**Edited as of 8/26/2019**

With an arching grace, a ball of saliva, and paper arced through the air and, with a wet splat, it hit its target right on the cheek. It slid just a bit as the young man it hit began to redden with embarrassment. His name was Darren Karofski, or Ski for short, but no one really called him that at this school. At this school, he was Pooren Brokeski, the kid who was always made to feel like he did not belong in the prestigious school. Dark hair, bad complexion, and thick glasses marked him as an easy target.

At the moment the spit ball hit him, Darren’s eyes flashed for a second with rage, and disgust, quickly put down by his more meek side. Snickers from across the room identify the offenders. But Darren doesn’t look over at them. He glanced up at his English teacher and found the older man staring at his computer, oblivious.

Of course, Darren thought to himself bitterly. He quickly wiped his cheek and lowered his head even farther than it had been before.

God, high school sucked, and Darren knew it all too well. It was the people who made it so terrible. He was a decent enough student, though he preferred the math and economics courses to the boring English class that he was stuck in for 90 minutes. But good marks in school certainly didn’t make the days go by any easier.

And it was not like Darren had any real friends to make the day interesting, either. Well, maybe that wasn't true. There was the group of nerds that he was kind of friendly with sometimes. They all ate lunch at the same table every day. But it is not like anyone really talked to him. The nerds would chit chat with themselves about scientific discoveries or archaeological finds or whatever else interested them. So, maybe they were friends. Maybe not. And when Darren really stopped to think about it, sometimes he had to wonder if they even knew his name.

Honestly, he did not know their names either.

Whatever. They were good enough company and made Darren feel less lonely.

If Darren really had to admit the truth to himself, he was lonely most of the time anyway.

"Sup, Brokeski,” a hard, sneering voice said from across the room.

Darren looked over and his eyes found the face of Mark Rosenbaum, holding a straw and grinning madly. Mark was infamous around Westchester High. He was tall and well loved and good looking, with blond locks and blue eyes that made girls follow him in a gaggle wherever he went. He was popular for no reason in particular. Maybe it was daddy’s fat wallet that bought him friends, Darren didn’t know. It certainly wasn’t his shining personality or his snappy sense of humor.

Maybe Mark had made all of his friends when he was younger and nicer. But Darren wouldn’t know. He transferred to Westchester Middle School in the sixth grade when he won a scholarship for his studies. And as soon as Mark and his friends had found out that Darren was not a rich kid like them, the teasing and the taunts started.

Mark may have been popular, but to Darren, he was nothing but an asshole with an ego the size of a blimp. And high school had don’t nothing to quell the taunts. Mark never quit. And the torment just seemed to carry on into high school as if that was the way things were just supposed to be.

Darren looked over at mark and his cronies and he said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“Hey!” Mark was practically shouting across the room at Darren, “I’m talking to you, Ski!”

Darren felt a miserable pit in his stomach open up when he heard the nickname that he used to go by at his old school. He had made the mistake of telling it once when he was 11 and it had been used against him ever since. Darren glanced up at the teacher. The man was absorbed in whatever was on his computer screen and did not look interested in stopping Mark.

Figures. No one ever did anything to stop Mark when he got started.

“What?” Darren asked, his voice low, his eyes on his magazine, even though he could not read any of the words.

“Did you all hear why Ski's on scholarships? Cause he's broke-ski,” Mark said, a wide grin splitting his face

The cacophony of laughter that followed made Darren feel about 2 feet tall. The gnawing in his torso just grew as the giggles did, and Darren knew that his face was reddening with every passing second. Mark leaned back in his chair and reached over to give Chad Barrett a high five. Tyler Jackson patted Mark on the back. Darren thought it ridiculous that Mark was being congratulated for telling the same stupid joke that he had been telling since they were in the sixth grade.

Darren looked around the room as the rest of the class settled. Some of the other students shot him sympathetic glances. Other giggled at his expense. One girl’s eyes lingered on him for just a moment before she turned back to her work, her long braid falling down her back softly. But no one spoke up. No one said anything in his defense.

High school sucks, especially when you are the exceptionally poor kid at an exceptionally rich school.

The bell rang and everyone jumped from their seats. Everyone except Darren. He gathered his things slowly, tucking his gaming magazine and a secret notebook under his arm securely, wanting to protect it more than anything else. Mark, Brad, and Tyler had been known to take his things, and Darren wouldn’t risk them stealing the magazine or the notebook for anything.

It held his most prized information.

After everyone else had left, Darren walked quietly into the hall. It was bustling with students, all dressed in brand new school uniforms. Darren looked down at his second-hand uniform and he sighed as he tried to cover the holes in his shirt with his book bag. New shoes squeaked as they walked by, and Darren was suddenly painfully aware of his own sneakers, patched with black duct tape. He ran his hand over his thick, dark hair and wished that he had the spare money to get the latest haircut, rather than the usual hair cuts that his mother gave him in the kitchen.

But there were more important things to spend money on… like school.

Darren had gotten lucky. In elementary school, his regular public school teachers encouraged his parents to enroll him in the Westchester private schools. And yeah, he was going on academic scholarships, but it wasn’t enough to cover everything. Darren’s schooling, uniforms, and books, compounded with his four younger siblings and his parents still trying to pull out of the Great Recession meant that Darren had to have a lot of second-hand things.

It also meant that he had duties at home that were a little different than most kids.

Darren’s arms squeezed the magazine in his fist and it comforted him. There was information tucked away in there, written on spare pieces of paper and scribbled into margins of articles that Darren had been researching for months.

He knew how he was going to change his life. He knew how he would help his family and stop being the burden that his special school had turned him into.

But before Darren could think about his plan, the plan that he had been mulling over for so long, a sharp, quick body slam threw him into a nearby locker. Darren’s body landed with a loud bang that broke through the crowds of students milling about. Dazed and confused, Darren slid to the floor, pain shooting through his shoulder and side. He looked up, only to see Mark Rosenbaum staring down at him.

“Watch where you are going, Darren Brokeski,” Mark sneered down at him.

Darren blinked, trying desperately to clear his vision, and he heard the gaggle of teenage girls that followed Mark everywhere begin to giggle.

“Ugh,” Darren groaned as he hoisted himself up from the ground.

Mark drew close to Darren as the dark haired boy righted himself. Darren looked into those angry blue eyes and his heart began to race. Would this be like the time Mark smashed his head with a book bag and told the teachers that he had just bumped Darren? Or when the three boys had locked him on a cleaning closet? Or would it be like the time they tracked him down after school and threw him into a dumpster?

“Stay the hell out of my way, Brokeski,” Mark said, his voice low and angry beyond what Darren had ever heard before, “If you know what’s good for you, that is.”

Darren stared back, his whole body tense. He couldn’t run. He knew well enough that Mark could outrun him in a flash, especially with how athletic the popular teenager was. Darren had never been particularly athletic, and Mark was a star in most of the sports at school. He definitely couldn't fight back. Darren had heard many rumors of people getting kicked out for a single fight and he would never do anything to jeopardize his place at the school. His parents worked too hard to keep him in there.

Anger flashed in Mark's blue eyes for just a moment. He gave Darren another shove and stomped off, his gaggle of sycophants lockstep behind him. Darren kept his place against the lockers, the cool metal making his skin tingle as he leaned against it. Darren breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the backs of his bullies

The teen looked around at his fellow students. Most of them had turned their backs on him, milling around lockers and chatting in groups like nothing had happened. A few still looked at him, offering glances of pity or sympathy. But their glances just made Darren’s face redden. Embarrassment took hold of him and he could stand it no longer.

He hated being pitied.

Darren slipped off to the nearest bathroom, his magazine clutched in a tight fist now. He was angry, angry at himself for letting those assholes get to him. He was angry that he did not fight back. No matter how often he thought about it, he knew he could not fight back.

He climbed in a stall and locked the door behind him. Taking a few deep breaths, Darren calmed himself by flipping through the magazine.

It was within those pages that Darren knew he would turn his life around. He flipped to the pages in the middle. They were the ones most worn down by constant reading. Notes scribbled hastily in the margins showed how much research he had done.

Darren looked down at the article.

"Everything You Need To Know For The Ruins Of Rimnir."

This. This game was his ticket out, out of this town and away from the people who tormented him. And he had a plan.