chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Michael Lupus at age 13 I find out that my mother and godfather were both killed in a car accident. My father went missing. I was shipped halfway round the world to live with an uncle that I didn’t even know I had.

At age 15 things started to change, I grew faster than I had before, I stopped getting sick and I always seemed to be warm even in the middle of winter.

Age 18 was worst of all, this was the time of my awakening, but to tell you about that I must tell you of my ... life if you could call that. But anyway it all started one spring morning...

I wake to the first light of the sunrise entering my room. I quickly crawl out of bed and get myself ready for my walk. On my way out of the room I look back to see that it was only 5:00, so I quietly and quickly make my way to the door of the large house. After getting out the door I head straight to the woods at the back of the house and finally started my way up the side of the mountain. Something was different this morning; the sounds were louder, the smells were stronger. As I continued my way up, I started to smell the all too familiar smell of lavender and jasmine which let me know that I was in the right place. I stepped out of the forest into a large clearing filled with lavender, jasmine and a single large rock that was almost the shape of a seat. I walk over to it and sit down to watch what’s left of the sunrise.

The sun had reached its morning height, so I picked some of the flowers and started the walk back to the house. I got back to the house at a quarter to eight. I opened the door to find my aunt and two young cousins all sitting around the table.

“Been back up to the clearing again?” my aunt asked in a knowing tone.

“Yes,” was my response.

“Oh and you remembered this time,” she said spotting the flowers in my hand.

“Tenth time lucky,” I answer in a flat tone.

“Michael,” came a call from down the hallway as my youngest cousin came running over to me and jumping into my arms.

“I was running a bit late this morning, did daddy have to get you out of bed today,” I said as a big smile appeared on my face.

“Yep,” she stopped, sniffed me and screwed up her nose. “You smell funny.”

The whole table including my aunt and uncle who were in the kitchen start to laugh. I pull my nose under the collar of my shirt. “I do smell a bit funny don’t I, yeah, ok you go eat your breakfast and I’ll go get cleaned up,” I say as I put her down.

“Come over here Em and have some cereal,” my aunt says putting a small bowl down on the table, as Emma trots over to the chair. I just smile as I walk off to my room to quickly shower and get myself ready for school.

I renter the kitchen grabbing a waffle that had just pops up out of the toaster “Ow, that’s hot.”

“Ha, serve yourself right,” come from Christi as she loads another waffle into the toaster.

“Hey do you WANT a lift to school?” I say sarcastically rising an eyebrow, she just grumbles something under her breath. With a quick glance down at my watch I see that it’s five past eight.

“Tom, Christi, taxi’s leaving in two minutes,” I exclaim loudly as I grab my keys rattling them in the air.

“Shotgun!” Tom yells running to grab his bag by the door.

“No way were you in the front yesterday,” Christi yells running after him.

“How do you plan on fixing this one?” my uncle says with a sigh.

“Easy put them both in the back,” I reply with a shrug.

 

After making it to the carport the first thing I saw was both the kids leaning against the car.

“Did you have to lock it again?” Christi says with a sour look on her face.

“Yes, yes I did,” I say with a smug look on my own.

“Ok have we got everything?” I ask before pushing the button to unlock the car and opening the door and climbing into the driver seat. Tom quickly climbed into the back seat and Christi walked around the car to climb into the other passenger side seat.

I hold my hand out and clicked in front of Christi “Give it.”

“What?” Christi says shocked.

“Phone, now.”

“Oh come on Mich,” she pleads.

“If you’re lucky I’ll give it back when we get to the school,” I say calmly.

She pulls a purple phone from her pocket and reluctantly gives it to me; I just put the phone in to the door compartment. “You know you’re not meant to have it at school.”

“But everyone does it,” she says in a small voice.

I just laugh as I start up the car, put it in reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

After about ten minutes we arrived in front of the Veilfield central school, I quickly find a park. “Ok everyone out.”

Tom jumps out of the car while yelling “See ya.”

Christi doesn’t move she just sits there staring at me. I pull the phone from where I’d put it “Here, but if you get it taken off you this time I’m not coming to get it, ok?” I say throwing it to her.

“Yeah ok, see ya when you get home,” she exclaims excitedly as she catches the phone and darts out of the car.

I just shake my head as I put the car in drive and pull out of the park. After about another 5 minutes driving I began to approach the Veilfield academy; a large building that looks more like a cathedral than a school. I find that most of the parks are taken but there are a few clear. After parking the car I make my way through the front doors then to my locker to collect the books that I would need for my philosophy class which was up first. The bell sounded throughout the halls as students appeared from everywhere and started to move through the halls. I made my way towards the classroom, found a seat and began to wait for Mr Jones. Suddenly out of nowhere I hear a painfully loud ringing in my ears this continues for a few moments, before one ringing was replaced with a softer and more distant one that sound like someone’s phone. I cast a quick glance around the room but no one else seemed to be able to hear it, next thing I know someone answers it. “Hello Leah it’s Mum, have you got everything.” My eyes move from the room to the window where I see a beautiful girl sitting outside the school going through her bag and talking on a phone.

The conversation continued. “Um, yeah I think so, um, crap!” The girl lifts her fist and brings it down on her leg.

“Le what’s wrong?” said a concerned voice on the other end of the call.

“I left the stupid Leviathan book at home, as well as my pencil case,” she said starting to sound angry.

“When do you have that class and can’t you borrow a pen off someone?”

“Now and maybe I don’t know... Mum I have to go the guy’s coming to show me to my class room,” she said as she hangs up the phone and gets up.

The second bell rang blasting sound though my ears nearly deafening me. Once the bell stoped my hearing appeared to be back to normal. A bit shaken by what just happened, I didn’t even notice Mr Jones walk in to the room and start writing on the board. The board had the words ‘Bellum omnium contra omnes’

“This will be our topic today, now if you would be so kind as to open your books to...” there was a knock on the door that interrupted his speech. “Sorry to interrupt Mr Jones but you have a new student joining your class today, this is Leah Hunt.” The man stepped aside to let a girl with long raven black hair and deep hazel eyes enter the room. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. The three of them talked for a few minutes before the man that lead Leah into the room said, “Mr Lupus the guidance councillor wants to see you in her office in five minutes.”

“Well Miss Hunt you can have Mr Lupus’s seat,” Mr Jones says as I quickly write a small note, slipping it under the cover of my copy of Leviathan, leaving it and a pen on the desk. When I got to the front of the room Mr Jones stops me by asking, “Before you go Mr Lupus what does that mean?” He shot a quick glance to the board.

“Bellum omnium contra omnes means the war of all against all,” I answer making my way to the door and out of the room.

...

I slowly made my way to the seat that was just emptied. To see that a pen and a book with a piece of paper under the cover were left sitting on the desk. I slide into the chair as the boy answers the question that the teacher asked him and leaves the room. I pull the paper out of the book to see that it’s a note that says

‘You can borrow my copy for today’s lesson, trust me you’ll need it

Michael Lupus

P.S. you can keep the pen think of it as a welcome to hell gift’

“How the...” I say to my self

“Miss Hunt how much of the reading have you been able to do?” Mr Jones says bringing me back from the thoughts racing through my head.

“Um most of it sir,” I say putting a fake smile on.

...

After making my way to the guidance councillor’s office I see a girl run from the room crying.

“Ok?” I say to myself as I reach the door. Opening it I see a short elderly lady sitting in a high backed chair rubbing her temples.

“Is this a bad time, I can come back later if you want,” I say hopefully.

“No Michael come in,” the lady says with her expression changing.

“Mr Lupus have you meet the new student yet,” she says with a creepy expression on her face.

“She was in the class you just pulled me out of,” I say as a puzzled look crosses my face.

“Good, good, the reason that I called you here is that she has been put in to most of the same classes as you, so I would like you to tutor her so that she can get up to speed,” she said staring at me.

“I don’t have a choice in this matter do I?” I say know all too well what the answer would be.

“Um... well.... no, not really,” she said with a shrug.

“When do I start?” I say with a sigh.

“Tomorrow after school,” she cheerfully says as she starts to write out a hall pass handing it to me then waving for me to leave.

By the time I make it back to the philosophy class the lesson is mostly over and Mr Jones has moved on to a different topic; ‘Hobbes first law of nature’. I walk into the room, hand Mr Jones my hall pass and take a spare seat at the back of the room

“Ok Mr Lupus seeing as you’ve missed most of the lesson why don’t you tell us ‘Hobbes first law’?” he said with a smirk moving across his face.

I just smile and open my mouth as the bell sounds, loudly ending the class. Everyone grabbed their books, quickly running out of the room.

 I rise out of my chair and start towards the door but as I walk past Leah I get a strange feeling flow through my mind, the feeling spread through my whole body. The colours of the room seemed to become more vivid, smells assault my nose and sounds boom in my ears. Then it was gone, the smells, the sounds, everything was back to normal. I was left feeling breathless and groggy, but quickly regained my composer, hurrying out of the room.

The next lesson went by without any trouble, this meant that it was time to make my way to the schools torture chamber, more commonly known as the cafeteria. I thought of it this way for more than one reason, but the main reason was; the Wolfgang, the school’s football team that seemed to have a vendetta against me. I open the twin doors to witness a sea of people spread across multiple tables. At one of the far side tables I catch sight of Jo, Rachel and a second girl who had her back in my direction, but she looked all too familiar. As I drew closer to the table the girl’s identity became all too apparent; it was Leah Hunt. “It had to happen sometime so let’s get it over with” was all I could think as Joe spotted me coming closer to the table and said, “Hey Mich what took ya so long?”

“Oh same as always,” was my response.

Rachel moved a piece of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear as she said, “Leah this is Michael, Michael this is Leah.”

Leah just laughed as she pulled my copy of Leviathan out of the bag she was carrying and said, “So we meet again, and thanks for the book.” She handed it to me with a few pieces of paper tucked under the cover.

“What this?” I ask pulling the papers out of the book.

“It’s a copy of the notes I took in class, I thought you might need them,” she said flashing me a smile.

“Thanks,” I say as I set the book down on the table.

Out of nowhere came a strange sensation running through my body. It was like my body was trying to do something but my mind wouldn’t let it. The feeling started to grow to the point where I really had to concentrate to stop my body from moving.

“Mich lookout,” Rachel yelled.

The next thing I know my body’s jumping out of the chair, spinning around and catching a football before it could hit me. Then the sensation was gone like it was never there in the first place.  The whole Wolfgang were frozen just staring at me, I was frozen with the football still firmly clutched in my hands. One of the teachers walked over to me, taking the ball from me, and then he made a beeline straight to where the Wolfgang all stood whispering to each other and pointing at me. I just slowly sat back in to my seat shocked and dazed. With all three of my friends staring at me.

“How did you...” Rachel said stunned.

“That was awesome man, how did you do that?” Jo said with a huge smile spreading across his face.

“I have no idea,” I say still shocked.

The bell rang about ten minute later telling us all to go back to class.

Reviews

[InterijentoWrites]

For a site such as this, and for your level of literacy, you may want to consider posting your writing in pages, rather than chapters. Maybe make your pages 500 words a piece. Its difficult, because of your literacy level, to critique and help you with grammar errors, spelling mistakes, etc, with it beings such a long piece. Im guessing thats why so many have viewed it and not reviewed it. However, from what Ive read, it is a lovely story. I wish to read more, but my attention span isnt that long. Lol.

[J. Ghalden]

My name is Michael Lupus at age 13 I find out -- Put a period after Lupus, and start a new sentence with "At age 13... etc"
shipped halfway round the world to -- halfway around*
started to change, I grew faster -- period instead of comma
Age 18 was worst of all, this was -- period instead of comma ((Both this and the first one could also be a semi-colon instead. Pick your poison. :P))
life if you could call that. -- Comma after life, or a hyphen would also work.
5:00 -- See, some people have a fit about this and others don't. Many say that in a literary novel, all times and numbers must be present in the word form as to not force confusion unto the reader, but I honestly don't know how someone would be confused through that. But its up to you if you wanna change it. This also goes for the ages as well.
-------- In the first paragraph, you started with present tenses then formed into past tense, but the past tense continued throughout the whole piece, but at the end of this paragraph you went back to present tense. You might wanna read over it again and change some of that cause its makin' my brain frazzle. Just a heads up.
don’t I, yeah, -- Question mark after 'I', and capitalize Yeah.
renter the kitchen -- re-enter*
rising an eyebrow -- raising*
way were you in -- you were*

Hey, back again. (Finally) It was an excellent first chapter, though I did find it a bit long. And by long, I don't mean for a novel, I mean for this site. I agree wholeheartedly with what Interijento said below. It may be beneficial to you to just post in pages instead of chapters because I know a lot of people on here lose interest really quickly, and move on to other things.
Also, there's a hint in my university that says if you can make small point-blank sentences, then you're on your way to being a legit writer because it is small and gets right to the point. I believe you're doing it here perfectly, its just instead of ending it there, you put a comma instead of a period. Try to watch out for those run-on sentences or incomplete sentences. Doing this would also help with the reality of the main character, especially if its a first-person narrative style like this one.
Other than those mistakes and a few other smalls ones throughout that I may have not seen, it was a good chapter, though you really might want to think about changing that tenses problem. It jumped around so much I had no idea what was going on for a minute, and thats a bad thing.
I'll continue when I can. And sorry for taking so long to review, I know you sent me a request a while ago. xD
Happy writing. :3