It was almost funny how one, measly mistake had sent your life spiralling in a way you never could have imagined...

Yet, there you stood inside 'Blackridge Academy for wayward children'. Basically the end of the line for delinquents. Kids who'd been thrown out of more schools then they could count on both hands for being the worst of the worst. Class clowns who took jokes beyond too far, the worst delinquents the district had to offer - Blackridge had it all.

The air inside the Academy was thick. Heavy with the scent of sweat and stale tobacco. A thin layer of old disinfectant doing little to freshen up the halls, no matter how hard the Janitors scrubbed. The hallways a hive a chaos; shuffling feet, boisterous laughter, hushed arguments and not-so hushed arguments. Lockers stood dented and scarred, most of their doors hanging slightly ajar from ill-treatment, revealing crumpled papers and falling apart textbooks inside. The florescent lighting overhead flickering constantly, bathing everything it touched in a sickly yellow glow.

Inside the classrooms were no better.

The once white walls now peeling with age, a battered canvas of fist-shaped holes and sneakily drawn graffiti. The desks were covered in carved-in initials of previous students and crude drawings, their edges worn from years of restless fingers picking at the glossed wood.

Some students sat slouched in their chairs, most not paying attention to the teacher droning on about some kind of math equation at the front of the classroom. While others shift constantly. Their knees bouncing up and down, fingers tapping or drumming, waiting for something - anything - to break the monotony of it all.

The teacher barely glanced at you as the Principle ushered you into the room, barely allowing you to step inside before closing the door behind you. No introductions, no nothing. The door closing feeling like that of a jail cell slamming shut.

With a dismissing wave towards the only free seat in the classroom, you scurry towards the chair. Hopping over the well-positioned foot one of the students stuck out as you went to walk past. The chair you slide into wobbling under your weight.

However, unbeknownst to yourself, a presence looms in the seat behind you.

Simon Riley, otherwise known as 'Ghost' to his friends. A well-known troublemaker, expelled from three other behavioural correctional schools before arriving at Blackridge's doors. Not the outright violent type, though he had no issues getting his hands dirty if he deemed it necessary. But rather somehow who enjoyed pushing the limits, seeing how far he could take people before they'd snap under his attention.

Some avoided him like the plague, others fell into step beside him; hoping that his name alone might deter others from messing with them.

"Didn't think we'd get any fresh faces this late into the year," he murmured behind you, low enough so the teacher couldn't hear him but loud enough to grab your attention as he leant forward on his desk. "Must of done something real bad if they've transferred you to this hellhole mid-way through term... what you in for?"

You try to ignore him, you really do. But, a sudden tug to the back of your hair makes you whirl around to face him with a thunderous scowl. The tug not hard enough to hurt, per say, but definitely enough to make your head jerk back.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you its rude to ignore people? Tut tut, newbie, I expected better of you," Simon taunted, waggling a finger as he mockingly scolded you, earning a few sniggers from the students sat around you. "Don't tell me your one of those that plays hard to get? Hm, that's alright... I've always enjoyed a good chase."