Chapter 1: A Life Lost

He never cried a day before in his life. He never cried as a baby; his parents informed him of that; he never cried any of the times when his face had been used to clean the sidewalks in grade school or middle school. He never cried when his father died two years past. He never cried when his stepmother abandoned his sister and him.

Today was the first day in seventeen years he had ever cried.

He stared at the inert body lying before him letting the tears of sorrow and grief flow freely down his cheeks watching the body that had not moved an inch on its own accord for the past two weeks. A body that had relied upon others to stick an I.V. in its arm to give it nourishment for nearly two weeks. A body that had depended on others to use a sponge to keep it clean for almost a fortnight. A body that had not talked, had not laughed, had not smiled since that day twelve days ago.

Damn, he missed that smile.

Replaying that day in his mind he could see every second of the morning that the accident had happened to the present. That day and all that had followed had stayed crystal clear in his mind. It was if the past two weeks of his life were recorded in slow motion and played in an eternal loop before his eyes. A loop meant to haunt his conscience and drive his sub-conscience from the rock that moored it to sanity.

He stared, crying freely and openly, at his shattered rock as the eternal loop began to play in its methodical torturously slow pace before his eyes once again.

Fain turned away from the alarm clock that sat a top his dresser after ending its infernal shriek that served no truly important purpose other than to tell him school was twenty-minutes away from starting. To Fain though that was a trivial matter since he had already accumulated enough absences and tardies to earn more truant marks than one should have before being given an automatic failure for the year. In fact the only thing that prevented him from being failed was that the school year was barely out of its first month, it was early October, and so the teachers were still fresh and thus willing to put up with the hassle of trying to help a student guaranteed to fail achieve the illusion of passing.

Feeling his brain make a sharp turn from school he turned to face the clock again, stuck his hand into the dresser that occupied the area beneath it and dug out the first set of clothing he could grasp before heading towards the hallway and finally directing himself to the shower. As he neared the restroom the sound of the shower running hit his ears bringing him out of his reverie of sleeping, and started him thinking. "What the hell? Who's in the shower? Femi is on a camping trip with her friends and not due back till tonight so it can't be her. Who could be using the damn shower? Oh... that's right."

Standing in front of the shower door he decided that since someone else had already claimed the shower he might as well go and take care of breakfast and just hope that whoever was in there would remember he never woke up to the last minute and would therefore be tight on time. Muttering, "Like that would ever happen, probably be no shower today. Ugh, and I still smell like work." He turned and head to the other end of the hall to where the kitchen/dining room occupied the house. Kneeling down and opening the cabinet that held all the breakfast items he grasped for the nearest cereal and then proceeded to the refrigerator to retrieve the milk. Unfortunately, there was no milk left in the refrigerator meaning he would have to eat his cereal dry again.

"Damn it. Oh, well. No since crying over absent milk."

After finding the milk to be none existent he reached into the cupboard for a bowl and proceeded to pour his cereal. Pouring his cereal, he finally noticed what kind he had grabbed. "What? Cheerios? Disgusting! Great, is there anything left to screw up this morning?" Despite the mumbled complaints he had over his breakfast of chance, he proceeded to eat his cereal, not bothering to acquire a spoon seeing as it would just be an extra dish to wash, besides hands worked just as well for dry cereal. Shoving the last handful of cereal into his mouth footsteps echoed of the floor behind him signaling that the shower-user had finished and the shower was now available for use by another, most likely with all the hot water being AWOL.

"Good morning, Slob."

Taking the cereal-filled hand away from his mouth Fain responded, "I am not a slob. If anything I do at least clean up after myself. So how are you doing on this wretched hell-hole of a morning?"

The reply came in overly exuberant tone that was clearly forced, "No need to be so cheerful. Well, anyway, I have had better, but it's looking up now." Finishing that comment the guest threw her arms around Fain to give him a firm hug from behind. Instead of pushing the arms away him, as was custom for him to do to any one who touched him, Fain just waited silently for the arms to leave of their own accord, which took about two minutes. Not a good sign. As they pulled away, he heard his guest clear her throat in preparation to ask the question that he dreaded answering most.

"So, do I get to eat or are you just going to let little old me starve away to nothing?"

"First you are younger than me. Second, you could stand to lose a little." This statement earned him a slap across the head. Continuing as he rubbed his sore head, "Third, it sounds tempting. Let's try this idea out instead though, how about you feed yourself for once? Trust me; making a dry bowl of cereal is not overly complicated."

"Dry? You're out of milk again? Anyways, I don't really know, it seems kinda complex to me." As the shower-user said this she took a seat across from Fain and gave him a smile, which was the reason Fain dreaded this question.

"Damn it! Foul! No fair! You can not use the smile! How am I supposed to fight that?"

"Simple. You're not." And with that, the shower-user gave Fain her sweetest most innocent smile and the battle was over.

"The only person that I can't beat doesn't even need to bother raising a hand. Utterly pathetic. Completely and utterly pathetic."

Sighing and resigning himself to defeat as he listened to the giggle from his guest he stood up and went over to the cabinet to retrieve the other box of cereal. While he would tolerate the taste of Cheerios, the guest would not even tolerate dignifying it with a name, let alone "put that vile substance into the shrine that is me." Reaching down with one hand to grab the cereal, a box of Raisin Bran, he used his other hand to grab a spoon from the drawer, and finally reached into the upper cabinet for a bowl. After pouring the cereal into the bowl and inserting the spoon into its depths Fain served his guest her four star breakfast.

Their banter had taken up the time he usually reserved for hygienic care so he decided to just get dress and worry about cleanse ness when he got home from school. This occurrence not being all too uncommon the guest wordlessly turned away, with out being asked, to allow him to change and not force him to remove himself from the room. As he changed, he knew he would not be able to avoid asking the question that both of them had successful dodge already with the cereal diversion. After folding his night clothes, which was no more than a pair of boxers, he put them in an empty chair opposite and out of sight of his guest, then took a seat in the chair next to the her. Steadying himself for a long conversation, the ritualistic question that had come to be expected on this type of morning was finally asked.

"So Karma, is Diomedes on the rampage again?"

Diomedes was Karma's father, a man who publicly was a town hero and saint. In his private life though he was an abusive son of a bitch bastard who Fain had tried on numerous occasions to have Social Services press charges against for hurting Karma and Jade, Karma's baby sister. Diomedes repeatedly escaped the charges simply because of his "good reputation," and the only proof Fain had been Karma's and Jade's word. Unfortunately no matter how much stock Fain put into their word Diomedes never left any scars or bruises that couldn't be passed off as normal clumsiness, evidence that didn't even provide sufficient backing to push the matter to trial. The continuous head-butting with the town superman, among other more dubious things, had earned Fain a reputation as a liar, glory hound and trouble maker. This made it so that only those who really knew him, a very small list, the names on it are as follows -- Karma, Jade, and Femi, believe his "eye-witness" accounts. This meant the accusations never amounted to more than a battle of words versus words.

"Umm... No I just felt like stopping by to ask if you mind giving me a lift to school." Turning to look straight at Fain, Karma put her best smile on and asked, "So, would you mind giving me a left to school?"

"No problem, Karma. Don't think for a second that that little trick is working this time. So what is the bastard's problem this go around?" Glancing at the clock built into the stove Fain observed, "We probably should leave now or else we're going to be late for school. You don't want to ruin your perfect attendance record with any truant marks. That would just be more fuel to fan the flame under the bastard's ass after all."

Turning from Fain to look at the clock, which read 7:20, Karma queried in a very soft and quiet voice, "Actually, would you mind skipping today? We could go down to the park and enjoy the water. Its pretty nice outside today, I thought we could enjoy the weather before it gets too cold."

As Karma finished her request a hundred thoughts processed through Fain's head about how to answer it since obviously something major had happened. Karma in regards to school was the polar opposite of Fain, Straight A's, perfect attendance, and loved by all the teachers, even the ones she didn't know. Hell, the only thing they did have in common relating to school was that neither was big on the social front. Her asking to intentionally skip a day school could only mean there were bad things over the horizon.

In the end he just picked up his keys from the side table by the door while slipping his shoes on, headed outside and went to start the engine of his car, which was the only thing willed to him by his father. While doing this Karma was still approaching the front door trying to organize her thoughts. She knew Fain would wait till they were at the park before attempting to find out anything, so that meant she had about thirty-minutes or so to figure out just how to tell him what transpired last night. Despite Fain being her best friend, only friend if you get technical, for the past fifteen years, and the only person who ever believed her about Diomedes, she wasn't sure if she could tell even him what happened. Tell him what happened to Jade, how Diomedes had...

Getting into the front passenger side of Fain's car Karma shook her head and thought, 'Worry about it when the time comes. Just enjoy the ride for now.'

As Fain pulled out of the driveway he looked out of the corner of his eye and took note of Karma's appearance. Above bear feat she was wearing a pair of skin-tight black jeans that enunciated every curve of her legs, from her sublimely smooth calves to her thighs as well as outlining her superb globe-shaped ass, a feature that Fain thought a goddess would kill to have. With the jeans, she wore an equally tight pure white t-shirt which ended right above her navel, displaying it to the world with the well-toned muscles of her perfect stomach. The shirt also left no need for imagination as to the shape of her flawlessly round 38-b breasts; there was very little Fain and Karma didn't know about each other; which Fain could see had no support other than the white shirt that clung to her skin showing off her petite nipples.

Complimenting her clothes was a beautifully innocent face that had no need of make-up. He noted the small full lips that appeared to always be pouting and were the perfect shade of pale red for the pastel elfish-like face to which they belonged. He noted the perfectly elliptical shaped eyes, each a different color; the right eye a vibrant jungle green while the left eye was a cool ice blue. Between those eyes was the most perfect button nose. To the side of those eyes were pointed ears. 'Just like the kind brought to mind when one thinks of an elf' Fain mused to himself not for the first time. A magnificent shoulder length cascade of auburn hair provided the perfect frame for the elvish face it surrounded.