[Martin's POV]
The next few weeks were what I like to call 'The Rise of Bodil'. Simon, Baki and I pulled pranks non-stop. Some were just innocent, others were really bad for the victim (mainly bullies). But either way, it was the best thing to ever happen to us at Happy Days. We even made a system for every prank. We'd make a note telling them why they got pranked, then signed it 'Bodil' and the number of successful pranks we've pulled off. Right now it is Bodil39, and people better watch out because Bodil is planning something big for number forty.
The name of Bodil also became a popular lunch topic. Who he or she was, who he was going to prank next and how. If my friends and I heard one of these conversations, we had to resist the urge to laugh. Some of those answers were really funny. One time I heard that Bodil was actually Jared, and the first prank he pulled on himself was just so people wouldn't guess. I told Baki and Simon that later, and we practically fell over laughing so hard.
The teachers found out about the frequent pranks and were not too happy about the mess and people getting distracted by them every waking moment. It got so bad that the manager had to come in. He asked everyone separately who was pulling the pranks. Everyone that I know of answered Bodil, so then he asked who Bodil was. Let's just say he got some interesting answers. So today they made an announcement that there would be an increase in security for reasons we didn't need to worry about (everyone knows that it's to catch Bodil to punish him). There would now be security cameras in the halls and someone to monitor them at all times. As soon as the announcement was over, everyone started talking about it. Though I have a feeling that Baki, Simon and I were talking about it a little differently than the other kids.
"So, this is the end of fun at Happy Days?" Simon asked, playing with his pencil.
I shook my head. "Of course not! Sure, it'll make our job harder, but I'm not letting some security cameras ruin everything!"
"But what do we do about them?" Baki asked.
I shrugged. "Bodil will just go into hiding for a bit. The manager is cheap. If he doesn't catch the kid who's Bodil, he'll just take the cameras down."
"And what if they don't take the cameras down?" Simon inquired.
"Then we take them out. No other option. But for now, we just wait. We can plan while we're at it."
Baki smiled. "Right. Forty. What are we gonna do for that anyways?"
"I don't know. That's why I want to plan."
"Hey!" The science teacher, Mr. Anderson, finally noticed we were talking. "You three, split up. Now!" We obeyed. If there is one person in this orphanage that you don't want to get on the bad side of, it's Mr. Anderson. One time a kid did something stupid in his class, he slept in the detention room for a week. I'm not even kidding. That kid was Simon, so I should know.
I sat next to a fifth grader named Seth. He was very absorbed in what Mr. Anderson was saying, so I didn't bother to introduce myself. I started to doodle in my notebook and tried to come up with my next prank. But all my ideas were just dumb. The bell rang and I met up with Simon and Baki outside the room.
"Any ideas? Cause I'm stumped on what to do for this prank." I told them. They both shook their heads. I sighed. "Great."
"Hey, cheer up," Baki said. "Maybe if we ask Mrs. Craw nicely, she'll give us an idea during gym."
Simon snorted. "Please. Even if she did, it probably would involve more laps for us."
The second bell rang, and we all looked at each other. "Well," I said, "I hope Mrs. Craw is forgiving today." Then we sprinted down the hall to the gym.
Unfortunately, she was not in the mood to forgive. When we came in late, she yelled at us then gave us 20 laps outside. Baki immediately started complaining about how hot it is. "I feel like I'm gonna die from heat stroke! Do they want us to die out here in the heat?!"
I just rolled my eyes. "Baki, it's spring. Everyone is fine with the temperature but you."
"I think it's because he's a snowman," Simon quipped. "He's never cold in the winter, but he's always hot every other time of the year."
Baki punched him in the arm as we laughed. "I'm not a snowman Simon!"
"I don't know, it makes a lot of sense to me," I told him. "After all, you also close the curtains and turn off the lights when you're in the room."
"That's because I like it dark."
"So you don't like the sun because it melts you?" Simon asked. "Sounds like a snowman to me."
"I am not a snowman!" He yelled.
"Don't worry Baki," I put my hand over his head like an umbrella. "We won't let the mean old sun melt you."
Simon put his hands over Baki too. "We'll protect you snowman."
"Shut up!" He tripped us and we burst out into laughter.
"Sorry, sorry! It was just too perfect! I couldn't resist!" Simon said, pushing himself up.
I pushed myself up too, but then immediately fell over when I tried to walk forward. Baki laughed. "Jeez Martin, you need to stop being so klutzy. One day when you have a girlfriend, you're gonna fall on her and that's why she'll break up with you." Simon snickered along with him.
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." I got back up and fell over again. And again. And again.
Simon and Baki were loving it. "Stop, just stop!" Simon laughed. "This is just too good,"
"Guys, I'm not doing this for a joke! It feels like my feet aren't there!" I said, panic starting to form with each failed attempt to stand.
It took a little more convincing, but Simon and Baki eventually figured out that I really wasn't kidding. "So what do we do about it?" Simon asked.
"Maybe we should go to the nurse," Baki suggested.
"And say what? She probably won't believe us if we say that my feet just suddenly stopped working." I said as they helped me up and put my arms around their shoulders to hold me up.
Baki shrugged. "Hey we never know. After all we've never actually been to the nurse's office before. Maybe she'll believe us."
I sighed. "I don't know guys..."
"Do you have a better idea?" Baki asked.
I thought for a bit then shook my head. "No."
"Alright then. Let's go."
They started to drag me towards the building. Simon grunted with each step. "Jeez you're heavy Martin. What have you been eating?"
"The stuff they've been serving here dimwit."
"Oh yeah. Right."
"Guys," Baki interrupted, "what are we supposed to do about Mrs. Craw? Because she's definitely not going to let us in."
"We're just gonna have to go around her or something," I replied.
"How?!" Simon asked.
"I don't know. Sprint."
"But we have to drag you and you're heavy."
"Just do it Simon!"
So we ran, or rather they ran and dragged me with them, past Mrs. Craw into the building, and straight into the nurse's office. The first thing that Simon said, no screamed, was,"Help! My friend can't feel his feet!"
The nurse, a tall maybe forty year old woman with short brown hair and a lab coat, gave us a strange look. I facepalmed. Note to self, slap Simon later for being an idiot.
"This better not be an attempt to trick me, because it's not going to work," She growled, glaring at us.
"No ma'am," Baki said in a calm voice. "It's just in gym class my friend just suddenly collapsed and couldn't get up. Do you think you can help him?"
The nurse looked at me with sudden concern. "Wait, are you Martin?" I nodded. She patted a seat next to a cabinet. "Please, sit down." Simon and Baki dragged me over and set me down on the chair. "You two may go back to class now," the nurse said.
"What? No!" Simon exclaimed. "If there's something wrong with Martin, we're not just gonna leave him!"
Baki nodded in agreement. "He's our best friend. If he's hurt or something, we wanna be right there with him."
"I appreciate your concern for your friend," she said, "but really, you need to go. I promise I'll keep you two updated."
Simon and Baki looked at each other, then headed out the door. "Bye Martin," Simon said sadly.
I waved. "Hey, I'll be fine. See you guys later." They walked out with solemn expressions, leaving me with the nurse.
She took out a file from the cabinet then that little hammer thing that doctors use to check your reflexes. She tapped my knee, but my leg didn't move. Same with my other leg. She sighed. "Martin, we need to talk."
"Well, I can't really go anywhere at the moment, so what is it?"
She took out the file and handed me a piece of paper. I glance it over. It was my record, it went all the way back to the day I arrived at the orphanage when I was a baby.
"On my first day here," the nurse said, "late at night someone knocked on the door of the orphanage. I was the only one around, so I opened it. A man was standing there, holding a baby. He shoved the baby into my arms. He said that he wasn't the father, but he was delivering the baby here for him as a favor. He also said that the baby might have something like ALS later on in life, but much more deadly. I asked him what he meant, and he just said that it would happen before the age of eight in a period of three days. Then he walked away before I could ask anything else."
"The baby was me?" I asked.
She nodded. "You grew up just fine, no issues ever. I thought that the man was just crazy. But, I guess he was right. But I don't understand how he knew."
"What did he look like?"
"I don't know. He wore a jacket with a hood that covered his face. His voice sounded old though, like he had been around for hundreds of years."
There was a moment of silence as she let the story sink in. I knew what ALS was, and I did not like the idea of me having something worse. "So what do we do?"
The nurse picked me up and took me outside to a parking lot. She place me in a car then got in the front seat. "We get you to the hospital."
A lot of things are blurs after we arrived. I remember doctors and nurses swarming around me, injecting me with something, then one nurse saying that they were going to run some tests. The next thing I know I was laying in a hospital bed.
The nurse from the orphanage was talking to a doctor in a hushed voice. She glanced over his shoulder and saw that I was awake, then came over and sat next to me. "How do you feel Martin?"
"Like I was stabbed with a million needles. What happened?"
The nurse looked at me sadly. "The doctors ran some tests after they knocked you out. They found out that there's a virus in you that has the same effects as ALS, but it works ten times faster and seems to completely destroy your muscles.. They've never seen anything like it before."
Neither of us said a word. The reality of the situation hurt. I was slowly dying of a disease that no one had ever seen before, and therefore no one can cure. "How long?" I asked her.
She wouldn't meet my eyes. "Three days."
Three days. I had three days until I was dead. I looked at the nurse, tears forming in my eyes. "C-can I see my friends one more time?"
The next day Simon and Baki came in with the nurse. They saw me over in the bed and I thought that they were both going to cry. Despite the fact that I was dying, I tried to keep the mood light. I smiled at them. "Hey guys! I would wave, but I woke up this morning and couldn't move anything but my head." They smiled, but the sad look in their eyes remained.
We pretty much talked all day, then the nurse came in and told them it was time to leave.
"Can you guys do me a favor?" I asked them before they left.
They nodded. "What?"
"Keep the legacy of Bodil going, would you?"
They both smiled. "Of course." Then we said goodbye for the last time.
The next day, my last day, I woke up not being able to do anything but see, breath, and hear. I wish I could say that I was prepared for this day, but I wasn't. I wanted to live. But I knew I didn't have that choice.
Later in the day, the orphanage nurse came into the room. "Martin, I hope you can hear me," she said, starting to get choked up. "I just wanted to give you something before… it's too late." She held a pair of sunglasses in front of my face for me to see. "The man, the one who gave you to me, also gave me these. He said that they were your father's gift to you. I found them this morning. I would've given them to you sooner, but I completely forgot about them." She place them on my eyes and I started to cry. She did too. She place a hand on my shoulder. "Rest in peace Martin. I'm sure you were a great kid."
And that was the last thing I heard.
(Well that's it. I killed off Martin. Hope you guys enjoyed and… Oh who am I kidding? I can't end it there! Just read on. Long update FTW!)
"Wake up."
I sat up straight and started breathing heavily. I was in a room made of reddish-brown brick, red stone, and… is that lava? Around me were four black skeletons holding swords and looking towards a huge floating black skeleton thing with three heads.
"Am I dead?" I asked.
I swear the skeletons laughed. "No Bodil, you're not," the big one said.
I was taken aback when he called me Bodil. "How do you know about that? Only Simon and Baki know about that!"
"I've been watching you for a long time Martin."
"That's weird."
"Quiet! So, as I was saying, I've been watching you since you were a baby. After all, I was the one who delivered you to the orphanage."
"Wait, why would my dad would be friends with a giant skeleton?"
"Shut up! Anyways, I killed the one who was supposed to bring you to the orphanage and disguised myself as him. Do you know why?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yes giant skeleton, I totally know why you went through all the trouble to kill a man just so you could take me to prison. Note the sarcasm."
He sighed and leaned over to one of the guards. "Why did we choose this one again?"
"I believe it was a roulette game sir," the guard replied.
"Right. Remind me to stop gambling on important matters."
"Noted sir."
"Uh… hello?" I called. "You sounded like you had something important to say to me earlier. Is that still relevant or…"
"Well it would be if you would just shut up and listen to me!" The giant skeleton screamed.
I put my hands up in defeat. "Jeez, sorry. I'm just saying what's on my mind."
If the giant skeleton had hands, I'm pretty sure he would've facepalmed. "Okay, I'll make this brief. I'm the Wither, I want to rule a different world, I need you to do that, so I implanted a virus in you that would turn you into one of us, when you wake up put the sunglasses on and they will disguise you, and if you tell anyone about it you die. Got it?"
"Oh yeah sure that's cool… wait, did you say that you're the one who put the virus in me?"
"Goodbye Martin!" Then the Wither shot one of his heads at me.
I woke up in the hospital bed and immediately looked in a mirror. My face was half black bone and both of my eyes were just sockets. "Well, I guess it wasn't just a dream." I put on the sunglasses and looked in the mirror again. I looked normal. "Well, at least he had the decency to give me a disguise."
I pushed myself out of the bed and stood up. After three days of not being able to move my legs, it felt good to stand up again. "But why would the Wither put a virus to do that to me? I don't believe that whole 'he needs me to take over a different world' crap. I'm nothing special," I mumble to myself.
Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to think about it. A nurse came barging in soon after. "You!" she practically screamed in shock. "You've been dead for hours!"
I looked at her strangely. "I have?"
"He's alive! Come quick!" She called out into the hall. The next thing I know a wave of doctors came in and started doing tests on me, checking my heartbeat, my reflexes, and everything else. Well, except my eyes. I wouldn't let them take off the sunglasses. I already died once, and I can say that it's not something I want to go through again.
Eventually they finished and told me that my heart had stopped beating for four hours. It was a miracle that I was alive. They told me that I would stay here for a few more days to make sure I was fine, then they would call someone to take me back to the orphanage. I only found one problem with that plan: I didn't want to wait. I can't believe it, but the only thing I wanted was to go back to that prison of an orphanage.
So that night I sneaked out of the hospital. I found a way to maneuver around the security cameras by sticking to walls and hiding from the guards by ducking into different rooms. It wasn't easy, and it took all night, but I can say that I've learned some valuable skills. For example, I now know how to get around the new camera system at the orphanage. Bodil is back in buisness!
After a night of running I finally saw the rusted chain link fence. I never thought I would ever be happy to see it, but I was. I sprinted towards it and climbed over in a hidden area. I glanced around and spotted Simon and Baki sitting on the track. I was about to go over and scare them, but someone beat me too it. Jared.
"Hey!" He screamed, making them both jump. "Where's my project?"
"I-it's almost done. Just give us a couple more hours Jared." Baki told him.
Jared picked them up by their shirts. "I need it NOW! I told you the deadline!"
"Well, it wasn't really a realistic deadline," Simon mumbled.
"What did you say?" Jared growled.
"Nothing!" He squeaked.
Jared threw them onto the ground. "If you didn't want to do it, your friend shouldn't have gone and died. Remember that for next time." He called back as he started to walk away, "Half an hour. Then I want that project."
Blood boiled inside of me. He still had the nerve to bully people? Fine. I charged toward the wall where he and his friends were standing. I'll make sure that he loses that nerve. I hid behind the corner and yelled, "Hey! Jared!"
He and his friends looked around. "Did you hear that?" He asked them.
"Well I hope you can hear me, because I need to talk to you. You have some nerve to keep bullying my friends even after I died."
There was a couple of seconds of silence. "...Martin?"
"I see you're still a dimwit Jared."
"No! You're dead! You can't be here!"
"Oh you better believe I'm here. And if I see you bullying Simon and Baki again, I'll see to it that I'm not the only one who's dead."
"This has to be a trick."
"A trick? Ha!" I poked my head around the corner and have them a troll smirk. "Boo." Then they all ran away screaming about a ghost, I just stood there and laughed. Oh, how satisfying it was to do that.
"Martin?!" A shocked voice said from behind me.
I turned around and smiled at my friends. "Hey guys. What's up?"
"You were dead," Simon said blatantly.
I laughed. "What, you think that you can get rid of me that easily?"
"That was it, wasn't it?" Baki asked.
I gave him a confused look. "Was what what?"
"Number forty. That's what the whole 'I'm dying' thing was, wasn't it?"
"Wha...I mean yeah. That's exactly what it was! I got you guys, didn't I?" I wasn't sure if it sounded convincing enough, but they seem to believe it.
Simon punched me in the arm. "Well never do something like that again! We really thought you were dead!"
"Sorry," I told them. "I guess I went just a little bit overboard on that."
Baki laughed. "Maybe just a bit. I just wanna know how you did it!" Then he glanced at my glasses. "And where you got those sunglasses."
I smirked. "Bodil40 doesn't like to reveal his secrets."
The first bell rang and people started to pile inside. "C'mon guys," I said to my friends. "As much as I hate it, even the dead have to go to gym class." Then the three of us ran inside laughing.
(*Pant* *pant* Okay, now it's the end. Hope you guys enjoyed this one chapter that was supposed to be two :) Sorry to you people who don't like longer updates. This probably won't happen again. No promises xP. So… Bodli's part wither. That happened. I know Jason's usually the wither hybrid, but I wanted it to be Bodil this time cuz why not. Also sorry if anyone got offended by the ALS reference. I know it's a terrible disease and shouldn't be taken lightly and stuff. This is the longest A/N I've ever done. I'll stop my rambling. PEACE OUT!)
