One Muddy Goth Part 1 by Jake

[PhilMarlowe]

One Muddy Goth Part 1 by Jake

My name is Jake, I’m 16, and I just left high school in the UK this past summer. I will leave the name of the school out of this, but let’s just say it was one of the schools on the bad side of the city. Anyway, it had a mix of people. You had the wasters who would almost never turn up and cause all the trouble in class. You’d have the geekier people who would stay inside at lunch. Then you had the sporty people who’d go up to the hall and play basketball with the PE teachers during lunch. And then you had me. In my group, you had everyone from the goths to the punks to the emos. In short, everyone wore black.

I was more on the goth side, although you wouldn’t know it in my school. Piercings, extreme hairstyles, and unnatural colours were banned. So I had black hair swept across my forehead and coloured contacts in bright blue. I’m still surprised at how I got away with that.

Naturally, you always had tension between the various groups. At the butt of everyone’s jokes were Koral and her little gang. Koral was a monster of a girl. Yes, she was overweight, but she was even taller than me at a solid 6 foot 5. She was a mean, moody sort of girl who hated everyone. Of course, most of us didn’t take her seriously. During the four years before, she’d never done anything in retaliation to anyone, other than a few nasty words.

That was all about to change, and it was going to be me who ended up being made an example of. It was probably my fault really. I had taken the teasing too far by pouring a bottle of water over her head. That was nothing compared to what I got in return, though.

It was the end of the day on Friday, and most of the teachers would go home almost as quick as the students. I was one of the last to go after standing around to chat with my friends. There were three separate exits in my school. You had the one that went across the tennis courts, the one that went through the school car park, and the downhill route out of the school.

My remaining friends left across the school car park and I would go down the downhill route. It wasn’t anything to be scared of. I’d taken this route hundreds of times, even though I knew there was never anyone around. My school was too cheap for security cameras, so if there was nobody around you really were alone.

It happened when I was walking past the mobile classrooms. The path was narrow and out from behind the science block popped Koral. She had an impassive look on her face and she was making her way towards me. I didn’t acknowledge her because I was on my own and I just wanted to get home, and she didn’t acknowledge me. That was until she stuck her leg out and tried to trip me.

“Nice one, fat ass,” I said back to her, skipping over her leg.
“You’re a little shit, Jake. Don’t know who you think you are round here,” said Koral.
“I’m Jake,” I said smartly. “Hope you got all that water out of your bag. Wouldn’t want to ruin that cheap crap you bring in every day.”

Koral tried to charge me, but I knew nothing would come out of it and I hopped out of the way. I could go back and take one of the other paths out of the school if she didn’t get out of the way. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just trip her over myself. Well, although I’m 6 foot 2 myself, I’ve never wanted to tangle with her physically. First of all, I didn’t want to find myself in a situation where I’d have to hit a girl. Secondly, you never knew whether a girl like that would pull out a pocket knife and stab you in the ribs. She always was a bit of a psycho.

As I predicted, she didn’t get out of the way and I knew I would have to go the other way. I turned around to go back the way I came and out popped four of her girlfriends. All were fat, ugly, and pissed. I was trapped between a building on either side of me and five irate girls. I knew I was in trouble here all on my own.

We were all wearing the same uniform, pretty much. It was a simple black polo shirt and black trousers combination. I was the only one of them wearing any sort of coat. Since I was a goth, I always had a black hoodie with some sort of skull or logo on the front and back, along with another black zip-up hoodie on top of that. I also had on a pair of black sneakers, if you are interested.

Anyway, back to the story. I was trapped and I knew I would have to fight. I wasn’t that scared or anything. I thought it would be a matter of sweeping them aside, and oh how wrong I was!
I thought it better to charge the group of four. It was a handicap match, but Koral’s physical prowess was the great unknown. All the other four were smaller than me. I turned on my heel and charged.

“Get him, Becky,” said Koral.
“Got him,” said Becky when I hit them.

I got part of the way through, but they grabbed hold of the arm of my hoody and I ended up taking them with me. The other three managed to get a hold on it and no matter how hard I pulled I couldn’t shake them off. I shook them back and forth, but they held on.

One of them swung a fist at me and smacked me in the side off the head. It didn’t hurt, but it left me in shock and I tried to shove them away in frustration.

“Get off me,” I said.
“Koral, Koral, get him down,” one of the girls said.

I didn’t know what was coming, but I soon did as a great weight jumped on my back and my knees buckled. I was trying to stay up, but the mass was immense and I could feel my neck straining as I tried to stay up right. Bear in mind, the other four were still holding on to my clothes. Within the next few seconds, my face was being pressed into the concrete and my body paralysed as they all piled on top of me.

My confidence was shaken, but I thought this was only going to be some stupid wrestling match that I was going to win in the end. I wasn’t in the mood for these childish games and I still tried to use my power to get them off.

“You think you’re so big when you’re with your mates, don’t you?” said Koral. “You think you’re really funny, don’t you? You don’t like it when my mates gang up on you, do you?” Koral pulled on the back of my hair for good measure and rubbed her palm all over my face.
“... off!” I screamed back at her.
“Come on, get him round here.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t have time to think about it as they got off me and took both of my legs. I was being dragged away towards the small yard where all the kids smoked at lunchtime. It was hidden from the rest of the school, so nobody could see you even if they looked out of the windows.

I tried to reach out to hold onto something, but nothing came to hand. I could only watch as my clothes rose up my body and I could see the silver spiked belt I always wore contrast against my ghostly pale belly.

As soon as they stopped dragging me, I managed to get my legs free and I scrambled to my feet. I tried to run, but someone managed to latch onto my backpack. It stopped my progress, but I shrugged it off my shoulders. The schoolbooks weren’t that important anyway. Once the bag had gone, I could see sweet freedom ahead of me. They’d never be able to catch me in a footrace.
With freedom right there for the taking, it was taken away from me and Koral enveloped me again. She pulled me back into the yard and someone tripped me from behind. I was down on my side and the three of the girls piled on me again. I could see Koral’s evil grin and I knew I was in for it now. This wasn’t going to end well for me. I think it was the first time I felt real fear at that school, like I wasn’t in control.