Tales from the Darkness

It started from a very young age. Sloane was always a strong-willed child and very mischievous, but one could say his upbringing had a part in that. He was taught from the age of 6 from his grandpa on his mother's side that he was never to come home crying. 6 year old Sloane comes running in the door one day after school. "Why are you crying?" Papaw said, "A boy was bullying me and tried to get me to fight him, but I was afraid I would get in trouble." Sloane expressed through his tears. Papaw immediately raised up out of his chair and knelt down to Sloane's level so he could look him in the eyes and replied, "Boy, don't you ever come home crying because someone was bullying you. You need to show those boys you aren't someone to be pushed around. Any grandson of mine better fight back." Sloane only nodded with a little confusion but with a new look on things. Sloane walked to his room deep in thought. He was confused because he wasn't really sure why his grandpa said to fight back because he knew he would be in trouble at school if he did, but if he didn't, his grandpa would be disappointed in him. This created a dilemma for Sloane, but he wasn't about to let his grandpa down, so he decided with strong determination that he would fight anyone who tried to bully or offend him. The next day, the boy from the day before that bullied Sloane came up to him while he was in the school parking lot getting ready to walk home, but before he could, the bully approached him and cornered him by the dumpster. Sloane had his friend Alonso with him, and upon hearing his papaw's words replay through his mind, he handed his metal lunchbox to Alonso and prepared himself to fight the bully. The bully seeing this taunted Sloane, "What is a little short shrimp like you going to do? I know karate and can easily flatten someone your size like a pancake." This only fueled the fire starting to grow inside of Sloane, but instead of answering the bully's mean comments, he just glared at him. The next thing he knew, the bully started to try and kick him, but Sloane caught his leg and turned them towards the dumpster and tried to shove the mean boy inside. The bully was completely shocked by the outcome and now starting to feel terror grow inside him. He never thought such a boy like Sloane was capable of such a thing. He had never fought back before, and he was shorter than most kids his age. Just as terror of what Sloane would do next started creeping up in the bully, the principal starts to come outside. Sloane hears the doors open and glances back quickly at the school. Noticing it's the principal, he takes off running before anyone can recognize him or try to catch him. His dad lived closer to the school than his papaw, so he ran to his dad's house. He didn't slow his pace at all until he was safely behind the front door of his dad's house. The moment he got inside, his dad automatically noticed something seemed off. He noticed Sloane's behavior was kind of strange. He looked all sweaty and like he was being chased by a ghost. Then, the realization came upon him that Sloane was missing his lunchbox. He calmly inquired, "Sloane, where is your lunchbox?" Hearing this, Sloane realized himself that he never got his lunchbox back from Alonso. He quickly replied, "Alonso has it." Sloane wasn't really sure if he should tell his dad everything that had occurred or not, so he just decided to be right to the point and only give more details if asked. His dad grabbed his hat and keys to his truck and said, "Well, come on then, Sloane, let's go get your lunchbox back." Sloane was shocked at hearing this he thought for sure his dad would have more questions or he would be in trouble for being irresponsible with his lunchbox but to his surprise his dad wanted to take him back to school to get his lunchbox back. When they pulled up to the school, Alonso was still standing outside the school holding Sloane's lunchbox. He was with a group of boys telling them about what had happened and was fabricating a bigger tale out of what really happened since he didn't really know since he ran off as soon as the two had started fighting earlier. Alonso heard the truck pull up, though, and saw Sloane and his eyes filled with fear and his stomach dropped, his palms got all sweaty. He wasn't sure what Sloane was capable of anymore or what his intentions were since he was caught spreading rumors about him. So he did the only thing he could think of that made sense at the time, which was turn around and run away. Seeing the whole thing play out, Sloane's dad remarked, "Are you just going to let him do that? Go get your lunchbox back." At this point, Sloane felt like this was the second person in his life to make him feel like fighting was the answer all in the matter of two days and they were adults so who was he to disagree. With this thought after hearing what his father had said, he took off after Alonso and caught up to him quickly since he was a very good runner. He grabbed onto Alonso by the arm and turned him around, and punched him right in the face. The shock from the punch gave Sloane the advantage to take the lunchbox back. Sloane lost in rage from Alonso turning on him, instead of being the friend he should've been, started beating Alonso with the lunchbox. Soon, all that was left of the lunchbox was the handle. At this time, a teacher was coming out of the school. Sean, Sloane's dad, saw this and shouted to Sloane that they needed to leave. Sloane snapped out of his fit of rage upon hearing this and swiftly turned around and raced back to his dad's truck. They took off back home. Upon pondering the events of the last two days, Sloane felt like something suddenly clicked inside him. He realized that sometimes you need to fight to get the results you desire and, at that moment, felt like maybe fighting was the answer to all his problems. He was determined from then on not to let anyone get away with treating him poorly.