- Text Size +

Drew Kozlawski never thought he would do something like this.


He took another deep breath as he pulled into an empty spot in the seemingly vast parking lot of Richard Matheson High School. Drew chose the spot because it was far away from the school, and nestled beneath trees whose leaves were just beginning to change for autumn. Just like he would have chosen when he actually was a student at the school. Not that it was that long ago. Hell, he had graduated less than six months ago.


When he had left though, he had never really thought he'd have good reason to go back.


Sure, Drew had a friend or two that were younger than him, and there were a few teachers he wanted to keep in contact with but when he graduated he promised that he wouldn't be one of those students. The type of loser who has so little to do when they're off from college that they actually voluntarily go back to their old high school just to see what's going on. Yet there he was, sitting in his car plotting how to actually get back into his old school.


Looking into his rear view mirror, Drew caught sight of the sheen of sweat on his forehead. A forehead that was slightly too large in his opinion. It wasn't that warm out, not that Drew thought he was sweating because of the heat. He was nervous about the next few hours. Terribly nervous.


His dark brown eyes narrowed as he looked back into his rear view mirror. The layer of sweat made the big red pimple that sat there all the more obvious. A college freshman and Drew still had acne problems. Life just wasn't really fair to him.


It never had been.


Certainly not during high school. Drew frowned as he thought about the times he had been 'canned,' throughout his four years at Matheson. Once, even as a senior, the three football team captains had hauled him up and slammed him into a trash can like he was a scrawny freshman. Why? Because he had been talking about Dungeons and Dragons. All they had heard was something about ogres and assumed that he was making snide comments about them.


The whole cafeteria had laughed while the defense captain flexed his muscles and roared. With his excess body hair and bullying demeanor, Drew had always pegged Michael Dinwiddie as more of a Bugbear but from his place in the garbage can, Drew had a feeling no one would appreciate the subtlety. His friends had though, later that week at their weekly D&D meeting.


Drew sighed as he thought back to that horrible event, it wasn't even a year ago. That's how little respect he had gotten in high school. Granted, while he might have fancied himself king of the nerds, Drew had to admit that he wasn't even really that.


McCreary was King Nerd and that had been a known fact. He had been President of the Wargaming Society when he was a Sophomore. He started an alternate reality game at the school later that year, that was run through clues written on his gonzo-esque blog. McCreary had even helped most of Drew's players build their characters for the campaign last year, creating a team that was full of overpowered concepts while he just played a really vanilla Human Cleric of Pelor. McCreary was a senior now and, from what Drew had last heard, in the middle of a mock bid for Homecoming King.


Even now as a college freshman, Drew didn't get any respect.


He had graduated from high school to find himself once more at the low end of the social totem pole. In college, people were way more interested in drinking and partying than talking about things like literature and philosophy. People didn't want to talk to the kid who had Salinger and Hemingway on his shelf, but the guy who had the bottle of Jager.


It had been made clear to Drew very quickly that the frats ran the social scene on campus, and despite what Hollywood had taught him, there were no nerdy or underdog frats. Just a lot of douchebags in Nantucket Red shorts and popped collars. Girls paid him even less attention than they had in high school. He had gone from a social misfit, to complete social pariah.


Even the few people he had met that were into video games and table top gaming weren't looking for a new DM. The few friends he had made kept trying to get him to try out dumb systems like Vampire or Shadowrun. Drew just wasn't interested in that dumb shit. He wanted Paladins slaying Dragons, and Wizards exploding Orcs with fireballs.


Drew wanted what he was used to.


Maybe that's why his hands were shaking.


He was close to what he wanted now. So close that he could almost taste it. All he needed to do was to actually sneak into his old high school and the rest would just be a matter of following the plan. Of course, he had honed this plan, somewhere in the back of his head, for years. He had never really thought he'd be able to go through with it.


After all, reality would have always gotten in the way.

You must login (register) to review.