The Black dragon.

\"Pull your halo down round your neck and tug you off your cloud\"
-A perfect circle \'the noose\'


Jazm slouched in his chair at the back of the classroom, as hies wes wondered from face to face. Bored and unsatisfied he moved about in his chair until the numbing in the small of his back temporarily alleviated. Gazing lazily towards the front he spotted two overweight girls in a tight revealing outfit that bulged in all the wrong places. They glanced towards him then giggled to themselves, Jazm could actually hear himself sigh inwardly. It was one of the first symptoms of psychiatric instability Jazm thought to himself as he lounged forwards into his arms, hoping the world would collapse on itself and swallow him up.

\"Ja-ZM!\" a particularly high-pitched voice shrieked from the front of the classroom.

\"Mmmrghrmm\" Jazm replied, not bothering to look up to acknowledge whoever wanted his attention.

\"You are so lazy Jazm, come up here this instant and show me what work you have done this class.\" A particularly sour faced teacher reproached him.

Jazm heard himself sigh again, a long drawn out sigh that could only be diagnosed as a \'why me?\' sigh. With great effort he lugged himself out of his chair and brought up his neighbour\'s work who was busily chatting to the girl next to her. Dragging his feet with effort he meandered his way between the menagerie of chairs and tables. As he passed the table of overweight females he heard them giggle to themselves. Looking towards the ceiling he mouthed why before stopping before the teachers desk. She peered down her glasses, looking at him with disgust; her baggy skin jittering as she began to lecture Jazm;

\"Is this all? You are such a negative influence on our class Jazm with your bad work ethic and even worse attitude. Why I have a right mind to report you to the principal\'s office right now. I will not have my students be corrupted by your laziness and constant belligerence towards other students and myself especially. Why this isn\'t even your own work! Is your name Joanne?\" She said leering down at him.

Jazm shifted his feet to get into a slightly more comfortable slouch, thankfully as if by miracle the bell sounded, signalling the end of the class. Jazm moved off with the teacher\'s voice still lecturing away behind him.

\"... I expect an immediate improvement from you...\" her voice drifted off to silence as Jazm replaced his precious headphones back onto his head, the sounds of a perfect circle keeping him temporarily sane enough not to slit his own wrists right there and then. It was the end of the day now as he made his way out of the school grounds, alone. He was always alone, ever since he could remember; he could not stand friendships and enjoyed the solitude of being alone, his music providing all the company that he needed. It was worlworld. All that he enjoyed from humanity was watching other peoples demise, enjoying them suffer whilst he stood idly by, drinking in they\'re suffering and despair. Like a mosquito fed off blood, he fed off people\'s pain and suffering. His mosquito like desire with humanity did not end there however, Jazm had also seen his fair share of dead people, stiffs, corpses, cadavers, whatever what one would choose to call them he had seen it all. This was perhaps one of the few perks of having parents who owned a morgue. Jazm had spent most of his life working in the morgue with his parents for spare pocket money ever since he could remember. From embalming to preparing the body for an open casket he had done it all. Looking back on it, ironically it was one of the happiest moments in his life. To him death was just another part of life; the peacefulness and simplicity left him in a state of awe whilst the intense despair and suffering that a dead cadaver brought upon the relatives and friends almost left him in tears of ecstasy. How the human body in all its destructiveness could end up as worm food, to Jazm was one of the biggest ironies of life.

But every black cloud hts sts silver lining; in this case it was in the unlikely relationship with Clare. Such a strange coincidence. Two loners drawn together in a strange twist of circumstances. Both loathed society and all it presented, and both enjoyed watching the demise of humanity. Now they were two outcasts, cast out from society as deviants, sailing on the sea of life on a rubber raft for two in a maelstrom where social deviance meant the difference between sinking and floating.

There she was waiting for him on the mossy outcrop of rocks defining the boundaries of school property from public. Wearing a short pleated skirt with black top and tie, her hair tied into two separate piggy tails, her face a display of disinterest in her surroundings. Like a black rose in a field of weeds, Jazm thought to himself, smiling as he approached her, music blaring from his head phones, with his hands in his pockets.

He passed the two overweight girls from his last class, they were deep in conversation and their voicrew rew into fierce whispers as he passed them, their silence broken by a girlish giggle closely followed by a snort. Jazm curled his lip in distaste and continued on his way, quelling the urge to voice his opinions on their conversations. Clare spotted his approach and perked up, her disinterest in everything suddenly taking a turn of events. Grinning girlishly she got up from her mossy outcrop and bounded over to Jazm, catching him mid hug like a newly united couple as he almost toppled backwards from her unexpected weight. Jazm grinned as he returned a messy kiss, their tongues joining for an instant, sliding against each other as they exchanged bodily fluids. Embraced together as one, but only for an instant. Their lips parted as they gazed lazily into each other\'s eyes. Their hands already joined together; intertwined as one. They turned and began to walk away from the school, oblivious of the scene their embrace had caused between the two overweight girls. Clare\'s enthusiasm was enough to light up a small metropolis as she bounced around energetically.

\"So what took you so long? I was waiting for a-g-e-s, everyone was giving me funny looks, but its not like that is out of the ordinary.\" Clare said grinning to herself.

\"That stupid art teacher bitch decided to give me a lecture about work ethic and being \'belligerent\', imagine that, me. Belligerent? She doesn\'t notice the captain of the football team sitting round with his jock friends making jokes and slacking off whole day and she picks on me! Belligerent really!\" Jazm replied, his mood growing darker as he recounted the story in more and more detail.

\"You belligerent? Ha! Does she even know the definition of the word? Anyway\'s don\'t worry about that id cid cow, only 3 more weeks then the TEE\'s then your free! Free from that pit of crap and their teachers.\" Clare replied after patiently listening intently to his rant about the school.

\"Yeah I know, but it just makes me so angry about having to put up with her shit. What happened to student rights? He-llo? If this was some college jock she was picking on, then she\'d be out on her butt in a minute flat.\" Jazm retorted, his anger simmering down as he regained control of his emotions.

\"Enough about school, guess what!?! I received tooleoolest present the other day! It was just as mysterious as all the others, no note, just appeared in my mailbox with no stamps or return addresses. I think it is some kind of ancient board used to \'invoke spe spirits\' it looks really old. I researched it at the library and it came up in the witchcraft section underneath the \'black magic\' section. How cool is that?\" Clare stated, her enthusiasm growing with each word.

Jazm rolled his eyes. He had heard this all before, true the packages she was receiving were mysterious in nature, in the sense that it had no return address or stamp. But the items were hardly anything to get excited about, cheap looking talisman\'s that looked it it came out of a $2 store and ouija boards that looked like they were hand made using a cheap calligraphy set and some tea stains. It was hardly an archaeological discovery, more of a complex prank. Clare was hardly the kind of person to be given precious items as her incredibly forgetful mind would just mean that she would misplace it on a train trip to the shops.

Clare saw Jazm rolling his eyes and she tugged his arm furiously to get his attention.

\"Aww come on, you gotta at least have a look at it! It looks cool. Come on, we should try it out! Invoke the spirits, kinda has a cool sound to it too huh?\"

\"mmm... Do we have to? I would rather sit through another of my art teachlectlectures then go through all that again.\" Jazm replied, trying to bargain vainly.

Clare pouted, in her special way that instantly turned Jazm\'s insides into jelly.
\"Well I w-a-s going to give you a sneak peak of your birthday present that I got you, but its quite obvious that you aren\'t interested in spending time with me...\"

Jazm heard himself sigh inwardly again, twice in one day. That was a worry. Blackmail, such a powerful tool of manipulation, especially when held in the hands of one like Clare. Sighing out loudly Jaznagenaged to force a bleak smile on his lips, at least there was sex.