A/N: Okay, let's see if I make this a/n as short as possible. First, this story was posted before, under the same name, by me. But then I took it off because I wanted to rewrite it, and add little details I hadn't put in before. This means that if you read the old version, you'll probably notice a lot of differences right from the start -- of course. If you didn't read the old version, then I'm hoping you'll definitely enjoy this version, 'cause I really liked writing it. xD

Next, this story isn't set in 'our world', so to speak. You've got to imagine two major classes -- the upper class and the lower. The differences between these classes are major, and do affect the story. (Of course, otherwise I wouldn't have written it this way. :P ) Tom, in this story, is lower class; Lyra is upper class. I think that's all you need to know. So please enjoy and review. :)

Dedication: Bingo, for making sit and rewrite this, and Jess, for remembering the story so well. Couldn't have written it without you two. (:

Tom’s Journey

Prologue

-Your face, it haunts, my once pleasant dreams.
Your voice, it chased away, all the sanity in me.-

Thomas Lee Brooks was stuck in the rose bush. He didn’t mean to get stuck. It just happened of its own accord.

“C’mon...” He tried to force himself out, but using his legs to push against other branches. It didn’t help, but he sure got a load of scratches down his arms. He felt something snag his socks, and groaned. They were his last pair, as well.

“Tom?” A young blonde girl – she was five and half, actually – peered into the branches of her favourite rose bush and made an ‘Oh, God’ face. “Tom? What’re you doing?”

“Ungh,” he answered, making one final push. He landed face-first at her feet, while she stared at him.

He stood up slowly – he felt quite... tough, really, getting up after all his injuries – and smiled at Lyra.

“I came to visit,” he announced with a smile. “John taught me how to cross roads.”

Lyra stared at him. She didn’t like John – he smiled at her weirdly, like he knew a big secret. And, she knew that her mother was going to get John to work for her. Just like Tom’s mum, who worked at her house Mondays to Fridays, with no days off. (Lyra’s mom said Tom’s mom didn’t deserve days off, because she was lower class.)

“Well!” Lyra put her hands on her hips. “You’re going to have to go, anyway. My parents are hosting a party, tonight. You can’t be there.”

Tom looked around him. She’s talking to me, right? In the window, he could see Lyra’s father – tall, authoritative and scary, very scary – watching. He was drinking tea, Tom noticed absently.

Okay, she was talking to him.

“Erm, okay.” Tom laughed lightly; did it really matter that much if he was here? “I’ll just go before it starts.”

There was a knock on the window. Tom looked to see Lyra’s father knocking on the window sharply.

“He’ll break his knuckles if he does that too much. Matt told me that.”

“That was just to stop you from doing it,” said Lyra sharply. “Anyway, I think you should go now.”

“I don’t really want to...” Mom and John are having another fight. “Can’t I stay?”

Lyra looked at young boy, in his ripped socks and with his scratched arms. She could let him stay an hour. They could play outside, and she was bored. Her mom had told her not to ruin her hair, but if they played something, where it didn’t involve running... She had a new deck of cards upstairs...

“No. Just leave, you freak,” she snapped.

Tom flinched. Lyra had never been like that. “What?” he asked stupidly.

“Leave me alone, you freak,” she repeated. She stared at him, waiting.

Tom took a step towards her, smiling. He wanted to stay and play a normal game, thank you very much.

“Get away from me!” she yelled, jumping back. Suddenly, she was angry – and she wasn’t nice when she was angry, Tom knew.

“Lyra?” Tom said tentatively. “A-Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. You’re not. You’re a freak. Leave here. Now.” She sounded... imperious, just like her mother. And, she was ordering people around, just like her mother.

“I – don’t want to,” he said, simply. “I... like it here.”

“Well, I don’t like having you here. So go. Immediately.”

Tom took a step back.

She doesn’t like me anymore. She called me a freak. She doesn’t like me anymore. She called me a freak. She doesn’t like me anymore. She called me a freak. She doesn’t like me anymore. She called me a freak. She doesn’t like me anymore. She called me a freak...

He turned on the heel of his worn shoes, headed straight back to the rose bush. He almost had his eye gouged out by a thorn, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore. He was a freak, now. It was surprisingly easy to get back through the rose bush – as if his sudden sadness had made the branches part.

Something – someone – on the other side grabbed his arms and pulled him through. Another thorn cut into the side of his leg, making him wince. He wasn’t going to cry – no way. After all, big boys don’t cry, do they?

Who else could’ve pulled him out, but his elder brother, John? John was always keeping an eye on Tom. (Tom preferred John to Matt, but that wasn’t the point.)

“Hey...” John looked... worried. And confused. There were a thousand emotions on his face. Oh, and he was sweaty. “Are you –” John stopped. “Never mind. Come here.”

Tom stared at his older brother, even when said older brother shoved him in a tree. Now Tom was staring at leaves, and those little brown creepy things that were on the trunk of the tree...

John sighed, below him. Tom leaned to watch.

“Stay up there, okay?” John didn’t even look at Tom, while he spoke. That would be too dangerous. People would know Tom was there, and then Tom would die. He had to keep Tom alive.

There was a weird click-clack noise from down the road. Tom had only heard it once – when Matt had stolen something and the long arm of the law had arrived. The upper class policemen always kept the lower class people in line.

“YOU!” boomed one of them. He had to be an officer – he certainly wore many shiny badges. “HANDS UP!” He pointed at John with the tip of his rifle, while several other men followed suit.

John held up his hands – almost nonchalantly, but his jaw was twitching. He smiled.

Tom was confused. What did John do?

“You –” The officer began in a low voice. His eyes were filled with loathing. “You,” he began again, “were seen kissing an upper class woman. You’re under arrest.”

John smiled wider. He knew he was going to get arrested eventually. It was only a matter of time...

“Great!” he said with false enthusiasm (though it sounded very real to Tom, who couldn’t work out why John would find his arrest ‘Great’.) “When’s my trial?”

It was the officer’s turn to smile. He lifted his gun and aimed. “You don’t get one.”

And there was a shot – a gun – and there was blood in Tom’s eyes – he couldn’t see – he couldn’t breathe – his brother – his brother – What’s – that’s – but he couldn’t get down. He looked down. Big mistake. There was John’s body – lifeless – he was still smiling -

And Tom, Tom was screaming, screaming, screaming –

“TOM!” yelled Matt, hands over his ears. He was standing on Tom’s bed, kicking his brother awake. “WAKE – UP!”

“ARGH!” was the reply. And then Tom fell out of the bed, just like the past three mornings. And, just like the past three mornings, Matt laughed a very happy laugh.

“Thank God... You scream like a girl, by the way...” Matt added, heading towards the door. He didn’t want to be in this room anymore than Tom did.

John’s bed was just a dust-covered pile in the corner, untouched by anyone.

“Thanks for waking me up,” muttered Tom.

“No problem!” he replied cheerfully, closing the door behind him.

Tom didn’t even try to get up. He was too lazy to check the time, and he had to go to a new school today.

He sighed. “Another – damn – dream.” It wasn’t even another dream, because it was always the same one. He always dreamed about the way that Lyra called him a freak, and how he scratched himself in that infernal rose bush, and then he always dreamed about his eldest brother’s death.

The door cracked open, slightly, but Tom ignored that. If Mark was going to come and bug him again today... well, he’d end up throwing Mark through a window... Mark was, after all, only six.

“What?” he snapped, at whoever had inched his door open.

“It’s me,” Matt said, poking his head around the door. He had a devilish look in his eye, meaning that the next thing he said was going to be very, very evil. “Mom said you’re gonna be late for school.”

“SHIT!”

A/N: Review?