Cross: Prologue

Prologue1

I bent down to retrieve the cross. It reflected my eye, a blurry bright blue oasis surrounded by drab linoleum. Cradling it in my hand, I guessed it to be an inch long. It looked as if it was once part of a necklace. Around me, the endless wave of students pressed and shoved, hurrying to pointless classes on an equally pointless day. I found my way back to my locker.2

“Hey, does anyone want this cross I found?” 3

My locker neighbors ignored me, as usual.4

“Let me see,” demanded a deep voice behind me. It was a huge senior named Chase.5

“I think it’s a piece of jewelry or something,” I said while handing it to him. 6

He peered at it closely, turning it over in his hand. “Do you want it?” he asked.7

I almost said no. But then the cross reflected the light of the sun through a window, and something changed my mind.8

“Yes!” I said hastily, holding out my hand.9

He looked at me strangely and asked, “You sure?”10

“Definitely. Please give it back.” I held my hand closer.11

“Alright, whatever.” He turned to go.12

I looked at the cross once more. Again I caught my eye in the reflection staring at me. It seemed sad, lonely almost. Do I really look that depressed? I thought. The cross seemed oddly familiar to me, like an old friend whose name I had forgotten. It was scratched and bent a little, definitely not brand-new. I straightened it out and was about to put it in my pocket when I noticed the silver chain around my neck. I’d had it since I was five. I clasped the cross onto my chain and headed to class.13

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The rain pours down in sheets, shrouding the hills like a heavy blanket and collecting into streams to rush to some distant land. I stand here, watching the dirt road slowly deteriorate into mud. The rain cascades all around me like a shimmering curtain, through which I can watch the world twist and dance. 15

I am at camp, and I am waiting for the bus to take me home after an awesome week. Waiting for it to deliver me back to reality, to the routine, to the endless trap of life. Waiting for it to take me away form the rain.16

The rain. Rain has always fascinated me. One moment, the world is sunny and bright and just like any other dull, pointless day. Then, out of nowhere pops a legion of hulking black clouds, just bristling for some action. And suddenly…BANG! They explode in a glorious crash of thunder and lightning, flinging water down to the earth below. The world is changed before your eyes, water chips away at the continents, heaven’s warehouse windows are flung open, nothing is quit the same as it was before.17

“Stupid rain,” says a voice. “I heard one of the buses got stuck in the mud.”18

How can you say that? I think. How can you curse this drama, this masterpiece, this incredible adventure?19

“Yeah, whatever,” I say. “At least we don’t have to go home yet.”20

The speaker looks at me as if I just wished out loud that the world was pink.21

I am under an awning in front of the girl’s dorm. Inside is all of our luggage; we boys have dragged our suitcases through the mud from our own dorm for the girls’ convenience. It is crowded under here because all the other boys are waiting for the buses also. A chaperone announces that we may come inside, but just this once. There is a collective sigh of thanks and a mad scramble for the door. 22

Reluctant to leave, I comfort myself on the fact that the dorm has a metal roof. I’ll be able to hear the rain from the inside. As I turn to go, I twist around for one last look through the shimmering curtain of water and run into somebody. I try to say “Sorry”, but the word dies on my lips as I turn back around. 23

There is she.24

I don’t know her, or her name, or who she is, only that she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Our eyes meet, and for a brief second of eternity I am lost, lost in a world I’ve never been before, the only thing I see are her wonderful blue eyes, the only thing I hear is the rain. She smiles politely and my world erupts in sparks, I am standing here surrounded by a shimmering curtain of rain, above me the clouds rumble, below me the tiny streams trickle away to fall somewhere else, in front of me stands Beauty in her natural form.25

“Excuse me,” she says apologetically. She turns and walks inside.26