Today was a special day for Reilly Matthews, a day that had only occurred sixteen times previous to today. A day when the sun shone, the birds sang happily and the flowers bloomed in the fresh spring air. It was a glorious, life-changing day, but not quite glorious and life changing enough to get Reilly out of school.

As instructed, he turned his maths textbook to page 53 and skimmed the page with lethargic eyes. Today would be a day spent doodling absently in notebooks and pretending to pay attention.

Beside Reilly sat a second student. Sitting was perhaps not the most accurate description of the student's position; he was slumped over his desk in a most unusual fashion. From his strange facial expression and awkward position - one shoulder twisted at an unnaturally odd angle and a gaping mouth, but otherwise no expression - it would have appeared as if the student had fallen a considerable height and subsequently died after hitting the desk at spine breaking speed.

Reilly poked the boy's forehead with the rubber end of his pencil.

No movement.

He poked harder. He poked up the left nostril and wriggled the rubber around.

"Uaaarg! Not the marshmallows!" said the student as he sat up, swatting at some unseen enemy. Reilly was so shocked that the student had awakened that he fell off his chair and hit his head hard on the floor.

"When you've had enough," the maths teacher said in a particularly dangerous tone.

The previously sleeping lad grinned lazily and adjusted his left shoulder.

Slurp.

With a sickening wet sound, the bone returned to the socket.

"Enough sleep, you mean?" he asked with a yawn. "Once you've been alive as long as I have, you learn that you can never get enough sleep."

Many of the class edged away. Reilly, who had partly recovered, sat on the ground and rubbed his head. He was oblivious to his impending doom.

Mr. Bell, a balding and easily angered man, could not let this pass.

"Right. You," he pointed at the boy, "and you," pointing at Reilly, "have detention!"

"Mmmm," the boy thought for a moment. "Maybe next time."

Reilly stood uncertainly, equally as shocked by the strange student's behaviour. He was obviously impaired in some way. Mr. Bell was on the verge of exploding.

"We've got an appointment now," the boy explained. "It's very important, you see. Some may believe it to be more important than mathematics."

Reilly looked around the classroom. His peers seemed to have grouped him and the strange student together. We? Who would the boy be referring to? Certainly not him.

"Come on, then." the boy approached Reilly. Before he could protest, the student grabbed him by the collar and dragged him roughly towards the door. Reilly stumbled, unable to resist the stronger boy.

"I... Wait! Leave me be!" he protested.

"What do you think you're doing, young man?"

"Saving Earth!" the boy replied happily.

He pushed Reilly roughly out the door and doubled back to do a quick 'victory' hand gesture before exiting.

--

"No! Let me go!" Reilly protested while stumbling down the stairs. His kidnapper hummed merrily.

Reilly had not been alert to where the student was taking him, rather he was more concerned with breaking free from the boy's strong grip. It was only when they stopped suddenly at the backdoor staff entrance of the school library that Reilly realized that his life might truly be in danger.

"Alright! Alright!" he put his hands in the air, surrendering. "The overdue books are in my bag. I'll go get them now. Please, don't lock me in the broom cupboard!" But the boy ignored his pleas and knocked on the door.

Reilly tried desperately to remember the student's name. He had classes with the boy often enough, but now Reilly recalled that in all these classes, the boy had either been asleep or absent and therefore not at all impressionable. All he remembered remembering was that during one Biology lesson he had had a random thought about the boy's faded grey hair. It was probably the first time Reilly had seem the mysterious sleeping student awake. They waited for what seemed like a very long time.

"Tiam! Reilly suddenly remembered. "Tiam, please!"

Tiam's surprise showed only for a moment before his green eyes narrowed suspiciously. His silver Library Monitor badge glinted dangerously. "How do you know my name?"

Reilly shrank back only to be pulled closer by his collar. "I noticed your name on most of my class lists when they went up at the beginning of the year," he squeaked.

Tiam's suspicious frown turned into a sunny smile with uncanny speed. "How sweet. You remembered my name all this time? Let's go out on a date!"

The door to the staff entrance opened, saving Reilly of the reply. A stern, female face greeted them with a, "you're late."

"Yeah, Mr. Bell was reluctant to let us leave," Tiam pushed pass the librarian, Reilly in tow.

"Did you show him he note I wrote?" Ms Seery asked, pushing her classes up in a no-nonsense manner.

"I knew I'd forgotten something," Tiam waved her away, unconcerned. "Must've been something small like that."

"You've got the boy though. Are you sure it's this one?"

--

Anne Seery stepped closer to the cowering boy, examining him closely. "He looks a bit..." she tried to find a word for it.

"Like a pansy?" Tiam offered.

"I'm not-" Reilly began to speak only to have a chocolate-chip cookie thrusted into his mouth.

"Not in any position to speak," Seery said, leading the two out of the staff room and into the main library. "You've caused us a great deal of trouble, young man."

--

Reilly thought quickly. The librarian was known for her strict measures against crimes against books. It was not uncommon for students who defaced books and ate in the library to go missing for days on end and then be found in the small broom closet, disorientated and dehydrated. The story always was that the students had decided to pay an unauthorized visit to the archives in the basement of the library, reached for the handle and found themselves on the wrong side of locked doors, face to face with a mop. Next to the basement doors in an odd and unpopular section of the library containing only old math text books and dusty magazines regarding the finer points of toilet detergents, the small broom closet was only opened one or twice a month, mainly just to check for trapped students.

The truth had leaked through the student population.

Crimes committed against the library were at an all time low.

It was for this infamous closet that Reilly appeared to be headed for. Was his crime worth such a punishment? He didn't think so.

"I'll return the books!" Reilly tried one more time. "Look, I've nearly finished The Da Vinci Code and I can give you the Star Wars tapes now if you let me get it from my bag."

Too late.

Reilly flinched as the door was thrown open and he was pushed into the small space.

--

Only that it wasn't the damp, mouldy closet the Reilly had imagined. In his panic, he had not noticed that the door had not been labelled 'closet' rather 'basement'.

"Down the stairs you go," Tiam smiled happily, pointing to the black void that lay beyond.

Reilly stood his ground.

"The lights, boy, the lights," Seery said, exasperatedly.

"Oh," Tiam flipped the switch to his right. Behind him, Seery rolled her eyes.

One by one, the light bulbs above them blinked on to reveal a long walk down to an unknown destination.

"Down the stairs, Reilly," Tiam said, still smiling as if he had just asked Reilly how his day had been rather than if he would like to walk down a flight of dimly lit stairs that may lead to his death.

"You can't make me do this!"

Reilly had only his imagination to materialize the horrors that lay below and he could not help picturing shackles, whips and fake cream. He shuddered at the thought and scraped together some courage.

"I'm not walking down there." Reilly turned to face Tiam, glaring at him. "This is ridiculous! I'll return the things I borrowed but I don't think this is necessary, nor legal."

"Don't jump to conclusions or they'll jump on you," Tiam said cryptically. "But for such a small request, I will comply. You don't have to walk down there, I'll carry you."

Reilly laughed, assuming the other student was joking. Tiam may have had a handgrip from hell, but he was the tall and slightly lanky type. Definitely not built for carrying people downstairs. But true to his words, Tiam bent down, grabbed Reilly around the waist and slung the poor child over his shoulder. He then proceeded down the stairs leisurely with Reilly kicking and screaming all the way down.

Behind them, Seery closed the basement door and returned to the serving counter where she checked out a fiction novel to a young girl.

"Return it by next Thursday," she instructed sternly.

---

B.B.: Don't worry! I didn't suddenly chop off the first three chapters to the story, I merely condensed them since I've decided to continue the story afterall. Ahhh, just a little more work for me. If you've gotten up to here, obviously I'm doing something right. Please feel free to read on... I don't think I've killed any readers with my work as of yet, so you're fairly safe. I can't guarentee that you'll have a life after this, so any injuries (physical or psychological) you sustain are entirely your fault. The author does not take responcibility.