The True Face Of Spencer’s School (5)

Tumunomi Escaver grinned as he approached the DumbbellLever. Like Jacob, he picked 20 kg weights and he raised them as h kept his eyes on Mrs Rose Marilyn.

1 rep

2 reps

3 reps...

He stopped at 65, then he repeated his results 65 times.

He was panting lightly and he had not stopped looking at Mrs. rose Marilyn.

Finim Barboach was looking at him as though he were an alien and he shot a glance to his superior before looking back at the contestant.

Tumunomi Escver calmed his breathing before reaching the MindSewer and setting his feet on the treadle.

Paddling, he allowed himself be taken in by the memories.

For the first 10 minutes, he felt a distant pain that still somehow felt attached to him. Like a mosquito bite on a friend that he could almost feel. Also, there was a case of whispers, was a sword thrusted as him, too? And was there another. Additionally his vision began seeing... steam... About himself which came out of air only to disappear into it.

Were the weapons from earlier made from this mist?

The next 10 minutes, the pain felt like pins were lined on his body and were being lightly poked at him so that it was though all his pores wanted to bleed out. The murmur in the air could have been in a library with stubborn students who were not exactly whispering or talking loud. The mist was more present in the air and the swords had started spinning their tips at his body as if trying to distract him.

He snorted, semi surrounded by the smoke that brought forth the illusions of swords.

10 minutes more and Tumunoni Escaver thought pins had enclosed him from all sides The pins made from the smoke felt as loud as what could be described as a market place. Voies of different textures making random babblings. He heard his names on different occasion did not chose to get distracted. Then, at some point, pins had been plunged into his pores. The breaking all but real. The blood all but real.

His silence and lack of emotional display all but fake.

The next 10 and a memory of he and Derek popped into his head as if the growing pain of the punctures had triggered it.;

Tumunomi Escaver had been waiting with a line of students. They had all been prepped and dressed for the day.

It was the highlight of every year.

Today he was supposed to be picked.

He had waited until the parents came and he had never felt so excited.

2 years ago, he had been happy because he ahd seen his peers happy. But now he was prudent enough to see the wealth and body types of the parents coming to pick them. Their easy smiles, their happiness, their...glow.

He could not really break it down with his mind of a chid but he knew wanted to be a part of whatever they were a part of.

"Pick me, Pick me."

Tumunomi Escaver had almost raised his hands for an entire hour. And he had heard, 'that one looks like a ravenous wolf', his sunken eyes make him able to pass for dead' and 'his grim look would be bad for name.'

At first he had ignored it until he was the only one left standing in his area.

Derek, had come to punch his arm.

"Hey, its another year to bond."

The boys rosy cheeks and his bright eyes would have made any parent pick him. In fact Derek had that generic cute kid face. Only thing was, he had a scar that started from the left side of his face. And then after crossing his nose bridge, it broke off into three; the first crossed over his eye, the second extended to his ear and last reached his jaw line.

Tumunomi Escaver shrugged and kept on staring with longing.

'hey, scarface is with the grim wolf'

Tumunomi Escaver heard it and did not know when his body moved.

One second he had been on the ground standing there. And the next, he had ran up the adult who spoke and clawed at him until he was pulled away.

Derek had clapped.

Back to the present, 10 minutes had multiplied the pain - as every 5 seconds it climbed up a notch - both the voices and the smoke. Tumunomi Escaver could swear he was firstly in a *rowdy* auction secondly in a never ending sea of people. Now, the Pins were not just burying themselves into his body body extricating themselves in and out.

At some point, another memory came;

At the age of 8, Tumunomi Escaver was once again standing in wait to be picked at the cafeteria just like the previous years. Only difference was that this time, he had turned his back at the parents and was facing the other direction.

'It is that mad boy,'

'the grim one, eh?'

'ignore him,'

'maybe he just wants attention.'

'i wouldn't give attention to that!'

'hey, its sca-'

'shut up!'

'say nothing more!'

'have you met a rabid dog before?'

Derek patted his friend in the back.

"What's wrong, did you fail to understand the concept of direction?"

"You watch too many movies, I don't understand you."

Derek sighed as though he enjoyed his friend's ignorance. "Why are you not looking the right way?"

"You saw them, you saw how they spoke of me and you."

"So?" Derek shrugged. " A wise man once sai-"

Tumunomi Escaver rolled his eyes. "You watched that in a movie."

"Still works, not all movies are dumb. And what the man said was, you must love and hate hope."

Tumunomi Escaver was about to ask him what he meant but his friend answered his unspoken question.

"It means that you must love hope enough to have faith and hate hope enough not to get down because of it."

Tumunomi Escaver was trying to wrap his head around it when his friend turned him around on the spot so that he faced the parents who wanted foster children.

"Look at them! Do not back down, sissy!"

Derek laughed and Tumunomi Escaver punched his arm as the feeling of hate and detest came back up to him like when he had heard them insult his friend only a year before. He remembered getting beaten after the people had left but it did not seem to have wiped away the fear.

It had only bolstered the anger.

Derek fell on the floor laughing but when he stood up he punched Tumunomi Escaver's hand and he too fell on the floor laughing, and even louder.

It escalated until they began fighting with smiling teeth and the staff had to separate them. And when he had thought they were rough-handling Derek, his whole body weight broke the staff's nose.

Back in the present, Tumunomi Escaver laughed and kept on treading. Not only had most of the viewers jumped because they knew what he was experiencing but some of them fell to their butts on the floor, murmuring 'no way' as he watched the pins become various morden weapons that began hacking and cutting at him.

The pain made him consider letting go, but he had a deal with Mrs Rose Marilyn that the woman had better keep. Plus now, he could barely see anything as he felt as though he were in a world of fog and smoke. Thus, amidst the shots, cuts, hacking, incisions and the raging roar like stacked waterfall, another 10 minutes went by.

The next triggered memory was of him standing ramrod and staring straight ahead. He watched potential parents come and go and he ignored them all.

"Love and hate hope!"

Tumunomi Escaver had almost laughed because he remembered what had happened last year but he almost cried because Derek had been taken some months later when they had stolen some food. Oh, it had tasted sweet in their hungry stomachs, especially because they had began working out the year before and since then the food in the cafeteria had not been enough.

So, his expression made him look almost manic, and coupled with his shout, there was now an even wider radius between himself and other kids.

Either ways, he still wasn't picked once more. In fact, by now, other kids had began avoiding him because there was a child who had not been picked last year because a parent had said the kid might have been friends with him.

When that visitation day had ended, he had walked to his room and had wondered who to ruin next as he had become quite fund of doing so after Derek had left.

Well not fund off, exactly, because he had his reasons, still.

The next 5 minutes he was moving slower and the noise in this ime was like painful screeching. Like a jungle with monkeys who had amplified heir voice boxes until even the heavens decided to supply wrath for their disturbances. The realistic weapons mow looked mediaeval and began sawing some parts of his body off.

He stopped when it was only his head, torse and right arm left.

He heard his beating heart and when his eyes opened, they met Mrs. Rose Marilyn's.

Her mouth could fit an ostrich egg and even Finim Barboach could not hate the boy any longer.

Some students even began clapping when they remembered the rule of silence but the staff were too surprised to even notice a breach in the rules.

Among them was John who almost shouted. Jacob had clamped his mouth just in case and Ivan had let out a sharp scream he had turned off midway.

Peter was awestruck.

65 minutes!

Even Finim Barboach was tempted to clap

Tumunomi Escaver calmed himself and proceeded for the next test - ReflectionLawn.

Tumunomi Escaver had not been a fan of movies like Derek, but one thing that had gotten him hooked were fight scenes; the passion and the dance.

So, when he had been with Derek, his friends would pull out magazines he had gotten from sleeping, careless or absent minded staff and arranged what he wanted.

They had began training in regimens that taught explosive speed like push up burpees. It had been that, then specific body parts, cardio, flexibility and all that.

This was going to be easy!