First bell rings, schools in session.
Oh hey! Nice to meet you; I'm Stephen Ortega, 20 years old… a total failure, as one would say.
Why? Quite simply, I'm bad at almost everything I partake in. Really! It's quite saddening if I'm going, being honest with you.
There is one thing which I'd say I'm pretty good at, wanna guess? Fighting… yeah, who would've thought a kid who's bad at almost everything, doing terrible in school, and is a failure, good at fighting?
Most baseline delinquents, I'll tell you that much…
I live in Brooklyn, New York. A small one-family home, bunkered down with my mom and a cute little sister… no dad… who would've guessed? Anywho, enough with that bastard, what was important was that I got my first date! I know, I know, I'm just an extravagant guy, what can I say?
This date is to happen a couple of hours after school. Now it was kind of fast, in my opinion, I would've liked it to happen over the weekends, but you win some and lose some.
Of course, just because I'm a star student, I skipped the last few classes to get ready and make sure I look presentable for this. I rushed back home after the 7th period. This is because my mom isn't home and so isn't my sister. I won't be asked where I'm headed.
Our meet-up location was quite weird, but I didn't look into it as much as I should've.
Here I am in the area where we are supposed to meet; my heart was racing… very fast; what am I supposed to do? This is my first date ever.
She was kind of late, but that meant I was able to say the golden line…
"Sorry I'm late," said the girl as she tried to gasp for some air.
I was ready-- "I just arrived as well" I had the biggest smirk on my face when I said that…
"Great! Let's get going, shall we?" she said.
Whoops… I forgot to mention that her name is June. She's lovely, brilliant, and quite popular.
We went to some arcade, to what I knew, it was going to be a dinner date, but hey, this works too…
Some time went along, I was having a blast, but I wondered how she was doing. I peeked over my shoulder as best as I could so I wouldn't get noticed. She has a short smile on her face. I was quite relieved, I didn't want to be the only one having fun, but it looks like I was just paranoid.
Time was running thin… I didn't want my family to worry about where I've been. So I told June that, "it's getting quite dark; why don't I walk you home?".
To my surprise, she said yes. I was ready for her to say something like she would go home herself, but this works too. I didn't know where she lived, so I told her to go home, and I'll follow behind.
The route looked kind of sketchy; I knew that, yet I still followed her. We had a whole day together, ending it off shouldn't be a problem… but… there was the feeling, with every step that I took, my heart just tightened up, I pushed through it. Then you wouldn't believe what I am about to say… but there was a voice in my head telling me, "I shouldn't go any farther, that this is my stop."
I thought I was on the verge of being crazy; I persisted… then, what I feared began to happen, she took a turn into an alleyway. Again, like the fool I was, I thought this might have been a shortcut to her home. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by 5… no 6 different people.
"I'm sorry, "love," but this fake date couldn't go on any longer. Did you think you had a chance with me?" June uttered proudly.
"Shit," I mumbled under my breath.
The 6 people got closer and closer, one saying, "look at the idiot thinking he's worth something."
Another with a sneering look said, "I wonder what type of mother would birth such garbage?"
"Aww man, one thing you don't talk about is a man's mother…." I said with an agitated voice.
With not even 2 seconds of me saying that line, I drove my fist so far into that man's face; he practically turned into a bird.
"1 down," I mumbled.
2 more started to rush me; for some reason, I wasn't scared… I wanted to fight them; I wanted to kill them…
My body was moving all on its own; I don't know why... I knew I was good at fighting, but I felt so smooth today. I ducked under one punch, dodged to the side for another, I threw a heavy punch to the spine of victim number 2.
"2 down," I mumbled.
The third guy was a bit smart, he pushed with a fourth, but that wasn't enough to stop this flow. "Let's get a bit serious," I said. Dodge 1 punch, got hit with another, threw another. Guy number 4 went in for a finishing blow... little did he know I'm the protagonist.
Now I wasn't just going to catch his punch... I'm not a superhero, but I did dodge it, leaving him a bit staggered. I took the chance and did a decent counter, the third guy came, and I used my leg on instinct, a back kick, one so powerful I was afraid I killed him. Now I don't know how I did that; I've never done a kick in my life... but why should I care?
"3 and 4 down," I mumbled.
I was getting ready for the 5th guy... but then my vision started to become red; I touched my eyes, there's blood all over my head. Then, out of nowhere, there was this searing pain behind the whole back of my head. I was jumped. Just like that, I blacked out.
It's morning.
I was still in the alleyway, but the pain was still there... my whole body was in pain... WAIT! It's morning?! Did I sleep here the whole night?
I ran home with the little energy I had left. It was raining, good timing. The blood from the fight quickly washed away. Thankfully my face didn't get that many bruises, but I know my body did. When I was at the doorstep, I saw my mom with a sad look on her face.
"Stephen Ortega!" mom said with fire in her eyes. "Where in god's name were you all of yesterday?"
I was quick to reply, "I was at my friend's house, but my phone died, so that I couldn't call."
My mom was a very gentle and forgiving person; I won't let any harm get her.
"It's fine, just make sure if you go again, you must, must, must call me," she said on the verge of tears.
I fucked it... I should've just gone back home, I thought.
I went inside, and she hugged me from behind, the pain from the fight and her tight hug... I nearly passed out on the front porch, but I still hugged her back.
As I headed upstairs, my mom was on her phone with someone; I overheard...
"Yes, officer, he's home; you don't have to look anymore," she said with relief.
I was a fool. I made her worry more than she had to. She's a hard-working person, and I just add more work to her plate.
When I reached the bathroom, I peered over to the mirror; my face was fine with just a few scratches, though the same couldn't be said for my body. When I took off my shirt, there were just bruises after bruises. My whole body was in pain, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
I told my mom that I would take a day or two off school because I was "sick" sure enough, it was because I was on threads whenever I did anything. Or was I too ashamed to go back? It was the latter.
Two days passed, I thought it was time for me to head back to school; I've delayed the inevitable long enough...
As I reach the school, I try my best to keep my head down, but with my luck, I am almost INSTANTLY confronted by one of the guys who I remember was at the fight.
"How's your body, prince charming?" said the stranger.
"How's your face, my liege?" I replied with a sneering look.
As soon as I finished my sentence, he was about to throw another jab, but his punch was held back.
"Enough, we are at school." said the man holding his fist.
I walked away without any other confrontations; I didn't want to cause more trouble; my mother doesn't need more weight on her shoulders.
Sadly trying to maintain peace is impossible since the news of what happened spread around the school. I used to be a kid who no one knew about, whose existence was known by very few people. Now I'm known by hundreds of students and faculty; I am the kid who reached for the stars.
The name seems kind of trash, but it truly stings when you think about it and give it some thought with context.
I can't even walk down the hallway without a couple of students giving me a disgusted look... is this the effect of not listening to the voice in my head? Hold on...
Come to think of it, why did my body give off so many signals as it knew what was coming? And who the hell was the guy in my head? How did he know what was going to happen? AHHH, questions for another day... Let's just try to survive this school day.
School ended, I didn't seem to get too much trouble after the first bout in the morning...
I sprint back home to make sure nothing else happens. Thank god it was Friday; I got another 2 days off.
Saturday passed quite easily, as I just stayed home the whole day.
Then came Sunday... The day my life changed... for the better? Or for the worse-- I still can't tell.
My family and I recently moved to this area, so we still had many moving boxes around. The main area affected was the attic... There were so many boxes that we had to set days where people go up and clean the attic; my day was Sunday of every week.
I went up to the attic... it's as dusty as ever.
One thing that was always weird about our attic was that it was always cold. Of course, it's spring, and the weather is quite hot, but up here, you'd think an AC was on the whole time.
I start cleaning up the dust. Then slowly move onto opening boxings and looking at their contents. I try to separate them from important, to mildly important, to useless.
As I sift through all the boxes, I reach a small yet heavy box. I managed to pick it up; it wasn't as heavy; I'm guessing the box was stuck on the ground. I opened the box, and there were 5 glass balls with intricate details. Each ball was... hefty, but as soon as I put it in the box, it was light. There was nothing more to the balls though, they were just all clear glass balls... or so I thought.
There was one ball, the most detailed of them all. I struggled to pick it up, but when I did, it was cold! Very, very, very cold. It had a small glow from the inside of it. As I took a closer look, an aura of sheer cold entered my body; I froze up, the ball dropped from my hands, there was nothing I could do; I was moving in slow motion due to the cold.
The glass ball shatters all over the floor; the cold grip releases me.
The room is filled with this sinister aura; it was so dense I had trouble breathing.
23 short seconds later, the room was quiet, with no noise, no smell, no temperature; it was like one giant vacuum.
12 short seconds later, a thunder banged across the room; I nearly had gone deaf. When I recovered and looked up, I saw a monster... no, I saw a god.