Chapter One:

The Beginning Of Another Unfortunate Year:

Lili Zanotto

Lili Zanotto was sitting on her bed, looking back and forth from the clock and the calendar as though doing so would make one of them suddenly decide to start running backwards. It was August 30th and the time was 6:45 A.M. In fifteen minutes Lili would have to leave the comfort of her room and descend the staircase to the front door, where one of her fathers hired cars would take her away to boarding school.

Lili tossed an aggravated look towards her suitcase, which was sitting in the corner of her room. She hadn't even bothered to unpack it after camp. She had only been back for a week…what was the point?

More minutes passed by on the clock…the calendar kept showing that it was August. Lili sighed and stood from her bed, deciding that she might as well wait outside. If the car came early, she would just have to live with it. She had really hoped that she would get the chance to see her father before she went to school…but in fifteen minutes…she didn't think that was going to happen.

Lili left her room, lifting her suitcase via TK and throwing it across the hall on her way towards the stairs. The whole time she was thinking about how much she would have liked to stay home, perhaps change schools to somewhere she fit in better. But she knew that would never happen. Her dad had a very important job and he was almost always busy. Her mother had left both of them years before and was currently residing in a remote location that neither of them knew about, with bolts on her doors and a severe case of paranoia. She hadn't taken the news of Lili and her father being paranormally gifted too well.

Because she was still too young to stay at home by herself, Lili was sent to a fancy prep school over the school year, which lasted until about two weeks into July and then, after being home for about a day, she was then sent to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp until August 20th. The only time she was ever home was on particular weekends, holidays and one week and one day in the summer.

Lili reached the entryway and opened the door bitterly. The sunlight hit her, making her shield her eyes. She picked up her suitcase, which she had skillfully managed to land right in front of the door. And walked out into the early morning light. The car wasn't there yet, a thing which Lili found as somewhat of a relief.

It was always like this for her on the first day of school. All normal kids loathed education, but Lili found it particularly unpleasant, not because of the education itself, but because of the school she went to. Demure Academy was mostly for rich kids with important parents who lived particularly wealthy lives. Because of this, it was full of the sort of people who always looked down on others and only surrounded themselves with people LIKE them and people who were good enough at sucking up and trying to be like them. Lili wasn't this sort of person.

Because of her unusual gift she was an outcast anyway, but this was only maximized by having to attend a school where even ordinary children were considered unworthy of companionship, let alone kids who just absolutely radiated incongruity.

Years before Lili had been refused by her father to use any of her psychic powers at school. When she had been younger a lot of odd things tended to happen to people who didn't treat her kindly. Her father had finally been called when a child who had been known to taunt her on several occasions had suddenly and inexplicably lost his mind. He had been taken to the hospital because he was dancing around and claiming to be a ballerina. No one knew how Lili had managed it, but they did know that he had been fine before he had run into her that day, and completely out of it after. She had gotten into a lot of trouble at home after that and had been made to tell her father everything she had done to other tormenters in past instances. She was only seven at the time.

Now Lili was older, and most people had forgotten about occurrences such as those. But once one was labeled as a freak, no one saw anything else.

She did have a few friends, other social outcasts and youths whose parents had sent them to the prodigious school for whatever reason. But even with them, Lili felt like she was alone, because even though they knew what it was like to be an outcast…they didn't know what it was like to be an outsider to her scale. She wasn't just an outsider in a fancy prep school, she was an outsider to people in general. The only ones who knew what she was going through were the people like her. And although there were more of them then one might think…there just simply weren't enough.

Lili heard the sound of rubber screeching and looked up as one of her fathers cars stopped in front of the house. She sighed and headed towards it moodily. A man stepped out of the driver side door and helped her get her bag into the back, smiling warmly at her as he did. By the time she had gotten into the backseat his smile had faded when it became apparent that the young girl would not be returning it any time soon.

He closed the door, started the car, and once the engine revved to life, they took off towards the unwelcome walls of Demure.

Angus Gast

Most of the people walking by ignored the boy standing in the shade of a large oak in front of the towering white building, which had the words Demure Academy printed above the large doors. People like him, in said atmosphere were generally considered to be somewhat invisible. When those around him weren't ignoring him, they were in turn, pointing at him and trying to hide their laughter behind cupped hands. He hardly noticed any of them.

Angus Gast was a very awkward individual. One only needed to look at him to see this. He was the sort of boy who had height to his advantage, but absolutely no mass to go along with it, which resulted in a very gangly look, and therefore doing him more harm then good. He was pale, he had unkempt hair and set upon the bridge of his nose was a pair of large bottle cap glasses. If one were to look up the statement nerd in the dictionary…. one might find a picture of Angus Gast.

His father, Jakob Gast was the head of a major corporation and had sent his son to demure in hopes that it would somehow rid the boy of his oddities and lack of social graces. Instead, as was to be expected, Angus had been branded as an immediate loser and had perhaps developed even greater social problems because of it.

Like many boys and girls in his situation, he had found a group of friends that he fit into well enough. They weren't all like him. Demure was considerably short in stock when it came to losers and outcasts. So whenever a child who didn't fit into the schools strict mold was wrongfully enrolled, instead of finding a group of computer geeks, or theatre freaks, or Goths…they'd join a group labeled by their peers as the "outsiders." It didn't mean that any of the children who had to hang out in this group were alike, or into the same kinds of stuff…but in a school like Demure, anyone who was different tended to stick together, whether they were alike or not.

Currently, Angus was waiting for one of his friends. Lili Zanotto was someone who he had known for a long time. They had gone to school together since they were very young. Because of this, he considered her to be one of his best friends (Not that he had many to choose from.) He wasn't sure how she felt about him…Lili was a hard girl to read.

He was looking forward to seeing her again this year and his stomach was already full of knots at the thought of it. Although she hung out with them, Lili wasn't the sort of person who fit into their crowd…or any crowd for that matter. For starters, even though no guy who valued their social life would admit it, Lili was the sort of girl who could easily send a fresh set of butterflies loose in the gut of any boy who had finally gotten over their cooties phase. Angus knew this by experience. He had had a rather severe crush on her now for the past few years.

Just as he was pondering these feelings for the hundredth time, a thing he often did, along with imagining what it would be like if he ever tried to tell her how he felt, he was brought out of his daze when a large vehicle pulled up in front of the school.

Angus, who recognized it at once, felt his knees weaken.

The back door of the car opened and Lili emerged before the driver was able to open the door for her. Angus noted the look of brief confusion on the man's face with some amusement before he changed directions and settled for getting her bags. This was immediately put out of the boys mind however, when Lili noticed him and gave him an acknowledgeable nod. No smile, just a nod. He frowned.

After she had taken the bag from the driver, insisting to carry it herself, she made her way towards the Angus, who was trying to put himself in a somewhat normal façade and hide his disappointment in the fact that Lili was obviously not as happy to see him as he was her.

"Hey Lili." He said as she stopped in front of him and lowered her bag onto the ground. She gave him another distracted nod and began digging through the contents of her suitcase.

"Uhh…so how was your summer?" He questioned, now feeling a little foolish and wishing, despite himself that he hadn't waited in front of the school for her for so long.

"Same as always." Lili said bitterly. There was a hint of aggravation in her voice, as though she had hoped that it would have been different. Although Angus wasn't sure how different it could have turned out, apparently her father had been sending her to the same summer camp since she was six years old.

The boy nodded and searched his mind desperately for something to talk about with her.

"Any plans for your birthday?" He questioned suddenly. This time Lili did look up, but she was frowning. Lili's birthday was always somewhere within the first two weeks of school. This year she would be turning twelve.

"My dad said something about coming home that weekend." Lili said. There was a far off look in her eyes and a hint of sadness. Angus always got uncomfortable when Lili showed any emotion outside of her usual Cynicism and almost always-pessimistic demeanor.

"Well…that's nice, isn't it?" Angus asked uncomfortably.

"Nah…he wont be there. I'll wind up having to spend it here again." Lili said as she removed the thing she had apparently been looking for from her suitcase and straightened. Angus tossed it a curious look and raised his brow.

"Since when have you been into friendship bracelets?" He asked with an odd look on his face. She answered as she tied the tiny bracelet around her wrist.

"I found it at the beginning of the summer. Someone gave it to me last year…I thought I had lost it." Once again there was a hint of sadness in her face. After the bracelet was tucked into her glove, Lili picked up her bags and motioned for Angus to follow.

"Come on. If we don't hurry all of the good seats will be taken for orientation." Angus nodded and followed her into the building.

Ok…this is totally experimental. I doubt I'll get any reviews for it, but if you do happen to read this, please tell me what you think. If no one shows any interest in this story it'll probably be a while before I update on it. It'll eventually have more of a point to it…and I am, of course, going to introduce Raz into the plot.

So please, just tell me what you think so far. Or better yet, go write a Psychonauts story of your own and fill this section up. This game is WAY too good to not have fanfiction in it…

Thanx J