1 My One Chance

I thought life would get better once I was granted an academic scholarship to the prestigious Greenfield Academy. After all, I had lived my entire life in the backwater alleys of New York City. I was extremely intelligent, but intelligence alone could not bring me and my family out of poverty. I needed status. And that's what Greenfield Academy offered me.

Or so I foolishly thought.

My first days at my new school were met with disdain from students and teachers alike.

"Who's this peasant boy wearing those shitty run-of-the-mill sneakers?" A student whispered to his friend behind me as I sat down for my first class. "Does he really think he can make it in this school?"

"Emmett Rollins. He's comes from the Bronx?" A teacher said absentmindedly behind the desk at the front. "How in the hell did he get accepted into the academy?"

From the outset, I was alienated by all of my peers.

Why?

That's a great question.

Because I was born into poor family.

I began to laugh at their ignorance. I was poor, but how much did that really matter? Once I showed my intelligence, they would understand how someone like me got into this school. In my mind, wealth meant nothing before smarts.

Right?

Turns out that they didn't think that way. Although I consistently topped the class with perfect marks, my treatment didn't improve. Instead, it got worse. Alienation slowly turned into taunts. Childish taunts.

These taunts were almost laughably stupid. I sometimes considered if these kids had their brains removed from them at birth.

I'll give you an example.

"Hey! Plebeian!" A boy called out to me in the school halls one day. "Are you hungry right now? Hard to pay for food when you're so poor!"

The kids behind him began bellowing in laughter. It was a struggle not to cringe visibly at the joke.

"Here." He said, walking up to me with a 7-11 sandwich in his hand. "Why don't you take this?"

I remember sighing in irritation. These wealthy kids were so secluded from the real world.

"Thanks." I said, snatching the sandwich from his hands before he could react. "By the way, I can feed myself y'know."

Their eyes widened in shock as they watched me pull out a lunchbox out of my backpack.

"What!" The boy shouted in awe. "You can afford food?!"

I chuckled.

"You guys are idiots. You've been fed with golden spoons for so long that you are completely ignorant of the real world."

The boy opened to dispute my point, but I spoke first.

"Thanks for the free food!" I said tauntingly before walking away from them. "I appreciate it."

See what I mean?

They were absolutely awful taunts. So bad that they were actually amusing to dismantle. Day by day, they came up to me with an awful taunt, and I'd humiliate them every time.

It was hilarious.

Well… at least until they started to use brute force.

The physical bullying started nearly three months after I began attending Greenfield Academy. I was walking to the train station after school ended when suddenly a group of classmates emerged from behind a building. I recognized them right away.

It was Henry Smith and his group of goons. My heart sank immediately. I had humiliated them more than enough times, and it was only then that I realized that they were here to take revenge. I tried running away, but I could only run so fast with my heavy backpack on my shoulders. They soon caught up to me.

And they beat me to a pulp. I can still remember their arrogant eyes cutting through my soul as blood splurged from my mouth.

It was an awful experience.

I was covered with bruises and cuts all over my body when I entered school the next day. I decided to keep quiet and avoid Henry's group, but they came to me first.

"Hey Emmett!" I remember him saying with a mischievous grin. "Where did you get those cuts yesterday?"

I stayed silent, my body tensing in memory from the pain I experienced yesterday.

"Not gonna stay anything? You must have done something really embarrassing if you're not gonna tell us."

Henry's friends snickered behind him. I had an urge to humiliate them again, but that risked getting beat up again. So I stayed silent. Their taunts wouldn't be that effective…right?

"Perhaps you slipped on something? Or maybe…Emmett…don't tell me that was a suicide attempt? Did you try to jump off and end your misery?"

My eyes widened as I heard Henry's words. Those words went beyond their typical childish taunts.

"I…I didn't…"

I started to defend myself, but Henry's glaring eyes shut me down. I was in a pinch. Defend myself, and I faced the risk of getting beat up again. Stay silent, and I was utterly humiliated.

"My,my. It seems it's true!" Henry exclaimed. "You must have finally realized that you'll be poor forever."

I opened my mouth, but Henry and friends already started walking away.

I had been completely toyed with.

School life continued to get worse from that point onwards. I thought that if I stayed silent through the taunting, I would avoid the physical pain. I was wrong. They continued to go after me. Cuts continued to opened and re-opened, and bruises dotted my entire body. Staying silent would do nothing.

I tried to defend myself again against the taunts, but it was useless. They weren't using childish taunts anymore. Their taunts were working now. They were actually well-thought out and they thoroughly humiliated me.

And that could only mean one thing.

I had been tricked.

I thought they were ignorant and stupid, but in reality, they were only trying to lower my defenses so that they could utterly control me.

And they had won.

When that realization hit me, I despaired. I couldn't imagine how I could be more humiliated than what I just was.

Oh boy was I wrong.

Despite the frequent bullying daily, I was still managing to maintain my perfect marks. My objective for attending Greenfield Academy was still being achieved.

Well…that was until they began sabotaging my work.

I remember opening my locker at the end of lunch to find papers shredded to pieces and my computer broken in two. I stopped breathing for a few seconds before realization hit me.

I was fucked.

All my year's notes were destroyed and I didn't have the money to replace all of the equipment. If finals came around and I couldn't use any textbooks or the internet to study, I would fail miserably. And that failure would terminate my scholarship and I would be sent back to the Bronx. Forever.

Panic immediately set in. I began to take emergency measures to ensure that I would be given back my materials. I went up to a teacher and described my situation. I told her that I was beaten brutally daily and that I would fail without my materials. She sympathized with me the entire way and my heart lightened up. I thought that I would have a chance to turn this around.

But I was wrong.

"Emmett…don't bother fighting those kids."

"What do you mean…"

"You can't beat them." She said bluntly with a tinge of hopelessness in her voice. "Their parents are unbelievably powerful. If word came out that their children were brutally bullying their fellow classmate, their statuses would be ruined."

I clenched my jaw as I realized what she was implying.

"They will use any means necessary to shut you up. Bribery. Even breaking the law. They will do anything and everything to ensure that their reputations remain intact."

I sank into hopelessness after that conversation. Day by day, I was bullied brutally. And I didn't even bother fighting back.

What was the point?

It didn't matter if I was right.

It didn't matter if I could outsmart them.

In this school, only wealth mattered.

Before wealth, everything was useless.

I was useless.

The finals approached and I had no chance of succeeding. My despair clouded my thinking, making studying impossible. My mind continued to descend into darkness, the despair slowly transformed into anger and hatred.

Hatred aimed at the world for being unfair.

But above all, hatred for the school.

Hatred for his fellow classmates.

Hatred for Henry and his friends.

If only I could take fight back against them.

If only I could take his revenge.

If only it was possible.

If only God could see my pain and help me.

If only I could break past my circumstances and succeed.

Then I would be happy.

I needed a way to take my revenge.

And against all odds, I was given a chance.

A few days before the final exams, our homeroom classroom unexpectedly shimmered before my eyes. At first, I thought that I was dead. But then my eyesight returned to me.

We were no longer in the classroom.

We were now in another world.