Chapter #2The Ahn'Ger Stone: Beginnings by: Mr.Domino   It was before school on a late April Friday morning in Shermer Illinois when everything changed. It was a pretty nice morning in the near-Chicago small town, the spring dew catching the rays of the rising sun, a low mist creeping across the shadows of the trees, birds singing as they fluttered among the blossoming leaves. Even the temperature was great, it was on track to get to 78 degrees fahrenheit today. Just a great day to walk to school, as the lone teen sitting on the front porch of his modest home was preparing to do.
Bill Strasserman was your everyday teen. He was nearing the end of high school and outside of having a persistent bully problem his only real concerns were an annoying little sister and lack of a girlfriend, though they were small problems in the grand scheme of things. After all, college loomed on the horizon and Bill was confident that he'd find someone interested in him there. Hopefully.
His more sci-fi and video game hobbies and lack of any real interest in sports did however give him some worry. He didn't hate sports, he enjoyed watching baseball and basketball, and he was friends with several players on each teams, including Tom Ackerton, his best friend since Kindergarten. But he just didn't care for participating in them. It was actually a little embarassing to him that his lowest grade was in P.E. simply because he hated having to participate in sports!
It had been his lack of interest in 'manly' things such as sports and his slightly small physical stature that had attracted the attention of Rob Bolstrum in the first place. Rob had targeted Bill early on in middle school, the hulking giant having already been held back twice. It was only in his sophmore year that things had changed for Bill, but not for the better. Jonathan Ingerman, or 'Big Jon' as he was known by the student body, had moved to Shermer. And it had taken him very, very little time for the intimidating and just as strong as Rob rich kid to take over as king of the bullies. He had tricked Rob into fighting him for dominance and had outplayed Bolstrum, and now Rob was little more than an errand boy, doing all the things that Big Jon commanded of him. At first the students had welcomed the change in leadership only to realize that Ingerman was ten times as worse than Rob had ever been, and about five times as smart. Not to mention the money and influence his father, Ragnar Ingerman wielded over the school administration and the town as a whole that caused a blind eye to be turned to Big Jon's clearly criminal enterprises.
And then one day, Bill had been able to trick Big Jon, during one of the routine shakedowns that the more easily preyed upon student population had grown accustomed to by getting Ingerman to monologue while unknowingly on camera, the bully king boasting about himself, his power, and how he'd keep picking on the weak to get what he wanted. "It's just good business" Big Jon had said with a shark-like grin towards the camera. And the end result had been enough evidence that had forced the school to take action, suspending Big Jon for a week before the local press had gotten involved. And while Bill became a bit of a high school hero for that, Big Jon definitely had it out for him. He was the reason that Bill was still reliant on others to transport him around, his already in poor shape car getting vandalized in the middle of the night and ending up a pile of scrap that would cost far too much money to fix.
With no real job and no way to pin it on Ingerman, Bill was stuck using his bike or having others, like Tom or his parents, take him places. And when it came to school taking his bike wasn't much of an option either, and Bill wasn't about to leave his last mode of rapid transportation at the mercy of being stolen or otherwise destroyed by Ingerman's fury. So he had walked to school most mornings, unless the weather had been terrible. It wasn't too far and honestly, the exercise had done him some good. The last few months Tom had even joined him, though this was not entirely out of a desire to keep Bill company.
Tom had been having significant relationship issues with his long time on and off again girlfriend, Gloria Vanapolous. This last breakup had been particularly rough and seemed pretty final; Gloria was trashing Tom around school to her girlfriends, which had quickly filtered to the rest of the student body. And through the grapevine the stories had been twisted to a point that had left Tom an outsider, even on his basketball team as his teammates girlfriends were busy making their lives painful if they even spoke to Tom outside of practice. To ease his isolation and to sneak into school with a little less of the mean girl bitching that had greeted him in the student parking lot, Tom had decided to walk to school with Bill. Bill had been happy for the company and to give Tom the opportunity for a little comraderie and venting before school started, but his friend's thoughts had become particularly...dark the last week. Almost to the point where Bill was starting to get annoyed. And more than a little worried.
Bill checked his watch, the classic Timex that his grandfather had bought him for his birthday reading 7:32AM. Tom was running late, already he could hear his mother and father and little sister Kimberly finishing up their morning routines and frankly, Bill didn't want to deal with another harping at "Just take your bike" or "You should get a job and get that damned car fixed" or "Honey, just let me take you to school" or a high pitched "NYAH NYAH NYAH LOSER STINKFACE". Just thinking about it, on top of everything else, made his blood start to boil.
Bill was just getting ready to leave his friend behind and make his way to school alone when it happened. One moment the porch's white railing had been clear, just the typical slightly cracked and fading white paint shining with dew and sunlight as Bill bent over to grab his backpack, and when he rose up he saw it.
There, right in front of him, was a stone. And not just any stone, but a gemstone. It was a brilliant emerald green teardrop that caught the light and refracted it against Bill's torso. It was impossible to miss, and Bill knew that it had not been there before. The teen leanded in closer and picked the gem up. It was cool to the touch, and almost completely opaque, though bringing it up to his eye BIll could see another, smaller gem embedded in the core of the emerald; this one also a teardrop though cloudy and gold in color. It glowed, but the light from the sun seemed to curve around it instead of passing through.
"Weird" Bill said to himself, "I know this isn't mom's it's too expensive looking. And where did it come from? Hell, I wonder how much it's worth?"
But any thoughts of selling it were quickly pushed away as his anger over the rather mundane things in his life seemed to flare back to the forefront of his mind. Why couldn't life just be easier? Why did he have to suffer because of some idiot neanderthal, or wait around like a doofus for his sadsack failure of a friend? OR take shit from his familiy? Bill's hand curled into a fist around the gemstone and he grit his teeth.
" I wish..."
But right then Bill's anger was pushed away by a loud "HEY BILL!"
Jerked out of his angry state, Bill looked up and saw... | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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