The Struggle Of Floyd Banks- Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The First Day.....



"Okay man! Take care of yourself and don't let any of those girls distract you this semester!" typed Oscar. Floyd chuckled to himself when he read this and replied with a simple,

"I won't." Glancing at the time at the bottom of the computer screen Floyd remembered how tired he was. It was 11pm. He had a big day ahead of him. Tomorrow, the first of September, he would be entering the first day of his second year at University. He was currently talking to his best friend Oscar online using an instant messenger service named HLM. Leaning back in his computer chair Floyd remembered flashes of how his first year was. Gaming, alcohol, girls, skipping classes, close brushes with the law, walking dark streets at three a.m, gambling.... Shuddering to himself Floyd remembered all of the sins he committed... they may not have been major sins such as murder, but if time wasting was considered a sin, then he'd be in hell right now. A new year of school meant new beginnings.. now was his time to start over. Leaning forward Floyd typed to Oscar,

"I'm feeling tired, we'll talk tomorrow"

"Okay man, Talk to you soon." With that, Floyd signed out of HLM messenger. Yawning he collapsed on his bed dreaming of a television show he watched.




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Floyd awakened startled the next morning. His dream had been intense, as he strained to remember what it was about, all he could recall was something about a foreign exchanged French student. Wiping away the sleep from his eyes Floyd glanced at the clock on the cable box. The red laser-light figures displayed 5:57. Sighing Floyd knew his internal clock had kicked in once again. His body was trained over the years to always awaken at any specific time he wanted. If he wanted to be up at two a.m. he just had to simply concentrate on the time before he went to sleep and he would awaken roughly around two a.m. On a number of times Floyd proved this theory correct, but he learned that if he exhausted himself that his body would not awaken at the time of his choosing. However, he also learned that if no specific time for awakening was selected by default he would awake somewhere between six and seven o'clock a.m. . Ripping the covers off of himself he started his morning ritual. It was all a blur to him, the usual conversation with his mother, his two older brothers and his father. He never liked the morning ritual particularly, it always left a sour taste in his mouth. It consisted of them getting out of the house by seven a.m .





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The morning ritual came and passed leaving him with a semi-'down' vibe Floyd. Because of this he wasn't excited when he reached to campus, but nevertheless he was ready for it. Day after day over the summer he was preparing himself for this moment. The day when he would return the campus. Not a follower... but now a leader. Behind him was the bus route, then lay the source of one his addictions... Cyberstar. It was an internet cafe where he wasted many a day during his first year of university. Many a day is an understatement... the number of hours he spent there throughout his first year could've added up to almost half of the semester. Floyd turned around and gazed at Cyberstar. He had a serious addiction to it. It was his version of cigarrettes or drugs. But, now he was a recovering addict, he would not be a slave to it anymore. He would not skip classes to play games anymore... he would not reach home ten in the night because a game ran longer than expected. Before it played such a large role in his life. Whenever he was lonely Floyd knew he could always count on some of his friends being at Cyberstar. The problem wasn't that he was addicted to actual gaming itself because sometimes he would just go to sit down to talk with other people and watch games that were in progress. It was a horrible period in his life... Floyd vowed never to become a slave to it again and he intended to with aid of his mp3 player/radio .

"Mp3 player time!" Floyd thought to himself as he dug his hand into his pocket. Placing the earphones into his ears he waited patiently for one of his songs to float through his head as he pressed the on button. After repeated tries, it wasn't coming on. Pulling it out of his pocket and inspecting it, Floyd smacked himself in the head. There weren't any batteries in it. He'd left them home! They were sitting in the battery charger.

"Ohhh noo!' moaned Floyd.Disheartened, he took the earpieces out. The Mp3 player was there to provide music so as to distract him from idle chatter and to help him focus on the duties he had to carry out for the day. But, with no music he would not have that much of a sense of focus. He could easily be distracted by anything. The bus route was the first step to reaching on campus. The bus route was where all of the buses and maxi taxis drove and you could stop one if you needed to reach a particular destination. Sighing once again, Floyd crossed the bus route and entered the main gates of campus. The campus was large, not large enough to get lost, but large enough that it would take twenty minutes on foot to walk from one end of campus to the other. There was xix main faculties, Science & Agriculture, Humanities, Social Sciences, Medicine, Engineering and Law. Each faculty had different characteristics to each other. Social Sciences were the prestieged bunch, they felt they were better than everyone else. Engineering were the more nerdy types who kept to their section of the school. Humanities students were the more cultural types that were dignified, but still down to earth. Medicine and Law were the more distinguished groups that didn't socialize so much with the other groups because of the large amounts of work they had to do. Science & Agriculture students were the rejects of the school. The students in this faculty were the ones you expected to be drinking alcohol and skipping classes. Science & Agriculture was deemed the worse faculty. Floyd's faculty was Science & Agriculture.

Within less than five minutes of walking on the pavement on campus Floyd was spotted by one of his fellow classmates, a girl by the name of Aalyiah. He knew it didn't make any sense to try to escape her because Aalyiah would run up to him and scream his name. Cursing her softly for spotting him Floyd walked over reluctantly not wanting to waste time. He had planned to sit down in the Student Resting Space (SRS) and read the local newspaper The GuardianA which the university provided free to students. Aalyiah was with two other girls trying to sort out their timetable for the semester. She literally jumped on Floyd upon when he came within arms reach.

"Hey Floyd!! How you doing! How was your summer??!!" she asked after giving him a hug. Shrugging at her he replied,

"Normal, I guess... I was working up until last week. So I pretty much didn't have one."

'Oh...' she said in a sympathetic voice. 'I feel bad for you.'

"I feel bad for me too." Floyd said with no change in his voice.

"This girl is taking up too much of his time.' Floyd thought to himself. 'What does she WANT?! Why is she not taking the hint I don't want to talk!"

"Do you have your timetable for the day?"she asked

"Yeah.. we got one class today from 9-10."He replied while starting to walk off. Aalyiah stepped in front of him as he prepared to walk off.

"Are you sure? Because I think I have something different."she said while looking at him expectantly. Sighing to himself, he prepared himself to have a conversation with her. Its not that he didn't like the girl or anything it was just that now wasn't the time for it. Now was his time. He needed time to prepare himself for the rest of the day. Obviously she wasn't going to allow him to do so, so he was going to have to humour her to get rid of her. After ten minutes of arguing and looking for correct classes, it turned out Floyd was correct from the beginning.

"Okay, i'm heading to SRS to get a GuardianA, I'll see you in class." he said while walking off. Floyd didn't wait for her to respond as he walked off. He was happy to get away. He would now be able to complete his morning ritual. As he was halfway to SRS he felt his pants vibrating. Someone was calling his cellphone. In a swift motion it was out of his pocket and he scanned the number on the phone. It was Yolanda. Floyd didn't want to answer it, but he had to. Yolanda was another girl from his class who he became friends with, but something happened over the summer that left a sour taste in his mouth... It was nothing she knew about, it was just something he discovered...Yolanda was a nice girl, he couldn't be unfriendly to her.

"What do you want?" Floyd answered in his non-expressive tone. Her voice was light and chirpy. She sounded out of breath for some reason.

"Well, i just got to school and I'm walking to get my timetable where are you?"she said through several pants.

"I'm on my way to SRS to get a GuardianA"he said.

"Will you come and meet me PLEASE."she put extra effort into the please. Floyd wanted to resist her, but he couldn't. He had to help her.. after all, she WAS his friend.

"Okay.. just keep walking I'm by the rock near the pool."he said in a defeated voice. Floyd was just doing her a favour, nothing more.

"I'll be there in two minutes!!" she squealed in a happy voice. Groaning he pulled out a notepad and began making a list of things he had to do for the day. Half-way through he looked up to see Yolanda almost upon him. Her hair was down to her shoulders and blew in the wind. Her eyes were light brown and she had a great smile. She was pretty and she knew it. She used this to her advantage and Floyd knew this. She smiled at him warmly, Floyd shrugged it off with a wry smile. He snapped the notepad shut and entertained her with idle chatter. He then went with her to get her timetable. He was growing pretty annoyed because he kept running into more and more people. But, all of these people were girls/women. Floyd noted this about himself. He knew ALOT of ladies.It wasn't something to brag about, it was just odd how he knew so many. When walking with Yolanda he came across six different girls and each of them stopped to hug him and talk to him about something before he had to cut them short and continue walking with Yolanda. They did not care Yolanda was with him, they just focused on him and all seemed so excited to see and talk to him. Floyd noted that every time it happened Yolanda seemed a wee bit hurt. It wasn't anything dramatic like her crying it was just something he noted in her facial expression and it was something he didn't like. Because if Yolanda was his girlfriend, he knew it would hurt their relationship. Floyd at that point took a mental note to try to be more aware about feelings of others.

"Ha ha! You're so funny!"Yolanda exclaimed as she slapped his shoulder. Floyd gave a small smile. His mind was picking up all of the communication signals, he didn't say anything particularly funny for her to be laughing so much. He groaned silently. It was going to be a long day.

"I need to maintain my distance from this her.. She's getting a little bit too close.." Floyd thought to himself while still observing the laughing Yolanda. Back to where he was less than five minutes ago, Yolanda wandered off to get her time table. Whilst waiting Floyd literally ran into a girl with whom he worked with over the summer. They worked in a government office and they grew to be very close friends. She was a nice girl, very friendly, pretty and had a great figure. She also had an overwhelming love for her boyfriend. Her name was Marsha. He was happy to run into her, she was a good person for Floyd to be around. He had fun with her and relaxed around her, not to mention her skin was soft and smooth when he touched it.

"Hey Floyd!! I missed you, so so so much!!" Marsha exclaimed while giving him a big hug. She then shouted across the large group of people, 'Hey Yolanda!'. Yolanda turned around and waved at her. Raising a confused eyebrow at Marsha, she quickly explained that she knew Yolanda previously in her old school. They weren't very good friends she just saw her around and talked to her once or twice. Coincidentally all of them were doing the same degree except Marsha was in year one, whilst they were in year two.

"Floyd, where are you going??!" Marsha asked raising her eyes to him. He was a bit taller than Marsha and he liked this because Floyd wasn't exactly a particularly tall guy. She made him feel huge. This was the first year Marsha was going to be on campus and he promised her over the summer he would help her get acquainted with everything and everyone. And also to generally look out for her.

"I'm going to the SRS, Would you like to come with me and Yolanda?"he said. Marsha shrugged. That meant she wanted to. Floyd just shook his head and smiled at her. 'It'll be fun.' Floyd added. When Yolanda came back, Floyd explained the plan and she readily agreed. After running into eight more girls/women along the way, they finally arrived to SCS. He could tell the girls were getting annoyed because they had to either slow down or wait for Floyd to finish his conversation with each woman he ran into. Ignoring their glares each time he breathed a sigh or release upon reaching SCS. Floyd told Yolanda to go and find a seat, while he showed Marsha around and looked for a GuardianA. Pointing out various places to eat and where the bathrooms were Floyd spotted four more GuardianAs left. Grabbing one triumphantly Floyd did a little victory dance.

Finding a bench, Floyd took a seat opposite to Yolanda beside Marsha. The two girls started chatting and Floyd read his papers. Feeling content now, he folded it and put it into his bag. The news as always was depressing, but it was better to be informed about what was going on around you. After talking with the girls for a long while, he began to tire of them and looking across at what was going on in main campus he remembered he had to sign up for several clubs. Floyd was planning to do/join Peer Counselling, Karate, Latin Dancing, Computer club and French club. Eager to do so, he told the girls he would be coming back in two minutes. Walking across to by where all the clubs were he realised none of the booths were fully set up yet. So Floyd instead of walking back to Yolanda and Marsha, he walked away from them. He had no desire to return to hang out with them.

"Hey, Floyd where you heading?" a voice shouted at him.

"God damn it! Why won't people leave me alone!!!" Floyd shouted to himself. Turning around he saw it was his friend Allen from class. Allen was a cool guy. Floyd often hung out with him in Cyberstar and at parties. He also drank alot with Allen. Allen wasn't exactly a good influence.

"We have to go meet Jeff. He's in Cyberstar, let's hang out there for awhile then go to class."Allen shouted. Jeff was another guy who Floyd hung out with in Cyberstar who was ALSO in his class. When he heard that Allen wanted to go to Cyberstar he froze for a second. He didn't want to go Cyberstar. It was a Black Hole of lost time in his life. It was what he was trying to escape from. The soul-sucking addiction that he was subject to. But, at the same time Floyd honestly didn't have anything to do, BUT waste time. Weighing his options of either returning to the idle chatter of Yolanda and Marsha or going to Cyberstar, he chose Cyberstar.

"Ok.. let's go.."he said in a defeated voice."But, I don't wanna go there. I'm only going to kill some time." Floyd knew he could fight his addiction. Even though he was going to Cyberstar the place he vowed NEVER to return to Floyd was ready. He was just going to simply meet his friend, that's all. He wasn't going to lime with the guys there and he wasn't going to play any games. He was simply going to meet his friend. Walking back to the bus route, Floyd and Allen crossed the road and proceeded to the infamous Cyberstar. Floyd gazed at it as if it was the first time he was seeing it. It consisted of two stories. The first story was for people who just wanted to use the internet to browse stuff or use HLM messenger. The second story was strictly for gamers. People specialised in multiplayer games. The games usually played ranged from First Person Shooters (FPS), Strategy games, Car racing etc. It truly was a gamers paradise... and Floyd was a hardcore gamer. He wasn't AS hardcore as some of the other guys there, but he was good at the games he played. Some would even call him great, so it was hard for him to turn down a good challenge when one came. Shrugging off the urge to play, he calmly went with Allen to retrieve Jeff.

True to his word, Floyd went to Cyberstar with Allen and waited outside while he went to get Jeff. A feeling of nostalgia hit Floyd as he stood outside waiting. He recalled days where he and others spent eating sandwiches and different strategies for Gyganto's World. But, now those days were behind him... Floyd was sure of it. Allen tried to coax Floyd into going inside 'just for five minutes, but Floyd refused. Allen knowing that he wouldn't get Floyd to change his mind got Jeff and all three of them then proceeded to their first class. Though eager to reach class early, Floyd hesistantly proceeded to the first row. This would be the first time he ever sat in the first row for a lecture. It would be part of his changing process, to show how serious he was about year two as a student. Flipping open his notepad, Floyd busied himself adding and sorting out more things he had to complete for the day before the lecturer walked in.

"Good morning students and welcome to Year 2." the lecturer announced in a booming voice. Most people groaned upon hearing this. He was ready for the workload. However much it would be. He mentally prepared himself many nights over the summer holidays for THIS moment. And now the moment of truth was finally upon him. When he would see if he had really changed or if he was just putting on a temporary act. The lecturer spent 15 minutes talking. As it was the first day of the semester he merely just introduced them to the subject and skimmed some of the topics that would be dealt with. The first class was a breeze... hopefully the rest of the semester would be that easy.. hopefully


When the class was over, most of the students were complaining about what they were going to do for the rest of day because the first class they didn't do anything and there was no more classes for the rest of the day. Floyd still sitting in the frot row, was busying himself with his notepad once again, still thinking about what he was going to do for the rest of the day. Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder. Floyd reacted instinctively by grabbing the hand and squeezing it tightly.

"Hey, ease up man, its only me!" Jeff yelped in surprise. Floyd whirled around to see Jeff's massaging his hand.

"Sorry, guess i got a fast reaction." Floyd said sheepishly. He didn't mean to hurt his friend, he just got startled a little.

"No problem, it was my fault anyway. We were just telling you how we were going to Cyberstar." Jeff replied, still rubbing his hand.

"Why go to Cyberstar now? We can walk around campus a bit and see what's going on." Floyd said in an attempt to get them to change their minds.

"Floyd...' Allen started, ' What's the point of staying on campus when we're going to end up in Cyberstar ANYWAY!"

"Well, shouldn't we be trying to change that! Its our second year! We should be enjoying campus, not enjoying Cyberstar!" Floyd shouted at them. He was getting frustrated... why did they love Cyberstar so much? He was once like that, but had changed.. Hopefully he would be able to get them to change.. soon. Telling them he'd meet up with them later, Jeff and Allen walked out of the classroom leaving Floyd still sitting with his notebook. Before they had interrupted him, Floyd was listing the courses he had to do for the semester. He was considering the fact that his GPA wasn't very high, in fact where it was currently, he couldn't earn first class or second class honours.

"I have to do better... I can't do any worse than I'm currently doing... I can't fail any subjects and I HAVE to graduate with honours.." Floyd thought to himself burying his face into his hands. If his parents knew how he was doing in school, they would've been not only angered, but embaressed at how poorly their son was doing. Floyd knew he had to do better or else he might be at risk of being kicked out of the university. Sighing to himself, he put the notebook away and walked out of the classroom. It was a new semester which meant he had a chance to improve himself.



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Present day: Ten months later



Floyd had his face buried into his hands and had a tear welled up in each eye. His second year was over and he was now entering his third year. He couldn't understand how he was doing so badly in school. Looking at his grades, they showed that he had failed two courses for the academic year (one each semester) and his GPA had fallen lower than what it once was. Floyd couldn't believe what was happening to him. How did this happen?? He was so determined and he had a winning attitude. He had a plan and he studied for each subject diligently. So, how did all of that happen? Floyd slammed his fist into the computer desk, shaking the computer monitor in front of him.

"It isn't fair...' he growled. 'This just isn't... FAIR!" He shouted angrily. Slowly, Floyd got up from the chair he was sitting and picked up the beer can he was drinking from. Finishing the little that was left, he slammed down the beer can next to six others. Floyd always believed he was destined for greatness... was he wrong? Was he going to amount to nothing? What was his purpose... Falling back into the chair, Floyd struggled remembered the events that led to the current day

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The Corrupted World Of Floyd Banks  (18+) Hope is here. By hope i mean university life. #956453 by Fig

to check out Floyd Bank's Journal! It contains most of his thoughts and principles!! Do make sure to check it out!!