"Nobody is born being beneath others."

In Starlight Middle School, Marcus is in the cafeteria as he stares down at his lunch tray.

On it is a hamburger covered in chocolate milk, mashed potatoes, carrots, napkins, and all kinds of trash. Several kids are all laughing as they all surround the table Marcus & Hunter are sitting at.

“Hey Buddy, what are you waiting for?” Hunter asks nicely before coldly demanding, “Eat it.”

Marcus hesitantly picks up the food, lifts it towards his mouth, and takes a bite out of it.

"It's something that's taught."

Several of the people watching Marcus chew the food grimace, however, Hunter just coldly states, "swallow."

"And something you're reminded of constantly."

After some hesitation, Marcus swallows down the food.

_________________

In the middle school bathroom, Marcus is throwing up the food he ate for lunch in a stall. As he finishes throwing up, he feels a hand grab the back of his head and submerge it into the toilet he just threw up in.

After a few seconds, the hand lets go and Marcus turns around to see it's someone he doesn't even know. Standing by the sink, Hunter and a few other students are looking at Marcus amused.

"You're reminded of it by everyone."

"You couldn't have let him flush before you did that?" Hunter snickers.

As the group of kids laugh, Marcus just looks down at the ground. As they're laughing, a random student enters the bathroom.

"What made it worse wasn't just the bullying, it was the fact that..."

The student who just entered goes to wash his hands, not paying any attention to the other kids in there. Once he’s done he quickly leaves.

"Nobody cared about what was happening to me. To them, I just blended right into the background."

________________________

"And those that would have, didn't know."

Marcus is in gym class with Ronnie and the two are chatting amongst themselves.

"Hey man, everything been good?" Ronnie said.

Marcus begins to talk but stops as he looks at Ronnie's concerned face. So instead he just puts on a smile and says, "I've just been having a ton of homework recently, that's all."

"I didn't tell the people who cared about me what was going on.”

As the bell rings, Ronnie stops and looks at Marcus before saying, "Well you can come over for dinner tonight, my mom's making chili and we both know you love that."

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"Oh, really that sounds-" Marcus begins to say before noticing Hunter looking over at him and his tone changes, "great, but I already made plans some other time."

"Oh that's fine, we can do so some other time!" Ronnie says.

Marcus looks back and replies with a weak, "y-yeah, totally."

As Marcus walks over to Hunter, Ronnie notices Marcus flinching when Hunter gives him a playful slap on the back.

“Hey!” Ronnie remarks as he walks over to Hunter, “Apologize.”

“For what?” Hunter questions as he grabs Marcus and leans closer to him, “This is just what we do. We’re friends, right Buddy?”

Marcus looks at the ground.

“At the time, I didn’t want to make them concerned…”

“Yeah that’s right!” Marcus says as he fakes a smile, “Him & I are friends!”

“I didn’t want to be a bother.”

________________________

Days pass.

Then weeks.

Then months.

Fall and Winter have come and gone and now it’s Spring.

Through all that time, Marcus’ living hell continued.

However now, whenever someone would do something to him – whether it was him getting beaten up or being forced to eat disgusting food, or having people dump rotting food and rats in his locker – he wouldn't react. He'd just have a blank face.

"Eventually, when the only thing you can see is darkness, it just becomes so numb. You just get used to it, and it just becomes..."

Hunter sees Marcus in the hall and brings him over to the bathroom. As soon as they enter, Hunter punches Marcus in the gut and Marcus falls to the ground in pain.

"Normal."

As Marcus looks up, he sees Hunter begin to kick him in the stomach again and again. Hunter stops to catch his breath but he doesn't see any reaction from Marcus.

"What?" Hunter begins to ask, "Why aren't you crying?!"

"Because," Marcus begins to say as he just stares at the ceiling, "I don't care."

As those three words echo in Hunter's mind his face turns to shock and then fury.

"YOU DON'T CARE?!" Hunter says as he drops his backpack on the ground and takes out a metal baseball bat from it. He then lifts up the bat as a distorted look grows on his face. Hunter continues by adding, "Looks like I’ll need to up the ante then!"

Hunter looks down at Marcus and sees that his hands began to shake.

Hunter hesitates once more, but it’s not very long until he clenches his teeth before bringing the baseball bat down.

__________________

That day after school, Ronnie is standing right outside the front doors of the middle school.

“Crap,” Ronnie remarks as he watches the heavy downpour, “Hope Marcus has an umbrella.”

Ronnie continues to stand there as he watches more and more raindrops hit the cold pavement. Several other people walk past Ronnie and enter the rain carrying umbrellas.

As Ronnie goes to sigh, the front doors to the school violently swing open as Marcus runs out of school and into the pouring rain.

“Wha-Hey Marcus, wait up!” Ronnie yells as he chases after him.

As the two run down the street, the rain begins to fall down even harder than before as thunder echoes through the streets.

Ronnie tries to catch up, but he soon falls behind a bit as Marcus takes a quick turn to his house. Marcus manages to get to the front door, open it, and lock it right before Ronnie could even get to the door.

Ronnie bangs on the door.

"Hey, open up! It’s me, Ronnie! What's going on? Are you okay?!" Ronnie frantically shouts.

Marcus sits on the other side of the door as he runs his hands through his hair before he shouts back, "Just leave me alone!"

Ronnie stops banging on the door as he asks, “What?”

“Go!” Marcus yells.

“Marcus we’re friends,” Ronnie soberly says, “I wanna see if you’re okay, can you open the door? C’mon, talk to me, man!”

"At that moment, I did something I shouldn't have done. I took out all of my frustrations on the one person who was looking out for me."

"Friends?! We were never friends! You've just been pestering me all this time! I don't want anything to do with you! Just... go away!" Marcus yells.

Ronnie reaches for the door handle but stops as Marcus quietly sobs, "Please."

"Al…Alright, if that's what you want," Ronnie sighs as he begins to walk away.

Marcus sits in his house sopping wet, he begins to get back up but winces in pain as he does so.

"When I think back to it all, I guess the reason I didn't want Ronnie to see me that day was that..."

Marcus' whole body is covered in bruises and blood is dripping from his mouth and nose.

"I didn't want him to see me look pathetic."

As Marcus walks over to his kitchen, he notices a note his parents left him on the counter.

He picks it up, flips it over, and begins to read what it says…only to see nothing written.

“They…forgot,” Marcus murmurs.

As the blank note slips from his hands and onto the ground, a light chuckle begins to escape from the young middle schooler’s mouth. The chuckle then turns into a laugh as tears start to well up in his eyes. Though that laughter violently turns into loud sobbing as Marcus slumps to the ground sobbing, his tears landing on the blank note.

Though his sobs were only for himself as the torrential downpour silenced the ears of anyone who could have heard.

See You Next Chapter!~