Snippet #1228498

Altan awoke to find a butterfly perched on his nose. It flapped its delicate pink wings, warming itself in the sunlight filtering through the broken blinds. It looked like it had been sprinkled with glitter, and every time its wings moved some glitter would slide off onto Altan’s face. The red head glared at the butterfly before letting out a long line of foul language. The butterfly darted away at his movement before it started a lazy circuit around his room. After a moment the boy sat up and said a few more choice words at the sheer amount of butterflies around his room – what limb was he missing this time?

He shoved his bed sheets to the side and swung his legs over the edge of his mattress. His left leg made him groan. The skin was gone from his ankle up to his mid-thigh, and the muscle around his knee was wasn’t there, revealing the bone of his patella and where the thigh and calf bones connected behind it. He stood up gingerly and his leg seemed able to handle his weight just fine, and then made his way to the window to open it. Some of the butterflies fluttered out, though most stayed within his room.

It didn’t take him long to shower, brush his teeth, get dressed, and cook himself breakfast. The lunch he made last night went into his side bag with a few notebooks and a text book. Altan hooked the bag over his shoulder, shoveled his eggs, hash browns, and toast onto a paper plate, and headed out the door.

The residents of the dorm were used to seeing Altan walk and eat. He rarely woke up early enough to eat at home. He nodded at the few people he saw; this dorm held students of roughly the same rank, so no one of better rank would bully those of lesser rank. That didn’t mean there weren’t fights: the students knew that everyone around them was close to their skill level and ranks were changing all the time. Altan himself didn’t seek to improve his rank – he found that while it fluctuated he generally stayed in the same area. His sponsor didn’t care about where he was in the hierarchy, and he found that a lot more fights were picked with him if he improved his rank.

As the last bite of eggs went into his mouth he folded up the paper plate and dumped it into one of the trashcans in front of the school. He had gotten there earlier than normal – the school bell hadn’t rung yet. Kids – mostly younger than him – were rushing through the hallways to their classes, scared of the punishment if they were late.

Altan sat down at his desk just as the bell rang, pleased that he had made it on time. A gold butterfly landed on the desk of the girl next to him. She glanced at it, then shooed it away gently. After he watched the insect for a moment he reached into his bag to pull out a notebook and a pen, prepared to write notes.