Shards of Light

By Dark Pegasus

Prologue

Tuesday, November 11th 11:38 a.m.

It was lunch time. The sky outside was painted a dark grey mixed with a hint of blue in a few places. A storm was brewing. For some reason, the dreary sky reflected my mood almost perfectly. I was too busy staring out the nearby window to realize that someone had actually acknowledged me. I snapped out of it and glanced across the table at the girl sitting there.

She was a junior and I only a freshman, but she still allowed me to sit with her and her friends at lunch. She had her hair in her usual curls, her deep brown eyes matched the color of her skin. Samantha smiled a little and repeated her question. "I said, how was your day?"

I thought a moment. Nothing interesting happened today. I shrugged and said, "Well." I said, glancing at my watch. I had finished my lunch quickly that day because I wasn't in the mood to really eat. There was still twenty minutes of lunch left. To my right, Jasmine and her boyfriend Hunter laughed and talked about something they only whispered into each other's ear. It made me sick to my stomach watching them tickle each other. I turned my head away from them. Although I despised them, I also longed to be able to do the exact same thing, just differently.

"You know what this cafeteria is missing?" Kiesha, the girl on my left asked loudly. The others turned to her. "Some real Southern cooking. Not once have we had fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, string beans..."

"Potato salad, turkey pastry, black-eyed peas, fish, shrimp..." Kenny, another guy at the table continued.

"Can seafood be considered Southern?" Hunter asked.

"In this case, yes." Mimi stated.

"Well, why don't you join that Nutrition class and suggest it?" Samantha asked, when everyone had stopped listing a variety of foods.

"I don't know..." Kiesha said indecisively, tapping the table nervously.

I took this moment in time to space out. Although I sat with them everyday at lunch, I didn't actually consider Kiesha, Samantha, Jasmine, Kenny, Hunter or Mimi as friends, but at this moment in my life, I should consider them as such.

Kiesha almost always thought of questions that were out of the ordinary, or made you think about something that you probably never noticed. Her short, dark hair and brown eyes accented her dark skin.

Samantha was loud and quite talkative, but she was also quite eloquent and it is a mystery that someone who can express herself so well isn't in Journalism or on the debate team or whatever. If it weren't for the fact that she had darker toned skin, she would look exactly like Kiesha, but they weren't related. Isn't it weird that people who aren't related can look exactly alike?

Jasmine was happy as long as she was hanging all over Hunter. She had contacts which dyed her eyes a light violet, which was very different. She also had died some of her hair a light shade of brown to match her skin.

Hunter was cute. In fact, he was my first crush in high school, but after seeing him with Jasmine, I knew he had to be straight, so I quickly dropped my feelings for him, although I still find him quite attractive. He has his hair braided neatly, hanging over his shoulders. I don't know much about him, even though he's in my Art class.

Kenny hangs out with the girls a lot. If he has a girlfriend, I'm not sure. He used to be alright before he got his hair cut. When I first met him, he had his hair in the cutest little braids, but a few days later, he got it cut. I hope it grows back soon. He also has contacts, but his dye his eyes an unnatural shade of brown. As soon as I saw him, I knew they were contacts.

Last but not least there's Mimi. There is not much I know of her, but her hair flows down her back. She's usually quiet but when a topic that she likes arises, she'll more than likely add her ten cents to it...sometimes fifteen cents, rarely a quarter's worth. It depends.

Only the sound of the bell snapped me from my thoughts.