A/N: I finished it...I'm surprised with myself. I have this entire story completely written up, all I have to worry about is uploading it and getting reviews...which I don't think I'll be getting a lot anyways, so...
This is far from being the best thing I've ever written, and easily one of the shortest. I'm working on writing more concise stories, not weighed down with my usual details and obsessive attention to character developement. I didn't spend as much time as I usually domaking sure this story was perfect, but I had a lot of fun writing it and it's more cute than anything. Since this is my first Strange Days fic, it's more me messing with the characters than anything, playing with them and seeing what I can do with them. This is a bit AU-ish, partially because I haven't seen the entire series, and mostly because I decided to cut a few things out that I didn't like that they with the show. They did what most little kid shows tend to do, they stick with the main plot and then forget certain character developements and things throughout the show. Like for instance, they'll make a big deal about Lucas having a crush on Josie in one episode and being so jealous of Vaughn, and then completely forget about it in the next. Little things like that.
Anyways, summary: Lucas is in an accident and the remaining science club members are left to pick up the pieces. But then, nothing's ever what it seems at Black Hole High.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1:
The air outside was musty. Clouded over with swarming storm clouds. Blackbirds painting the sky. The students of Blake Holsey High stared out their windows longingly, waiting expectantly for the heavens to open and rain down upon them. There was a crackle of thunder in the distance accompanied by a brilliant flash of light. A bell tolled, ending the final class and students rushed from rooms filled with suffocating plumes of chalk dust towards their dorms, outside to walk home or to any after school activities they might have.
A lanky youth, Lucas, walked out of his own respective class alongside his roommate and best friend, Marshall, on their way towards the science lab. Both members of the infamous Blake Holsey Science Club, they were on their way to a meeting. But their conversation was far from beakers and theories.
"I can't believe you ended up getting her such a lame gift," Marshall chuckled, and Lucas turned a deep pink. Her happened to be one Josie Trent, recently the new girl of Blake Holsey and fellow Science Club member. Her birthday was in a week.
"It's not lame," Lucas retorted defensively, though he didn't sound too convinced as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Give me a break, Marshall, I panicked. Besides, what do you get the girl who seems to have everything?" Marshall was thoughtful a moment, before smirking.
"The answers to those pesky black hole questions that have been eluding her all year," he joked. Lucas rolled his eyes.
"Be serious," he scolded, then downcast, "My gift's not that lame, is it?"
"What gift…?" a voice interrupted from behind the two boys just as Marshall's hand landed on the door knob to the science lab. Both boys spun abruptly. Josie stood with the last remaining members of the Science Club, Josie's roommate Corrine, and Vaughn, whose father seemed to be the one behind the strange happenings at Blake Holsey. At the moment, things seemed fine between Vaughn and Josie, who were often at odds about his father, but it was obvious she had yet to forgive him any recent misgivings.
"What gift…?" Lucas repeated, looking in wide-eyed panic to Marshall.
"Uh…what gift…what gift…the uh…" Marshall struggled with his words.
"The gift…the…uh…gift that…" Lucas had just about as much luck forming a sentence before blurting out triumphantly, "There is no gift." He looked to Marshall for support, who quickly nodded his head.
"No gift," he verified stupidly. The others stared at them amused and a bit unimpressed.
"Whatever," Josie spoke up.
"If you say so," Corrine muttered. Both girls pushing past into the science lab. Vaughn paused on his way by.
"Are you two alright?" he asked. Lucas and Marshall both nodded their heads uncertainly, following the other boy into the room.
They each took positions near the front desk, sitting or standing around it. Professor Z was nowhere in sight, but there were elaborate equations written on the blackboard, and a strange metallic cube-like object sitting on Professor Z's desk. For a moment, they stared dumbly at it.
"Does any of that make sense to anybody?" Josie questioned, motioning the chalkboard, and they all turned to Corrine, shrugged.
"Don't look at me," she told them incredulously, studying the quick, sloppy writing on the board, "I can't make heads or tails of any of it." Professor Z chose that moment to grace them all with his presence, waltzing in the room with a light step and a grin on his face, shutting the door behind him.
"How's everything going, guys?" he questioned exuberantly and was answered with reluctant "fines" and half-hearted grunts. Professor Z's grin faltered, "What's wrong?"
"Fifteen page English essay and a fifty question math quiz tomorrow," Josie replied, and the good professor nodded understandingly, "So…what's all the mumbo-jumbo on the board?"
Professor Z drew his brow together, obviously not understanding at first, before widening his eyes in realization. He grinned again, turning to the blackboard and, short of a "ta-da", pointed his hand towards the scribbles with a hop, skip, and then stamp of his foot.
"This all came to me in a dream," he exclaimed, "I've been working non-stop on it all afternoon."
"It looks like…nothing more than a bunch of…theoretical equations and…well…" Corrine trailed off, searching for the right word.
"Gobbled-y gook?" Vaughn supplied. Corrine nodded. Professor Z frowned and Josie jumped up, looking for something to say to uplift the spirits of the falling teacher.
"Uh…well…why don't you explain what it is to us and…it will make more sense," she suggested and he brightened somewhat.
"Okay…alright," he started towards the board, picking up a chalk and looking the equations over. He scratched his chin, frowned, tilted his head. He put the chalk down and looked to the little metallic box on his desk, turned it, tapped it, then looked to his students, announcing in a quite befuddled voice, "I have no idea what it is."
Lucas mouthed an "okay" to the other club members looking worriedly to their professor, who was still scratching his head and staring blankly at the small object and the board. Josie shrugged to the others.
"Uh…Z?" she started, stepping forward towards him. He looked at her, somewhat dazed.
"Huh…? Oh. I'm sorry. It's just…strange is all," he murmured, "This morning…when I woke up…I had this insatiable urge to work on all of this," then admitted sheepishly, "I even…well…cancelled all of my classes because of it."
"We really didn't mind," Vaughn joked, Lucas and Marshall chuckled slightly, falling silent when Corrine sent them a stern glance.
"It's so…weird," Professor Z continued, paying the boys no mind. He walked towards the board, a finger tapping his chin, brow furrowed. His eyes lit up, and he wagged his finger at the object on the table, "I do know one thing…that thing…it's called…the…the Oubliette."
"Oubliette," the teens echoed back.
"What's an oubliette?" Marshall questioned.
"It's French," Corrine answered, "I think it's…it's a dungeon of sorts. What an odd name to give that little box…"
"I don't think I gave it that name…" Professor Z mumbled, scrunching his nose and lost in thought. He cleared his throat, "Uh…so…what do we have up for discussion today?"
"You cancel all your classes to fill the board with equations and build a device that you have no idea as to the purpose of, and you're changing the subject?" Corrine cried.
"You think we should look into this?" Professor Z asked, and in unison the teens yelled, "YES".
"Josie, you and Vaughn should go to the library and look up whatever you can find on Oubliettes. Marshall and I will look up these equations on the computer, and Lucas…you and Professor Z should probably examine that thing…closer observation may reveal something we could have overlooked about it," Corrine spoke up, easily slipping into Captain-mode. The others stared stupefied at her for a moment. She gave them a look, saying, "well, get to it." And they broke off in their separate directions.
Lucas started towards the Oubliette, watching as Corrine began writing the equations down on a pad of paper she'd procured from Professor Z's desk and Marshall set up his laptop. He eyed the small metal object disdainfully as he glanced Josie heading towards the door with Vaughn. Vaughn opened the door, allowing Josie passage, and as she slipped by, he placed his hand gently in the small of her back, leading her into the hallway. Lucas frowned at the little object, Professor Z in the back of the room gathering some materials to run simple tests.
"Sometimes I think it would be better if I weren't even here," he muttered under his breath, "I don't think they'd notice if I was gone." He put his hand on the small object, then jumped back in surprise as it hissed. He narrowed his eyes at it. It was…opening.
Professor Z looked up when he heard Lucas yelp, his glasses slipping down his nose. Corrine and Marshall had paused in their own researching. Professor Z took a step forward, staring intently at Lucas, whose own eyes were staring intently at the little object.
"Don't…" he started to call. But Lucas's finger was already tracing the contour of the Oubliette, seemingly mesmerized by it.
"This is…" he began, but whatever he was about to say was choked back as a flash of light engulfed the room. Marshall was quick to throw Corrine to the ground, sheltering her with his own body and Professor Z was knocked back into his own bookshelves by the sheer force of the blast. Seconds passed, and then debris littered down upon them. The door to the science lab was thrust open and a breathless Josie followed by a worrisome looking Vaughn filled the entryway. Marshall, Corrine, and Professor Z were covered in a thin layer of white powder, coughing and attempting to lift themselves up out of the wreckage with pained movements.
Their eyes all fell on the gaping hole where the front and middle of the room used to be. Blackened and ripped apart. Nothing seemed to have survived the explosion.
"Lucas," Professor Z gasped, and he was quick to get to the rim of the large hole, Vaughn meeting him there. Josie stood jaw-dropped in the doorway, and Corrine was supporting Marshall, who had taken the brunt of the blast.
It would have been expected that the hole lead to the ground below, but instead it seemed as though the floor had simply dented inward. It was completely black. Broken and unidentifiable objects covered the entire hole much like a landfill. Vaughn's eyes were faster than Professor Z's and when he spotted the limp form covered in wood pilings and shapeless objects, he made a quick crawl down into the hole, ignoring Professor Z's protest against it. He was haste in uncovering the other boy, dragging Lucas from out of what was once Professor Z's classroom and half-dragging, half-carrying the unmoving boy towards the edge of the hole. Professor Z helped lift Lucas from out of it, Vaughn tugging himself up. Lucas fell between them and Vaughn did his best to gently lay the other boy down on the ground.
Three pairs of gleaming eyes watched, panic gripping their hearts. They let out a breath as a whole when they saw their friend's form.
"Lucas," Professor Z whispered to his motionless student, collapsing to his knees and cupping the boy's chin, turning Lucas's face towards him, "Lucas…open your eyes…Lucas…speak to me…"
"Professor Z, he…" Vaughn began, Josie taking a step forward, the door closing behind her, "He's…not breathing…" Vaughn lifted his hand suddenly, slowly, staring at it with blank eyes and a blanker expression. It wasn't the odd warmth or the wetness of it that captured his attention. It was the red. The bright red.
Corrine let out a gasp, turning away and burying herself in Marshall's chest. He subconsciously wrapped an arm about her shoulders, eyes never leaving Lucas.
"Somebody…" Josie began, a quiver of uncertainty on her breath, "Somebody should go get help…" No one moved. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she blinked them away. They slid smoothly down her cheeks. She pursed her lips, angry all of a sudden, "Somebody needs to go get help. Somebody needs to go…we need help," she was enraged, her words biting into the silent air, "Help! We need help! He needs help! Why isn't anyone going…why?" she fell onto the ground beside Vaughn, studying Lucas's face. His glasses were gone, his eyes shut and sprinkled with white powder. His hair was unkempt, his cheeks smudged with dirt. There was a trickle of blood from his forehead, his lip, his chin was scraped.
"Is he…he isn't…is he…?" Corrine was saying, her words muffled by Marshall's shirt. The door to the science lab swung open suddenly, though no one looked to it. Principle Durst filled it now, and looked about with distaste at the room. She opened her mouth to start a lecture when her eyes fell on the mass they were huddled about.
"Zachary," she began tartly, though her voice cradled an obvious hitch, "What is going on?"
"Lucas…there was an experiment that…" Professor Z was jumbling for a lie, but he couldn't find one, "There was a sudden and unexplainable explosion. Lucas was caught in the blast." And then the last words, catching momentarily in his throat, fell out, "He's dead."
It was as though a realization swept the room. Corrine broke into tears, Marshall squeezed his eyes closed and lowered his face, a few silent tears fell down Vaughn's face, and Josie buried herself in her hands.
"We…we have to…there…" the principle stammered, her lips flapping in a fashion reminisce of a fish, "Authorities…we have to call proper authorities…we…have to go…to my office…now."
Slowly the students rose, heading hesitantly towards the door. Professor Z and Vaughn carrying Lucas between them. Professor Z caught a glimpse of the Oubliette lying at the bottom of the hole. He looked away from it, his face falling as guilt gripped his chest. This was his fault. He could never shake that blame.
As the door shut behind them, a fizzle of purple electricity shot from the Oubliette, and out stepped an uncertain figure, looking about the room in horror.
END A/N: Okay, that's the first chapter. Even though the next chapter is already posted, you could still REVIEW! It would be recieved well!
I know that all went by quickly, like I said, I'm working on writing more concise stories. But don't worry, even if everything is confusing now, it will all be explained later.
Thanks for reading.