Chapter 1 - Perfect with Imperfections

    It was odd how a normal day at school had turned into so much different. One moment I was daydreaming in RS, the next my whole world had changed.

    My name's Matt. Matt Browning. You won't have heard of me before: everyone says I'm quiet and shy, and I've never made any great effort when it comes to meeting new people. Oh well. I'm going to tell you my story anyway.

    The day started off normally enough. My alarm brought me out of a nice long sleep at 6.55am, as per usual. I threw a book at it to shut it up, as per usual. Having got up and trudged downstairs, I aimed some Shreddies at a bowl and poured the mik over the top. After bolting it down, I stuck some shoes on my size 11 feet, yelled goodbye to the silent house, waited for Anisha to leave just in front of me, then slammed the door behind me.

    Before I go any further, I should probably intorduce you to Anisha. She's a girl who now insists on going everywhere with me; she says she doesn't feel safe if she doesn't. Personally, I attribute this to my brilliant performance in a dire situation last year.¹ But anyway, we get on and she does the same GCSE's as yours truly, so the arrangement works.

    So, we walked towards school together, slowly. Then:
    "I've got a weird feeling about today, Matt."
    "Like what?"
    "Like a morning-before-falling-out-of-a-hot-air-balloon feeling."
    Well that cast a shadow on my day before it had even got going. To be fair to her, she had had a bad feeling about the hot air balloon flight, and it turned out to be well-judged - but surely nothing like that was going to happen again. I voiced this thought.
    "Surely nothing like that is going to happen again."
    "You never know Matt, you never know."
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¹: If you want a full explanation, you're going to have to wait for the next story. Suffice to say it was a week with just the two of us, trying to survive in the forest after falling out of a hot air balloon.

Author's Note: This is just a pilot for the story. More to come.