Nothing New

The night's aroma scattered in the air, slowly engulfing the city with its secrets. The row of street lights lit up like pearls down his path. Quiet footsteps of lone travellers echoed in his ears as he dragged his sore feet across the rough concrete pavement. He could hear the laughter of children playing in the nearby parks. Glancing at his side, he saw a small family of three.

A small boy who seemed no more than five years old was walking ahead. Both his parents were at his sides holding his hand. They seemed to be having a nice conversation too. He couldn't help but feel envious.

'Look away', his mind commanded, and he did. Passersby looked at him with disgusted expressions, covering their noses as they passed by him.

Limping in the streets covered in dirt, his clothes torn and shabby, his skin caked with dried blood, he looked as though he might suddenly run rampant and bite someone at any moment. His right ankle was fractured; his face felt bloated; sweat and grime covered the insides of his clothes; it was all extremely uncomfortable. He had become the perfect definition of a zombie walking the streets. No wonder people around him acted the way they did.

Pulling out a smartphone from his pants pocket, he opened his screen to see the time. A plain, black wallpaper appeared on his lock screen, and in the middle of it was shown: 7:58 pm. [Screw those bastards. They cracked my phone screen.] He cursed under his breath.

What was he expecting? Nothing good came from the way he was living now, but it was not like anything good came out of his past, either. His future was as dark as the colour of the background on his phone and his life was as miserable as the cracked surface of his phone's screen.

Ten years later, after he was brought into an orphanage, and finally leaving from there, his life hadn't changed for the better. It only kept getting worse. But there were still times when he enjoyed living that way — the fights. He liked putting people in their places: people who attacked him, and self-righteous people who harm innocent people. They deserved to be beaten to death, like those gang members he encountered just an hour ago. Though he never fought for selfish reasons, there were times when he went overboard.

If he could turn back time, would he still choose to walk this path? If circumstances in his life were a bit different, he wouldn't have chosen this path, but it was no use thinking back on it now. His fists had long since been tainted with blood from all those days that he spent fighting. No amount of soap or detergent would wash away the filthy stench of blood from his body.

His phone suddenly vibrated, snapping him back to reality. He'd just received an email from his high school. [Perfect timing.] He groaned.

Just as he was about to ignore the boring, useless text message from his school, his phone vibrated once again. This time it was a call from his teacher — a call he was not going to pick up – but his phone continued to vibrate endlessly.

With a roll of his eyes and a frustrated growl, he reluctantly picked up the call and kept his phone a few centimetres away from his ear. And just as expected, the deep male voice on the other line shouted angrily at him, "Leyon! If you don't come to school from next week, you're getting expelled! Do you hear me?" And the teacher immediately cut the call.