#honestly the rest of the dream was about like. a weird combination magic school/restaurant so i’m really cherry picking

[bluuscreen]

just a kid with armour too big to protect him

[decimatoroflight]

Book of Darkness: Chapter 1

Decimator of Light: Book of Darkness Chapter 1: The Luck Fades Away

             Time seemed to have come to a screeching halt as the students saw a sudden look of realization dawn on their teacher’s face. They held their breath, all eyes covertly darting toward the figure napping at his desk. The teacher, who was normally oblivious to this well-known fact, had finally noticed that the student was dead asleep, rather than simply paying attention with his head resting on his arms. The sunglasses had hidden his closed eyes for a good half-hour, but the half-snore-half-whimper he had given off a moment ago had finally given him away.

             “Luna,” the professor said in an irritated tone.

             “Nngh.” The teenager’s only response, as he turned away from his teacher’s voice, was to try and continue napping.

             “Mr. Luna!” he repeated, this time with less patience.

“Susurry...” was his sleeping response.

             “Mr. Luna, wake up this instant!” the teacher finally shouted.

             The student’s head finally shot up and he slammed his hands on the table for emphasis. “I-I’m awake! I love Chemistry!” he declared. Half the students in the room quickly cupped their hands over their mouths to stifle their laughter.

             “That’s very nice,” growled the teacher, holding his pointer so tightly that his knuckles began turning white, “but you’ve fallen asleep in my Economics class!”

             “Oh,” the student said, pushing his sunglasses back up the brim of his nose. “Sorry.”

             After some unpleasantly loud shouting, the class was let out, and Vincint Luna left the room, grumbling and squinting harshly. His teacher had confiscated his sunglasses as punishment for falling asleep, and without them, the teen’s unnaturally dark eyes had trouble allowing him to see. Otherwise, he had been released with nothing but a mere (albeit very loud) warning. Luckily, the teacher had never caught him sleeping in his class before -- which was amazing, considering that Cin did so almost every day. But honestly, being caught wasn’t bothering him nearly as much as the dream. It had left him with a real sense of dread he was having difficulty shrugging off this time.

             “Hey...Cin!” called a tall, pale teenaged boy, snapping Cin out of his train of thought. The boy quickly jogged over to his squinting friend, a smile plastered to his thin face. “I just heard what happened. I can’t believe someone finally caught you! You sleep through basically every class, don’t you?”

             “Yeah, I know,” Cin chuckled lightly, scratching the back of his head. It really was a bit on the odd side; no teacher had ever noticed his constant naps, especially since he tended to receive relatively high grades. Not the highest, but high enough for the teachers to assume that he paid attention most of the time. Truth was, he was just very good with multiple choice exams, and he made a point to try and pick teachers who heavily relied on that testing format.

             “Luck finally failing you, Luna?” came another voice, followed by the appearance of a short girl with a long, black braid. She was wearing her usual baggy outfit, as in her opinion, the extra 10 or so pounds her short frame was carrying was an unacceptable offense that had to be hidden at all cost.

             Cin only chuckled a bit at her comment as his blonde friend took the opportunity to gently and affectionately pat the girl on the head.

             “Aw, c’mon, Kazuko!” He ruffled her hair, causing one of the many pins she used to keep her bangs out of her eyes to fall to the ground. “Don’t be jealous just ‘cause he doesn’t snore like a buzz-saw. You should get that checked out, by the way.”

             “Hey, Mark?” she chirped in a very sweet, excited tone, looking up at the taller teenager with her dark eyes opened wide. “Go to hell,” she finished, dropping the sweet act as she bent down to pick up her hairpin and then clean it against Mark’s shirt.

             “Isn’t she adorable?” Mark sighed lovingly, completely ignoring the fact that Kazuko was using his shirt as a napkin, and causing Cin to snort with laughter. Mark said things like that often, and Kazuko simply refused to acknowledge that the poor boy meant every word of it.

             “Jerk,” Kazuko muttered as she fixed her bangs again. Then with a sigh, she looked over at Cin, her expression fading from agitated to mildly concerned. “It’s kind of weird, though, isn’t it?”

             “Hm? Being caught?” Cin asked, lifting an eyebrow in her general direction, still squinting due to the light. “I mean, it was only a matter of time, right?”

             “Well, logically, yeah,” Mark snickered, stopping suddenly and yanking his friend back before he could take an extra step. They had already reached Cin’s locker, but the blinded teen had attempted to keep walking. “But you’re insanely lucky! Every time a teacher’s even come close to noticing you were asleep, you’d always wake up, or he’d suddenly realize that he forgot to write something on the board, or he’d be called to the principal’s office, or he’d trip and end up having to go to the hospital, or something.”

             “I don’t think it’s been that dramatic,” Cin pointed out. “Besides, I can’t always be lucky, though, right?” he chuckled before proceeding to struggle with his lock combination. He knew the numbers by heart, having had that same lock since middle school, but he simply couldn’t make out a single number on it without his sunglasses.

             “Oh, for the love of-!” Kazuko pushed Cin away and opened his lock with three quick flicks of her wrist.

             “You know my combo?” Cin asked, only a little surprised. He was doing his best to ignore the fact that her shove had sent him tumbling into a locker beside him, sending waves of discomfort up his spine. He usually wasn’t one that stumbled so easily. Weird.

             “Of course I know your combo; my eyes are AT your lock’s level. I know the combos for at least a third of the locks in this damn school! Now either pull out a pair of sunglasses, or a dog and cane.”

             “Yes, ma’am,” Cin obeyed, pulling out a pair from a corner in his locker. He always had an extra pair in there, as well as a pile in his room at home and three pairs in his car’s glove compartment. He wasn’t particularly fond of sunlight, and he knew where he could buy perfectly usable sunglasses for only a dollar each.

             “Do you know my combo, too?” Mark asked their friend, only to have her snort loudly.

             “Why would I need yours? In case I want some crappy poem or something?” She rolled her eyes.

             “They’re there for you, y’know,” he continued smiling, though he sounded slightly hurt. “Almost all of them are about you.”

             Kazuko merely snorted again, causing Mark’s smile to fade for a second. With a frown, Cin shot Mark an apologetic look before pushing the protective lenses up to his eyes. Mark nodded in acknowledgment and then turned away and rubbed his arm awkwardly, doing his best not to show Kazuko how hurt he really was.

             “But, anyway, like I was saying,” Kazuko suddenly began, completely unaware of the moment the boys had just shared above her head, “it’s a little weird, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve always gotten away with everything. You would’ve died a million times by now if it hadn’t been for your weird, magical ability to dodge trouble.”

             “I wouldn’t say a million...”

             “She’s kind of right, though,” Mark pointed out. “Just last week? When you fell asleep in your car? Waking up right before a van showed up in front of you? You must have some awesome guardian angel-”

             “-Or some sadistic demon following you,” Kazuko interjected. “I mean, seriously, Luna -- you fall asleep at the worst times, you end up in terrible neighborhoods, buildings you were just walking around in set on fire-”

             “Once!” Cin cried in his own defense. He was sick of people bringing that up. “That happened once! How was I supposed to know that that place had a gas leak?”

             “Yeah, how were you?” Mark smirked in amusement, enjoying how bothered his friend was. “You just happened to take the kid outside to play, and happened to make that restaurant owner think you were kidnapping him. And then you happened to cause a scene that got everyone outside and saved their lives!”

             “Yeah. Weird, I guess...” Cin muttered, pulling his keys out of his pocket before closing his locker and turning towards the exit. Something about the incident had always sat oddly with him, but he didn’t like thinking about it. For some reason, he wanted to think about it even less right now, with the dream lingering in the back of his mind. “So, who am I giving a ride to today?”

             “Do you even LISTEN to yourself!?” Kazuko snapped. “Weird stuff happens to you!”

             “Both of us, please,” Mark answered Cin’s question, ignoring Kazuko’s words, “I don’t have practice today, and I don’t really wanna take the bus.”

             “You’re just gonna let him get away with that?!” Kazuko stared skeptically at the blonde.

             “What’s that? Do I hear a short-stack saying she doesn’t want a ride home?” Cin asked the air around him, cupping a hand over his ear. Kazuko growled darkly, but turned red and dropped the subject. She despised public transportation.  

             With that, the three friends walked outside into the snow, Mark not so much as shivering despite wearing only a sleeveless shirt. The school grounds were motionless, aside from a couple of students walking to their after-school programs; not many students had their own cars in the area, and most others had already left to their bus stops.

Usually, it was only Cin driving Kazuko home, but today, the three had the rare opportunity to head home, all three of them. The track coach had suddenly gotten ill enough to end up in the hospital, although all Mark had heard was that he had no practice, and thus looked forward to going home and helping his mother take care of his seven siblings.

             “God, I hate your car,” Kazuko sighed as the black machine came into view. She said that every single day, so neither boy did more than snicker as she opened the door, which responded with a loud creak, and climbed into the back, quickly followed by Mark. Cin climbed into the driver’s seat after wiping some of the frost off his windows with his sleeve, put his seat belt on, shoved the key into the ignition, and pulled out of his parking space.

             “So,” Cin murmured, tapping his steering wheel lightly. The silence was rather awkward, mostly because Mark was staring at the girl next to him like a lovesick puppy, rather than telling one of his usual stories. This seemed to snap the blonde out of his stupor, and he quickly searched his mind for something to properly break the silence with.

             “I got nothing,” Mark finally said, leaning back slightly. “Only interesting thing that happened recently is you getting caught sleep-”

             “I got accepted to MIT,” Kazuko blurted out.

             Mark almost choked on his own spit, and Cin had to keep himself from suddenly slamming on the breaks. The shocked silence made Kazuko’s face burn awkwardly.

             “You...You what?” Cin found his voice first.

             “I got the letter today. I applied for early action, and I got in,” Kazuko explained, looking out the window with a forced nonchalant expression.

             “Whoah!” Cin laughed, his reaction quickly converting to happiness. “Congrats! You always wanted to go there, right? I mean, I knew you had good grades and everything, but with early action, too? Wow.”

             “Mm,” Kazuko grunted, apparently fascinated by something passing by her window. There was an odd silence, and Cin quickly stole a glance at his rear-view mirror to see Mark’s face losing what little color it once had.

             “That... that’s great,” the blonde finally managed to say, forcing his words past a lump in his throat. “You... really deserve it. You’ve tried so hard, I mean... and they have the best engineering programs there, right?”

             “That’s all you have to say?” Kazuko asked, her voice slightly colder than the inside of the car. “That it’s ‘great’?”

             Mark swallowed again, and with a quick breath, forced a large smile onto his face.

             “Sorry, sorry! It’s... it’s amazing! You’re going to do so great there. Not like anyone can be SURPRISED or anything, I mean, you’ve been in those robot battles things, you’ve never gotten anything lower than an A on anything, your test scores are great, and you probably did awesome with that interview and everything!” He looked at the roof of the car, shaking his head slowly. “Oh, man, Massachusetts...”

             As he laughed in disbelief at the idea, Cin noticed Kazuko’s expression drop.

             “Yeah. Massachusetts...” she muttered to herself.

             “And the best part?” Mark leaned towards her with a smirk, as though he was telling her a secret. “There’s no way I can get in! You did it! You finally escaped me! You always said you’d sell an arm just to get at least a state away from me, and you did it,” He laughed at the thought, while Kazuko stayed perfectly silent.

             “We’re here,” Cin cut in, slowing to a stop. They were in front of a small house with a large yard littered with toys -- toys Mark’s siblings never bothered to pick up, and that his mother was too tired to pick up. Cin turned off the engine and opened the door, taking his friend’s slightly panicked expression to mean that he’d want to talk to him before entering his home.

             “Well, see you, Kazuko!” the blonde said, flashing a final smile towards the back of the girl’s head before climbing out of the car. His happy mask fell the moment he was out of her line of sight.

             “Thanks,” Mark muttered quietly to Cin. His green eyes peeked over to the car one more time, only to see the uncaring back of Kazuko’s head. He sighed, his eyes turning hopelessly to his feet, instead.

             “You can get in,” Cin blurted out instinctively, placing a hand on his taller friend’s shoulder. “You still have the interview-”

             “Cin, I’m a guy with low test scores and nothing too impressive extra-curricular-wise-”

             “You’re the star of the track team! MIT has track -- probably! Everyone has track! It has to be enough. I mean, you have a huge family to help take care of! There’s no way anyone could hold that against you-”

             “It’s me or someone like Kazuko-”

             “You practically wrote her essay for her. That’s a huge factor, and she got in.”

             “She could’ve written it herself-”

             “No. If she got in with your writing skills, so can you. Just be yourself during the interview, and you’ll be following her there, okay? Hell, I might even put some effort into getting into a community college there so I can stay near you guys,” Cin patted Mark’s arm firmly with reassurance, letting him know the subject was closed.

             “Maybe,” Mark sighed, looking back at the black car for a moment. He then turned to knock his forehead lightly against Cin’s -- a tradition the two had developed as a goodbye -- and walked to his front door. “See you.” With a weak smile, Mark stepped inside, the sound of laughing and shrieking siblings emanating from the doorway for the few seconds it remained opened.

             Cin shook his head. That poor guy. But there was only so much Cin could do. It was always such a problem when friends had feelings for each other and refused to discuss it directly.

             Cin walked back to his car and sat down in the driver’s seat, Kazuko already sitting shot-gun beside him. Her expression was a mixture of disappointment, anger, and pain. Cin knew to expect this, so all he did was smile sympathetically and start the engine.

             “So, want to get something to eat and talk about it?” he offered.

             “Yes,” she reluctantly admitted, choking back tears by biting down on her lower lip.

               Thirty minutes later, the two friends were sitting as a table at a pancake house with a plate of chocolate chip pancakes in front of Kazuko, while nothing but a cup of coffee sat in front of Cin. The place was warm and cozy, so both had shed their jackets. Families littered the tables around them, excitedly chatting with their kids about their plans for the winter break. Within minutes, half of the pancakes in front of Kazuko were gone, and her hurt expression had been replaced by a purely angry one as she continued her rant.

             “And I mean, what is he thinking, anyway? ‘You finally escaped me’? He basically wrote my whole frikkin essay for me! He should be able to get in, too! But he’s just trying to find an excuse to get as far away from me as possible! I mean, what, is he just going to ditch the interview, too? The guy interviewing him’s only a few houses away, he could WALK-”

             “So, you still break into his locker?” Cin asked curiously, taking a calm sip of his coffee. There was no way for her to know the interviewer’s address unless she had broken into Mark’s locker to find it. Mark had a rule about talking about his applications and anything involving them, and that rule was to never talk about them, period.

             “Of course I still break into his locker!” she growled, though she lowered her voice as she did so. “I have to check to see if he wrote a new poem or not.”

             “You know, you might want to tell him that you love them?” Cin suggested. “Just a thought.”

             “I’m not an idiot,” she glared at him. “The second I tell him I even give the slightest damn-”

             “You can stop acting so defensive all the time and get married to him after college or something. I’ll be the best man, and probably your maid of honor, too, since I think I’m the girliest friend you have-”

             “Ha-frikkin-HA, Luna,” she glared at him, but his last comment had earned him a smirk. It faded quickly, however. “But seriously, you know he’s just kidding about all that stuff. He hits on girls all the time-”

             “No, he doesn’t,” Cin instantly defended his best friend. “Girls hit on HIM all the time. He’s the fastest runner on track, he writes poetry, and he’s not exactly bad looking, Kazuko. And yet, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. You know why? He only wants ONE girl, and he has since we were in the third grade.”

             Kazuko turned slightly red at this comment. Mark was open to constantly telling her how he felt, and he allowed Cin to remind her whenever the opportunity came up, too. Kazuko, however, never wanted to believe a word of it from either of them.

             “There’s just no reason for him to be serious,” she muttered, her tone finally shifting to disappointment. Cin sighed, glad that she was past her ‘anger’ phase and finally beginning to speak truthfully. “I mean, he could do better. I’m loud, I’m always so sarcastic, and I’m so fat...”

             “You’re not fat,” Cin rolled his eyes. “Especially not since you started running around every morning. Honestly, at some point, all that exercise’s got to be bad for you.”

             “Well, excuse me if for some of us, sleep just doesn’t seem to cut it,” she glared enviously in his direction before poking the remainder of her pancakes with a fork. “And you lift weights, you hypocrite! But seriously...why was he so happy when he heard? I kind of hoped he’d tell me not to go, that only preppy kids with loads of cash go there, or something.”

             “Maybe because you’ve been set on going there since you were...what, twelve?” Cin snickered a bit. “He IS glad that you’re going, he’s not going to lie about that. He wants you to be happy. What he’s disappointed about -- and he is disappointed -- is that he doesn’t know if he can get in, too.”

             “...He was disappointed?” despite her best efforts, the happiness in Kazuko’s tone shone through as she peeked up at Cin.

             “Oh yeah,” Cin was a little surprised she hadn’t noticed. “He went all pale. Sure, it’d be easier to tell with someone like me, but he turned white, the poor guy was so horrified. I mean, you’re going to MIT whether or not he gets in, right?” He looked at her, waiting for her to agree.

             The blush spreading further up her face was his answer.

             “Kazuko!” he stared skeptically at her, almost dropping his cup of coffee onto the table. “You can’t pass this up when you’ve spent your life getting the grades to get in there! It’s impossible to get in, much less for an engineering, and you did! Don’t you dare pass that up!”

             “But-”

             “Mark wouldn’t forgive you, either!”

             “But...” She weakened considerably at his last comment, but did her best to defend her logic. “I can keep track of him while I’m here! I can see which girls are talking to him and scare some off! But, but if we go to different colleges...” Her brown eyes locked onto the fork in her hand, but Cin knew from her expression that she was imagining Mark laughing his head off with some pretty girl that was thanking him for a poem he had written for her.

             “Kazuko,” Cin felt her jump a bit as he touched her hand, snapping her out of her stupor. She wasn’t the most touchy-feely person, but he decided to risk it. “That boy will jump through fire or ice for you. You’ll be able to see each other during breaks, and he’ll gladly wait for you.” He smiled at her. But after a moment’s thought, he added, “Well...” and he pulled his hand away. Kazuko’s eyes followed him, looking to his face as though her life depended on what he said next. “That is, if you tell him how you feel. And soon.”

             Kazuko looked back to her hand as though it hurt her to even consider such a possibility. Cin shook his head, watching her. She was so scared of showing any form of weakness, of letting anyone have the power to hurt her, and yet, she was just as terrified of letting anyone but herself have their hands on Mark.

             During their conversation, neither one of them noticed the waitress walking by, pausing every few moments to shake her head slightly, trying to keep her thoughts straight. Several people were already watching her, worried she was going to faint.

             Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and before Cin could even turn his head toward the source of the sound, he was pushed face-first into the table, just barely missing his coffee cup with his forehead. He felt a sharp, agonizing pain spreading throughout his back, originating in his left shoulder. His hand shot up to instinctively touch his shoulder, and within seconds, he started to feel a warm liquid dripping over his fingers as the air began to smell metallic.

             The waitress who had tripped started to scramble back to her feet beside their table, apologizing profusely, but ended up giving a loud shriek as she saw the tip of a knife embedded in Cin’s shoulder. She’d picked the knife up from the table behind them as she had been clearing it but had lost her footing due to another dizzy spell. Everyone in the diner froze, gaping in horror at the scene. There were several loud clanks as people dropped their cutlery, quickly followed by several hushed screams and the sound of smartphone cameras going off.

             “O...Ow...!” Cin grunted, awkwardly reaching behind himself and wrapping his fingers around the handle of the knife to yank it out, giving a loud hiss as it exited his body. The wound seemed to be relatively shallow, but blood was quickly gushing down the left side of his body, ruining his shirt and staining the chair.

             “H-Holy crap-! That could have pierced your lung-!” Kazuko cried, her voice barely audible with shock and fear constricting her throat.

“Yes, ow, I noticed,” Cin muttered through gritted teeth, trying to press his hand against the cut to slow the bleeding. “Kazuko, will you please ask the nice waitress if there’s a first aid kit or anything around here?” His eyes were shut tightly due to the pain, but he heard Kazuko’s chair move away and her run off despite the hysterical sobs from the waitress. Even if he bothered to open his eyes, his sunglasses had fallen off and his eyes were stringing with tears.

             What bothered Cin more than the pain and temporary blindness was the sheer fact that this had even happened in the first place, that he had been stabbed for the first time in his life, and by accident, no less. Sure, these things happened, probably, somewhere, to other people. But here? To him, of all people? And today?

             As much as he’d been trying to ignore his feelings, Cin was definitely beginning to panic, now. This whole day had been strange and wrong, not just this current moment. He had woken up, only to step on a mirror by his bed; he couldn’t even remember how it had gotten into his room, much less onto his floor. He had lost track of the time and ended up late for school for the first time in his entire life. He had forgotten his homework, gotten caught sleeping in class, was pushed into a locker, and now he had almost been killed by a tripping waitress. Normal people would have called this a bad day, probably, but for Cin, this was different. This was wrong.

             Cin was lucky. He had always, as long as he had lived, been lucky. Even as a child, he had never so much as scraped a knee, gotten a paper cut, or been hit by a ball. He had never forgotten homework -- it had always been in his backpack if he went to look for it when it was time to hand it in. He had always woken up from his daydreams at just the right moment to get anywhere on time. He had always ended up right outside of the area if something bad were to happen. This day was wrong, and getting stabbed was the final shred of proof he needed to stop all this denial.

             Something was going on. But...what?