He clutched at the report card and tried to calm his mind. The people around him were random images that the air takes away after a moment.
The walls wobbled and warped and his steps felt unreal.
Somebody was calling him but the voice or voices were distant and garbled.
He thought he heard his name being called but it couldn't be him. Nobody knew him and he knew nobody in this hellhole they called school.
He had been here for a year and they treated him like the chorus of voices that echo across the corridors: present but not relevant.
He entered a semi-familiar room and went to a chair where there were things that looked like his. The chair was in a corner where it was for a whole year.
It might as well have been an empty one and it wouldn't have made a difference.
His classmates were raucous and jubilant. The school year was at an end, after all. Everyone is graduating.
Except him.
He didn't understand. He passed all the exams. He participated in activities. His marks were not high but not that low either.
He didn't talk much but he answered when called.
He was not friendly but he was polite.
There was no time to make friends.
His life or rather their financial situation did not allow for that.
It didn't help that he had a bastard for a stepdad.
His life was a cliche but he had hopes to change it. That's why he laid low. That's why he did not aim to ruffle anyone's feathers.
He trudged along in a steady forward pace.
Silent.
Unseen.
So that he could get the chance to quietly pass through this phase and start a new life.
"You never attempted to correct your situation…" echoed the principal's voice in his mind.
"You were repeatedly given the chance to make up for your lackings but you ignored them. Do not blame us if it got to this point."
The voice was compassionate enough but the eyes told a different story. Like the eyes that he passed on the corridors. They all wanted to unsee.
"I am looking out for you. Even if your teachers won't pass you, I have asked them to reconsider. For 50 thousand, the five who gave you a failing mark will no doubt have pity on you."
He didn't know pity can be bought. Not that he needed to buy it. He hung his head in frustration and bit his lips.
"Think about it and come back before the graduation ceremony. Now, if you'll excuse me…" she turned her attention to the papers in front of her.
He didn't have the money.
He went home and pretended everything was okay.
He never saw the principal again.
Not alive, anyway.
The report card was inside his jacket pocket. Crumpled. Bloodied.
His stepdad saw it and wiped his face with it after he beat him to a bloody pulp.
His mom could not say anything as the bastard kicked him out of the house.
He tried calling the few people he knew but no one wanted to talk to him. One did but only to mockingly invite him to the graduation party.
He wandered aimlessly for a few hours but decided to go to the 'party'.
The small, dark man was looking at him as he was looking at the sign outside the party venue.
He paid him no mind. This was one of the people he often saw on the streets. Vagabonds and scavengers.
Like him, they are virtually unseen.
So he ignored him like the world also ignored him.
The neon sign flickered. His mind was on fire.
The sign said: OZONE DISCO.
-------------
Vince was shuddering in revulsion and horror as he pulled his mind back.
"He is going to kill all of them!" he said, almost wailing as the psychic backlash of the mindlink hit him. He felt all emotions of that person and was deeply horrified that anyone had that black of a thought.
The small thin man caressed his back gently.
He said he was a walker. They found him in a back alley beside a garbage can; almost too blended in to see.
The other small man, Tarayon, was right. It was hard to look for the walkers but if you wanted, you can see them.
This one was called Lemmeng and true to Tarayon's words, he did have something bigger for them. A rare item quest.
The Scroll of Beginning.
A guaranteed 10,000 P payout and bonus stat points. It was hard to pass up.
If only they knew the way going there was this hard.
"This item was displaced in time and place, in the memory of one of my brothers. The only way is through the back alleys of history. The small stories that happened even though there were no records for them. This one happened in March 18 of the year One Thousand Nine hundred and Ninety Six. You will travel through the mind of one of the central figures," Lemmeng explained lengthily.
"Why that way?" John asked.
"Because the way to specific points in time are mapped within the mind and not on the physical plane. There are pathways that can only be accessed by knowing how to think in a certain way," Lemmeng answered in a way that amazed them in its sophistication. They never expected this from him.
"Looks are always deceiving," he shrugged as if he read their minds.
So Vince was chosen to be the main conduit to the path that they are going to take and the ride within that mind scared him to death. It scared him because he easily understood why that one acted that way.
-------------
The person who was standing in front of the neon sign attempted to get inside the disco house but was flat out refused entry.
Not that he could have gotten in at that late hour. The building that was intended for a little more than 50 people are filled to the brim with close to 400.
The party had already started.
He went to the back of the building but he saw that the exit doors were blocked by the adjacent building. There was no way anyone could have gotten in.
Or out.
He sat down on the concrete and lighted a cigarette.
As he did, a malevolent shadow was watching him and was feeding off his sadness and rage.
When he brought out the crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, the shadow merged with his and used his emotions to gather strength.
Unknown to the sitting man, his shadow started moving on its own.
He looked at the bloody paper. All his anger resurfaced. His recent memories brought tears of shame and fury in his eyes. He started to bring the paper to the flame of his lighter.
At that moment, John's group arrived and was met not with the image of a crying teenager but a scroll that is emitting a sooty shadow.
John was not seeing the past but the present embedded in a past event. The Scroll of Beginning was anchored in place by a malevolent shadow that the teenager on that night in 1996 encountered.
Guarding it were black creatures with markings similar to the doors on the Gate of Transformation.
"What do they say?" he asked Ice.
"They all have the same marks. I think they are called Pighati," Ice whispered. She is clearly shaken.
Ash leaped forward and kicked one in the face before anyone could react.
She yelped in pain as her foot encountered something unyielding. Like a wall of granite.
She drew her sword and slashed even as Ora drew a symbol in the air that shot a beam of light.
Vince's eyes were wide as he saw that he was easily outclassed. He yelled his defiance and joined the fray.
John observed the ongoing chaos and saw something odd.
The Pighati never retaliated. Just stood there taking their attacks.
Ice was getting ready with her healing potions in case someone might need it.
"Freeze," Ash gestured for them to stop. She, too, observed what John did.
Vince was still hacking at one of the black creatures when suddenly, the one he was attacking swung at him so fast and he was blown away by the force.
Ice went to him and found him clutching at his chest. His nose was dripping a bit of blood.
Ice gave him the potion which he drank in deep gratitude.
"Are you all right?" Ice asked him as he got up.
"Fine. It didn't hurt at all but it sure surprised me," he said.
Ice stared at the blood on his face but she said nothing.
"Don't attack them," John said while massaging his chest like he was the one who was struck instead of Vince.
"You having a heart attack, old man?" Vince said when he saw what he was doing.
"I was just surprised with that attack on you," John stopped what he was doing and waved for the rest to come closer.
"They don't attack back unless they get attacked enough. Like they have a certain threshold," he tried to explain.
"I noticed that too. Good eye," Ash said and John smiled at her shyly.
"So what do we do?" Ora asked John.
"I don't know. I don't think we can take the scroll without fighting them," his face creased in thought.
Ash calmly walked to the creatures and tried to take the scroll.
Not one of the human-shaped black creatures moved but try as she might, she could not move the scroll away from its place.
She swat at them with her sword in frustration. It clanged against the head of one but it did not even flinch.
"Now what, glorious leader?" she turned at John.
"Wait…" he said while holding up a finger. It looked like he was struggling with something.
"What do you say they were called, Ice?"
"Pighati. It roughly means despair…" she said.
"There might be a clue to their name. Despair is a condition of one's soul. Not just emotion…" he is still trying to think but the others are also forming their own ideas.
"That is why they didn't fight back initially. Despair just takes until it couldn't take anymore," Ora supplied.
"That's it!" John exclaimed.
"So we know how not to get attacked but we still don't know how to get the scroll," Ash whacked one of the creatures again and nimbly stepped back.
Vince was strangely silent. When he tried to butt in, Ash cut him off.
"Let him speak," John said and Vince looked at him in gratitude. He nodded.
"I was in the teen's mind and the feeling I had then was the same as when one of them hit me. I felt unfathomable, unyielding despair," his eyes mirrored what he was saying. It was as if he was indeed under oppressive grief.
"What are you getting at?" John was beginning to have a clearer picture. He looked at the creatures again and another word flashed in his mind.
"What is another word for despair?" he asked no one in particular.
"Misery," answered Vince and before John could shout his warning, the young man jumped back into the mind of the conduit.
"...misery loves company," Vince completed in his mind and he was back in the teen's mind as he was about to burn the report card.
Vince endured the agony of a complete mind meld and sent his own thoughts to the miserable young man being possessed of the shadow that was now on its way to the disco house's electrical room. Armed with the boy's strong misery, he was dancing in glee as flames danced in its mind.
"…Stay with me...dance with fate," it said again and again as the graduating class of '96 were dancing their last dance.
Even as it shorted the wirings and smoke began to issue from the panel box, Vince was keeping the weeping teenage boy company.
He helped him get over his feeling of being alone and for the first time, the teen felt the beauty of having a friend.
He folded the report card and put it back in his pocket.
He will try once again.
At that moment when the smoke started to suffocate the party-goers, one version of the grieving teen remained in that spot and wept as 162 of the students inside the disco suffered a grim fate.
One walked away and did not see smoke coming out from the front door.
Vince cried for the one that remained and cried for the one that walked away but a great weight has been lifted off his chest.
He went back to his group.
The black creatures were starting to fade and the Scroll of Beginning was starting to shine.
John walked to where Vince was and helped him stand straighter.
Together, they claimed the fruit of their first victory.