“Did you hear about the new game?” One of Corey’s classmates asked. He was pressing his face to closely into another students face. Feeling unpleasant, the student smacked him on the head. Creating a distance between them.

“Have you ever heard of mouth wash and personal space?” the student bit back. Turning his head to the empty board. The teacher had gotten so bored he fell asleep before the class ever started. No student dared to wake him up.

Their math teacher had the makings of a demon. They preferred him fast asleep and harmless, than wide awake. He happened to be the only teacher who punished students for the dumbest of reasons.

Corey had been one of the teacher’s favorite to pick on. Not because the boy was weird, quiet, or even because he sometimes showed up to school late with torn clothes. He was picked on being to smart. You see Corey’s math teacher, Devil as the kids called him, loved when students failed. It made punishing them so much sweeter. But for Corey, the school’s straight A and most likely to be valedictorian, there was no sweet victory from punishing him.

It also didn’t help that the boy operated like a robot. Nothing you say or do, ever affected him. He had tried to punish Corey more than once. Corey reacted the same way he did to everything that didn’t involve games, docile and lifeless. Rumors have spread around the school calling Corey a zombie, or a psychopath in the making.

He was hated for his looks. For being poor. And for having no emotions. The girls hated him for never giving them attention, but why would he? Whenever he tried, they called him a creep, pepper sprayed him, or called their boyfriends for back up.

He twisted his pen between his thumb and forefinger, sparing a glance every now and then to the clock. The class would be over soon. Corey filled his mind with the equations, going as far as to think up new formulas for the simplest of answers. He was blessed with a good IQ. And too Corey, that was his greatest skill.

He could put two separate things together and make something great. If he had actual dreams of his future, he would be a mechanical engineer. Corey has no dreams. They were his key to surviving. Accepting life will never be good for him. With each tick of the clock bouncing around the walls, Corey wondered why today was longer. Usually the teacher would either be rounding up the class, or in this case, the bell would have rung to alert Devil that he had once again, slept through his period.

Instead, the strokes on the clock tool longer. Had the small feeling of a deer stuck in headlights. Was someone watching him? He didn’t know. But it felt like he was being hunted.

He allowed his mind to drift back to the missing student. Yesterday the town was talking about her. Today it seems as though they have forgotten that a young woman was taken on her way to her dormitory, all they cared about was the Lock Keeper. People haven’t shut up about it and the game has only been around for six hours. Corey had been curious enough to G****e Pamela, resisting the urges that flooded him everytime he heard the name of the game.

It was calling to him but he never gamed on Mondays. That was how he kept the spirit of his gaming career alive.

Pamela had been an interesting prospect. She was a tall, curvy, red head with skin as white as snow. He wasn’t exaggerating in this, the woman- just three years his senior- was oddly pale. But she held a strange fascinating beauty. That wasn’t what Corey found beautiful though. Yes, her emerald green eyes, luscious full head, and dynamite body should have snatched the attention of any teenage boy with a sexual drive, but it didn’t entrance Corey.

He found her field in robotics to be beautiful. That was real beauty in Corey’s eyes. The brain of a person meant more to Corey than anything else. And Pamela was the Ace of Aces at her university. Brilliant enough to use her simple field to create something wonderful. Pamela had been selected for a robotics team, she was to graduate and head to Boston, New York to work with them in building the world’s first, working bullet proof armor. There were pictures of it all over the school’s website.

Only Pamela knows how those armors went meant to be built. Corey chuckled under his breath. If they gave him time, and more pictures of that armor, he could figure out how to make and how to destroy one if it was ever made. From the few images he had seen, it was enough for him to figure out how to disassemble the piece of tech and put it back together. But he would give her credit. Pamela was thorough with her work. Anyone who wasn't at his level wouldn't be able to find a single flaw in it.

“What’s so funny freak?” he heard Carson, the principal’s dog- child, Corey could never see the difference.

Carson was always looking for Corey’s trouble. It’s like after years of picking on him, he never understood that Corey just couldn’t care. He was dead both on the inside and outside. The bullies at his school could do nothing worse than his step father and mother had inflicted on him for years.

“I wonder what it’s like to be a loser like you. Spending all your time laughing at equations, and fractions like a dumbass.” That’s the best you can come up with? Corey mocked in his mind. It was pitiful how Carson could be so dumb and yet still try to be superior.

“And those bandages.” Carson’s girlfriend shivered as though she had seen a pile of filth. “Disgusting. What type of disease did you contact? Sitting alone all miserable, sometimes I just feel sorry for you. Until I remember, right, pretty people shouldn’t feel bad for freaks.” She chortles, and her laughter brought forth several giggles from many of her friends.

“He has no friends.”

“No one likes him. I would just kill myself if I were him. Sadly I can’t relate. I don’t know what it’s like to be a hideous freak.”

“Can you imagine dating that thing? Every day he looks paler. He might as well be a walking corpse.” Another girl snickered.

Corey laughed in the comfort of his mind. Walking corpse, it’s been a while since I heard that one. Carson usually follows up with-

“A walking corpse is a zombie, beth. Those are cool. He just looks dead. Wrapping his hands like a serial killer in the making. I’d be scared if I haven’t been whooping his ass for three years.” The brute tossed his head back, and laughed. He laughed stupidly, and his friends joined him.

The teacher slept through this.

Corey stood, the class went silent. He had the mind to seal his lips before he made comments on how ridiculous it was for his bullies to be afraid of him. He happened to be taller than Carson. And faster too. He just did nothing with any of this. What was the point of fighting back? People are too predictable. It would be boring to defend myself now, Corey snickers. All this to himself.

He packed his notebooks, and swung his backpack over his shoulders. The bell rang the second he moved his foot, just in time.

His math teacher drew a breath, yawning and stretching his arms like he was waking up from the best night’s sleep. Corey gave the man a blank look and continued walking toward the door. Suddenly everything spun. His first instinct was to push an arm out to protect his face from more damage.

It wasn’t until the arm smack against the sharp edge of a desk did Corey realize his mistake. For the first time, the students of his class heard a sound they’d never heard in her life. Corey Feldman groaned with discomfort, fire laced his arm and he bottled up an vile emotion he couldn’t understand. Rage, he thought it was.

He had protected his nose from smashing, but at what cost. He forced himself to stand, yanking the limb away from the wooden. Sharp gasp floated through the room as blood poured down to the floor in little droplets.

Carson’s girlfriend was the one to speak with fear circling her tone of voice. “Carson, what the hell did you do?”

"I didn't do anything! Shut the fuck up!"

Corey didn’t stay to hear the rest of heir nonsense. His classmates weren’t didn’t care that he was hurt, they were horrified that he had felt something and truthfully, so was Corey.

Not entirely. He kept his arms wrapped for a reason. They were scars of his childhood that never healed. Any small thing could make they rip. His skin was fragile around that area thanks to years of loving abuse. They were the only spots on his body that he could still feel something. He turned to Carson, and gave his classmate a smile. Carson shrunk back.

The usually empty expression of Corey's face had a little gitter of happiness to it, weirding out his classmates. They'd never seen him acknowledge them, let alone smile. It was all pure fiction they would joke about during lunch.

He spun on his heels, shaking his head as he continued out the door.

Corey bit his lip, the pain wasn’t unwelcomed. It had been years since he felt something. But like his emotion of rage, the pain slowly felt like nothing after a few minutes. He made his mind to ditch school for the rest of the day. His grades were excellent, and who cared about him anyways?

His step father didn’t even know that Corey still went to school.

And his teachers have said he was easy to forget.

His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, Corey pinched his wound and sighed a bit too loud when he felt nothing. His body was quick with pain. He shouldn’t be surprised. He stopped by the men’s bathroom to unwrap the wounded arm. Seeing the old slashes from when his birth father needed something to ease his difficult day, and the additional ones from his step father. Corey's mother had been the one to tell Larry that he could burn his cigarettes on Corey's arms when the boy was no more than twelve. She said her ex husband used to do it, and it relaxed him greatly.

Corey glanced at the bleed sore.

"Fucking, Carson." He swore. If that had been his nose it would have hurt less.

He worked on rinsing the excess blood. He avoided looking into the mirror, his face always made him flinch. Not that he thought he was ugly, he just hated to see how empty his golden brown eyes had become. He had pictures of his childhood. When he used to be….

Happy? When was I ever happy? Corey let out another wince, and this time, it wasn’t out of pain. He was born into misery, and nothing had changed ever since. He got himself cleaned, ripping a part of his shirt to tie into a knot over the wound to stop the bleeding. He would do the real wrapping once he arrived home.

With the wind as his companion, Corey strolled all the way to his house. He noticed the weird stares people threw his way. He had one of his arms out in display. Who wouldn’t start at that? The cut mark, bruises dating back years, and garing scars made his arm appear worse for wear. Corey found their eyes comforting.

He didn’t know why. He crossed one of his favorite stores and saw the game everyone couldn’t shut up about. Yes, he had intentions of playing it. But he was thinking further along, after the first half of his term.

“Hey, Corey.” The store’s owner called for him as he tried to make it past without breaking and purchasing the game. He should save his money for the special ointment that kept his wounds…well not healthy, he wouldn’t be surprised if one was infected, but they kept him from bleeding out in his sleep. Despite giving himself twenty different reasons to save the money he carried with him, Corey found his feet moving him into the door.

“I knew you’d come for the game. It’s crazy.” The store’s owner droned on about how marvelous the Lock Keeper’s world is. Knowing fully well that Corey loved extensive world building games. They tasked him to get items from deadly areas, maps and zones, for him to use and build a paradise in the game.

That’s why he adored the Clash of Thunder. Sure the game has brutal gory scenes, and a lot of violence, but other than that Corey would bet you couldn’t find a fault in the game.

“The game has customizable characters. Seriously Corey, you’d be slaying it if you don’t get this game.” Corey remained unmoving, the store owner was in the process of packing the game, and it’s personal console for the teenager. He knew Corey just can’t resist a good game with great graphics, and the selling point for Corey will always be the world building.

Give him a chance to create his own world and you will possibly end up as his best friend. Or only friend.

The store’s owner noticed the torn cloth soaking with blood. He shrugged, Corey had showed up to his store once with a large piece of glass jammed into his middle thigh. This injury is no different. The man never asked a single question. He felt the kid had too much baggage and he wanted none of that.

Corey paid for the game, slumping his shoulders to hide his excitement. The Lock Keeper is just the distraction he needs. Maybe, for once, he can have a Monday with no drama. He can forget all that happened in school. He always did when he settled into his chair.

He almost skipped all the way there. His excitement dialed to a minimum at the sighting of the brown Oakley wood. His step father left a note on the fridge, asking Corey to get him a can of beer before he returned by six. Corey acted as though he didn’t see it. Soft snores made him falter on his journey to his desk.

He took a detour to check on her. The woman who had brought him into this world without his permission. She looked drained, if he didn’t see her chest moving he would have thought she was dead. He had to admit, only to himself, that he still cared for her.

Just not enough to stay after high school. He would like to try for that happiness he only tasted once in a while. Her black lock covered her face, and Corey picked out the exact same cut he had on his lower abdomen, on her shoulder.

Although the game called for his attention, he sought to carrying his mother’s frail form to the master bedroom. Nestling her underneath the covers where she could sleep a bit comfortably.

She turned, and murmured something he didn’t understand.

Corey left her to enjoy her peaceful slumber. The pig would return later in the evening to make both of them suffer, and she would join him.

He couldn’t tame his excitement anymore. He dumped his back somewhere on the floor and forgot all about patching up his injury. Corey unboxed the game, and gasped at the privates playstation it came with.

“They sold me a free playstation five for thirty bucks?” the game producers sounded like a bunch of morons in his head.

But he could question their marketing tactics after he had tested the game. There was nothing posted online about it by other gamers. They twittered how amazing the game is but no one had posted a picture from the game that didn’t come from the trailer.

He reached His right arm to the outlet, this playstation came with just tone plug and not a single place for him to put in his USB, or anything else. While his fingers got closer to the outlet, Corey noticed box didn’t say this was playstation. So it’s a rip off!

He leaned his face to take a closer look at the words written on the casing of the game. He was oblivious to the dark fingers that pulled his hand closer until they perched the outlet. This jolts Corey, and he remembers the task he was meant to do.

He pushed the head of the cord into the outlet and screamed. He thought he knew pain, but this, this was horrible. Corey shouted at the very top for his lungs as bolts of electricity run through his veins.

He spotted blue sparks flying all over him, and a huge gust of wind surrounded him. His vision turned full black and the pain ceased.

His eyes bat once, confusion shaking him awake.

A heavy laughter thundered from somewhere around him. The person continued to laugh, over and over until Corey picked that he was being mocked and ridicule by the laugh alone. But it makes no sense. One minute he was shaking from the pain, and the next….

“You’re in my world now, Corey! I’ll be damned if I lose again!”