Nuclear Waist By WillSpark
Part 1: The Incident

	The city had sent out a reprimand on the local manufacturing plant .It seems that the plant had been running its machinery on nuclear energy from a nearby plant, and while the power in and of itself was completely legal, the local news had run an in depth report on it, searching for juicy details for a decent story. As it turns out, the company, in exchange for cut energy bills, had offered to “dispose” of the waste, and had taken to dumping the barrels in to a small pond on their property. The barrels had rusted and ruptured, wreaking havoc on the local environment. The plant received an immediate cease and desist letter, and was to be shut down so cleaning and proper disposal could begin within the week.

	“No! Stop! Wait, HELP!” 
	The cries rang down the hallways of New Clearings High School. A deafening silence cut the typically noisy corridors at the end of school. Several students pricked up their ears, watching the corner they’d just heard the screams from, listening for a hint of the conflict. Slowly, building, they heard footsteps approaching quickly from around the corner, the volume and frequency of the steps increasing as it neared the turn. Finally, bursting around the corner, came a frantic looking tiger. Bare feet screeching at the turn, then quickly padding down the hallway, the other students watched as the tiger, an orange blur, flew past them towards the exit.
	Several seconds later, a much larger rumbling sounded as a large, grey rhino rounded the same curve.
	“Get back here, you little twerp!” he yelled out of annoyance. Wearing his torn jeans, white T-shirt, and sports jacket, he was the quintessential bully. If nothing else, he targeted the poor tiger just because he was small and easy game for a species that was normally such a predator.
The little guy running from him, though, was nothing “typical.” Running, his open red button-up shirt trailing behind him, he didn’t quite fit into a neat category like his pursuer. He wasn’t strong or cocky like his stripes might imply, nor did he want to be. He was good at school, but didn’t fit in with the nerds, and he didn’t have the physique or drive to be a jock. He was content with sitting in a corner, listening to the same obscure bands that are on his T-shirts. He was “that guy” that just couldn’t be placed, yet was so average that he could disappear and have no one think anything of it. And it was that absolute social invisibility that made Kris the perfect target for bullies like Bruno, the rhino chasing him.
“Why’d I even have to say it!?” Kris thought, kicking himself. “’No Bruno, of course that purple shirt doesn’t make you look stupid. You do that all on your own.’ Stupid! Never use sarcasm on people that can kick your ass!” 
Pushing up his glasses, Kris burst out the door and down the school steps, running off into the field on the side of the school. Not too far behind, Bruno burst out of the same doors and followed suit.
Running across the field, the grass began to fade from its green into a lifeless yellow. Jumping through some brown-tinged bushes, Kris was confronted with a chain link fence with some caution tape stuck to it.  On the other side, he could see what looked like a large pool of mud, slightly bubbling up. It was a color that he could only think to describe as a combination of green and purple.
“Great,” Kris thought, “caught between a beating and some ‘gurple’ goop.”
Looking for a way around, he saw a corner of the fence that was broken and lifted away, crawling through, he was almost home free, until his shirt seemed to catch on a jutting wire and not let go. It was at this point Bruno made his entrance, stepping through the bush.
“Ha. I’ve got you now, cornered like a mouse,” he said, ironic, because he’d just been given the slip by a mouse sophomore earlier that day. He was taking steps slowly forward as Kris attempted to yank his shirt free.
Finally, with one tug, leaning his entire weight into it, his shirt tore free of the wire’s grasp, throwing his balance off, causing him to tumble backwards down the incline into the pool of sludge with a loud “gloop.” He seemed to hang under the sludge for a minute until he finally rose up to the surface, gasping for air, to find Bruno laughing uncontrollably.
“Hahaha! That’s what you get, rolling around in mud like the scum you are! Oh, this is better than anything I could deliver.” He walked out of the bushes, back towards school, or home, Kris didn’t really care as he climbed out of the grime, coated from head to toe with a good inch of the stuff. Ineffectively wiping his face, he grabbed his backpack, which had thankfully come off in the grass as he’d rolled, climbed back out of the fence, and trudged home. He needed a shower; the stuff was slightly cold and was giving him and odd tingly sensation.
When he arrived home, he picked up the hose his dad had left outside, thankful at the moment for his father’s careful tending of the lawn, and rinsed himself off enough not to track anything into the house. When he got inside, he walked past his mom on the way upstairs to his bedroom and bathroom.
“Oh my goodness! Kris, what happened?”
“Ah, nothing mom, just tripped into a puddle on my way home. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Well, at least you’re not hurt. Dad and I are going out tonight, so you’re on your own for dinner. There’s leftovers in the fridge; do you think that’ll be enough?” She always seemed concerned about his intake, as if he’d wither away completely.
“Sure mom, you know me. I can manage.”
He walked up the staircase past the family pictures taken through the years. It was just him and his parents; his mom, tall and slender, and his dad, a well-built, perfect example of the species. Since he had hit his teens, his dad had been attempting to get him to be more athletic, to try to kick start his growth. At 5’3” he was hardly anything special, and in fact for his genes he was downright scrawny. His mom had insisted to him that a growth spurt was coming, but after two full years without change, he’d all but given up hope.
After getting washed up, he felt unusually tired. His parents had left already, and he wasn’t too hungry, so he reserved himself to go to bed early. The tingling sensation he’d felt from the pool had yet to subside, and, though he hadn’t noticed, his fur seemed to be giving off a soft luminescent glow as he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of what he wouldn’t give to teach that rhino a lesson…