mah storrreehhhh

this is super rough draft of part of chapter 1. just so you know





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It had all started when Saul was in the first grade. The playground at is school was directly next to a fairly large hill. The side facing the playground was nearly 90 degrees straight up, and mostly made of rock. It reminded him of the cliffs in the coyote and roadrunner cartoons he would watch with his father on the weekends. It was recess and all the children were out playing. Saul had just returned from using the bathroom when he got a flash of what was to come, like a video playing in his mind, clear as day, without the fog of the mind like normal thoughts have. He saw a girl from his class playing hopscotch next to the hill , and saw her crushed by a rock that had come loose at the top of the hill. He knew this would happen, as sure as he knew he had art class right after recess. Being so young, he had no grasp of the fact that this was unique and assuming it was normal, he looked around waiting for one of the adults to run over and stop it. When no one did anything, he ran over to one of the teachers and, nearly crying, asked "Aren't you going to do something?" The teacher looked down with a worried expression "Do something about what? What's wrong?" Exasperated and annoyed at his teacher's obvious ignorance he shouted " Rachel is going to get hurt? Don't you know?" then suddenly pressed with the knowledge that the rock was about to fall, he ran "Hurt? Hurt how? the teacher shouted after him. But Saul was already fast approaching the other side of the playground where Rachel was standing. He started dragging her away, under loud protest from her and her friends, who were obviously offended he had broken up their game and that it was a boy doing it. Saul didn't care. Rachel turned around to bite down on Saul's arm and stopped mid bite as she saw a rock bigger than her tumble down and stop where she had just been standing. Then in that moment, made suddenly aware of her own mortality, Rachel started half crying half shrieking while holding onto Saul as if the world itself would fall down around her if she dared let go.
None of the teachers understand exactly what had happened. They tried explaining it."Maybe Saul noticed the rock looking like it was coming loose." Said one, as they sat in the teacher's lounge, discussing what had happened over coffee. "No," said another "The rock was at the very top of the hill, he no one could've seen it from down on the playground. " The teachers disccused almost every day for about a week before becoming exhausting every possible explanation and eventually just wrote it off as 'one of those things' and forgot about it.
Saul got free ice cream for a week from the cafeteria, Rachel did too, just as a matter of principle.
Recess for the rest of the month was in the gym. As workers installed a net over the rock face so as to prevent anything like that from happening ever again. During recess a few days later, Saul walked over to Rachel who, still shaken from everything that had happened, was sitting in the corner reading quietly. " Are you ok?" Saul asked quietly, Rachel looked up "Sorta..." she trailed off "You were really brave for saving me!" Saul blushed " I guess so," there was a pause as they both searched for what to say next. They both started talking again at the same time blurting out " Hey do you wanna..." Rachel stopped "Sorry," she said "Go on" Saul blushed again "would you wanna play candyland with me?" " I love that game!" Rachel exclaimed. From that day forward, Rachel and Saul were inseperable. Saul was eventually accepted by Rachel's other friends, who were, at first, both annoyed and angry that rachel was hanging out with a boy, but eventually they over looked their differences and Saul was treated like just another member of the gang. Saul was just thankful to have a group a friends around him.