The classroom clock ticked louder than the teacher's voice.
Ash stared blankly at the ceiling, his chin resting in his palm, while numbers and equations filled the chalkboard. None of it stuck.
Life is boring, he thought. Every day's the same. Wake up, school, class, repeat. Nothing ever changes.
The final bell rang. Relief spread across the room like a sigh of freedom.
"Yo, Ash," a familiar voice called. Kenta, Ash's best friend leaned on his desk, grinning. "Heading out now?"
Ash blinked and sat up. "Yeah. You?"
"Of course. Let's walk home together. Better than dying of boredom alone."
They left the building, the sky painted orange by the setting sun. The air was cool, carrying the faint buzz of cicadas.
"Man, today was brutal," Kenta groaned, stretching his arms. "I swear, if I hear another lecture like that, I'm gonna pass out in the middle of class."
"You already do," Ash muttered, smirking.
"Exactly! That's how boring life is." Kenta kicked a pebble down the road. "Don't you ever feel like nothing exciting ever happens? Like we're stuck in some kinda loop?"
Ash shrugged. "All the time. School, homework, sleep… repeat."
"Then let's break the loop," Kenta said suddenly, eyes lighting up. "Tomorrow, let's go to that new game shop. They've got some insane VR fighting game. You in?"
"You mean the one that fries your brain cells if you play too long?"
"Exactly. That's the fun part!" Kenta smirked. "Come on, Ash. Better than wasting another Saturday on homework. I'll even let you lose gracefully."
They kept bantering, the street otherwise empty and quiet.
And then-
BOOM.
The ground shook. Both boys froze. Something, someone,slammed into the street just meters ahead, cracking the asphalt. Dust rose into the air.
Ash and Kenta stumbled back in shock.
A man lay sprawled on the pavement, blood pooling around him. His clothes were torn and ragged with broken body lying in the middle of the street.
"Holy crap…" Kenta whispered, his voice trembling. "Ash… what the hell…?"
Ash swallowed hard, his throat dry. Against every instinct screaming at him to run, he stepped closer. His legs shook as he crouched by the body.
"Hey… hey, are you alive?" he whispered. His hand trembled as he touched the man's shoulder.
The man's eyes snapped open.
Ash gasped, stumbling back. They weren't normal eyes. They were a pale, crystalline white, fractured with jagged streaks of black-like shards of obsidian trapped in ice. For one horrifying instant, those unnatural eyes locked onto his.
Then they closed again. Silence.
"A-Ash!" Kenta grabbed his arm, pulling him back. "Did you see that!? His eyes—"
"I… I saw." Ash's voice shook. "They opened…"
Kenta's hands fumbled for his phone. "What do we do? Call the police? An ambulance? Both!?"
"Police," Ash said, his voice unsteady. "Call the police first."
The flashing red-and-blue lights painted the street as officers cordoned off the area. An ambulance idled nearby, paramedics crouched over the broken man.
Ash and Kenta sat on the curb, the weight of what they'd seen still pressing on their chests. A tall officer with a notepad stepped forward.
"You two found him?" he asked.
Kenta nodded quickly. "Y-yeah. We were just walking, then he..." He faltered, glancing at Ash.
Ash swallowed hard. "He fell. From the sky. Just… fell right in front of us."
The officer's brow furrowed. For a moment, silence hung heavy. Then he scribbled something down.
"From the sky, huh?"
His tone was flat, skeptical.
"Look, boys, people don't just drop out of nowhere. You sure you didn't see a car? Maybe he was hit and thrown onto the street?"
"No!" Ash's voice cracked sharper than he meant.
"There was no car. We saw it...,he fell straight down!"
The officer exchanged a look with his partner, the kind that said kids and their stories. He closed the notepad with a snap.
"All right. We'll check the area for cameras. But for now, you two head home. And… if you remember anything else, anything that makes a little more sense, you come tell us."
They were dismissed like that, like their words were nothing but confused ramblings.
As Ash and Kenta were standing there, Kenta muttered under his breath, "They didn't believe us."
The man's body was loaded into the ambulance, covered completely. Engines roared to life, and within minutes, the street was empty again like nothing had ever happened.
Ash and Kenta stood in silence until the taillights disappeared.
"That… that was insane," Kenta muttered, still pale. "Where the hell did he come from?
Just falling out of the sky like that… it's messed up."
Ash didn't answer. His thoughts kept circling back to the man's eyes.
They walked the rest of the way in uneasy silence.
At Ash's house, Kenta forced a shaky grin. "I'll text you later, okay? Try not to have nightmares."
"Yeah," Ash muttered, unlocking the door.
"I'm home," he called, stepping inside.
"Welcome back!" his mother's cheerful voice floated from the kitchen. "How was your day?"
"Fine," Ash answered automatically. He didn't mention the body. He couldn't.
Dinner was ordinary, warm, filled with small talk. But when he shut himself in his room later, the memory came rushing back.
Those eyes.
White like crystal.
Shattered with black.
It didn't look human.
He shivered under the weight of the memory.