Prologue: Ultimate End

According to Aristotle, to achieve a good life, we must first find happiness. Eudaimonia, which is a Greek word for happiness or welfare, is the end of human action. It means that the purpose of life is to find solace in happiness. The ultimate end.

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Staring blankly at a window, gazing upon the blue yonder of the clear sky, a gloomy person with bags under his eyes sleepily yawns as he raises his arms in the air. Their class lesson was still ongoing with their teacher continuously tackling the subject of human life and the meaning of good when the teacher, who has had enough of his students not paying attention, finally snapped. He had slammed his arm on the desk in front of him, frustrated, but the students could not care less.

"I--I apologize," suddenly realizing his mistake, the teacher slightly cooled his head down. "But class, will you please listen to what I am teaching you?"

"Teacherrrr! It's because your class is so boring! We can't help but doze off!"

Laughter exploded in the classroom, but the teacher saw the sense of seriousness in their eyes. They were laughing, but all of them meant it, except for a single student.

"At least one of you is willing enough to listen, and I'm fine with that."

"Then, will you just please continue with the lesson?"

The teacher sighed. Students these days have no manners nor respect for their elders, he thought.

And so the lesson continued with at least one of them listening to the teacher.

"The key to happiness is balancing the virtue of courage, intellect, and morals. One can't stand alone on their own. Sometimes, we must rely on others in order to achieve greater feats."

***

Class ended, and every student went on their way. Some chose to hang out while others chose to go home early. Those who went home either had something to do or did not have friends to hang out with. And having no friends is either a decision or a circumstance given to us.

Walking along the path, the same as those with friends or classmates to spend their free time with, Wil glanced at their backs as laughter resounded from them. He watched them joke around each other while the ladies would laugh at their jokes. It was something he lacked, companions. Friends he could spend his daily lives with.

"While it is good to have someone you can rely on, sometimes solace can only be found in loneliness."

Wil uttered the words to himself, contradicting what his heart and mind told him. One would tend to oppose what our mind desires in order to feel good about ourselves, not to feel pitiable. Not to feel pathetic.

"Wilfritz," called his adviser. Wil turned to his back and saw his homeroom teacher. "Can you meet me at the teacher's office?"

"What for sir?" His voice was raspy, he asked.

"Well, about your future plans. You still haven't written any on your paper. You know that the school wants to know what you're aiming for."

Will sigh and just follow his teacher to the office.

He was in the last year of his high school life and was approaching adulthood, yet the teen still hadn't figured out what he would like to do for the rest of his life. There were a lot of options given to him but none of them seemed as exciting as risking his life doing dangerous stunts. Yes, Wil has a crazy hobby of putting his life in danger by jumping around buildings or climbing towering establishments.

One time, while Wil was doing parkour on an abandoned building. He lost his footing, and it almost cost him his life. And yet the thrill and fear he felt at that time, wondering and thinking of all the possibilities that could have happened to him gave him an insight into what he would really like.

So, when he was sitting in front of his homeroom teacher, who was waiting for a response as to what path he would take, Wil took a deep breath and spoke a single word, which was followed by a clarification.

"Daredevil," Wil weakly uttered.

"A what?" His teacher asked, clearly unaware of what he had said.

"I said I'd be a daredevil."

***

First day of school. The start of a new school year in a new environment after graduating from high school. Wil is now finally a college student and is currently in his 18 years of existence. Still has no social life other than spending his time on the internet. Well, if that wasn't social, what would it be?

"Since this is the first day of school, I would like to get to know everyone." Spoke the professor standing behind the podium as his voice reverberated through the small speaker clipped on his jeans.

He has a small mic, and his slightly high-key voice could only make such a tiny noise if not for his speaker.

Yawning in front but a bit below Wil was the same person taking the same class who talked back to their teacher back in their last year. The same classmate who told their teacher about his class being boring and uninteresting.

So, I'll be seeing this bastard from now on again for two semesters, huh? Wil cursed in his mind, but it seemed as though his former classmate had heard him, for he looked back up to Wil and glared.

"W-What?" Flustered, Wil didn't expect his former classmate to glare at him, so he was caught off-guard.

"If it isn't the gloomy goofball and his two little bags under his eyes, you have AAH12-Ethics subject, too. Then, I guess we'll be seeing each other often."

A troublesome student, Berret Idalgo. He had terrorized the third year by going around the school and beating up people. From anyone who dares fight him and those whose faces annoy him. He had many defeats, but he was known for his resilience in a street fight. Because of this, everyone thinks bad of him, making him unapproachable and lonesome. So, basically, Wil and Berret are kind of the same.

"Okay, let's start with the lively fellow at the back. The one talking to his friend, maybe?"

Berret had been called by the professor to be the first one to introduce himself to the class. While Berret saw no point in doing the introduction, he still stood up and just got on with it.

"Berret Idalgo, a first-year is taking criminology. Why? Well, I just want to boss people around."

"Then, why don't you aim to be our country's president, Mr. Idalgo if bossing people around is what you like?"

"Pfft," Wil suppressed his laughter, but of course, Berret got a hold of it as he looked back at him with eyes glaring daggers at him. Wil definitely would not like to get on Berret's nerves, so he immediately dropped the suppression and cleared his expression.

"Nah, I wouldn't like to be the president. I might turn this 3rd world country into a 4th. If that ever exists in the first place."

"Whatever, Mr. Idalgo, but thank you. You may sit down. Now, it's your turn, gloomy face."

Wil dumbfoundedly pointed at himself and unconsciously stood up from his seat. His mouth started to speak, and he could not hear himself, but the class burst into applause.

He was unaware of what had said, but seeing that even his professor applauded him made him kind of confusedly relieved.

***

On the way home, under the bright lights of the tall buildings on both sides of the road, Wil wandered around his new environment before going home. Moving out of his house and deciding to live in an apartment near his school was something his parents were against.

"Nice, there are some good spots here that I can climb from the side."

Because the buildings were built just a few meters away from each other, it helped Wil easily climb from the alleys up to the rooftops. Once he reached the top of a building, he stared down at the night of people walking and chattering. Enjoying the life given to them. To his side, several meters away, was the main building of his university. Being 4 floors high, Wil was tempted to jump from building to building until he reached the main building of his university. But before he decided to climb up, Wil noticed someone on the rooftop of the building. And because it was dark, he could not see who it was.

Even if he tried to have a clear look, he would not have an idea who it would be. He waited for the person to go back but then another person arrived at the rooftop.

It appears to him that the two people above were a man and a woman as they started to latch onto each other and kiss.

"Not that this is new to me. I've seen people have sex in their balconies at night. How bold people can be."

Wil chose to just wait for them to finish, but then the two started to go down on each other, taking turns as their silhouettes then turned into a sex position. Yes, the two were making love on the rooftop with little to no illumination above them.

After over 2 minutes of going back and forth as they changed positions, the two finally came and stopped. They pulled up their clothes, and all of a sudden the man seemed to have bent over and smacked the walking away girl at the back of her head. She immediately dropped to the ground, and the man leaned down on her. Wil witnessed how the man's arm was raised simultaneously in the air. Then, he was done. He had just witnessed a murder, but the identity of the person was unknown, thus his conscience told him he had to see who the man was.

Sneakily but hasty, Wil jumped from one building to another and sprinted under the night. Thanks to the little light the moon emits, Wil didn't have a hard time reaching the building.

His hands, which were full of callouses from doing dangerous stunts and parkour, grabbed a hold of a threshold of the rooftop after riskily climbing the wall like a skilled mountain climber. Before his feet tapped onto the rooftop's ground, the man had disappeared.

"Did he already leave while I was running on my way here?"

Unfortunately, Wil could not see who it was that killed the woman after relieving himself. Once he was done checking his surroundings, trying to see if the man had just walked around.

"Is he just gonna leave the dead body here? Ugh, her face is all messed up."

Disgust ruled over his head as his stomach turned upside down, causing him to gag and throw up. He wiped his mouth with his white towel and moved a bit farther away from the victim, avoiding the spreading pool of blood from the woman's brutally bashed face.

Horrifyingly, the door leading to the 4th floor of the building creaked noisily as someone had pushed it from inside.

Alerted by the approaching individual, Wil automatically moved and hung onto the verge. Footsteps grew louder and immediately died out as the individual stopped.

"H-Huh? What the fuck is this?! First day of school, and someone had gone and killed a student!"

"That voice!"

Wil realized who that person was and lifted his head up to peek at the individual. It was Berret, carelessly leaving his fingerprints by fondling the dead woman's breast. Truly, the same worst type of people as that man that killed the woman.

"Oh, look who we have here, a necrophiliac delinquent. Nice timing. There will be two birds with one stone."

"Berret!"

Upon screaming to warn Berret about the person behind him while he was still fondling the woman's breast, Wil abruptly lost strength in his arms and the last thing he saw was Berret getting the same smack at the back of the head because Wil had unintentionally let go of the edge.

As he fell, time seemed to have slowed down, and he was filled with thoughts and questions.

"Should I try to land on my feet? I'd break all my bones, and worst, it might impale my body from the impact. Then, should I just try to flatly fall on the ground and cover my head with my arms? I bet that would hurt like hell. What about on my stomach, then? I can just cover my face or my whole head. But still, that would cause me pain!"

Even after all that wondering and much thought put into how he should land, Wil hit the ground from the rooftop with his head first and slightly tilting to the side, resulting in him breaking his neck. From the rooftop, the man heard Wil's body thud and stared down what ended up as the only witness.

"Dead... I guess that makes this a three-point."

Total darkness enshrouded the mind, or so one thought once the consciousness shut down. A light so bright that it blinds us, causing our eyes' color receptors to be unable to pick up what kind of color we are seeing. Our mind can produce any kind of hue our mind would want to see. Think of it as creating an image our mind wants to see but with only a single color.

"Wake up, wake up," a faint voice was telling Wil to wake up. "You have to wake up."

His eyes opened and the first thing he noticed was the letters floating in front of his vision, telling him to "eliminate the target."

~