2 Chapter 1

Have you ever had a nightmare, but it wasn't scary, but it is, but it also isn't. Confusing, isn't it? Well, I had that exact dream. 

I remembered in the dream, being a small child playing in the rain, jumping in mud puddles while in my yellow raincoat and red boots. Unexpectedly, in that instance, the rain became obsidian black. Suddenly, I felt like something was glaring at me from above. 

Looking up, the black rain fell on my face, as I stared into the obsidian coloured sky. I could feel it peering deep into my soul. 

The rain fell on the ground heavier and louder than before, thunder clapped and purple lightning flashed in the clouds every second. During the chain of events, a huge eye, made out of clouds, opened in the sky and stretched towards me until we were face to face. 

In the monstrous obsidian cloud eye, as wide as a truck, I could see a reflection. The reflection was mine. It wore the same yellow raincoat and red boots, except the eyes were weird. The eyeball was gone and the entire eye socket was dark and murky. 

The corrupted reflection of mine glared at me menacingly, with an inhumane and terrifying smile, stretching past its nose. At the same time, black saliva-like liquid drooled out its mouth. Its teeth and gums were black-stained. 

A wave of fear and terror sprinted through my body. I turned around from the corrupted reflection of mine, running away into the dark and empty void, with the rain beating overhead.

Without ever looking back, I ran, and ran, and ran until I could no longer run. My muscles had no more strength, lungs collapsing on me and heavy heartbeats drummed in my chest. 

I dropped to my knees, before falling chest first into the dirt with only my arms barely bracing for impact. 

I laid there forever exhausted. The black rainwater, running along the ground, soaked my face. 

My hearing departed, as I was unable to hear even the heavy tap-tapping of the rain, on my coat or the ground next to me. 

I saw a familiar pair of red boots walk up and stand next to my face. It crouched down and of course, it was the corrupted reflection of me. Its face still horrifying as before. 

I could feel my consciousness and sight fading away slowly. During my final seconds, the last thing I saw was that mysterious abomination, crouching over me with a smug look on its disgusting face.

"Blam!" Something hit the floor with a loud thud. 

"Ow! My head! Ah!" John Goldbloom abruptly awoke from his nightmare in pain, clenching his skull. "Who am I to be falling off the bed? A baby?" 

John had trouble getting back to his feet, as he kept stumbling and falling. His arms wobbled when he tried to push himself off the floor.

Giving up, he decided to instead continue lying on the floor. 

"Did I really get sick, when I've been stuck in my room all summer? Just how weak am I?" 

Speaking to himself out loud, he could feel this unusual intense dryness in his throat. 

"Oh, God! What the hell's wrong with me?" 

John laid out flat on the floor, atop his badly sweat-soaked blanket. He stretched his arm under his bed, feeling for the case of water stashed away. 

"Huh?! Wait a- It's empty?!" John's hand crumpled an empty plastic case of water. "I swore I had a brand new 24 pack stashed under here yesterday."

John, in an attempt to find some water, scanned his pigsty of a room for at least a half-drank bottle of water close by. 

After a few seconds of dragging his hands through dirty clothes, he felt a bottle. 

"Found it! Damn thing loves hiding." 

After chugging the water, he plopped his arms back to the ground with a satisfied look.

"What time is it?" John stretched his arm and grabbed his phone off the edge of the bed. "Dang! I missed Timmy-Packman's stream last night. Dammit!"

John pressed down the power button on his phone but only "low battery" popped up on his screen and went black.

"Ah! For God's sake man!" John threw his phone on the bed. 

Closing his eyes, he started to notice something strange within himself. He could breathe easier and his body felt lighter. This was extremely different from what he usually felt.

Eventually, getting up to his feet, he stretched his arms and yawned loudly. Looking at himself in his closet mirror, the reflection he saw startled him.

"Gah! Wow! Wait! … What?… How did-?" John pressed his hands against his body, moving it up and down. 

He twisted, turned, twirled, jumped, bent and stretched in the mirror while in pure disbelief and scepticism.

"Wait… How- Why-.... I'm skinny?" 

John's face was filled with confusion and panic. He had a new body, or at least he didn't remember having this one. Before his fever, John was 5 feet tall and weighed 257 pounds but now, he was 6 feet tall and weighed 157 pounds. So, his reaction was understandable. 

"W-what? How did- How did this... happen?" John sat on the edge of his bed, still in front of the closet mirror.

"How the hell Imma explain this to Dad?... Or anyone!?" 

John plopped himself on the sweat-soaked bed, that didn't even irk him. He stared at the ceiling trying to process this unexpected change. 

Then a… special thought… invaded his mind.

"Hm? If I grew this tall... and lost so much weight… then by that logic… "It"... should have grown a little bigger at least.... right?"

Swallowing his saliva, John moved his hand down in his trunks.

"YES SIR!" 

John sprang to his feet, in genuine excitement, jumping around and grinning to himself.

"Gurgle! Gurl! Snorl!"

Suddenly, John's stomach chimed loudly and painfully, and a ravenous, beast-like hunger came over him.

"Woah! The hell is this coming from?!"

John clenched his stomach and hurriedly made his way to the kitchen.

"Bro! I had three McDonald sandwiches and downed two large sprites last night. So, how am I this freaking hungry?" 

John collected whatever food items he could find and dropped them on the dinner table.

"Dang! It's like, I haven't eaten for five days. Damn!" 

John threw a hot pocket in the microwave while munching on his third bag of Doritos. He popped open three cans of Pepsi and chugged them one after the other. 

The microwave timer went off but the hot pocket was still cold. 

Frustrated, John flung them back in the microwave and increased the timer by one minute.

He stood at the microwave, tapping his feet and snapping his fingers, impatiently waiting for the timer to reach zero. 

"Oh my Gosh! This is taking forever!" 

John rushed towards the freezer.

"Where the hell is it?"

Pushing aside a bunch of other frozen things, he pulled out the large tub of Vanilla Ice Cream.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Perfect!" Popping the lid open, John became happier. "And it's only half-eaten. Thank you, God."

John looked into the utensils tray for a spoon but there was none. The sink was filled with dirty pots, utensils, takeout dishes, plates and nasty sink water. He was left at home for a month and hadn't done any cleaning the entire time.

"Ugh!" John gagged. "Bruh, who's washing dishes?" 

Sinking his hand in month old sink water, he pulled out a spoon and barely ran it under the tap water. Flashing off the water, he dug the spoon in the tub and shovelled a large scoop of ice cream in his mouth. 

"Yup! That's the spot! This is what I needed. I don't care if later I'm stuck on the toilet for an hour straight." 

After swallowing the first scoop, John speedily ate more until he was met with a sharp brain freeze.

"Ah! Crap!" He screeched, gripping his head in pain. "Damn "brain freeze" every time! Why do you even exist in the first place?"

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" 

The hot pockets were finally done and hopefully not cold like before. John, still gripping his head, put away the rest of the ice cream in the freezer, and speedily walked to the microwave.

"Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!" 

John dropped the hot pocket in his stretched out marina. 

Annoyed, he spoke to the hot pocket. "You're either too hot or cold. Just be in between for once in your damn life?"

Before leaving the kitchen, he grabbed a case of water to carry with him. Upon entering his room, he kicked aside some clothes and slid the case of water under his bed.

"Okay, okay, now that I ain't dying of hunger, time to log into League."

John put his phone to charge, pulled out his worn-out and fraying gaming chair, and turned his computer on.

"Missed a day of rewards. Tck! Hopefully, I'm still on the leaderboard."

John Goldbloom, a 17-year old sophomore in high school, was a socially awkward child who spent all his free time playing Call of Duty, League of Legends, browsing Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, reading manga, watching YouTube, anime and Twitch live streams. 

John was content with this kind of lifestyle. Needless to say, high school was only a bother to him. He barely passed all his classes and he would just get bullied almost every day. Verbally and physically. He had no close friends like other students his age, nor did he care to have friends. No one seemed to share the same interests as him anyway.

Many times he wanted to drop out, but one of his dad's mottos was, "If you drop out of school, then you must work harder than a fool". If John were forced to find a job, his time spent enjoying his introverted hobbies would decrease, and his stress level would increase.

"Welcome back "Milf_Lover_69_4_20"... Here is a welcoming gift... for five days... of being away from the game."

John read aloud what he saw on the screen.

"Five days. Five… days? FIVE DAYS!"

John grabbed his monitor in doubt.

"What day is it?!" 

His eyes scrambled across the screen for the date.

"THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER!" 

John got up and paced around his room in a panicked state. 

"Ah, Dad's coming home… at noon! Uh, What time is it?!" 

He jumped back to the monitor screen. It was 9:42 A.M.

John turned to look at the condition of his room. There were used clothes on the floor, on the bed and hanging out the drawer, chips bag, soda cans, water bottles and food crumbs laying everywhere.

"How the heck I'm gonna clean this! Gah!" John panicked in his mind. "Dad's gonna strangle me to death."

Jumping to action, John got to cleaning. He tossed all his dirty clothes and bedspread in the washing machine, gathered all trash in a bag, vacuumed his room and opened the windows to let the stinking air out. With no time to waste, he moved to the worse part of the house, the kitchen. It was a sight most horrendous, even to the eyes of a blind man. 

The trash bin was overflowing with burger bags, plastic cups, water bottles, soda cans and many flies surrounded feasting. Plastic utensils, chopsticks, fast-food paper bags and used napkins were left on the counter. The floor was sticky, food remains and ants were crawling everywhere. The sink was filled above the brim with dishes

John was in disbelief that he let the place get this utterly disgusting. His lazy and couch potato mindset and practices were to be blamed for this.

Firstly, John collected all trash items and stuffed them in extra garbage bags and released the water abomination in the sink. John removed all food scraps that were once stuck in that water, barehanded, which almost made him vomit. 

Secondly, he scrubbed the month's worth of filth away from the dishes, wiped clean the countertops, kitchen sink, cabinet covers, microwave and stove. 

Thirdly, he burst through the front door, carrying all the trash bags down the apartment stairs to the incinerator, but on his way back up the stairs, he met Madam Sarah. 

Madam Sarah was a small elderly lady who lived in an apartment, two floors below mine. She always wore a smile and had the most beautiful grey hair ever seen. 

She was rumoured for her never-ending conversations and forgetful nature at times. The only person in this apartment complex, who could keep up with her long conversations, was John's Dad. 

"Good evening, young man. Oh my! How skinny you are." She placed her hand on her cheek out of worry. "Are you getting enough to eat, my dear?" 

Madam Sarah didn't recognize that the man in front of her, was in fact, John. He looked so much more different now compared to when she last saw him.

"Madam Sarah! Oh, wow! It's good to see you. You look… healthy today. Um, also, it's morning now." 

"Oh no! Is it really morning?" Her wrinkled eyelids rolled back. "I'll have to apologize to everyone that I greeted. Thank you very much, young man."

Madam Sarah looked down at the floor, shaking her head slowly. She had a saddened look.

"Oh, how silly of me? I'm getting so old, that my mind can't tell what time of day it is. I just truly hope my time to die comes very soon." 

John's heart fell when he heard her words. 

"Please don't talk like that. We would all be sad if you were to die." 

Madam Sarah, although her long chats were annoying, she was this apartment's most precious Grandmother.

"Oh don't mind me. It's just the old age talking. You'll understand someday." She returned to her usual happy expression. "By the way, you remind me of Mr Goldbloom's son…. Uh, What was his name again?"

"John… John Goldbloom." John answered.

"Ah, Yes! Sweet little Johnny boy. A lovely child indeed." Madam Sarah looked mournful. "Ha, It really hurt him when his darling of a mother died. If only he would get out of the house more often, maybe he would feel better."

Suddenly, the air became heavy with sad and painful memories. 

John was suddenly reminded of his mother's untimely death. 

Mary-Ann Goldbloom, or Mary as many called her, was killed in a violent car crash when John was 9 years old.

The painful memories of sitting on the hospital bench, holding back the tears in denial while doctors and nurses did surgery on her, trying their best to save her life.

When John eventually broke down, his Dad never cried in front of him, but embraced him and comforted him throughout the entire painful experience. John's Dad would only ever cry behind closed doors, by himself.

"I'm sorry for bringing up such a sensitive topic, my dear." 

"No! No! You don't need to apologize. I'm not bothered by topics like those… I just… I just hope he gets better." 

"Oh, how sweet of you!" John's words of care made Madam Sarah smile at him. "You know. The both of you would be the best of friends. I'm sure of it."

"Uh, you think so?" John rubbed the back of my head, painfully playing along. "Well, if I ever meet him, I'll talk with him for sure."

"How nice of y-." She abruptly gripped her hip in pain. 

"Are you okay?!" John hurried to Madam Sarah. He felt his heart sink in his chest.

"Don't fret! It's just my arthritis acting up again."

"Thank God!" John thought. "I swore it was a heart attack."

"Do you need any help?" John offered.

"Oh don't worry about me. I'm quite fine. I wouldn't want to keep you from what you're doing," She tapped her index finger on the side of her head. "I have a strong feeling it's very important, but I do hope we get to talk again sometime soon."

"I hope so too, Madam Sarah."

John watched as she slowly walked past him. He made sure to keep his eyes on her until she was off the stairs, just in case. 

Feeling satisfied with her safe arrival home, John went back to his apartment.