Chapter 19:

Chapter 8. Stay Away. (IV)

The Spirit In Me


"Wait. You have to watch out for him. Dot wasn't kidding when he called him a monster. He really is a monster. Everyone here knows that." said Shira, the girl who held her hand. Lin looked around at the rest of the class to see what they were thinking. They nodded their heads in agreement.

"He's not a normal person. He has these outbursts... when he's all surrounded by Energia and attacks everyone around him... I've never seen anything like it before..." Shira continued.

"That's true. When I was little, I remember all the cases we had in kindergarten and elementary school... he is dangerous... truly dangerous... you should stay away from him…" warned Shira's friend, Nora.

"They are absolutely right." stated Dot decisively.

"He's a monster. A real monster. But, like in every story, there's a hero who defeats it, and I'm that hero." Dot boasted as he smiled cockily and showed off his toned muscles, standing on top of one of the desks in the classroom.

He jumped down from it to the floor, "Haven't you noticed that? There's a reason why he's always alone in the rooftop. That's his place. That's why no one else goes near there.

Everyone, except of me of course, are afraid of him. And for a good reason. They're afraid of him as we just said, because he's dangerous.” Dot claimed as he stood in front of Lin.

"Everyone knows it. So does he. That's probably why he kept it a secret from you. I can see it on your face. It's the first time you've heard of it." Dot asserted and continued.

"Not that I'm surprised. He's most despicable. But, don't be afraid, you can be with me!" he exclaimed as he put his hand on Lin's shoulders, hugging her with one arm. "With me, you will be completely protected from him!" he claimed confidently as he pointed his thumb at himself.

"Leave her Dot! She just got here." Shira complained as she pulled Lin away from him and took his hand off of her.

"It's not true." She said to Lin, "You'll be safe just by keeping away from him. You don't need Dot to protect you." Shira explained.

"What do you care?!" Dot fumed, then turned back to Lin - "You can calm down. Even if he tried to do something, every time we fought when we were kids, I'd beat him. Always! I'm the only one who ever beat him, and not once. That's because, I know his secret. The secret of how to beat him." Dot shared with pride and a cocky smile. Lin was a little worried. She didn't understand what was happening around her.

"We don't lie. We have no reason to lie to you. You can ask Chin, she can show you a proof." Shira claimed. "Proof?" Lin asked.

Dot's gang moved aside, revealing Chin. A thin and weak girl. To her head, long black hair that covered her forehead with symmetrically cut bangs. So symmetrical it looked like a wig.

Chin was busy with her notebooks in the corner of the room, pretending to ignore the substantive conversation.

"Why are you putting me in this situation..." Chin muttered to herself when she was still engrossed in her notebooks.

"Well... let it be..." she said quietly to herself as she closed the notebook and put her pen aside. She got up from her chair.

"Well. When we were kids-" Chin said taking a long breath, "we were quite close... we liked to play with each other every now and then... like with the other kids. I remember one day I was playing with him in the yard... we were in the sandbox when, I'm not so sure what happened... maybe he got upset that I took a game piece he wanted to play with… it's hard for me to remember... because right after...-" Chin stopped for a moment as she grabbed her own wrist with her other palm. Her body tensed as she ran through her memories. On her face, was a look of pain in her narrowed eyes.

"He... he lost it..." Chin claimed with trembling voice, as her hand came up to her forehead.

She lifted her hair and exposed her forehead beneath the bangs. A large and wide scar was exposed on it that reached her hairline.

Surprised voices were heard from the class students when they saw the scar again. Over time Chin learned how to hermetically hide it. They haven't seen it in years. Most of them have already forgotten what it looked like.

"Bigger than I remembered... Brutal..." Shira whispered to her group. Dot shook his head as he looked at her scar, wondering to himself if he could have prevented it too.

Lin was surprised, her gaze bordered on mild shock. Chin lowered her hand and the bangs returned back to its place. Silence prevailed in the classroom.

"A loud explosion occurred... it threw me dozens of meters onto the nearby swings. I was hit in the head and fell to the floor. I bled. profusely. Thinking back, I'm surprised I didn't lose consciousness on the first hit... I looked at my hand and it was covered in blood all over it… I felt dizzy… I looked forward and saw him... so powerful... so scary... I saw him shining... with Energia pouring out of his whole body in every direction. The noise was enormous, but I could still hear it.

He yelled in anger.

I started crying…

It probably pissed him off even more.

The Energia from him increased more and more as objects flew everywhere. Sand mixed with stones and metals blown around furiously.

The kindergarteners came outside when they heard the loud noise and the shouting. They kept the other kids away from him before they recognized me on the floor, bleeding.

In a panic, they screamed at him to get away from us. To stay away." Chin said fearfully. That was exactly why she didn't like to bring it up. Because every time she did, her body would feel the same primal fear she felt back then.

"One of the kindergarteners ran to me, she protected me with her own body. She was shaking with fear. I felt it in my bones as she held me tightly, pressed against the iron fence that bordered the kindergarten. Our fear didn't interest him. He was angry, and he wanted to hurt us. He tried to get closer to us, and the vortex grew to be as huge as a tornado. A collection of Energia and sand that spread into the air above the kindergarten.

All the children cried and screamed. Even the kindergartener who held me cried. Her tears mixed with my blood on the floor. Despite her advanced age, she was truly terrified.", Chin recounted with sore eyes and twitchy nose.

Back then, in the children's crowd, Dot was also present. His body felt frozen from terror in the face of the powerful vortex in front of him. If it expanded further, it was going to send him tens of meters into the air along with all the other objects around.

In class, Dot looked towards the floor, to avoid the gaze of others. To hide the shame in his eyes, even if he was the only one who knew this detail of the story.

"For a moment I thought I was going to die there... that he was going to kill us all. But... Dot..." Chin said barely.

Lin looked at Dot, as he looked back at her.

Vforest
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