Time wasn't faithful.
On a bright yet overcast day, a high school student awakens in a shabby but steady environment. A half-abandoned house was still a stable home, and somehow that makes sense.
It was morning when he rose from his dark, grimy bed; he had slept only an hour, yet it felt as though he had slept none at all. This time, for once, the hooting of owls and the shadowy corners drowned out the sound of his heavy breathing.
The student, Mystic Fire, a white-haired, skinny, weak boy, was preparing some breakfast with the last of the supplies he had left. Not having parents truly left him at a disadvantage in that regard.
Because he had no job, he had to stretch what little he had further, but over time that became impossible.
So, let's see what we have today. Another day at that hellish school, and another day with no breakfast again. Great.
The entire house was unsafe; it hadn't been safe in months.
His mother was a hooker without Mystic's dad knowing, cheating on him every day with men none of the family knew, until one day his dad found out about it and learned she had cheated on him with Mystic's friend's dad. So, she left them for the dad she had cheated with.
His father was a wealthy businessman who, as he had heard, made over two hundred thousand pounds a month. It all went to hell when Mystic's mother started stealing it for the hooker work she was promoting, so he simply left them after he found out. Both of them abandoned their son to survive alone in a hellscape.
That was the last thing Mystic remembered before they left; for some reason, he recalls nothing else about them.
Reaching the cabinet, his gaze drifted over all the cans he had left before settling on the salt.
I have salt water for breakfast and salt water desert today again. I just can't stop it.
Sunlight, weak and scattered, seeped through the flimsy curtains, laying gentle shadows over the worn surfaces. His eyes turned to the door as he got ready to leave for school. He hoisted his battered bag onto his shoulder and walked out into the dimming light of a winter afternoon.
The cold stung his skin sharply as he mumbled under his breath, "Another day pretending everything's fine… when it isn't."
The world around him seemed hazy, the laughter of classmates, the sound of shoes echoing on concrete, the clouds that looked too heavy for the sky.
He set off toward the high school, hands buried deep in his pockets, his breath showing in the freezing air.
Inside his mind, thoughts churned: "I'm growing tired of this… school, people, fake smiles, I should focus on something real. Something that doesn't disappear the moment the bell rings. But I can't, not after my parents left me to rot."
Yet fate, harsh and impossible to predict, had different plans.
A single raindrop landed on his cheek. Then one more. In moments, the sky broke open, dumping heavy rain onto the streets.
He let out a quiet groan, tugging his hood up, "Tch… great. Just great. I suppose I'll go to the café."
The Café Shelter, the bell above the café door chimed as Mystic walked in, soaked from the rain. The aroma of coffee and fresh pastries hung in the air as he made his way to the counter and placed his order.
"One medium espresso, please."
His voice emerged softer than he meant it to, weary and empty. Ten minutes passed, and his drink finally came. He took a seat by the window, watching the rain pound against the glass.
The world outside seemed far away, like a film he had no choice but to watch. He gazed at his own reflection in the window.
"You look miserable," he murmured to himself, "No wonder people hardly notice you."
The warmth of the espresso barely touched the chill he felt inside.
"You do know that you don't have to walk alone, dummy."
The voice came from behind him; his gaze, sharp, dazed, searching, swept across the area, tracing every shadowed corner and familiar contour. And then, in one breathless instant that froze the air in his lungs, the realization hit him like a wave, a girl was actually talking to him.
But it was only his overly clingy friend Luna Frost. Pink hair, red eyes, blushing as if she couldn't help it. Yes, it was definitely her.
"Hey Luna, how are you today." He spoke as cold frosty air escaped his already numb lips.
Before she answered, Luna fidgeted with her fingers, glancing uneasily at the people around them. Her words caught in her throat as she stole nervous looks at Mystic, clearly uncomfortable speaking to him with so many eyes on them.
"I'm doing well. Particularly when I'm with my favorite person today. You."
Then it hit them, a sudden shock of realization slicing through the haze, they were going to be late.
Damn, we're going to be late for our first day back at high school.
They grabbed their bags, threw open the door, and rushed outside. Cold, persistent beads of sweat ran down their temples as adrenaline rushed through them.
The instant they both reached the landing, a fierce gust of wind tore down the stairwell, lashing his hair and stinging his skin like a warning. Every step rang out beneath him as they hurried down, their breathing uneven.
Seven minutes, seven damn minutes.
At the bike shed, they both leaped onto his rust-covered bicycle, the tires shrieking as he shot onto the cracked pavement.
The city smeared past him, honking cars, flickering streetlights, the sharp stench of exhaust heavy in his nose. Traffic crept along like a sluggish beast, every red light a knife to his nerves. Three minutes remaining. Every second dragged, twisted, screamed.
Satoshi Academy rose ahead, its gates packed with students pouring in like a river bursting its banks. Mystic and Luna slid to a halt, kicked the stand down, and dashed inside.
The school was made up of two separate buildings on the same campus, though they were not physically connected. One building was set aside for staff and senior students, while the other was meant for junior students.
This setup seems sensible, particularly given the school's policy on relationships between students.
"We made it, we actually made it on time." Luna said, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.
Warmth rose to his cheeks as she drew nearer, her usual clinginess still managing to take him by surprise.
By now he ought to have grown accustomed to it, yet every time his best friend came this close, his calm deserted him, and he found himself looking anywhere except at her.
"Yeah let's just head inside, we got another year of hell to endure."
The morning bell arrived before anyone had a chance to even mention trauma. Luna and Mystic made up two of the twenty-three faces lingering in the shadowy hallway, all waiting for their science teacher to at last appear.
Along the sun-drenched corridor leading to classroom 3-A, Mr Summers made his way toward the room, where twenty-three faces stood waiting, arranged with textbook-perfect neatness. Summers turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open wide, and waved them inside with a calm that felt forced.
Luna took the spot beside Mystic without a moment's doubt, even though her own seat sat farther down the room. Maybe she never got the message, or maybe she's simply too attached; Summers couldn't decide, so he let out a sigh, set his book down, and headed for the board.
"Turn your textbooks to page 324," the teacher declared, laying the notebook softly on his desk, its quiet presence somehow stifling. "Today, we dive into the muscular system."
A few minutes melted away like sugar stirred into warm tea, drifting past in a dance of sketched diagrams and whispered questions, the air heavy with chalk dust floating through honeyed shafts of sunlight, until suddenly a voice filled the room, and more than anyone, Mystic's ear.
"Hey Mysti... hey, I'm talking to you..."
Luna was trying to catch his attention, entirely forgetting they were in the middle of class.
"Hey, we're in class, we can talk afterward." He murmured it, but all it earned him was a pout from her.
"Mr. Fire, if that's your notion of a hushed whisper, you might consider taking the earphones out now and then. I suspect you and Mrs. Frost would do well with a little distance. Yes?"
Mr. Summer gestures toward two empty seats, one on each side of the room. He and Luna rise and walk over to their new seats. Mystic's desk sits directly in front of the desk of a popular student Visual Park's desk. He sits there, acutely conscious of those eyes boring into his back.
"Just say the word if the separation anxiety starts weighing on you too heavily."
Turning back toward the board, he notices another student peering upward from her seat.
"Hey, look! there's something out in the yard!" She shouted it out, and everyone swung their attention to a student pointing through the window. "There's a body!"
In a single burst, the whole class rushes to the window to see it with their own eyes. Mr. Summer included.
Just beyond the classroom, an enormous cross stood upright, blood pooled beneath it. That wasn't even the worst of it, there was a body the size of a classmate, one with red hair. A girl.
She had been nailed down, her hair matted with blood that still trickled down, and with the damage you could see blood and skin tissue as veins dangled from her arms.
Mystic knew this girl. She had spoken with him a few days back about heading to the arcade, and then the very next day she was gone.
"Holy shit, that's Hina Flare on the cross." A student shouted
Screams rolled out in waves, like a tsunami, a horror so deep it drove one kid to vomit into the trash.
After that, everyone went still.
"Look, at the body. It looks old and isn't that stab wounds."
Indeed, the corpse's hand had clung to the cross for so long that the flesh had shrunk and greyed against the bones, and already a flock of birds had staked its claim, fluttering over the ribs and streaking the tattered cloth and one sunken eye socket with crusted white droppings.
Close by, two wandering dogs had sprayed the legs with sharp jets that still shimmered in the dust, while the tidy punctures down the torso, clean openings no teeth could have carved, told of a blade thrust in from beyond, the sort of meticulous craft a stealthy stalker of Hina might have honed in the dark.
A few traded uneasy looks, while someone silently edged away from the sight in front of them.
Luna remained right where she was. For a moment, her fingers clenched the border of her sleeve, then loosened once more.
Without a word, she observed, her gaze tracking each motion, utterly unshaken, even wearing a smirk.
"She shouldn't have touched him."