A new start chapter 1: the encounter
The sun was beginning to rise as Rayne climbed out of his bed and began dressing. Typically, he wouldn't have gotten out of bed until the last possible minute, but today was an exception. He was about to go to a new school, and he needed to do something before he walked into the building. The teen shuffled through his apartment, grabbing jeans, undergarments, a shirt, a jacket, and shoes, which were scattered all over the place. He really needed to give this place another good cleaning he thought to himself, but he didn't have the time to do it, and who would notice it anyway, he was the only one who lived here.
As the eighteen year old walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, his tail swished behind him as his ears were laying down still from being tired as he went looking for his house keys. He found them in the dishwasher, (no telling how they got in there) and was getting ready to leave the apartment. No one else had awoken yet. Rayne always tell when people were home, what moods they were in, and what had happened that day by the sounds he heard coming from the apartments. Usually there were a few screams, or a child crying. Sometimes he heard cheers when a person got a paycheck, or a child did well in school. If an apartment door was left open, it meant someone had recently died, so friends and family were welcome to pop in and console the mourning family. All in all, his building wasn't too bad. Except for a few.
Rayne walked down the two flights of steps that were at the end of the hall in apartment building, stepping out into the street. Not many people were up and moving yet; the street lights were still on, and normal traffic was absent, with only an occasional car driving down the street and slamming on brakes. He was grateful for this; he really didn't like people crowding around him. He was always guaranteed to run in to someone that hadn't seen his black fur and scars before and would stare at him. The teen walked down the street, going a few blocks before turning and heading down another street. He stopped in front of a brick wall, topped with barbed wire to keep intruders out. The teen reached up, carefully pulling apart two pieces of barbed wire that he'd cut years ago, still un-repaired. Rayne quickly leaped over the fence, and the next instant he was standing in a graveyard. When he landed in the graveyard he had accidentally cut a gash in his arm and as he lapped at the blood it stopped bleeding and went on with his plans.
Rayne could never figure out why people thought graveyards were so creepy. Most people probably thought of dark churchyards with jagged headstones poking out here and there, names unreadable, with spooks lurking at the edge of the church grounds, waiting to get you. They rarely, (if ever), thought about a city graveyard, with headstones lined up in neat rows, names readable for anyone who cared enough to look at the stones. The whole area was fenced in, spiked fences or barbed wire set up around it to keep intruders out. Not creepy in the least. Just very depressing. The teen walked along the rows of tombstones he'd grown to know so well, finally stopping in front of a set of two small markers. His eyes read the words on the stones, even though the inscriptions had been committed to memory.
Shiro Katake. Beloved brother, taken before his time.
Kindari Katake. Beloved sister, killed by her fiancé.
Short, sweet, and to the point. Just like his brother and sister was with raising him.
Rayne sat down on the grass in front of the headstone, remembering his brother and sister. After he'd been born, his mother had died giving birth, and his father wouldn't have anything to do with him. He probably couldn't cope with his wife's death. But on the other hand Rayne's brother and sister raised him and found out he had been born with a gift, the ability to use what they called shadow magic. Rayne's family had been a long generation of witches, and all sorts of furs but they lived in a community mixed with furs and humans. The school he was going to go to was mainly humans. He was nervous to go.
His brother had gave his a necklace to which would keep his powers at bay until they taught him how to use them; it had belonged to his mother. Shiro had just put the necklace on him when his powers went berserk. It sent him flying out into the middle of the street. Rayne heard a car screech and turned in time to see the car heading straight for him. Suddenly, he felt his brother's hands push him out of the way knowing that the car would kill him. Rayne watched as the car hit his brother. His sister had been gone while this happened and when she returned found out that her brother had been killed while trying to protect their baby brother. The next few hours were a blur; cops talking with him and his sister, paramedics making sure he was ok, reporters talking about this "tragic accident", as they referred to it as. Somehow in all this mayhem, Rayne's sister was just thankful that both of them had not been killed. That had been when Rayne was eight.
Since then, he'd lived with his sister and her abusive boyfriend. Rayne hated him and hated him more when he killed her. Then he was sent to a orphanage until he was seventeen. Afterwards he got fed up with it and got an apartment of his own. Coming back to reality Rayne said "hey Shiro hey Kindari please be with me at this new school, I will make sure to wear the necklace as well. I'm a senior this year, so I shouldn't have too many problems. Maybe I'll make some friends. Yeah right as he thought back as to what happened in his other schools.
The teen rose to his feet, surprised to see that while he had been sitting there, thinking and talking, the sun had risen with a fog that was thick, and he could now hear the sounds of cars honking, people yelling, and a few dogs barking. The city was awake and on the move, and so was he as he left the graveyard. The high school was nothing special in his opinion; just a regular four-story building, filled with your average mixture of preps, jocks, thespians, Goths, outcasts, and the few occasional furs. Naturally, Rayne didn't fit in with any of them since the furs didn't stay long. The day was relatively uneventful; he had to endure the normal stares, whispers, and pointed fingers, but that was it. He did his best to ignore it, which wasn't too hard, since he was used to this kind of treatment.
His classes were nothing out of the ordinary, nor were his teachers or classmates. By the end of second period, Rayne had decided that life in this school would be nothing short of completely and totally dull. Still, despite how calm and almost boring her day had been, Rayne still dreaded lunch period. He hated lunch period. He always had, and possibly always would. No matter how many times he had to tolerate it, he never got used to the sense of standing in the middle of the lunch room, looking around for an empty table to sit at, praying that he could avoid the stares of other students for just a little while.
Well, lunch time finally came, and Rayne was searching for a table, trying to find somewhere to sit. It looked like most tables were already filling up with teenagers and their friends, and he highly doubted anyone would willingly sit with him. As he was about to walk over to a table of theater kids and ask if he could eat with them, he spotted a semi-empty table in the back of the lunchroom. The only person residing at the circular table was a male, dressed in all black, with ink colored hair with red tips down on his shoulders black and white fur and a skinny build. Seeing his chance, Rayne crossed the lunchroom and sat down beside the male, praying he wouldn't be thrown out. "You mind if I sit here?"
"does it matter."
What kind of answer was that? The teen hadn't even looked up from his lunch when Rayne sat down by him. Still, it was better than a no, and Rayne learned not to be too picky with people who could tolerate him. The teens were silent for a while, picking at their food. Rayne was desperately trying to think of something to say; this awkward silence was almost as bad as sitting with kids who'd stare at her the whole time. At first she thought about talking about witches but thought it would be awkward so he didn't. "My name's Rayne Katake. What's yours?"
"Kyo Muramisa." Two words. What an accomplishment.
"Kyo, why isn't anyone else sitting with you?"
"I hate people. Everyone around here knows that." Ouch. "You're new, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Rayne replied. "I just sat here because no one else was around. I don't do so well with people."
"Why?"
"If you'd look up from your lunch tray, you'd know why."
Kyo finally allowed himself to look over the wolf, eyes tracing over each detail of his body. At the very least, he expected wide eyes, a slight gasp, maybe even a weird expression. But Kyo's face showed no emotion; his dull, gray colored eyes didn't even widen. "You're a wolf," the cat stated plainly. Rayne looked at the cat and noticed that he was really good looking.
Rayne was tempted to ask him, but decided to let it go.
"I fail to see the problem."
The wolf's mind shut down then. Was this cat serious? Maybe he was just stupid. As soon as Rayne's mind got over the shock, he began speaking, trying to explain the problem to the teen. "Kyo, most people at your school are human. It's extremely weird for me to look like this. In fact, you're probably the first person that hasn't spazzed out when you saw me." "But its only because your also a fur."
"No, why should something like that bother me, its their problem if they are scared of you. You should feel relieved now that u don't have to worry about guys teasing you, like they do the other people."
Rayne sighed. Clearly this guy just didn't get it. "Kyo, people have a tendency to freak out whenever they see someone like me. Most people here at the school are human."
"All of which I've noticed."
"But most people aren't as calm as you. As soon as they see someone like me, they put up their defenses to try and keep me away." "People are shallow. It's their nature to be like that. They're so wrapped up in their dreary, feeble lives that they'll freak out when anything that threatens to disrupt their day to day living comes along, even attempting to raze it or drive it away. People are just like that, Rayne"
"You're not?"
"No." Rayne couldn't think of anything to say after that, so the two of them once again lapsed into silence.
A few minutes later, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch period. Rayne waited until most of the teens had dumped their lunch trays and exited the room before going to throw his own trash away and leave. No point in getting caught in a crowd of loud, pushy teenagers if you could avoid it, right? As he was walking past the lunch table again to exit the room, he felt a hand suddenly grab his wrist, and looked down to see Kyo holding on to him. The cat was looking to the side, the same bored, incomprehensible expression painted on his face. "Rayne...if you don't have somewhere to sit at lunch tomorrow, go ahead and sit with me again. You aren't as annoying as most of the people around here." Without offering any more explanation, the emo looking cat walked off, presumably to throw away his own trash before going back to class..