Consciousness returned to me gradually, and with it came a deep calm. I didn't want to remember what happened just before. So I pretended it didn't happen.

Out of habit, I kept my eyes closed, not moving an inch. It was painful. My entire body felt like it was ablaze, and it made me worried. One of the first things Father had taught me was that sharp pain in my spine or neck could indicate that I was paralyzed. But what did my entire body in pain mean? Am I now a bloody pulp?

Either way, I understood it wasn’t a good thing.

Still, I chose not to move and kept my eyes closed. I won’t make that mistake again. I didn’t even know where I was. I couldn’t feel anything around me, smell anything, nor taste the blood that filled my mouth not too long ago. There was only darkness and pain.

This is nostalgic…

I wasn’t a masochist by any sense of the word, but I was very familiar with this feeling of weakness and helplessness. Even the pain was bringing back memories. Not very good ones, mind you, but it was nice to reminisce occasionally. Especially during times like these.

Where should I start this time?

Should I begin when I first met Stella? Or maybe when I first started attending Father’s cult meetings?

I’ve done this countless times… Maybe a change would be nice.

Then middle school it is. The days I first met Ben and the days of my black history. The times I first realized I was different from others.

In normal circumstances, I’d never think about someone like him. Nor would I ever think about something nearly as embarrassing my black history. I often was more inclined to think about how cute Stella used to be, and how cool I was when I was a little kid.

I’m stuck in the past, and I’m not afraid to admit it. But I digress.

I took myself back to when I was 12. Being the edgy kid I was at the time, I didn’t have any friends, but I never believed that I needed them. All I needed was the memory of one good friend and the goodwill from the cult members. I don’t really remember what I was thinking.

Maybe I wanted that one true friend, someone genuine that would never leave me. Someone that would be with me always, accepting all of me and me, receiving all of them. Something that could have been the greatest friendship amongst all of history, one that others could only wish to have. I had already failed at the start, but I deluded myself into thinking it was never over.

Stella had already left me, but my memory of her was always there.

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that’s what led to my bad first impression. Not that it’s Stella's fault, even I find the self from back then very repulsive. In the first place, what kind of person only has a five-year-old as their best friend?

Ah, I’m going off topic again.

Well anyway, as an edgy introvert, I kept to myself. When people talked to me, I wouldn’t talk back. They were beneath me. My father was the king of his religion, and I was the prince, as his son. My qualifications to this were almost perfect grades; even by Setro standards, it would have been considered outstanding. I didn’t feel the need to associate with these peasants, who I will never see once middle school ended and high school started. And so, I spent my days on the roof of the school, gazing down upon all my ‘subjects.’ This was with my useless power, but at the time I thought it was one of royal heritage. I even called it ‘God’s Eye.’

At first, I did it with a superior air. I mean, what ruler didn’t want to know the feelings of their subjects? Scratch that. Only a lousy ruler wouldn’t understand the feelings of their subjects. And thus, I was the king of all kings.

…I’m regretting reminiscing about this. I’m seriously getting goosebumps from myself.

Maaan was I pathetic. I wasn’t even a loner back then. That would be an insult to all loners. And now that I really look at it, Father’s cult is what made me have no friends. Why am I alive again?

FUCK, OFF TOPIC.

Umm… where was I… oh yeah, budding king and all that.

With a sense of distorted pride brought by the factors around me, I kept at it every day for an entire year. My ‘God’s Eye’ was made to rule the world, and it would be malpractice for me not to use it. Eventually, it became a habit and a pleasure. Even now I still do it as a hobby, but without the disgusting self-confidence. I saw how happy they were, and it made me happy as well. A king’s happiness can only be as great as his kingdom’s, was what I thought.

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Days in school were a monotonous routine. It was something useless to me, but I thought of it as experiencing the daily life as a peasant. It was a duty of a king to experience what his ‘subjects’ do, and to make concessions based on that. I believed myself to be the most benevolent ruler in all of history. I even remember running for student council one time in my second year of middle school.

I was still in the middle of my delusion, and when I stood up at the podium for my campaign speech… Let’s just say it didn’t leave a good impression on others.

Another reason why I had no friends in middle school, but I wasn’t too bothered by the fact. What did bother me was why no one voted for me. I didn’t get it, and couldn’t understand it. I was destined to be the king of the world! Why did they not accept me? They should have been on their knees to beg me to lead them!

When I walked down the hallway, I could see sneers of disdain. Words of rejection, denial, and denunciation could be heard from all around me. Anger curled up inside my heart and grew by the day. But I could take it. I was a future king who would one day be needed to hold the weight of the world, much less the anger of a couple of peasants. That’s what I told myself.

Maybe it was teenage hormones, but I feel like someone was trying to murder me that spring day.

I was up on the roof, like I always was after school, gazing down at everyone. The entire day I had been feeling chills, pure cold malice permeating the school. Everyone was silent when they looked at me. I didn’t get why this was so and felt uneasy, but I couldn’t not go to the roof.  It was calming and had become indispensable to me. It was my place of solace, my Avalon. No one would bother me here, right?

How naïve I was.

Looking back, everyone must have known. Yet no one told me, no one warned me, no one gave me so much as a hint. Humans really are the worst. Just another reason why I’m a loner now.

The roof of the middle school had features very much like the buildings at Setro. But instead of substantial, full-body fencing at the top, they had a little barricade of bricks. The barrier only reached up to about waist level, perfect for leaning over and gazing down or sitting on it. Maybe the school believed no one would try jumping off as a joke. Perhaps they thought no one would be suicidal enough to jump off. Either way, it wasn’t safe at all, but it was still my favorite feature of the school. I thought it as my divine seat, my king’s throne. I fancied myself a brave king, and sat on the outside of it, legs hanging in the air, as I observed the happy students down below. Their happiness was my happiness, despite what happens during school. This was the real them. A smile formed on my face, as I thought this.

A hand pushed me off the edge, interrupting my reverie.

I grabbed back, by instinct. Formed by rigorous training by Father (I thought of it as King’s Training back then, which allowed me to get through it. Now I realize the whole program must have been sadism on his part. Damn cult leaders.), it was something that I didn’t even need to think about. My delusional brain thought it was an assassin, sent to end me before my reign could start. No mercy was required for dealing with trash like this.

The assailant wasn’t expecting my fast reaction and was pulled off the building with me. I yanked him in front of me, towards the ground, my free hand swiftly grabbing his neck. I planned to use him as a cushion as I fell, but when I got a look at the person’s face…

It was a classmate. I didn’t talk to anyone in my class, but I figured that I should at least remember those that surrounded me every day. He had a frightened look on his face, which made him look incredibly pathetic. It horrified me that someone I knew tried to push me down.

The school building was four stories tall, one floor for each grade of middle school and one more for exclusive clubs. This made the fall over 12-meters if you included the height of the barricade. We fell from this height, down to the asphalt.

Do you know what the cited fatality height is for falls? 12 meters, where death rates are around 50%, depending on what you land on. I was made to memorize this height by Father, to keep in my heart always.

So although it horrified me, I still used him as a cushion. I needed to survive, if only for that girl in my memory. It was a miracle that he ended up alive. He was never to move anything below his neck after that day. His organs were ruptured, his spine was injured, and he sustained countless fractures and broken bones in the fall. Nothing happened to me. Not even a bruise. It was another type of miracle to the first responders.

One fall, two miracles.

I will never regret what I did that day.

I got off scot-free, and it wasn’t my fault in the first place. The school made the incident go away like it never happened. The classmate was to stay in the hospital for the foreseeable future. But I didn’t go back to school. I wanted to know why. Why would someone like this try to harm me?

The boy was a wimp to put it lightly. He was scrawny, pale-skinned, freckled, with glasses. He even had a submissive personality.

A perfect target for bullying.

I had never seen it happen, and I didn’t even know that it could occur in my school. It wasn’t on the school grounds; else I would have known about it. I got it out of his mouth, the only part of him that will ever move again. He was crying tears of hate towards me, screaming at me for my arrogance that led to schoolwide abhorrence.

His cries of loathing haunt my dreams to this day. But I will never ask for forgiveness.

To this day, I only know that the bullies from our class instigated him to push me off the roof. I couldn’t get much else out of him other than that. I snooped around and found who out the bullies were. They were keeping a low-profile at the school since the incident, and no one would have connected them to the event.

They were high performing students, candidates to get into Setro Academy like me. Intelligent, famous, and good looking; they were the models of the school. They had perfect girlfriends to match, and it was like a painting on Earth when they were together. They were my favorite subjects to look at when I gazed down upon them. They were the happiest, most satisfied, most fulfilled out of everyone else in the school. It made me the most pleased to look at them. Yet here they were, trying to harm me with someone else. My heart chilled when I realized it was them. Father wasn't wrong, the brightest lights have the darkest shadows.

I was surprised, but even more so furious.

The anger in my heart, nurtured by days upon days of hatred, finally had an outlet.