The water rolled off the crumbling and rotten wood, slowly tumbling downward until it reached the cliff. A little wobbly at first, before the first morning wind gives it the push it needs to flow over the edge, finally. Below, a young boy is sleeping before the drip of water hits him on the nose; he pays it no attention at first, but the continuous droplets eventually wake him up. Coincidentally, his phone begins to aggressively vibrate beside him, unlike the water, this jolts him awake instantly. “Oh shi…. what time is it?” he says in a panic before jumping up and realizing he had nothing on but his boxers from the night before. “I gotta get home,” He says out loud, looking around at the dusty old building before venturing outside to make sure nobody saw him come in and surely no one was watching him as he left.
He is heart was pacing rapidly as he peeked his head outside of the frameless window, and he gave it a second. He could hear the cars on the highway, muffled by the trees separating them; leaning his ear further out of the window, he heard a few car doors slamming shut, but from the distance, he could tell they were of no threat.
Jumping out, he swiftly begins to run back to his house, cutting through the woods. He sniffs the air as he picks up his wolf scent from last night, “Mom’s gonna kill me for sure this time,” he says to himself as he feels his bare feet step on every dried, broken tree limb, old leaves, and whatever else was hiding beneath the forest floor. Normally, this would pique his interest, but now, he could not stop; it was Monday, after all first day back at school from spring break. As he draws closer to the back of his home, he slows down, carefully approaching his backyard bushes, waiting, and watching. That is when he catches them, first his mother jumping into her car as she kisses his father goodbye, then his father next. Both leaving the house smiling and without a care in the world. He smirks to himself, “Guess they think I already went off to school”, watching as his father is the last one to pull off and leave beyond house view, he makes a run for the back door…. “Locked figures,” he groans.
Walking around to the side of the house, he readjusted the trash can and climbed on top of it to reach the garage roof. He did not think anything of it as he had come through his room this way a million times, if not more, and he just had to be careful to watch his footing. He lifts himself the pressure from his single foot broke through the trash can lid “Damn!” He says under his breathe, knowing he will have to explain that later, he starts to zone out for a moment on all the excuses he thinking up before shaking his head and coming back to it, “schools about to start, I gotta stop B.S.-Ing”, rushing across the roof to his room, he jumps onto the balcony and opens the door. This one was unlocked, and he takes a sigh of relief, thinking his mother would have come in this morning and locked it as she always hates it when I leave my balcony door unlocked, but can you blame me? The breeze at three-four AM is amazing, and to just listen to the creatures of the night.
As he pulls clothes out of his closet and dresser, he flings them onto his bed before grabbing his towel and heading to the bathroom for a shower.
Standing in the shower, he changes his normal shower to a mist to reflect his taste for the waterfall he had just gone to yesterday. As the water makes its way through his afro, thick and coily as it may even, it could not withstand the water constantly beating down on it, falling by his ears. He closes his eyes as he thinks back to last night. In his wolf form, who were they? Those other two wolves. He thought one was much bigger muscle-wise than he was, and his fur was thinner, while the other one was lighter in hair color and more playful. It was his first time seeing other wolves in the neighborhood, but he never really went about shouting it from the mountain tops. Shaking the water from his head, almost like shaking the thoughts from his mind, he turns off the shower and dries off before the next alarm on his phone goes off. Rushing out of the bathroom, he rushes to put his clothes on and runs downstairs quickly, packing his lunch for school before grabbing a Slim Jim and heading out the door. Heading out, he looks at his watch before hearing a school bus tire squeal down the road.
“Damnit.” He murmured under his breath,” Back route to school it is then.” He takes off running, at a light jog at first, as he tries to finish through the slim-jim. His muscles begin to expand as his breathing becomes more rapid but steady. Parkouring through the forest, in a moment, he felt free, no rules, no humans, just him and nature. His running comes to a halt as he reaches the end of the section of forest. Taking a moment, he adjusts himself and throws his hoodie up as he steps out from behind the trees that hide the cut-through path. He makes it halfway to school, “Last stop sign,” he says with dread in his voice. His phone chirps and as he is distracted pulling it out of his pocket, the bus pulls up right next to him the double door swing open “Raph, get your ass on his bus boy!” He hears a woman yelling at him. he looks up to see the bus, surprised, and he nervously stands there for a second before instinctively jumping on the bus.
“Hey, Ms. Sherly,” he says, walking past her. She just grunts at him with a slight chuckle. Ms. Sherly was a heavy-set woman with coily hair, with the compassion of a mother (that’s because she was, she had two kids who had previously gone to this school themselves) and a commanding voice that could command a room. “Ight now, y’all better sit down! Just cause Raph wants to be special, everyone else gets a turn,” she says, laughing at her joke. Raph feels the bus tuck him forward a little as she begins to continue to drive, walking through the bus aisle. He doesn’t pay much mind to anyone until he sees his best friend, “Heeey, Kyle!” He shouts, “Sit down!” Ms. Shirley says from the front of the bus.
Kyle wasn’t too much of a standout, much like every other kid at the school; Kyle was a little rough around the edges. The only thing that made him the point on the thumb tack was his loose curly black hair and beige skin tone; he was mixed, but he wasn’t the only student with such characteristics either. “I’m surprised we didn’t see you on 2K last night, dawg..” kyle is cut short on his statement, “ Yeah nah, I had to get this last bit of geometry done and it was kinda kicking my ass” Kyle sit there in disbelief “You know if you weren’t you I’d be calling bullsh-“ the bus comes to a sudden stop “Ight, go and learn something” Ms. Sherly says.
Inside Classroom 103 English
“So, did you do the reading last night” Kyle says to which he receives the side eye from Raph “Nah, I just did geometry and was like let me neglect my other classes for 2K” He laughs before he can finish the joke, Raphs contagious laugh causes Kyle and others in the room to follow. The footsteps of the teacher walking in make the classroom go silent. “Hello, class!” He says with power and dominance, “Hey, Mr. Bettermen.” The class responded in unison; Bettermen was a tall man with a low-cut fade and a slight beard. As he walks to his desk, he is followed closely by the student, she was short and hazelnut-like skin and hair that is coily and thin but hard to tell when it is braided together. “So, as we can see, we have a new student. Please introduce yourself.” She stands there before she gives a big smile. “Hey y’all, my name is Wendi, but everyone just calls me W, you know, like for the win,” she says, laughing.
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