WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A FRIEND part 1

As Lord Amanita Phalloides spoke, he observed the children with keen interest. Kids who had short attention spans fell thunderously to the ground in the same way Alexander Murray had – clenching their chests tightly and letting out gut-wrenching screams.

The ones still standing had strong mental fortitude. Alexander, whose death was amalgamated into his soul, thought, "I want to avenge RIA, but then I died without knowing how it happened. Can I ever avenge RIA? Am I going to die? Just when I had made a friend for the first time... I'm so sorry RIA and Ria. My eyes feel so heavy. I can't keep them open anymore." Shutting his eyes, Alexander's consciousness drifted off; soon he was engulfed in darkness – blissful and welcoming darkness. He thought he would feel as cold as RIA must have felt when she was dying, but what he felt was a bizarre warmth wrapped around him.

In the midst of inconceivable darkness, Alexander felt an otherworldly pressure growing on his chest, as a soft yet icy light pricked his skin. His eyes opened as he tried so hard to grab onto the icy light that had snatched him from the warm embrace of darkness and death.

The first thing in his darkened field of vision was a fluorescent light, which shone brightly for an instance and then flickered off and on again and again. Alexander could hear a low mechanical humming that came from a small fan blowing rapidly on a cabinet close to his head. He could smell cinnamon and oily fragmented coconuts as it dawned on him that his chest felt very heavy. He struggled to breathe; he tried moving a little so he could ease the pain in his chest. Alexander's slight movements woke Mariam, who was lying on his chest. Raising her head, she smiled, catching a glimpse of Alexander's big black eyeballs.

"Where... am I?" Alexander asked as he tried sitting up.

"What does it look like?" Mariam responded in a snarky tone.

"Heave..." Alexander blurted out and stopped in mid-sentence.

He inhaled and exhaled slowly as a tear joyfully rolled down the left side of his cheek. He took a quick gaze at Mariam and quickly noticed that she looked different.

Seeing the tear roll down Alexander's face, Mariam hugged him, pressing against him so tightly that he heard his sternum cry for help.

"...You're suffocating me, Ria," he managed to squeak out with the remaining air in his lungs.

"Oh! Sorry, I forgot. I'm stronger now," she said, smile-smirking.

Mariam, in an elated tone, enlightened Alexander on what he had missed while he was unconscious for a month. She told him what happened on the day the Dark Lord Amanita Phalloides gave his speech. Alexander had passed out almost instantaneously. When Mariam looked at Alexander, she thought he had died, and that scared her so much that it heightened her attention.

The Dark Lord, when he was done with his intriguing speech, transported the kids to a medical site where they were all scanned by technology or magic-like creatures so bizarre that no one could remember what they actually did.

Mariam's eyes lit up as she explained to Alexander that she had gotten the blessing of the number one God, Girder Miglamous, the Light God. As soon as she got the Light God's blessing, all the other Gods in Nirvana had their eyes on her, and some had challenged her to a duel – even though the constellation battle had not begun and no star had aligned yet. The low-ranking Gods were all impatient, but the Goddess Inokosazana had silenced them and reminded them that some proxies were still damaged because of the Dark Lord's actions, and thus the constellation battle would have to be delayed until the proxies made full recoveries and received adequate training.

In the last few weeks, the other children and her had been trained in martial arts, and some had undergone harsh endurance training under the Dark Lord. A special chamber had been constructed so kids still in comas could get a month's worth of training in just a few hours.

Alexander fiddled with his fingers as Mariam told him what happened while he was unconscious. He looked Mariam dead in the eye with a saddened smile and said, "It's good to see you too."

Mariam felt her heart die at that moment. She froze as she noticed that Alex was not interested in any of the things she had just said. She looked at his fingers and noticed the cuts and calluses on them. She let out a loud cry in her heart as she stood up abruptly to leave Alexander's room.