Chapter 1

Dear Mom,

I am all well and perfectly fine. Thank you. The past year has been awfully good. Seriously! And I heard you bought a new orphanage. My good wishes to you.

And now since all the formalities have been completed: HOW ARE YOU? It's been months since you wrote to me. Well, now that I try to remember it has not been months exactly, but you get the point. It HAS been a long time. How's dad's diabetes? I hope there is nothing bad enough to hide from me.

About my eyes, nothing's helped. Fortunately, it has not worsened. I still have to wear it all day. Just like other kids with myopia. Seriously, mom you ask me every time about something completely normal. I mean, people wear glasses all day. Now about something actually concerning. The dyslexia are still the same. Nothing more and nothing less. You know, ma they actually teach here how to write e-mails but I'm still not good enow. BUT you get the point.

Also don't forget the gift for my 14th birthday (which is just day after tomorrow).

I still LOVE YOU and dad (and pls tell him that writing in small does not make me love him any less) without the e-mails. Happy day.

And with that I complete my monthly dosage of lying. Well, not complete lies. Of course, I still have the glasses and dyslexia. My mother insists to e-mail her every month about school and how I am but if tell her everything truthfully, then she'll worry her hair off (and she loves her hair). I live away from my parents for boarding school. Of course, I miss them but I guess you can't miss anything for too long.

It is six in the morning and I am in the boy's dorm right now, completely dressed because the classes start at 7:15. (I really don't like to be late). After the e-mail is sent, I Alt+F4 twice then enter to shut down my lappy. The window is open and it is getting chilly as the cold wind blows in. It's almost winter now and Christmas is just a month and six days away. And now that I have closed the laptop, it feels kind of boring. Not that I am always glued to my devices but I don't have many friends in the school and the few that are, are sleeping. Despite that, I never feel lonely.

I am now rocking back the chair and yeah, I am still wearing the glasses, wearing them 24/7 except bedtime because there is nothing to see. Just the black oblivion and the world of your imagination beyond.

Because not wearing them gives me a headache.

Because then the dyslexia kicks in (and it actually kicks in).

Now I am weird that way, always have been. The doctor could not understand why I seemed to be dyslexic when I took off my glasses and then he took me to a biologist and they thought they have found a new syndrome and are trying to prove it to the community for recognition. That is a different story.

Seeing as how I am bored now; I take off my glasses. I have grown used to the headache but I like to see things the way they are, so I always wear my specs.

And the weird starts happening. (Shout out to everyone wearing specs) The usual visual haziness sets in but that is where the similarity between me and everyone ends. Everything else grows out of focus and I can see clearly.

But what?

The wall (no).

I find myself growing distant from the table beside my bed but not linearly, my vision starts moving in a circular motion as if I am falling. And now, this very now I see my e-mail unsent. I just sent it a while ago.

That was pretty much it for me. I slip my glasses over my ears. And I am much too entertained for the day, thank you.

I am still balancing on the hind-legs of my chair...which slips from beneath.

And I fall to the ground.

Please feel free to consider me a fool but I don't get up quickly. Instead I look around as if I can do something to the one who tripped me.

The boy whose bed was beside me is now sitting on his bed laughing his head off. Seriously, I don't get it. What is so funny in tripping someone? That is when I realize that all the boys in the dorm are awake.

"Are you catching your worm, early bird?", commented the highest scorer of the class with his 'high-grade' sarcasm that only he can understand (and me). The guy who pushed my chair hits him on his head with a pillow.

"Shut-up, Ben", he says and pushes him this time and he falls. And…... they all start laughing again. All it took is 'shut-up'. Sometimes the stupidity is incomprehensible. They get a laugh out of ruining my day. Well, not my day per se, but my mum says," A good morning serves for a better day".

The alarm bell rings to signal us to wake up as it is 6:30. No one hurries up but some of the boys who think that they have to go to school go to the bathroom. The others? Let's just say that they think school is the trashiest place and they make their thoughts clear by falling face-first in their beds again.

I pick myself up then, put my laptop in its bag. I dust myself off and sit on my bed while the other boys are either sleeping or getting ready. I feel my bedsprings creak and a boy plops himself down beside me. I look up to find it is Keith, one of my few friends.

"You okay, Pete?"

"I'm fine", I sigh.

"Look, just forget it", he stops for a second then continues "You have gym class today".

"What is so good about that?" I ask; rhetorically of course. I am not bad at sports, just that I can't play anything properly. If there were a class for Rubik's cube solving then I'd ace it. But Keith doesn't mean the gym is good. It is person who is in it that will be worth my time (figure of speech; I'm not that busy).

We talk some more, mostly about homework and then Keith leaves to go get ready for school.

And again, I am left alone. I glance at my watch. It is 6:48 now. There is still some time for the school to start, so I take out my laptop and open Chrome. There is this blog I read, and the next chapter for a story the creator is writing must have come out by today.

I google the name and open the blog. All I see is this:

The story is yet to be released.

The curiosity flushes out from me like… (I'll leave it to imagination).

The thing is, the writer of this blog is very talented and his writing is so good sometimes you can feel it growing towards you.

The story was about a boy whose parents after many struggles finally get time to spend with him. (I know, I know it's a bit emotional but who cares, the story gets way better) His father almost died once but his family came through every difficulty and it is finally Christmas. But the ground shook on that day, and his father shouted at his mother to get out with their son. It was left on a cliff-hanger and there has been no update since.

I spend the time left contemplating, what could be the reason?

Earthquake…nah. The father himself would also have come out instead of warning them to go out.

And the rest of the time is spent in formulating ideas, none of which seem fitting enough with the plot.

It is 7:00 am now. And I get up to go main building.

Now as I said, I board school so it is pretty easy for me to reach the school building. Ours is the east wing and for girls it's west. (You don't want teenage boys and girls getting too close, do you?). The north side of the hostel is for girls' washroom with several for each of the three floors.

And obviously, for boys it is on the south side.

The school building is a little away from the hostel building.

I get down the two flights of stair to reach the ground floor and make my way to the main gate. Thankfully, I am still stable on my two legs, no one has pushed me so far.

Because that is what happens to people who are passive: they are bullied, like me. People take their ignorance for weakness and they are bullied. This does not only happen with boys.

I look to my left to see girl being pushed, almost every ten feet. And the people who do it derive "fun" from it.

Stupid.

My school is sits on top of a hill. It is not too high, but still it gets extremely cold here around November, so I am wearing a school-issue jacket and muffler above the uniform shirt and pants.

The main gate of my hostel building is now behind and I am walking towards school.

The sun is almost up but it makes no difference as the sky is mostly overcast with ocean-storm coloured clouds. The winds blow as they ruffle the leaves shed below the trees and sprinkle them here and there. All yellow dotting the grey of the path and dirt of the unpaved ground. Some leaves are still falling, and I stop to see a pattern in them (I love finding patterns in things). Boys and girls from the hostel are still pouring out into the ground and making their way towards school. Some of them intentionally pass-by me making 'thoughtful' comments (let's just say I am not very admired at the school).

I realize, it is getting late and so I give up on the promising career of leaf-watching and run.

It feels good to run in the cold weather, the air pumping through my lungs cooling my system and warming my body at the same time.

And also, it makes me reach on time. The attendance has not started yet but our teacher is already seated.

I am early. So, I take the front seat and sit down. I have already taken the necessary things for the social studies class and kept my bag in my locker.

And I am thinking about the gym, about how to not make a fool of myself in front of her. She and I only have this class in common and the worst thing, she is extremely good at sports. So am I, but I cannot play anything properly.

Mr. Grant, our social studies teacher; who has a particular interest in me; has started taking the attendance. And I am still lost in thoughts, so when my name is called, I practically shout, "PRESENT" at him, which gets a laugh out of everyone and a life-threatening glare from him.

He then asks us to open chapter 13. (nobody is paying attention, but) He starts explaining the chapter. It is about domestic precautions and as boring as any other chapter. So, I again indulge myself in the important task of not making a fool of myself in gym (in front of her).

And then surprisingly, my vision gets tunneled again, which makes me leave my train of thoughts. Everything else grows out of focus...… actually no, I can see everything clearly. To my right, I see a boy get slapped by a girl. I turn to the other side and see a guy being pushed off his chair. Everyone else is minding their own business which is everything accept listening to Mr. Grant

My head is ARRGH!! It is aching again. Like somebody is punching my temples from the inside.

I turn to the front and see Mr. Grant throw a chalk towards me. And at the same time, I don't. An almost clear outline of his hand is moving different as if throwing while his completely solid 3D hand is just holding the book. It's like I am seeing two images overlapping each other.

And it's all happening – in slow motion. What the hell?

I jerk my hand upwards to block the chalk, which I can literally SEE move towards me.

How can I perceive things so slow?

My fingers are now in front of my chin and I can see it is hopeless. The chalk is going to kill me, guys.

I close my eyes as a reflex but my hands are still moving towards my face.

I chalk should have hit me by now. I knew I could not stop the chalk, that is why I closed my eyes.

Instead I feel that nothing hit my face, but I feel something touch the back of my palm.

I remove them from my face to find that everything is clear and the playback speed of the world is 1x. A chalk is lying on my desk and there is white spot on the back of my palm. To my right, a boy is holding his cheek as if someone...… slapped him. A boy is lying on the ground, his hand holding the weight of his torso, on my other side as if he was...… pushed.

Mr. Grant asks me to stand and I do, "Where is your mind, my boy?"

"Me?", I ask back instead of replying.

My head is still aching from.... what? I don't know. It hurts only when I take off my glasses. I search my face frantically for my specs. They are still there.

Then how?

"I suppose, I asked you to stand.", his words shake me out of my 'self-analysis'. How is he still calm? After such a disorder, if I would've been a teacher, I would've been outraged.

"I am perfectly fine, sir.", I lie. My mind still in a wreck.

"Then, please the Allentown incident to our overly eager class." He asks the same thing to every student in the class who is not paying attention or has disobeyed. And funny, nobody is able to answer it. I think they find it boring, but it is pretty interesting. He explains that it was because of one thing. I disagree.

But for now, I tell what is given in the book.

Now Allentown is a pretty big place, but the incident he is talking about is so famous, the site might as well have been a landmark for the place.

"The incident took place in a suburb in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Th-".

"The name of the suburb, please", he harshly interrupts, but now I don't mind as everything is out of focus for me. Relax, it just the normal out-of-focus. I am still thinking how can the dyslexia take effect with specs.

But I still tell the name of the suburb and further, "It happened in Cetronia". I am not looking at him now just narrating the things, "On Christmas, a house exploded taking some part of a nearby house with it."

But now as I am telling, it actually must've been pretty terrifying for the survivors, "No debris was found and no body was retrieved. Only survivors were the mother and the son. And the body of the father was nowhere to be found as he was nearest to the blast. The mother and the son had run out of the house.", I stop for the dramatic effect. Just kidding. "No other casualties and that is why", I turn behind to face the rest of the class because Mr. Grant told me explain, "I tell you, children to be really careful around fire. Those people were not and the boy's father died."

I turn back around to face Mr. Grant who is now glaring at me, "Sit down, Mr. Carlssin."

He does not really despise me but I think he was just frustrated. Maybe from the class not paying attention, maybe due to something else... who knows?

But my attention is not in the class, not even the gym. How am I seeing things so slowly and even with my glasses. Is my condition getting worse? And though I never realized it till now; because it was never bothering enough with my specs, how can I see things are...going to happen?