*** 2 months later ***
It was a cold Saturday evening in November and Chase had still not done anything to protect himself. Rather, he had let those problems continue whilst reassuring his aunt that he was doing something about it. He let himself get the daily physical and verbal harassment of his school, the usual bullying routine ranging from kids to grandparents and receiving daily curses from his mother and elder sister. As much as it pained him, he couldn't do anything about and he did not want his aunt to get involved in this as he feared something quite inexplicable.
It was 6:23pm and Chase was already at home doing one of his homeworks given to him by I.T teacher, Mr Mkpoin. In fact, he was about to get unfairly put in detention a couple of hours ago but the bell saved him. Now here he was trying to solve problems that were ahead of his grade causing him to nearly abandon it but decided against it.
"Kids!", May shouted from downstairs, "Dinner's ready!". When May said kids, it was meant for Lily and Lazuli and sure enough, there was no plate for Chase at the dinner table. He silently sighed and headed for the kitchen to fetch himself a plate under the watchful eyes of his mother which sent chills down his spine. Hurrying up, he took a bunch of utensils and positioned himself at one end of the table and contemplated the food in front of him: May had cooked tomahawk steak and fries for dinner which was one of Chase's favourites.
Like the rest of the family, he ate in silence and with elegance finished by wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. Chase excused himself after finishing but no one seemed to care except for Lily who was looking at him with puppy eyes, silently begging him to stay. Chase grinned and put his plate in the sink so that he could wash it and the rest of the stuff was waiting to be washed. twenty minutes later, the ladies had settled down in the living room to watch some romance series whilst Chase was finishing up with the dishes.
"Chase!" Lily shouted whilst running towards her brother holding a credit card in her hand alongside a white note. "Mother wants you to buy some things."
Chase took the card from his sister, stuffed it inside his pockets and studied the note that he had been handed. The list was just filled with groceries such as milk, cheese, bread... but the problem was that it was already dark and Chase did not want to go out in the cold, fearing that people would recognise him on the road.
He decided to bare with it knowing what his mother would do to him if he didn't go. He headed to his room and changed himself: He wore a grey jacket which Maria had given and some sweatpants to keep him warmer.
He had decided to leave his phone home as they wouldn't be going far, so after putting on the jacket and making sure that he had his hood on, he headed downstairs, put on his shoes and unlocked the front door before a voice called out to him from behind.
"I'm coming with you." Lazuli said as she took her dark blue coat off from a nearby cupboard and put on her trainers. Chase remained silent and waited for his sister to finish putting her shoes on before locking the door behind them and advancing towards the main gate.
The journey to the supermarket was ten minutes if you took the bus but Lazuli did not fancy it so they took half an hour walking there in the freezing cold, not saying anything to each other. Finally arriving, Chase's hands were as cold as ice and could have easily snapped off and since he had forgotten his gloves, it was even worse.
"Can we hurry up?" Lazuli said as she sped-walked into the supermarket, picking up a basket along the way and urging her brother forward. "It's freezing out here."
Chase was in disbelief considering that she didn't want to take the cozy, warm bus and decided to walk instead. He wanted to say something but remembered his place and where he was, lowering his head down to not bring attention to himself.
They were in and out of there in 15 minutes and Lazuli had somewhat decided to walk again causing Chase to voice his anger followed by a vicious reply by his sister. As angry as he was, there was nothing he could do about it since in this world, the one with the most power has more authority. But the thing was, they were both carrying two carrier bags which gave them no opportunity to fight, walking for about ten minutes left their hands completely frosted.
They heard a group of men coming their way but paid no attention until those voices started sounding increasingly familiar. How many people were there? Five? Six? Surely no more than five were there but their presence was enough to make Chase look for a different way to get home. Lazuli seemed calm and confident but she looked concerned about something, Chase didn't know nor did he care. The voices got louder and they could make out the figures of five teenagers wearing full winter get ups and disturbing the whole neighbourhood with their noises.
"Well if it ain't pretty Lazuli!" One of them exclaimed as they were finally visible. "Where are you going this late at night?"
"Don't worry about it Lucas." She annoyingly said as she brushed past him. "Hurry up Chase!"
"Attitude!" Lucas shockingly said as he watched the siblings go on their way but, Lucas wasn't done yet and he firmly grabbed Chase's arm. "So we don't greet friends anymore huh?"
"Good evening Lucas." Chase muttered as Lucas took the two supermarket bags Chase was carrying and handed it over to Lazuli.
"We'll be borrowing your brother for a bit." Lucas said as he turned his back towards her, dragging Chase along with him. Lazuli shrugged and continued on her way thinking about a good reason to tell their mother about why her favourite person wasn't with her.
"Now then cheesy, " Lucas started as he gut punched Chase before grabbing him by the collar and smirking at him, "Let's go."
Upon saying that, Lucas and his 3 friends lifted themselves off the ground and started flying. With every second passing they were getting higher and higher and the higher they got, the colder it was. No wonder Lazuli preferred to walk instead of flying because she could have but not taking the warm bus was quite thoughtless.
All around the planet there were different kinds of people using flight techniques: Some could fly without wings whereas others would fly with genetically inherited wings. Some used gadgets or levitated but with flight you had no limits whilst levitating was for a set period of time before you would need to wait before reusing it. And some, could simply not fly just like Chase as they have no capabilities for it, they have never learnt it or they were just not interested in using gadgets. If Chase had the capabilities, he would learn to fly without second thoughts but he didn't and no one wanted to spend money on gadgets for him so they would rather have him walk and all this resulted in him being carried around like some useless luggage.
Where were they going? How high up were they? He didn't know but the freezing air had made him unable to question the necessary stuff. He looked up at Lucas and saw that he was doing just fine and noticed the others doing fine as well but he didn't know why and feared that questioning them would lead him to more than a hundred metre drop considering how high they were. They accelerated their flight speed, making them reach their destination in about five minutes. By the time they descended, Chase felt like he was freezing to death but forgot about it for a moment to take in his surroundings.
They were... In the middle of nowhere. Literally nowhere. Chase did not know how many twists and turns they had made or even if the city was nearby, being just surrounded by boulders of rocks and a slightly orange view.
"S-sa-say!" Chase clattered. " whe-where are we? " He stood up and studied the three other people aside from Lucas in front of him: One of them had neatly combed Brown hair, big Brown eyes and a mole on his left cheek. His name was Dalic Chros. The two others both had purple hair and Brown eyes but one of them was a muscle free teenager whilst the other was slightly overweight. They were both cousins and their names were Eruldo and Keiaa Aldem.
"Ca-can I g-go home n-no-now?" Chase said, still feeling the cold and thinking that he might catch pneumonia soon. But the boys found this quite funny and just for a laugh they made him beg them to let him go.
"Please...." He pleaded. " Let me go"
Keiaa gave Chase a hefty kick to the face causing the boy to topple over and lay on the ground clutching his face. "No!" He said mockingly as he spat on his face. Trying to sit up, Chase had somehow dodged the ball of spit causing Keiaa to turn red in frustration and nearly trampling Chase over before Lucas stepped in.
"Don't do that." Lucas said as he smiled at his friends. "Use this instead", Lucas had reached into the bag that one of his friends were carrying and pulled out a long metal bat and handed it to Keiaa. "Redeem yourself for that poor performance you showed us a couple of hours ago in front of those girls."
Keiaa nodded and hastily swung the bat at Chase's ribs, making everyone hear the a cracking sound. The boys all had that expression of disgust on their faces and looked like they couldn't hold it in anymore. Chase forgot what had happened for the next three minutes but had just felt different kinds of pains in different parts of his body and the occasional blood tasting in his mouth. Blood was everywhere and some of it had splashed into one of the assailants shoes causing him to wipe his boot against Chase's clothes before putting it in his mouth to do a wet cleaning.
After the boys had finished battering him, they placed him in front of a boulder of rock and spoke amongst themselves about what they were going to do next. Chase was feeling pain in his ribs, knees, arm and legs and was quite sure that one of them was broken. He had a big bruise on one of his eyes and blood trickled from his mouth.
"That was fun!" Dalic happily exclaimed as he rubbed his hands together. "I have so much more to do to him, you have no idea!"
"No." Lucas said as he looked at the boy on the floor and shifted his look towards the sky. "Let's go."
"Oh come on!" Eruldo said as he punched Chase. "we aren't in a hurry."
"Yeah but the weather says otherwise." They all looked up and saw a flash of lightning.
"Yikes!" Dalic said as he admired it. "A storm's coming!"
"But didn't the weather reporter say that it was going to be clear skies? " Keiaa asked as he placed the bat back into the bag.
"Who watches that anyways?" Lucas said. They all shook their heads in disbelief and Keiaa felt a bit embarrassed. The storm was getting louder and dangerous by the minute making all the boys think about quickly returning home to safety.
"What do we do with him?" Dalic disappointingly asked as he pointed towards the semi conscious boy.
"Not our problem!" The rest of the boys said as they felt the first drops of rain on their faces.
"Alright guys let's- " Before Lucas could finish his sentence, a thunder rumbled loudly and a slight hole in the sky opened. Something was coming out of it at an amazing speed and before the boys could figure out what it was, it had already landed.
An ice spear of about 5 metres had just whizzed past them and pierced through Chase's chest causing him to splutter out more blood than any of the assailants had ever seen in their lives. Looking at the scene before them, the boys were shook and petrified knowing that they had witnessed the murder of a person and that the spear could have easily hit any one of them, leaving them for dead.
The storm had gotten wilder and the boys, as if on queue, left the scenes at the same time and never looked back until they were sure that they were far away from there.
"Who was that guy anyways?" One of them asked.
"Who? "
"Did we know him?"
"I don't know."
They had forgotten about Chase completely. Not because they actually never knew him but because he was a tool for them to release their whole anger onto. And with that, the boys all knew that it was the spear was targeting someone but didn't quite know who it was as it would make no sense for it to be directed towards Chase as he was not worth it. With this event, they promised to never speak about the murdered boy again and completely put him out of their minds, not like he mattered.
*****
Somewhere, a figure sat upon an elevated throne and smiled.