Solitude...

Its completely deserted...

Richard walked slowly through what was once the Perdido Beach High School. It looked so different than before; the once busy halls were empty, the once noisy detention hall eeriely quiet, and the lunch hall left in complete disarray with trays scattered across the floor and food smeared...everywhere. Richard enjoyed his rare solitude. Whenever someone wasn't bothering him with a question or problem he was often alone and this was as alone as it got.

It was pretty simple why hardly anyone went to the school to Richard. With his empathatic powers he understood peoples emotionsand the reasons behind them, along with an insight into the inner workings of the subconscious. The school was a place were many children detested attending. They hated the very thought of getting out of bed early to go to a mandatory learning environment. The only thing that made them do it was authority. Their parents, their teachers, the police... But now the FAYZ was here, the authority had left. And they try to gain as much distance as possible from the place they loathed so intensly.

Richard stopped inside the old teacher's lounge. It was a large room with a coffee table in the middle, and many comfortable looking chairs placed around the room. In one corner was a snack machine, and in the oppisite was a coffee maker. He walked toward the candy machine, rummaging in his pocket for some change. I wonder if you still work... He wondered and fed the machine a dollar note. After a few seconds of whirring, it cough up a chocolate bar and Richard started to eat it. He sat on one of the chairs lazily and continued to chew on the chocolate.

Avril looked up from the book – a school book, believe it or not - she was working on when she heard the slight buzzing noise. Another thing Avril thought was quite important – school. Avril found that even though the adults were gone, she couldn’t let herself stop going to school, and if that meant going through textbooks and answer books, and filling up copies to no limit, afterwards checking the answers, all for the purpose of learning, then so be it. Nobody really liked school, Avril didn’t much either, as strange as she was, but the fact that she wasn’t being forced to go sort-of compelled her to go herself. But she didn’t think anyone else would do the same.

She hopped off the desk she was sitting on, and walked to the source of the noise, which had stopped, much to Avril’s dislike – this meant she’d have to look for the person herself. If it even was a person. It didn’t take long, though, because the sound of the person’s breathing was sort of amplified by the silence.

She walked – no, crept, for one of Avril’s irrational reasons – into the room as silently as she possibly could, to see the dark-haired boy sitting there, nonchalantly eating what seemed to be a chocolate bar, but she didn’t stare long enough for her to think of what else it could possibly be. Instead she looked at Richard. The boy who was in charge of the FAYZ. What was he doing here? She’d remembered the last time she’d seen him at the school, it was the exact day the FAYZ began, and he’d changed a lot since then. Or, so she thought from what she’d seen of him. Not that they’d had too many interactions to begin with.

It took around five seconds for her to stop reminiscing and realise that, for however short a time, she was actually staring. She snapped out of it at that exact moment, which was when the nervousness of what would she say after walking in on the boy who controlled the area everyone lived in set in. She decided quickly she’d not say anything that was more than three words word, lest she said something completely stupid – which was one of the best decisions she’d made all day.

“Hi, Richard,” She said quietly, brushing a strand of dark brown hair back behind her ear, and nodding slightly – which was a result of beginning to bow, but halfway through realising it was the most ridiculously stupid ideas she’d ever had. Less than three... Personal best... She thought to herself.

"Hi Richard."

Richard's head snapped up at the greeting. He didn't know why he was so surprised really, afterall he did feel a curious presence somewhere near him, but he dismissed it as his power playing up. Afterall who would be in the school? When he saw the long haired asian girl in front of him, he frowned slightly. My hypothesis was perfect. Why is she here? He thought inquisitively. He studied her quickly to seeif she was strange in anyway. She seemed pretty normal, but her being her proved otherwise. Noticing there had been about five seconds since she had greeted him, Richard hurriedly replied. "Oh, hi." He said flashing a quick smile.

Constantly acting as if he cared about every single insignificant person in the FAYZ was a daunting task in Richard's opinion. Before the FAYZ, he had kept to himself as much as possible. He didn't have to make nice with people, he didn't need to sort out petty arguments, and most of all he didn't need to reassure and befriend people. The FAYZ changes everything. ALL in a bad ways.

Something else he had to get used to; everyone knowing his name. Wherever he went in Perdido Beach, there was always someone saying 'Hi Richard' or 'Sup Richard' or regretably 'Whats Happenin' Dic?' Sometimes he had to stop himself from replying with who the hell are you. He wasn't really a people person to begin with, they were too predictable, irrational and impulsive. Truth be told, he found his fellow man... boring. Then again he couldn't complain about it, afterall he did choose to be the Leader of Perdido Beach. Noone had forced him. Sometimes I wonder why I took this job. He wondered silently.

Back to the girl.

"Sorry," He said standing up and walking toward her. "I don't think i've had the pleasure of meeting you." He held out a hand for her to shake. Although he wore a smile on his face he was bored inside. Charisma just got you the same results, time after time. If she took his hand, he would subtly make her feel more at ease around him. When people were at ease around you they feel safe around you. When they feel safe around you they trust you. And it was Leadership 101 knowledge that your people should always trust you.

“Aprilynne Haze,” The words seemed to tumble out of her mouth, making her sound stupid as ever. Then she decided – another great decision of hers, which she seemed to be making a lot of today - that she’d try and be calm for once, and speak properly. She was making herself look so ditsy in front of such authority – she needed to stop. She brushed another disobedient stand of hair behind her ear, before extending her slender hand to shake his.

While she did so, she failed to surreptitiously breathe in. But it was like that little breath was the intake of at least a little level-headedness.
”But, Avril. You can call me Avril,” She breathed. At that point, it seemed like first time she wasn’t too shy or ditsy or embarrassed to look properly at his face, and when she looked at his eyes even for a second, a lot of his thoughts came into her head. Telepathy. Her power, that she’d almost forgot about, considering she didn’t use it much. She’d sort of stopped herself after she’d used it one time – literally a single time – to cheat on an answer to a test.

One of the thoughts of his that had unintentionally floated on into her mind – the only one that really stood out for her, others just fuzzy little messages - was that he was not exactly all too pleased by her sudden appearance. Without a second thought, she immediately blurted out: ”I didn’t follow you, I was already here,” with a voice that had as much calm as it had had at the beginning of the conversation, topped off with a nervous, but seemingly – strainfully – pleasant laugh.

[Writer block D: ]

Richard raised an eyebrow at the outburst. Now what lead her to say that...

The FAYZ was doing strange things to its inhabitants. Lots of kids had acquired special abilities, all unique in their own way. Telekineses, super speed... It was like an episode of Justice League. Only no one was heroic an striving to save the day. There were no blinding rescues and selfless acts. This was the FAYZ, there were no heroes. Just freaks. And nowadays freaks were popping up everywhere. You could never be sure who was what and everyone was suspicious of everyone. Richard was very suspicious of Avril's comment but instead of confronting her and making her tell him what she was, he decided to let it pass. He would find out more about her sooner or later.

"It's fine," He said. "I didn't think you had." Which was true. He just wasn't particularly pleased that she had appeared in front of him. He racked his brain for more subjects for small talk. "So why are you here?"

Avril bit the inside of her lip when he seemingly inquisitively raised an eyebrow. But she refused to let herself invade his thoughts again – which she mentally chided herself for, even though it wasn’t intentional the first time – to find out why, she went with her natural reaction, which was jumping from possibility to possibility in her head until he said something. It was pretty good, because while she was silent, for however short a time, she could sort of regain calmness. She didn’t want to lose her composure in front of him again.

Even while she was doing this, bouncing around in her head for conclusions, she never would have guessed he was curious about her power. As intelligent and observant as she was, she thought everyone knew that – especially now – there was a seventy-five-percent chance someone had “The Power”. She thought everyone saw it like that. Avril wouldn’t be surprised if Richard did, too. It just didn’t occur to her that it could be the reason

Avril was mulling over the idea that the reason he’d looked at her like that was because something was wrong with her hair when his voice yanked her back into reality.
“Oh,” She laughed nervously, because she knew at some point, after she’d just walked in on him for no apparent reason, he would ask that, and even she knew that the answer would made it sound like she really did follow him, and just thought of that excuse. “School, why else?” It sounded like some pitiful attempt at a joke when she said it.

Once again this girl was contridicting his theory on children getting as far away as possible from the school. This was the type of thing that truly annoyed him. He was so sure... "Ah, I see." He replied nonchalantly. He walked back over to his seat and slumped down into it, a slight annoyance visible on his face. If im wrong about her, how much longer till others start to come to the school? He pondered ruefully, He had so enjoyed his solitude.

Richard broke off a piece of the chocolate and flicked it into his mouth. He avoided the gaze of Avril in what would seem like rudely blatant disinterest, but realy he was trying to stop himself being... overwhelmed by her. Even now he could feel some of her more potent emotions like a dull throb in his stomach. Emotions such as rage, depression and nervousness could manifest in Richard's mind if he focused on them for too long and Avril's nerves were really getting to him. He distanced himself to try and dull down the emotion. To save himself from possible jitteryness and timidness he made a mental note to avoid her unwelcome emotions during this encounter unless necessary. Why does empathy work both ways?

Beat

"So..." He said after a few seconds of silence. He looked up with wide attentive eyes. "How are you managing? In the FAYZ I mean."

Avril bit the inside of her lip again. He really wasn’t making this easy for her, was he? It was so weird. He usually looked so in touch with other peoples’ emotions, like he could read their mind or something – Avril, once or twice, considered the fact they could have the same power – so he should know how awkward she was feeling. Then again, that one be one: expectant of her, which is so rude, especially to someone of such authority, and two: she’d only ever seen him like that with his friends, and Avril was one to be ignored often anyway, so that’d be a little too expectant. Plus the theory was stupid and insane.
She breathed in silently again – she was good at that. Silence and being it, that is. Sure, like any normal person, she didn’t like when there was one or more other people in the room, and there was still silence. But she really enjoyed it. Just being complacent and peaceful, not having the world to scream a thousand different things at her at the same time.

He confused her again when he tried to start a conversation. Most of the things he was doing were confusing her now – obviously he didn’t want her to be there, yet he kept at the conversation. But still, she kept at it too, even though it was making the situation more difficult for the both of them.
She smiled, regaining her composure once again.
[color=#FFCC99]“I’m fine,”[color] She nodded. It was strange how both of them were doing almost the exact same thing, which was hiding how they felt about the situation behind a pleasant smile, yet neither of them noticed, nor cared to stop it. “You’re really doing a good job with everything,”

Blatant lie. He thought immediately at her statement.

Richard himself didn't think he was doing a great job at the moment. He had done nothing but stopped a few fights and made a few people feel better with his powers. He had made no real change to the way he or the rest of the FAYZ lived. Right now he was just a figure head, he had yet to do something big and productive. Did she really believe I am doing a good job? He wondered inquisitively. He resisted the urge to check her emotions for anything that could point to deceit or slight guilt, and smiled widely at the comment. His turn to lie again. "Thank you so much. That makes me feel a lot better." He broke off another bit of chocolate. It flew into his awaiting mouth.

Beat.

Ah, akward moments. He mused. I live for them. He glanced up at her to try and read her emotion by her facial expression. He felt slightly better knowing that he wasn't the only one finding this situation uncomfortable. Then again, he wasn't sure whether he was actually uncomfortable, or his power was making his mind mimic Avril's emotion. If this was before the FAYZ he would have performed an exaggerated yawn, but now he had an image to keep and he couldn't be satirical and possibly hurtful to the residents. He carried on the conversation.

"You know, I don't think i saw you much. Before the FAYZ I mean." It wasn't really a question but most people would infer it to be one. It was quite open ended so she could give quite a long answer, which would probably make her feel less akward and in turn make Richard himself feel a little less akward.

”Really?” Avril said, just for the sake of saying it, honestly. Well, not really. She’d do that often – saying one word or small sentences just to give her time to calm and think about what to really say, especially now, since it was so horribly awkward. Avril knew well she wasn’t the type anyone would really look for – yes, she was pretty in most opinions, but she was too quiet and too much of a pushover to actually be seen by anyone, let alone remembered.

Avril was about to open her mouth to say “I’ve seen you a lot” but stopped herself immediately. No need to look any more stupid than you already do, Avril. She told herself mentally. Then she actually got to thinking of a good answer.

Well, she had seen him a lot, around school, that is, she remembered they’d gone to a few of the same classes. But that was really it. She’d seen him just as much as anyone else in school, really, she would have said that to anyone. But now, with the awkwardness of the situation, if she added that on, she’d start slamming her head against the wall. God, it was like she was incapable of speech around other people. Well, no, that wasn’t it. With her friends, people who she was comfortable with, people who she knew wouldn’t really think she was stupid or weird with the way she spoke, people who knew she was intelligent anyway, she could speak with perfectly. But it was probably just the fact she knew she couldn’t embarrass herself in front of them making her less nervous, thereby easier to speak with. Whatever it was, it worked. And it would have worked really well right now.

Or maybe that was what he was trying to do?

Avril laughed nervously, and shrugged. ”I think we went to the same arithmetic class,” She shrugged again, not allowing herself to name out the other classes they’d had together, with a huge fear of looking like some kind of stalker. ”But I think this is the first time we’ve really spoken.”

So maybe that was what he was trying to do, ease her into the conversation. And it was almost working.

[Bit small sorry]

"Ah," He muttered more than said. "I see." Maybe not his most witty and charismatic response ever but he honestly had nothing more to say to that. He scratched the back of his head briefly.

If anything, he was surprised that she had seen him before the FAYZ. As he often said, he had been a very secluded person. He was almost sure that hardly anyone knew his name with the others doubting his existance. Those were simpler days, when he just had himself to look after. He walked over to one of the windows that overlooked the town plaza and gazed through it ruefully. "Sometimes I miss going to arithmatic in the morning." He said unwillingly, in a wistful tone. He suddenly tensed as he realised what he had actually said.

He frowned slightly at how much emotion he had revealed to Avril. Leaders should never show weakness, or people would walk all other him. He righted himself, and turned around with a half smile. He still leaned against the wall adjacent to the window. "I didn't really like arthmatic much. English and Drama was more my style. What about you?"

Avril brushed another strand of dark hair from her face as she waited for an uncomfortable moment of silence to pass, as Richard walked casually to the window. She would have thought it was awkward for both of them - she would have been able to tell if it was with anyone else. But not with Richard, apparently. He was always quiet, never showing much emotion towards anything, or as far as Avril could remember he was. It was almost sad that he was smiling like this now in front of her.

It was strange how, even though they’d kept up a conversation, however small, you could still see the awkwardness of the situation. Quite frankly, Richard confused her some. It was only a little bit because he was always so different when he was speaking in front of the whole of Perdido Beach. But of course, soon after thinking about it for a second, Avril took in the fact that obviously he wouldn’t be like that all the time. The rest was just unknown to her, but the way they were speaking right now made it seem like he was trying to interrogate her without letting her know that he was. Usually, what any normal person would do, would be to ask a question in return, balance it out. But there were lots of reasons that she didn’t, two of them being that, for one, she felt it would be rude to ask a question to someone of such authority, she hadn’t the right to and, for two, she was really incapable of just thinking of a question and asking him without sounding stupid. There were lots of people who could pull it off – just ask a random question, be fun and spontaneous and the conversation would be great, regardless of what the question was. But Avril wasn’t one of those people.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. If she was with someone who was close to her, yeah, she’d say whatever she wanted, because the only people she’d actually hold close to her would be the people who’d be able to understand her lack of the ability to speak properly.


“...What about you?” He’d asked.

It was a question Avril didn’t particularly like, especially with this subject. If she was smart enough – when it came to conversation, that is – considering she didn’t like the question, no matter how normal it was, she would have said any subject she remembered she enjoyed doing in school, just to have it over. It would also be subtly telling him she didn’t enjoy the conversation too much – but that would have been a lie anyway. But no, first she had to go through about a million different things in her head to give the correct answer. Avril was a little perfectionist. She liked to talk about herself, too. But, that being said, Avril couldn’t just say whatever about herself. She cared a lot about what other people thought of her, actually, and she knew that whatever she said always could – no doubt that it would - come back to bite her later on if she didn’t say it truthfully. But her honesty, however innocent, could cause a lot of problems in many different situations.

So, her favourite subjects. She suppressed a groan. Why was it that anyone else could answer a normal question like this fast than she could blink, while she had to make it so complex? Didn’t matter why, really. Just so long as she did it, it was another reason she’d dislike herself.
Well, quite obviously, in Avril’s opinion – but that was only because she was the only one who really understood how she felt all the time – her favourite subjects were music and art. She would have said more, but since he only provided her with two, she unintentionally mimicked him and only told him two as well. But she loved both of them. Avril was a quiet, keep-to-herself type of girl, who was just unable to talk to people she couldn't relate well to - which, in most cases, were people she hasn't met before, rendering her unable to make friends. So the only other safe way she could express herself was through that sort of stuff. She wasn’t aware of it, she only knew that she enjoyed them. But that was the reason. Avril was all locked up inside, so that was the only way she could possibly do anything. She smiled, proud of how quickly she’d gotten her answer.
”I think art and music would have to be my favourites,” She nodded then, as if confirming that she wasn’t going to change her mind, which was what was usually expected of her. She then answered the question that everyone had asked her after that, except a little quieter, a little more unsure than the previous answer, because for some reason, she didn’t expect Richard to ask what everyone else did; ”I like pencil art... and I play the piano.”
She was proud of herself. She didn’t go into a rant about how she knew neither of those would really get her a proper job, she didn’t feel the urge to point out she majored in other more practical subjects again, and she’d spoken so much better than she did before.

"So you must be very creative then, huh?" The word's came easier to his mind now. He felt that the conversation was starting to flow. if slowly.

Art huh? He thought. After all these years, he still didn't get why people enjoyed the subject so much. It was pointless. Why should he waste his time learning how to make strokes with a brush? Or how to add shading? It was a hobbyist's lesson. The only type of drawing he had ever found useful was technical drawing, which he hardly ever got to do. Richard had once aspired to be an Architect, can you believe it? Someone who actually plans buildings, and gets a considerable sum or it. But obviously fate had other plans. Instead of becoming a brilliant craftsman, he was sucked into this nightmareish world and appointed himself leader. Maybe that's why I chose to be the FAYZ Leader. He brooded. I was always aiming high. He folded his arms in an impish sort of way and looked at Avril with a keen and interested gaze.

"How good are you at Piano?" he asked politely. Not that it really mattered, but it was an open ended question that could bring up another subject worth discussing. Richard himself had never played an instrument, despite his mothers wishes for him to the next Beethoven or Bach or someother dead pianist. The only instrument he had ever found in his hands was the Triangle and in his opinion, he was a pro at it.