A dreamless sleep. What if he never had to wake up? Could that gentle abyss swallow him up and wipe it all away? A serene nothingness without the hollow pain of an empty heart. That was his greatest wish.

  "Good morning Avalon! We're looking at another week of perfect late summer sun," echoed from the radio on the floor below.

  He grabbed his pillow and pressed it against his head to muffle the sound in the vain hope he could slip back into that soporific darkness he had dwelled in only moments before. Was five more minutes of reprieve so much to ask for?

  Just as the abyss began to embrace him once more he heard a loud knock on the door. He threw the pillow on the floor and sat up slowly. He raised his hand to cover his eyes as his gaze met the blinding light of the morning sun shining in through the gap in the blinds of his window.

  The door slammed open as his mother stepped into the room with a sickening smile on her face. She skipped through the room and pulled the blinds apart fully, burning the darkness away under the unbridled radiance of the morning sun.

  "Guten morgen, Albrecht, it is a beautiful morning my beloved little sunbeam," his mother proclaimed with arms open wide.

  He rubbed his temples in frustration as he pushed himself off the bed. Couldn't his mother just call him Al like everyone else instead of throwing his full name at him the first thing in the morning? First blinding him and then trying to get on his nerves with her sickening positivity, when would it end?

  "Ja mother, I always appreciate how you find a way to drag me out of the darkness and into the searing light every morning," he hissed in the worst german accent he could muster.

  "I got breakfast ready for you so you can start your day off right before you head out to greet a new school year."

  "I'm not hungry," he says as he pushes himself past the waiting arms of his mother.

  He stepped up to his open wardrobe and began shaking the dust off of his creased school uniform with a low sigh. He slowly dressed himself only to pause as he put on his blazer and felt the small object hidden away in his breast pocket. He gently tapped it only for relief to wash over him as he felt the outline of the cigarette pack secreted away within his breast pocket.

  Fully dressed and with a renewed vigor brought on by the prospect of a smoke or two on his way to school. He marched out of his room without so much as a goodbye to his mother as he left her behind in the dimly lit room.

  He practically rushed down the stairs and yanked open the front door, then carelessly slammed it behind him as he left. An act which startled the neighbor's cat perching on the windowsill.

  He reached for his lighter in his pant pocket and lit the first cigarette of the day. The world slowed down around him for one moment during the initial inhale as he took to the street on his way to the train station.

  As he walked there was only his thoughts and the ceaseless noise of faceless commuters. He was shaken from the incoherent buzz of his empty thoughts by the giggles of two fellow students across the street. He overheard their pointless chatter as he walked. Talks of hopeless crushes and sickly summer memories.

  'Do they not realize their romantic ambitions will fade like the seasons?' he thought to himself as he reached the doors of the station house.

  "Good morning, Al!" the two students gleefully called out to him as they approached the station.

  He inhaled deeply in frustration only for a jolt of pain to shoot through his lips as the cigarette burned all the way down to the filter.

  "Fuck!" he exclaimed as he flicked the butt of the cigarette away and rubbed his stinging lips.

  "Did you have good summer, Al?" one of the students asked him expectantly.

  "I don't fucking know, summer is summer," he mumbled as he walks through the doors to the station house on his way to the track.

  The first day of the new school year was only getting worse with every passing moment. Was a quiet commute so much to ask for? Why did he have to be subjected to the chatter of all the faceless commuters around him? Couldn't they just be like him and shut up for one minute?

  "Train approaching the station, beware of closing doors," blared over the station PA system.

  Slowly the train came to a stop at the station, and as the doors slid open the faceless horde began boarding like a swarm of ants. He let himself be swept along by the horde and boarded the train just as the doors began to close.

  He watched the landscapes zooming past him from the window aboard the train. Green hills and sparse woodland making way for a monolithic gray cityscape as the train approached his destination.

  He got off the train once it reached the central station and began trudging towards the heart of the city. More and more of his fellow students came into view as he got closer and closer to the looming school gate. He stayed back and waited for most of the students to pass him, before stepping through the gate himself to ensure he wouldn't accidentally walk into another conversation.

  As he entered the school grounds he looked at the massive school buildings before him. While most of them were the typical concrete squares and rectangles that dotted most of the cityscape, there was one that stood apart from the rest.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  It was distinctly baroque with a pompous and grandiose construction that would make even the most vain architect gag. It was the original school house from when the academy was originally formed during the 1700s and it showed. An expensive academy for a very expensive education that only the elite could dream of. The school was still a private institution, but nowadays it would take anyone with better than average grades. The little man really had won in the end he reckoned.

  In that building the principal would hold his beginning of the year address, but sitting in one of the hundreds of seats and listening to an old man blab was not something he could stomach. So he began making his way towards one of the more modern ones where he knew he would find his classroom.

  He entered the open doors and began walking the corridors until he found classroom 2-C at the far end of the corridor on the second floor. The place he would waste most of his time listening to inane chatter this year.

  He seated himself far back in the empty classroom and let out a sigh of relief. Finally he had gotten one quiet moment to himself. He had maybe half an hour of solitude before his classmates would file into the classroom and shatter his hopes of a quiet schoolday.

  He thought he had gotten used to how obnoxiously cheerful people could be during the summer break, but this day so far had showed him he was dead wrong. It was like nothing could break their ridiculous spirits, or maybe they were better at pretending than himself. If the numerous awards, medals, and his amazing grades hadn't given him any purpose then why should others find purpose in life when they have so little to be proud of by comparison?

  He thought back to the cabinet in the living room displaying all his achievements that had once given him so much joy, but now only reminded him of the hollow void inside. Being at the top had given him no joy and being near the bottom as he was now hardly felt any different.

  Rage was building inside him, but it was no more than a reminder of his own impotence to change anything. He could scream and throw a fit, yet nothing would really change since he had long ago stopped caring about the perception of others. Any misdeed on his part would be no more than a temporary reprieve from the empty monotony of his otherwise colorless world.

  He heard the sound of the bell tolling the beginning of a new school year followed by the tumult of hundreds of students in motion. The first homeroom would soon begin and his solitude would fade like the light of a match at the bottom of a well.

  "Good morning, Al, I see you're already seated and ready for the new school year!" his teacher exclaimed as they stepped through the door and approached the blackboard.

  His homeroom teacher, Harrison, was a stout and unnecessarily cheerful man with a mop of graying hair adorning the top of his altogether unremarkable figure.

  "Of course, you've always got to be up and early ready to conquer new endeavors," Al said, his words practically dripping with sarcasm.

  "I love your initiative, Al," Harrison said approvingly as he began writing on the blackboard.

  The sarcasm had gone completely over Harrison's head as always. That man really couldn't read between the lines whatsoever. A remarkable quality for a lauded english teacher.

  Students flooded the once empty classroom and took their seats to the tune of their own incessant chatting. The classroom went from an island of serenity to a zoo within an instant.

  Harrison raised his voice causing the chatter to die down within moments, "I see you're all excited for a new school year, but let your old teacher get a few words in at the very least."

  Harrison began listing names as he took roll call. One at a time the students piped up when their name was called. Al didn't bother to respond seeing as Harrison was already well aware of his presence within the classroom.

  Al could feel his own dissatisfaction growing steadily by the minute. He was beginning to all but accept that this year would be no different than the last or the next. A meaningless series of events acting as roadbumps on his meandering road towards the grave. At the very least it brought some peace to him that all this would eventually end just as it began, a cosmic mistake.

  He knew just how grating his nihilistic outlook was, but saw no reason to change it. Nothing had proven it wrong so far and that was yet another thing he doubted would change with time.

  His thoughts were broken by Harrison speaking up once more, "And now students I would like you to give a very warm welcome to your new classmate who just transferred in."

  The classroom door swung open as she walked in. As she moved, her platinum blonde hair caught the sun from the windows and reflected a brilliant hue like countless rivers of gold. She moved with what could only be inborn grace, every motion more stunning than the last.

  She stopped and turned to the class while flashing the most attention grabbing smile he'd ever seen. She must have practiced that in the mirror for hours he imagined, but for whatever reason the class just ate it up.

  "I'm Jane Winters, and I hope we'll all have a wonderful school year together!" she practically shouted to the class with inexhaustible glee filling her voice to the brim.

  She had looked over the class for only a few moments before her eyes settled on Al. The discomfort within him grew unbearable within moments as that utter caricature of a girl refused to stop looking in his direction. Did she have nothing better to do than gawk at the black sheep of the class?

  "Why don't you take the empty seat next to Al?" Harrison said and pointed his hand in Al's direction.

  Jane locked eyes with Al as Harrison spoke. Her brilliant crystal blue eyes stunned Al for a few moments before he saw something disconcerting within those pools of sapphire.

  In lieu of his own reflection he saw a featureless dark silhouette staring back. In her eyes he found a shadow darker than black sitting in his desk and staring back at him with its featureless void for a face. He raised his arm and saw the shadowy figure raise its own within the reflection in her eyes.

  "What the fuck," he exclaimed to himself in disbelief.

  Jane began pacing towards him without dropping eye contact for a single moment before flashing him one last smile, then sat down next to him.

  What did he just see lurking in those eyes? Had he seen wrong or had a shadow stared back at him from within those creepy fucking eyes? It had raised its arm when he raised his own just like a reflection should, but it had looked so utterly wrong. Never in his life should his own reflection in someone else's eyes have been more clear, but all he had seen was that damn thing in his place.

  Was he losing it? Was this some kind of fucked up nervous breakdown that was making him hallucinate? If it was real he wanted no part in it at the very least, yet the image was so vividly burned into his mind's eye. Why of all things was that image something he could perfectly recall with perfect clarity?

  It grated on his nerves. He could feel himself slipping if he didn't get some reprieve. He needed an escape and badly, but class had only just started. Minutes passed painfully slowly as he struggled to contain his rampant thoughts.

  'Just one more minute and I'll be free,' he repeated in his head over and over like a prayer.

  Then like an angel from above came salvation as the bell rang. Class was finally over and his torture wouldn't begin until the next period started. He could slip out of the classroom and go the roof and ease his nerves with a cigarette, then act like absolutely nothing happened once the next period began.

  He heard a rustling next to him as Jane stood up and moved close to him. He turned his head to face her but avoided her eyes like the plague.

  "What is it?" he asked shakily.

  "Do you smoke by any chance?"