It was a big fail. How could an 11-year-old child have the skills to do that? It was not so easy to blend in and act differently with every person you met during the day; it was hard, long, and tiring. And it put a heavy, incomprehensibly heavy pressure on you.
Most persons aged 60 years and older, very wise individuals, could barely achieve such a level of capability. What Sho had been striving for was nothing but a naive endeavor, a foolish and disillusioning nightmarish dream.
Not only had he planned on manipulating every dangerous individual he met into thinking he was someone cool, and that had no reason to be bullied, but there was more. He also tried to foresee the future and predict what the other kids would say whenever he believed they would talk to him.
A guy in a blue jumper, dark blue jeans, and brown baskets went to him. He was 3 meters away from Sho; he looked at him.
'Alright, he's coming for me,' Sho thought as he started analyzing the blue-jumper guy's face and behavior. 'Eyes indicating judgment, aggressivity, and curiousness. He wants to try me to see what kind of person I am, but seeing how he seems confident and to judge me, I bet he has an idea of what kind of person I truly am.'
'Then for him, I'll have to be aggressive right from the start, make him laugh with a typical thug type of joke, and make a remark about me being fed up with the class, even though it's not true, and then quietly insult the teacher in front of him, just before yawning.'' That should be enough, he said to himself. That should make him think I am a typical thug teen, just like him.
I will have to cut short the conversation and act indifferent toward him so he understands that I don't plan on becoming friends with him; I'll change my tone to a colder one at the end of our conversation.''
''Alright, here he comes; I'm ready.''
''Hey bro, my name is Eliotte. Wanna grab a bite with me at the cafeteria later? I saw you had a Minecraft T-shirt on, and I am a fan of this game! Hehe, we could talk about it together! ''
'What in the actual fuck', Sho blurted out in his mind. 'How am I supposed to answer to that?? Is it a trap? Does he really like Minecraft, or does he not? Is he planning on making fun of me if I answer I do like the game?
Questions kept arising in Sho's mind, and already he had prepared a hundred different answers to tell the guy in front of him. Each was more polished than the other.
It was his third year in middle school, and he had had his share of bad experiences and semi-bullying, as he called it, bad relationships he was forced to have; hence, he was seen as the mascot of his group because he looked like an outcast, neither a bully nor a complete nerd. Not completely bullied, but never truly at peace.
Sho was now much more mature and experienced. He knew how things worked better, and most importantly, he had been training for 3 years in the harshest environment to master his skills. It had failed almost every time. But you know what also happened every time: him getting better, improving, and learning from his mistakes.
But also him living a hellish life. Every single time he made a mistake, he felt guilty and shameful when either other people laughed at him or when he thought and believed they did. Because yes, Sho also started becoming paranoid. His overthinking almost took a tangible shape; it was like a shadow behind him, a weight reminding him of how inferior he was compared to the near-perfect being he wished to become. Every waking was a constant remembrance of his past, a weaker, failed version of himself. And the next morning, he had to do better, he had to reach a nearer, closer state of perfection of himself and grasp hope as his only resting haven.
Oh yeah, a good rest he needed; he hadn't rested for years.
After all those years, Sho had lost his humanity. He forgot how human emotion worked. After faking, changing, and manipulating everything he did and said, every time, to everyone. Every single day. His thoughts became calculated, and anticipated were his answers; programmed were his life and mind.
A sociopath, a machine-like human Sho had become. And dreadfully tired was this human machine.
If Sho couldn't live as a human, then he'd rather change species. He hated the human race after all.
That moment, he made a mistake AGAIN. He was entangled with a strange fellow, his tactic neither worked nor seemed to be potent on such people. Why? Well, that guy was just out of his boundary.
Sho had still overestimated his capability; there were still many people in this world that he could not handle, but when it came to his ''field of excellence'' he had grown greatly, and in many other aspects and areas too, but he had shrunk in many other ones as a result.
You can't simply live your life that way; it's inhuman, and Sho didn't understand what had been wrong at this time. So he kept marching through hell, even though many were the escape routes at his disposal.
Rather than finding another path after another, Sho found it easier to keep on walking a single one, one that he had promised he'd conquer one day. No matter how arduous and challenging the road was.
Sho knew one thing: this road would be his mold, and he'd be forged, upgraded, and perfected as he went through those trials. And the pain would ease as he got nearer and nearer to the so-called ''perfect state'' of a human being. Ô deeply he believed that.
Truth be told, Sho never had those thoughts in middle school. He had not been ready to face their reality, nor to understand them. He was far too weak and immature. Knowledge, wisdom, experience—he lacked them all. But he had everything else. Love, Hatred, Weakness, Improvement. This is everything else because those things characterize a human being to its purest form.
Sho hadn't completely lost himself; Hope could still be found. Sho's chains were not truly bound to hell.
Dammit all! If he was surrounded by those hellish flames once again, he'd just use them to burn his chain and escape hell !
During Sho's last year in middle school, he was 14. The love of a woman he had trusted had betrayed him. Broken he was. Lost, left in a mist of blood with torn limbs. But bones can be fixed and healed, as long as his spirit doesn't yield.
It had been four years since Sho started his journey to becoming a new man. He had started it by trying to do things that normal human beings were not able to, or just weren't even supposed to do in the first place.
Some of them were just straight-up humanly impossible; others were harsh for even the most prepared and wisest person. But since it was possible, he tried. As for the other...
Sho had been manipulated by the girl he had been in a couple with during his third year, Lilia. It lasted for about 6 months before he stopped their relationship. It had to happen for many reasons. His ''Fake'' group of friends pressured him, always nagging at him, teasing him but more like KILLING HIM FROM THE INSIDE. Let's not forget Sho is ultra-sensitive. The bullying and Lilia's immature and odd behavior, which didn't make sense. She was sometimes running away from Sho when he walked to her, or ignoring him when he sometimes tried to talk with her. And she even faked going out with another man at the start of their relationship. Sho first broke up with him and then faked a relationship with one of ''Sho's friends'' to 'test him'. Test his loyalty, she said. She had no feelings for that man, and it was all fake.
Lilia's friends all explained to Sho what and why it had happened and persuaded him to get back with her. Despite his lack of understanding of the situation, even after all the explanations, he accepted. Then things were back to normal, but Lilia still had many episodes where she did weird things, plus her childish behavior, and Sho also didn't like her friends. There were also many other reasons; some were quoted much before, but for all of them, Sho broke up with her.
Months later, during the second week of Sho's last year in middle school, it was back-to-school time not long ago. Sho saw her again; she was with another man. In normal times, it wouldn't have affected him—not one bit.
But he realized something after seeing her: He still loved her. In reality, he had still been in love with her when he broke up. But circumstances were so that he had no choice but to break up. His mental health was more important than a mere emotion like love. Sho slowly burrowed himself deeper...
But he still loved her, and what a surprise it was when she suddenly came to see him a few days later, to become friends again. Weirdly, she preferred sitting next to him rather than her boyfriend. How Odd!
Needless to say, her odd behavior was merely a foreshadowing, a glimpse into the tempest that had been brewing. She harbored no good intentions. Sho, unfortunately, realized this one year too late.
Ironically, that same year marked the duration of her manipulation and gradual breaking of him, day by day.
It happened during his final year; the tiny specks of hope he had painstakingly gathered and assembled into a fragile relic he believed could sustain him had shattered. The tempest, with its raging winds and piercing blades, reduced his relic to ashes.
And so Sho found himself drowning once more, consumed by the abyss, perhaps awaiting his body to be devoured. He had spent an entire year submerged, yet somehow clung to life. But it was not him getting used to it; it was self-destruction masked as survival, a morbid act of self-torture leading only to further alienation from the enlightenment he sought.
It felt cold down there, in the abyss. The blue hues of the sky were replaced with a dark blue, mysteriously fuzzy color. The depths had eyes, eyes with echoing nightmares of Sho's foolish, neurotic dreams about hell, which kept leading him in circles. This terrifying part of hell kept him awake, yet never alive. He wandered endlessly around the outskirts of happiness, unable to grasp it, only able to watch it from afar.
Whenever he sank into the abyss, that's what greeted him—a spectacle of shame where all lost souls, humans who had lost themselves in life and death, were gathered.
Humans there were merely livestock. Blood-red devilish clowns fed them with sour-tasting spiky soup.
They did this to torment them, to torment us.
To torment me.
----- Sho's inner mind conflicts -----
The cold iron spikes that lined the road they... we marched on were the same as those in my throat. They forced me into doing irrational things to mock my inability to seize the joy right in front of me. Being introverted was my curse; I could never use the right words. He could never use the right words. It was as if icy spikes were lodged in his throat; I was always too nervous to speak normally. Too cautious, robotic.
Communicating with others was always a challenge for Sh...
----- Sho's inner thoughts take over. -----
It's truly frightening when you think of it. I've been surrounded by people all of my life, yet it felt so lonely. Like I was not really interacting with them, not really talking to them. When I did, it felt like nobody ever listened, or maybe I just spoke wrongly. How could anyone be willing to listen to someone who doesn't know how to talk?
When was it my fault, when was it the others? What do I do in either case? How do humans usually interact with others? I forgot. How do I show my emotions? How do I interpret others's emotions?
----- Sho's mind eases -----
Sho forgot, forgot how humans live. So the abyss was here to make sure he would understand his mistakes. It kept putting on rewind his life tremors. It made him suffer, but amidst the suffering, he found possible greatness; he could progress.
A solution to his problems was here somewhere, but he didn't know yet where. In a way, these abyss residents were actually lending him a hand. Despite their incessant mocking, he felt he had not seen them enough, he thought. He had to suffer more, to understand more. Sho went on with his life but paid more attention to his mind. He needed to drink that weird soup again and again, perhaps, till it tasted better.
So those demons forced me to consume their soup whenever I stumbled over my words or stuttered, compounding my failures. The shame, fear, and tears rose, adding more water to the voidless ocean of madness that I was suffocating into. I was a beast, I couldn't talk; beasts can't talk. I was no human. This abyss made me a monster. As a monster, it didn't seem to taste better.
The more I drowned, the more I lost myself. I shed my human skin, revealing the disgusting side of a monster. But I couldn't become a monster, so I became a machine.
The others never accepted me; maybe I never accepted myself. It was a vicious circle. I gave everything. Nothing was ever returned. I didn't need to give much in truth, only what people wanted. But wasn't that my mistake? Had I not been doing that for four years? Didn't it almost kill me? What was the right answer?
Only at 15 years old did Sho understand. 'The abyss made me, so I'll take control over it. I'll rule the sea of madness; I can't let it drive me away. It doesn't matter if it's impossible to swim in this abyss; I'll learn how! I'll get to the bottom of this ocean!'
You made me a machine, but a machine is capable of answering almost any question. Had I stayed a normal human being, it would have been impossible, but for a machine, it's not. I transcended the boundaries; now I'll ascend. It is about time I live and stop surviving. The answers to all of my questions can be found at the bottom of this hell.
But there were a lot of questions that needed answers...
Why am I not happy? How can I become happy? How do I love? How do I express my feelings and my emotions? How do I act like a human? How do I live? How to not be weak? Why do humans harm others? Can I harm others? Is killing bad? Is death bad? Why am I scared to die? Why do I keep overthinking about everything? Why am I obsessed with death? Why do I not know who I am? Who are my friends, who are my enemies? Can I ask for help? How to love?
Am I truly alone? Am I the only one who thinks the way I do? Am I suffering as much as I think I do? Are the other people suffering as well? Is my condition normal? What's this weird feeling that lingers in my stomach whenever I say something? Why does it feel like I'm missing something? Why does it feel like the others do not understand me? Do I have emotions? Do the others see my emotions? Is that why I'm not happy? I want to be happy, but what is happiness?
''I'll become happy; I'll find a way. No matter the cost. It's too late to go back now anyway."