Chapter 2 - Chapter One

Chapter One-Back to the School Days
Quick note: Well, I hope there aren’t too many mistakes, grammatical or…um, what’s that word? Or…well, otherwise, whatever. I sort of change the tenses and the point of view. Pilot was mature and a tad bit older in the Prologue. He’s young and grudgeful now. I made up a word for this chapter. At least, WORD seems to think it doesn’t exist. I bet my WORD was just being a dog. And Phys is pronounced like “peace.” Playful language and an uneasy past are all you’ve got to worry about here.


“So that’s the guy, huh?”

My friend, Phys, kept pace with me as I walked on, staring at the man ahead. He was making good conversation with the ladies and I was actually surprised. I thought, for some strange reason, that he’d be too closed off to the world just yet to be attempting such an “alive” feat. Apparently, I was wrong.

“Yeah, that’s him all right.”

“So, you walk into a graveyard, without doing any research at all, and go and bring the sexiest dead man to life?”

“Oh, god, when you say it that way-“
“Your quest for rapid popularity is going to kill you one day.”

Phys was very sarcastic. He could afford to be, though. He was the smartest student in school. His mind was talented and could be disciplined if and when he wanted it to be. It was times like these, though, that I just hated him for it. His intelligence made him incredibly witty. And he knew it.

He could snap a comeback or sarcastic remark better than anyone I knew.

“The thing is,” he cleared his throat, “is that you went about it all wrong. That guy’s getting all the attention.”

He stepped and turned, his chest facing me now. His eyes trained on a group of boys who were trotting behind us. They were talking excitedly amongst themselves on the wide sidewalk. I guessed that they hadn’t heard the great news yet.

“Guys hate you because you brought back a girl magnet.”

He looked back in front of us.
“Girls ignore you because he’s dead sexy.
I let out a weak laugh and said, “Excuse the pun. The really bad part about it is that he doesn’t sound like an idiot.”

“Well, you picked the crème of the crop.”

He started walking again and so did I, with a very concerned look on my face.
We got to the point where he was talking to the girls and passed it without a second glance.
We turned the corner after that point and slipped into the gates of the school. It was still rather early, but he needed to leave me because he was working on a project of some sort. I was pissed, but concealed the anger by trying to be as nonchalant as possible. It worked. It always did.
My father owned the school that I attended and while I went there, he was the acting principal. I suppose that had its cons for me, because nobody wanted to get into trouble around me for some of the obvious reasons. Except for those few people who didn’t care what other people thought, like Phys, there was always some loneliness to return to. I was convinced that the school had it out for me, not just the student body, but the actual building itself. I was a really paranoid sort of whelp.

I had my reasons for it.

While we had been passing by my creation, I had ignored him solidly for one small purpose. The purpose was to avoid the head of the girl crowd who had been surrounding him, the purpose was to completely avoid and ignore Kim.

If I had a hitlist, she would have been at the top of it. Kim was the first in a long line of catalysts that had eventually ruined my life up to this point. It all started in seventh grade. The rumors had spread like wildfire. I went out with her for a week after school started. She was the prettiest girl in class, still is if you like the skinny, blonde type, and I was the one who caught her attention. You can imagine that I had actually felt special and the prank (or real event, I’m not sure) had crumbled my self-esteem into almost nothing. I don’t know how it was started, but it spread and I was the laughing stock. I remember the people staring at me after that week or so I started going out with her and I wondered. I wondered why and then I knew why after someone finally told me. Rumors were going around that Kim had a crush on my father and the only reason why she was going out with me was because she liked him and wanted to see him at home. However, that wasn’t the clencher. The real horrible rumor said that she had actually gotten flirtatious with him and finally had let him screw her.
The rumors had gone from bad to worse to worst. By the end of the year, I had cried in the bathroom during lunch for most of the hundreds of lunches you have in a school year. My father was furious, but somehow kept the school intact and kept his cool about everything. I hoped that they were all lies, but my paranoid mind was screaming at me. It was telling me otherwise.
Then, I lost my first best friend a year later. I had known him almost since were in diapers. Despite all the rumors, he was there to always reassure and did his best to stick up for me in school. I appreciated his guardianship. He kept helping me and sticking by me.
Then I got confused. Sam came over to study one day. It was a nice afternoon and we were crouched down next the bed. It was a rather low bed, low enough for us to use it as a desk when we sat down on the floor next to it. Books cluttered the edge of it and papers littered the floor around us and that’s when I realized it. I noticed his not-too-skinny frame and his shiny brown hair. He smiled when he looked up at me and I leaned forward and kissed him. I kissed him right on the lips. I kissed him, but not with the intention to. It just sort of happened. I can’t really remember the whole scenario correctly, but for a moment, I might have mistaken him for…for a girl. At least, I try to tell myself that I had. Sam didn’t take it very well. Of course, it went unsaid that it was never to leave the room, but it did. A few days later, I started to hear snickering and feel eyes on my back as I walked down the halls. I haven’t completely left that legacy behind. I’m still teased about it to this day. I never transferred to another school. My father wouldn’t allow it.
Well, dear old Sam had told one of his closest friends. And then that close friend had told their close friend and it went on and on until the entire school knew. Sam was forgiven, because I was the one who had pushed a move on him, a move I hadn’t meant to make.
I didn’t get confused anymore after that.
I sat down at a bench near a jungle gym where the younger kids were playing and admired the trees and the dirt ground beneath my feet. It wasn’t concrete like most other schools had it. My father believed in nature, hence all the dusty shoes and trees worth climbing.
The building itself was grey and smooth-walled on the outside. The hall walls were half red brick and half smooth grey like the outside. The wall around the schoolyard was brick. It separated the schoolyard from the busy road on the other side and helped to thwart the noise that came from it.
I could hear an occasional whoosh from the road, but it was pretty well quieted.“You know, I really hadn’t thought that you would abandon your show-and-tell project to the vultures, boy.”

I heard a slight ringing of metal as he sat down next to me and slid over. I was uncomfortable with the proximity, but I didn’t voice it. I was too proud to and it would have felt entirely homosexual if I did.

“Yeah, looked like they were really torturing you, there.”

I rolled my eyes and I worked to avoid eye contact. My lips were tight and I was not in the mood to deal with a dead person after thinking of so much.

“You want to tell somebody that you hate them, don’t you?”

I jerked my eyes to his.

“Well, I think everybody feels that way some time, don’t they?”

“I could see it in your expression.”

“Great, you’re an observant one. So, what? You’re not only dead sexy, but you’re a mind reader, too? You’re full of surprises.”

“I learned to read people’s emotions while I was still alive. Of course, some were more obvious than others…”

“Impressive,” I murmured sarcastically. “Of course, you’re alive now, but I get what you’re saying.”

I heard a soft laugh, more like a hum, come from his throat. He seemed pretty happy to be alive again. He ran his fingers through his hair often, picked it up, twirled it around his fingers, always smoothing it behind his ears. I found out why a little later.

He mentioned being a project and he was. But he was a project I had done on my own accord, not on teacher’s permission or assignment. I would probably have to return him to the grave soon and hell knew what that would be like. He was probably already viewing it as a second chance, I mean, life. He was viewing his new life as a second chance at it, which it was not. He was just…there, brought back from the past. Of course, he was incredibly adaptable. After he got past the technology, used the remote controller a couple of times, he slipped right into life as we knew it.

It made me very curious to know who he had been. He was probably an inventor or something new age like that, well new age for the time he had lived in. I could believe it. His attitude was incredibly optimistic after he started talking. I almost regretted bringing him back after his soul lit afire.

There was something else a little strange about him as well. I was a little observant myself. He didn’t seem too concerned about life and death. He never did say a thank you for bringing him back. And he was a perfect balance of carefree and this strange seriousness when something seemed threatening to him. I don’t think he appreciated defiance very much. And one more thing: his reflexes were remarkable.

The second day he was in my house, he ate. He ate a lot. He sat down at the dinner table, straight and proper and smiled at my mother. She produced food for him. She brought it to the table in heaps. Finally, she brought out some chamomile tea at the end of it and put a cup and saucer too close to the edge and when she removed the tray from the table, her hip caught the edge of it and cup and saucer slid off of the edge and began falling. It never reached the floor. It had fallen on the side where he had been sitting and he leaned down, stuck his hand underneath the falling cup and scooped it back onto the table. A few measly drops had splattered onto the floor. Of course, my dad had been watching the television and my mother was already turned away, so I was the only one who saw it.

It happened, though. It really did happen.

When the bottom of the saucer had clattered onto the table quietly, he looked up at me and smiled. I didn’t tell my parents what had happened. I was a little afraid to, because of the way the smile had looked for one, but I mostly figured the world owed me this one secret.

“Do they still have cigarettes around, boy?”

“Uh, Jesus. Could you just call manage to call me by my name?”

“I do recall that you never say mine.”
“Well,” I said in a suddenly shaky voice, “I’d just rather not.”

“No, you are in shock.”

I waved it off with a hand and stared at the jungle gym intently. His name was interesting, because it was a nickname. The nickname was interesting and frightening at the same time. I shook off the significance.

“So what do you propose we do for your presentation?”

“Don’t catwalk,” I muttered.

“What?”

His fingers were on my jacket, trying to pry one of my arms out of the fold they were in. I was irritated by him.

“Now, see, why are you being such a spoil-sport?”

I admit that I was a tad bit jealous of his good nature and good looks, but I tried my best not to let it get to me…I was petty. I was just straight out petty.

“I hate you,” I said quietly. I got up steadily, pulled the strap of my messenger backpack onto my shoulder and walked away.

I knew that he had heard me. I had wanted him to hear me.

Did I mention I was also melodramatic about it?

I got to class and settled in my seat in the rear of it. I hoped that he would get lost and would fail to show up, but that was a dream long lost. All he’d have to do is ask some stupid girl to tell him where I was and she would lead the goddamn way.

I collapsed forward onto my desk and buried my face in the sleeve of the old army jacket. I felt like a little baby, because at that moment I really had wanted to cry. The urge just washed over me and I really wanted to do it, but anymore wrong steps and I’d be farther behind than I’d be able to bear. Something kept the tears from leaking out, however and so by the time everyone was seated and the bell had rung, I was myself again. He was at the front of the room, leaning against the doorframe, waiting and watching me with heavy eyes. The ice was cracking behind them even more than usual. He stared at me, fixed, like I was a target and I didn’t like it.
I ended up glaring at him without knowing it while the teacher set up to introduce him.
So, how do you have this set up, Pilot?” the teacher called across the room to me.

I continued looking at him with my brutalest glare.

“I think,” I said, submissively enough, “That he should introduce himself. Unless you want me to tell the class the process.”
“All right, then. He will speak of himself, possibly a little history,” the teacher flashed a welcoming smile, “and then, you will describe the process.”

He shrugged as he pushed off the doorframe and stepped forward.

“Fine with me,” he said. His eyes refocused onto the whole of the class instead of just myself. “Near the end of my days, many people called me Sighn. I suppose it is as good a name as any.”
He gave a quaint little bow and the questions began.

I was a little relieved when he took up the rest of class time. I hadn’t wanted to go up in front of all those people really. The class drew to an end and was dismissed and I went to my next class. He caught me at the door and followed me, tight at my left shoulder.

“Do you want me to draw the attention in all of your classes like this, boy?”

I paused in step for a moment, but immediately resumed. It probably looked like I tripped. I really did want him too, but I had thought he’d just do it without realizing he was.

“You say it like I care.”

“I’m rather sure you do.”

“What are you going to do if I don’t give you an answer?”

“Silly bastard, I’ll waste the time anyway.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, then, guess that answers your question. And I am not a silly bastard.”
He made a small scoff chuckle in reply.

“I thought you old guys used terms literally?”

“Well, sometimes when you become older than a little old man, words can be fun little jokes in themselves. They make even nicer mockeries.”

“Poetic, are we?”
I marched on and he fell silent. I was glad for it. This comfortable bickering was irritating me, too. I didn’t understand it. I seemed to know exactly what to say in response.
I got to the other side of the school and sat down in my seat in my second period. I thought that maybe my father was punishing me in his own subtle way. I was almost sure of it. He had probably known what was going to happen once we got to school. I bit my bottom lip in anger.

My lip bled.

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