As time passed, the longer I held on, the more pain I felt.
Until I screamed in agony from the intense pain.
One minute...
Two minutes...
Four minutes...
The pain I was feeling gradually disappeared, as if my hand was being burned. Not literally burned, but when the pain vanished, a strange ornament immediately adhered to my hand. When I looked at my palm where it hurt, I saw no burn or wound.
Even though I was sweating profusely and my mind was in chaos, the mess I made in the basement suddenly crossed my mind.
So, I quickly placed the strange items back where they were before.
And as I was about to wipe the blood dripping from my wound, I was surprised to find that it was no longer there. No, it didn't disappear; upon closer inspection, it had dried up. I didn't know why it had dried up, but because the floor was somewhat dark, I just let it be and didn't bother to clean the evidence that I had been there.
So when I returned the items to their original places, I felt a bit relieved. But my relief was short-lived as I couldn't remember where I will placed this ornament because i dont remember where it come from as if this item just appear out of nowhere. I hesitated whether to take it out of the basement and bring it to my room or just leave it wherever.
But when I looked at the object with the bird-like eyes, it seemed to have a sparkle that wasn't there before.
But I just shrugged it off. And I decided to take it out of the basement and bring it to my room to study what kind of item it was.
As I was leaving the basement, I made sure that nothing had changed in the positions before I finally left.
The first thing I did when I left the basement was to call and order food as I was very hungry. I rushed the rider, promising him an additional tip if he arrived at the house within 10 minutes. But it had only been 8 minutes when the rider arrived carrying the food I had ordered, so I added to his tip.
After finishing my meal at 8:45, I took another shower because I was sweating a lot due to the accident in the basement. By 8:50, after finishing my shower, I planned to check the ornament I had taken from the basement to study it, but then I remembered that I still had an assignment to do, so I decided to do it the next day.
After completing three subjects of my assignment, it was already 9:20, so I decided to go to sleep.
At 2:50 AM, Asher started moving around in his sleep as if he was having a nightmare or was just uncomfortable in his position. The ornament he brought, the bird with the intense eye sparkle, suddenly closed its eyes and flew above Asher. The small bird gradually grew larger until its wingspan reached 2 meters and its body grew by 1 meter. As it flew above, the bird quickly flew towards Asher.
But when its beak touched him, it just pierced through his body until it disappeared. But once the bird disappeared, Asher stopped moving in his sleep as if he had become comfortable in his position.
Asher woke up at 6:30 AM feeling great. So he decided to stretch and do some light exercises like push-ups and pull-ups.
After his brief activity, he went out of his room to prepare his breakfast. Since his path led through the living room before the kitchen, he saw a woman in her 30s sleeping peacefully without a blanket, so he went back to his room to get one for her.
This woman had fair skin and slightly curly hair.
After covering her with the blanket, he gently kissed her on the forehead and whispered, "I love you too, Mom."
After kissing his mom on the forehead, he went straight to the kitchen to prepare his breakfast.
His breakfast wasn't elaborate, just four slices of bread with ham and lettuce between each slice. Of course, Asher added mayonnaise and tomato sauce with cheese.
After finishing his breakfast, he immediately took a shower to get ready for school. But this time, he didn't forget to grab a towel from his closet.
After his shower and on his way back to his room, he saw his eyes and remembered that he hadn't put on his contact lenses yet, so he went back to the kitchen to get them, but he decided to use them in his room.
After getting the contact lenses, he went to his room but felt something new on his body. He didn't know what it was, so he didn't dwell on it.
He quickly put on his underwear, boxers, pants, and school uniform.
By 7:20, after he finished fixing his hair and letting it dry, Asher opened the contact lens container to put them on.
He quickly put them on as he did it every day, so he was used to it.
After putting on the contact lenses, he immediately put on glasses with no grade but with one function - anti- UV LIGHT.
when hes done wearing it he immidietly wear his white helmet and headed to school
_______________________________________
When Asher reached the school gate, he whispered to himself, "Here I am again in a fucking hell." Yes, for me, the school is like hell. Perhaps for others, the school is also hell because they don't want to listen to the teachers. For me, the reason this school feels like hell is that it seems like the rules can be bought here.
Many teachers and students witnessed how my classmate mistreated me. Aside from physical abuse, there was also mental abuse. I developed trauma because of them. It's the kind of trauma that if your talking to me my body automatically flinch even if you're going to scratch your itch.
So sometimes, when I can't bear it anymore, I think about bringing a gun and shooting those who bully me. After that, I would shoot myself. But every time I'm about to give up, I remember my mother's face. She never gives up, even when she's struggling. She keeps going even when she's tired. She didn't give up just because my father was gone. She didn't give up for me. That's why, if ever I go through with my plan, she might follow me soon.
That's why I didn't do it, even though the thought of shooting them and committing suicide has crossed my mind several times because there's someone who never gave up on me.
Sigh. I just let out a sigh.
I was about to enter the gate when I suddenly felt someone about to hit me. So before his hand could touch my neck, I managed to dodge it at the right time. "Oh? So you got a six sense now, huh? Is that what happens when you're always getting beaten up? HAHAHA," this guy laughed.
'But who gave you the right to dodge my strike?' he added. His tone cooled down a bit when he asked. I was a bit nervous because I didn't know how I managed to dodge that strike. But before that guy could strike me again, we were shouted at by the guard who was watching over the gate. Many people had seen what this guy did, and I could see the amazement in their eyes as I dodged his strike, as if I had a spider sense.
"Hey! What are you all doing there, gathering? Get inside the school or I'll take your IDs and report you," the guard said to us.
'Tssk! You're lucky today, boy. You'll pay for this later after school," he threatened me before finally entering the school gate. I felt a bit relieved. I looked around and saw the onlookers dispersing because they wouldn't see any more drama. 'I hate this school.'
I didn't know how big our school was, just that it was vast. That's why I used my bike when going to different subjects in the school because each subject had its own building. In each building, the first three floors were classrooms, while the fourth floor was the entire faculty of the subject.
Our room for all my subjects, except P.E., was on the second floor. It wasn't far from the ground, but it was far from the teachers hanging out in the faculty. On the third floor, there were sudden appearances of teachers coming from the fourth floor, while on the first floor, there were guards inspecting the floors. But they paid more attention to the first floor because they were lazy to go up, especially since they knew that there were teachers from the fourth floor coming down to the third floor to observe.
That's why the second floor was the most chaotic in the whole building. And why hadn't anyone been caught on the second floor yet? Because in each room, there was a chair near the door, so with just a few steps, you could see the hallway, so theres a lookout to warn the section.
Now that I was on the second floor for my social studies class, one of the assignments I did was about tax. So when I saw that we were going to do math in this subject, my head suddenly hurt. Not just me, almost all of my classmates. But of course, there was an exception, our class president, 'Vanilla A. Santos.'
Yeah, we are Asian, but as a Filipino, sometimes our last names are kind of unique. There are Asian, Spanish, Mexican, etc. We don't seem to have our own surname that came from us. So back to the topic, Vanilla was the most hardworking in our whole class. She was top 1 in all subjects except for P.E. Vanilla was clumsy when it came to physical activities, but she was okay in dancing and other activities.
It was already the third grading period, and the periodical exam for the third grading period was coming up in two weeks. I wasn't worried about my exam scores, as long as I wasn't last. As long as I didn't fall out of the top 10.
As soon as I sat down, someone followed me, and I felt a touch on my shoulder. But before that touch could land, I managed to dodge it at the right time.
But when i saw it was a woman i slowly lowered my guard.
'I am thinking too much?' I asked myself while lowering my defense.
"Wow, Asher, good reflection!" he said, hitting my arm. This time, I didn't dodge, and it landed on my arm. But before it landed on my arm, I felt like his movements were slow, as if his hit was in slow motion.
'What the hell is this? Why is he moving slowly? No, he's not slow. My eyes and mind are just faster. What is this? Spider sense?'
Pak! It didn't hurt, but it made a loud noise.
"Why did you hit me, Julie?" I asked her. She was one of the officers in our classroom, our 'treasurer.' She was in charge of our classroom's wealth, collecting money from us whenever the classroom needed it, and that was what we used to pay for things. Her last money collection was during teacher days, just so they could give gifts or flowers to our teacher and adviser.
But this Julie, instead of answering my question, she just held out her hand as if asking for something from me.
"Are you collecting money again? Sir Jonathan didn't say we needed to collect money in the group chat," I asked her.
"Are you crazy? Have you forgotten? Last month, you aksed if i know someone who canmake a costume for your cosplay so i recommend my mom and you agreef, so I'm charging you now because my mom finished making it."