Ryan wandered down the street, dabbing at his busted lip with the front of his shirt. Of course I had to go and turn away from the second guy and get clocked in the face, he thought. I messed them up pretty bad though, so at least they probably won’t be bothering me anymore.
He sighed. If he had wanted to get into a stupid, pointless fight before lunchtime, he would’ve just stayed at school. He pulled out his phone to check the time. It was a cheap, pre-paid phone that he’d bought with some money he’d scrounged together from working a part-time job. Speaking of which, I’ve got to find another one of those, he thought. He hadn’t been making any money since getting fired last week, and his wallet was starting to feel very light. And it wasn’t like his parents were going to give him any money.
It was 11:30. Crap, is it still that early? I mean, I cut after only first period, so I guess that makes sense, but still. He sighed. What was he going to do with the rest of his day?
Screw it, he thought. Might as well just go home. His parents were probably home, but he doubted they’d even notice that he was supposed to be in school. He rounded the corner onto his street, spotting his apartment complex. Within a minute, he was opening the door to Apartment 42B. As expected, dear old Mom and Dad were passed out on the sofa, drunk. Good. That meant he wouldn’t be getting into another fight today.
He walked through the living room to his bedroom. It was a tiny space, with a bed on one side, a desk and chair on the other, a small window, a dresser, and clothes strewn all over the floor. The walls were bare. In fact, the room was hardly personalized at all. Ryan plopped down in the chair at his desk, and looked at his computer. The laptop looked like something out of the Stone Age. He had bought it off of a friend of an acquaintance who was trying to get rid of it. It was a piece of crap and ran slow as hell, but it worked, so it was good enough for him.
He flipped it open and turned it on, but as soon as he did, something caught his eye. Next to the computer, sitting right on his desk, was some kind of strange, white device. He picked it up and looked it over. It almost looked like some kind of weird walkie-talkie or something.
The hell is this doing in my room? he thought. Then, suddenly, his computer screen lit up like crazy, forcing him to shield his eyes. “What the hell?” he exclaimed, just before the light flared up again, filling the room, and he felt as if he was lifted off his feet and was being pulled towards something. He couldn’t help but start screaming as he fell into nothing, no idea where he was or what was happening. Then the world suddenly went dark, and he blacked out.