"Dad!" Mae's eyes snapped open as she jerked herself on the bed.
She was covered in cold sweat, heart pounding with adrenaline rush, looking around the dimly lit room suspiciously and paranoid as her room seemed like a place she had never been before, believing that real life is what she was just dreaming.
There was a sense of dizziness as she pulled up into reality, blinking twice without saying anything. She stretched out her hands, staring cautiously at her body as she rubbed to feel every part of it. She held unto her chest, exhaling a breath of relief when realization that it wasn't real comes clashing into her mind and she began to think she was a bit silly getting herself worked up.
The room was silent, except for her alarm clock ticking and birds chirping loudly outside her window.
She turned to look at the time telling 6:45 am and made a fuss about getting up so early as she went under the duvet. She tried to go back to sleep, turning restlessly to her left and then to her right but there was a nagging sensation in the back of her mind which troubled her sanity as she couldn't comprehend what happened last night.
"Urgh!" She grumpily got out of bed to pacify herself with a glass of water. She caressed her head, feeling light-headed. Then she stretched out her arms letting out a loud yawn with her bones cracking, following scratching on her bum.
She scuffed into the bathroom without lifting her feet, scraping the ground and then stripped off her damp night robe as she stepped inside the shower. She turned the water to lukewarm and leaned forward, her hands against the wall, the water splashing down her back.
"Mae... Mae sweetie" Nana called out.
"I'm up Nana" She responded as she reluctantly got dressed for school. She bent to put on her shoes, noticing she has a significant mark on her foot left by a healed wound.
"Where and how did I get this enormous scar?" she wondered, rubbing on it to see if it wipes off.
Suddenly she had a moment of epiphany. She had an insight of the cave collapsing, leaving her with bruises. She checked her knees and could see a scar sustained from when she was crawling in the cave and her knees accidentally crushed a dried bone. She had a convulsive effort to breathe as she quickly inspected her arm to identify the cut gotten from the cracked rock.
"W-what is going on?" her words came out in gasp.
"D-did I not just get these wounds last night? Was it a dream or was I really in that cave? How did it manage to heal very quickly? Argh!" She let out a wail of frustration as she walked back and forth in her room, strenuously scratching her head.
She paused, holding up her index finger with her eyes circling around the room. Then she rushed to her closet, drawing out each racks and swiping across her clothings as she continued to search desperately for the sword her dad had given to her in the trance.
She forcefully opened her bathroom door in pursuit of finding the sword in her laundry basket.
"No no no.. It has to be here... somewhere. Where is it? Where is it?" she threw a tantrum.
Honk! Honk!
"Mae sweetie, the school bus is here" Nana said in a kind tone.
Mae angrily came out of her bedroom slamming the door.
"Is everything alright, sweetie?" Nana showed concern as she tried to approach Mae, scanning for obstacles with her white cane.
Mae glared at Nana with a bombastic side-eye, she shook her head, panting heavily with her nose flaring. Then she walked out, banging the door behind her.
"I packed your launch sweetie" Nana said from a distance and Mae ignored her coldly.
"Oh.. Kids these days. Sigh." her grandmother shook her head.
On seeing Mae at the entrance of her house, the bus driver accelerated at high speed. She chased the bus, hollering for him to slow down but unfortunately he was enjoying the show as usual.
She wasn't having it today. She inhaled sharply to catch some breath. Then she puts her foot on the gas, her feet heated up as her pace quickened. She wasn't able to control the momentum but she felt good sprinting with the bus.
The students stuck their heads out the window, astonished. Her classmates chanted while others asked the driver to go faster.
Mae swifted to the front of the bus, standing in front of the moving vehicle with her arms and legs spread out. The driver hastily stepped on the brake and the tires screeched to a stop.
She jerked the backpack on her shoulders and hopped into the bus.
"Hey! Do you want to get yourself killed?" he scolded.
She made a grimace at the driver, turning to the students on the bus, the expression on their faces was priceless as they were left perplexed by how fast she could run to catch up with a moving bus at 90 mph.
"Wh-wha.. Tsk! Let's just call it pure luck" she smacked her lips as she thought to her herself. She adjusted the backpack on her shoulders, walking through them and trying as much as possible to avoid eye contact.
Saleem, the school bully stretched out his leg causing her to momentarily lose her balance, almost falling, "Oops!" She quickly caught a bus pull handle to regain her balance.
She walked progressively to the back when Jade Qing positioned her bag on the vacant seat saying "My bad.. this seat is taken ugly duckling".
Then she chortled along with her friends beside her.
"Too bad, I wasn't gonna seat there" Mae answered back, fixing her headphone on her ears as she held onto the pole in the bus.
The queen bee scoffed, rolling her eyes. Her friend's faces were each frozen in a contorted scowl.
Saleem launched a spitball, blowing it at Mae with a straw. She rubbed the back of her neck as it hit her and overlooked his act.
He shot another one at her, blowing on the straw and he was still ignored.
It wasn't the reaction everyone was expecting. They were hoping for her to hand over the spitball to him, apologizing as she had always done.
"Jeez.. What's up with her today?" One of Jade's clique of friends thought out loud, smacking her lips.
___________***____________
In the rowdy classroom where students interact with one another, playing games and dancing to hot jam with their peers shouting in unison, Mae sat quietly alone in her thought, looking out the window as she listened to cool blues on her headphone.
She couldn't get her mind off the mystery that happened the previous night. She glanced at the scar on her arm once again, curling her toes in her shoes.
Then she brought out a pen and notebook from her bag. She closed her eyes, with the tip of her fingers on both sides of her head, she tried to vividly remember everything that occurred so she could write it down.
She held her pen with her left hand to write, her hands trembling, constructing poor handwriting.
She tore that sheet out of her book. Mae exhaled, massaging the sides of her head with her eyes closed.
Subsequently, she proceeded to write again, holding her pen on the sheet as she clicks the pen incessantly.
Mr. Muyi walked into the classroom with a journal in his hand, adjusting the knot on his tie and the students scurried to sit accordingly, upholding decorum.
"Ahem!" He cleared his throat, flipping through the pages of the journal on the table.
"Good morning students" He acknowledged the presence of his pupils, raising his head to make eye contact with each one of them.
"Today... I would lecture on a different topic. But before we go through the scheme of work, I'd like to---" he stopped, giving Mae a silent hard stare as she continued to drum her pen on the desk looking upward.
The students turned to glimpse at her and chortled with delight.
"Ahem!" He cleared his throat with his arms folded and his squeezed lips rolling. "What did I say about noise in my class, Mmm?" he continued with an eyebrow raised.
"Miss Li?" He called to her attention. She had been lost, overthinking with her head clouded by thoughts.
"Why did you choose to distract the class this early morning? Is anything the matter? Or you'd like to come forward to lecture the class" the teacher ridiculed.
Her classmates bursts into laughter. She darted nervous glances around the classroom.
"I'm sorry sir" She bowed slightly, apologizing in a fragile voice.
He cleared his throat again, going back to his journal. "I'd like to make few announcements before we begin. Hot spicy soup, steamed buns and dumplings will not be available in the menu today due to supply shortage. So make a different choice when you go to the cafeteria."
The students displayed inappropriate behaviors, murmuring and throwing tantrums.
"Hey! Decorum. It was not permanently removed from the menu, okay? Although the price would be inflated as from tomorrow due to the strong demand of you scholars. You know the world doesn't revolve around food, Yea? Read books to digest knowledge. Let me even ask you these questions; How many times do you study a day? When last did you visit the library? Build your mind and not only your stomach..." He went on and on with the long boring speech nobody adheres to.
Then the teacher concluded "Lastly, I'd like to introduce two new students who would be joining us today. Let's welcome Master Liang Fang and Master Chen Zhao. A round of applause for them". Mr. Muyi encouraged, jamming his palms together.