"Okay kids, tomorrow is the day for the trip to the national museum!" The female class teacher said with enthusiasm; "Give these permit cards to your parents to sign when you get home"
She handed out small rectangular shaped cards to the students. These cards were milky in color, carrying each student's name on its front cover and having only two pages for comments and signature.
Peter stared at his card with a moody expression etched on his face. Well he had no issue with the card, it's just that, he was still remembering how he embarrassed himself today before his classmates and probably the whole school, by puking on one of the most influential girls in the school.
Mary was the captain of the cheer leading squad and also one of the beauty queens of the school. And worst of it all, her boyfriend was in the football team!
Peter had a humiliating day as he was being laughed and jeered at. Even most of his friends began to avoid him, in fear that the stigma would linger on them.
Peter was known to be quite clumsy and careless in his endeavors but he would have been mad to purposely throw up on Mary of all people. It's just that yesterday night, he was careless enough to eat a three weeks old forgotten pizza, which he thought tasted quite good.
_"And now, here's the result of my stupidity"_ he thought as he noticed the glances of mockery and derisive pity that were being thrown his way by his classmates.
~Kriiii~
The bell rang, signalling the end of classes for the day as the students stood up in one accord and packed their books and bags. The class teacher, with her large spec glasses and freckled face was being heard shouting amidst the bustle of the students as they left the class.
Peter was amidst the outgoing crowd as he found his way to his locker. Opening the locker, which was filled with pictures of animals and places like the Eiffel tower and the white house, Peter picked a particular picture as he paused to stare at it.
While he was staring at the picture;
"Hey loser!" A voice called out.
Peter's attention was drawn by the voice as he turned to stare, only to have the door of his locker smashed to his face.
~Pang~
The hit was so unexpected that it made Peter stumble backwards and fall on his buttocks while holding his face in his hands.
As he tried to recover from the pain of the assault, he felt a pair of hands grab him by the collar and pull him up forcefully.
~Slam~
As he was pulled up, he also suffered yet another assault as he was pushed forcefully by the same pair of hands against the locker, which sent quite a level of pain to his back.
Peter raised up his head as he stared at the vengeful face of his assailant.
"So you think it's funny eh?!" His assailant roared at his face.
Peter was not too surprised as to why he was being attacked by this particular student, because this was none other than the arrogant boyfriend of the cheerleader Mary, whom he puked on!
Tristan was a member of the football team, with an above average build and well known for his aggressive football playing style, which made him a hot topic in the school and popular among the girls.
~Bam!~
Peter received a sucker punch to his lower abdomen as he grunted and coughed in pain.
"You like puking on girls don't ya?" Tristan asked with a wicked grin.
"Well when am through with you, everyone who looks at you is gonna puke!"
Peter knew that there was nothing he could say that will change his current predicament. That's the problem with bullies, when they find an opportunity to bully you, the more you try to resist or protest, the more motivated they become.
As he tensed up in preparation for the next round of hurt, a deep voice called out;
"Tristan that's enough!"
Tristan sharply turned his head sideways as he temporarily froze when he saw whom the voice belonged to.
"Do you know what he did?!" Tristan asked the owner of the voice after regaining his composure.
"I don't care what he did" the owner of the voice said coldly; "But I care about what you're doing right now"
"B--But....." Tristan tried to protest.
"But nothing. He has already suffered enough for his mistakes, you don't have to stoop to his level to prove a point. And besides...."
The owner of the voice paused in order to stress out his next words;
"We have a training session with the coach right now and you know how much he frowns at lateness"
As if that was all it took, Tristan's previous arrogance vanished as he heard those last words.
"Don't let me set my eyes on you again kid" Tristan said as he flashed Peter a hateful glare.
Turning around instantly, he walked away past the other student whom intervened earlier, followed by his group of 'yes' men.
Peter heaved a heavy sigh of relief as he stared at the receding back of Tristan and his group. After sometime, he eyes fell on the student whom intervened earlier.
Michael was a senior whom could be described as the perfect guy and student. He was the top of his class and a capable captain of the football team.
Though with all his talents and brilliance, he was not known to bully any student, he mostly kept to himself, but was quite generous in making friends.
Peter stared at him and was quite grateful that he had come to his aid as he nervously stammered out a thank you.
"Tha--thanks...."
"Save it kid" Michael sharply interrupted with a raised hand;
"If you want to go through high school in one piece, then I would suggest that you leave your stupidity at home before you come to school"
With those words, he left Peter standing there and staring stupidly.
_"I guess he's right"_ Peter thought with a wry smile.
_"I need to stop this clumsiness of mine before I end up in real trouble"_
Peter picked up his things as he closed his locker and walked out the school door. Taking the bus, he sat down in a secluded corner as he watched the passing figures through the bus window.
His mind went back to the permit card that was given to them by their class teacher as he took it out and studied it again. He was contemplating whether to actually give it to his mother to sign or throw it away and lie that the school was on a one day holiday.
He was just looking for a way to make the students forget his 'puking' incident. And the school trip tomorrow would be a factor that would make his act of clumsiness 'old news'.
He was not planning to go for the school trip as he was hoping that with his absence and the excitement of the trip, the students would have something new to talk about.
As his mind shuffled through various thoughts, a queer phenomenon caught his eyes as he gazed at a flash of yellow light that was emanating from a part of the sky.
While he was becoming confused as to what would cause such strange occurrence, he saw the yellow light falling from the sky straight towards their bus.
Peter widened his eyes as his instincts screamed 'danger'.
~Bam!!~
~Crash!!~
A great explosion tore through their bus as many of it's passengers were blown to pieces with flesh and gore splattering all over the bus.
As if that was not enough, Peter and other passengers who had survived the explosion, found themselves being subjected to the centrifugal force of motion as the bus began to rotate with great force, picking up speed as time went on.
Peter, whom was pressed to the wall of the bus due to the spinning force, lifted up his eyes in difficulty and saw a most unbelievable sight.
A golden glowing staff or rod was seen floating vertically at the spinning center of the bus!
This staff was quite long in length and golden in colour.
Peter stared at this golden staff for a long time as he felt a great level of mystery and aura surrounding this staff. While he kept staring at the staff;
~Crack~
He felt and heard as if where he was currently pressed against was about to break apart. And if that happens, he would be forcefully thrown off the bus!
He had to think of a way to prevent that!
As if being struck with an idea, he gazed at the glowing staff as his eyes flashed with grim determination.
Slowly and with great difficulty, he began inching his way to the golden staff. At intervals into his arduous attempt, he would close his eyes and steady his focus, in order to keep himself from throwing up, due to the fast spinning motion of the bus.
At this point, the bus was already showing signs of breaking apart as cracks began to form all around it's metal structure!
Peter forced himself not to give up halfway into his difficult mission. He felt that the glowing staff, though spooky and strange, was the one sure way to survive this, looking at the fact that the bus was about to break into God-knows how many pieces.
Finally getting quite close to the golden staff, Peter stretched out his hand in order to grab it. But this act proved to be far more difficult than him pushing his way to this point altogether!
Slowly, he was beginning to succumb to dizziness as he couldn't bear the spinning motion of the bus anymore.
He felt himself slipping away from before the staff, but he knew that this was his final moment as he forcefully propelled himself at the last minute and grabbed the staff with both hands!
At the moment of his physical contact with the staff, he heard a voice, quite deep and ethereal, but also explicit;
_{Congratulations Denizen of the otherworld!}_