Golden Sunrise

Season 1 - Summer of Encounters

Episode 1 - Toby's Bad Luck

The Golden Sun burnt without mercy - it's been like that all day long. Toby sat on his chair, he was uneasy and sweat trickled down his forehead.

The Teacher was all about art history lately, but his interest in that was extremely limited. He dreamed about this, he dreamed about that, it didn't matter. Everything was way more exciting than what she was talking about. Art was his worst class. But that wasn't the case until a few months ago, when he joined the next higher level of school. Since then, his abilities were gone and nothing he made resulted in something worthwhile. The unfair rating of the teacher finished it off. But, this was by far not the worst to have happened to him in his time on the new school.

Toby was looking forward to the end of the period, especially because it was the last and he would eventually be free after that. Then, suddenly, an extremely bright golden sun ray hit him and took him out of his daydreams. That was when he, out of the blue, lost hold on his chair...

The chair tipped over, the teenager with it. It made an ugly sound when they hit the ground. BANG.

This wasn't the first time for Toby to experience this, so he already knew how to fall in order not to be hurt that much. But you can't prevent all damage. The others where laughing and his art teacher repeatedly told him to pay more attention - at least 20 times.

Yet another embarassing accident he just could not explain. The first time he took a flight with the chair, he might have provoked it. From the second time on, he had known better and sat still. This happend again and again anyways - and it was not the only thing.

That was just unbelievable bad luck and he had experienced nothing like it before he came here.

As a matter of fact, Toby had a lot of work to do every single day after school.

Toby instead took a stroll for the sports field. He didn't see a hole in the ground - it must've been digged to plant a tree - tumbled and fell right on the face. At least the earth was dry and nobody had seen him. This also wasn't the first time something like that had happened to him.

When he arrived, the pride of the school was already there ready for training: the cheerleaders. Among them, there was a special girl...

She looked amazing and lead the cheerleaders. That made her one of the top 10 girls of the school. No doubt that for Toby, she was number 1. He didn't know her name though and most probably, she had not ever taken notice of him. Like, how? But he was determined to change everything this afternoon...

Toby sat in the middle of the left grandstand next to the field. The 8 levels of each grandstand filled quickly, little space between people. Toby was taken by surprise when loud music hammered from the speakers mounted on the grandstands. The cheerleaders performed acrobatic masterpieces on every beat. He completely forgot: the cheerleaders were on their first "Full Out" in front of the public! That meant they would run down the whole choreography, start to finish.

His adored one flew through the air, tumbled and held herself on the pyramid as if she had done nothing else her whole life long. Right after the final jump, she was looking at the audience and waved at Toby. Their eyes met for a short moment of time, yet maybe not as short as when people take a quick noticing glance at each other. This happened every time when he blended with the crowd on the grandstands. Most probably, she really just targeted the crowd and it was all Toby to think there would be more to it.

That's why he simply kept on believing she still had not noticed him. Of course not. But it still made him feel so motivaded, it was hard to describe. For the duration of the cheerleader performances, all that bad luck was somewhere far, far away. Really. After the performance was over, many students left the campus for home. Toby's home on the other hand was here on campus. They were forbidden to leave campus grounds from the evening through the night to mid of the next day.

Now the Golden Sun was already showing signs that sundown would be soon, yet Toby still had not made a even single attempt to talk to that girl. He also didn't do any of his homework. A day like all the others - again...

Toby left the grandstands.

"Hey Toby, how are we doing today?" he suddenly heard the high pitched voice of a boy.

"Huh, what?" he turned around and looked behind him, from where the voice must have come from.

There was a short guy with a woollen cap, the Golden Sun still scorching. He approached Toby's face with his, the former instinctively turning away.

That was when Toby noticed another guy each to the right and left side who looked like they belonged to him.

Those were the 3 freaks from that "Hopper" Gang. Toby hated those idiots. He knew he stood little chance against them, so he would quietly take a dive into the crowd when they appeared.

Now of all things, that girl walked past them.

Now of all things, when he wanted to have her attention for at least a small chat. Attention. Ah, that word again. Anyways, what should he do know? Walk away and miss on the chance of standing in the spotlight and be seen by her,

or get in a fight with those guys with no guarantee of success. He decided on bailing out, as chances of victory were just too small.

But it was too late, as the strongest of the 3 attackers grabbed him and left him no space to move away.

"Alright Mr. Unlucky, how are you today?" Kazu, the boss with the cap, wanted to know again.

It's worth mentioning here that Toby's little accidents were already talked about everywhere. Since then, the Hopper Gang was teasing him. And not only them.

"You wanna ... land on her, right?" Kazu announced loudly.

To make matters worse, he pointed at Toby's love interest in a way too obvious way. Luckily, she neither heard nor saw any of it. Instead, the probably most popular girl of the school stopped right next to them and talked to her friends.

"How do you know? Shut up and let me go!" Toby urged.

"Aaaah, isn't love a wonderful mystery?" the boss joked.

"Introduce them to each other, Dave." he commanded.

Dave might be stupid, but also quite strong. Whatever order this Kazu guy had for him, he would obey without thinking.

"Hohoho, ok boss, I'll do it." Dave replied with that dumb laughter of his and took an even stronger hold on Toby.

Then he used all of his power to throw Toby in the direction where the girl was standing with her friends.

"Watch out!" Toby screamed.

But it was too late: he crashed right in the middle of the cheerleaders and took a hard landing on the floor, right in front of that very girl...

For a tiny little while the girl stood above him, looking down on him, the eyebrows raised just a bit. She wore a cheerleader outfit with a miniskirt and a short top.

"Hey pervert, this isn't funny, you understand?" his love interest yelled at him.

She lifted him from the ground, gave him a slap in the face and said:

"Man, why do such guys always take a peek under our skirts?"

Toby's face burnt like hell the instant he was slapped and his face took a dark red glow at the point of impact.

The almost dark haired blonde girl took a deep breather.

"Come on girls, training is over." she stated.

With shame and anger written all over her face, she left the field heading for the gym. Her friends followed.

The crowd that had watched the scene dispersed and Toby was left lying on the grass, unable to sort his thoughts.

You could say about Dave whatever you wanted, but his aim was to the point.

The tiny Kazu with his cap and his companions had already left when Toby had still been mid-air. Nobody seemed to know that this mess - unlike some previous accidents - wasn't at all Toby's fault.

There had not been that many people left, but the laughter had still been quite loud. Why did those guys come to him of all? Yet another huge disgrace he had to face. His wishes had come true for a change: she did notice him...

It wasn't hard to imagine what would lead the gossip headlines for the next days. Every time his bad luck struck just a little harder than usual, everybody knew right away. Then all world would laught at him. Thinking of it like that, he was quite famous. But he could very well live without that fame, it didn't help him in any way. It didn't mean he was popular.

Toby moved to his favourite place and watched the Golden Sun hiding behind the horizon. From here, you had a great view on the sundown and on the campus. The campus spread from the school gates to his left to the sports field and dorms to his right.

This had been, without a doubt, the worst day in his whole life. He had lots of stupid days since he came here. But this was the worst of all. He survived them all, but he had no idea how to cope with this...

After such a horrible circus act, his hopes of getting a girl were smashed. Let alone the cheer girl of his dreams.

A few people came from across the sports field. Those were the captain of the football team, Cray, HER and a few other girls and boys from football and cheer. The group was headed towards the school gates. Cray and HER obviously enjoyed their conversation. Toby wasn't eager to watch that, but something made him do it anyways. He had as much explanation for that as he had for his bad luck. It must have been her beauty, as simple as that. SHE and her friends would go home now and have fun, while he had to sit here alone. Wait, what was that?

Everybody went through the gate but HER! Could it be that girl lived here, too? Nonsense, she must have forgotten something. Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea. Now that she was alone - no matter the reason - it would be no problem to apologize and explain everything!

Right? Yeah!

Toby left his spot, ran to where she was and stood in her way. He didn't know where he had just gotten the courage to do that. His heart hammered like crazy and he was sure his sprint right there wasn't the only reason.

She looked at him with her head tilted a little bit towards her right shoulder. He looked in her eyes, a light golden brown. With surprise written all over her face, she looked even more cute than she normally did. For a wonderful moment in time, nobody said anything.

"Do you follow me?" she was the first to find some words.

"How long have you been doing this?" she added.

"Umm..." he started.

"Where do I even begin..." he searched for words, but was interrupted:

"I'm sorry." she sighed.

"Wait, what?" Toby replied confused.

"That must've really hurt, and, I didn't want this to happen, really. You know how it feels when all the others..." this time Toby interrupted her:

"Yeah, I know that quite well." he realized.

She smiled and said:

"I later heard you didn't do that on purpose. I'm really sorry."

"The Hoppers just ran away, must have been few people to see them." Toby agreed.

He acted as if the slap on his face had been nothing and quickly changed the topic:

"Do you also live here on campus?" he asked.

"Ah, yeah, you too? I forgot my drink on the field, but, I think I'll just come for it tomorrow because, it's getting really dark right now... and we girls have to be in the dorms by 10." she explained.

Toby took a look at his watch and noticed:

"It's... 10!"

"Oh well, I got to show up there right now, otherwise I'll be in trouble. It was nice to talk to you."

She turned around and was about to move away. That was when Toby remembered something:

"Wait."

She turned back to him:

"What is it?"

"What's your name?" Toby could finally ask.

"Lana." she said quickly and ran away.

He looked after her until she vanished in the rising darkness and behind a building. Her name was Lana... Wow...

For a wonderful moment, Toby forgot the world around him. He almost forgot that she must have a boyfriend already - Cray for sure. Damn. He had been so happy right now, then he had to think of this.

"It was nice to talk to you." he recited her in his thoughts.

She could have very well said:

"Never see you again, Idiot."

At least he now knew her name and that she didn't actually think he was a pervert. But she probably thought of him as a loser, since the Hoppers only attacked losers. They wouldn't stand a chance otherwise. Then he remembered all the homework still left to do.

The day might have been saved, but no more than that.

END OF EPISODE 1

This story should have been published a long time ago. Meanwhile, I have reworked it countless times, but this text is in it's core still true to the original version - just like I have always wanted it to be.

I want to thank everyone who helped me not to give up!