Bright light got through my eyelids, slightly waking me up from my slumber, following with the sounds of birds chirping that constantly rang into my eyes, I groaned as if I was knocked unconscious after a brawl, my eyes still closed, my body feeling stiff as a rock, urghh, was it the effect of the month long coma I had? Or the aftermath of getting into 2 fights in one night? I wondered but I decided to go with both answers, that's what made the most sense.
My eyelids opened and my eyes met the plain white ceiling, darkened by the shadow from the walls around the window covering up the sunlight and also the curtain, which moved swiftly by the wind, sending an unusual cold towards the uncovered parts of my body, but that breeze was no longer felt as I fully woke up.
I lifted my upper body, which caused cracks to happen to my back, and the stiffness finally went away, to some extent atleast. I yawned, then looked from the window, and the sun was still rising, which explained the breezes of wind that I was feeling before I fully woke up.
I got up from my bed, which was cranking, How old is this thing anyway? I thought but brushed it off and walked to the bathroom and got Infront of the sink, which was right below a medium sized mirror which reflected half of my body, I looked closely to my face and I had a beard that was easily noticable, probably longer than I ever had, which surprised me, What's this? I thought looking at the brand new look I had, the longest beard I had, followed with a bit of a long hair that went below my ear, I ran my right hand through my beard and thought that maybe I should shave it, for now atleast.
I opened up closet which had all my bathroom stuff in it and picked up a blade from a full box that had around 5-10 of them, I unpacked it and sprayed water on it and on my beard, to which I used creamed and started shaving, darkish silver bits of hair dropping inside the inside, with the sound of scratching, continuing with it, I accidentally pulled the blade too hard, which caused my face to get a scratch, Urgh, was all I could say at that time, I picked up a tissue paper and wiped it off and started shaving again.
My beard was shaved, and I had brushed right after it, so that left me with the problem of the long hair, I couldn't cut it by myself, I wasn't skilled at that, so I went with the most logical thing and opened up the drawer and picked up a plastic band which was wrapped around a tiny paper box, and tied my hair together, leaving a decent amount of hair hanging from the back of my head.
I got out of the bathroom and went straight to the kitchen to eat something Arza left in the kitchen, opening the fridge I saw spaghetti with meatballs, which looked tempting but I went with the lightest one, a breakfast sandwich with 2 small sausages inside with sliced layers of cheese on top along with some greenery that I couldn't be bothered to think about and picked both of them up, I put it in the heater while I got ready, I didn't require a shower usually because I mostly cleaned myself off using one of the convenient Sol techniques that cleaned you up with no water required.
I was wearing a white t shirt from yesterday and black baggy pants that made me feel light, I picked up a grey shirt from the hanger and put it on, and when I was done preparing, and so were the sandwiches, I picked it up from the heater and put one in my mouth while I stored the other in my dimension watch and left the house.
Meanwhile, while walking around the streets waving to those I knew, I was dialing Jun, and while doing that, I was thinking of how I had the continuation of the same dream I had while I was out for a long time, it was weird, despite me seeing just moments of the past, it's rare when you continue a dream, everyone knew that, it felt extremely weird, but perhaps it was for the better, and my dreams had meaning to them, I'd look more into them later.
Jun picked up the signal, I sent him a message, asking him to meet up at our usual place, the park nearby the school we used to attend, to which he agreed to meet, so I continued on my way there.
Me and Jun had always been close since that day, even if our energy didn't match exactly, we were extremely good friends, having many things in common, our keen for battle and rukh, and many more, though we hadn't met for months, even before the incident, Jun had left for work study in the next city, and he had returned for about a day or two now, if I remembered the date he said he'd return properly.
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I had arrived at the park, sitting on the bench looking backwards to the sidewalk around the huge grass filled circular designed park that was 1 kilometer wide with a massive tree in the middle with strong branches hanging from it where children were swinging and playing with each other.
Never understood how they let it grow into such a huge state but maybe it was because that they couldn't, maybe it was some immortal tree sucking the life of this planet, shivers slightly struck my body as I sat there staring at the massive full of life tree, imagining my own words to be true.
"Yo!" A familiar voice shook me off while a hand was placed on my right shoulder, "What's up?" I turned my eyes towards the direction the voice and the hand came from, a grin formed on my face, I picked up the hand on my right shoulder with both of my hands, picking the person up and throwing them right to the tree, and I finally saw my friend's face after a long time, breaking his speed, he broke on the grass and immediately rushed towards me.
He threw a right jab towards my face, which I dodged pretty easily, hitting the bottom of his elbow with the wrist of my hand, a left knee kick was approaching the right side of my stomach, I stopped it with my right palm.
With so many openings left to attack from, one reached behind my neck, locking me into a deadlock "Alright, I give up." I could barely say while I was almost suffocating, he let me go soon after.
We both backed off for a moment, a silent was made for a few seconds, then we burst out laughing, tears coming out of my and his eyes, "Oh man, guess we are still kids inside eh?" He said lifting his glasses with his right hand and wiping the tear off his eye with the proximal phalanx of his index finger of his left, "I guess so." I replied, my closed as I took wriped my tears off with the tip of my middle finger.
It felt as if it had been a long time that I could laugh and joke around like that, even though everything started happening just a month ago, but matter still needed to be solved and I needed my genius friend's help.
"So, what did you wanna talk about?" My friend asked, "Oh yeah, let's sit down and talk more comfortably." I replied sitting down on the old wooden bench that made a slight creak as I sat, he sat down as well. "I'm sure you've heard about what's happened already." I said in a serious tone, switching the atmosphere of our conversation. "More or less." He replied.
"I've been trying to get the culprit but I've got no luck besides them being a part of some organization or something." He nodded, signaling me to continue, "And from the reports from the science team, apparently a sort of blood controlling sol technique was used on the victims, making their cells generate at a rapid rate, making their bodies and mind go berserk." His face showed that he was thinking about it, with 3 fingers from his right hand on his chin, "So what do you think?" I broke the silence.
"Well, aside from the organization part that I've no clue about, however, the blood technique? That does ring a bell, don't it?" I stared at him with a slight confusion on my face "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten about our school, this school's medic and biology teacher." We looked at the big label that stated the school's name "Dr. Jermaine Flann, huh?"
"Yeah, he's the only person I know who can use blood sol techniques."
Couldn't say I had a good memory with him but he wasn't all that bad except with his weird obsession with his research, he was a normal man with an average family of 3.
"Let's go see if the school's got anything useful for us." I got up and put my hands inside the slanted pockets of my heavy white coat, "Alright!" Jun got up wiping the dust off from the back of his pants.
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The gate of the school, still large as ever, and barely anything different was noticed as we stood Infront of it, it had been around 4 years since we left here "Brings back memories." Jun said. "Both good and bad ones." I scoffed.
We entered the school area, the sound of students talking to each other but I heard a group of girls around the age of Lucille gossiping that caught my attention. "Did you hear? The previous doctor here was kicked out for some weird experiments he was doing." "Oh really? That's creepy. I knew this school was weird but strange experiments? That's the worst!" Previous doctor... Could that be Flann? I thought out loud.
"What's that?" Jun looked at me with raised brows, "It's about Dr. Jermaine, I heard a bunch of girls talking about a doctor getting kicked out due to some weird experiments he was inducting, could it be him?" Jun raised an eyebrow "That could be him." He said placing his right hand on his chin "I remember you told me about how he was acting when he invited you to his office." That brought back bad memories, almost traumatizing if it had happened to someone else.
"It does make sense but let's confirm if it is really him or not." My friend nodded and we continued on to walk until we saw a teacher.
"If it ain't Alan and Four Eyes!" A woman shouted, her familiar laxed voice stopped us, we turned around and a woman with brown curly hair tied into a knot with a few strings of her hair hanging Infront of her face, her purplish brown eyes meeting ours, "Jasmine!" Our mouths wide open as we met our Sol teacher after such a long time.
She got closer to us smiling with her eyes closed but a vein had appeared on her forehead, twitching, she was in a 1 meter radius from us, suddenly both of her arms rose up, made into fists, we both knew what was coming, and how bad we had messed up by missing the formalities, our eyes locked onto her raising hands, twitching with fear we both accepted our fates and closed our eyes.
Suddenly instead of a punch, a firm and warm hand was placed on our heads "You've grown." We opened our eyes and our old teacher was gently smiling at us with her eyes closed.
"I'll let the rudeness slide this once, but if you skip formalities again then..." Her head tilted and her eyes opened into a deadly stare that made us concerned, her hands squeezing the top of our heads, acceptancely we nodded continuously until she told us to stop, which ironically didn't happen, "So, what business have you here?" We stopped nodding, and slightly looked up at her "A few questions, that's all."
"Oh." She said in wonder, "Let's talk somewhere quiet then." She started walking and we started following her, while she was leading the way, we were greeted by some of our old teachers that were either taking kids back to class, talking to each other or just being out for a fresh air, the place hadn't changed a bit, it was still the same through and through, though I wish the discrimination would stop, it could get out of hand, speaking as a real witness.
"Well, here we are." Jasmine said while opening the door to the quiet place she was talking about, no sound of the door creaking at all, complete silence as the door smoothly slid open, but I guess it would make sense if that was here office, Jasmine always liked to keep her place clean, and I liked that about her, aside from the fact that she made us clean the class most of the time, but that was an important lesson, it was true that peace of mind would only come in a clean place.
Entering the room, I witnessed cleanliness that brought back memories, the desk shining because of the rays of the sunlight sneaking through the slightly opened window that was covered by grey curtains that were getting blown by the wind, the glass of the closet that had not a single dirty spot on it, and the rest of the room, was pretty much the same, it was astonishing how one could dedicate such time and effort into cleaning.
I personally just cleaned until it looked clean enough, which didn't take that long since I'm out of my apartment most of the time.
Jasmine sat down "Nevermind what I said earlier, go and play or study, I'll call you in later, for now you can go." She said to the unnoticeable short kid with black hair, sitting comfortably playing with the pen in his hand, a smug look on his face "Oh well, thanks for wasting my time, Ms. Curly." He said as he got up, Jasmine was annoyed, but somehow controlling her anger, otherwise, this kid would've been sent at the nurse's office.
"You're tall." He said snorting looking up at my four eyed friend, he gave a pretentious smile, the kid made his hand into a fist, I sensed him channeling Rukh into his fist, he stepped his right foot back and prepared to hit the hand on the same direction.
He punched Jun in the stomach, no reaction came from my friend but the kid started crying, "My hand!!!" He started crying and ran away from the open door.
"Serves you right!" Jasmine muttered with victory in her tone, but we could hear her perfectly, "You've gotten soft, Jas." I said but quickly covered my mouth, "I mean, Ms. Julius."
"Times change, and so do people." She said melancholically, "Oh well, sit down." We both sat down at the complete black sofa, that made us bounce a bit but it was normal right after.
"It's about Dr. Jermaine Flann, we heard he got kicked out but just to make sure, we wanted to confirm it." A look of surprise formed on her face but then immediately went back to normal.
"Oh him... It's perhaps a long story." She said sighing, "Oh well, if you wanna hear then pay attention." We nodded and started listening attentively.