Unbeknownst to August, an invisible ripple in the very fabric of reality spread out with lightning speed.

It passed through Dwayne and Catherine, causing them to pause. Their pens fell onto the papers in front of them with a dull thud, from where they rolled off the table.

In that moment, a brief spell of doubt appeared in the mind of every single person present:

‘Haven’t I already done enough? It would surely be fine to take a small break, right?’

Catherine recovered quickly, banishing these harmful thoughts from her mind. The others, however, took far longer until they were able to focus on their tasks again and a couple of students made no effort to continue at all.

In the brief time this took to happen, the ripple had already swept past an uncountable number of people and eventually reached every corner of their world.

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

In an eerily warm cave, a middle aged man sat in the centre, surrounded by huge towers of comics and manga.

There he sat, holding one such manga in his immaculate hands: The latest issue of ‘The Adventures Of The Penguin Princess’, one of his favourite manga’s in the Wing collection. Right after ‘The Dodo’s Shenanigans’.

When the wave passed him, his previously completely blank expression trembled for the first time in what was probably months, if not years.

The booklet in his hands fell down, hitting the dirty ground. He didn’t even blink at the unfortunate occurrence though.

His onyx eyes, normally like a deep abyss of absolute indifference, gained a hint of warmth.

He stretched his body, yawning for what must have been at least the millionth time in the last few decades, his extremely long hair that was strewn about the room making a sweeping motion.

“Fuck, why so soon? Well, I guess now’s a good time as any for a vacation from this reading. How long has it been again?” He muttered, his gaze darting through the room in search for wearable clothes.

It took him a few minutes to find a pair of only decently dirty pants and a grey shirt that used to be white, but he didn’t seem to care about the disastrous condition of his clothes.

He vanished from his spot, not leaving any evidence that he was ever there other than the humongous piles of various things lying on the ground behind.

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

Not long after the events in the cave, the wave barely managed to penetrate the shining walls that surrounded a group of people that were sitting around a large round table

With the exception of a woman that was seated a few centimeters higher than the others, all of the people present were in a heated discussion, which quickly died down when the ripple swept over them.

The woman, previously passive, stood up. Her green eyes looked at something far away, and a hint of anger could be detected in them.

“You know what to do. Investigate this, NOW!” She shouted.

Some of the gathered people winced at the sudden outburst, but they were just as aware of the gravity of the situation as she was.

““As you wish.”” They said, bowing until their heads reached their waist in unison.

After a few seconds passed, with them packing the various things that were ordered in neat stacks, they also vanished.

The woman sat down again, massaging her temples.

“To think that something like this would happen. Unbelievable…” She groaned at the thought of the chaos that would ensue the moment her twin brother came out of hiding.

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

August remained motionless in the exam hall, the remaining time quickly slipping away.

Instead of being occupied with the questions before him, he was enveloped in his own thoughts.

‘Hmm. I feel much better now. What was I even worried about anyway.’

‘All is fine… I’m fine. Seriously, I bet my life expectancy is shooting through the roof now.

High blood pressure is not good for anyone after all.’

He looked around, calmly observing his surroundings.

‘Ahh. Catherine is just writing away again. Maybe I should tell her about my revelation about blood pressure, I bet her poor heart is just racing away. Life’s not a race after all. Those who progress faster don’t necessarily profit from doing so. Rather than that, they accelerate their own inevitable deaths.’

He leaned back, relaxing nearly every fiber in his body and, more importantly, clearing his mind of everything unnecessary like the test in front of him..

‘Yeah, I should just take my time. I wonder if it’s possible relax to the point of the heart stopping. Probably shouldn’t try that though, death is sure to be pretty bothersome.’

The rest of the fleeting time slipped away, leaving August with a half finished exam paper.

After the last second had passed, one of teacher's call out. “Alright, everyone stop writing, close your exam paper and put down your pens!”

After all of the students had their papers collected, they filtered out of the hall. Huddling in their respective groups, they quietly discussed their test performances, going over those questions they found difficult and comparing the answers they wrote down.

One such group consisted of a brawny young man and two relatively plain teenagers: Dwayne, August and Catherine.

Dwayne, who was stretching after a few hours of torturous writing, gave Catherine a teasing glance. “So, how did you do?”

She yawned, poking his exposed waist. “Pretty well, I guess. I shouldn’t have any problems with getting a perfect score.”

Dwayne shrugged her sneak attack off, not even bothering to glare at her in return. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

She looked towards August. “So, what about you? You are aiming for a perfect score as well right?”

His face twitched in a way that could vaguely be interpreted as annoyance. “No. It...didn’t go well.”

Dwayne bursted out in laughter, slapping August’s back while attracting the attention of everything in the radius of a few dozen meters. “Yeah, sure.”

Even Catherine couldn’t stop giggling, annoying the changed August to no end.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Seriously, is it so hard to believe that I didn’t do well for once?” He asked them incredulously.

Dwayne and Catherine looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. “Yes.” They responded simultaneously.

Catherine then added. “Besides, of all the possible times you could finally fail, this definitely isn’t it. I mean, this is your strongest subject AND one of the most important tests of your life. There is no way you did bad on this.”

August smirked. “Ohh, if you only knew.” He said ominously.

“Woooow, now you try to scare me. Nice try. You can’t fool me, I know everything anyway.” Catherine replied, sticking out her tongue at him.

August rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore her in the future. ‘What a foolish idiot I used to be.To actually consider someone like this my rival, such a waste of effort.’ He thought.

At that time, a gust of warm air hit them face first.

The sun was burning down on now exposed trio without mercy, causing them to shield their eyes from its radiant wrath.

“Fuck, I forgot that it’s summer.” Dwayne mumbled.

“Oh, so our big man can’t even handle a tiny bit of heat? Where did all your toughness vanish to?” Catherine remarked snippishly.

“Fuck you. I’m not in the mood for this Cathy.” Dwayne responded with a hint of malice in his voice.

“Actually, you should know that animals with a large surface area to volume ratio cope with high temperature climates better.” August stated, sneaking a peek at Catherine’s figure.

She took a split second to process the information before shooting a venomous look at him. She protectively wrapped her arms around herself, shouting, “August, you are walking on thin ice!”

Dwayne moved in for high five, his previous fatigue seemingly forgotten at August’s unexpected interjection, which he promptly received from a smiling August. “Nice one!” He shouted, also sneaking a not so subtle glance at Catherine.

She exhaled sharply, blowing a few strands of hair upward. “Okay, I’ll just take that as a compliment then. However, I recommend you two stop lechering over me too much. Otherwise an...unfortunate event may befall you.” She said with a lofty tone.

Dwayne stopped the other two as they reached the school gates, which were bustling with excited students gossiping and talking about today’s exam. “So, to celebrate our first exam for our finals, how about we all go and blow off some steam together?”

Catherine immediately scoffed before replying, “You just don’t give up, do you! How about you don’t try and drag down our grades with your antics!”

Dwayne gave her a small grin. “Well, I had to try. Not like I expected either of you to accept for a change.”

August yawned, scratching his head with total lack of care of his otherwise groomed hair.“I’ll go and hangout I guess. We did just sit through a long exam after all.” He interjected, causing Catherine and Dwayne to freeze in place, their mouth wide agape.

A few seconds later, Catherine broke free from her stupor. “Wait… WHAT!!! What do you mean you’ll go hangout with him! Have you gone mad!” She hurriedly walked up to August, comparing the heat of their foreheads.

August barely raised an eyebrow at the unexpected occurrence. “I’m perfectly fine, but thanks for your care.” He mumbled, gently pushing her away.

She stumbled a meter due to the immense shock, almost falling down if it wasn’t for her catching her composure at the last second.

Dwayne was even more dumbstruck than her, rendering him completely speechless to these to him unexplainable events unfolding before his very eyes.

He rubbed them and pinched his arm hard enough to make him tear up, the pain reassuring him that this wasn’t a dream.

“So...uh. Great, sounds like a plan! You’re going to have the night of your life! Though, to be honest this will probably be your first experience at fun.” Dwayne rushed to say, worried that August may quickly change his mind.

Catherine’s face turned bright red, something that August had never seen before in the usually perpetually calm Catherine. “Wait! You cannot be serious! This is the finals, you can’t be trying now to do stupid things with that muscle head! This is your future you’re talking about here, and you are going to throw all of that away because of some stupid whim!”

Whilst the others were still shocked at her unprecedented outburst, she took the time to inhale new air. “I refuse, yes, I refuse to let you! You can’t take another step forwards until you reconsider, and realise the error in your ways! Repent!”

August, ignoring her rant, simply walked straight past her, not even bothering to respond.

Dwayne soon caught up, leaving the violently shaking catherine at the gates of the school.

After a minute or two of walking in a random direction, August finally spoke up. “So, what exactly do you have planned?”

Dwayne paused for a moment, his expression rapidly shifting into one of intense thought. “I have no idea, never expected things to progress this far to be honest.”

August lightly chuckled. “Well, isn’t no plan the best type of plan?”

This only served to confuse Dwayne, who thought ‘what happen to the tidy nerd I used to know?’

“Ah. So improvisation it is!” He eventually responded.

AN:

Jahnes: Whelp, what can I say? Sorry for the massive delay. ↓ It’s all his fault by the way.

Donkeymonsterz: I take no responsibility! I am well renown for my incredibly speedy posting schedule!

Jahnes: *cough* So speedy that he never had time for writing *cough*

Donkeymonsterz: How dare you, I am EXTREMELY diligent!

Jahnes: *looks away and whistles*

Donkeymonsterz: *Slips poison into Jahnes’s tea.*