#marcuskjessel

This is the first chapter of my book, translated from Swedish. I have released it in Swedish as an E-book in Sweden, but am currently translating it to English for a future release. I hope you will enjoy it, and please do comment!

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The alarm sounded in the dark room. Jonas opened his eyes and turned off the alarm. Then he went back to sleep. Five minutes later, the alarm on his cellphone went off and he turned that off too. He had chosen to use two alarms, mostly because he had a tendency to turn off his alarm without actually waking up. That´s why he had placed the alarm clock and his phone at different places.

    Now it was time to get up. This had been the process every morning, except at weekends naturally. He got up and went through his messy room and into the bathroom that was right outside his bedroom. He locked the door and readied himself. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and observed that which he had seen for the duration of many years. A completely normal guy with blonde hair that reached down to his gray eyes. His body wasn't muscular but it wasn't skinny or thick, and his skin was pale from too little exposure from the rays of the sun.

    Jonas got out of the bathroom and went back to his bedroom. He turned on the ceiling light and went to his chair where his clothes waited for him. Since he had chosen to get up later in the morning and sleep a little longer, he had readied most things he needed to only need to eat breakfast and then go down to the bus. This way he only needed about twenty minutes in the morning instead of forty minutes.

    His bedroom was fairly big and roomy, when it was tidied. He went to the chair where his clothes lay and put them on – blue jeans, black t-shirt, a black hoodie, white underwear and black socks – and brought his phone, watch, iPod and earphones downstairs to the hallway, where he placed the iPod and earphones inside the inner jacket pocket. He then went into the medium-sized kitchen and ate his breakfast, consisting of a glass of milk and toasted bread with butter and ham on. He ate three such sandwiches and drank his milk while he looked at the clock. It was only ten minutes left until the bus would depart.

    In came his foster parents with whom he was now living. Susan and Johan Sten had made sure that Jonas would stay with them after Jonas's parents were involved in a tragic accident, which would change his life forever. Patrick and Katarina Svärd died in a car accident which occurred a stormy night three years ago.

    Susan was twenty-five years old and had long blonde hair. Johan was slightly taller that Susan and had short blonde hair. Johan and Susan had been Jonas parent´s best friends and was also in good contact with Jonas several years before the accident. Johan was twenty-seven years old and was fairly athletic and he used to try to get Jonas to go skiing, swimming and go to the gym.

    Jonas said “Good morning” to both of them and told them that he needed to hurry to the bus. Susan and Johan returned the greeting to Jonas and sat down at the dinner table. Jonas went to the hallway and put on his outside clothes and went through the exit and down the stairwell. The stairwell to the apartment was fairly wide for a stairwell and there were only three stories in the building where Jonas lived.

    When he opened the door to the outside, he felt that the cold was remarkably chilly and the strong winds didn't help any either. But he didn't have time to care about such pettiness, it wasn't long until the bus would leave. Jonas had always thought that it was tough getting up in the morning, which didn't exactly motivate him to go to school, but he knew that it was important to do. He realized that there hadn't been time enough to shovel just yet, as he waded through the half-meter tall snow on the ground.

    He did manage to get down to the bus stop in time to get on the bus. The big, blue vehicle came bouncing up to the bus stop and stopped, to open the doors with a wheezing sound. Jonas got in through the doors and the doors closed behind him. He observed the bus driver and the driver looked neither happy nor spry. Jonas checked his bus pass and continued back into the bus. He found a free spot further back into the bus, where he sat down. On the other side of the aisle sat a man at around forty years of age. The man had a beige jacket and a black hat on.

    Jonas could feel the bus swaying in the wind and it skidded slightly on the ice on the road. He turned on the iPod and placed the earphones in his ears. The music almost removed the surrounding sounds.

    The bus stopped and the doors opened yet again. In came a man who was as big as a bear and he had to bow his head in order to not hit in on the ceiling. He sat down in the front of the bus, probably because it would be tight for him further into the bus.

    Jonas recognized the man as a janitor at The Activity in Mölndal. The man was renown for his bad temper and his antisocial behavior. Jonas stopped thinking about the man and went back to looking out through the window and listening to his music.

    At the next stop, a guy at the same age as Jonas, got onto the bus. He even went to the same class at Jonas. His name was Mattias Ljungberg.

    Mattias had lost his sight after he had been with his mother outside her job, two years ago. She had been a scientist at Jansson and Kraft. When she had brought Mattias, the workers were about to remove toxic waste. On that day, one of the workers was hungover and when Mattias walked with his mother, the worker accidentally spilled some of the waste on Mattias and his mother. Both were brought to the hospital quickly and it took about a week until Mattias woke up. When he awoke, he could not see. But the first thing he asked was where his mother was. That was when he found out that his mother was hit badly with radiation poisoning. Mattias had also been treated for radiation poisoning, but his case was not even remotely close to as serious as hers. Several days later, she died and Mattias never stopped blaming himself for what had happened, even though he could not have done anything to prevent it happening. His father didn't help either. Even though his father never said it out loud to Mattias, Mattias felt that his father blamed him as well.

    Mattias got onto the bus and somehow seemed to notice the janitor, as he turned his head slightly toward the man, only to continue further into the bus and sit down right next to Jonas. This was something that was very peculiar about Mattias; it sometimes seemed as if he had better eyesight than any of his friends, than anyone in the world. When they asked him about it, he used to say that he had heard something and just guessed.

    “How did you know that... Ah, screw it! How are you?” said Jonas.

    “Good morning to you too. I´m all right, you?” Mattias smiled behind his sunglasses.

    “Just tired. So... when are we going to the cemetery?” Today was the anniversary of Mattias's mother´s death, and in a way, Mattias's second chance on life. Jonas and his friends had as a tradition to accompany Mattias when he and his father went to the cemetery to visit his mother´s grave every year. Mattias wanted it that way and his friends wanted to support him in his grief.

    “I was thinking we could be there around six.” Mattias showed no expression, so Jonas thought it best to let it go.

    “Did you notice the janitor?” Jonas asked instead.

    “Naturally. Not even I could miss him.” A smile came creeping on Mattias's lips.

    The bus bounced on and the boys chatted some until they arrived at their stop. They got off the bus and Jonas checked which bus they would take next. They usually had two options; either they would take the number 4 tram to Mölndal's Station or they would take bus number 771, which went to the same station.

    It seemed that they had just missed the bus, so they chose to take the tram instead. They kept on chatting during the trip, Jonas talked about a new game he had bought and played. The snow kept on pouring down outside.

    The boys arrived at the station and continued towards the Fässberg-school. They walked along the main street among the shops and continued up along the street towards their school. When they arrived, they noticed that the clock was already twenty to nine and they started their lesson at nine. Jonas didn't see a trace of their other classmates. Some of the classmates started to arrive five minutes later, some alone and some in groups. When the time was three minutes to nine, Peter showed up.

    Peter was at the same length as Jonas and had short brown hair. He was a top student and that was something that his friends used when it came to help with homework, at least back in the day. Now, it wasn't that much going on. Peter loved to help with homework and to teach his friends things. He was very talented with mathematics and science, something that was very clear when he was going to solve problems, either at school or on his free time.

    The teacher arrived and opened the classroom door and Jonas and his classmates went to their places. Peter and the guys sat up front – Jonas and Mattias mainly because they followed Peter.

    Their teacher's name was Karl Beck and the subject was mathematics. Beck was in his forties and had short brown hair. Jonas had heard rumors that Beck had once been a skilled athlete back in the day, but he had injured himself during a competition and had gotten a job as a mathematics-teacher instead. Apparently he had been qualified for it. When you looked at Beck now, Jonas thought it was difficult to see Beck as an athlete. He just didn't look to be in any good shape.

    Before Beck had even started the lesson, the classroom door opened and a boy with a bored expression on his face came in. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to get to his seat. The guy mumbled some excuse and sat down next to Jonas.

    “Are everyone here now?” asked Beck annoyed. “Good. Then let's start.” Then he turned around and started to write down some formulas on the whiteboard. After about a minute, he stopped, looked over the formulas and seemed pleased with them. He picked up a small pile of papers and passed them along the room with the help of the students.

    “During this lesson, you will be working to solve these equations, by using the formulas on the board.” Beck told the class.

    Jonas looked down on the sheet of paper he had gotten and there were equations on there that he had absolutely no idea of how to solve. They were impossibly difficult. On the other hand, Jonas wasn't very surprised about this. During the last ten lessons, the class had been tasked with solving these kind of equations. This had been going on for several weeks now, ever since their regular teacher got ill. Beck had been a substitute for their ill teacher.

    The boy that had been late for the lesson, was named Tommy Svensson and he was one of Jonas's best friends. Tommy was wealthy and he had inherited his wealth from his father, who had been an owner of a big toothpaste company, almost as big as Colgate. The company that Tommy's father had founded was spread throughout the world. His father was originally from New York and his mother came from Sweden. His father had passed away six years ago. Tommy had inherited his father's company, but the board had deemed it best if he finished his studies before he took over the company. He had reluctantly agreed to this. Tommy's mother hadn't gotten that part of the wealth but had gotten other things instead.

    In their class there was twenty-five students, and during this lesson only five of these students actually did any work. Mostly because the rest of the students had no idea of what to do with the equations and definitely no idea of what to do with the formulas. When Beck had first started with the equations, the students had asked for help, but when he had stopped giving them help as he had seemed to get frustrated with their ignorance, the student stopped asking. Beck didn't even care that the other students were playing on their cellphones during the lesson.

    Peter and Tommy were two of the students that worked with the equations, the other three were Linus, Marie and Sarah. Jonas didn't know these three very well, even though they had been in the same class for three years.

    Next to Peter sat another guy from their class, Patrick. He and Peter had grown up together and had become best friends.

    Patrick had an athletic build and was a typical party-guy. He had brown hair and brown eyes. His father was Frank Richardsson and he had founded “Ricksson's Butter”, Sweden’s biggest butter and margarine company, and had made a lot of money on it. Jonas didn't have much in common with Patrick, but thought that he could be fun to be around at times.

    The hour went and eventually Beck said the magic words: “Break time!” The boys picked up their things and went out of the classroom with the rest of the class. Jonas brought out the schedule and then said:

    “We have a break for ten minutes and then it's social studies. The cafeteria?” The others agreed and followed him down the stairs and over to the common area.

The guys sat and joked around when  they were accompanied by two other students, Robert and Eva. They went to the same class, but had extra biology lessons during one of the mathematics lessons.

    Robert had blonde hair and blue eyes. He played ice-hockey during his free time. Tommy and Robert got along quite well and used to hang out a lot during their free time.

    Eva had green eyes and had dark-red hair. She was together with Magnus, a nineteen year-old who always wore sunglasses, even indoors.

    “Hi! We've just had biology. It's so damn boring!” Robert said and sat down next to Peter and put his books on the table in front of him.

    “It can't be that hard. I can help you, if you want.” said Peter and put his arm around Robert's shoulders jokingly.

    “Why not, we could always check it out during the free period later today.” Robert replied.

    Jonas looked at the clock and then said: “We will have to leave now if we're going make the next lesson on time.” The others agreed and they set off towards the social studies-classroom. On the way, they stopped at their lockers to switch books.

    It wasn't far to the classroom and they made it with minutes to spare. Their teacher had already arrived and had let the other students into the room.

    The social studies teacher was named Kristina Andersson and she was in her forties, brown-haired and had black, thin glasses on.

    They took their places and Kristina started the lesson.

    “Today we are going to talk about the European Union and we are going to continue to do so during the remaining lessons of the month.” said Kristina and told them to open their books on page 122.

    The lesson went slowly and eventually the end of the lesson came, much to Jonas's joy.

    The students left the classroom and went to their next lesson. The rest of the school-day continued in the same manner, with an exception of the lunch-break, which they had at the school lunch room, called the Fässtaurang. The food they got that day was fairly nice, spaghetti with meat sauce. There was also a vegetarian alternative, list with rice, which Robert took. The rest ate the spaghetti.

When the school day was over, Peter, Jonas, Mattias, Tommy and Robert went home to Tommy's.

    Tommy's villa was big and it was situated very conveniently; on top of a hill in Eklandaskogen, the Eklanda forest. Tommy's father had built the villa because he had always liked Sweden and it was a good place to avoid the paparazzi and the press. Tommy had moved in on his fifteenth birthday. On his eighteenth birthday, he kicked out the assistants that had lived there intil then. He, of coarse, still had the cleaners and the gardeners there, as it was still a big villa and a big lawn. Tommy had explained that his mother was on vacation in Miami and that they would have the villa for themselves.

    When the boys got there, they – except Tommy – noticed something strange; that the doors opened automatically when Tommy approached them. When Tommy saw their puzzled expressions, he just laughed and explained:

    “I have created an AI, or Artificial Intelligence if you prefer. I call it Omni. It is a program that I have installed on my new computer that controls the entire house and my property.”

    “What?” said all the others at once and glanced confusedly at their friend.

    “I'll show you. Come here.” With that he walked through the hallway and into the living room. He placed himself in the middle of the room, snapped his fingers once and suddenly the floor, walls and roof seemed to float. Then a monotonous voice said:

    “Good day, Mister Svensson. How can I be of service?” The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. “I assume that these young men are invited.”

    “You assume correctly, Omni. I would like to offer my friends a soda each.” Tommy looked questioningly at his friends and they nodded approvingly.

    “Coming right away, sir.”

    Since the boys looked just as confused as before, Tommy continued:

    “The speakers are placed a little here and there, they are focused at my position. Cool, right?”

    Just then, a robot came hovering to them, carrying a tray. On the tray was five coca cola-cans. The robot was a meter-tall cylinder that hovered about thirty centimeters above the ground. It had thin metal arms that pointed out of the middle of the robot body.

    “Hey, it's Dummy!” said Jonas.

    “Why do you call it that?” asked Robert.

    “What? It is a bit of a dummy.” said Tommy.

    “But isn't it an artificial intelligence?”

    “Trust me, there's nothing intelligent in it. He's like a computer, he just follows orders. And besides, he is called Dummy.” answered Tommy.

    Dummy lowered the tray towards the living room table, but tipped over the tray right before it had arrived. If it hadn't been for Mattias, the cans would have hit the floor, but he had fast enough reflexes to prevent it. He had managed to grab hold of the tray and balanced the cans on it.

    The others watched astounded while Mattias placed the tray on the table.

    “What?” said Mattias.

    “Nice trick. You continue to surprise me.” said Tommy with a puzzled expression. “You could have thought you were an Altered, or something. No offense in any way.” Jonas felt that Tommy's comment was very unnecessary and offensive. But when he looked at Tommy's face, he realized that it wasn't meant in any bad way. Tommy could just say such stupid things accidentally, without even thinking about what he was going to say. The group knew that very well, but it didn't become less annoying.

    Altered were people with special abilities. Some could move inhumanly fast or shoot fire from their hands or do practically anything a normal human couldn't do. Humans had known about Altered people about a year back, when a disaster happened. A teenager with explosive powers had accidentally blown up half an island and by doing this, killed 505 people. The teenager had gotten away unscathed but disappeared without a trace afterward. After this disaster, Altereds were viewed as a threat to society and in some countries, the police had orders to neutralize possible Altereds.

    “I just have good hearing and reflexes, that's all.” said Mattias.

    “Well, I just can't imagine having an Altered as a friend.” said Tommy. Again came the stupidities and Jonas sighed mentally and rolled his eyes.

    Nobody said anything for a while after that. Tommy had put on some music and out of the speakers came the rock music that the group commonly enjoyed.

    The one to finally break the awkward silence was Robert, who said:

    “So when are we going to the cemetery?” That question was directed at Mattias.

    “I was thinking we could go around five.”

    “You said that Omni was controlling your entire house and your property. How could it control your property?” Jonas asked, mostly to change the subject.

    “Well you see, I have placed electrical receivers in the ground, that will receive commands that I send to them through my computer. If I, for example, notice that the grass on the northern side isn't getting enough sunlight, I would type in a special command that would give that patch of grass more sunlight, or at least that nourishment, as the other patches of grass. But now I have made Omni keep track of all that. The whole thing is automated.” said Tommy.

    “So damn cool!” said Robert.

    “Do you guys want to play some Guitar Hero til it's time to go?” asked Tommy.

    “Why not? I'm on drums.” answered Peter.

    Then they were off. Peter played the drums for a while, then he changed with Mattias who wanted to try once and he played surprisingly well for a blind person, he hit about three notes of a hundred, but he kept the rhythm well for the song. Tommy played the bass and he was fairly good at it. Robert sang with a very false voice and disguised his voice very heavily, sometimes with a heavy Gothenburg accent, sometimes a heavy Indian accent. Robert also played guitar and he and Jonas switched from time to time.

    Suddenly the game was interrupted and Omni said:

    “The time is now 16:59.”

    “Thank you, Omni! Shit, I think we forgot about the time. Let's finish this song and then go.” Tommy said and then they finished the song.

    When they were done, Tommy told Omni to turn off the game and put away the instruments while the others put on their clothes and went out. They could see Dummy come to pick up the things.

    It took awhile for them to get to the cemetery as it was located in Backa, and the public transport in Gothenburg was having trouble because of the snow that had been falling over the last three days. Jonas used to joke that when the snow came, the public transport stood still. This was of coarse an exaggeration, but there used to be problems here and there when the snow came.

    The cemetery was big, but they had been there several times before and hence knew which way to the grave they were about to visit. The boys fought through the deep snow and eventually they could see Mattias's father further ahead.

    Mattias's father stood in the snow and waited for them. He was wearing a thick, black down jacket and first it was difficult to see him because of the bad lighting. If it hadn't been for his red hat, they would probably never had seen him. Jonas nodded to Janne, Mattias's father, and Janne nodded back. Jonas noticed that Janne had a shovel with him. Probably for all the snow, Jonas thought. The tombstone was made of granite or some similar stone type and because there was so much snow on it, it was difficult to see how well polished it was underneath.

    Correctly, Janne began to remove the snow using the shovel. He then crouched down at the grave and Mattias did the same. As always Jonas, Tommy, Peter and Robert went off to the side to give the grievers some time alone. During that time it had started to snow again and it was getting worse fast. The boys stood and chatted some while they politely waited for the grieving family. After about ten minutes, it had started to get very windy too.

    They started to realize that it was time to leave when it had gotten too stormy. It was now so windy that it was difficult to keep their balance. Janne motioned towards the car and they all ran towards the vehicle as fast as they could. The little Toyota that once was red, was now white with snow. It was about two decimeters of snow on top of the car. It was difficult to open the doors because of the wind, but eventually they got them opened. Everyone could barely fit inside the car and Janne got the engine running after three tries and drove out of the parking lot. It was hard to keep control of the car and to see through the windscreen.

    Suddenly they heard something heavy hitting the roof of the car and Janne lost control. They spun around on the ice-patches that was hidden underneath the snow, but luckily Janne was a skilled driver and he got control of the car after a short while. It took several minutes until they arrived at Mattias and Janne's apartment. They lived at the bottom floor close to Körkarlensgata – the bus stop that Mattias used to enter the bus on his way to school. When the boys arrived, they hurried inside as the winds were getting very heavy.

    It got quickly crowded inside the tiny apartment. Janne had put out old newspapers on the floor for them to place their wet shoes on. Mattias lived in a two-bedroom apartment, where he slept in the living room, on a pull-out sofa and his father slept in the only bedroom. It look like no-one had cleaned the apartment for awhile.

    Jonas, Tommy and Mattias sat on the sofa while Janne showed the others where they could find chairs to sit on. Janne sat in his usual armchair. He turned on the twenty-inch television set and tried to find a good channel. But all channels had a lot of interference on them and eventually Janne gave up and turned off the television.

    “We are probably stranded here for awhile, but I think we can find something to keep us preoccupied with. How about poker?” said Janne and brought forth a deck of cards. The others thought it was a good idea. Then he brought out a box of matches and said that they could be the stakes. He distributed the matches evenly and went through the rules with them. The boys already knew the rules for poker, but let Janne tell them anyway. Before they started to play, Janne told them to call home and tell their parents of their whereabouts.

    Jonas call Susan, who answered:

    “Hello?”

    “Hi, it's Jonas.”

    “Hey, Jonas. Are you okay?” she sounded worried.

    “Yeah, I'm fine. I was just going to let you know that I'm at Mattias's, because of the storm. We almost blew off the road a few times on our way here.”

    “What storm? It's beautiful weather here. Where did you say you were?” Susan sounded very confused.

    “In Backa.” Jonas looked out the window and could only see a white snowy chaos. “But how could there be such a huge snow-storm here but nice weather at home? I mean, it's so close!”

    “Hm. I'm gonna have to check with Richard about that, but stay there until it gets better. If I can get a hold of him, I will call you.”

    Richard Waters was Susan's best friend who also worked at the Astronomical Institute and was working with climate questions and hence knew a lot about it.

    “Okay, say hi to Johan for me.” said Jonas and hung up the phone.

    He went back to the table and took his place. While Janne started the game, Jonas said:

    “Did you know there wasn't even a trace of a snowstorm in Kärra? It was apparently beautiful weather there.”

    “Mum said the same about Mölndal” said Robert confusedly.

    “My mom said that it was perfect weather at home too. She and dad had been out walking in the park without even seeing a trace of a storm coming.” said Peter.

    “I checked with Omni and it said the same thing. I asked it to check the climate-changes and the weather in the area.” said Tommy and bet five matches.

The boys played for almost two hours, until the storm calmed down. When it had, Jonas, Tommy, Peter and Robert needed to go home. The time was already 20:31 and they had school the day after. Tommy had called for a ride and since Tommy, Peter and Robert lived in the same direction, they waited for the ride. Jonas didn't mind taking the bus home to Kärra. It would only take him about ten minutes to get home and he liked to sit on the bus and listen to music.

    Jonas didn't need to wait long for the bus to arrive and when it did, it was almost empty. The bus driver was a grumpy old man who only grunted at Jonas when Jonas greeted him. Jonas entered the bus and sat down on a spot close to the first exit. These were only three other passengers on the bus; a woman in her forties wearing a thick down jacket and green boots. She was also wearing a fur-hat that looked like you had placed a raccoon on her head. The second passenger was a teenager with long black hair which was covering half his face. He was wearing a black jacket with studs along the arms, which looked quite ridiculous to Jonas. The third passenger was a man in his fifties wearing a beige down jacket and a black hat. The man was wearing a pair of wide glasses and behind those, he was glaring back at the guy staring at him.

    It took awhile for Jonas to realize that it was he who had stared at the older man and he tried to recover from the embarrassing moment by nodding to the man. The man just gave an annoyed snort  and continued to look out the window. Jonas did the same after he had turned on his iPod and put on his earphones. He noticed that it had begun to snow again.

    When the bus had just passed Kärramotet, Jonas could hear the bus driver curse and how the engine started to misbehave. The bus fought for a bit and then came to a stop. The bus driver said in the speakers that the bus wouldn't work and that a replacement bus was on the way. Because they were at the edge of Kärra, Jonas thought that he might as well exit the bus and walk home from there.

    He went out into the cold and walked across the bridge that separated the Kärra-side and the Bäckebol-side. When the road split in three, he took the right one. He had walked this road many times before and he knew exactly which way to walk. On the left of him, there were houses framed by wooden fences and on the right of him, there was a snow-covered lawn where he used to play soccer with his friends during the summer. He continued next to the trees that screened off the lawn and the street. It had started to snow a lot and it got harder and harder to see in the snow. After a short while, he didn't know where he was anymore and the snow began to get deep. He began to regret walking instead of just waiting for the next bus.

    Suddenly he heard a low growl behind him. In some mysterious way, the growling made it through the earphones that Jonas was wearing. He hastily turned around, but only saw white. I'm just imagining it, Jonas thought. He continued to walk a little faster, and then he heard it again. Now he started to get really frightened and he brought out his cellphone while he tried to run in the deep snow. But he fell and lost his phone somewhere in the snow. The snow was so deep and so firm that he lay with straight arms down into the snow, and his fingers didn't even touch the ground. He managed to get up on his feet again fairly quickly and then he heard the growling again even closer, and this time he decided to use the iPod as light-source to find his phone. The growling ceased right behind his back and Jonas didn't dare to move. He stood completely still in the snow and stared in front of him.