บท 1: Prologue
At the very corner of his peripheral vision was a green notification popping up on the screen of his computer, along with a silent ping that sent slight vibrations throughout the table. He hesitated to look at it, for his business was somewhere else at the moment. Several more flashes of green appeared on the screen of the computer, piling up upon one another and not disappearing. This wasn't a glitch in his computer interface, it was something programmed specifically by his dad to make it so that every few seconds that he did not respond, the notifications would slowly duplicate so that it fills up the whole screen. Not only that, it would send an incredibly loud ping, or at least he has been told that it was loud. It just felt like it would be loud, through all of the vibrations sent into the table.
Through disgruntled groans of angst and anxiety, he decided to finally peak at the message, it read, "Are you ready, son?". His suitcase then slammed shut as a long sigh exited his mouth. This was just what had feared would be on the message. While he stacked the suitcase that he had just closed onto the mountain of suitcases on the side, he peered over to his computer screen once more and typed in a response to his dad, "Yeah dad, I'm done with the packing."
This was it; this was the end. It was an especially hot day in California, with the sun's heat scorching. So many times he would have to open the curtains, and then so many times he would have to close it, for the temperatures were often polarizing. His name was Alexander Clark, a typical Sophomore in High School; developing and trying to get ahold of what he wants to do with his life. Summer had arrived only a short while before, but he almost wished that it hadn't arrived at all. Despite him being desolate at school, either sitting at a table alone or on the far side of the desk, he loved it here. Maybe it's the welcoming rays of the sun, the high mountains with small hints of snow, or the beach with its cool water that is attracting him to this place.
Despite his lack of good grades, this was still a wonderful place. Maybe the environment will help him improve, the warm sun and beach already warmed his heart and inspired him. The thing about the inspiration though was the fact that it never lasts; ever so slightly, there would be tiny glimpses of it before disappearing. The number of friends he had was slim, a little too slim. If his friends were compared with food, it's not even close to rationing by military standards. In wars, at least they had some amount of food, or in this case, some amount of friends. He had none. No matter how hard he tried to get them, they never came. Through all of his years in California, he had made not one friend.
The only reason that he moved to California was that his mom had a new husband, and because while she stayed with Alexander's brother and sister (living in their new house). It would've been uncanny for them to live so close to each other, so his dad left to live with his sister in California. He still couldn't believe it. After several years, he still couldn't believe that his mother left his dad for another man. Although he never met the other man in person, he knew that his father still trumped whoever that was. To this day, he knows of no reason why they broke up or why he was with his dad instead of with his mom.
He doesn't even know their relationship status anymore; he doesn't know if it's a polyamorous relationship or if, god forbid, they divorced. Repeatedly, he had asked his dad and repeatedly he would get no answer. At this point, he doesn't care about that any longer because he had a lot more issues to deal with. It's still eerie to think about, how his own family would not tell him anything about them. His grades were an issue due to the fact that he was failing in vast subjects. His mathematical skills were beyond helping, for he never paid any attention in class. He barely even knows the order of operation and how to perform them efficiently. He, of course, knows 'PEMDAS', but he has to rely on it whenever he does the math! Every problem that should take normal kids a minute to do took him 5! Practice they said, it's not that hard they said, you're smart like the others they said!
Well maybe if the others had ADHD then he would've believed it! They never had anything like him, always privileged, parents always around! Comparing them to him was outrageous! It makes sense that they weren't bad at math, science, or writing because their parents were always there to help them! But expecting him to be the same is outrageous! Even saying it is dumb and revolting to him! Well, at least that was what he always told himself. How he contemplates his life before he went to sleep. According to what his mind tells him, his only redeeming factors were of his knowledge of history, maybe his reading skills too. He loved reading and history, and it's like a match made in heaven. They always went with each other too; to learn about history, you need to read. Despite his dad and aunt not thinking that that's true, he does.
No matter how much they try to force math onto him, he never budged. He loved reading about the math problems, how "Billy had 4 apples" or something like that. Speaking of apples, he loves them. To be perfectly fair, he loves everything that he can physically put in his mouth and eat it. Even what the other kids called disgusting cafeteria food at school, were delicious buffets to him. It was as if they were donating it to him, always throwing their unwanted food on his tray. Sometimes it was nasty food, such as crunched up orange peels inside of porridge, but it was mostly packed food that they didn't bother to eat. This was seen as a problem by others; it wasn't one to him, but others thought so. Always last to leave the cafeteria, always last picked for sports, always last in a race, always known as the fat kid. His metabolism was already slow, so all the food he was digesting wasn't burning whenever he exercises. It was also the fault of his Aunt, how spoiled him to a ridiculous amount. Delicious and flavorful the food that his Aunt made was, so he would eat meals twice over.
This lead to one of his most distinguishable characteristics that are viewed by others, he was a fat, white boy that was quite dumb and borderline retarded. He kind of wished people would call him that. If they call him retarded, by its true definition, then he would have an excuse for everything. It would've made him feel so much better that he had a reason to not be as good as the other kids. But none of that matters now, because it was all going to change again; he was going back to Russia. Seeing the pitiful state that Alexander was in, his dad decided to make what he thought was the best choice; move him back to his mother. With his Mother, at least he would be with his siblings, his siblings that greatly outshine him.
He had a sister and a brother, who are both only about a year apart from him. There was Jenny, Jenny Ann Klaus, who was a Freshman that was heading to Sophomore year, and there was Ludwig, Ludwig Lucas Klaus, who was a Junior that was heading to Senior next year. This left him as the middle child, which can be difficult even for normal families, but for him, it was taken to another level. His sister Jenny, or what the family liked to call her, Jen, was quite a bright girl. Both Ludwig and Jenny were bright, for a matter of fact.
Their GPAs were both above 4.0, exceeding excellency through school. Not only that, they were involved in plenty of extracurricular activities, such as Ludwig's computer science, which he learned from dad and Jenny's athletic abilities. She's quite brilliant. Easily the fastest in her track team, one of (if not the best) at volleyball in her school, but a poor swimmer. She never liked swimming much, especially after mom forgot about her on the beach more than a decade ago, leaving her to float for a while out in the water. They use to laugh about it whenever someone brought it up, although Jen would get quite upset. Something about Jen was just adorable and heartwarming to him, which was most probably the reason she's his favorite of all the Klauss.
Ludwig, or Wig as they use to call him, was always more into gaming. He's absolutely obsessed with more action-packed games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, all of the games that Alex had no interest in. To be fair, he had no interest in gaming at all. After trying to play GTA with Wig, he decided to give up on gaming altogether. Too much violence and too much inappropriate stuff, or at least the games that he played can be described with those words.
Thinking back at his old experiences with his siblings, he kinda misses them, for he has not seen them in years, well not using any normal form of contact. His mother is a Facebook fanatic, spending days on there just posting pictures and details of her children. Only once has she said anything about him, and that was the day before he left for California. It was a black image with the words "Last day with Alex" and a picture of the plane he was in. There were no clues to what that meant, so it was also another mystery that Alex will never solve. But he has been checking his mother's Facebook pages quite a lot using an account that he made under the name of "Owen Stine".
He made it so that his profile picture was of a man he found on Google's stock photos, one that looked friendly enough. It was true intense preparations to make the account look normal, but once his mother saw it, she accepted his friend request, revealing all of her account's feed. He didn't feel good about it, but it was the only way he could know about his brother and sister. There were way too many pictures of Oliver, his stepdad, for his liking, and no picture of his dad. It was quite uncomfortable whenever he comes across a picture of the man that replaced his dad, so he limited his browsing through his mom's Facebook page. So now he had just stuck to reading and drawing, although his drawing skills were equivalent to Picasso… if a boar stepped on it and had its business there.
He couldn't be bothered with music because he couldn't even hear it, and even so, the concept of music is still strange. You're practically listening to nice sounds, why are people so obsessed with it? Maybe it's just through jealousy that he never cared for music, but nothing can convince him otherwise. He best stuck with what skills he still had; reading and history. He just needs to keep getting better at history and then teach it at a college, easy career and money for him.
Most professors are fat anyway, so it wouldn't matter about his stomach size. That doesn't seem like much, but it will most probably be his role in society due to his lack of hearing abilities, meaning anything that requires attentiveness is scrapped. He's barely scraping by to the next grade, with each year getting progressively harder. He never made it that well throughout school due to the fact that the teachers speak orally, which is usually difficult to understand. He would have to put so much energy to see their mouths move, and then piece it together to actually make sense of anything. It wasn't his fault that he was deaf, it wasn't his fault the teachers rarely use sign language!
He would sometimes have a translator next to him; a person that knew sign language or one that can write quickly. They would usually write down a summary of what the teacher is saying, but none of them are really reliable. Most apparent of the delinquents is Timothy Garry "Tom" Orlando, the thing that makes Alex's life worse than how it already is. He's a straight B student but acts childish, more so than anyone else in the school.
He would laugh, or so that's how Alex would interpret it, whenever the teachers talk about space. It's quite strange, so he never understood what Tom would laugh, but he does so anyway. It's quite clear that no one took him seriously though, for no one else ever laughs, no one else ever partners up with him, which meant that Alex was to partner up with him every time. No one would partner up with either of us, so we were left alone, forced to group together. Tom is strange, to say the never least.
He would get trouble for fighting others quite frequently, even though he has no business fighting any of them. Never before has he gotten Alex in trouble, but close to it. So many times has he written profane things on the back of Alex's backpack, things that include mom jokes, curse words along with some other random details, or just overall random and weird stuff. Not only that, he involves in countless forms of technically bullying. Such as stealing lunch money change, throwing rocks at some kids' legs, and overall pushing and punching people whenever he wants to. But in the end, he's surprisingly the fastest writer and one of the only ones in the class that knew ASL, or American Sign Language.
Alex can kind of speak orally, but it also takes great concentration to do so, for he has to muster up great brain energy to remember all of the complex words of English, and his Russian is now long gone. It has been 9 years since he had spoken Russian, which was when he was 7. He always hated 9, it was always so hard to pronounce, so gradually it was erased from his everyday speaking. But he still has to use that word occasionally. He's technically the closest person Alex has at school, but far from a friend. Speaking of school, there was this strange person at school. His name was Mr. Thompson, and he's the school janitor, but something odd is up with him. He would always sit at the bench, looking at the kids play as he slowly writes things down in his notebook.
He never speaks to anyone, just writes and looks at the kids playing. It's creepy to Alex but never has he ever addressed it, due to how it is quite unnecessary. His father was always too busy, always working, he hardly has any free time to do anything else. He's always on his computer, typing away for something. His aunt, Annabeth, was always trying to take care of his dad, always telling him that he's straining himself and working too hard.
Aunt Annabeth is quite a successful lawyer, who actively works, which meant that she was never always there for my dad. It puts her in distress because their relationship was still much like when they were children. Or at least that was what Alex got from reading her lips. His best guess would be that she still has to care for his dad so much, much like when they were children. But there is also this one theory, proposed by Tom. He told Alex, it's as outrageous and as much as it makes Alex angry as it sounds, that "his Aunt might be a little too close to his dad." It was absolutely outrageous and ticked him off like wildfire. The statement was something that he will hold against Tom forever, for saying something so- idiotic, that it will imprint a bad image upon Tom to Alex's eyes for the rest of his life.
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