1 Chapter One: Beginning of the End

Realizing that it was the first day of school, Von decided to manage his time more efficiently in order to provide time with his personal and school programs. Eight o' clock that evening, Von decided to cool off and finish his daily schedule. His schedule was;

Five in the morning, wake up and wash his face, 5:30 is to jog a 5 kilometer run on his thread mill/jog outdoors. Six in the morning, return to the house to microwave his food, eat his breakfast and take a quick shower. Six-forty five in the morning, he would take a walk down the mountain and proceed to the campus. It was just a 3 kilometer distance from house to campus so it's no big deal. After the last period classes (4 pm), he would then proceed to the Dojang to train for 2 hours. After training, drop by the convenience store to grab some microwavable food and cup noodles that would last him for a day. Seven till' nine is his own time (take a bath, eat dinner, watch anime, study, etc.)

After finalizing his daily schedule, he went up to his room to lay down and rest. As Von reach out for his phone to set his alarm, it began ringing. Someone was calling his late in the evening. It was unusual for someone to call him this late in the evening. But it was only John who was calling him, nothing to be surprised about.

"What?", Von answered with a monotone voice.

"Is it true that you don't dream at all?", John asked with anticipation for Von to tell him the truth.

"No. Good night.", Von hung up.

Von is aware that hanging up a phone call from a friend is a bad etiquette but he slightly got irritated and was really sleepy so all things go as planned. As Von lied down on his bed, he stared up at the night sky full of shining stars through his transparent roof.

Von was staring back on the night sky, trying to remember what happened in his dream. "It was actually nice.", Von whispered to himself as he closed his eyes.

That night, Von didn't dream.

"Did you know, that one of the irritating sounds that anyone could hear is his own alarm tone?"

For Von's whole life, he only used one alarm tone. That was the reason why every morning he would immediately wake up and snooze his alarm as soon as it rang. It was already 5 in the morning. As scheduled, he would prepare for a five kilometer jog/sprint. He had the freedom to jog outside or to jog indoors using his thread mill but he choose to jog outdoors for the cold breeze to cool him down as he jog.

He strapped up and prepared for the jog. As Von opened the front door, the cold breeze slapped his whole body causing him zip up his sweater. His daily route would be going down the mountain, passing by the intersection then pass by the Campus until he reach the river-side park. He would then jog back at his house to eat his breakfast.

While taking a jog, he saw some adults waiting in line for the bus to arrive on the intersection. Nothing to be surprised about because it was 5:30 am. As he passed by the campus, he greeted the front gate guard and went on to his jog. He reached the park at exactly 5:45 am. He went by the riverside and rest for a little bit and went back to his route. On the way back, he started sprinting as if someone is going after him. But in reality, he went and had a breakdown before reaching the top of the mountain.

"Nope, can't do this sh*t on a daily basis.", Von declared as he was catching his breath by the tree.

Going back to his house, it took him about 45 minutes to finish his jog/sprint. He looked at his memo and said, "Well, it didn't worked at all. I guess I have to adjust my time again." while wiping the sweat on his back. It was already 6:22 am, Von had didn't have time to waste now. After taking a bath, he looked back on the clock and it was already 6:46 am. Time to dress up to his new uniform and go take a stroll outside.

Rushing down the mountain, he nearly slipped and fall. Thanks to his reflexes, he went back to his feet and went on as if nothing happened. But before going to the campus, he passed by the convenience store to buy some bread. There were a lot of students walking down the same path he was taking so he maneuvered carefully while eating his whole wheat bread. At exactly 7:00 am, he finally made it to the campus.

There he was, standing in front of the main gate of the Phoenix Campus, one of the most popular and prestigious high school in the Philippines, located on the province of Eden.

While taking a deep breath to cool off from all the ruckus and dashing through a crowd of students, he was greeted by the main gate guard and told him, "Ain't you're a TVL student? The principal gave me your schedule. It was told here that your classes would start at 8 in the morning."

Von, with the look of a very unusual poker face, went on as he ate his bread and drank his iced coffee. Their classroom was on the farthest corner of their campus, nobody actually told him why but it was an unspoken rule to not mention this issue. Von didn't actually cared and just went on. He had managed to locate their room with the help of a map right in front of the gate.

As expected, Von was the first one to arrive inside their classroom. He just stood there, by the door, denying the thought that he miscalculated and had a very rough start because of that mistake. He sat beside the window. Like usual, Von did the only thing that calmed him down, read his favorite manga "Nisepoi" while listening to some classic rock tunes with his earphones.

After a while, his phone rang while he was reading halfway through the manga chapter. John was the one who was calling him. Von was hesitating to answer the call because he thought John would only mess with him first thing in the morning. He still answered the call though.

"What?", Von answered John's phone call.

"Where are you right now? Your adviser, Ma'am Yuri Lestor, had announced that you are required to head over to the faculty office." John said.

"But I di-", the phone call got cut off.

Having that said, Von left his seat and his bag hanging by the table he chose to seat in and went to the faculty office. The faculty office was quite far from their room, as said from the few recent paragraphs before.

As he arrived inside the faculty office, he saw John and Andrew with a young, beautiful lady that was arguing with them. Apparently, John really got into trouble and he was trying to get his phone back from the lady. He just tagged Andrew along to help him acquire his phone phone back since Andrew had time to spare. Von approached them as soon as the lady noticed him.

"My! What a cute little man.", the unknown lady said as he was about to hug Von.

Von managed to dodge the hug and said, "Umm thank you but who the hell are you?"

Seems like the lady is persistent to hug him. She took another chance but Von had no problem dodging her.

"Geez, here I am trying to be nice for my new student. I'm your classroom adviser, Ms. Yuri Lestor. You can call me Ma'am Yuri or Riri for short.", the young and beautiful lady said as he jumped back up to her feet and shook her hands with Von.

The two knuckle heads were just staring the whole time to Von and Ms. Yuri. Honestly speaking, they were surprised that the great Yuri Lestor would act like that in front of them. As soon as the atmosphere got calmer, John went ahead and argued with Ms. Yuri to take his phone back. As they argue, Andrew stared at a flower vase that was placed on a wooden stool beside the water dispenser.

"Oh and yeah, let's go back to the room together, I'm just going to settle this argument with this ignorant student of mine.", Ms. Yuri asked Von and went on to duel with John.

"Now that was a really worthless use of time.", Von whispered to himself as he was about to stare off and wander around the faculty office.

The office was composed of twelve cubicles, designated for a teacher and was categorized as grade 11 or 12 classroom adviser. It was one of the 3 faculty offices inside the campus and the biggest as well. It also had the conference area designed to hold meetings and gatherings of teachers. It also had one-way blurry glass panels that surrounded the room to serve as the wall and the door to provide privacy.

As Von stared on the blurry glass, he noticed that there was someone inside the room. He could hardly recognize the ones who were inside the room. This got Von's curiosity so he stared like a stalker from the outside of the conference room. While he was staring outside, one of the silhouette started getting bigger and bigger, stating the fact that it was getting closer. Von wandered off again and started to read some announcements that was pinned on the bulletin board. He saw one of the school articles regarding about a "Huge Hunt".

Von was cut off when something bumped him by the narrow corner of the office. As he was about to say sorry, that "thing" turned out to be a person. It was a good thing that Von's glasses were blurry that time so he hardly could process and judge her face. But that timing though. He wasn't able to say sorry because Ms. Yuri asked him to get going. The girl was also got called off by one of the teachers so Von didn't actually had the chance to tell her sorry.

John and Andrew already went back to their classes while Von and Ms. Yuri went back to their classroom. While walking side by side, Ms. Yuri alerted Von to not let his guard down, especially inside the classroom. She told him that things could easily get wild with his classmates.

Before entering the classroom, Ms. Yuri gave Von a piece of advice. She said, "I hope you're prepared."

"Prepared for what?"

The fist thing that Von saw through the window of the classroom was darkness. He wasn't sure if it was curtains or something else because back when he first entered the room, the not-so-deadly rays of the sun could reach his desk. But as Ms. Yuri opened the door, the second thing Von saw with his own eyes inside the classroom was chaos.

One of the students were lighting one of the chair on fire while the other one was wrecking havoc in front of the classroom like a goddamn gorilla. When he turned his head to the left, he saw someone getting hit on it's bum with a large paddle that was held by someone from behind the classroom. There was a girl that was showing her bra to another girl. Apparently, they were comparing cup sizes. One of the boys was just sitting behind the two girls. At a first glance, it seems like he was just sitting there. In reality, he was taking video of the two girls in front of him.

Behind Von, he felt something very dangerous and a very life-threatening force that could probably instantly kill him. He dared himself to look behind him so he did. Behind his back, he saw a dark figure with a pair of red eyes. Von quickly directed his look to the chaos he saw earlier but in an instant flick of an eye, the room was well organized and the students were neatly seated on their assigned seats. He flicked back one more time and she saw Ms. Yuri standing right behind him.

"Eh?" Von asked himself in confusion.

-End of Chapter One-