Chapter 6

What was I doing again?

"Hey, William! Seriously? You feel asleep again?" A girls voice.

"S-sorry."

"Are you not sleeping enough? You fall asleep in class all the time, too."

"Sorry. It won't happen again."

IDIOT! How embarrassing! Falling asleep in front of Sarah. Ah, I should just die.

"Seriously dude. Aren't your grades terrible? I'd be too worried about failing to sleep at all. Must be nice to be so carefree."

You don't think I know that? It was Owen. He was a jerk, but, in the end, he was right.

"Haha, I mean, they're not too bad. I just need to get serious." I tried to joke about it.

"The time for getting serious was months ago. Why didn't you join us to study a long time ago?" Sarah asked.

"W-well... I have a job, so I can't just do whatever I want."

Chris looked up from his text book. "Your job's more important than your future? Personally, I would've quit my job to focus on school if my grades were half as bad as yours. I saw your last science test. Not to tell you how to live your life, but..."

Ryan joined in now. "He only joined because Sarah started coming here to study too."

Sarah looked away awkwardly. I felt my cheeks burn bright red.

"Th-that's not true! I really just needed to get my grades up. Like you guys said, I need to take it more seriously."

Thankfully, Chris interrupted. "Can we get back to studying? Sarah and I have soccer practice in a hou- !?!?"

A Bright light opened up under the table. It filled with strange lines and climbed out to latch onto the others. Everyone but me. They yelled, screamed, and tried to pull away from it, but they held tight as more and more latched onto them. I stepped back to the edge of the light, but a hand grabbed my arm. Sarah’s. It wasn't intentional, just a reaction out of fear and panic, grabbing for anything. I grabbed onto her arm in return and tried to pull her away. Instead, the lines continued to wrap around them until a bunch of them covered my arms and bound them to Sarah, preventing me from letting go. We all started to get pulled downward into the light.

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The door opened. I pretended to sleep.

"Hey? Are you awake?"

It was mom.

...

"I need to hide here. Sorry."

She crawled into my bed next to me. The stench of alcohol was nearly overwhelming. I continued to feign sleep.

"Are you really sleeping?”

…

“Why won't you talk to me?”

...

“Do you hate me?”

...

“Sorry for bothering you”.

…

“But you know, you cause me a lot of problems too so you can deal with it. I do a lot for you. I buy you stuff, I make you food, I take you places. And in return, you ruined my life. The day I found out I was pregnant with you, was the worst day of my life. When you were born, my life ended. I wanted to kill your father when I found out I was pregnant. You hate me even though I changed my whole life for you."

The door opened again.

One of her girlfriends. "Heyyyy! Let's gooo! Why're you trying to go to bed?"

Now she pretended to be asleep.

...

"You're not sleeping. Stop using the kid a shield and come back to the party! ... Karen! Get your butt uuup!"

"Ugh! I'm sleeping! I have to take Will to school tomorrow."

"Noooo. Get up! He can walk or go with a friend. This is your party, you're not allowed to sleep till everyone else is done."

"Fiiine. I'm getting up. Good night Will. Love you."

She kissed my cheek and the reek of alcohol got even stronger as she leaned in.

They left and closed the door.

"The day I found out I was pregnant with you, was the worst day of my life." It repeated in my head over and over. How can you hate me for something that isn't even my fault? I never asked to be here, either. The tears made the pillow wet and uncomfortable. As usual, I didn't end up sleeping much.

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"You're a lazy, ungrateful, sack of crap! All you do is ask for things and complain. You're always home, but you can't do anything to help around here! Don't you have any friends? You're getting a job, or you can get the hell out of my house! You and your mother are parasites! I do EVERYTHING around here and all I get is disrespect!"

My dad yelled at me while I stood there, unsure how to react. A moment later, mom stormed down the hall from their bedroom, yelling.

"Oh, waahhh! Poor baby! Stop being a jerk to Will and get out!"

Dad slammed the door as he left and stomped down the porch stairs as he headed to work.

Mom shouted at the door. "LOSERRR!"

I didn't know what set them off this time as I had just woken up and walked into the kitchen. I knew better than to ask, though. I put my backpack on. Mom didn't smell like alcohol this morning, and she wasn't slurring her words.

"Are you taking me to school today?" I asked.

"Why do you say it like that? I take you most days. Why didn't you go with your father? For someone who apparently does everything around here, he sure is useless. Get ready then, I guess I'll take you if you're too lazy to walk."

"It's a 45-minute walk. I would be late."

"Then don't be lazy and get up earlier! Why do I have to do everything for you?"

"I get up earlier than you almost every day."

"I'm the adult and your mother! If I want to sleep in, I'll sleep in. If I want to party, I'll party all night. I don't need you telling me what I can and can't do! Do you pay the bills? Do you cook and clean? Do you own the house? Keep your dumb mouth shut! ... You can find your own way to school today, actually. Thank yourself for that."

Why did I say that? I should've known better by now.

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Every inch of my body hurt and I had a splitting headache. I looked around, but everything was dark. There was a warm sensation on my head though. It felt calming. Nice. Someone was rubbing it gently with something soft. I was lying at the front left end of my cell, near the door, so it had to be Betty reaching around the wall. Probably her tail. It had been cut and down during torture, but it was still long enough.

Daniel whispered. "John. Is that you? Are you ok?"

"... yeah."

If by, ok, he meant alive. It hurt to speak, and it came out raspy and much more quiet than I intended.

Henry spoke up from the cell to my right. "You're a dumbass, kid. But, ... damn, I wish I could've hit a few guards. Probably not worth what you got for it, though, huh?"

Anna scolded him, "Shut up, Henry. John, does it hurt to breath? They aren't supposed to kill us, so if you need help, I can yell for you."

"Then they'll beat you too." Daniel said.

"Well, if he's dying, someone needs to." Anna argued.

"I'm... fine. Don't call anyone."

"... fine, but, Betty, if his breathing gets weaker, tap four times on the bars, and I'll call someone." Anna conceded.

She tapped once for yes.

"They might get a mage to use healing magic on you tomorrow. When the torture does too much damage or someone gets sick, they usually get one to come in. So just hold out." Daniel tried to reassure me.

"... yeah."

That wasn't going to happen.

Betty continued to rub my head while I tried moving a bit. I think my legs were ok. Arms hurt a lot to move, but worked. A few fingers were definitely broken, I was missing a handful of teeth, and I had some cracked or broken ribs that made breathing and talking painful. I wanted to try and sleep through it, but I really didn't want any more memories that came with it.

"That was a decent fighting kid, but mind if I offer some advice?" It was Simon from his cell between Daniel and Anna.

I didn't respond. Wasn't worth the effort. Compared to the other heroes, my fighting was horrible. Maybe I could take a random prison guard, but that was my limit. He continued anyway.

"I saw you looking at all your options and weighing them. Those with talent and skill face their opponents head-on in a battle of power, technique, and speed. You don't seem too confident in fighting like that, though."

I've heard it before, I wanted to say. I can't fight, or I fight dirty, or I have no talent.

"Those kinds of people who only think about facing a battle head-on like that, eager to prove their own abilities against their opponents, you can beat them."

What was he talking about? I had none of those things. Lawrence told me dozens of times that I was unteachable. Even the rare times I beat the other heroes, I was still scolded for doing it the wrong way.

"Where others react to their opponent and focus only on the fight, you have a mind for not getting distracted by the person in front of you. Instincts like that are much harder to teach than proper technique or training. It's like you've got natural-born combat experience. The way you manipulated those guards and made them move the way you wanted? It didn’t work out, but that's great stuff. You should hone that. It's effective."

"Only... effective on... idiots."

"Haha. Maybe. But you might be surprised by just how many people you encounter who are idiots in this world. With discipline and hard work, you could be very formidable one day. If we get out, that is."

Daniel excitedly joined in, but was still careful to whisper.

"Oh!? The infamously negative Simon speaking such forbidden, hopeful words?"

"Shut up. I said IF. When the hell are your friends supposed to be breaking you out anyway?"

"W-well, you know, it's kinda hard to talk to them from in here. Schedule probably got moved around and stuff."

"Yeah... that's a hard IF. Anyway, for now, your first lesson is that you overthink. Taking too much time to consider every option before you make your move. "

"Why do you know all this? You some sorta master combat instructor?" Henry asked.

"... Something like that. From that brief fight, John just reminded me of someone I used to know. If I'm right, and their minds worked in a similar way, I have a lot of advice I think would help. By the way he looked and moved that he was planning, predicting, and overthinking. By the way, John, that's another lesson. Don't get too caught up in your own plans that you make it obvious what you're going to do."

"... William." I said.

"What?"

"My name... is William. Not... John."

"Alright. Sorry. William. I think you have a self-taught fighting style. You use everything around you to read your opponent, predict their movements before they make them, and manipulate them into behaving the way you want, to create openings. You don’t aim for something that’s already there, you aim to create a scenario where an opening is unavoidable. Am I correct? A self-taught style is both a blessing and a curse. You probably have some bad habits that will be hard to break, but most opponents will have a hard time dealing with something they haven't seen much of before. Training will pay off. I promise you."

I was still in great pain, and the situation looked really bleak... but I couldn't help but smile at his words. Even if he was only saying those things to make me feel better, it worked. It was also a bit funny to hear Simon, of all people here, be the one to say such hopeful things. I wanted to laugh, but I knew I would probably end up crying in pain if I did.