Jason ran out the door, not bothering to grab a breakfast on his way out. He was late for class and had a 2 mile trek ahead of him. The worn backpack, overflowing with too many books and school supplies, thumped against his lower back and shifted its weight from side to side, throwing Jason’s running rhythm and causing his back to ache with torturous pain. Luckily, only a short run was necessary to get him back on schedule. Even if it wasn’t, he would still have stopped after a short while, he could never maintain that pace with for any real length of time. He slowed his pace, holding his back, and trudged along his way.
Jason yawned. The day was was breaking. Stars could still be seen in the in night sky, faintly shimmering. Jason’s hand slipped into his hoodie’s pockets, reaching for his phone and headphones. He accessed a video site and started playing a recent video putting in his ear buds and flipping his hood up over his head. It was about recent sighting of UFOs and cover-ups by the government. He got a chuckle out of the ridiculous notion that such a thing was remotely true. In the video, the person showed images of a dark object they said was located beyond Pluto and closing fast, broadcasting something. Of course, all of what was said had a rational explanation. The object was a real enough, probably some meteor or asteroid, and the signal being emitted was likely had some local source these amateurs were mistaking for coming from the object.
The video ended as Jason got into school. Katherine Calder was in the foyer talking to her friends, or at least, Jason thought they were her friends. He didn’t know much about her. He just knew her as the popular pretty girl that every school has. They were in the same grade, but their social circles, class schedule, and electives never lined up. Most people you asked would say that the the reason she is popular is likely because most people think that it was cute that to be at the same eye level of most of their classmates she needed to stand on something. Today she was standing on the benches attached to the walls. Otherwise, she looked like a very classy woman with long caramel hair in a grey jacket over a black blouse and grey skirt. “Miss. Calder, please don’t stand on the benches, ” a teacher scolded as they passed by. Jason continued on his way to class before the teacher got on their cases for hanging in the hall.
The class was half full, but a few seats in the back were still open. Jason made his way to a desk next to a silver haired girl in black who was draped over the desk, one arm hanging down limply, as the other was being used as a pillow, pushing her glasses out of place. Even the sucker she had in her mouth looked tired. Gael Varon was almost the complete opposite of Katherine, in appearance, personality, and in with relation to Jason. They had shared many of their classes in school. They weren’t friends, but they were both outcasts and preferred the back of classrooms, so they often found themselves sitting next to each other, and, despite looking like she had spent the night at a rave, Jason knew enough about her that he knew she had likely spent all night reading a novel, writing fanfic, or drawing. She heard rustling in the desk next to her, prompting her to expend the energy to force open her eyes just enough to see who it was. She was relieved to see him, knowing that he wouldn’t disturb her like most of the other boys in her class.
“Notes?”
Jason looked at her for a second, laughed, then nodded, “Sure, don’t worry about it.” Geal raised her hand up just enough to be in his field of vision and made a thumbs up gesture, before letting her arm fall back to down. Jason pulled out his notebook and pen, preparing for homeroom. Gael pulled the sucker from her mouth, turned her head, and buried her face into arm, smudging her make-up and pushing her glasses up on her forehead.
The teacher walked in, closing the door, locking it behind him and started to pull out his materials. Not a minute later a knock at door came. The teacher opened it and took a stern stance, “Mister Jordan, you are late again. Get to a seat.” The 6’2” boy, dressed in a varsity jacket and jeans nodded and took a look around the room for an open desk. Unfortunately, there was only one right next to Jason. The guy headed right for it as the teacher shut the door and went back to preparing to start the class. “Hey, Jay, how you doing,” he said as he took the seat next to Jason with a smile on his face, looking relaxed and full of energy. Jason let out a small groan with a look of annoyance on his face, “It’s Jason.
“Right, Jay.”
“Shut up, Chris.”
Jason settled into his seat feeling that it was going to be a long day. He never liked sitting next to Chris. He was a football player, always full of energy, and always bothering Jason to join the football team. Jason wasn’t sure whether it was out of legitimate desire to be friends, having concern for his classmate, or just secretly taunting him. Surely it was obvious to anyone that Jason was not someone who belonged on a football field. He neither had the muscles or domineering physique of a football player nor any sort of interest in sports whatsoever. Regardless, whenever Chris and Jason were in a position to talk Chris would always attempt to convince him, and nothing Jason did ever made him stop.
The day passed as boring as any other. Today, gym was in Jason’s schedule. He didn’t like to exert himself physically, but gym was a credit that was required for graduating so he had to take it eventually. He just happened to have an open slot this year in his schedule so it was put in to make sure he didn’t have to figure out how to squeeze it in during his senior year. The general practice of taking gym as soon as possible made him the oldest in his class. The gym teacher announced that today’s class would be indoors due to some unforeseen circumstance. Jason didn't care. He didn’t want to be there so whatever made it easier for him to fade from the consciousness of class so he didn’t have to exert him the better. Today, he was lucky. Not only were they going to be inside the teacher said they’d be playing dodgeball. This means that he could get himself out quickly and just relax. That was his plan anyways.
The students were divided into 4 seven person teams and the gym was split so that 2 games would go on at the same time. The kids that weren’t on any of the teams were expected to help keep the balls on the court and switch in with someone if they were hurt or in between matches. Jason was not successful in being one of the students without a team. If he were, he could of gone the whole hour without doing anything, but that was not going to happen now.
In the first match he wasn’t paying much attention and didn’t try very hard, ending up with him being knocked out fairly quickly. He took his seat on the sidelines and started to watch the games. Something was going on with the other game. One of the teams were obviously losing, but by the end of the first round all the replacement students had come in to play on their team. It was odd to have that many mishaps, but it did happen time to time. Soon, the round was over and the teams rotated so that each of the winning teams were facing the other losing team.
Jason had no sooner come off the wall at the beginning of the round to find that one of the balls slammed into his face, knocking him off his feet and back, almost crashing into the wall. His team was bit stunned, but thought he was just a weakingly, so they didn’t think it was odd that he was knocked down like that. He picked himself up off the ground and went and sat down on the sidelines. This time he watched the game he was a part of and soon enough the students that had been forced to take a rest in the last round against this team were replacing his former teammates, who, like him, were coming away with headshots knocking them off their feet, their face red with ferocious pain. Not long after, his team had lost again. The other game soon wrapped up with no casualties.
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Two rounds went by as the assault by the one team continued. No one said anything, but it was clear on everyone’s face that they were angry at that team. The gym teacher did nothing, barely watching what was going on in the class. Jason, for his part, followed the trend of the previous rounds and was eliminated quickly from the round each time. The others thought he was dead weight so they didn’t expect much of him to begin with, but they wished he’d try at the very least. Despite this, with every student taken out by the violent team, Jason’s fists began to clench and grow tighter. His anger was boiling as thoughts of vengeance began to swim through his mind.
It was his team’s turn once more to face the thuggish team. He took his place on the wall, took a deep breath, and waited for the whistle for the match to start in anticipation. His teammates all followed suit, dispirited by losing most of their matches and the fact they knew how violent this time was being. They didn’t want to get hit again, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. If the gym teacher hadn’t seen it he wouldn’t do anything about it. He was one of those poor excuses for a teacher that would mock you if you complained about problems you were having trying to keep up with what they thought you should be able to do. And if they felt slighted, they would make your life hell as much as they could.
The whistle sounded and Jason came off the wall. A ball was coming at him, predictably. Taking a step to the side, he avoided the ball all together, letting it bounce off the wall with a spectacularly loud pang that made everyone flinch. They knew that if that had hit Jason it was possible that would have done some serious damage to his face. The fact that he dodged it was looked at as just luck, or that the student launched the ball was either tired or putting too much effort into their attack. Jason would have grabbed the ball at that moment, but the force it had it the wall with made it spring back to the other side quicker than he thought to catch it.
At first Jason simply dodged all the balls coming his way while his teammates were dropped. He was putting in minimal effort still resisting the urge to fight back, wanting to just to stop them from being able to hurt anyone else, but he also didn’t want to draw attention either. He could do that with just dodging. As he was getting into a rhythm of letting the balls slip by, from the corner of his eye he saw the last of his teammate blasted by several balls hitting them simultaneously. The first hit them in the stomach, knocking the wind out of them, their body involuntarily bending forward and clutching the ball to their gut. This put their face right in the path of the second ball. They were knocked back, hands releasing the ball, and off balance. Another ball flew by missing them for a moment, but them bouncing back slamming into the back of their head making them start to fall forward. There was still a chance for this student to recover, but that was only in another reality where a fourth ball wasn’t aimed at their lower legs. As they stumbled forward the last ball got caught between their legs, tripping them up, and sending them face first to the floor in a stunning display.
Jason had seen enough. It was no longer good enough that he simply dodge and prevent another game. In fact there likely wouldn’t be another round after what had just happened. The teacher would need to take the student off to the side and make sure they were ok or send them to the nurse’s office which meant everyone else would just loiter for the last few minutes of class. Jason took this opportunity to grab a ball and launch it at one of the other team member’s head in such a way that it didn’t appear that is what he was doing. The student took the ball to their ear and fell to the ground. One of their teammates asked if they were alright, but they couldn’t hear them. The ringing was too loud. The other teammates started in earnest to target Jason, targeting him all at once, not just because he was the only one left, but because they were truly afraid of him at the moment. No one had eliminated any of them yet and none had used their tactics against them before. Their minds had forgotten that gym had essentially come to an end.
The balls sailed past Jason save one from a lucky student which he caught, spun around to gather speed and sent it fly back towards the other side’s back wall, bouncing it back towards a student. Not stopping Jason grabbed one of the balls rolling back towards the other side on its return, sending it back on it’s way far quicker than it was directly at the student that the last ball was bouncing towards. The student panicked seeing the ball, freezing them in place, only to be simultaneously struck from the back and front with force enough to cause the student to get a bloody nose. In moments Jason had taken down 3 of the 7 team that was tormenting everyone which was just enough time for his fallen teammate to be helped out into the hall. The other students were in awe. The first 2 he took out could have been an accident, but the preciseness of the last one told everyone that it was pure skill.
The delinquent team were completely distracted and failed to realize that they could have just stopped playing. That possibility was far from their thinking. In fact, at the moment they all had the thought that if they tried to leave they’d face a worse situation, all of their classmates beating them to a pulp. While still lost in this line of thinking Jason sent another barrage of balls eliminating 2 more, leaving them with red hot marks across their faces. The last student saw his compatriots fall and panicked. They fell to their knees and begged Jason to take pity, cowering on the ground.
Jason took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. Tossing the ball behind his back he began walking out of the gym, flipping up his hoodie, just as the bell rung signalling the end of class. There were still a few more class in his day that he didn’t want to deal with but if he didn’t he’d have to deal with being reprimanded later so he went to his next class. He put what had just happened out of his head despite the whispers he could hear going around the class. He really didn’t care and had just wanted to teach those bullies a lesson. Yawning, he listened half-heartedly to the lecture, putting his head on his arms, resting them on the desk. He was exhausted, not from the physical exertion, but from the anger that had erupted from within him and the subsequent rumors he knew were to come. Midway through the lecture Jason fell asleep. The class didn’t matter to him. It was just another credit he need to graduate, but sleeping through a single lecture wasn’t going to make him fail the entire course.
The class came to an end as the bell rang out again. The teacher dismissed the class, letting them out for their next one. A few of the students around Jason tried to wake him, but he would only mumble and bat them away so after a few attempts they gave up. They told the teacher that Jason was asleep in the back and he wasn’t getting up and then left, not wanting to be late. The teacher cleaned up their desk, putting away their supplies, before looking over to Jason to decide what to do. It was the last class the teacher had for the day which left the room unused for the rest of it. There was no harm in letting Jason sleep off what she had overheard happened in gym class, so, the teacher turned off the lights, shut the door, and let him be.
Jason awoke, blinking away the sleep in his eyes as his body stretched automatically in his desk. The classroom was dark. A fact that he did not notice right away, but after a moment his brained kicked into gear as an inquisitive look crossed his face. His hand moved across his mouth, wiping away the drool as he looked for the clock. It was an hour after school let out. “What was he still doing there?” he thought, his mind trying to make sense of the odd feeling of waking up in a dark classroom afterhours. He had never never fallen asleep during class before. It just felt off, like it was probably a dream, but he felt awake so that couldn’t be it. Pushing his chair out, he stood, stretched, gave another brief yawn, and grabbed his bag from the back of the chair. Seeing lights shining through beneath the door, he opened the door expecting to see the hallway and was blinded by the light.
Jason’s eyes hadn’t adjusted yet causing him to be temporarily blind. What he saw as his sight came back was not expected. In front of him was a monstrously large black room, extending as far as he could see. In front and above him, a roughly 40 meter screen illuminated a mass of figures. He had to be dreaming he thought. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. That’s when it hit him, none of the figures appeared to be wearing any sort of clothing. It was one of those nightmares, but in reverse, or at least he thought. He hadn’t noticed that he too wasn’t wearing anything. It hadn’t hit him sooner because his backpack was still in his hands, but everything else was gone. As everything was being processed as fast as his mind could a humanoid figure came over the monitor in the distance and a loud booming voice rang through the room.
“You are junk…”