Memories of the Transcendental Path

Thomas Smith jolted awake in his bed with a cold sweat running down his face as the color in his once brown eyes faded like the eyes of a man who had just experienced death.

Looking down at his hands, Thomas asked himself, 'What the hell was that dream?'

Thomas recalled what he was dreaming about, he was an old man with a gaping wound on his right shoulder, being pursued by a group of masked men in a forest. After getting his final wish granted, one of the masked men executed him mercilessly.

As if the nightmare had affected his body, Thomas's shoulder and neck tensed uncontrollably as he recalled the nightmare.

'There's no way that nightmare affected my body, dreams are just thoughts put together randomly by the brain.'

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

Turning to his right and smacking the silence button with his palm, Thomas looked down at the time being displayed before rolling out of his bed.

6:15 AM.

Throwing the sheets that fell on the floor back onto the bed, Thomas changed into clean clothes and walked into the kitchen to start making himself breakfast.

Walking out the front door and checking it was locked after eating breakfast, Thomas walked to the driver's side of his car and got in.

After cranking the engine, Thomas checked his phone.

6:45. Friday, September 3rd

Putting his car into reverse and backing out of the driveway after checking his phone, Thomas made a right turn down the street and started his peaceful drive to the hellish school he attended, Winchester High.

However, his mind was clouded with questions in the midst of driving.

'What the hell was that nightmare? Why was I being hunted by those men? What was the "plan" they spoke of before killing me? And why would being alive affect that plan?'

He tried to recall more about the nightmare but thinking about it caused his already tense shoulder and neck to tense up more.

However, with all those questions and no answers to be thought of, Thomas let out an exhausted sigh.

"I shouldn't be worrying about some stupid nightmare. I've got more important things to think about right now."

As Thomas said those words, he turned left at a traffic light revealing the giant brown and grey building known as Winchester High School.

Becoming more and more stiff the closer he got to the school, Thomas let out a heavy sigh as he pulled into the school parking lot.

Getting out of the car and grabbing his bag out of the back seat, Thomas began to walk towards the entrance of the school.

Noticing his only friend in the school walking ahead of him, Thomas sped up his pace until he caught up with him.

"CJ! Wait up bro!!"

"I told you to stop calling me that."

"C'mon, I know you're fine with that nickname."

Carson James was the only guy at Winchester High who got bullied as much as Thomas did, so it was only natural that they became friends not too long after they enrolled.

Rinnnnngggg!

Hearing the bell, Carson said. "Well, I guess I'll see you later than Thomas."

"Later, CJ." Thomas replied as they split off in separate ways to get to class.

Splitting off from CJ, Thomas kept his eyes alert for people he knew weren't friendly while moving between the crowd to get to his first class.

After a minute or two of moving through the crowd without pissing anybody off, Thomas arrived at his first class of the day, Geometry.

Thomas never really enjoyed Geometry, though he bore through it with an eighty nine average as he preferred the science side of academics.

After getting through Geometry, Thomas moved on to History in which he held a similar opinion of, then Chinese which he actively excelled at, English, and his favorite class, Anatomy.

Thomas aspired to be a successful doctor, so Anatomy was one of the classes he was fond of. Not to mention Thomas would be tasked with dissecting a sheep's heart, making it the highlight of his day.

---

After a well-done dissection, Thomas would move on to lunch in a particularly good mood.

Once the bell for lunch started ringing, the hallways turned from a barren wasteland into a more crowded space than a highway after a car crash.

Still, Thomas had to hurry because CJ was going to meet up with him at their lunch spot, and he didn't want to keep his only friend waiting for too long.

After reaching the cafeteria, Thomas looked around to see if he could find CJ amongst the hordes of tables lined with Teenagers either minding their own business or having conversations with the people next to them.

Not seeing CJ at any of the tables, Thomas thinks. 'Hey, I guess I arrived first today.'

Now sitting at an empty table, Thomas pulled out a tuna-fish sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a bottle of water and started eating.

However, after waiting for ten minutes without CJ arriving at the table, Thomas grew more concerned for CJ and stood up to go and find him.

Weaving through the people wandering the hallways during lunch for fun, Thomas looked through each hallway, hoping that he could find CJ not beaten or bruised.

Yet when Thomas finally found CJ, his worst fears came true, CJ was lying down on the ground with a bloodied nose bent weirdly out of shape and visible bruise marks from where he had been kicked or punched all over his body.

Looking around the area to see who did this, Thomas's fears became much worse, when he saw the three bullies who constantly made his life a living hell at school. All three of the bullies were Juniors.

However, the bully in front didn't look like an 11th grader. He had the body of a twenty year old man who did nothing but lift weights during his free time and the facial hair of a thirty year old man who never shaved.

"Elijah! What the hell? Why did you beat the crap out of CJ?" Thomas asked.

"Well, to start, this guy was being annoying and kept trying to avoid us, when we only wanted to ask him a simple question," Elijah replied.

"Still, that isn't grounds to beat him up this badly!" Thomas exclaimed.

While Thomas was picking up CJ from the ground, he could feel the places where the bullies had hit him the most, the chest. If he wasn't taken to the school nurse soon to get some rest, he would have a tough time recovering from the potentially broken ribs.

However, as Thomas was walking off with CJ, Elijah said, "Ya know, I think that walking away from us without our permission is fair enough to beat you up though."

"What the hell are you on ab-"

Thomas's sentence was interrupted by a swift punch to the face by Elijah, sending both Thomas and CJ tumbling to the ground.

Followed up by a series of kicks to the stomach, Elijah and the two other bullies beat Thomas to the ground until the principal, with his lunch in his hands, walked by the hallway they were in and noticed the beatdown occurring.

"HEY! What's going on over there?" Asked the principal.

Noticing the principal down the hallway, Elijah turned to his friends and started running.

"Crap, it's the principal. Let's get out of here."

Forgetting about the bullies who ran away, the principal quickly ran over to where Thomas and CJ were laying down on the ground. CJ had been knocked out cold, and Thomas was holding his face in pain.

"Come on, I'll help you two to the nurse, and don't worry, you won't have to deal with those three for a while," said the principal.

"Thanks," said Thomas in a muffled voice, still holding his face to stop the bleeding coming from his broken nose.

The nurse's office at Winchester High was one of the places that Thomas was awfully familiar with because of the number of times he had either helped somebody get there or had to go there for his injuries. When they got inside, the nurse sitting at her desk was surprised and said,

"You two again? What happened this time?"

"Elijah and his friends were the cause this time," replied the principal.

"Damn, do they have no shame for beating others up?" Asked the nurse.

The principal replied, "I don't know, but for now can you patch these two up so they can go home? I figure that if we let them stay today, they'll just get beaten up more."

"Sure." Replied the nurse, as she rummaged through a drawer, pulling out a splint to put on CJ and Thomas's nose.

Looking at CJ's bruised body, nurse Howell became extremely concerned. Feeling the broken rips in his body, nurse Howell called 9-1-1 to get an ambulance here to get CJ to a hospital to help with his bones. For Thomas, though, all he needed was a splint for his broken nose.

While nurse Howell was looking over CJ's unconscious body, all Thomas could think about was his weakness, about how he couldn't even help his only friend while he was being beaten to a pulp.

'I should have noticed something was up as soon as I didn't see CJ at our spot. His class is closer to the cafeteria, so he would have beaten me there even if I left class early. So why did I just assume that he was going to be late?' Thought Thomas amid nurse Howell putting the splint on Thomas's face to help the nose heal itself back into the right shape.

"Alright, you're good to go. However, CJ is going to need to go to the hospital for his broken ribs. And don't do anything physically taxing for at least two weeks, or else your nose won't heal properly." Said nurse Howell. "Also, don't worry about Elijah and his friends. The principal will take care of them for you."

"Alright, thanks nurse Howell." Replied Thomas.

After leaving the nurse's office, Thomas walked towards the office to get an Off-Campus Permit, allowing him to leave school for the day. Walking towards his car, Thomas still had to drive himself home, despite his injuries.

Letting out a long sigh as he reached his car's driver-side door, he got in and started the engine. During the drive home, Thomas's mind was blank.

All he wanted to do at this point was go home, get some sleep, and try to forget about his body's pain.

As Thomas pulled into the driveway of his house, he saw his dad standing out in the yard, waiting for him to get out of the car. Seeing Thomas pull into the driveway, his dad walked over to the car door and opened it.

"I know you want to rest right now, Thomas, but before you do, you should help me clean the attic a bit." Said his dad.

"Fine, let's hurry then so I can get some sleep," Thomas replied.

Getting out of the car, Thomas winced from the pain of breathing through his nose and forced himself to breathe through his mouth while walking into the house and up the stairs leading to the attic.

"We need to move those boxes into the house," said Thomas's father, pointing to a pile of boxes in the corner of the attic, hidden behind stacks of boxes left to be forgotten.

"Alright, I'll start by clearing a path to them," Thomas replied, moving boxes to the sides to form a path to the corner his dad pointed to.

However, while making the path, he found something other than a box that piqued his interest. It was what looked like a ceremonial stand holding what looked to be a sword in its sheath.

"Hey, Dad, what's this for?" Asked Thomas.

Thomas's father replied, "Oh that, that's something we inherited from your Great Grandfather when he died. Apparently, it's been in their family since the Yuan Dynasty."

"It's been in our family for THAT long? I wouldn't be surprised if the blade was rusted and dull by now." Said Thomas.

Walking over to the stand, Thomas saw the blade clearer than he could when he asked his dad about it.

The Sheath was jet black, and the hilt was a deep blue, making a clear contrast between the two parts of the sword. Above the blade resting on the stand was a plaque with writing on it.

Thomas read aloud, "Those without the blood of Myeol cannot master the sword's potential."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asked his dad.

"I'm not sure, but I'd assume it means those without mom's bloodline can't use this sword to its full potential?" Thomas replied.

As Thomas said those words, he grabbed the sword's hilt and pulled it out of the sheath.

The sword's blade was jet black along the sharp edges and a blue reminiscent of the bottom of the ocean in the middle of the blade.

Seeing a mark where the hilt and the blade met, Thomas touched the blade and read.

"Fallen … Star?"

As Thomas read the markings on the sword aloud, his surroundings started to spin, and his head began to ache. Losing his balance, Thomas fell to the ground of the attic with a thump. With the sword still in his hand, Thomas fell unconscious as his head hit the floor.

Authors note: American high schools call 11th graders 'Juniors'.