

"Students, you should learn from your classmate Joe Schatten. It's just a practice test but he got an A+ even though the test was quite difficult. You should try harder!" said the professor as he sighed listening to the constant murmuring from the rest of the class.

"Oh, come on, Professor, he's a special case, you can't compare us to him: Joe? He has a perfect average after all!" says one of the boys.

"That, Joe must have an IQ higher than Einstein himself!" commented another jokingly.

"Hahaha."

"He really must!"

All the guys started laughing while the girls rolled their eyes angrily and started talking to each other while the others kept laughing:

" Guys, they make me sick" whispered one of the girls.

"They're idiots, they think it's awesome to laugh at something so silly."

" Leave them be, they're only making fun because they're envious of Joe!"

"Yeah, they're all immature and childish, luckily Joe doesn't fall victim to these guys stupidity"

Only when the math teacher started his lecture did everyone finally calm up.

"..."

"..."

"Ding Dong!"

For the students, the beautiful ringing of the bell naturally confirmed the end of today's classes.

After finishing a boring day of classes, Joe yawns slightly as he rises from his seat thinking to politely greet only a few of his classmates and then head home as usual.

This day could have been like any other day, if it wasn't for the peculiarity that could be seen today in Phoenix Arizona, and that was: a total eclipse of the sun.

Once classes were over, all the students went out to see the sky, since in a few hours the eclipse will occur.

Only a few decided to go home and watch it with their families.

Joe came out of the building, and like everyone else, he too looked up...

Indeed, the bright sun was beginning to be hidden behind the moon, as their teacher had explained to them moments before...

'A truly impressive view...' thought Joe as he gazed up at the sky.

The sky is a wonderful black with gold, dotted with silver stars, black clouds outlined with bright gold, and overhead a silver moon slowly but surely obscuring the golden sun in the sky.

Of course, as beautiful as it was, this didn't interest Joe enough to keep him from going home to lie in his comfortable bed in peace and tranquility.

Without wasting any time Joe politely but unemotionally greeted some of his companions and went home.

His classmates returned his greetings with enthusiasm, smiles, and kind words...

Many even wished him a very happy birthday.

Joe could only shake his head at this.

...

...

-POV Joe Schatten:

All those people smiling at me, all those people greeting me cheerfully and kindly, all those people wanting to talk to me, it's all fake...

I came to this city when I was 9 years old and all I received were looks of contempt, annoyance, and mockery.

I spent several years suffering the horrible treatment of all these people for being different from them...

Yes... I have always stood out for being more mature and intelligent than most kids my age, but I guess that happens when you never knew your father, live only with your mother, and spend most of your time alone.

When you have to adapt to the adversities of a difficult life you usually mature faster and that happened to me, I spent my childhood taking care of myself...

But I don't blame my mother, she did a lot for me despite spending most of her time at work.

And for me, it was enough to know that she was there when I needed her the most...

She was my support in the most difficult times.

My mother may not have spent a lot of time with me but she always gave me her support when I needed it most and that made me appreciate her and grow as a person.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way...

I never managed to get along with the other kids my age, I tried, I really tried at first, but I couldn't and it got worse when we moved to the USA, Arizona, Phoenix.

Even though I learned the language quickly, I could not adapt and integrate so I suffered discrimination for a long time...

And my completely black eyes only made things worse.

Like my mother, I suffered from a rare case of Aniridia, apparently a family disease...

Aniridia is the absence of the iris and without it, the central eye appears all black.

And yes, all the kids who looked into my eyes used to be easily frightened by my gaze..., for a long time I was the scary weirdo with the dark eyes.

Only after a few years, my eyes stopped causing fear to my classmates, and there even started to be many who liked my eyes and women who were attracted to them.

When I entered high school I even started getting a lot of letters from girls who wanted to date me..., it was ironic to think that those same girls who now liked me before despised me.

Sure, they were kids at the time and didn't measure their words, but it was still pretty annoying.

Besides, I knew that this sudden change in everyone's attitude also had something to do with my new, rich stepfather...

Yes, after many years my mother started dating a rather wealthy and well-known man in Phoenix, she started dating him shortly before I entered high school...

He was a man slightly older than my mother, he was divorced and already had two children, he apparently owned a chain of motorcycle dealerships located around Phoenix, Arizona.

Of course, I wasn't such an idiot that I didn't realize that the sudden change in everyone's attitude towards me had something to do with it.

You could say that just having a wealthy and well-known stepfather in Phoenix was like rising up a level on the social scale where just having slightly scary black eyes wasn't enough to get you avoided or treated badly...

Yes, money and one's social status can make others see you very differently out of convenience.

It was when I was 13 that my mother and my new stepfather finally decided to get married.

My opinion on the matter...?, I didn't really have one, I had no relationship with my stepfather or his children, but my mother seemed happy with him so I didn't oppose their relationship.

My only complaint is that since she started her relationship with my stepfather, our time together became less and less, but as I always say: "It could be worse".

Anyway..., so many things happened to me that I learned in the hardest way the truth about society and the world in which I lived...

I was always a quiet kid, a little too cold for a society that likes to be loud and show off cheerful.

Icy formation over a secret pain, you know you don't belong and you're always the first to be taken as an outsider.

You are too shadowy in a society full of people looking for a glimmer of light.

You hug the shadows and they fear them.

You are the dark side that lies in the light...

The truth in a world full of lies.

You know that something is wrong with this society full of falsehood and people who always have a reason to lie...

But you decide to keep silent because you know that nothing you say can change the fact that you are different from the others...

An insider who doesn't belong here.

A world you didn't want to be a part of, but to which you are forever bound.

You don't want to change to fit in, you are the way you are...

And the only thing you want is to belong to a place where everything is different, a place where you don't have to be silent...

A place where you can be different from the others.

Now I'd rather be quiet than lie, I learned that silence can become a better friend than those who talk non-stop.

If the pain gets the better of me, I don't care much...

Today my eyes are cold, today my lips do not smile.

It's like when sadness overwhelms your mind but you have no more tears...

Emotions have died with time, you look in the mirror and you only see dark, cold, and empty eyes.

No one knows what they did to me, only my body and my shadow.

The thrill of finally being accepted is lost in the memory of the past filled with loneliness, hatred, and fear that the same people who now seek you out used to avoid you.

The warm looks that were once looks of contempt.

The cheerful and beautiful words that were once cold and cruel.

You don't seek a bright light to guide you, you want to be the shadow that others seek to hug...

The cold and cruel darkness, but always sincere, always present.

Sometimes I lie in my bed at night and just look at the sky and curse:

Why was I born into this world?

Why was I made like the others?

I just want to go somewhere where I know I'm free, but I don't know where...

I want to feel happy and smile, I want to learn to love, I want to fall in love, but I'm too tired to try.

I want to scream, I want to cry.

But I've spent my voice screaming every night to the sky and I've spent all my tears every morning when I wake up.

-POV Joe end

...

...

Once Joe got home, he went to his bed and lay down comfortably, then leaned his head out of his bedroom window to look at the sky like he used to do every day...

And the moment he looked at the sky the sun was completely covered leaving to see only the completely black moon that was strangely similar to his black eyes...

"A total eclipse..." muttered Joe to himself staring at the moon.

The silvery, ethereal moon meets the sun of golden bursts and warmth until it completely obscures it leaving only the dark shadow of the moon visible on the earth.

Joe felt strangely attracted by the peculiar black color of the moon, he had never seen anything like it before, he ended up leaning his whole body towards the window to see the moon better, letting the moon's shadow completely cover his pale skin, his toned arms and his black hair.

The moon's shadow obscured his entire body to the point where Joe seemed to have disappeared into the darkness, but his eyes were still noticeable even in the vast darkness, the moon's shadow gave his black eyes an ethereal, unearthly glow.

Joe's heartbeat triples as he sees the black moon and suddenly thinks of his greatest wish, a wish that was only an impossible dream and so far away...

Joe raises his head slowly and feels his black eyes widen like saucers as he fully sees the moon.

Somehow, now his eyes were similar to the black moon seen in the sky, they looked like the reflection of it.

Comets fly down to earth in silver and gold rays, across the wide, black, open dark sky, and he feels his breath catch in his throat, his heart slow down, and he slowly stops feeling his entire body...

Joe finally squeezes his eyes tightly shut and as if he felt that this night was special to the others, he desires again with all his heart what he always wanted...

Right at that moment Joe Schatten felt a shiver, it was quite strange but he ignored it due to a sudden drowsiness...

He was extremely drowsy, so he quickly fell asleep.

In the dark sky of the total solar eclipse, a milky white light shone through the window of Joe's house and completely enveloped it.

This same light formed in the house a colossal door in the darkness that slowly closed.

The radiant light that illuminated the darkness was slowly swallowed inside the door.

Seen from far away from Joe's house, this area would appear to continue into nothingness. Under the total solar eclipse, a blurred scene was passing around the house, only to be seen as if inside the light door was Joe's house reflected... like a mirror!

Young Joe was still sleeping at home and little did he know that at this very moment, everything was about to change in his life.

"Boom..."

Everything was shaking, even space!

If someone were looking closely at the location of Joe's house, they would discover that the house had been shrouded in a mucky layer.

This space was originally peaceful, but at this moment, a space tunnel had appeared - spiraling as if being devoured - increasingly fierce, yet silent.

In one hand the city and its surroundings remained calm, unchanged!

On the other hand, in Joe's house, something unimaginable was happening, the black spiral did not swallow anything tangible, but what nobody knew is that Joe's soul was pulled out of his body while he was sleeping and the instant his soul left his body, a strange shadow emerged and joined Joe's sleeping body, then this same shadow enveloped Joe's soul, which was soon swallowed by the black spiral!

All of the spacetime had changed around this single house, and the cause of this was this tunnel which was totally inexplicable in scientific terms.

The colossal whirlpool suddenly spread out followed by its disappearance into nothingness.

No one had any idea what fate had in store for Joe since he had fallen into a parallel world.