He was an outcast. A young, pale boy with sunken cheeks and white lips stumbling  through the dim lit hallway of Stonebrook high school. Can you hear his heart beating? Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat. Each step felt like a mountain of sinking sand was building up around him and enveloping his body. Now it covered his feet. Now it covered his knees. His pace slowed to a stop and he leaned up against the cold, hard wall. He took a few rasping breaths, and brought his hand to his head to wipe away the sweat accumulating on his brow. As his hand slid across clammy skin, he felt the metal tip of a gun brush over his forehead, slightly revealing the weapon, which was previously hidden by his oversized jacket. He held it tighter; suddenly worried that it might slip from his grubby fingers and fall to the floor. For a moment he forgot to breathe.
              The air was heavy and it crushed him. The breath of hundreds of morose, sleepy students heading for their first period classes assaulted his nostrils and made him gag. Their faces were emotionless. They could not sense the pain or the sorrow that tugged on his heart strings like a puppeteer’s nimble fingers. They could not understand the everlasting loneliness that followed him like a shadow.  Even in the blaring sunlight, an eternal darkness continued to weigh on his character, eating away at the love and the joy that he once felt.
             As the  halls filled,  the sea of voices enveloped him, washing away his identity. He was just another speck of sand on the shore, another life filled cage searching for a peace that would never come.
            As he began to maneuver his way through the crowd of brain dead teenagers…
Stop.
A scream.
It escaped his lips and echoed through the halls.
         He screamed over the heavy air that squeezed his lungs, and over the cruel children who threw sticky spit balls and spewed poison from their mouths. Does anybody hear him? Can anybody see him?
        When the crowd began to disperse, the boy slid down the wall and covered his ears with his hands, suppressing the noise until all he could hear was the sound of his heart beating. Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat.
         “Are you okay?” He looked up to see a vacant hallway with the exception of a small girl  with wide eyes and much too big clothing. She was watching him fearfully, open mouthed and awaiting an answer. He sat in silence for a moment, staring curiously at the girl; her frail figure and creamy skin, her colored cheeks and cut free wrists. Does she hear him? Can she see him?
          “...Sorry,” he said finally, standing up, trembling.
          The sound of a gunshot echoed in the hallway. The bullet struck her side and splattered blood on her clothes, on the wall, on his face. Stunned, dazed, he stood watching the life slowly trickle out of her eyes. The inner battle had been lost, and even so, it was just the beginning.