"Wake up, Neaf. It's time for school,"
Do I still have to go to school even after dying?"
Neaf struggled to open his eyes, his thoughts crashing into his brain.
How could things be so cruel? Even in heaven, or maybe hell, he still had school to attend.
After some effort, he managed to open his eyes, trying to adjust to the brightness around him, which gave him a headache.
"I must be in heaven, right? That's why it's so bright."
"What the hell are you saying, Neaf? Look here, you're not dead. Can't you see me?"
Neaf was startled by the melodious voice. He turned his head and saw the lady with her bright brown eyes and black hair, looking both beautiful and old at the same time. Everything inside him stopped as he tried to process.
"Don't you remember me? I'm your mother, Alisa. What the hell," Alisa scrunched her eyes as she immediately touched her son's forehead, trying to understand the situation.
Yesterday he was perfectly fine. What had suddenly happened?
"Huh?"
Neaf shielded himself. His mom? Since when did his mom look like this? And how come he was still alive?
He still remembered the words about the system activating in ten seconds. He thought it was just some random delusional dream.
He was Neaf, that was for sure, but he shouldn't be alive.
"Alfred, come here, darling. Our son is brain dead. He doesn't even remember me," Alisa dramatically shouted, calling for her husband, seeing how her one and only kid was behaving like this.
"Alfred?"
Neaf mumbled as he looked in the direction the so-called lady shouted, his ears burning due to the intensity of her voice.
"Don't joke. He's my son. How can he be brain dead when he doesn't even have a brain to be dead with?"
Neaf's eyes widened as he saw the man who, in a blink, came standing with the dumb lady, looking like an alien to him.
Red hair, with all types of metal skin, looking way more cringe than an alien for sure.
"Why aren't you wearing your skin? You're going to scare our kid," Alisa sighed, seeing her husband who loved to flaunt his metal rather than looking more human.
"How can I do anything when you are screaming like that?" Alfred chuckled as he sweetly replied to his wife.
What the heck!
Neaf felt like he needed to burn his eyeballs, maybe even pull them out, seeing the so-called cheesy flirting these strange people were doing.
One looked human but seemed to have lost her mind, and the other didn't even look human but was still claiming that Neaf didn't have a brain.
He was sure he had a more functioning brain than these two people.
"Why are you looking at me like this, Neaf? As if you're watching some horror scene unfolding," Alfred raised his eyebrows, looking at his son who was just staring at them like they were some ghosts. In fact, he seemed sure that he was watching ghosts, his eyes giving it all.
"That's something I'm not so sure about,"
Words slipped out from his mouth as he tried to process whatever was happening.
He's not dead? Or is he still dreaming? Or is this just some kind of joke?
Everything was so blurry to him, even blurrier than the beatings he had just suffered.
He looked at himself and tried to examine. Everything looked perfectly fine, and he didn't feel any pain, which was totally ridiculous, or maybe even more shocking.
"You need to wash yourself, Neaf. You're still in a dream, I think,"
Alfred just looked at his son, who seemed so senseless. Maybe he was still in his night dreams, that's why he was behaving like this? It was more like a nightmare.
"Yes, your dad is right. Go bathe. Maybe then you'll get your senses back,"
Alisa nodded, agreeing with her husband. Their son certainly looked like he was dreaming with his eyes open.
"Dad? This weird-looking person is my dad?"
Neaf pointed to himself, seeing the man who just claimed to be his father. It was more absurd than the lady who first claimed to be his mother.
When did he start having such strange parents, or had he even forgotten how his parents looked due to their absence his whole life?
"Who are you calling weird? I'm more handsome than your stinky self, you brat,"
Alfred dramatically retorted, looking even more foolish in Neaf's eyes.
"If I am Neaf, which I am for sure, then neither of you, especially you, can never be my father,"
Even if Neaf tried to believe in having a mother this dramatic, he surely couldn't believe he had a father with this whole red metal-looking body. How could he even create a baby with that body?
He shook his head, not wanting to process more details.
"Wow, you see? Look at your useless son. He first called me weird, and now he's claiming I can't be his father. After everything I've done for him in his whole 19 years of life, he does this to me,"
Alfred looked at his wife, angry and hurt by his one and only son. Of course, he understood that his son was jealous of him. He was just handsome, and his son was not that handsome. Still, this was so bad.
"Calm down, he's just not himself. Let's give him some space, and then he'll get back to normal," Alisa moved back from her son and grabbed her husband, pulling him out of their son's room.
Neaf just stared at both of them as they left. As soon as they were gone, he immediately stood up from the bed and looked for the mirror in the room.
As soon as he found the mirror, he quickly walked toward it and started looking at himself from top to bottom.
"Hell, no, fuck me,"
He stumbled back, feeling nauseous.
"This is not that bad. Why so shocked?"