It was another typical day in Washington as gray clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky, hiding the bright rays of the sun from view. A light shower sprinkled over Seattle and only increased as the clouds grew thicker and dense. Sixteen-year-old Jae Fault walked to school; Greenwood High.
Jae paused and looked at his rippling reflection within a small puddle. He had long dark bangs that waved over his mysteriously orange right eye, and a partially shaved head where white fuzz was growing, exposing a normal light blue eye. Jae’s appearance wasn’t normal, one side of his hair was a deep black while the other was pure white like the color of snow. Similarly, his eyes also contrasted in color. People had always made fun of him because of this, so he always shaved off the white part and covered his orange eye. To finish off his “look”, from his black hair, stems a long ponytail that folds over his left shoulder.
A small sigh escaped Jae’s mouth as he stepped over the puddle and continued his way to school, contemplating another bad start to the week.
“Hmmm… maybe if I change my appearance… No I don’t care what anybody thinks of me, take it or leave it, I won’t change because I want to be accepted. I don’t care…” Jae thinks to himself. Although he says this Jae knows a little part of him does, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t shave off his white hair and cover his different eye.
Jae arrived to school and started walking to his first period class. The moment he entered through the door Jae could feel the class’s atmosphere grow denser than Osmium. He could hear a group of girls snickering at the back, conversations drifted from modern music and Netflix to about Jae.
“Look the loser’s here”,
“Wish he’d just stop going to school so we wouldn’t have to look at him...”,
“Does he really think that hair looks cool?...”,
“hehehe...”,
“C’mon I dare you to ask him out…”,
“eww no...”.
“Glad everyone is as lively as ever.” Jae murmured to himself as he walked to his desk by the window.
Jae sat down at his seat, just then Kyle and his group of lackeys came up to him.
“Hey trash!” Kyle said to Jae as if they were longtime friends. His lackeys laughed like they didn’t hear him say that for about the billionth time. A flare of anger flicked in Jae. “Hey you gay piece of shit, I'm talking to you”.
“Hmmm you sure toss the word gay a lot don’t you? Are you trying to hint at something?” Jae retorted with a smirk on his face.
“The word gay seems to be your goto insult to express your hatred of someone, one can’t help but to think that it is because you are secretly insecure about your sexual orientation, so to suppress your insecurities and fear of possibilities you express it in terms of bullying to combat and hide from the truth. You’re afraid to submit to the idea of being gay so you call other people gay. Am I right?”
Kyle’s face was steaming red as he heard a few snickers from the other students that were watching the scene.
“You little bit-”
“Oh you’re in denial” Jae interrupted.
Kyle was about ready to start swinging, but instead a smile grew on his face and he instead said.
“How can I be gay when I fucked your mother last night, oh shit I’m sorry, I forgot that she’s dead, probably killed herself to get away from you.” Jae gripping his fist, was ready to throw a hook at his face, but the thought quickly vanished as Kyle started to walk away with the victory. Not ready to lose Jae cried out. Kyle turned his head but Jae had nothing to say. This only fed Kyle and his lackeys as they continued to their seats roaring with laughter.
“Damn…” Jae thought to himself. Embarrassment settled into his mind, but was quickly replaced by anger and sadness as he thought about what Kyle said. Jae looks out to the window, deep in thought. He thought about his parents, or rather lack thereof, he tried to remember who they were but just couldn’t. He lost them at a very young age. All that was left is a small hope that his parent were good people and died an honorable way. The orphanage told him all sorts of stories, car crash, sickness, drug overdose, explosive diarrhea… But the one he could not accept was that they abandoned him.
This was a daily routine for Jae, so much so that it has reached a point of redundancy. Just an ordinary mundane life of a typical bullied teen. He felt sad for himself, but even that sadness felt distant.
After a whole day of Kyle and his lackeys annoying the hell out of him, school was finally out. Jae packed his things and walked out of the school as fast as he could before Kyle and his group could find him. He passed the orphanage knowing all too well that life at “home” was no different than school.
For Jae life is pathetic. Again he looks at his own reflection, this time at a shop window. The more he stared the more pissed off he felt.
“Sure my life sucks, I'm bullied, I get beat up, I live in a shitstine that is my foster home. But what the hell am I doing about it. I'm just as pathetic as the situation I'm in. All this time I would say to myself that everybody else in this world were dots, duplicates of each other, living a monotonous fake charade that is life. But a dot is exactly what I see in my reflection right now.”
He walked pass the familiar houses, familiar building, the same homeless beggar by the corner.
“Same, same, same, same, same…” Jae repeated in his head, teeth clenched, fists balled, knuckles turning whiter than the colonial south.
The realization of repetition hit Jae harder than Korean parents when their child gets a B+.
“Dammit I'm a nobody” Jae said aloud.
“No one special, not an individual, I'm a normal teenager. Just a lonely bastard living a blank mundane life, doing the same mundane things… Should I be mad about this, I mean don't we all want to be somebody? Not just everybody...”
A giant explosion shattered his train of thoughts and threw him off his feet. Regaining his hearing and eyesight, he stood, swaying.
“What the hell?” was his only thought before he saw massive chunks of debris, fires, and mass panic raging like a beehive just up ahead.
“What's going on!?” Jae could hear people screaming.
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“A terrorist attack!”,
“RUN!!!!”
He saw people running away from the direction of the explosion. People were stampeding and trampling over one another. Jae got knocked onto the floor. He covered his eyes from all the dust and dirt billowing into the streets. People were screaming, crying out in pain and yelling. On the floor, Jae opened his eyes and saw a man trapped under a piece of golden arches from a McDonald's sign. It looks like McDonald's found a new way to kill someone.
“Help!” he cried “Somebody please.” The man reached out for somebody to grab his hand, but was stepped on by a panicking lady fleeing like everyone else. Jae distraught with his next decision, began to think “I need to get out of here, but that guy needs help.”
BOOM! As if thunder was trying to set an all-time record, another explosion, this one shattering all glass within sight. Jae turned back and was ready to run, but his thoughts became mixed. Dammit I don't have time to save him, there’s more explosions and debris falling from the sky, but he couldn't move. Why? why should I save him, I should just get away it's not my responsibility, the world is a crappy place and people die, I just need to make sure I'm not one of them. BOOM… I mean what's the world with 1 less dot... BOOM… Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...
“SHIT FUCK! SCREW IT!” Jae’s thoughts on an endless panic-rant stopped. Jae had screamed his complaint and was done.
Jae stumbles over to the man.
“Are you alright?” he asked as he tried to lift up the sign. The man looked at Jae with gratitude.
“Yeah, I think I’m fine it’s just that my leg is pinned beneath this damn sign.”
“Give me a second, I’ll try to find something to lift up the sign.” Jae darted off. It wasn’t long before he found a pole from a road sign.
On his way, above all the chaos and destruction ripping the Emerald City apart, he swore he could hear laughter erupting from somewhere nearby. Even though it perked his interests, he instead chose to ignore it for he had to help the man.
“Alright, this might work.” Jae said as he put the pole between the McDonald's sign and a piece of debris.
“I’m going to lever the sign on three, crawl out as fast as you can because I won’t be able to hold it up for long.” The man only nodded, slowly.
“One, Two,” At three he used every ounce of his strength to lift up the huge sign. At the same time the man started to crawl out as fast as he could, and right as he got out Jae’s arms slackened and his knees buckled. Jae sat heaving as the man got to his feet, hobbling.
“Thanks kid, we better get out of here while we still can” The man offered his hand. Before Jae could take it, a scream shattered the silencing city and through the crumbling cityscape. They both quickly turned around to find a woman on her knees cradling a small bundle in her arms as if it was the most precious thing in the world.
A burly man was barreling towards her as she receded into a corner: Laughing, grinning and howling all the while.
Jae looked back at the man who he just rescued, he heard it too.
“I know what you’re thinking, and no we have to get out before he sees us” He said. Jae looked at him with a concerned face. Not just because the man should know better than anyone else of her position, but also because Jae knew he was right.
“Let's go” The man said. Jae had his fist clenched and head down. “C'mon!”cried the man, but his savior was already gone. Jae turned around, pissed off as he charged the terrorist who now was even closer to the woman then he was a couple seconds ago.
Jae became enraged.
“There’s no way I’m going to let that guy hurt anybody else.” thought Jae to himself as he ran towards the man. Jae tackled him like a rhino. The man flew a few feet to the side.
“Run!” Seeing this, the woman quickly took the chance to get up on her feet and run as fast as she could from the spot, leaving Jae and the would be assailant.
The criminal looked pissed, no, the word pissed couldn’t even describe his expression, he was fuming.
“Damn brat, how dare you let my prey escape!?, I was going to have some fun with her. How are you going to repay me?” The man shouted in rage as he threw Jae off of him. Jae quickly rolled out of the way as he dodged a kick from the criminal.
The goon was soon frothing at the mouth, neck veins bulging.
“How dare you dodge?!” At the sight of this Jae got up us soon as possible and prepared for impact.
The criminal launched a punch at him, Jae tried to dodge but his luck just had to run out, as he slipped, the punch which was meant for his stomach, landed right square in the face.
“This is it, I’m dead, just that one punch and I’m already fading…” Jae thought.
He was used to pain from bullies, but this guy’s fist was on a whole new level. Just the force alone sent him airborne and several yards away.
“What is this guy, and what the fuck is with this insane strength?” thought Jae as he sailed through the air.
He hit the ground and his whole body erupted in pain. As if he were being electrified. He stood but before Jae could even sort his thoughts, something hot and bright caught his peripheral.
“Wait, is his foot really on fire?” That was his last thought before the kick made contact with his chest. Jae felt a few of his ribs crack and break before his back kissed the concrete wall. Jae tried to get up but the pain in his chest was too great and it was becoming harder to exhale with every breath. Jae coughed up blood.
“Seems like one of the ribs punctured one of my lungs or something” The thug came out of nowhere, “NO MERCY!!!” He shouted, and kicked him in the ribs again making Jae cry out in pain and coughing vehemently now. The goon laughed.
“How do you like that kid?” he said cheerily, as Jae cried out in pain before kicking him in the face. Sprawling him out as if he was to make a snow angel. Jae laid there for a couple second, trying to act dead. A big smile appeared on the attackers face. “Get up!” and he kicked Jae as if he were a soccer ball.
Acting dead obviously enthralled the goon with joy. He laughed loudly, and walked over to Jae. Jae laid there completely defeated. He spat on Jae then said.
“You pathetic piece of trash.” An image of Kyle popped into Jae’s mind, and he grew angry.
"dammit if I'm gonna die anyways, I won’t die like this."
Jae slowly stood up.
“Oh you're up, that’s a surprise” the goon said with a wide grin.
“BITCH!… An aborted, crack fetus could hit harder than you… you… you… ugly, lowlife degenerate scumbag!” Jae screamed while wiping his mouth.
The man’s smile instantaneously faded, “You little piece of shit, I see you haven’t learned your lesson.” he picked Jae up by his shirt and slammed him hard into the ground. Jae’s head bounced of the cement like a rubber ball. His vision stinging, burning and pained from fresh hot blood pouring into his field of vision.
The terrorist smiled, “Who’s the degenerate? Huh?” he said before throwing Jae up into the air and hitting him with a lightning bolt. Jae cried out in pain as he fell on the ground, his whole body felt like it was being stabbed by countless needles. His mind melted from the searing white hot pain. The bolt ripping the fabric of his being to shreds as if he never existed. The goon approach Jae’s stinging body and discharged a continuous stream of a million volts of electricity into Jae to finish him off.
“AHHHH!!!!”he screamed.
“I see you’re having fun!” a new voice sounded from behind the goon. The man turned around to find his teammates walking towards him.
“This guy is mine. Go get your own.” replied the goon as he continued to electrocute Jae.
“Oh you can have him, we just came to tell you that we should get going, the magic forces are a minute out.” warned a female terrorist.
A new voice reverberated throughout the decrepit landscape.
“I think it’s a bit late for that.” All the goons turned confused, but very frightened. At the source of the sound stood two people. One was female and looked like the younger of the two. while the other, a man, who looked like he was in his early thirties.
In a flurry of movements, the duo wiped out the group of thugs within seconds. The two walked up to Jae as the woman knelt by his body.
“This kid is still alive but if he doesn’t get treatment soon he won’t be.” The man nodded, “How bad is he injured?”
“There’s too much to even list...” Alice replied as she continued to examine Jae’s body. The deep voice belonging to the male spoke.
“Are you sure Alice? He was being beaten for god knows how long, before we located them, he shouldn’t even be in one piece let alone alive.” He drifted his gaze back to the boy. Alice shook her head.
“I don’t understand how he’s still alive either but he is.” She knelt back down and hovered a hand over his chest, something didn’t feel right for her.
She stood back up.
“Alright, let’s take him to base and heal him and look up his background just in case. Jack, go take him to the base while I check if there are any other survivors.” Jack picked up Jae as carefully as he could, so that he wouldn’t cause him any extra pain and ran towards the car. The rest of the magic forces began to gather the rest of the victims to manipulate their memories, and make this magical incident seem more like a terrorist attack rather than several wizards from Jayu wreaking havoc on Earth. They worked fast and efficiently.
Unbeknownst to Jae's saviors, he was slightly conscious as they fought the thugs. What he saw left a question in his mind before he passed out. “Did they just use magic?… ..Impossible….”