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                      Social Anxiety                       
                     -by Marine King-                      
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                         Prologue                          
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Prologue
Nicholas tapped his pen on the piece of paper given to him by his Algebra teacher, trying to mentally solve the math problem before him. The teacher was silently watching everyone from her desk, her large glasses magnifying the look of her eyes, giving her a more intimidating appearance as she gazed at each of the kids in her class. She looked ready to retire from teaching, giving that she had graying hair that was almost fully white with age and her skin looked like old leather left out in the sun too long. Some of the other kids in the room sat with their heads down, pretending to be asleep. Some of the boys in the back of the room were whispering to each other, chuckling to themselves as they pulled rubber bands from around their wrists. The teacher watched them closely as they started to pull out small pieces of paper bent down the middle. Paper hornets were their name, and the boys were playing a game of patience.
One pulled the rubber bands back, using the paper hornet as a projectile, and launched the piece of paper at a random girl in the front of the room. It grazed past her head, only scoring a glancing blow on her hair. She shot up from her work, glaring around the room before her eyes settled on the boy in the back. He gave a sheepish smile and a small wave, which was met with rolled eyes and a flick of her hair. Nicholas saw her movements and sighed heavily, writing down random numbers in the equation box. He had forgotten what they were doing here, and applied what he knew to answer the question correctly. He heard a hornet whiz past his ear, hitting someone in the back of the head. They snored loudly and shuffled, causing the class to erupt in laughter.
Nicholas gave a grimace. I swear to God… If one of them hits me… He thought darkly. A few minutes passed with each one of the students around him being nailed by one of the hornets. He had managed to complete almost half of the worksheet in that time, with half of his mind on the worksheet and the other on what was happening around him.
A quiet twang filled the air as another one of the paper hornets were let loose, and I felt the pen in my hand disappear, clattering to the floor below. Nicholas growled in irritation, balling his hands into fists. He shot a cold glare to the back of the room and bent down to pick up his pen. A hornet, reinforced with a paperclip, grazed his cheek, the fast speed of the paper leaving a stinging cut along his cheek. He picked up his pen, touching his cheek. He looked down at his fingers and saw a small amount of blood.
He stood up suddenly, his face hard and cold as he started to clear a way through the desks, chairs, and students to the boy that shot him. The teacher stood up, along with several other people, most friends to Nicholas.
“Nick, come on man. Just sit back down and let Mrs. H. deal with them.” One of his older friends, Lewis, said. He only answered with a growl and continued to push his way through. His fists were clenched and he was ready to leave the kid a smear on the ground. He barely registered people grabbing his limbs and pulling back. The teacher stood in front of him, causing him to stop, as he gave her a seething stare.
“Mrs. Howard…” He growled out, “Make sure to keep that little bastard under watch, because I’m going to ram my fist into his stomach and break his goddamn spine.”
“I have no doubts about your ability to do so, but I must intervene Mr. Buckner. Mr. Boyle will be making his way to the administrator center at this very moment, and you won’t make any attempt on physical harm as you go to the Nurses Office.” She said, shooting a glare to the boy. He looked at the floor and started to shuffle his way out of the room. “I will write you a pass, then fill out a referral form to give to the Office Staff.” She finished, as she started to walk back to her desk, going through her drawers, pulling out a few pads of papers. He turned around and marched back to his desk, the classroom being rearranged to its original positions. After a minute or two, the teacher called him up to her desk. Giving a grunt as thanks as he took the pass from her hands. He stepped out into the hallway before touching his cheek. The blood had long dried and had started to coagulate. He sighed softly to himself and started walking towards the nurses office. Before he could make it to the office to get his cut cleaned, one of his friends from his class caught up to him.
“Hey Nick, they said that you were to go to the office ASAP.” He said, his voice echoing in the empty hallway. Nicholas grimaced and changed his route to the office. He found himself in a dimly lit room a minute later, the boy that gave him his wound sitting next to him. He was using all of his self control to not start strangling him.
“So, Mr. Buckner…” The security officer started.
He knew this security guard well. He had tried to get him in trouble often, despite Nicholas managing to squeeze his way out of trouble by simply telling the truth on the matter. “I see that you weren’t able to make it to the Nurses Office.” He gave a small smile. “Despite the obvious… Assault with a deadly weapon charges that can be filed against Mr. Boyle for his wound inflicted upon you, I would like to hear your side of the story.” He said, sitting down and leaning back in his chair.
Nicholas sighed as he sat up straight, pulling in a deep breath. “We were in the middle of doing some classwork, Algebra math problems, when I look back to see him and three of his friends pulling out rubber bands, and these things called ‘paper hornets’. I go back to my work, knowing what was coming. It started with people sleeping in the middle of class. Just to get a few laughs from the rest of everyone. Then they started to target people minding their own business. Doing what they were supposed to do. One of them shot my pen from my hand. As I bent down to pick it up, I was looking at them, and Mr. Boyle here thought it would be cute to shoot his paper hornet at me. It was a glancing blow. One that caught the edge of the paper clip, causing my little injury, and for me to get mad.” He stopped, cutting it off of there.
“My assumption is that Mrs. Howard was watching them, in case they would cause bodily harm, and you were the… suspect of this little attack.” The security guard said.
Nicholas nodded, glancing at the boy next to him. He was twiddling his thumbs, staring at the ground. He was trying to make himself as small as possible in the chair.
“I assume that is also what happened, because she managed to stop me from inflicting my own bodily harm upon him and his friends.” He said, becoming slightly sarcastic with the security guard.
His eyes narrowed at him, obviously ready to retort. “Mr. Boyle’s story is only slightly difference to yours, only by a little.” He said, raising his hands into the air and giving a fair amount of space in the middle of the both of them.
Nicholas knew that he was lying. “Seems quite a lot for just a small difference.” Nicholas snarked. “I would love to hear his side of the story. To make sure that I’m not going to be in any form of trouble because of twisted facts or-” The security guard stood up.
“Are you saying that Mr. Boyle is lying?” He questioned.
“maybe it’s because he lies almost all of the time? You assume it’s just truth because he lies all of the time?” Nicholas said, standing up as well. He was taller and wider than the security guard, but that wouldn’t stand up against a taser or pepper spray.
“Then it’s probable that you are also lying, Mr. Buckner? Do I need to have your parents contacted, like last time? Or worse, the police? We can request forensic investigations, and pull in more witnesses of the incident.” He threatened.
“And you would be wrong. I know what happened, and I see no reason to create lies because they never work in the end. You can call police, guardians, witnesses, hell, pull in the jury and judge for this. I will win this battle. Like every other time you’ve tried to tarnish my reputation.”
He gave a hard stare at the officer, the both of them in a battle of wills.
“Or better yet, you can call students from the classroom. Pull everyone from there, even the teacher.” Nicholas stated.
“That won’t be necessary Mr. Buckner.” The guard said, looking away. “Mr. Boyle, we will discuss your punishment as soon as I write Mr. Buckner a pass to the nurse to clear him of that ugly cut on his face.” He said, giving a strained smile.
Nicholas grimaced.
He knew that the security guard would through an extra subtle blow at him, to undermine him, or better yet.
To make him explode on the security guard so that he could actually put charges on him.
He ignored the subtle insult with a little effort and took the pass from the guard forcefully, glaring at him as he folded it in half and started to make his exit from the room. He started towards the nurses office, grumbling slightly. He knew nothing would become of little Boyle, as he’ll be sitting there, annoying the hell out of the class the next day.
“Crooked cops…” He grumbled to himself as he opened the door to the Nurses Office. He found himself staring at a young girl, probably not ten years older than himself, sitting behind the desk in a tight, pearl white Nurse outfit. Every other guy that wasn’t gay made excuses to go see the Nurse, in hopes of her bending over to pick something up and catch a glimpse of her ass, or hope to see her cleavage as she was writing something down.
He personally had no interest in the older girl, as she was purposely giving guys boners, and probably screwing half of them.
A small booklet sat on a endtable in the middle of the room, fit with a pen tied to it. He walked over, the sound of his boots catching her attention. He bent down to start signing in, and she gave a smile, laced with desire, as she stood up.
“You must be new, because I don’t remember seeing you in here before.” She said.
“I’ve been going to this school for two years now. Junior year.” He responded. She frowned and turned away, allowing him to roll his eyes. She pulled open the bottom drawer of her file cabinet, having to bend over to do so. He looked away immediately, showing no interest in it.
“What was your name again?” She asked.
“Nicholas Buckner.” Nicholas responded, feeling her eyes on the side of his face. He could almost hear her brow furrow in disappointment as she stood back up, walking to another file cabinet and opening it again.
“I have students coming in here for all sorts of things, and their files just get so big, I have to have multiple file cabinets at once to fit it all in.” She said, giving him a dirty smile.
It was obviously an innuendo that she was a complete whore.
“But I haven’t got a lot for injuries like your own, unless they’re sobbing at their own blood and pain.” He had to hold back a growl at the blatant attempts of lowering his defenses with complements.
“I’m sure.” He said, trying to keep his answers short. He heard a cabinet close and he looked back. She had pulled out a painfully small file, one with his last name on it. She flipped through the one or two pages inside of it and sighed.
“No wonder I don’t remember you. The last time you were in here, you were two years younger, almost two feet shorter, and was a toothpick complaining of nausea compared to how you are now.” She commented, pulling out an younger picture of him. He didn’t look, rather just continued to study the posters around the room. Most were cheesy school posters that you expected in a Nurses Office, but some were quite graphic.
“I was fourteen and I had no interests in Sports, friends, or weightlifting.” He mumbled, remembering the day.
“And now look at you… All grown up, with one of the best bodies in the school. A star athlete for our football team, I presume?” She  asked.
“Baseball, football, and track.” He corrected.
“I’m sure you had to build up a lot of stamina for that…” She said, her voice sounding husky.
“I would like to get back to class, so can we please just clean this cut off of my face?” He asked impatiently, keeping his attention away from her. She gave a small sigh.
“Why do you want to leave so quickly? Don’t you want to stay a while?” She asked.
“No, I want to leave. I want to get back in class, so that I can get out of school.” So that I don’t have to deal with sluts trying to get their asses filled with as many cocks as she can. He added mentally. She gave a deep sigh as she started digging through cabinets and drawers.
“A curious question… Are you a homosexual?” She asked.
He turned to her with narrowed eyes. “And why would you ask that? School staff isn’t supposed to be tread into the personal lives of the students.” He said through clenched teeth.
“I say that because you don’t seem to be interested in girls, at least from my point of view.” She got close to me, closer than I liked, her hands dipping behind her, “And who said I was school staff?”
His hands, on reflex, shot to his midriff, and knocked a needle away from her hands. She seemed prepared as a sudden pain in the side of his head forced him to the ground. He looked up at her and saw that she had a hammer in her hand.
She gave a small, devious smile as she started pulling off clothing. Her shirt got trapped on her bust as she tried to pull her shirt over her head, and Nicholas took the opportunity to grab the stray syringe and stab it into her ribcage, emptying all of the drugs into her. It was almost immediate, as she fell to the floor, unconscious.
He grumbled as he touched the spot where she hit him, flinching with pain. It felt like his head had caved in, and there was a profuse amount of blood emptying from his head.
He gave a shuddering breath and stood up. He wobbled in place as he started walking down the hall. A loud, screeching ringing hit his ears, and he went to the floor, grasping his head in extreme pain.
His eyes fluttered as he blacked out.
There was a small pressure on his midriff.
He looked around, and found him in the middle of an ambulance. He blinked as he tried to sit up, only to find him strapped to the stretcher.
Police, fire truck, and ambulance sirens screamed in his head, causing him to flinch and groan in pain. He looked and saw his parents, a few of his friends, the faulty nurse being dragged into a police van, and officers everywhere.
His eyes fluttered as he blacked out.
His body began to feel weightless.
He shook his head, and looked at the gathering… He blinked, and noticed that everyone had disappeared. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, stunned. There was no noise. Everyone disappeared from sight. He realized he was still strapped to the stretcher in the ambulance. He frowned.
What the hell is going on… He thought to himself as he struggled in his bindings.
His eyes fluttered as he blacked out.
He looked around the ambulance, only to notice it to not be there anymore. He was surrounded in black. The stretcher disappeared underneath him, but he was still tied to something, disabling his movement.
He squeezed his eyes shut, counting to five, before opening them once more.
He was now surrounded by dark trees. They seemed almost pastel in coloring. Like they were from a coloring book, or a cartoon intended for a younger audience. He could no longer feel the restraining binds on his limbs, and he slowly stood up. He felt his head, only to feel his head perfectly fine, even the smaller wound was gone without a trace.
A few pops greeted him as he stood to his full height, and he decided to stretch properly. More pops and cracks found his ears, and he sighed in contentment.
Looking around, his basic survival instincts kicked in.
Alright, find a river, follow it downstream. It should lead you to civilization. He started to walk what he thought was west, but was actually East. He looked up, only to find the canopy of the trees blocking his way. It was starting to get progressively darker. He needed to find a civilization quickly.
He started to jog.
Wait… What is happening? He asked himself after a while, noticing his tracks through the leaves. He had been going straight ahead for the last ten minutes, but realized he had somehow looped around again. He stopped in the middle of the leaf covered ground.
Is this a dream? Am I in a coma from the head tra… trua… trauma? He thought.
He pinched his arm.
He didn’t feel anything, and grinned. This is just a dream! I can just fly out of here! He thought gleefully, as he closed his eyes and imagined a dirt bike in front of him.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing but the forest was ahead of him. What looked like a single set of tire tracks were in front of him.
What? He was confused about what had happened. He had learned some small things about dreams. Some about him being able to control lucid dreams. Others about using small clues to realize he was in a dream and that he wasn’t in the real world.
They had to have lied about that then… He thought glumly. But it’s still a dream. I shouldn’t have to worry about food or water… He smiled contently at that and started walking once more.
What he didn’t realize was that he was being followed by three beings...