The little things hurt the most.

09.04.2021

There was once a teacher I loved more than anyone. I was 9 at the time and arguably, among one of the most naïve children ever born.

Basically, I was the kind of kid that wished for world peace for 3 years in a row, but it was because I was told to.

I was the kind of kid that mentioned all the needy and poor people in my prayers, still, only because I was told to.

I was the kind of kid that did anything anyone older than me said, because yet again... I was told to do so.

It disgusted me how I couldn't change no matter what I experienced. I guess at some point, I just labeled it as 'something I'm stuck with forever'.

I'd honestly like an ending or scenario where I can be like, 'but my wish hadn't gone unanswered... I just didn't know at the time.', or something like that.

Well anyways, such a suitable scenario never came to be. I was stuck with my naïvety for... a lifetime.

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12.07.2015

I walked into class, early unlike usual. But like usual, I had Carlos by my side.

I walked thoughtlessly to my seat, which was at the back of the class.

Before sitting down, I looked down at the floor near my chair and saw a trail of hundreds of ants stretching across the classroom.

It was absolutely repulsive, nauseating, gross, sickening and any other word meaning disgusting which I knew at the time.

Still standing up, I called out to him. "hey Carlos? did you ever eat an ant before?"

Carlos looked at me for a while before responding, "yeah. I did eat an ant once."

"what did it taste like?" I asked genuinely.

Another short pause came before the answer, "it was kind of spicy."

"did it taste good?"

At this point, our conversation attracted the attention of Ryan, a classmate sitting near me at the time.

"yeah, it was."

Carlos might have thought I was joking at first, so maybe he decided to play along. Maybe didn't notice at time, but maybe I should've thought a little more..?

"well," I paused for a while. "there are some ants on the ground over there, and I was wondering if you could eat them for me." I asked, no hidden meaning.

I can't remember what happened next, but I know for sure he never ate those ants.

~two years later~

I never understood why she, Barbara, seemed to just... come up, guess you could say?

At first, it was just name calling.

I guess I brushed it off as the usual name-calling and nicknames I was used to hearing. None of which stuck for long.

After three months or so, I realized it wasn't meant for fun, but rather as a form of bullying.

I being naïve naturally thought that as a sort of last effort of some sort.

Anyways, I thought about it and found that bullying was more credible than nicknames. Not that I'd know the words to describe it at the time.

Or even remember it now...

Basically, I told my mother I was going to too many tuitions and about how long they took to finish. I also mentioned Carlos and Barbara, but she didn't seem to care.

My reason for saying so? Because when I complained, she gave a half-assed reply. Now, she did do something about the tuitions, but that was only a year later, when I started getting A's and A*'s as an average.

She did nothing about the Carlos and Barbara part, though. Probably because she couldn't care enough. Well, either that or because Carlos and Barbara were both my cousin's friends.

I can't remember what happened next, but I'm pretty sure I trusted my mother. I guess it was kind of like a subscription trial. Except my subscription was useless and did nothing for me.

As you can imagine, my fruitless confrontation resulted in me thinking things were going to get better.

Obviously, they did not.

When I finally realized that, I decided that if my parents won't do anything, my friends can help.

Originally, I didn't think that. I just confided in Anna because we were really close and I trusted her.

When I told her Carlos and Barbara were bullying me, she got really mad. For once, I was happy that I told someone something. Just seeing her reaction made me feel much much better about myself.

But unfortunately, misunderstandings are bound to happen.

At the time, there were two Barbara's and two Carlos' in my class. The second Carlos, who didn't bully me was unfortunately sitting next to me.

When that Carlos came in, Anna confronted him asking why he bullied me.

I obviously corrected her saying it was the other Carlos, but she didn't seem to understand, seeing as she didn't even there were two Carlos' in our class.

After that was cleared up, the teacher came into class.

Like Anna did with Carlos 2, she immediately told the teacher that Barbara and Carlos were bullying me.

The teacher, unfortunately, didn't seem to have a head over her shoulders. She just naturally thought it was Carlos and Barbara 2 that were bullying me. I corrected her saying it was the other Carlos and the other Barbara.

Then, the teacher asked me what they did to bully me.

Honestly, this is where I was dumbfounded. When I thought about it rationally without mixing my personal feelings, I realized all they did was calling me names...

Sure, there were multiple times where they'd take my books and show my work off to others, which would be embarrassing, if you know what my grade 4 books looked like. Especially my CA drawing block.

Anyways, the teacher brushed it off saying, maybe it was a mistake.

Now, after so many years passed, I can finally answer the second question. True, they only called me different names and humiliated me, but that's not what matters.

'bullying' only counts as 'bullying' if the 'victim' gets hurt. It can't really be bullying if the victim isn't hurt. Most people grow at different speeds. It's natural for an 8 year old to cry about a lot of little things.

After all, isn't it supposed to be the little things that matter? Then wouldn't it make sense if the little problems hurt bigger than the big ones?

Take a needle. Being pierced by millions of small thread-sized needles would hurt more than being pierced by a giant needle the size of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two years after I had been bullied, I met another bully. Expect this time, it could be considered as 'actual bullying'. Not just name-calling, but things like stealing money, breaking my stuff or drawing on me. You know, things that can be considered 'bullying' from a third party, and not just something on an emotional level.

I never told on anyone after my ever increasing paranoia and anxiety. Though my distrust in my parents and teachers played an even bigger part than those two problems.

It was like a perpetual motion machine. Because I didn't trust anyone, I didn't tell anyone about the bullying, making him, Andrew, bully me more, which obviously made me more insecure and so on.

Anyways, I met Andrew again, but two years later, and it really looks like he changed. Or so I thought.

So, turns out, his act was fake. Luckily, I learnt of it right before I opened up to him.

Honestly, it's weird how all my relationships turn out like that. The second I'm about to trust them, they end up doing something which makes me hate their guts.

Turns out, that fucker was acting nice around me so I wouldn't snitch on him, seeing as I grew less unstable than I was before. I also got over my fear of him. Perhaps that was the main reason he started acting nice.

Anyways, it was my cousin that told me this, the same cousin who is friends with Carlos and Barbara.

So, the same Ryan which saw me telling Carlos to eat ants was ditching class like usual.

When he decided it was time for him to go back to class, business period just ended, and the teacher forgot her laptop in the classroom. Obviously, Ryan saw this as a chance to ditch class again.

He took the laptop and went downstairs saying he was 'going to return the laptop', but everyone knew he was just going to run around the school till a teacher drags him to the staff room.

Unfortunately, before he could even get down the stairs, he ran into the grade 4 lt, who was patrolling the second floor corridor. Anyways, instead of dragging him to the classroom, as all lt's do, she started lecturing him for a good fifty minutes while continuing to blame him for wasting her time.

(lt = leading teacher/lt's = leading teacher's. They are on the third floor, and the fourth graders are bellow them, on the second floor)

But before she could reach the fifty minute mark, she was interrupted a few minutes after the lecture began by the 'well-known' Hazel.

She's pretty notorious in our grade for numerous things (ch. 2).

When the lt ran off after Hazel, Ryan left the laptop on the table nearby and made a dash for the class.

As all grade 9 students do to their classmates for fun, Andrew, the grade 6 bully, held the door so Ryan couldn't get in.

Andrew obviously wanted Ryan to stay outside till a teacher saw him, so he'd get into trouble (it's pretty common in our school).

But turns out, Ryan was stronger than he thought, managing to stuff his hand through the door.

Normally, this is the part where the person holding the door stops, because he doesn't want to get in trouble himself for crushing someones hand, but Andrew didn't stop.

He just kept on pushing, and as all people do when subjected to such pain, he screamed like a girl and started crying. And as all crying messes do, he pulled his hand out from between the door and the frame, ignoring the ripping skin.

Now, he was outside the class, in front of the door, crying and clutching his hand. The perfect time for a teacher to intervene.

The english teacher which can be said to be hailed as a 'strict' teacher was the one who found Ryan on the ground.

Andrew either out of fear of the teacher or for what was to come, ran to his seat and, well... sat down.

The teacher lifted the crying Ryan off the ground and dragging him into class. She proceeded to ask what happened, but she didn't have to since everyone snitched on Andrew.

Maybe due to the humiliation, Ryan's crying was getting louder, and attracted the attention of Snide, the marine biology teacher.

Last year, I heard the girls in my class talking about how hot Snide was, and to be honest, it's true. He is pretty hot.

And, when my cousin, Alexa, graduated, my mother asked her why she chose marine biology. Sure, Alexa said she made some bad life decisions, but I'm sure she just went there for Snide.

Maybe the school put Snide in as the marine bio teacher because if it were someone else, marine bio would be as crowded as art class. And if you knew my school, you'd know how 'crowded' our art class is.

Well the point is, I never liked Snide. And not because he was handsome and my crush at the time was all over him. No no no no no. Not for such a childish reason... are the words use to comfort myself with...

Ignoring my pitiable... ness... Snide was going bananas and whatnot. The english teacher, Sid, was also going bananas.

Like what the lt normally does, Snide and Sid start lecturing the class for the entire period, and the blame the students for wasting class time.

Even though everyone snitched on Andrew, the teachers didn't believe anyone. They said he wouldn't do that, but then they blamed the students for not doing anything..?

Anyways, it was like a poor person suddenly buying a ps5 and when confronted by the cops, they say it was the other person's fault because their security wasn't good enough.

I wasn't surprised by this reaction, because when I was being bullied by Andrew, his 'best friend', Archy, was also being bullied.

But unlike me, he told everyone what Andrew did, but then the teacher said Andrew would never do something like that.

He also shifted the attention by saying that Achy's sister, Lia, was abusing him. Which was surprisingly true.

I guess they are just best friends for looks.

Honestly, if I weren't also bullied by Andrew, I also would've fallen into his trap. But I've got to admit, it was smart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2,765

Why is the counter so low? There are clearly millions of people still alive. Why is this happening?

----------------

"Sasha! Where are we going?" said a petite girl around 4,8"

"anywhere away from here!" she said. "that's for sure..."

As the two kept running, they found a cave and went into it. But instead of what you'd expect to see in a cave, it was all vents and corridors.

The two ran till they went into a circular room with a few corridors attached and had a hole broken into the ground in the middle of the room. They jumped into the hole, which dropped them into a slanted surface which slid them down into a vent.

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An amazing scene was to behold. The world was being rebuilt in front of their very eyes. The robots were building houses, but hiding their "kin" inside the walls of the houses.

A group of people were seen running through the gathering of newly built houses.

2,753

All of a sudden, the houses collapsed, one by one, and the robots inside the houses started a massacre. Corpses scattered everywhere, a true sight to behold. When ever a person took refuge in a house, the entire building breaks down and the robots hidden inside it Slaughter everyone they could find. It was a horrifying, yet incredible sight.

306

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"Sasha, look! It's the gate!" said the petite figure in the dark.

"I know Charlotte." she replied. "I know."

28

Before they could jump into the gate (the gate is below them), two figures appeared parallel to them from the other side of the vent.

12

Both the figures ran straight at them, with clear intent to kill.

3

"..." they all stopped.

The counter had reached 3, yet 4 people were there. They didn't know what to do.

But while everyone stopped moving, Sasha suddenly started talking.

"Charlotte." she said. "I know that many people, and maybe you too, think that I took the job of protecting you to live an easy life..." she Paused for a while. "but the truth is" she paused again. "I- "

No words came out of her mouth. Suddenly, Sasha took Charlotte by the hand and threw her into the gate.

"now you will finally be safe. Enjoy the other world."

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The two who were previously at the gate had gone on a plane. The counter had reached 2, which meant that they were the only people alive.

They jumped off the plane and opened their parachutes when they were a few 100 metres off the ground. All of a sudden, James (thug 1) had a terrible feeling. He looked at the counter, and saw death.

The number 1.

How was Caroline (thug 2) with him?! Wasn't she alive?! Why did the counter say she was dead?!

He looked above at her and saw that she had a broken leg. He guided himself closer to check on her condition, but she started kicking him. Was she was alive or dead? He didn't know.

He tried putting up with the kicking as they were nearing the city plaza. (they are still mid-air).

After a bit more kicking, Caroline's leg fell right off. James was covered in the blood spurting out of her leg onto him. He cried as her blood mixed with his tears.

Who would've thought the woman he was dating with the intention to marry would meet such a sad end? And in front of him as well.

He was too depressed to think about living or dying.

The entire plaza broke down as the walls collapsed and the robots came out the plaza walls. He held her body close to his body till her eyes had lost their glow.

The two corpses remained together, till a robot came and cut the two in half.

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Damn! What a weird dream! Just like the word weird...

Is it spelled as weird to make it weird? That's kinda funny.

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I've always found it weird when 'swear words' were used in ways the meaning doesn't apply. So, I'll use words like bitch, fuck and etc where the meaning actually apply. If you don't know the meanings, search it up. It's not as bad as you think it'd be (at least for me).