As I stirred awake, grasping my side while I got up, I looked at the moonlight pouring in through my window. 'Why are you awake?' The lighter voice asked, and a feeling of someone tugging on my sleeve quickly came with it.
"I-I don't know. I just remember seeing Sasha and then, poof. I woke up," I answered, shaking my head while staring at the falling snow.
The clock on my dashboard lit up, signaling it was now six in the afternoon, around twenty minutes after it had turned night.
'Do you know where?' She asked back, but I could only blink in response. The only objects I saw in the dream were a few chairs stacked in the corner of a room. I knew I recognized them, but not where from.
"I don't, just some chairs. That's all I can- No, there was something," I paused, correcting myself as I remembered the figure that crossed my vision and nodded toward me while I stared between Sasha and the chairs.
A man dressed in a black suit and tight velvet red undershirt. His muscles stretched the sleeves, while his jawline was sharper than most. His bright orange eyes were alive like lava, and his glistening black hair flowed smoothly to the side.
'Chairs? Like the ones in Mr. Iones's classroom?' She questioned, causing me to bolt upright. The figure I could ignore, likely just another person I passed in the street one day. But she was right, his classroom had chairs that were always stacked in the corner, and me and Sasha shared that class.
There was a feeling, a harsh, miserable feeling. I could feel the same pit building itself, threatening to swallow my heart as it wrapped its invisible tendrils around it, ever since I had visited Gispellen the feeling kept hitting me at random.
'Liam, call it a hunch. But get to the school now. I have a feeling whatever you saw in that dream means something,' She said again, her voice slightly darker than before, adding an edge that made me shudder. As if just like before, she knew something I didn't.
'You owe me an explanation for this, and the last time,' I muttered, pulling out of the gas station parking lot right as the clock struck six-fifteen in the afternoon.
***
I pulled my truck into another parking lot not too far from the school and began my trek toward it.
As I arrived, I quickly climbed the fence and threw myself over, landing harshly on the pits of my feet. 'Ow, shit,' I thought, grinding my teeth as I continued onward.
I walked around the side of the building. Just in a random direction, but I could feel something pulling me in, that miserable feeling was getting worse, and was slowly being consumed by the stench of rotten eggs.
After twenty minutes of walking around, not able to find anything, I was starting to turn around when I saw a person inside, hiding under a desk. 'Let me take it from here, Liam. I have a score to settle with these fuckers.'
*One year ago, when I was the dominant person...*
"Hah! Keep trying assbag!" I taunted, dodging a punch from a boy dressed in the school uniform. His fist went past me, smashing into the metal pillar behind me.
With a wide smile, I charged, dodging a kick to my side as he nursed his hand. I kicked high, aiming for his ribcage, but he narrowly avoided it, rolling his body to the side. "Oho! So you have experience!"
He threw another punch, tears in his eyes as his hand throbbed purple by his side. It was broken. I always had a knack for fighting, specifically taunting my opponents and leaving them broken, a shell incapable of fighting ever again, and it was something my sister despised.
The smell of blood caught my attention, making me sniff as I threw my body back, dodging a kick to my side. 'Hm, who's bleeding?' I thought, dodging his punch and ignoring his shouts as I rushed forward, my hands in my pockets.
With a solid kick to his skull, his body crumpled to the floor, a loud crunch following soon after. He wasn't dead, just badly bruised, yet that delicious smell remained. 'Ah, the lovely smell of blood. But why can't I see any?'
With that final question, I looked down and saw my stomach bleeding, the little shit had grabbed a shard of glass and cut me with it. "How am I going to explain this to Liam?" I asked aloud, smiling wildly as people gathered around, all chatting on their phones and looking at us with the glowing cameras.
"If you don't drop those, I'm smashing them next," I barked out, clutching my bleeding stomach. The people backed away, the lights of the cameras disappeared, and I was left there standing over the boy's body as the sky faded to a light shade of pink.
Through the narrow opening in the fence, I could see the fiery ball above us set, casting a shadow over the rest of the alley. 'Ha- Another victory. Serves him right for peeking under that girl's skirt.' I thought, wiping my hair to the side as I gazed into the distance, my lips pressed tightly together.
Sure, I had won a fight, but I still wasn't happy. For every one of those pieces of shit I took down, two more always popped up. "Whatever, I just need to forget it. One is better than none, besides, not much I can do with the body of a seventeen-year-old."
With that happier thought, I threw my black coat over my shoulder and walked through the thick coat of white on the ground.
My shoes cut through, sifting the snow to the side as I broke into a sprint, my favorite part. I wasn't a good guy by any means, but I always felt a vague sense of justice after wiping scum off the Earth.
The snow parted, and months later, I ran up to one of the people in the school we trusted the most, the guidance counselor. "Hey, Ms. C!" I called, stopping just before the snow splashed onto her brown jacket.
"Liam, why are you out here? School ended twenty minutes ago," She questioned, but I waved it aside, she knew I was in a club.
"Eh, art club, you know? I heard one of the teachers was still around after I reported him for flirting with the female students, do you happen to know why?" I asked, and immediately, I felt a sudden change in the atmosphere. Like I had asked the principal for the answers to a test.
Her face had turned dark, as if someone had thrown a blanket in front of the sun and hung it in front of her. Her once glossy eyes immediately turned a chilly shade of brown, as if I had just asked something forbidden, and the smell shifted from roses to a horrid rotten stench.
'What the fuck?' I asked internally, drawing the attention of Les as she got closer to the seat and set Liam's inanimate body next to us. The only way to ensure he would remember events as if he were there was to leave the body of his next to the chair.
'What's going on? She looked pissed,' Les commented, setting her hand on my shoulder as sweat dripped down her chin and landed on my head.
"Now Liam, what do you mean? The teacher didn't do anything I don't remember you ever submitting an incident report," She said, her lips pushed tightly together with her jaw tensed, she was hiding something and Les was right, she looked pissed.
But more than anything else, she was lying. I remembered clearly sitting down with her, filling out the report, and then talking about how school was going. So how did she not know about it?
"That can't be true, I submitted it to the Dean herself, remember? You were in the room?" I pushed, waving my hand in front of me as I explained. The saliva in my mouth suddenly ran out, turning dry. I had feelings like this sometimes, where even my unbreakable confidence would be shaken, especially if Liam was near the chair as he was now.
"Sorry Liam, I don't remember. Maybe it was in your head?" She suggested, her jaw turning tenser as she muttered every word individually, her teeth grinding against each other so loud I could hear it. The rotten stench got stronger as she drew closer, and a forced smile spread on her lips.
'VOLGAR!' Les shouted, drawing my attention enough to move back. Her hand narrowly missed my shoulder, swinging lifelessly away from where I was once standing and practically retreating to her side.
"Why are you backing away?" She asked, her voice monotone as she walked closer. I could sense it, the taste, the smell, I was in danger.
"You know what, maybe I did forget," I said, forcing a smile as I backed away further, breaking into a sprint as I got to the entrance to the school. What I felt, what all three of us felt, was the unmistakable change from calm to anger.
'I didn't think you'd back away,' Les commented, but I ignored her as I started the truck and drove off. Something was wrong with the way she reacted, and for once, I didn't know why. But it was enough to make me nervous.
'Forget it for now, let's just leave it here. But make sure you remember this, I have a feeling it won't end this easily. Something is seriously wrong with this school.'
*Back to the present...*
My shirt came flying off, wrapping itself around my fist as I plunged it through the window, shattering it in one blow. I lifted myself, using the shirt to keep me from cutting my hands open as I climbed in.