Second Light- Chapter 1 UPDATED (Not really...)

Attention: this is NOT the actual first chapter. It will be posted when the book is further completed. I'll let you know.               -Zach

                 Whatever you do, do NOT look down.

Keep your eyes straight so we don’t fall over the edge!

Oh, no. It’s that one again, the one that made David (the new name for peter) afraid to dream. He had always thought of them as an escape, where no one could tell him what to do. But not like this.

He was standing so far above the ground, he had to keep telling himself not to look down.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't; he did once before, but he got so frightened, he almost forgot to hold on to the brick-laden ledge of the huge clock tower. He was terrified of heights and especially from so far up. From where he was, London, in its entirety, was spread out underneath him. The bright lights from the streets and houses gave off dim glows that seemed to give the city new life in the dead of night.

He never could remember how he got there, but at this point, the whispers began again, slowly getting louder until they were too loud, and pounded against his will and rung in his ears to a breaking point:

            Jump … Now… before it's too late. Then they stopped for an instant.

“Wait, so I have to JUMP? Before it’s too late… for what?” 

Then: “Hey you there- Come back here, boy! Come to me, or I'll have to come to you!"

It was much harsher, as if about to punish him.

Then the brickwork a few feet from where David stood burst apart and revealed a hand that reached for him. Now he heard the message from before but now more urgent: 

Jump! Now! Before it’s too late!

He panicked as sweat trickled down his face. This meant jumping to his doom, and no one would save him nor help him get down any other way. Before the man could reach for him again, David took proper footing and jumped as far and as high as he could.

…

It felt like he was falling forever. That still kept his heart beating fast and hard in his chest and feeling that all the way in his head. This was why he was afraid of heights; the fall was so terrifying that it even stifled his will to scream. But further on the way down, he suddenly thought something else, a thought that quelled all of the terror and gave him some serenity, even for a second:

Well, at least he didn’t catch us right?

David couldn’t help but agree with it, a feeling of calm and serenity swept through him. As he fell faster and faster to what he thought was his impending doom, David closed his eyes, even smiled, and waited for the final impact.

But it didn’t come. He expected to hit the ground by then.

Then it happened. He felt a change in the fall

Something doesn’t feel right…

He couldn’t be sure, but for maybe a second, David wasn’t falling vertically, but horizontally…

Was he actually flying? How is this possible? David would never be sure, because at the moment when he was even the slightest bit sure that he was…

He woke up.

David suddenly sat up and gasped for air, as cold beads of sweat ran down his face. He wiped them away, forced himself to calm down and looked around. He was where he should be, at the far right corner bed in the sleeping quarters of the St. Augustine’s orphanage in London. The cloudy lights of morrow peeked through the tops of the buildings, shining dimly into the large windows on the opposite wall. 

He put on his hat, quietly tiptoed across the hall, past the rows and rows of the other children’s beds, and checked the calendar near the bathrooms: November 23^rd, 1913.

That was yesterday. Oh good, so nothing’s changed. 

He slowly inched his way past all of the sleepers in the first five rows, got back to his bed and tried to fall back asleep. 

But, for some reason, he couldn’t. He tossed and turned, but to no avail. Instead, he just lay there, trying to remember what had happened. He stared at the cracked white ceiling as more and more of the dimly, clouded sunlight dripped into the room. While the other children were deep into their own dreams, some of the younger children were giggling in their sleep, others talking nonsense and gibberish, which made David snicker a bit as well.

Maybe they were dreaming about their old families, or their adoptive ones, how much fun they will have once they get out of here, away from this dull and nasty world. David knew how that felt; he had been in St. Augustine’s Orphanage for as long as he could remember, for all of those 11- soon to be 12- years. And he didn’t know of any family than the one in here, if it was possible to have so many mothers.

Throughout those years he had always tried not to stick out of the crowd of the other boys; he had a mix of auburn and ginger hair, which he always covered with his trusty hat.

Anything that made him different was embarrassing to him. He never answered questions out loud, even though he knew the answers. He never bragged about how fast he was, even though he could outrun all of the other boys. Even his skinny frame was made a target by the other boys. Yet the Nuns didn’t seem to understand him; they kept insisting that he was something far better, even greater, then all the other black/brown-haired boys. To the Nuns, he was humble, quiet, caring and a perfect example of a prodigy for their ailing Father priest. While David only helped when no one else did, they viewed him as the boy setting the example for everyone else to follow. Yet he only did it to be like everyone else.

To his knowledge, this was the second time he had that sort of dream, only this time it was scarier because he remembered more of it. He decided to do what he thought he did best: He began to ask questions. He was prone to asking numerous questions about what the teachers taught, regardless of how many times he was told it was forbidden. They began to swirl in his mind as he recalled more and more of that dream- Why was he on the ledge? Who, and why, was someone telling me to jump, especially before it was too late? What was “too late”? Who was trying to catch me and what did he want? Did I actually FLY?

He wouldn't be able to answer them though, because almost immediately, the wake-up bell was rung twice. “Well, that was fast” David thought. “How long was I up?” The sun that had been peeking through just a moment ago was now completely covered up by cloud, just as everyone always expected. London's autumns barely have any sun, just clouds and rain. It's always grey; maybe that's why everyone is so dreary and bland, especially the Nuns, who came in armed with pails of water.

Two of them were walking through the aisles, urging the boys to get up. Having been there for so long, David didn't fuss. He immediately got up, went to his cubby, change into his dreary Sunday uniform of a gray jacket, white shirt with black pants , black socks and shoes, then went straight to wash his face. Meanwhile, at one of the beds in David’s row, one of the nuns was losing patience with a boy who refused to wake up.

“Get out of bed now! I'm sick and tired of coming back here to wake you up! Now, up!” Not only that, but she was carrying a bucket of water, of which she used to sprinkle water on the other children. But for this boy, a sprinkle just won’t do. She dumped the cold water on him and the bed. Then he gave a cracked shriek so loud that David spat out his water mid-swish and look behind him.

“YEEOW! Sister, are you mad? I could have drowned, or maybe died sooner of pneumonia!”

            “OUT.” The nun pointed to the bathroom.

“Poor George,” thought David. “This happened to him every day; the same threat, same effect, the… same water? I hope not.”

 While everyone goes on with their business – getting up, washing up, getting downstairs to Mass – George just sat there, refusing to get up, even though he was one of the older boys in the Orphanage. He was always against the system that the Nuns so forcefully imposed. He groggily lifted himself out of bed and slowly made his way to the bathroom. As luck would have it, the sink next to David was empty. George immediately took it, and David had waited for him. He was the only one who knew about his dreams.

 “G’ Morning David.”

“Good Morning George. Rough night?”

“Apparently not as bad as you.”

“You were up then to, huh? …-Wait how did you know about me?”

“Are you kidding,” He whispered. “Your scream was so loud it woke up most of the kids in my row! You're so lucky they didn't know it came from you.” He was also very blatant about his opinions.

“Are you sure?”

“David, your scream will become my alarm if you keep this up. What was it about anyway?” Most of the kids and the nuns have already left for prayers; aside from those left reporting on their uniforms far away from the bathroom, David and George were left, the latter still in half of his pajamas.

David was hesitant because he could barely remember it.

“This is going to sound crazy.”

“Dreams are meant to be crazy, David.”

“Um, okay so I was on this sort of, of ledge… overlooking the city. It was a nice view, actually…”

“Okay, enough of the poetry. It was that dream again.”

“Right… right. Yeah, um, so then, then I was hearing someone telling me to jump off the ledge.”

They didn’t hear someone slowly coming up the large, stone stairs.

“Yes, I believe you listened to that voice last time, too.”

“Hang on, hang on. Um… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…then someone wants me for some reason. And his hand – his hand, it actually breaks through the brick wall –“

“Really. First it was just falling, now a hand breaking through the wall? That’s definitely crazy.”

“What are you two still doing here?”

Sister Agnes, one of the nuns in charge of the whole orphanage, had come back up to check on the room to find that two of them hadn't left yet. She stood furiously by the doorway of the bathroom, her big red stern face glaring at them.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Why is she asking us,” George whispered, his back to her, pretending to wash his face. “We don't know any more than she does.” David held back a laugh. The nun caught it, and one could have heard the tenacity in her voice subside at him.

“David, you think it's funny? You think that missing most of mass is funny?”

“No Sister Agnes,” David said.

“Agnes,” he thought. “I always wondered what kind of name that was for a nun.”

“So why are you still here, dear David?”

“I-I don't know.”

“Well, I know where you should be, and I expect you to go there immediately,” she said with a firm look in her eye to David.

“Yes Sister.”

They both knew how David was treated so nicely, so George expected her expression to contort to a much angrier emotion when she turned to him.

David obediently listened, but took one more look back at George, who washed his face for the fifth time, before he rushed downstairs to mass.

The church was immense, with a high ceiling decorated with sculptures and with windows depicting scenes from the Bible. It was capable of housing over 400 people, and almost every single one was filled, which was usual for Sunday Mass. David snuck in at the perfect time, while the audience stood and sung the hymns and psalms. He quietly searched for an aisle seat, away from the nuns and the rest of the orphans that stood in front, found one and just stood there, pretending to sing along. David had nothing against the service, to the Nun’s chagrin; he just didn't like singing, which was what they expected of him.

What was worse was when all that singing finished and the priest would speak to the churchgoers. David just couldn't pay attention for so long; instead, he would just sit back in his seat and look at the beautiful glass on the ceiling, especially at the places where there was mostly green. The Nuns tried to get David to pay attention, but to no avail. David absolutely loved the color green. If he could, he would only wear green clothes and live where there was a lot of green, away from all the black, gray and white shades of dull. The only exception regarding green was by food; he wouldn't touch anything green, no vegetables of any shade.

“Green wasn't meant to be eaten," he would always say." It was meant for more important things."

After the priestly blessing, the mass was over, and David knew that the rest was just plain routine.

The amount of children in the orphanage were small, so when school started, a lot more boys came in, and drove all of the orphans mad with jealousy. There was breakfast, followed by the first lesson in Bible, which would seem to take forever, and then a short recess, followed by a class in reading and writing, then supper, then a second class in Bible, this time about the New Testament, then recess, and afterwards was… You guessed it, a class in math. Then the privileged children were sent home, and then there was dinner, another class in Bible –a different class for each age group- then evening prayers with only the priests, then up to the sleeping quarters to wash and get to bed.

That was David's life for the past 11 years. He wasn’t proud that he could sum it up, but if that’s what he’s was to get, then so be it.

After all that was immediately lights out and bed. All the children, some forced to, said a prayer at the bedside before turning in for the night. David did so but he always said the same one, very quickly and automatically:

“Dear-God, thank-you-for-the-orphanage, for-all-the-nuns-who-feed-care-and-protect-me, and-for-the-color-green. Thank-you-for-everything, please-let-me-live-tomorrow, Amen."

He quickly climbed into bed and, using an amazing talent of his, amongst all of the noise from the other children chatting about their day, fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

Jump. The same dream was happening again; unfortunately David had no control of it.

Jump now…Before it's too late.

“I'LL GET YOU!!"  SMASH. A man's fist appears, clenched in rage.

Jump. NOW!

“AAAAHHH!!"

No way, am I –?

David sat up again, wide-eyed, a trickle of cold sweat ran down his face and heart beat quickly in his chest, while his lungs begged his body to calm down. Suddenly there was a different noise.

“Who screamed again?" Someone else heard… and he sounded angry.

Uh – oh.

David quickly lay back down, hoping no one saw.

“I think he did, the boy in the back corner." 

Some guy, that snitch is. David felt like someone was pointing at his bed.

Maybe they meant the other corner, he thought, trying to get comfort. Maybe they won't think it's me.

“Yeah, that definitely sounded like Spotty," the first boy said. He meant David’s freckles.

I'm doomed.

He heard footsteps coming to his bed.

Ah well. Might as well not hide sleep. David snickered at the thought and just set up, knowing who was coming. As he took his hat and put it on, he felt a little calmer when he remembered what the boy’s name was.

He used to be called Jane, and with a name like that you better be ready to defend yourself. You see, it was supposed to be" John", but the person who wrote the name on the certificate must have been so tired that day that he thought, for a second, that he was actually a girl, so he wrote Jane instead. Yet if it wasn't for his angry eyes, even shorter temper, and quicker fighting, you’d think he actually was a girl. He came in a few years ago as a small and sensitive boy, but the story came too. How it happened David didn't know, but soon everyone knew about it, including David himself. Yet the last person who made the joke wound up with a broken arm and a mouthful of dirt. From then on, no one said a word. The anger must have swelled up so much that the hot air caused him to grow a few more inches over everyone else.

This same boy was quietly marching toward David, with a mix of sleep deprivation and with the aforementioned short temper that came easily to him… when no adults were around. And when the rest of the boys were up too.

“Hello, Spotty." He tried to sound scary, but came off as mean. The rest of the boys snickered.

Yet David felt cool and collected amidst the shivers of fear, something very unusual of him.

“H-Hello John,” he whispered. “Is there s-something wrong?"

“Yes. Your screaming has kept me up for two days already. I know it was you that made all that noise last night and you were too stupid to know not to do that.”

 “Okay. S-so, what else do you want me to do, besides not scream?"

 “W-Well, you could… stop screaming for your MOMMY. And stop acting like such a freak, you smut! You already are one!” The rest of the boys laughed as all of the confidence drained from the freckled boy’s face.

“In fact, let’s see your hair.” He grabbed for David’s hat.

“No! Stop! Please! Don’t-“

Too late. John yanked off David’s hat and tossed it across the room, to another accomplice. David immediately leapt for it, rushing with feelings of shame and embarrassment while trying to keep his head covered with the other hand.

“Give me back my hat! Please stop!”

All of the other boys laughed at him as he ran between the two boys at the front of the room.

David tried in desperation to get his hat back, while more tears streamed down his face.

“Please. Just give me back my hat.”

 “Well, now, you little git. You know what, fellas? I don’t think it’s about the hat. Yeah, David, I think you miss your mum.” No one ever admits that they missed their old homes. Everyone began to point and laugh at him, loud enough to wake even the deepest sleepers in the room. He must have had supernatural strength to hold back sobs.

Then it happened. Somehow, he found some courage. He looked up at him, his wide eyes red, narrowed and wet from tears.

“I never knew my Mum. Unlike YOU.” The crowd fell into a hush and John into a different mood.

“Did they not just leave you here for no reason…Jane?” 

“How dare you,” John said between clenched teeth. David awoke from the rush and realized what he said. His body shook with panic as tears of fright welled up in his eyes.

“I ought to give you a better reason to scream right now!” He cracked the knuckles of his fist. David gulped even harder as he tried to crawl away. The rest of the boys looked on.

Suddenly, someone else spoke up, in a loud whisper.

“Wait!” Some merciful boy loudly whispered. It was George!

 “Why would you beat him up now, when there will be marks on his face tomorrow?” George asked as he snatched the hat from one of the other boys and tossed it back to the victim.

“What happens next if he even decides to snitch on you to the Nuns?” George spoke softly and like a negotiator, to David’s confusion.

Yet this method seemed to work. In the light of the streetlamps outside, David saw a calmer change in John’s body language.

“Yeah, that’s a good point…” he whispered.

“So why not push off the fight until tomorrow? I’m sure he won’t scream again,” George whispered.

Then John made up his mind.

“Tomorrow…I’ll make you scream tomorrow…”

Oh, Thank G-d, David thought as he exhaled deeply.

He walked away and quickly went back to bed. David looked back up at George while sniffling on the floor with his hat in hands as the rest of the audience moved away.

“Thanks,” David whispered sarcastically. “But I guess the ‘no fight at all’ option was out of the question…”

George caught the sarcasm as he helped David up. “Hey, I only just saved your life. Besides, he’ll probably be weaker tomorrow anyway.”

George sat down on David’s bed, looking at him with sympathetic eyes as he put on his hat, careful to hide as much red hair as possible.
“David,” He began in a whisper. “Between you and me, from one friend to another…You had the same dream again huh?”

“Yeah…”

“The ledge, the thoughts, the hand through the wall, all of that the same?”

“There’s more.”

“So there’s more huh? Why didn’t you tell-?”

“Because of Sister Agnes, remember? She came in while I was telling you?”

“Oh yeah… By the way, do you want to know what happened next, after you left to Mass?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry I left you up there. What happened?”

“Don’t worry, it’s okay (chuckle). She only made me go to mass in my pajamas. Said it would build character. It was pretty embarrassing.” David grimaced at the thought.

“Yikes,” David whispered. “What happened next?”

“I snuck back upstairs to change into the uniform. Thankfully no one noticed. So what parts are new?”

“Well,” David continued with the same hesitation as before. “After the hand comes out, I guess I- I don’t know why but- I decide to jump-”

“Well, that’s nothing new. It’s what you did before. Then what?”

“So I’m falling...”

“Yeah…”

“And falling…”

“Okay, you can stop being dramatic.”

“George, honestly. I fell for a long time.”

“Couldn’t be so long, especially from that tower. It would have felt a lot shorter, especially when it isn’t real, and especially when you smack the floor-”

 “But then I flew.”

Then there’s silence. George looked at David, slightly taken aback. He was expecting for David to wake up before he landed.

“You flew… Right. Are you sure?”

“Do I look like I’m sure?”

“Absolutely not. You still look clueless.”

“Then you’d be right. I-I’m not so sure but I think I was…”

“Everyone falls in their dreams, David. That’s nothing new. Some wake before they die, while others think they fly away. Do you have any idea how many times I dreamt of flying out of here and back to the gang I belonged to? Since the first day I was locked up in here.”

“George, please. I really did fly. I felt it before I landed.”

“So would I. How are you so sure?”

“I don’t know. Every time I feel like I am, I wake up. I scream when I’m falling.”

“I see,” He whispered, scratching his head. “So why are you dreaming about this, over the past couple of days? And why are those screams so loud? No one else screams in their dreams… then again, no one else shares them.”

“I have no idea, and certainly hope that it doesn’t get any worse. Next I’ll be screaming Bloody Mary-s and wake up the Nuns.” David couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea.

“George,” He began to ask. “Is this what grown-ups dream about? Just about a man coming to get them, so they jump off of high buildings, only to MAYBE fly away and probably wake up out of fear of hitting the ground?"

"I don't know," George said." Believe me, I would tell you. If that was true of everyone’s dreams, then no one would sleep well at all. They would try to avoid it as much as possible. Maybe it's just you." Both of them shared a yawn before David responded.

"Yeah," David began." It's always me that’s got to be different. Look at everybody," he said, pointing at the many dark shades of hair, including George.

“No one else has such bright hair or these spots. Why am I the one who screams in his crazy dreams, if you’re dreaming the same thing? Why is it me that has to be different? Why can’t I, for once, be like everyone else?"

"Again, I just don't know,” George replied." Oh that reminds me. Hang on David. Maybe this will make you feel better."

George reached underneath and pulled out a package. It was shaped like a rectangle, covered in various scraps of paper.

"Happy early birthday, David."

He looked astounded at George, then back at the package, then back again at him.

"But my – er – our shared birthday isn't until next week."

George shrugged." I just felt you should have it a little early. Don’t open it yet; it helps to build up the surprise." He reached over and rubbed the hat on his head as he bid him a good night. He went to his own bed before he heard David reply “Thank you.”

If David could thank G-d for something at that moment, it would be for having a friend like George. He slowly put the package -which felt like a book or something- underneath his bed, next to the lantern, pulled up the small covers, and fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. Yet he would never feel more scared in his life than that next morning.