"I Am Nothing" Chapter One

Chapter One

How long have I been in this city? Was it years? Months? Weeks? The only thing I remember before waking up on the bus to Minxton was the blood on my knuckles from her bruised face. Her tears... oh God, her tears as she begged me to stop. I felt her bones break with her skin, time and time again, blow after blow. There would've no mistaking it for falling down the stairs after that last time. My dear Micah, did I actually kill you that last time before I left?

No, I couldn't have. You threatened to call the police, and I ran away. Some would call me a coward for that. I call her a coward for letting me hit her in the first place. She screamed for me to stop, but never once did she stop me before I knocked her down. I almost thought she enjoyed covering for her scars, or for me. But that night was different. I can't remember for the life of me why she deserved to be punished. That's not the weird part, though. The weird part is that I know it, but something since I got into this city has blocked it out of my mind.

It must have been months. I'd already had my BFA, and I was starting my Masters in Bailey State University. The only reason I started thinking about how long I've been in this city is because it seems so long ago that I enrolled. This was my first quarter back in school, and I barely remember talking to an advisor about my degree. Come to think of it, I don't remember taking an entrance exam for college in the first place. What is wrong with this city? Maybe the air is fucking with my head.

I get off of the public bus, the trash heap that it is, and make my way to the Atrium, a three floored hang out for all of the busy-bodied Freshmen playing foosball, ping pong, video games, or watching mindless liberal drivel. I pass the gym, the radio station, and head for the tunnel system that connects the schools many buildings, making my way to the Arts Center.

“Long day ahead of us, eh?” The voice, a low, almost too deep for a woman's voice, belonged to Katie. She was the type of girl that I'm A Little Teapot was the perfect song for. She was roughly 5'1,” but weighed about as much as I did (roughly 174 at 5'7”). To make the joke that genetics (and, possibly, fast food) played on her, she sounded like a pig. Despite all of this, she was a kind heart, the type people couldn't help but like to be around.

“Don't remind me,” I sighed. “I barely slept last night. Maybe about four hours.”

“Ha! Two!” Katie gleaned, as if it was a contest of who could function on less sleep. Micah did that once. She learned after that. But, the way Katie said it, her blonde hair bouncing like Micah's did that day, struck me. It was almost as if Micah was next to me.

I shook it off as quickly as it came. “Look, I don't have time to talk right now. Katie,” I said with a polite smile. “My advanced drawing class awaits, and I don't want to piss the teacher off.” Before she had a chance to say anything else, I turned to the hallway, to catch the elevator. Unusually, only a minute after pressing the button, the elevator showed up, Rachel Morris waiting inside. Finally, someone I could genuinely tolerate! I related to her in a way. She was a little taller than me, thin, gawky, but her straight red hair and giant grey eyes took away from that fact, as did the scar on her left cheek. She claimed it was from an accident with a broken window, but I knew better.

The only thing that threw me off when ever I saw her were the bruises on her arms and neck. She had no family, no boyfriend, and barely a social life as far as I knew. It didn't help that I potentially knew the truth behind the scar, which only served to confuse me even more. Who did this to her?

“Augh, I'm so damn tired,” she said as the door closed. “I couldn't sleep last night. I must have gotten maybe--”

“Four hours?”

She looked at me, fairly sure I somehow became a psychic. “Yeah, how'd you know?”

I chuckled, trying to not see the eeriness of two people I knew not being able to sleep at the same night as me. “I'm in the same boat. I ended up drawing until 3:00, woke up at 7:00.” Rachel stared at me like the world was about to fall apart. Coincidence doesn't exist in Minxton, even for the most ironically devout Agnostics like her and Katie. For some reason, everyone in Minxton was convinced that everything happens for a reason. I, on the other hand, don't buy into superstitions, believing them to be childish inventions to scare others, much like the boogeyman.

We opened the wooden door to the drawing lab to see the set up of the day. Three human torsos, two of the decapitated, and a cast of Michelangelo's Moses. No doubt, our teacher would tell us stories of how he got these items, and why we need to draw them perfectly. I was usually too tired to listen unless he was teaching us something new. This was the tenth drawing class I've had in my learning career, and I was beginning to think that I'd hear the same things over and over.

I turned my head ever so slightly, and that's when I saw it. Next to the torso with a head, coming from a hole at it's base, was a sticky looking pink tube. It was dripping red from the outside, and seemingly pouring out. As soon as I realized that it was there, I turned to face it.

It was a extra large glow stick, the fluid, still glowing, dripping out. I didn't dare move it, thinking it to be part of the lesson. Find the thing that doesn't fit in, maybe. Who knows? Once the class started, we sat down and started to draw as the professor told us what we were doing anyway. After his speech, he took the glow stick. I swear to God, though, when he did, it was limp, and none of the fluid was missing from it. I shook off my tiredness – that had to be it – and continued drawing.