Chapter 3 - Oxygen High

Mill just finished his last class in the afternoon and together with some students from Foundation High, they went to the Oxygen High for their job.

Oxygen High was one of the most prestigious schools in Gontary City. The school where the scions of the most elite and wealthiest people in the city attended. It was what founded and funded the Gontary City Foundation High which Mill was attending on scholarship. One of their programs was offering jobs for underprivileged students in the Foundation High for a pay, and one of them was janitorial duties which was what Mill was assigned this time.

Mill might be thankful for the job and the pay he received but if he had a choice, he would not want to work in that school. He did not mind being a janitor, but being an Oxygen High’s janitor was different. But today, he was actually thankful that he worked there, because if not, there was no way he would ever have a chance to enter that school and check that tree.

As it was tuesday, the school was crowded with students hanging out and attending their classes and club activities.

Mill and some Foundation students that he knew walked the maze of buildings the Oxygen High was and headed to the utility building on the west side of the campus, where the maintenance room and the janitor’s locker were located.

Though the student workers were allowed to walk on any available road in the campus, there was still an unspoken agreement within them to use the least crowded and used roads leading to the utility building. With all those rich students prancing around and sometimes staring at them, even Mill wanted to be invisible sometimes. It was a stark reminder for him that life was unfair. That they have parents who took care and pampered them, while here he was, cleaning toilets and picking up their messes, just so he could continue attending school and put food on his table.

He wondered if life was a lottery as he arrived within sight of the utility building when without warning, something slammed behind his head. He heard something bounce off to the floor resembling a bouncing ball sound and it was followed by laughing noises.

Mill rubbed the back of his head as he traced the rolling basketball towards the group of laughing students behind him. It was a group of students wearing basketball jerseys and they were walking towards him.

Recognizing who they were, he kept all of his complaints inside.

“Oh, it was indeed the little cleaner boy,” a lanky male student said, smirking. It was Charles. Mill hardly knew anything about him except that he was really rich, but strangely they always met each other.

“Woah. It’s really him. How did you recognize him, Charles?” one of the students asked Charles, while picking the ball in the ground. Mill forgot what his name was.

“Hah! He could change his hair but his smell would still stink.” Charles raised his brows. “Why’d you change your hair? Green suits you. Like the mold in your food that you always eat because you’re poor.”

Mill barely contained a grimace at the laughing Charles and the force laughs his group was giving at his bland jokes. Mill always wondered if he should be offended by his insults or pity him for being terrible at it.

Thinking it would not be worth his time interacting with the childish rich boy, he decided to ignore his goadings, turned around and headed to the building's entrance, where his companions had already evacuated themselves to, looking at him with concern.

He had only taken a few steps when something was thrown on his back, a lot of something.

Judging from the smell and the succeeding clutter sound of a container hitting the ground, someone had just thrown a container of trash at him. Classic Charles move.

He looked back and saw Charles kicking the now empty trashcan to the side with a cocky grin on his face.

Mill had the urge to beat the shit out of him but he stopped himself, afraid of the consequences. Then he paused.

He remembered those consequences did not matter to him anymore.

He used to hold himself down whenever Charles bullied him as he was afraid of losing his scholarship and job. He was also afraid his siblings would be affected by his actions. But what was the point now?

He faced Charles fully and took a step forward bracing his fist and planned to deliver a very hard punch to his face. He knew he only had one chance to do this one punch as the others would definitely intervene. But as he was about to raise his fist, a loud voice rang out of nowhere.

“Charles! What are you doing?!”

A group of teachers came out from the building across the Utility Building, with the school’s dean leading in front, throwing a disapproving face at Charles' group. He was the one who shouted.

Mill lowered his slightly raised arm and unclenched his fist while Charles' band of students stopped laughing and sprinted out of the area.

Charles did not forget to give Mill a bad look and gestured a slitting motion on his neck as he sprinted away.

Mill, together with the teachers, looked at the running students with disbelief.

The dean looked at Mill and the trash spreading around and shook his head. He did not say anything about the incident and only ordered Mill to clean the mess. Then they continued on their way.

Mill could only sigh out of frustration looking at the backs of the teachers who were already in the distance. He knew the teachers held lower powers than their students in this school, but was what Charles did only warrant a shout?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

While he was picking the trash with the help of some student workers, he couldn’t help thinking how good it would have felt if he had been able to punch Charles.

For a second there, he would have done it. It was not a hasty thought. If he was able to punch him, it would be worth being expelled from his scholarship and from his job.

Charles had been bullying him for two years already. It all stemmed from one incident that he was completely innocent of but it didn’t stop the immature guy from tormenting him whenever he sees him.

He kept it all in before because his siblings were also enrolled at the Foundation High and he did not want them to be affected. But now that they were not here or even coming back, what was the point?

Charles' family might be powerful but it wasn’t like Mill had something to lose.

Mill finished cleaning and thanked the other students for their help, then went inside the building to change into his uniform. He pushed all the thoughts about Charles and the incident away from his head. Charles was not worth giving a thought of.

*****

Mill had just changed places with someone who was assigned to clean near the auditorium and was passing an empty quadrangle heading towards the area when the clock in the nearby building chimed. He looked at it and thought for a second.

It was now 4:00 pm in the afternoon.

If what the bearded man said was true then it should be his birthday now.

It was a sudden thought, but he decided to turn back towards the maintenance quarter.

Few minutes later he was back with his backpack to where he stood a while ago.

He always thought things through before he did it, so giving in with a whimsical decision was rare for him. If it was his birthday today, the least he could do was open a gift.

Today was obviously not his day, and he wanted to lift his mood.

He sat in one of the benches behind a tall bush and picked out the box that was his. He put the key inside the keyhole and turned the key. A click and the box opened partially.

He opened it fully and inside it were two things. A jewelry cushion and a bracelet on top of it.

At first glance, it looked like a simple makeshift bracelet made of a thin rope with a silver rectangular pendant. But the more he scrutinized it, the more he was fascinated by the bracelet.

It was a work of art.

The rope when touched was actually cold and hard. He scratched his nail in it and it gave off the feeling of a metal. There were engravings in the rope chain, in patterns too small for him to make its form of but distinct enough that he could see it varies in patterns throughout the whole chain.

He had never seen anything like this material before. It looked like metal but it bent flexibly like a normal string in his hands.

The pendant though was just a simple square silver metal with no design in it, just a plain metal surface. But when he raised it to his eyes and the light from the sun caught it, it gave off a blue glow.

He did not know what scientific process made it glow but it looked cool.

He decided to wear the bracelet as it was his gift anyway. He was still unsure about this new grandfather of his, but as this gift was addressed to him, then the least he could do was wear it. Maybe it could be sold to a high price later on.

He was about to put the empty box back in his bag, when he noticed the name that was engraved on it, and it was not his name. It was his brother.

He just opened the wrong box.

He must have mistaken the box as he and his brother had almost a similar name, and the box looked the same from afar.

He picked up the other box with his name on it and opened it with the same key. Like what it did with his brother’s box, it opened. Apparently both of the boxes had the same key.

He looked inside the box, and it had the similar structure of his brother’s box but instead of a bracelet, laid on the cushion was a familiar-looking necklace and a piece of parchment.

The necklace looked like the necklace that his mother once owned, the necklace that Sisel now owned and treasured the most. It was a silver chain with an intricate banding holding an oblong pendant of a stone.

Unlike his mother’s necklace that has a blue stone, his necklace was pale green in color.

The contents of the necklace were also different. In his mother’s necklace, there was a limb of an insect inside the transparent stone. Sisel claimed it as a grasshopper’s limb. But the necklace in his hand had a leaf inside it.

He wore the necklace and unfurled the parchment.

It was a letter.

To my Grandson Millinus Searage Blythone,

I hope you received this letter hours before your birthday at 4:15 pm of Tolmenol 10, 3045. I might not be there to assist you but I trust your father to do so. He must have already explained to you everything, and had already made plans for your escape. But in the event that your father failed to find a means for your escape or some mishaps happened, you could use this as an option for you.

I had tasked Gregory to give this box to you four hours before your birthday as a precaution if ever Gilbort had a problem transferring you to Myelend. Don’t think much about the curse and only think of surviving. I will do my best to resolve this with you.

If you plan to use this, stop whatever you’re doing and immediately go to your grandmother’s house. Wear this necklace bar exactly after your birthday, not before.

I have prepared a world switch bar in the basement of your grandmother’s house, and you only needed to follow the instructions I left there to activate it. Once your location is revealed to whoever faction or kingdom is chasing you, you have to wear the necklace and travel to where I am. I will then guide you here. Your father could then use it …

Mill was halfway to the letter when he stopped as the necklace in his neck suddenly began to warm.

He touched it out of instinct and a green light suddenly flashed in his vision followed by an urgent voice echoing in his head.

He did not understand what it was saying at first as his vision was spinning and his head was attacked by pain.

He was disoriented for a second before the voice started to register in his head.

RUN… RUN… RUN…

A sudden feeling washed on him and he felt panic and adrenaline churning in his body. He did not know why, but alarm was blaring at his instinct. Cold shivers run to his arm and a dread he does not know where it came from was overwhelming his senses.

He did the only thing he could do, which was run.

He ran in a random direction at a speed he did not know he was capable of and he only stopped when he heard a loud explosion behind him and a sudden force that pushed him to the ground.

Tiny bits of rocks and gravel rained around him and he laid there on the ground while shielding his arm to his face.

Dust floated everywhere and once it was cleared, he stood up slowly and looked behind him.

His eyes went wide when he saw half of the quadrangle he was just sitting a while ago was now gone and was replaced by a giant rock.

The rock was so big that it almost occupied his vision. His expression then turned to horror when he realized there used to be a building directly where the huge rock fell.

He heard screaming from all around him, both near and afar. But they were drowned out next by another barrage of booming sound.

Mill looked up to the sky and saw hundreds of rocks falling from it. They looked like shooting stars, falling slowly then gaining motion as it neared the ground. They hit around the school and some almost near him, just a few buildings away.

He could not believe what he was seeing. Was this a nightmare? But the unmistakable vibrations in the ground woke him up in action.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked out loud but only more screams of pain and terror answered him.