Samuel Graves and the Akemic Chronicles

Samuel Graves was having a bad day. That wasn’t unusual for the sixteen-year-old, to be frank. Pretty much every day was bad for him because he didn’t get along with his peers. Bit of an understatement, if he was being honest, similar to saying something like “Mom might be mad if I set my little sister on fire.” Not that he would know… Aside from his terrible relationship with his sister (“She’s still bringing that up? Her hair grew back!”), he had a terrible relationship with… well, pretty much everyone. At school he they considered the weird kid because he liked nothing the other kids his age liked. Whereas there would be cheering students at the weekly pep rally or laughing cliques of friends moving between classes sharing the newest rumors and gossip, he would be by himself. Usually reading. That coupled with the fact he more resembled a risen zombie, one that was considering just crawling back into their grave as being a roaming cannibal was too much effort, didn’t help with his popularity any. So, with his lack of desire to be social and looks that made most people flinch, he often found himself the target of what his teachers would call “good-natured jokes.” As the jock’s book connected with his ribs for the third time while he lay on the ground, he found he didn’t agree with their summation of how his classmates interacted with him. At the moment, he was just outside the main gym after school. He’d been too busy re-reading Les Misérables as he walked to notice Benjy Jacob and his friends walking towards him. This had led to his current predicament. He didn’t know what their newest complaint about him was. Sometimes they beat him because he was “queer” (he wasn’t, and he saw nothing wrong with it, though they clearly did), sometimes they accused him of looking at “one of their girls” (again, he never did). Whatever the issue they claimed he was causing, he was intelligent enough to know they just wanted someone to beat for the sake of beating. This knowledge never made him feel any better. “Get up!” Benjy growled, cracking his knuckles. As Samuel pushed himself to his knees, Benjy kicked him again in the side, sending him tumbling to the ground. “I said get up!” He was nineteen and huge. Resembling a redheaded gorilla in a letterman jacket, he had about the same mental capacity considering this was his fifth year of high school. He was a linebacker on the school football team, his cronies all filling various positions on the team. As he was the largest of them, he was the leader. Samuel coughed, trying to get a breath in as Benjy started swearing at him for “being a coward!” He didn’t know what Benjy was on about, but he felt a cold shudder run down his back as he heard a scrape of shoes on gravel as someone ran from around the gym and closed in on the loose circle of thugs around him. “Let him go, you jerk!” A low growl of a teen girl’s voice ordered. The group all turned to look, one jock (Samuel couldn’t remember his name) swearing. “s**t! It’s Martinez!” Samuel let out a pained groan, one that he gambled they thought was the product of them beating him. He rolled his head to the side to stare at his “savior”, a short and busty girl with tanned skin and wild eyes. She had on the school uniform, though she’d undone the knot of her tie as classes were over. She had short hair, one side shaved close to the scalp with one long bang that usually dipped over her left eye, along with a pierced eyebrow over her right eye. She was lean, but Samuel knew under her long jacket she had some toned muscles. Her legs were muscled and smooth, something he felt annoyed at noticing. “What do you want, b***h?” Benjy asked, a cocky grin stretched across his face. “Afraid we’re going to mess up your boyfriend’s face?” Samuel let another groan out, knowing that was the wrong thing to say. The girl’s smile, which could only be described as feral or predatory, stretched wider. “You think I’d date this loser? Ha!” She laughed, bringing her hands up into a classic boxing position. “Get real! I’d want a real man, not a shrimpy weirdo!” “A real man, huh?” Benjy repeated, his voice taking on what he probably thought was a seductive tone. “Well, there’s a few of those standing right here—” “Going to cut you off there,” she interrupted. “Because all I see are a few thugs beating a loser. No men here. Now, you going to leave him be or do I have to feed you some of your teeth?” Benjy sputtered as a few of the other jocks let out cries of rage at the insult. “Come on guys, let’s beat this b***h!” Samuel pushed himself up into a sitting position and dusted himself off to the tune of pained cries and pleas for mercy, all of which lasted a scant minute. When he looked up to see the slim and tanned hand offering him help up, he did his best not to recoil at the blood on her knuckles. “You can’t go a week without me saving you, can you nerd?” She asked, her eyes cold. Behind her, Benjy and his friends were moaning in pain. “Well,” he said, taking her hand, “your parents spent so much on your Tae-Kwon-Do training, I feel you should get to use it.” “Ha!” She laughed, slapping him on the back. He stumbled slightly, wincing at the force of the blow. As he had the physique of recovering Cancer patient, he was easy to knock around. “Maybe you should look into some training instead of those stupid games you love so much?” He frowned. She always picked on him, especially of his favorite hobby: old video games. He loved finding old and relatively obscure video games to play, as they had better stories than the more modern versions. “That… that’s not likely,” he said, shaking his head. She continued laughing. “Yeah,” she said after calming down, wiping at her eyes, “can’t really see you doing anything that difficult. Anyway, you ready to roll? You still need me to walk you home right?” “That’s what I pay you for, Theresa.” He sighed, gathering his bookbag. Theresa Martinez was a spitfire, a short Hispanic girl that he’d grown up around that was a year his junior… and despite this, she charged him for protection. In fact, she charged a lot of students for such a service. As Plymouth, Texas, was a bustling town in the throes of growing pains because of the discovery of oil nearby some ten years earlier, there were a lot of gangs that had sprung up. Most were people that had worked in the oil fields, or children of oil field workers that had gone rotten because of lack of discipline in their lives. They were a nuisance, and Theresa made quite a bit of money off of students too scared to walk about due to such criminals. As they walked home, Samuel reading his book and Theresa listening to music off her phone, he wondered what life could have been like had he been more outgoing and less sarcastic. If he’d tried to be more social before being labeled the freak of the school. He spared a glance at his friend/bodyguard and felt a slight flush to his pale cheeks. Would she like me better if I weren’t such a coward? He thought. She left him at his home, waving and telling him to be ready tomorrow morning for her to pick him up. He merely nodded and headed inside, already resigned to the fact that he would likely play an old video game or something most of the night. He had terrible insomnia, so bad that even medication really didn’t help. The house was empty and quiet, as usual. His dad was a field manager and only came home every two weeks for about three days. His mom had been dead for nearly fifteen years, his only knowledge of her coming from his dad and photographs. He fixed a snack and ran to his bedroom, throwing his bookbag on his bed before changing into more comfortable clothing. His room was small, though he preferred it that way. He had a bed (of course), and a desk where his computer was, and a wall rack that held all the old cartridges, CD’s, and boxes to his collection of esoteric games. He walked over to his desk, bag of chips in hand, and plopped down on his chair with a sigh. Leaning over to the rack of games, he started spinning it to look over his collection. He wanted something he hadn’t touched in a while, something that would challenge him… something fun. He would have selected one of the old Ultimate Fantasy games, if his chair didn’t decide to slip out from under him as he stretched out to grab the CD case. With a cry he plummeted to the floor, clawing at whatever he could to stop his descent. Unfortunately, he grabbed the game rack… and pulled it down on top of himself. Coughing under a cloud of dust and a pile of games, he rubbed at his head and pushed the heavy furniture off him, scowling at the mess he’d made. “Son of a… did I break anything?” He asked aloud, sorting through the games in a panic. Most were considered antiques and would be nearly impossible to replace. He winced when the rack groaned and popped, the top half sliding off the rotating axis. “s**t, are you serious? Wait… what the Hell?” He looked down at the break, surprised that a smaller cartridge for his old Gamestation fell out. Intrigued, he snatched it up and brushed off the thick layer of dust and grime to read the faded title. “Terra?” He read aloud, eyebrow raised. “I vaguely remember this game. Never got too into it as it was really complex and I was just a kid.” Standing up, he cleaned up the mess and did his best to fix the rack, frowning as he realized he would need to replace it soon. Studying the game cartridge after he’d cleaned up, he walked to his bed and sat down, reaching over to the small television on the nightstand he used for his old Gamestation. “Might as well try it…” he mused. “Should be fine now that I’m older and can figure this kind of crap out.” The screen went black before an 8-Bit title screen slid into view. He clicked start, with the game instantly loading a menu. NEW GAME CONTINUE CREDITS “New game, obviously.” He chuckled, selecting the option. Then the world went black.