I stared at the gray drywalls of the old classroom, adorned with posters and the occasional streaks of graffiti. The teacher was rambling about something boring that I couldn’t, for the life of me, take interest in. I idly fiddled with my fingers on the desk for lack of other things to do.
For I was what most people called “a boy with wasted potential.”
As a kid, I was considered gifted. Top of the class in every single subject, even though I never touched a single book. Over time, I grew “too confident” in my abilities. I never paid attention in class, never even thought of touching my homework. As time passed and the lessons grew harder, I struggled to keep up. I was seen as lazy and passive—never actually trying despite my talent. People always say I “would have been such a smart person” if I had put in the effort.
Have you ever been put in a position so high and mighty that you believe you are the only man in the world, only for it to be taken from you in the blink of an eye? Not that I expect you to understand. These problems infested from this curse are only reserved for special people such as I—
“Cassian, are you paying attention?!”
A voice barked sharply from the front of the class, rudely intruding on my thoughts. It was Ms. Emerald, my loud and annoying physics teacher.
“Umm… Yes, miss. I was,” I muttered sheepishly.
“What was I talking about just now, then?”
“Erm… You were describing the usage of formalic wave functions in cases such as physics and visualisation of dimensional research??”
A disappointed expression flashed across Ms. Emerald’s face before returning to the same stern expression she wore every time I saw her. Sometimes I wonder if she had originally applied to be a maximum-security prison guard.
“Sit down and stay after class. I will have a talk with you after class.”
Good thing I was splitting my attention. Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you I could do that—it came as one of the perks of being gifted.
I slumped lazily back onto my chair, not a hint of worry streaking across my face. This happened often—like around 8 or 9 times a week—so it wasn’t worth my energy to stress about it. As I’ve said before, life is hard. So, to cope… I’ve made it into a video game! Get used to seeing game messages and interfaces from now on.
After school ended, I quickly packed my bags and rushed out of the class. Luckily, Ms. Emerald had forgotten about the “talk” she said she was going to have with me, and somehow managed to walk out of the classroom even faster than I did while muttering something along the lines of, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
As I walked down the school’s old, cracked stairs, I noticed a crowd of students gathering in a circle, chanting and recording videos with their phones. Naturally, this instantly piqued my interest. I hurriedly shoved my way to the middle to get a clearer view.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Inside was a big, burly kid—around grade 11. From first glance, he looked like a classic high-school bully—the type that goes around stealing everyone’s money purely for fun. He was holding onto the neck of another kid—a short, skinny one, with thick-rimmed glasses (which were now dented and cracked from the bully’s previous attacks) and metal braces, some of which littered the ground, escaping his mouth along with a bunch of teeth and blood.
Overall, it looked like a stereotypical picking-on of a nerdy student who was idiotic enough to approach the classic bully. This happened all the time, actually, so I didn’t know what all the commotion was about.
That was, until the nerdy-looking kid did something completely unexpected.
He reached out his scrawny, bony arm and punched the bully in the face.
Of course, it seemed to do no damage to him, but the bully was still shocked by the sudden audacity of his prey. His face flushed—not with pain, but with anger—and angrily wrung the small boy’s neck once more, squeezing it like he was juicing a lemon. And, similar to a lemon, juice squirted out of his mouth. Thick, red juice that oozed across his face and dripped to his shoulders like a long, gory snake.
The bully relaxed his grip, and the body of the victim collapsed to his knees, falling flat on his face with a blank expression and his mouth open wide, streaks of blood still streaming across his face.
Oof. This was a bit of a bad case.
Oh well, serves him right for standing up for himself. It was his fault, after all. Why didn’t he avoid the bully entirely, and why did he attack back? Maybe he was suicidal already. I shook my head in disappointment. I can never understand these kinds of people.
After the commotion cleared, I continued walking towards the bike rack and unlocked my bike. It wasn’t a very good one—it wore dull black paint all over and was only equipped with the barest necessities for it to be called a bike. I wanted a better one, but I guess this one did its job just fine.
And it seemed like my bike lock was having some difficulty being functional as well.
I fiddled with it for a while, but it refused to unlock.
Whyyyy did the gods choose to do this to meee.
I gave out a sigh of helplessness and threw my key onto the ground in a fit of rage.
Wait.
The key…
It wasn’t even mine.
This one was brown, made of what looked like copper, and its ridges were extremely complex. Its twists had turns of their own, and it branched into hundreds of small ridges, some of which even had more ridges sticking out. Its lock must have had like a thousand pins.
Nevertheless, I didn’t remember picking up a key like this…
Suddenly, someone behind me tapped on my shoulder, interrupting my thoughts.
“Uhm… excuse me… but I think you have my key. Can you give it back to me, please?”
“Uh… sure. Here ya go. By the way, why the hell is your key so complex?”
“I don’t think you need to know… yet.”
I sighed and turned around to ask him if he could stop speaking like a stupid oracle when my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.
I’ll give you some time to guess who the sphinx-that-only-spoke-in-riddles was.
Ready?
It was none other than the freaking idiot who got his neck wrung harder than the school bell.
As if by some type of miracle, he looked as if he had just gotten an 8-hour sleep, not like being beaten to death by a deranged King Kong at all. There was no sign of blood anywhere on his body, and his glasses and braces were all perfectly fixed.
Wait…
I know what this was…
“Are you… a ghost or something? I know I disrespected you but… can’t you haunt the other guy instead?”
“I’m not a ghost. I can’t explain it to you. Well, I could, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“You? Kill me?”
I silently laughed at such a suggestion. I wasn’t necessarily tough or burly, but my physique was above average, at least. Imagining myself being killed by such a scrawny excuse for a ghost—or zombie, whatever the case—was slightly comedic within itself.
Strangely, his expression remained calm, collected, and… was he looking down on me?
I was slightly annoyed, but decided to shrug it off. I waved at him dismissively and rummaged for my actual key. I eventually found it, and by the time I did, he was already gone.
Good riddance.
I quickly biked home after that, thinking about the strange events that had happened that day.