Something Changed: Day 1

Word Count: 6,425

Summary of Events:

Luke arrived home from school and was going to get a snack when his mom started telling his dad about the new church a friend of hers was going to and she wanted to check out. A couple of days later Luke heard his mom read his sister some reviews of this church from people of his sister's age bracket that she'd found on the church's website. He, however, was merely told to get ready for church on Sunday and, upon arriving at the modern facility that struck him as a low-ceilinged shopping mall without stores, he was led away from his parents to a teens area owing to his being fourteen . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

It looked like either a movie theatre — or maybe even just a stage theatre — yet also a concert venue. There were two big screens on either side of a stage that was cloaked in darkness.

The screens were presently showing a very modern, flickery sort of a lyric video that was blended with a photo montage, which matched the slow-beat song that sounded like something Kylie would enjoy, but totally wasn’t his sort of music.

All the walls were windowless and black, meaning that the lights overhead weren’t doing much illumination, although they did succeed in illuminating a lot of kids filling the seats, which made Luke wonder where exactly he was supposed to sit.

Of course, considering the music, Luke wasn’t sure that he wanted to sit down and stick around to see what was going to happen, he was sure he could always head home and play some video games, he always left his window unlocked, and he was sure the Rossi family next door would be home. He’d borrowed their ladder before to get into his bedroom.

“Hey! Luke! What are you doing here?”

Startling, Luke turned and groaned to recognise a face in the row just ahead of where he was standing.

He wasn’t really surprised, on one hand, to be looking on the ever-fashionable Keeley Sprinkle and his friends, as Keeley was just the sort of effeminately emotive sort of guy whom Luke felt would enjoy this sort of place, but he wasn’t grateful to be recognised.

“Come! Join us!” Keeley called.

Luke sighed and reluctantly made his way toward Keeley. He wasn’t friends with Keeley, they merely attended the same school and had some common classes because they were in the same grade. He and Keeley were too much like oil and water to possibly be friends.

Keeley was outgoing, exuberant, emotive, and also seemed to like math and science somewhat, while Luke preferred to be quiet, reserved, keep his emotions to himself, and didn’t see what the abstract formulae of math had to do with the practical things of life that he’d observed to be part of adulting, nor did he see why he needed to know lab coat science when he didn’t want to become a lab coat scientist.

Wide, bulky, thickly upholstered chairs were positioned close together in rather wide rows, meaning that Luke was able to get to an open seat beside Keeley without really infringing on the space of the people who were occupying the seats between Keeley and the row’s end.

“Man, I’m so glad you’re here,” Keeley said, draping his arm across Luke’s shoulders. “This is going to be awesome.”

Luke shrugged out from underneath Keeley’s arm. He wasn’t surprised Keeley was acting like his friend, as Keeley seemed to think he was either friends with everybody, or universally liked — much less that everyone liked what he liked — and he was also the sort of person who would touch and feel everybody without asking, or even thinking that he might be doing so roughly.

If Keeley thought this was going to be awesome, then Luke was sure he wasn’t going to enjoy it, but he was going to have to wait and see if the lights went down at any point before he dared try to sneak out, otherwise Keeley would notice him and probably chase him down — as Keeley was the sort who would do that.