Punk extended a hand for Dolph to grab so he could be helped up, but Miz came and yelled at both Punk and Dolph shouting mean nasty things at them both. Dolph was confused why was Miz angry? Dolph went to grab Punk's hand anyway but before he could Miz slapped the hand away and reached out his own hand, Dolph hesitated but when the ground beneath him felt like it was starting to crumble to reached out and grabbed Miz's hand just before the ground underneath him fell away, just where he was nowhere else. The only thing keeping him from falling down too was Miz's hand but Dolph could feel Miz's strength giving out. Panicking Dolph flailed his other hand around searching for Punk's hand. He knew Punk would be able to pull him up. "No! I can do it!" Miz screamed at him, but Dolph wasn't so sure. Miz needed both hands now and Dolph could feel himself slipping down. "Miz! Let me help!" he heard Punk yell at Miz, furious that Miz wasn't letting him pull his friend to safety. Miz shook his head, still refusing help, by now Dolph was terrified, he couldn't see to the bottom and it was dark, Miz couldn't let him fall. Dolph's sleeves fell down as he scrambled to try and get up and Miz looked at him with a mixture of shock and disgust. Dolph couldn't understand why. Then he felt a sickly warm liquid trickle down his arm and he looked to see his cuts wide open and blood flowing out. Miz blinked looking at them with a blank expression his grip slackening "No!" Dolph screamed as Miz let him go completely and he fell down into the abyss. Punk would have pulled him up.
Dolph woke up in a cold sweat after his dream. His palms were sweaty like he had actually been holding on for dear life. He remained how he was, staring at the ceiling in the pitch black. He tried to calm his thumping of his heartbeat, but he couldn't do it. He tried to fall back to sleep but he was scared the dream would come back. His eyes flicked to the time and he saw it was only around 4am. He still had three hours until he needed to be at breakfast. Squeezing his eyes shut he tried to block out the shadows creeping up on him but he couldn't. He felt around for his phone and toyed with the idea of texting Miz, but he decided against it, Miz would be sleeping and he didn't want to disturb him with his troubles Miz had no idea he had. So he remained lying on the bed, suffering in silence watching the shadows in the corner of his eyes waiting for them to attack.
6am rolled around and Dolph thought that perhaps that it was a good time to start getting ready. He rolled out of bed glad that the morning sun was chasing away the shadows, if only for a while. He grabbed some clothes from his drawer and headed out to the bathroom to have a shower. Before he could walk out the door he heard a knock, he frowned. Slightly confused. His door opened and Punk's head peered through. Punk looked him up and down and frowned a little. "You alright man?" Punk randomly asked, Dolph looked at him confused "I'm fine, why do you ask?" but Punk just shrugged his shoulders and went back to whatever he had been doing before. Dolph remained where he was, staring at where Punk had just been puzzled at his behaviour. He shook his head and just walked out to the bathroom.
Punk continued being surprisingly nice to him and this puzzled Dolph greatly. But Dolph wasn't complaining. They even walked into the cafeteria together laughing and being how they used to be, but as soon as they reached the doors they veered off going towards their respective tables, as they no longer shared the same one.
Miz flashed a grin at him as he sat down. "I like your outfit" Miz commented. Dolph grinned looking down at his outfit, he was wearing bright aqua blue converse chucks, black skinny jeans that hugged to him, and a bright pink t-shirt with the words 'Show Off' on them. Dolph grinned back at Miz "Thanks" Miz nodded "You excited? Classes start!" Miz sounded excited, but Dolph wasn't really. He shrugged. "Not really" Miz shrugged again. Miz shoved some pancakes in Dolph's direction, Dolph looked at the pancakes puzzled, Miz grinned "I got these for you" the way Miz said it sounded so sweet, like he was a little concerned for Dolph or something, Dolph shone a smile at Miz and dug into the pancakes, to Dolph they tasted a little dry, he hadn't properly eaten in a while so he found it hard to eat it, but he did eat most of it and felt ridiculously full afterwards. Miz beamed at him, as per usual, and Dolph smiled back half-heartedly. Time ticked on and soon it was nearing time to get to class. He had Math first. He had this class with Miz, so it couldn't be that bad.
It was that bad. They had a horrible teacher and a horrible seating plan. Dolph had to sit next to a couple of losers. At least the stuff they were learning was easy or at least mainly easy. Miz passed him notes by some miracle during the whole lesson without getting caught so at least that made it more lively and bearable. The hour couldn't pass quick enough. The teacher didn't seem to like Dolph instantly, so that was also great wasn't it? He constantly called on him for answers and found some reason to tell him off within the short time frame of being in the class. As soon as the bell rung everyone got up to leave, Dolph was among everyone, but the teacher asked him to stay behind. Dolph patiently waited for the teacher to say what he wanted to say, but he was well aware of the time. Once all the other students had left the teacher (Mr Cole?) stared him in the face "I don't like your attitude Ziggler" this made Dolph frown, what attitude? He wanted to talk back but he knew that was a bad idea. "If you try anything in my class, you will get kicked out. Got it?" Mr Cole said quite aggressively. Dolph frowned slightly and nodded. "Yes sir", Mr Cole still looked dissatisfied but he let him leave. What was his problem? He walked out of the class and to his homeroom.
Punk indicated for him to sit next to him and Alberto when he walked into the class for homeroom. He mentally shrugged; he didn't see why not so he took the seat. His dream came back to him and he zoned out thinking about it, why was his dream so screwed up? He had no idea, and he was a little tired because of it, although it was nothing in comparison to how tired he'd been lately, so he wasn't complaining. The time passed quickly and he apparently had P.E next. He hoped that this class would be better than his last one.
Thankfully P.E was also a class he shared with Miz, so hopefully it couldn't be too bad. Quickly everyone got changed into their gear and assembled in the gym; although he hadn't really wanted to he opted for the long sleeve top, like a few other classmates. He and Miz found they were also joined by Jack, and all three couldn't help but giggle at this, memories of the previous night swimming in their brains (pun yes). Their teacher was a large muscular man who told them to call him "Mr H". This teacher had a reputation of pushing his students hard. Truthfully Dolph hoped so; he loved P.E and felt he needed to improve, of course because he sucked at everything. Today they were doing push-ups until they literally could not do anymore. They all got to the floor. All 30 bodies came up when Mr H barked out "ONE!" but as the numbers grew higher and higher the number of bodies decreased and decreased. Dolph refused to stop. Miz had stopped quite a few numbers back but there were still about five students pushing it "ONE-HUNDRED" Mr H bellowed as two of the students gave out. Dolph felt his muscles screaming to stop, but he couldn't. He managed to heave himself up, he felt Mr H's slightly concerned gaze on him. He felt himself begin to crumble and he remembered that it probably wasn't a good idea for him to be pushing himself physically when he hadn't eaten or slept well for the past couple of weeks, he felt light-headed and dizzy, but he continued to attempt to push on, but his body had other ideas. As he tried to lift himself up correctly he felt his arms wobble, then they gave out and his vision went momentarily black. A second later his vision returned and he found a worried Miz, Jack and Punk hovering around him. He hadn't realised Punk was in their class too. Miz helped Dolph up and Dolph leaned heavily on him as all four of them took a seat on the benches. Dolph shut his eyes for a few seconds to try to regain some energy, he felt physically sick. It seemed that the other two students had finished as Mr H walked over to the group. He looked at Dolph cynically, he towered over the students "You look dead kid, have the rest of the day off, you" he snapped his fingers in Punk's direction "Help him to his dorm, kid doesn't look like he can move by himself" he gave Dolph a slip for excusing him from classes then promptly turned heel and left them.
It took a while for the combined efforts of Punk and Dolph to reach their dorm. Dolph's body hated him more than usual. "Where?" Punk asked him, feeling no need to put anything on the end of that question. Dolph squinted around "Bathroom" he croaked out, Punk placed him down within range of the toilet then he awkwardly hovered around Dolph unsure what to do "Go back to class, I'll be fine" Dolph whispered, Punk looked like he didn't want to leave him, but Dolph insisted so he trailed off back to class, leaving Dolph alone in the bathroom, he began to feel physically ill again and before he knew it he was vomiting into the toilet his frail body shivering from the effort it took. Great first day of school
(sorry for the long update ^^ I've had the meanist writers block...but anyhow here is the next chapter.
On another note I have no idea how physically straining doing 100 push-ups is so yeah ^^ I just guessed 100 would be a decent number.
ALSO sorry about my knowledge of the American schooling system I dont know how it works so yeah ^^)