"Hey. Oi. wake up, come on." I heard her again. She didn't call my name ever she just said 'hey' or 'Oey'
I had the blanket pulled over me, I first put my hand below the covers to check if I was naked I touched my chest, I still had clothes on 'Thank god.' I sighed in relief.
"What time is it?"
"It's… uh, lemme check." I still hadn't opened my eyes I was slowly opening them, "It's quarter past eight."
"You mean 8:45?"
"Yup." She got up from her seat.
"Sigh All I do is sleep and sleep. I don't know when it's morning when it's night."
"Your body needs rest. I am still confused about how you healed that grave wound overnight."
"Ah just leave it."
(Good Morning Ryan Walker. Don't panic)
I thought it was another voice in my head, this voice was not robotic so I waited.
"By the way Ryan-"
"Stop. one minute." She looked confused.
(This is Vice-Principal Seteve Zahn)
"For some reason, I am able to hear Vice Principal's voice in my head," I told her.
"Ah must be using his Trait. Teleporting his voice. We, teachers, hear it all the time."
'Interesting...'
(Principal sir, Mr. Atkinson is looking for you. I request you to come to the Principal's office right now, we are waiting, Thank you)
"Now he said that I should report to principal's office right now."
"Oh, then yeah you should do it."
"Fine." I moved the covers away and got up from the bed.
"I'll be waiting for you to come back, Ryan."
"Sure, doc. But should not I wash up myself first?"
"Ah sure. I will call him and tell him you will come there just in few minutes."
"Thanks. Then I will be in my room." I walked back to my room. Went inside, moved to my laptop, there it was. A message from her.
'I should text when I'm back.' But I was not able to hold myself back.
[ Oh sorry I was doing the housework.
So what is it?
How is it going? ]
[ Yo. I am busy right now, the principal has called me to his office. I will fill you up with details after I come back ]
'She's offline, does she even comes online?' sometimes she just changes her status to inactive or offline and most of the time she's genuinely offline. So I never know if she's offline for sure cause even if she sees my messages she decides to do her work before so we could talk without disturbance but by the time she finishes her work I get busy.
I hate it when she doesn't reply to me even after seeing my messages. But no like I can do anything about it so I just endure. On the other side I, text her as soon as I see her text never happened when I didn't text her even after seeing her text. No matter how bad the situation of the home was.
I then followed the floor warden to the Principal's office. It was silent and dark.
"Welcome. Please do take a seat." He told me. I bowed and took a seat right in front of Atkinson.
"Sir."
"Let's get to the point. So first, as we talked about before all of this incident. About your expulsion."
"Yes."
"The deal was, you win the fight, you stay here. You lose the fight, you are expelled from the school."
"That's right."
"As we know, while you were fighting Robert Mafia attacked our school for god knows what reason then your fight was called off."
"C-called of?"
"Not really. What I mean is, you won the fight, then they attacked."
"I- yeh that is right."
"The end result is that you won the fight but it was halfway done, invigilators were going to stop the battle anyway so I conclude you won the battle."
"Hm."
"With this, your Trait level has also increased I guess. Depending upon how much you've grown stronger. The fact that you beat up the third strongest student I think your Trait level must have increased a hell up."
"I think."
"I will not ask how you were able to beat him or how did you get this much power all of a sudden. But just tell me, why did the Mafia attack our school? And why did they target you, boys?"
"Uhm. Fine. Mafia, they were behind me."
"Huh! What do you mean?!" He leaned forward, he was curious.
"I wanna know myself. They first attacked me the day my parents died then they attacked one more time, then this time..."
"What?!" His eyes widened, "You were attacked two times before this one and you are still alive?!"
"That's your concern? Yes, I am alive. FBI knows about the attacks. They said they are investigating the case but they haven't contacted me since that day."
"Y-you are already in FBI protection?" I nodded.
"Okay, so we will keep you under our protection too as we can't risk our student's life here."
"Thanks. So what about my expulsion?"
"It is canceled! You will continue learning here."
"That's a relief."
"Study here, learn here, right here, stay here, be one of the most powerful students of our school."
"I don't think I will be able to become the most powerful student…."
"You are the third strongest though."
"What? How?"
"You beat the third strongest of our school which means you have taken his place now. I will officially announce you as the third strongest."
"But my Trait level? I thought people were judged how strong they are by their Trait level? I mean by the high the level the strong the person is, yeah?"
"That's how it was for years cause no one like you appeared. A person with a Trait below 0.5, the weakest, still won against the third strongest. Think it logically, practically it's not even possible in reality. This is like fiction. A thing like this has never happened in few years."
I was really surprised to hear it. Well,… it must be true. Cause like hell man nobody must have a System Ring like me. So yeah I think- damn I am the first one!
"The competition usually used to be between the top three, the third person will surpass the second person, or the second will surpass the first. Not like the weakest will surpass the third."
"Yeah, right."
"That's it. I hope you become more powerful, increase your Trait level with training, and grow stronger."
"Yep, thanks sir, I sure will."
"You can leave now. I will ask Dr. Mary if your body is okay with attending classes. Rigid, Devon, and Robert are fine to attend. If she says you are alright then you will be attending too."
"Ah, so you resurrected Robert? Thank god."
"Huh? What are you saying? What resurrection?"
"Please don't. I know about resurrection sir. Only top students who die are resurrected. It's not a single-person thing to do."
"Who the hell told you about this?" he got up from his chair, "we will have to erase your memory!"
"I found it myself. I saw Robert getting killed with my own eyes, nobody told me about this. This is one of the dark secrets school keeps hidden from everyone."
"Not schools. But the Academy. Still, we will have to erase your memory we can't let a kid move free who knows our dark secret. This will be against rules."
"Don't go that trouble I will not tell anybody. I swear on myself. You can trust me on my words, sir. A big talk from a kid like me."
"Hmm, you already know many things about things you should not know. I will let you off with this. But the moment I realize you have told someone else, your memories will be erased, you will be expelled right away more like banished from every Trait Academy in world."
"T- that's harsh. But acceptable considering this is one of the dark secrets."
"Hm. that's for sure. We can't really let this get out but still, I think as a top-three student of our Academy I think it would be a waste to erase your memories."
"Yeah, this is not the memory I want to get erased." Suddenly the message screen came in front of my eyes. The screen of me texting Erin.
'Maybe… maybe that's the memory I want to be erased out of my mind. But it would be a waste too.'
"Now Ryan," He got up moved, came to me. I got up from my seat too, "I hope we get along pretty well from now on."
"Yes, me too." I shook his extended hand. A firm handshake is what I like.
'That went better than I expected.' I thought as I walked down the way.
'I should go and check if she has texted me first then I will go to the infirmary. I hope I will be able to attend classes from tomorrow.'
I sighed, I reached my room, the laptop was switched on the screen was black I double tapped the mouse pad to start it up.
[ Hey. Lemme know if you are back ]
She texted.