บท 2: Earth
The sky was roaring so loudly that it covered the noises made by those living in the cities. Just 15 minutes ago, it was still extremely clear and sunny, but in the short few minutes, the beautiful blue sky was covered with dark, grey clouds that seemingly came out of nowhere, almost as if someone brought them here… The old people might even say that it was almost as if the gods were having an intense fight.
Two groups of high school students were getting off from their school buses when a sudden loud thunder came out of nowhere.
Multiple blinding flashes of light caused them to either cower in fear or close their ears for what was about to come next.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
"Argh!" some of the girls yelled as they hugged onto each other or their boyfriends. The thunderstorms, though expected, still scared that sh*t out of them. It was as if the thunderstorms were just right next to their ears.
When the sound of the thunderstorm finally passed, everyone looked up into the dark sky. For their city that had been experiencing sunny weather the last couple of weeks, this thunderstorm took them by surprise, causing a lot of these kids to be somewhat apprehensive.
Some of the more superstitious ones took out their items of religions and held it tightly in their hands.
It was as if they could tell that something was about to go wrong.
CLAP!
CLAP!
The clapping sound startled the kids, and it took their attention away from the sky. The high school children then looked toward the person who clapped-- their teacher.
"Come on! It's just thunder and lightning, nothing that you have never seen before. Quick, go into the museum before the rain starts," said Mr. Smith as he pointed toward the entrance. He was the teacher leading this field trip. This was the first field trip for his class this year, and he had planned for a lot of things. What he did not plan was for the weather to go back.
"This is weird… According to the meteorology report, today should be a sunny day…" he thought with a sigh as he walked behind some of the students. When he got to the entrance, he counted the students as they walked into the museum. "One is missing?" he thought as he looked around. That was when he saw the missing boy.
The 16-year-old was looking up at the sky, seemingly fascinated by the moving dark clouds.
"Juin! Come on!" Mr. Smith yelled for the boy's attention. When the boy saw him, Mr. Smith pointed toward the entrance and said, "Now!"
Mr. Smith considered himself to be a good teacher, yet he could never find the patient to deal with this boy. Absentminded, stupid, weak… This boy was everything bad put in one package. He was already 16 years old, yet his body still looked like that of a thirteen years old.
"Stop daydreaming!" Mr. Smith warned when the boy stopped in front of him.
The boy shivered. "Y-yes, sir…"
"I'll be testing you guys on what we learn today. You better take notes," Mr. Smith said as he folded his arms, muscle somewhat bulging through his body-fitting shirt. He did not expect the boy to come along on this field trip, since this was a paying trip. But somehow, the group home where the boy was staying managed to find some money to pay for it.
Since Mr. Smith could not openly show his disgust, he could only treat the boy with indifference.
The boy, Juin, nodded and quickly ran into the museum to join his classmates. However, his mind was still on the clouds earlier. He thought he saw something earlier… but he couldn't tell clearly what it was that he saw. It appeared like a goat's head… but it also looked like a trident.
"Pareidolia…" Juin mumbled to himself as he shook his head. He had been seeing things in random objects for as far as he could remember. However, according to dear old Doctor Google, what he was experiencing was pareidolia, the tendency to perceive a specific image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.
As he followed behind his classmates and listened to their teacher droning on about the history of the city, he could not help but rub his left elbow. Yesterday, when he was running away from his bully, who was now at the front of the group with his girlfriend, he fell… as usual. Not only was he short, unathletic, unintelligent, and average looking, but he was also clumsy as f*ck.
A combination that made his high school year a hell.
"Psst!"
Juin looked up when he heard the sound and saw one of his classmates pointing to a picture. When he looked toward the picture, it was of a man being hung. Juin looked back at his classmate, who then made a slit-the-throat motion in a creepy manner.
Juin gulped and looked away, which only caused the said classmate to laugh.
"Hey, you alright?"
Upon hearing the familiar voice, Juin looked up with a smile. "Hey, Max."
"Ignore them," Max said as she walked beside Juin.
Max and Juin grew up together. Beautiful and smart, she was the complete opposite of the boy standing next to her. Max and her family lived a few doors down from Juin's group home, so she had known him almost all her life.
"You know, your boyfriend is going to be pissed again," Juin said in a low voice as he glanced at her boyfriend, who was now staring at him with narrowed eyes. If possible, Juin preferred not to get on the guy's bad side, especially since the guy was 186 cm tall and weighed more than Juin and Max put together.
"Thomas is not the jealous type," Max said with a nonchalant wave of her hand.
"No?" Juin thought as he looked at the boy, who was now making the "I have my eyes on you" signal.
Max frowned and turned around, but what she saw was her boyfriend smiling at her. She then shook her head and turned back to look at Juin. "Mr. Smith said earlier, that this field trip is not just for fun and he would test us on things that we learn here. So don't forget to take notes, alright? If you need help, come to my place this weekend and we can revise together."
Juin nodded. He watched as she walked back to her boyfriend. "They are so compatible…" he thought sadly as he walked further behind everyone else. He kept thinking… If he were not an orphan… If he were taller, smarter… then maybe she would have chosen him over that jock.
"What are you lookin' at?"
The voice that suddenly appeared by the side of his ear caused Juin to jump up slightly. Before he could run away, he felt himself being slightly lifted up.
"Let's have a talk."
The boy who picked Juin up was Juin's biggest bully, Patrick. He was the class leader, but instead of being a nice person, like other class leaders, he picked on Juin almost every day. Juin tried to complain to his teachers, but they always said that it was impossible for the class leader to do such a thing.
Bright, athletic, good background… That was all the teachers could see.
"Patrick, let me down!" Juin tried to struggle, but he was too weak to fight back.
"If you shout or try to run, I'll pull your pants down. You wouldn't want your little girlfriend to see you now, would you?" Patrick warned in a low voice.
Juin immediately shook his head. Not only was his body underdeveloped, but even the most important part of him was… still undeveloped.
Patrick put him down on the floor before wrapping his arm around Juin's shoulders. "Now… We just overheard the staff talking about something interesting. Apparently, there's a room here that has a lot of interesting stuff, stuff that hasn't been shown to the public yet."
"W-what do you want?"
"We just want to take a look," Patrick sneered as he exchanged glances with his best friend, John. They heard that some of the stuff inside that room was extremely creepy, and apparently, cursed. Of course. They did not believe in curses, but they felt that Juin would probably scare himself to death by it, and that was their plan; to see their classmate scared out of his mind.
"Right, just a look. We are too big in size to sneak in, but someone like you should have no problem sneaking in. We will distract the guards so that you can sneak in. Go in and take some photos," John said. He then handed Juin a small digital camera. "I doubt you can take any good photos with that lousy phone of yours."
Juin looked at the digital camera and asked, "What do I have to take?"
"Just snapshots of everything in the room," John said nonchalantly.
"Even if they are guards, wouldn't the door be locked?" Juin asked. Even if this was a museum, the security couldn't possibly be that lax?!
"Yeah," Patrick scoffed. He took out a card and said, "I swiped this from the security guard who was guarding the door earlier, when he went to the bathroom. They should really hire someone younger instead of an old fart like him."
It was so easy. The old security guard just put it in the back of his pocket. It was as if he wanted someone to steal it.
Juin looked at the card, wondering if this was the right thing to do. "Only a few photos, right?" he asked as he looked at the card.
"Yeah," John said with a roll of his eyes. "Don't be such a wuss. If you do something fun, maybe people would even like you."
Juin looked at the card, and with trembling hand, he reached out and took it before putting it into his pocket.
"Meet us near the door during the free session later," Patrick said as he placed a hand on Juin's shoulder. He then smiled and waved at some of the students who were looking over at them. Before going to join them, he whispered, "If you don't… I'm sure you know what would happen, right?"
His hand slowly traveled down to Juin's arm, where he nearly dislocated the latter's arm last week when Juin failed to give him the money he demanded.
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