Sure to Shine

Eric didn’t live too far away from the park, so he was home in a couple more minutes. His father, who had been on his lunch break from work, was just pulling on his coat as Eric came in. The house they lived in was actually one of the converted houses, made up of three flats – a basement flat, a ground flat, and the second floor one. They had the ground floor apartment, so they just used the front door like a regular house. They had lived in a house until Eric’s parents had separated, and then they had realised that, with just one wage packet coming in, they wouldn’t be able to afford it any longer. Eric had offered to start working too, but his father had said that even if they both worked two jobs, with the car they wouldn’t be able to afford it.

"Where’ve you been, sport?" his father asked him, as Eric dropped his bag down onto the floor.

"Just got held up walking home," Eric said vaguely, and his father gave him a worried look.

"No one gave you any hassle?" he asked.

"No, nothing like that," Eric said. “"ust this new kid I’ve never seen before was talking to me. You don’t know of anyone with the surname Mitchell moving in anywhere, do you?"

Eric’s father frowned for a second, thinking. Then, he shook his head.

"Doesn’t ring a bell," he said, shrugging. "Why? Does this new kid go to your school?"

"No, I met him in the park on the way home. He says he hangs out there quite often. He says he doesn’t go to school, that he got kicked out," Eric explained. "Looking at him, I don’t think he’s from a very caring family. He doesn’t seem to have anyone pushing him to go back to school. He’s a bit of a freak, actually."

Matthew Jensen laughed, raising an eyebrow at his son.

"In what way?" he asked, amused. Eric grinned.

"I don’t know," he shrugged. "It’s just he asks some pretty deep questions for someone who barely knows you. And he has this really strange laugh. It sounds like he’s not all there."

"Well, just make sure you don’t get into any trouble," Matthew warned his son. "You don’t know what they could be on around here. Anyway, I’d better get a move on. It’ll be back around five, half five, that all right?"

"Yeah, I know where the food is if I get hungry," Eric grinned, and his father nodded.

"See you later, kiddo."

"See you, Dad," Eric said, waving his father off. When the front door was shut and he had the apartment to himself, he let his true feelings show. He gave the wall a kick, wondering why this strange young man in the park, of all people, had had to choose those particular parting words. Eric was still unnerved by the fact that he bore such a similar appearance to the young man who had shot up his school twelve years ago, but he was hoping that this resemblance wasn’t something people noticed often.

But surely that was where their similarities ended? Eric didn’t think that, just because they looked like twins, their personalities would be similar. He decided that, instead of getting all freaked out by this, he would get himself onto the computer and try to find some other pictures that weren’t so similar. He was sure that there would be plenty taken from a different angle which would put his mind at ease.

Eric and his father didn’t have money to throw up in the air, but they had both agreed that one of the necessities would be a computer with Internet access. Anything they bought was usually online, where they could get a discount, so the computer came in handy in that respect. Also, as Eric took a computing class at school, it was handy for his assignments. Therefore, they happily went without a larger TV or any CD players, in exchange for their computer. It wasn’t that bad, anyway – if they wanted to listen to music they could find it online.

Eric went where probably every person with Internet access went when they needed to find something quick – and that was Google. He decided to put Ben’s name in, so hopefully he would find more information about the guy himself than the actually shooting he was infamous for. He found himself primarily on the same website he and Adam had been on earlier. He squinted at the pictures for a long while, trying to work out of there was any possible way that they were similar.

If there were, he couldn’t see any.

He sighed, frustrated that he had let something so simple get to his head, and instead clicked on the link which brought him to all the information that was known about Ben Murdoch. Eric wasn’t too bothered at the fact that they had both been born in the same hospital and lived in the same area. Such things weren’t unusual for kids around here, if they had lived here all their lives. Eric had been born in the same hospital as roughly three quarters of his year, so these facts didn’t really freak him out.

However, some of the other details about Ben’s life did start to make Eric feel a little uncomfortable.

Ben Murdoch was eighteen years old when he committed the shooting at Jefferson High School. There was initially many rumours circulating as to the reason why he did it, with many news reporters latching onto the fact that Ben’s parents had separated less than a year before, when he was still seventeen. It was claimed that this was the final obstacle that had stacked up against him and had finally caused him to snap. However, it was later discovered that Ben had been suffering from anger problems for many years, and that these problems, combined with a less than satisfactory school life, had been the main contributors in the shootings.

"OK, not cool," Eric muttered, sitting back in the chair and staring in disbelief at the screen. “Well, I don’t have any anger problems,” he said to himself, as though voicing the thought would comfort him. However, it didn’t do much in the way of making him feel better because he was still unnerved by their similarities in appearance as well as the fact that their parents had both split at the same time.

Eric sighed and got up from the computer, going into the living room. It was pretty bare, consisting of just a couch and a chair and small TV and battered coffee table, but he and his father didn’t spend a lot of time in here anyway. Perhaps they would spend an hour in here in the evenings, but usually Eric was either out or lazing in his room and his father was working or sleeping.

Eric walked over to the window and looked out. He could see the gate to the park from where he was standing. It was down the street to the left. As he watched, he saw Skylar take a short running leap and clear the gate, before looking back at it and grinning triumphantly. Eric briefly wondered what the young man did with all of his time. Eric wasn’t a fan of school, but without it and with no job, he knew he would be insanely bored in a day. Even when he didn’t want to put up with the lessons, he would still drag himself in so he could see his friends, rather than sit at home bored all day.

Skylar had turned now, and was walking up the street towards where Eric was watching him through the window. Eric didn’t fancy the strange young man knowing where he lived, so, feeling a little stupid, he ducked back from the window and pressed himself up against the wall.

He didn’t dare look for a while, and when he did, he got the shock of his life. Skylar was standing right against the window, and Eric yelped and jumped back, ending up falling backwards over the coffee table and landing in a disgruntled heap on the floor. Grumbling obscenities, he picked himself up off the floor, hoping that he wasn’t going too red. He could hear Skylar’s hysterical laughter from outside.

Eric stomped over to the door and pulled it open angrily.

"Have you ever heard of other people’s property?" he called, glaring. Skylar walked over, still trembling with suppressed laughter.

"That was so funny," Skylar laughed. "You should have seen your face. Times like that I wish I had a camera."

"There’s something wrong with you," Eric muttered, rolling his eyes.

"So people have said," Skylar winked, and then he looked up at the house. "So, this all yours?"

"No, only this floor," Eric said. "So watch it, or you’ll get the psycho neighbour from downstairs after you."

"Ooh, is he weird?" Skylar asked interestedly, and Eric nodded.

"He would chase you with something which would inflict pain if you annoyed him," he told Skylar, speaking from experience.

"Nice," Skylar laughed.

"Not when you’re on the receiving end," Eric told him. "So, what are you even doing?"

"Scaring the shit out of you," Skylar grinned. "So, are you going to invite me in? It’s a little cold out here."

"You have a fine cheek," Eric muttered, but he still found himself stepping to the side and letting Skylar in. He cursed under his breath when he had closed the door and turned around to find Skylar looking at the computer screen, raising his eyebrows.

"Ben Murdoch?" he asked. "Did I get to your head?"

Skylar looked as though the fact that he may have gotten to Eric’s head was a triumph.

"No," Eric said bluntly, for the only reason that he was reading Skylar’s look. "You’re not the first to say it," he added, a little spitefully.

It had the opposite effect, as Skylar seemed to look even more excited, perhaps even thrilled.

"Really? Who else has noticed? I bet a lot of people at your school have, haven’t they? Because there’s teachers there who remember it, aren’t there?"

"Jesus, someone’s a little excited," Eric muttered. "No, no one’s said anything apart from my friend, and he only noticed because he’s researching school shootings for psychology."

"It’s the only reason I started talking to you," Skylar grinned. Eric rolled his eyes.

"Well, don’t get too excited, because I’m not planning on shooting anything up anytime soon," he said, slightly annoyed.

"Why not?" Skylar asked, and then he let out a little cackle. "It’s in your namesake, after all."

"Shut up, Skylar," Eric muttered.

"Did you ever notice that?" Skylar persisted.

"Not really, no," Eric said shortly.

"So now, that’s you look the same as Ben Murdoch, you have the same first name as Eric Harris, I wonder how many other similarities there are?" Skylar asked thoughtfully, and Eric groaned.

"Will you just shut up?" he asked. "What’s with the whole fascination anyway?"

"I always wanted to shoot up a school," Skylar shrugged.

Eric blinked.

"Um … what?" he asked.

"I always wanted to shoot up a school," Skylar repeated, spinning around on the chair slightly, going from side to side. He sounded as though such a wish were as normal as Eric’s dream of travelling. "Not necessarily my school. Just a school."

"I’m starting to see why you were kicked out of your old school," Eric muttered.

Skylar smiled.

"Yeah, you can see why they were a bit afraid of me, eh? But I was pretty psyched about moving here, when I found out I would be right next to your school. I remember reading about that case obsessively about a year ago. And then I saw you and I shat bricks. I thought I was seeing a ghost. Only thing was, you still had the back of your head."

Skylar laughed again, as though the thought of a gruesome suicide was the funniest joke he had ever heard. Eric wrinkled his nose.

"You’re sick, do you know that?" he asked.

"I’ve been told," Skylar shrugged. "So you’re actually telling me that you’ve never wanted to do something real bad to you school?"

"No," Eric frowned. "I might occasionally want to leave the place and never come back, but I don’t think I would ever want to shoot the place up. That guy who did it – Ben – there must have been something wrong with him. I’m not like that."

"There was nothing wrong which him," Skylar snorted. "Trust me, I’ve done all the research anyone could possibly do. I know he was perfectly sane."

"No perfectly sane person would walk into a school and murder people they had known for years," Eric said, feeling slightly angry. It looked as though Skylar was another one of these 'tough' kids who thought firearms and murder was the way forward in life, but wouldn’t actually have the guts to even punch someone.

"He acted on instinct," Skylar grinned, and there was a slightly maniacal glint in his eyes. "He was picked on, yeah? He was angry at life. He wanted revenge. His instinct was to put people back in their place, to protect himself, and that’s why he did it."

"So if he wanted to protect himself, why did he kill himself at the end of it all?" Eric asked, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow.

"Because he saw there was no way out," Skylar shrugged. "You read some of the stuff he wrote. He said he didn’t want to go to prison. He said he wanted to be shot by cops or kill himself. When he realised the cops weren’t shooting at him and were going to try to negotiate, he realised he would end up in prison, so he shot himself."

"Well, I’m not being bullied and I don’t feel threatened by anyone, so I think I’ll leave the guns at home tomorrow," Eric muttered. "So you, then. Why do you want to shoot a school up?"

"Because I hate people," Skylar grinned.

"People?” Eric asked. “Any particular person or just people?"

"Just people," Skylar said, shrugging. "They annoy me, with their stupidity and their ideas and their feelings."

"You sound like a pretty closed-minded person, Skylar," Eric told him. "People out there probably think you’re stupid as well, you know."

"They probably do," Skylar said. "And that’s why I want to kill them all. They don’t realise just how worthless they all are."

"Fuck’s sake, Skylar," Eric burst out. "You’re one sick bastard, you know that? What makes you so damn special?"

Eric wondered if he had given Skylar exactly what he wanted, because the other young man was grinning in an amused fashion.

"What makes me so special is the fact that I choose to be special," Skylar said softly. "That’s what makes me better than everyone else."

"No one’s special anymore," Eric muttered. "It’s all been done before."

"See? I don’t have that defeatist attitude. That’s why you suck, and I don’t."

"Oh, real mature," Eric glared. He was starting to get a little annoyed at Skylar’s attitude, and to be honest, Eric was finding himself a little creeped out, too. It seemed to Eric that Skylar was inappropriately delusional.

"So that’s what you do all day, is it?" Eric asked, a little coolly. "Go around the place telling everyone how awesome and special and smart you are, when in actual fact you’ve been thrown out of school? Yeah, sounds like you have a real superior life going, doesn’t it?"

"You’re just jealous," Skylar shrugged.

"Jealous?" Eric spluttered. "Why would I be jealous of an arrogant moron like you?"

"You’re rude, you know that?" Skylar asked. "You should shut your mouth before you use it to cuss out the wrong person."

Skylar paused, glancing back at the computer screen as though this were his own house and he was casually looking up something innocent like biology facts or maths rules.

"I think you are jealous," he said eventually. "Look at you. You’re already stuck in the life that your parents wanted for you. But what do you want, Eric?"

"We’ve been through this," Eric sighed. "I told you I wanted to travel. You dumped on all my ideas."

"That’s long-term," Skylar said, dismissing the fact that he had in actual fact slagged off all of Eric’s plans. "I’m talking right now, what would you do tomorrow if you could?"

"What, like you would shoot up a school?" Eric asked, pulling a face.

"Yeah," Skylar shrugged casually. "Like that."

"Tomorrow? Well, I don’t know," Eric said. "Perhaps get away for a while, chill out a little."

"School stressing you out?"

"It’s my final year, of course it’s stressing me out," Eric said, looking at Skylar as though he were stupid. "Of course, you wouldn’t know, having been kicked out in your senior year, would you?"

"You would love to be kicked out of school," Skylar laughed.

"No, I wouldn’t," Eric fired back, annoyed.

"Yeah, you would."

"No, I really don’t think I would."

Skylar shrugged again.

"Whatever," he said knowingly. "But what kid wouldn’t? Or is this another example of you being all different and the like?"

"You’re the one who thinks you’re God’s gift to humanity," Eric muttered. Skylar only chuckled, and then he stood up and stretched.

"I am," he said simply, and then he walked over to the front door, pulling it open, and lighting up a cigarette. "You’ll probably see a lot more of me than you want to," he added, and then he let himself out and disappeared down the street again.

Eric gladly slammed the door shut and went back to the computer. He froze when he saw what was on there.

Skylar had been into his picture documents, and had brought up a picture taken only a few weeks ago, of Eric and Adam when they had been at a friend’s party.

Eric sat down at the computer slowly, looking at himself, and also at the picture of Ben Murdoch that Skylar had put next to it, wondering why he was so freaked out. After all, a lot of people were doubles of other people, and they didn’t get scared because of it.

Eric growled under his breath, before angrily shutting down the windows and turning the computer off. He was getting a coffee, and chilling out. He was just going to forget about it.

He stood up and made his way into the kitchen.