Show Me The World

Nearing midnight, inky blotches cloud the sky blocking any and all light from the moon. The open curtains still frame the window, forgotten about. Closing them seems irrelevant now; time goes in a blur, unsure of what night is and when morning begins. Within the midst of papers and textbooks, Skyler Hart finally draws his eyes up to the clock above his desk. Yet another night he’s seen into the early morning of the next day. It’s become a habit that he must break soon. One day he knows he’ll crash and burn, exhaustion taking over and his body finally betraying him. Ignoring his mind’s sleep deprived ache and desperate need for sleep, he battles through tiredly, working to finish.

The teenager meticulously searches through his notes and books to find the answer to a particularly difficult question on the dehydration of an alcohol to an alkene. He should know this, this is elementary chemistry — his mind is dulling. He’s been up since 5am trying to remember the physical properties of a polycarbonate plastic, which is sure to make an appearance on his next exam. Sky continues working into the night, flitting between chemistry, mathematics and biology, the hardest and most valued subjects he could have chosen for his capabilities. His brain is not able to focus on one thing for too long. The functioning part of his mind is now fading, slipping into bouts of unconsciousness. His heavy eyelids droop, flicking open trying to preserve a few extra minutes of revision. It doesn’t last long from this point, ending with his head finally lulls forward, swinging down to rest on his chemistry textbook, his makeshift pillow for yet another night.

~

Exactly four hours later, the sharp shrill of Skyler’s alarm clock ricochets through his ears, jolting his sleeping body into an upright position. Blinking rapidly, his vision is obscured by the florescent yellow of a post-it note, which he unsticks from his forehead. He runs his fingers through his knotted hair, stretching his grateful limbs, cracking his joints back into a comfortable alignment. Rolling his head, he takes the time to ease the pain in his neck from the awkward position he slept in being hunched over his desk. Looking at his alarm clock to snooze the blasted machine, he really notices the time. 7am. His bus is due to leave in half an hour and he has a 15-minute walk to get there. He must have slept through his initial alarm, the secondary, back-up thankfully waking him, without that he would have missed both the bus and a day of college.

Throwing himself from the chair, the wheels send it flying across to the other side of the room, bouncing of the bed to crash into the wall. Without a thought, he sweeps all of his books and paper into a large pile, before transferring it into his bag that contains his other supplies. He continues to panic, picking out an outfit that really doesn’t coordinate in anyway. Shrugging to himself, he’s really not fussed by the commotion brought on by the social conventions of adolescence. Everyone is 18, or close to now, legal adults, silly cliques and clichés are no longer relevant, not even to those who would makes other’s lives misery. Everyone has grown up. It doesn’t matter what you look like, how you dress or how you wear your hair. People are too worried about their own lives to care anymore.

After 15 minutes of running around his house, gathering his work and organising his bag, Skyler can finally leave his house for his bus stop. Before closing the door behind him, his bus pass shines from the floor. Scooping it up, he’s thankful he saw that in time, otherwise he would have screwed. No amount of talking can persuade the bus driver to let you on without a pass. With no more time to fuss, Sky speeds away from his house, making his walk last just under 10 minutes.

Panting and out of breath, Sky gasps for air once he finally reaches the bus stop. Unzipping his jacket, trying to cool himself down, he rests up against the bus stop, hands on his knees bracing himself. With no more strength to hold his bag, heavy from his schoolwork, he drops it beside him on the concrete. A minute or so later Sky looks up to see his best friend, Casper, strolling along the pavement. How he looks so calm and collected, whilst Sky is already exhausted, baffles him. Casper walks up beside Sky and with his back leans against the bus stop next to him.

“Good morning, Skyler.” Casper’s voice is horribly chirpy, on a register that Sky’s weary mind can’t deal with. All he can do is groan in response. “Someone’s happy this morning… What time did you sleep?”

“Well, it wasn’t Sunday anymore,” Sky yawns, his eyes watering and red.

Casper isn’t shocked or even surprised, he knows how stressed Sky gets. He’s got so much worse over the last six months. “Dude, you’re running yourself into the ground. You have to sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak.” Grumbling under his breath he tries to ignore Casper, even if he is right. The bus pulls up alongside the pair and they pile onto the vehicle, a little shove from Casper gets Sky moving.

Once sat down in the last free double seat, Casper begins to lecture his friend, “Shut up, Sky. You’re planning on going to medical school, you know how important sleep is.” Sky mumbles incoherently, not wanting to acknowledge how accurate Casper is; he sulks and folds his arms over his stomach.

“One of these days, you’ll listen to me and admit I’m right.” Both of them know that won’t happen anytime soon. Sky sits tight, waiting for his bus to finally reach college to begin yet another full day of lessons.

~

It’s lunch when Sky finally emerges from the library, finding his way to the cafeteria to meet Casper. He doesn’t have to look far when he reaches the busy room; Cass is already occupying their normal table that is relatively tucked away in the corner near the main window. Sky likes to spend his time staring outwards, watching people as they pass by. He likes to wonder who they are, what they’re like, what their futures hold after they finish school. Sky makes his way over to the table and notices lunch is already sitting there paid for by a very smug looking Cass. He wants something, Sky automatically assumes.

“Sky, you look like death. Your stress levels are ridiculous and you’re going to get ill.” Casper says, trying to hide just how much he is worried about his best friend.

“When did you become my mother?” Sky complains as he shoves the sandwich into his mouth. He had to skip breakfast due to being late and hasn’t eaten since the previous night. He is thankful for how much Casper cares, it really does seem like he cares more than Sky’s own parents.

“Fine, if you’re going to be like that I’ll take back the lunch I got you,” Cass warns, pulling the tray from his hungry friend.

“No! I’m sorry, I’ll be nice!” Sky chokes through his mouthful of bread and a various selection of meat filling, as he grips onto the opposite end of the tray.

“Good. Now listen, you’re skipping the books tonight.” Sky makes no attempt to hide his rolling eyes, all previous attempts to get him out on the town have been futile. Sky figures this must be what Cass had in mind when he brought his lunch. “Don’t give me that look! I don’t care what you’re doing or however many books need rereading; you’re coming out with me. I’ve got a gig that I want you to be at, it’s really important to me that you’re there. There’s this guy coming to watch us from one of the labels!”

Sky can’t help but smile as Cass gushes about his latest achievement with his band. He can see exactly how much it means to him, and there is no way he’ll miss such a big moment in his friend’s life.

“Of course I’ll be there dipshit.” He just won’t let on how happy he is himself to see Cass as happy as he is. Why can’t I be that happy?

“Sweet! I’ll pick you up at seven, yeah? I need to get there to set up.”

Idle chat between the friends continues through the lunch hour. Cass explains how the upcoming events for their evening came about and Sky sits listening avidly. He loves hearing about Casper’s various adventures with his band. Sometimes he won’t be seen for a few days, Sky just assumes that he’s travelled for a gig and let his phone die. Cass will do anything for his band, he puts in his heart and soul, truly wanting to make it work.

Sky admires his friend’s passion for his talent, his art, and wishes he were the same. He wishes he had the same drive and enthusiasm for something — anything. Except he doesn’t. Sky finds he doesn’t have any particular talents to be proud of. His life is just a mess of scientific textbooks, boring him to the brink of insanity. He hates it. If it weren’t for his parent’s idealised views of everything being perfect if you follow in their footsteps into the medical profession, he may be happy. He may have found his niche if allowed to pursue his own interests, something for him to be proud of.

It isn’t long before lessons resume and Sky is sat listening to his teacher drone on about the importance of atom economy and the oxidation of primary alcohols, and platinum catalysts and halogenoalkanes, and things he just doesn’t have a passion for. He can’t see how anyone could have a passion for such a boring subject. As he lets the voice fade until it is purely background noise, his mind becomes unfocussed on the lecture and more focussed on the light sketches in the corner of the notes he’s already made. It’s a nice change.

Notes

Let me know what you think of it so far, any things you'd like to see happen, anything you want to know about the original characters.

Also, who do you prefer the music of: Bring Me The Horizon or Falling In Reverse. For the sake of the story, I'm interested in your opinions on the music only, rather than the band members you prefer since they won't physically be featuring.

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