As Sparticos laid there in the alleyway, unconscious with the rain pouring down upon him, he started to dream. There was smoke in the air. A fire. His dream showed a forested landscape where every thing was burning. Standing atop a hill with a large pile of dead bodies collected underfoot was a figure incased in black armor. Though he didn’t know how, Sparticos knew it was a female, but who she is and where was this he did not know.
The dream shifted and he was running through a forest of dead trees. He was hurt, winded, out of breath and ready to fall over any moment but yet he struggled to keep going. A shout came from somewhere. He paused, trying to make out the words. Suddenly pain welled up in his body and he started falling. . . .
Sparticos awakened from the dream with a cry, flaying around in the alleyway, his foot kicked a can and the din echoed along the walls. Disoriented he gripped his head with his hands and scrambled to the closets wall, pressing this back firmly up against it and then tucking is head between his knees. 'What was that?' he thought, huddled there in the still pouring rain. 'It felt so real.' The images he had seen slowly started to drift out of his memory, being pushed aside by the very real feel of the ache on the side of his face and remembered that he had been thrown to the ground by some crazy girl.
His glasses were broken - that must have been what snapped - and a bit of the frame cut into the bridge of his nose and right below his left eye. He pulled off the frames and stuck them into his pocket, using the rain water in his face to wipe away the blood. The area felt swollen too. Great, just what he needed. Though, he supposed things could be worse, at least the cops didn't pick him up.
Wet, tired, hungry and dirty, the only thing Sparticos wanted to do now was lock himself in his room and forget that this day had ever happened. Picking up his fallen backpack he left the alley. As it was night, there were not many people traveling about, but he kept his head down anyway as he made his way to Downtown.
He lived in one of the busier sections of Downtown - meaning that he lived not too far from one of the local bus stops. Sparticos had never ridden the bus before, he could walk to wherever it was he needed to go and, as his father said, he had two working legs to use. A day like today he would have use it, but he didn't have any money in his pockets.
His house was in the second from the left, three stories tall with aged brick on the outside and bars on the windows. The tin trash can besides the front steps was always full as people tossed their own trash in it as they walked down the street.
Approaching, he could see that all the lights were off in his house, except the one from the kitchen meaning that his mother was cooking. Just because his mother use to work in a restaurant, didn't mean that she knew anything about food. Her meals were always bland or over cooked and, at the moment he was wishing that he hadn't dropped the apple from earlier.
The smell of burnt food hit his nose as soon as he opened the door, causing the growl in his stomach to turn into a painful groan. Dropping his book bag off his shoulder he shut the door behind him and locked it, "I'm home."
His mother came out from the kitchen, the flower dress she wore was faded and her apron had spots of flour from whatever she had burnt. Her eye was swollen, covered up with make-up so it wouldn't be noticed, but even without his glasses Sparticos knew the mark to well to not notice.
"What the devil happened to you, boy?" his mother asked, whipping her hands on the apron. "I thought you weren't coming home today, that you were going to the game with James.”
“Didn’t mean I wasn’t coming home,” Sparticos muttered under his breath while picking up his bag and heading for the steps. He didn’t see a need to tell her about his day when hers didn’t look like it was any better.
“He didn’t drop you off?” His mother questioned him, even started to follow him towards the steps. “Looks like you jumped in the river, and what happened to your face? Where are you glasses?”
Sparticos groaned loudly and proceeded up the steps. “It’s nothing,” came his reply, trying to brush her off as best as he could even as he heard her coming up the steps behind him.
“Did something happen to you at the game? We don’t have the funds to be buying you a new pair because you decided to go out and do something reckless.”
“Gracious. Mom, would you lay off already? Geez.” Sparticos stopped his ascent and faced her, he could feel his own facial bruise throbbing under the stress he suddenly had. “I’ve had one helluva day and then, I come home, to hear you say that you don’t even want me here. What happened to me? What happened to you, and where’s dad? Did you kick him out after he gave you that shiner, or did you forgive him again and he left to go spend our money on harlots and beer.”
The sting on his cheek from his mothers slap was deserving. He knew he shouldn’t have said what he had, even if it was right. “Go get yourself washed up. Dinner’s ready.” His mothers voice was quiet and cold; Sparticos simply gave a nod and went up the steps to his room, closing the door behind him.
Sparticos flung his book bag to the corner and peeled off his wet jacket. He really was soaked. The laundromat was closed at this hour so he would have to hang his clothes somewhere and hope for the best.
He hung the jacket on the arm post of his bed and the jackets pocket hit the bedpost and made a ‘thunk’. That wasn’t something he expected, there shouldn’t be anything heavy in his pockets, he had walked all the way home and hadn’t noticed anything. Did she actually... put something in my pocket? Sparticos reached in and his hand closed around a circular item. Hell...
Pulling it out he saw that he was now in possession of - what he thought to be - a finely cut jewel. It was the color of the morning sky on a cloudless day, and it felt so smooth in his hand, and light. Sparticos rummaged around the top drawer of his dresser until he found his spare glassed and put them on so he could better examine this find. It looked even more expensive now that he could see clearly. He thought that the girl must have been a jewel thief, but why she would give it to him, he had no answers. “What am I suppose to do with this.”
He didn’t even know where singular jewels could be brought and, if he did find out and seek to take it back, he realtor was likely think he stole it instead of trying to return it. Sparticos sighed as he put the jewel on his dresser, grabbed a towel, and headed to the shower.
Sparticos rested his head against the shower wall, feelin teh warm water run down the back of his neck and the rest of his body. True, he had just come in from the rain, but this was different. There was nothing like a hot shower to help wash away the pains of the day. Boy did he have a lot of pains.
He still couldn't believe that James could do that to him, let alone Jenna, and how could she run up to James, with him standing right there, and fling herself on him. It was like she didn't care what he thought. That probably upset him more than his friends betrayal and he smashed his fist into the shower wall. He hated being looked over, and she knew it, but when you were from Downtown you were use to being cast aside by the 'well-to-do' people from Uptown. He had considered himself lucky to have had her for a girlfriend in the first place.
There school was on the crust of Uptown, if you didn't live in that area you had to test into the school. Not many people from Downtown were able to do it, but Sparticos had made up in his mind that he didn't want to go to one of the crappy schools of Downtown. Not even the teachers showed up half the time there, nothing but wannabe gangsters and illiterates. Sparticos wanted to get out of Downtown and he studied very hard - often times alone as his parents were no help in studying - and passed the test. The school was about five miles from his house, there was a bus that would take him 4 blocks from the school but he couldn't afford that. And the school's bus wouldn't come to Downtown, so any kids from his area had to find their own way there, Sparticos' way was walking. That made for his skinny shape.
Sparticos' legs were toned and he was as spry as any of those Uptown kids who got to work out in the gym. He had even tried out for the track team in his Freshman year, that is where he met Jenna. She was trying out as well, and they hit it off at the start. She always said she didn't care what part of town he had come from, didn't even mind the jabs people gave her at dating a 'poor boy'. Guess she had a change of heart now that their Senior year was halfway over.
"How could I have been so stupid."
No doubt there were going to be repercussions from punching James in the face. Sparticos had made the track team and had even been spotted by a few recruits, but now he could see them writing him off as a violent, good for nothing kid from Downtown. "I should have just let it go."
And what about that jewel he now had? He still had no idea what he was going to do about that - if anything.
Turning off the water he wrapped the towel about himself and headed back to his room. His mother heard him walking around upstairs and called out, "Hurry up, your food is getting cold!"
"Yes, ma'am!" He yelled back, though he had no intention of hurrying to the kitchen to get sick on whatever it was she had burnt.
Sparticos concluded that his father wasn't home. He didn't hear anything of him upstairs and, even if he was sleep, he would have woken up by now.
In his room he dressed lightly, pulling on a dark pair of sweats and a raggedy t-shirt. Swiping the jewel from where he placed it on the dresser he flopped down on the bed, hearing the springs creak and cry, and held the stone up. Glasses back on his face, he thought to examine it again, this time squinting and turning it over to see if he could find any sort of mark, but the cut looked flawless, except for the top. "Looks like a necklace goes here." Talking to himself of course.
"Why did you have to come to me? Huh? Just a nobody from downtown. Newly made Jewel thief, thank you very much strange girl." Grumbling he bit the jewel - that's what he saw people do on TV when they wanted to see if something was real or not. He didn't know what it was suppose to do, but no paint came off, and there weren't any bite marks afterwards, so he could only assume that it was the real thing.
"I wish I had a different life," he said. "Any life besides this one. Maybe you could be my ticket. If I get expelled for fighting, or kicked off the track team, at least I'll have you. Run away from this, all of this, go somewhere new and start over." He didn't think about leaving his mom, he had been trying so hard in school, with the track team, to do just that. Get a scholarship and leave this wretched city. Maybe once he was gone she would leave his father and finally better herself.
He held the jewel tightly in his right hand and rolled over on his bed, his stomach growling in protest to the pressure and in hunger. Sparticos dangled left arm and leg off the side of the bed and closed his eyes. "I wish this day had never happened."
Just then the jewel in his hand became warm, he thought it was due to the heat of his grip, but then the temperature increased and he brought his hand over to look. However, at the same time, Sparticos had the strange sensation that he was falling, and his vision went askew. The room was getting darker and wind was blowing up from under him. He actually was falling, and fast! He twisted and turned, but all around him was nothingness.
There came a faint, almost ethereal voice that spoke out in the darkness, 'Help me...Help me.'
Sparticos still held on fast to the stone as he continued to fall. He heard the voice but saw no source. "Hello?! Hello!"
"Help me."
"Who are you! What the devil is happening to me!"