Chapter 1.5
Life's Worth
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'Loskai tested very high on the Lucid Ability: Non- Verbal Reasoning 87th percentile, standard score 117, age equivalent 18y 3m (Age at testing 15y 7m). Verbal Reasoning 75th percentile, standard score 110, age equivalent 17y 2m. General Conceptual Ability 81st percentile, standard score 81, age-equivalent 17y 7m.'
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The silhouette of the person Rayval stalked hid himself in a passageway between two buildings before collapsing, it was difficult to assess the situation from afar but he didn't want to be seen. But after five long minutes Rayval approached the body of Loskai.
Finally besides his brother, he was able to realize that there was a glimmering puddle with a slight metalic smell.
Rayval stared at him for awhile before failing to kick Loskai over on his back. When he achieved his goal, Rayval now knew what the liquid was as it streaming down like veins under Loskai's clothing.
If it wasn't for Loskai's shallow breathing, Rayval would've left the dead alone. After all, he really doesn't like wasting his time with pointless matters.
He took out his phone.
"Hello, what is the emergency?"
"Ahm, there's someone bleeding a lot in Sikkim street... Yea, yea.."
Turning off his phone, ignoring the instructions given to him, Rayval left to actually go home this time.
He didn't really care about the lost of territory, but what Loskai did was the same as cleaning litter in someone else's street.
'He let them get away though.'
Only getting the ambulance, Rayval believe that's all what Loskai deserve. It's his own fault if he dies, he's always annoying everyone.
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Dead cold air had already settled in Loskai's lungs before he woken up in the hygienic white room. Lying on a cheap bed; leather mattress with a thin sheet layer, sturdy pillow and equally small blanket, Loskai though he was so cold that all he saw was the colour of the chill.
His limbs were stiff and refusing to shift away from the long-earnt warmth, everything else was numbingly cool.
For the whole while in the closet-like room, Loskai remained still as he recovered his thoughts and energy.
Most of what went behind his eyes came from emotions from his childhood, just his black and bleak pain. It hurted more whenever he forced a dreamy one.
Motionless to expressionless, the weight of reality and young old friend depression pierced his heart. It made him ache. The hunger faintly subsided. His theoat was starting to boil.
The blade shooting infront of a blurry midget, like an unrecognisable imp with a spear dashing at his chest. The recent pass gave him nothing to feel but the old ages made him anxious.
'Pathetic.'
Loskai knew himself well enough to know his own symptoms. He'd been through it more than a dozen times. The times when he always questioned himself why he's still alive when there's nothing for him. Why he pretends he has at least has one friend. Why does he tries to work so hard at fitting in school.
The questions are usually ones that makes him doubt the world, himself, life and death.
But in the end of every suicidal failure caused by his own hypocrity and cowardness.
'Why do I have to fucking die?!'
It was his first time experiencing someone attempting to murder him without provocation coming from him. He had always thought humans are a race of rationality and reason.
First he'd been called out by his brother not for Loskai beating up two of his goons but because he was bored. Now he's here after a confronting two other people.
'Pitful'
He was starting to become pitful again. Pitying himself, blaming everyone for his own choices and consequense.
"Fuck."
Loskai's fist clench up the blanket from underneath. Heat surging back in his hand, percisely his fingers.
'Work for yourself.'
"Fuck!"
'Live for yourself.'
"Ft-fuck!"
'Die for yourself.'
"FUCK!"
The slam of his fist rattled the bed and stung back at his red burning hands.
Ever since Loskai left the house, he swore these three things to live greater than them. So why did he disregard them?! He questioned himself repeatedly constantly.
Self-pycological repetition continued till the door clicked open and a woman appeared from behind it. Her face wasn't welcoming nor made him feel safe. It wasn't an expression of a social worker or nurse.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Revelation then struck him. An authorised person.
There was a younger, middle-age woman wearing white following her, surprised as she saw Loskai.
"Oh. He's awake. I'll the doctors."
As the appealing one left, Loskai and the old woman stared down at each other. From the moment her eyes saw him, the old woman has been glaring hard into Loskai's eyes.
"What's your name." She said as if it wasn't a question but a command.
In the space of time of Loskai answering her questions with at the minimum, he knew she was like everyone else who was gauging him.
Assumptions were being formed in her head. Scenarios. Behaviour and Loskai's culture just by the way he answered.
She left once her interview was over, leaving Loskai alone again.
The day felt frozen in the motionless blue room. No water, snacks or person came. The sensation imbuing in his spine was light, negatively light. Light yet weighted his spirit down.
...
Horrific thoughts occupied his mind. He never liked to talk about himself but Loskai could never stop thinking about death.
Still going. Suicide means her win.
A young childish cry echoed distantly within his ears. The crowd moved constantly, footsteps deafen him like a hailstorm.
....
.
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Arriving back at the college campus, the vice principal was sitting down as she gave a bundle of notes to the man on the other side of the desk.
"There's also foreign blood on his clothes. No doubt that his recent fight must've been much more violent than the one with Cain and Alps the boys reported."
The man reading through Loskai's mental evaluation provided through the school network, was comparing it with his assistant interview gathered orally.
It was awkward say that least. Loskai's IQ was in the 18% above average, yet despite that his profile says he's a good candidate for special assessment conditions. Meaning he needed extra help with school assessment.
"He's about seventeen years now right. Legal age to be kicked out of education now.... My school doesn't need him."
Neither Loskai's caregivers contacts were working and details were a bare minimum, only covering preferred names and Loskai's own address which he is not a contracted to.
His assistant reading the papers beforehand knew why he was perplexed.
"The school could not find the guardian he was with when he was enrolled. Police has already been called to investigate yesterday earlier but found nothing."
That didn't matter now anyways, the boy wasn't going to stay for this year. The man welcomed the relief of the near future where he didn't hear the boy's name every now and then.
And the staff team workload should be more barerable with the trouble-child gone.
With all things considerated. Loskai was deemed harmful to society as his case of violence committed reportedly not only to other students, but to local as well.
"Well, he's been talked to many times. With so many warnings he has no excuse for his actions. Loskai will get an expulsion."
The words flowed out so surprisingly fluid that it seems that he too was very much appreciating this.
No pesty parents complaining since Loskai's caregivers has to be found first. Though he's old enough to live alone, the police would only be on this case for a week.
The principal felt that the day is quite fine for some catch up with his own family.
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A week after loskai was nowhere to be seen, the news of the expulsion spread gracefully from a information leak.
While Loskai's homeroom teacher didn't care, he predicted this would happen. A isolated pair of boys cheered and celebrated with each other and the others who left Rayval.
Loskai aunt vanished from sponsorship. His groundman boss waited for him, eventually giving up when last Sunday passed.
He was given the expulsion letter which he dismissed the day after his stay. And since then Loskai stayed on the other side of the train rails for that week.
The sick empty sense of blood loss was gone but a he still felt empty.
Deprivedfrom energy and hunger, the suffocating air he breathed in was the only thing that kept him between the boarder of lucidity and loss.
Loskai's eyes drifted to the edge, glaring at the side wall and the state of his mind. The voice from the alarm clock never spoke to him again when he came back.
He opened his drawer for the first time in awhile. It was full of knifes he collected and scavenged from the years in the street.
From pocket-utility knives to tatical knives. Rarely Karambits. Commonly switch knives before fixed blades. Not all were quality but this collection is the only thing Loskai is proud of.
Unnaturally, the complex have been increasingly quiet since yesterday.
And silence.
And the grey senseless air.
A hollow wooden panel creaked echoed from the front of Loskai's apartment. Then something snapped.
His eyes finally awake, the dreaded danger jolted his hand into his knife drawer and clutched a handful of them. The sharp edge slid down his fingers, tickling his nerves with beating impulses.
The door cracked as it splittered into divisions, catching the axe head as it wedged into the wood.
The axe was ripped out by a black hand covered in black flaming wraps. Another strike and the dark mummified creature bursted through the door.
Loskai held a Karambit in his left hand and a long tactical knife in the other. The knived felt surreal in his grasp, this is the first time he ever held these knives with such intention.
The creature's head twisted as it sense the movement of Loskai. As if what occurred behind the door wasn't suppose to happen.
Screaming groans yawned from its patched vocals. Misty eye sockets licked after it as loomed at the next room. The darkness spewing from underneath its feet crawled under the door, blackening the floor.
Loskai's bed was creaked whenever he was upon it and decided to remain stationary on ground. But just when the cloud smothered his toes, hundreds of thousands of bites tore through his flesh while soaking itself in the tainted blood.
Angst shook his entire spine, causing an insane moment of neurosis to disrupt his state of mine.
However. What was there to ruin inside a week braindead kid like Loskai? He did not had a proper thought throughout those days and seldomly spoke to himself.
The neurosis was brief, almost as if it was just an hallucination.
Loskai stepped out the cloud quickly and used his bed to launch out through the door, determined to not get gassed in.
Each other oblivious of ones intentions. But Loskai knew there was an intruder behind the door, someone who can infiltrate the apartment with ease. And the creature was here for his own reason.
Moral be damed. Loskai's one had always been flexible but recently he could not get it over his head about the revelation last week.
The lock of the door dragged a section of wood with it as well as the hinges. Walls old and neglected, part of the frame crumbled too.
But what Loskai did not expect was the nightmarish wail screeching the drum of his ears coming below him.
It's arms flailed in the air before Loskai's caught it when the axe was about to strike him.
Of course the sight stunned Loskai who only crushed bone under flesh. But he ripped the arm out of the joint in his perturbed state.
Black dust bursted from the injury, threatening to swallow Loskai as it rose.
In a fury. Loskai used the axe, assuming that knives wouldn't do anything and swung the axe across the floor and under the broken door.
A crack gave another inhuman scream. Another crushed open its skull but it kept crying till Loskai could completely obliterate its skull.
Loskai's shrinken heart beated vigorously, having more difficulty than before his active days.
The blood from his legs down were belittling by the second. Feeling stinging, piercing cold behind his muscles. Choked acid around his bones aching him. And the mist his blood absorb toxicated him.
No words appeared in his head nor did a sound came from his slacking jaw.
Instinct wanted him to search for help. Sense opposed this but it was dying inside him. Suddenly he found himself staggering down the corridor. Grey and still, noone was to be seen.
Blackouts started to occur whenever he slowly blinked. He must've missed moments of his life because he found a pitch black pool of ink on the floor.
Is this the Death's Tunnel?
The world tilted downwards towards the pool. Agonisingly slow he felt, like an eternity in the air. Niether was this right or a mistake.
There was no light he could see in there.