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. . .

The repetitive beeping of his alarm clock brought Peter's eyes hazily open. In the back of his mind, he knew that this meant that it was now six O'clock, and that school would be starting in an hour exactly. But Insomnia had gotten the best of him the previous night, leaving him with maybe three or four hours total of sleep. Needless to say... he was tired. Any other 15 year old probably would be too. Especially if it was something that had been reoccurring for a week straight, as it had been for Peter. And so, mumbling, he slowly closed his eyes again. But the alarm clock was not so sympathetic, and continued it's beeping barrage. Furrowing his brow, Peter finally opened his eyes again, reached out, and slapped the 'Snooze' button.

Silence.

'It's... Tuesday.' He lazily thought.

'Ah yes. . . school. . . school is. . . important. . .'

He pushed himself out of bed, rubbing his eyes, and then moved to the window and pulled back its shades. He mornings light poured into the room, blinding him for a moment. But once this had cleared, he could clearly see the street adjacant to his house. Students could already be seen making their way to school, much to his surprise, and he glanced back at the clock. Six thirty.

"Gah!"

And at that, he rushed to his closet to get changed.

 

There wasn't time to make something to eat, much to Peter's dismay. It didn't help that his lunch period was the last one of the day either.

He sighed. "I hope I didn't forget anything... again". He pulled out his backpack and rummaged through it to make sure. "Good... everything seems to be here"

Reaching into one of the pockets, he pulled out his Discman CD player and headphones. Music was always one of his favorite escapes. He could drown himself in it and let the waves of imagination take him away to wherever he wanted, and today's special was one of his favorites. Pink Floyd's 'The Dark Side of The Moon'.

It was one of his first CD's which he had stumbled upon in a music store several years ago. He knew nothing of the band, but album's mysterious cover piqued his interest. Coincidentally, he had just enough allowance money to buy it, and so buy it he did. Admittedly something of a blind purchase, but he was not dissapointed in the least.

He plugged in his earphones and pushed Play on the worn Azure Discman, and took a deep relaxing breath, before continuing along the sidewalk.

The walk to school wasn't exactly a lengthy one. Basically, after leaving the house, it was simply straight down the sidewalk for about a 10 minute walk, and there it was to the left. However, this morning was especially hot, and with every step he took the sun's heat seemed to beat harder and harder down upon him. Days like these only increased his strong dislike in wearing school uniforms. 'A watterbottle. That's what I should've brought.'

Arriving, he saw the familiar scene of students going in and out and about the front entrance, and buses pulling in and out every now and then too. He never really liked the front entrance. To many people, all having their fun before the bell. Laughing. Gossiping. All of that.

'Not that they'd care to even look at me anyway. Nobody looks at me. And if they do... they're probably laughing, or mocking me. I'm probably ugly... or something, or maybe I look dirty ,or- blah, I don't care. Why should I care? I shouldn't. They don't care, so-'

"Ay, Peter!"

A framiliar voice interrupted his thoughts from behind just as he had reached the back doors. He turned around and plucked his right earphone out. The student approaching him was one he knew well.

"Ah- hey Joey."

Joey was a scruffy brown haired kid, whom Peter had been friends with since the previous year when he came to the school. He wasn't the tallest of students, but Peter always thought that if there had ever been a contest at the school to see who was about as Italian as an Italian can possibly get, Joey would at the least be runner up. The only thing stopping him from the very honorable award in Peters mind was that Joey wasn't completely Italian, as Joey had once told him. He apparantly also had a little Russian and Polish history to his family. But you never see him bringing Vodka to school to drink, so you wouldn't know. Only Pasta.

"I uh, thought you took the bus."

"I did take the bus. I just got off."

"Ah. Right"

Joey adjusted his backpack and entered the school, Peter just behind him. They dodged their way through the students hurrying through the halls and made their way up the crowded stairs towards the second floor.

"Did you do the writing thing? The English thing?" He asked.

"You mean the Chapter summary. Uh, yeah, I did it. Why, you didn't?"

"No I did. I was just asking. Hey, how much do you wanna bet that Alec is still out?"

"I don't have any money..."

Joey scratched his head. "Well me neither- but do you think he'll be in? I don't."

"Er, Maybe. I don't know."

"Waitwaitwait... lets see..."

Arriving at their first class (Being English), Joey crept up to the doorway and peered around the corner into the classroom with a mischivous grin spread across his face.

Peter sighed. "What exactly is the point of being stealthy. You can just enter and find ou-"

"HA! I knew it!" Joey clenched his fist in some sort of pointless triumph, and proceeded to enter the class. Peter sighed again. Things like this were common with Joey.

The teacher looked up and aknowledged their entrance with a nod, and returned to writing something at his desk. Joey took his seat at the far end of the class by the windows, and Peter in front of him. Only a couple other students were there at the moment.

"He can still come." Peter said as he placed his papers onto the desk. "The bell hasn't rung yet."

"No no no no. Alec has always either been early or absent. If he's not here already, then he's absent. You know that".

"I guess. And he told you it was a fever?"

"Yeah."

'... Interesting'. Peter mused. 'Alec has never been one to get sick easily '

And just then, the bell sounded off its defening clamour. Or rather, defening to Peter. He always had super sensetive hearing, so many things annoyed him easier than they might to others, like gum chewing for example, or that high pitched sound all old TV's make when they turn on. Stuff like that.

Students rushed into the room almost all at once, and took their seats. And so, first period went on as it would on almost any other day. Peter never really liked english very much. He liked writing, but only when it was something he himself enjoyed writing about. Not summaries from Shakespear books and things like that. He spent half the class gazing out at the clouds. They really were beautiful. But if there was one thing he always longed to see when he looked outside a window, it was snow. He had only heard stories and seen pictures of it before, but he knew it would be all the more spectacular if he could actually see snow for himself. But no snow had fallen in the world for fifteen years. Not since 2000.

Not since the Second Impact...

Time went by, and the bell brought him out of his longing imagination, as it usually did, and he packed up and left the window's view.

'I wish I was born at another time. I wish... I wish Second Impact had never happened.'

But it had happened. And it took half of the worlds population with it. The meteor that had crashed straight into Antarctica was also the sudden death of millions of innocent people. There was no warning for its coming, and most of the world was only now coming out of its devestation and destruction. So many dead...

Peter realized he was clenching his fist quite hard, and steadily calmed himself down. 'Right. Next is Math...'