Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 43: Gym Class

When Laz finally awoke, he felt stiff all over, as though he had slept for days, He was finally able to move again though so with a bit of difficulty, he started to stand up. His joints let out loud and long popping sounds as though they had been coated with stone that was breaking with his movements. He finally stood up fully and stretched his back, legs arms and neck, one at a time. The popping continued to echo through the small park area as he fully stretched his body. When he was all done, his body was bursting with energy and his muscles felt like they were on fire. It almost didn't feel like his own body. He walked a few steps back towards his apartment before turning around and looking at the strange flower and glowing blue pond.

In the morning light, they produced almost no effect, but with Laz's sense, he was able to see that both strange entities were still bursting with energy. If he were to look at them using only his eyes however, they just seemed to be a weird plant and a cloudy pool. They appeared to be completely normal bits in the overgrown surroundings. The only somewhat strange part would be that the area around them and the stone bench in the middle were free of overgrown grass.

Laz felt like he encountered something that he shouldn't have and did something that he shouldn't have done, but at the same time, he felt far stronger than he had been before. He wouldn't so the same thing over again though as he had nearly died.

He also had another sort of feeling. Something inside of him told him that he was too full, like he had overeaten. Due to this, if he tried to 'eat' again, he wouldn't be able to keep it down. If it were just food, he would probably throw up. But since this was anything but food, he didn't want to suck down too much energy and run the risk of exploding.

He had no idea how he had managed to start digesting the energy, but now wasn't really the time to ponder that. He didn't know what time it was, but since the sun had just started coming up, he knew it was still early and he wasn't late for school

Making his way back to the apartment, Laz set down his keys and put his phone on the charger. It wouldn't have enough time to charge before school as he found out it was always 6:30 am and he had to be sitting in class in an hour, but he had enough time for a shower so he figured he would charge it as much as he could before he left.

In the past, he would have just left the phone in his apartment since it would have no purpose for him, but now it seems like he would have someone occasionally texting him and he couldn't help but smile with a bit of happiness about this. Even if some people were ok walking on a lonely road, humans, by instinct, were social creatures. Although he didn't know what he could consider Kennedy as, he knew she wasn't an enemy and that was good enough for him.

He stripped and took a quick shower before getting changed into some clean clothes. He felt thankful again for his grandpa as it seemed like he had taken his clothes out and washed them all a few days ago. He would do that sometimes when he was in the right mind set just to help Laz along. The washing machines were located on the first floor and were available to use for all residents of the building, but they cost quarters. Although no one really lived there at the moment and Laz and his grandpa were probably the only ones who used the machines, he didn't like just leaving his clothes there and walking away.

As Laz grabbed his phone to see the 30% battery he had gained, he turned it on before grabbing a sports drink out of his fridge and putting his bag over his shoulder. He didn't have time to eat so it would just be better to wait until he went over to Grandpa Chu's place after school and eat before he started working. There was always something there ready to eat and Laz liked it all, minus when Uncle Chu decided to experiment with one thing or the other.

Walking along the road towards school, Laz's pocket dinged with the notification of a new message. Unlocking his phone, he noticed it was a message from Kennedy sent the other day before it had died. Thinking back for a quick minute, Laz remembered that he had been joking with her about her chest before he went to sleep so he was wondering if this was her last response to him about that.

He took a sip of his drink before clicking on the thread and watching a picture load up. In the picture, he could see a finger holding down the collar of a shirt and the deep valley that it had originally been covering up. It took him only a moment before he realized that that Kennedy had sent him a picture of her cleavage along with a message that simply said, "wouldn't you like to know little boy."

Laz couldn't help but spit out his drink in shock. The few other students who had been walking around him turned to look at him with a bit of disgust in their eyes. Laz was coughing a bit and couldn't help be thankful that no one was in front of him at the moment.

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Laz commented under his breath, 'that little fox,' before switching his phone off and sprinting towards school.

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Home room was nothing special and Kennedy didn't stop in. Although Laz didn't expect her to, he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. He didn't think this could be considered a crush or anything like that as he believed that he had a type. But even he realized he was somewhat infatuated by her. For a young man, it is somewhat easy to lose themselves when they start talking to a somewhat mature older woman. No matter how mature Laz was, he was still a young man at heart.

His entire day proceeded along the same lines of nothingness. The only real change that he noticed was that people would somewhat avoid him more although he had no idea why. What he didn't know was that after he had killed Joey, he gave off a rather powerful aura that either intrigued or threatened others. Now however, after his crazed nectar and mystic water binge, he body's aura had corrected itself. He might have been filled with energy, but due to the energy's rotation that was constantly spinning within him, it was all self contained.

Had Laz paid a bit more attention to himself, he would have noticed the strange color rotation of the icy blue and vibrant green energy circling around inside of him in the same pattern the two energies were swirling around in the night. But, he didn't. Mostly because he had no idea that he could, or should.

As far as Laz was concerned, he was just full of energy, strength and feeling better than he had ever felt before. His mind was focused and stable. The things being taught in any of his classes just seemed to make sense as soon as he saw them. On top of that, he could visual everything that was written down and be able to describe things as though he was looking right at it. It almost seemed like cheating.

As the day wore on, they finally got to the part he had been looking forward to, gym class. Normally, like most average high school students, Laz hated gym class. Being stuck having to work out or do some other activity with various guys who you either didn't know or didn't like was not an enjoyable thing. The best part was the guys who treated the entire class as if it was their stage to show off. Since Jesse, Tommy and Alex were all in Laz's class, he had to constantly deal with them in gym class as well since homerooms had gym together.

Although Tommy wasn't the sports type and Jesse didn't really care, both of them were more or less athletic and when adding the sport star Alex into the mix, they enjoyed showing off as much as possible. What brought out this behavior more was that they had to share the gym with the girls most days.

Although Basin Falls High School was relatively large, they still had a great deal of students spread out over each year and only so many hours within the day. Due to this, there was only so much time and so much room for every to use the rather large and spacious gym. Since they didn't have a choice, they instead embraced it. Usually, they would have a younger year paired with an older year..

For example, if the guys class was in the 8th year, the girls class might be in the 9th or 10th year. It would be the reverse for the older guys and younger girls.

As Laz thought about this, it made almost no sense to him whatsoever. Why didn't they just have similar age groups together? If he had to pick a reason, he figured it would be because there was less likely of a chance that there would be relationships popping up from the age differences. Even if both classes stayed on their own side of the gym, interactions couldn't be avoided entirely.

The locker room smelled like dirty teenage male which always made Laz gag a little, but he quickly got changed. He took steps to avoid facing anyone with his shirt off since he had the rather flashy 'brand' of the black tree and red moon on his chest. Although he could probably get away with saying it was a temporary tattoo, if it was seen to often, people might not believe it.

After getting changed and walking out to the floor to sit down while waiting for the coach to arrive, Laz happened to glance over at the girl's side for a lack of anything better to do. He saw Tommy and Jesse talking to someone while Alex had his head out the door, talking to someone else. Although he didn't know why he paid attention to these three, he was starting to get a strange feeling from them. It was different than the dissonance he felt from another like him, it was somewhat less... powerful?

As the bell rang and the coach stepped in, Laz shot one final look over at the girls side and noticed that Tommy and Jesse had been talking with Kennedy. Apparently, he class was the girls class opposite of them and Laz had just never noticed, or cared.

As he caught sight of Kennedy, he wanted to call out at first, but then remembered that it wasn't something he could do. Not to mention she was someone else's 'girlfriend' but she also clearly told him he needed to keep their interactions unknown to others. At this point, Laz just sat back as though he was unconcerned, but he could see that Kennedy's face was not only a bit red, but she also looked like she wanted to hit something, or someone.

'Well, looks like she is pissed off... glad it wasn't me,' was the only thing Laz could think to himself at the moment.