Chapter 11
"The first place belongs to.....". There was a brief pause in her statement. Everyone were excited to find out the top student of the school.
"It belongs to Reena and Sana" said Mrs Rita
There was a very loud cheer. Both the boys and the girls went wild. A loud cheering burst forth from the entire auditorium as the two campus belles headed towards the stage.
At this moment, Rey went pale. He felt his soul leaving his toy body. He couldn't believe it.
"What is going on?" thought Rey
On the stage Reena and Sana received the reward from the dignitary. Rey saw his grandpa congratulate and award them with a broad smile on his face. Rey had never seen his grandpa have that smile around him. Even when he scored full marks on all his exams, his grandpa would ignore him.
"They have claimed their superiority over the rest of the students by scoring 599/600" said Mrs Rita
"599? Not 600? What's going on? I scored 600. Why am I not in the first place?" thought panicked Rey.
"Was I expelled from the school? Did they escalate the matter in order to expel me? Didn't Reena say she wouldn't pursue that matter further." thought Rey completely lost.
He couldn't find information about the accident which happened in his memory.
"Congratulations! I hope you take responsibility for your role and take your school to new heights." said Sir Reiner.
"I definitely will. I will strive to make New Hope's international into a legendary school as it was during your time" said Reena.
Rey had completely lost his sense of reason. After Reena received her medal and certificate of honour, Sana walked up the stage. She was a beautiful girl capable of making men intolerable. Black locks followed by a mature beautiful face. Skin flawless as the snow and an impeccable figure, she could be considered a goddess. No wonder she was regarded as one of the two freshmen campus belles along with Reena.
The chief guest congratulated and honoured her with the medal and the certificate of honour.
"I expect great things from you," said Sir Reiner.
"As a successor in the line of D'souza, I'll assure you that our school will bounce back to its legendary status in the country," said Sana.
"As expected of the heir of D'souza enterprises," said Sir Reiner. After the award ceremony, the chief guest took his leave. It was Reena's turn to address the students present in the congregation.
Reena welcomed all the students and mesmerized everyone with her flawless speech. After wishing and encouraging every new student as they moved towards the new year, she also talked about the challenges and responsibilities everyone had to bear in order to reach the higher goals i.e., excellence and perfection. It was perfect and everyone in the audience were awe-struck by her pacing and her manner of speech which was filled with elegance.
While everyone was praising Reena, Rey had a hard time comprehending.
"Why was I expelled from the school? Why is grandfather here at this moment? As expected he never comes to an event that involves me getting first place. He came here just to mock me" thought Rey
He looked at Reena who was giving her speech, " Didn't you say you wouldn't pursue the matter anymore. So why now? Didn't you say that I won't be expelled? Where's your sense of justice?"
The speech was done and the fresher's day came to a halt. Everyone walked out of the auditorium into the party hall. Rey stayed back in the room all alone full of grief and pain.
"Seems like she was an opportunist all along, I misjudged her" complained Rey as he stared blankly into the void.
"Why did I choose to believe her? Why did I tend to believe that she wouldn't pursue the matter further?" cried Rey before he passed out in the auditorium.
It took him an hour to wake up from his slumber this time. It was his third blackout He woke up in the pitch-black darkness. All the lights in the auditorium were turned off. The darkness in the room was in sync with the darkness in his heart. He stayed all alone in a closed space of darkness. Normally he would consider it to be scary, but now it provided Rey a sense of calmness and a perfect environment to introspect on his thoughts and behaviour.
"What's wrong with me?"
"Why are my actions so different from my thoughts? Why did I choose to believe"
"I made the same mistakes over and over again making an emotional judgement over logic." He tried to gain answers to these questions through his thorough introspection.
"Are my emotions getting in the way of my thoughts? That's gotta, be it. My actions are so different compared to my thoughts. My mind's completely unstable, it's like my emotions are blocking my mind. My rational thoughts have been hindered by these emotions leading me to these wretched paths. I feel my emotions leading me into a state of delusion, that's the only explanation I've got" thought, Rey.
"Although I know that humans only cause harm to others, and living in society is like a food chain where the top predators use all their deceitful schemes to flaunt their superiority. I still keep falling for these stupid delusions based on my emotions. It's like I'm expecting something of value from these illogical actions" thought Rey and started citing all his illogical actions.
"Staying quiet when accused of groping, apologizing to Reena instead of suing her for defamation, believing that Reena was a good person having a strong sense of justice. The list could go on. He tried all these things acting on his meagre emotions in order to gain friends and good youth.
After turning into a toy, even though he promised himself to lead a life of freedom without being perturbed by others feelings and emotions, he had exposed his identity to Rily in order to help Reena. His emotional response could have cost him his life if Rily had called the cops. Rey had only one word to describe all his actions i.e., insanity. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. He knew in his head that appearance was deceptive, yet fell prey to the words of Reena. Just based on her superficial actions, he had judged her as a just person. In the end, she had betrayed him by expelling him and taking over his position. He had decided not to trust anyone; yet ended up trusting some random stranger. Rey was horrified by his own behaviour.
"Even the dumb cattle in the auditorium are smarter than me. At least they don't fall into the same trap over and over again" thought Rey
At this point, Rey realized how scammers scam their victims and use their disturbed unstable minds to scam them again by baiting them for refunds. All these times, Rey used his emotions over his brain causing him these disasters. At this point in time, Rey had realized how weak and fragile he was. The introspection turned into blaming himself.
"I have really become a broken puppet. I tend to believe in trivial emotions over the rational thoughts in my brain. No wonder I was expelled for some baseless accusation. A broken puppet dancing to the tune of his grandfather! Even though its broken, it still struggles to please its master" thought Rey mocking his sorry life
Thus Rey made a resolution. He wanted to reconstruct his own life according to his own will without fear of compulsion or fear. He decided to lead a free life as a toy
"There's no longer a need to please grandpa nor is there a need for me to gain his acknowledgement. I also no longer need empty emotions which hinder my brain. This will be considered as my step in moving forward towards progression" thought Rey.
It took him a long time to complete his introspection but it had yielded good results. He opened his eyes again coming back to his senses. After careful thought, he decided to resume his primary goal. He had skipped it in order to follow his emotional urge. Since his emotional had no fruitful result, he decided to unravel his primary objective i.e., to find experimental proof to his hypothesis.