DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT A PART OF THE PLOT!
Chapter 5 – A MALICIOUS PROVOCATION
"Tap… Tap…" Water droplets dripped from the water tap in a steady rhythm… "Tap…Tap…" Sweat drops also fell in synchronisation with the water droplets as time ticked by…
"Drip… Tap… Splash!" A pleasant coolness met my face when the water trickled down my cheeks. Eh? What was I doing, you asked? I was in the restroom if you must know, washing my face. And that was it, nothing else.
Perhaps my presence in the toilet was rather questionable, huh? This was how it happened… [Recalling]
Three days ago, we were having our History class with Miss Larxene as our teacher (help…), and I was near to being swept away by the backflow of time in the History textbook. Just then, an announcement came in out of nowhere.
"Sorry to interrupt, all prefects are to gather in the meeting room now. There's an urgent meeting… Thank you." What? Normally when they wanted to see us, the PA system would not be used. If they did so this time, that only meant things were getting out of hand.
I was also needed to be in the meeting room. Yes! Finally, I was free from Miss Larxene's endless torture! The gods still loved me! On the way there, I asked Zexion, "What do you think the whole 'urgent meeting' was about?" "Beats me. We will find out later, anyway." Axel cut through our conversation, "It could be the matchmaker! They care about our future after all. Hahahaha…!" … I really wanted to punch your nose, Sir Pyro…
As a conclusion, the summary of the meeting was as follows: recently, there were some students went to the restroom frequently, and the times taken were always longer than necessary. On top of that, their pockets seemed to bulge when they finally came back. They were suspected to be gambling in the toilet. Therefore, some of the Counter Crime groups would be taking turns to spy in the restroom… [Recall ended]
As you could see, ambushing in the toilet in the wee hours of the morning was not the smartest thing on their part, and I was dozing off from time to time. Only the cool tap water could keep me awake momentarily. When I was about to let my tired eyes droop again, my ears picked up a soft rustling outside. I carefully tiptoed to the door and leaned against the wall next to it. And then I turned to the door quickly only to find nothing outside, not even a shadow.
Had I mistaken? Maybe; sometimes my hearing baffled everyone. But the thing was that the sound was still there. The sound still lingered around the cool cement floor and ceiling.
I pretended to be a secret agent, slowly and stealthily moving to where the sound was coming from. I finally arrived at a worn-down classroom. Pieces of roof tiles lay here and there, even the door was half-dangling from the hinges. Obviously, this classroom was long abandoned. The sound came from the inside.
Heh! Now I got you! Who in the world dared to gamble in the school and indirectly make me give up my valuable sleeping time?! You were about to go down!
From where I stood, it was impossible to see what was going on inside. If I changed my position, I would have exposed myself. It was not worth the risk. Just when I was contemplating other ways of peeking into the classroom, I could feel a presence coming from my right towards me. I turned around to see… Zexion. I was about to explain the whole situation to him, but he gave me a signal, telling me that he had been waiting here a while ago. Holy Bananas, that meant he saw my silly secret agent act! Darn it.
He quietly came over to me, bringing two pieces of broken mirrors, which were most likely picked up from the floor. I then thought of something, so I took the pieces from him. Knowing his intentions, I placed a piece of mirror higher than the other. The surface of the mirror would be the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle; imagine an isosceles triangle with two angles of forty-five degrees had that hypotenuse. If both hypotenuses were slanted and parallel to each other, a simple makeshift periscope was formed. Hooray for Professor Zexion!
Both of us looked at the image formed on the mirror. And guess what I saw? Three students were gambling inside. I turned my head to glance at Zexion, and he also turned to look at me. Blue eyes versus dark brown eyes… "Now?" I thought. He seemed to read my mind and he nodded his head. "Now." OK! Action!
We barged in immediately, catching all of them off guard. They were shocked and their faces paled. On the floor was… money. The real deal. The sum of all the money on the floor was about more than 10000 Malaysian Ringgits?! Good grief, I had never seen such a big amount of money before in my life.
"No time to lose, bring them to the Discipline Room," Zexion ordered. Yes, sir… In the end, they were charged with: 1) Gambling; 2) Bringing excess money to school. To our astonishment, Roxas and Demyx caught another few students after three minutes. Axel came in later with a bundle of money and another student. All of them were gambling, too. I never thought there were this many millionaires in this school.
We thought things would end this way. But who knew…
At half past noon, I was strolling around in school. I guessed that was a good form of exercising. It was my turn to collect the empty dustbin for my class before classes began. After I retrieved the dustbin, I arrived at Block 2 of the school. And then a few 8th Grade girls blocked my path. I moved to the other side to continue my stroll, but they seemingly wanted to pick a fight with me and they blocked my other way, on purpose.
I was getting irritated and anger slowly built up in me. I said, "Please excuse me." I was tolerating them. If we were not in school, I would have kicked their butts! "What? You think you're superior? You narcissist!" What? You dared to call me, a helper prefect who had done nothing to you, a narcissist?! That was it! "Please use your brain before you speak! How was I a narcissist?"
"Hmph! You think you're so great when you randomly accuse someone of breaking the rules so you can get your reward? What would it be if not narcissism?" She sneered.
"I was doing my job," I tried to hold back the fuelling anger.
"As if! You hypocrite!" Another girl retorted.
I could not hold it back anymore. "Well, excuse you. Abusive language is not allowed in school!"
"You dare to give our names to the Board of Discipline? Go ahead! We K2-"
"Shut it!" One of the girls muffled the mouth of the former.
Huh? What was that? What was so secretive? What did she say, K2 what? Pfft, it was easy for me to find out about their classes. Starting from the school number…
"08xxx, 08xxx and 08xxx…" I said under my breath but loud enough for them to hear while writing their school numbers on my palm. Their arrogance turned to panic and one of them yelled, "You [Censored]! How dare you copy our school numbers! You're gonna regret this! Retreat!" After that, they left without looking back. They dared to challenge me? I guessed they had never tasted death before.
But still… what nerve! She used a censored bad language on me! Even I was on the verge of spitting a few harsh insults right now. Ugh!
I literally stomped into the Prefect Meeting Room, fuming. Once I sat down, I almost slammed my fist onto the wooden table to release the pent up anger. Despicable! When Zexion saw the fire on me, he came over and asked what happened. I told him everything, trying my best to refrain from cursing. What I did not expect was what he commented later, "You were lucky, though. You had not been through what they put me through earlier…" I asked, "What?" His left eye twitched in irritation and said, "5.0 mol/dm3 of hydrochloric acid nearly hit my head."
WHAT THE HECK?! WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THIS FREAKING WORLD?! Zexion, the generally acclaimed gentleman, was attacked by someone and almost had concentrated acid on his head?! Holy Bananas! What the hell was going on?!
This was how it happened: About half an hour ago, Zexion was walking down a corridor somewhere in the school. He felt as if someone was watching him. He turned around, but no one was there except him. He merely shrugged and sighed, "I thought too much." But, when he reached a small garden at the end of the corridor, his sensitive nose picked up something weird and strangely familiar. Before he could conclude what he smelled, he heard something falling in the air. Looking up abruptly, he gasped and dodge-rolled to the side into the bushes and he heard a loud splat later. He got up immediately and saw a burst bag on the floor with a colourless liquid spilled around it. He took out a blue litmus paper (he carried these things with him all the time) and smeared it on the liquid. The result surprised him; the litmus paper turned red and was decolourised in matter of seconds. It then almost corroded. Zexion felt a shiver went down his spine. This was a very concentrated hydrochloric acid (he predicted its molarity to be at least 5.0 mol/dm3) and the bag missed his head by a hair!
Holy Bananas! Putting the identity of perpetrator aside for now, but what was the motive?! There was also a nearly corroded letter attached to the bag. It read, "To an emo kid who doesn't know how dying is like: just DIE!" [*Authoress and Nemixiljix protesting* He's not emo! Just mysterious!]
I was literally on fire! I could not describe my overwhelming anger to you. How could someone…?! After calming down, I gritted my teeth and asked, "Did you report it?"
"Of course I did. But when we got to the crime scene and tried to find any evidences left behind, there was nothing. All I got was the almost corroded letter and the burst bag."
"What?! What happened after that?"
"We are stuck for now…" He replied with a slight frown. He clenched his fists.
I was not amused. VERY not amused. I wanted a payback! I meant, double payback! I suggested, "I had an idea, want to try it?" "What idea?" He raised an eyebrow and questioned.
"You said that you had the almost corroded letter and the burst bag, right? If you are able to wait, give the burst bag to Roxas to check for any fingerprints; while I'll kill two birds with one stone; use the handwriting on the letter to track down the criminal and seek help from other prefects. But before that, I will have to know their classes. What do you think?"
He contemplated. "… Fine with me, but we have to make haste." "OK!"
So, we parted two pronged ways. I arrived at the Disciplinary Resource Room to search for my answer. Based on the school numbers I copied just now, I found their class. "08xxx… Ah? K2C?"
Actually, it was not that surprising. According to what I knew, this class had a majority of troublemakers. Even gangsters were in this class, too. Sorry, no offence intended. I was just pinpointing a few students only…
"OK, so the prefect from K2C is… Naminé. Hehe! You're finished, big time, you three idiots…!" Naminé was one of my friends since elementary school. But we were in different classes since 7th Grade. Maybe she would help me? Now, for the handwriting…
I knew another helper prefect in 8th Grade, Kairi. She could be loud sometimes, but overall, she was a good friend. She was the best when it came to identifying handwritings. Hehe, good friends should help each other out, right?
Back to Zexion. He was in the Activity Room with Roxas and Demyx, which was beside the Reading Room. Fear not; the place was closed off to everyone except who had permission to enter, which they did. Roxas used a pair of forceps to place a piece of the burst bag with specks of acid on it on the slide of the electronic-computer microscope.
Later, the specimen was scanned and a fingerprint image appeared on the laptop screen. Thousands of photos of people and their respective fingerprints flashed rapidly beside the image. The matching process started.
"Sorry to ask, but how'd you get yourself into this mess, Zexion?" Roxas asked with his blue eyes glued to the screen. His fingers swept across the surface of the keyboard. "*Sigh* I wish I know. I did not even know who I had offended," Zexion was rubbing his temple to suppress a potential headache.
Demyx put his hands behind his neck and said casually, "It's hard to know. But one thing's for sure; these are part and parcel of the job, Zexy." "Not the silly nickname again…" Zexion muttered.
"Ahh! It's so hot. I guess I'm gonna get out of here before the temperature kills me~" Demyx said while wiping a few sweat drops from his forehead with the back of his palm. He could not tolerate with the pressure-cooker-style weather. "Where are you going?" Zexion looked at his back and asked. Demyx answered, "Just a stroll, nothing much. Be right back!" After that, he went out, closing the door behind him.
"Hmm… That's weird, what's taking it so long?" Roxas blurted to himself. Now both boys were staring at the laptop screen, watching the photos flickering beside the fingerprint. Out of the blue, Zexion said, "… Why do I get this weird feeling, like something is about to happen?" All of a sudden-
"BANG! CRASH! BONG… CLANK! SPLASH! PLANK-A-CLANK! PLANK! BONKA! BONG…!" A series of loud crashes came from outside the room. Both boys jolted. After looking at each other's alarmed expressions, they immediately dashed out of the room.
They froze on the spot at what they witnessed.
There was a slightly rusted iron bucket on the cement floor. Demyx stood on puddles of liquid, himself drenched and bedraggled. He seemed shocked (who would not be when their own element pawned them? Just kidding. On with the story).
"OMG! Demyx! What happened to you?!" Roxas screamed. Demyx hurriedly put his hand over Roxas' mouth to seal it up. He hissed, "Hush! Do you want the whole school to know about this?!"
"Huh? This…" Zexion crouched down in front of the puddle of the sticky liquid left in the iron bucket. He used his index finger to dip a little into the remaining liquid and rubbed it between his forefinger and thumb. He then smelled the liquid on his fingers. His eyes widened and commented, "Is this… egg white?"
"Huh? Egg white?! This… Idiots! Didn't they know the price of eggs had risen recently?! What a waste of food! The economy is plummeting and many can't put food on the table and here they were, wasting eggs!" I reprimanded quite harshly. The three of them stared at me in confusion and surprise. Two reasons: 1) I appeared out of nowhere; 2) I practically never reprimanded anyone this harsh in their faces.
"KRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGG!" Time for class again. "We should wait for the students to return to their classes and then we report this in the Prefect Meeting Room. Oh yes, what took you so long?" Zexion suggested and then turned to ask me. I replied, "I got Kairi to help me and we found the suspect!" After finishing my words I showed them my report sheet.
"Beep! Beep! Beep! ..." Roxas' laptop's alarm blared. He darted into the room and out of it, with his laptop this time. He said, "I found it!"
We compared our results immediately. The names were not the same, but the one and only similarity was… "Class K2C!" The four of us exclaimed together.
Now all evidences pointed their arrows at this class. Hmm, Naminé, you were up.
We escorted Demyx to the Prefect Meeting Room. After reporting, Zexion took Demyx to the Welfare Department to find him a clean uniform. Did the troubles end? Nobody (and I meant nobody) knew.
We were having Mandarin class. Although it was one of my favourite classes and Ms. Mulan was teaching, I could not concentrate. Firstly, I was being harassed and threatened; next, Zexion almost got himself corroded by concentrated hydrochloric acid; then, someone dumped egg white onto Demyx… What now, a provocation?!
Even so, the other prefects were fine. Did that mean we were the targeted ones?
Without even knowing, it was already recess time. I seemed to realise something, so I called out to Zexion and Demyx to stay, but I did not see Axel and Roxas anywhere. They were too fast (and too hungry).
"Something is still weird, why don't we pretend to do clean up while looking out? If we're targeted, they will take their action soon." Demyx nodded and said, "Sure, and we can keep an eye out." Zexion said, "I sure hope nothing happens later, there had been a lot of trouble…"
Of course I was the busiest, I zipped in and out of the classroom regularly. Demyx went to the restroom to wash the cloth, while Zexion went to empty the paper bin. Now I was all alone…
No sooner, as I had expected, a girl who looked rather suspicious and sneaky came slowly. She was very wary of her surroundings; she glanced around occasionally. I was not scared of you! I was not scared because I waited here, and I waited here because I was not scared! (Erm… What was I saying?)
She took one last alert glance around my classroom. It was obvious that she was looking out for any prefects in my class. Well, all of them were out, except me. Maybe I could get some information about this whole provocation out of her?
"Psst! Hey! You…..." She whispered loud enough for me to hear, but I purposely ignored her. She said it a bit louder, "Hey! You over there! Come here…" I put on a rather emotionless face and walked towards her. "What?" I imitated Axel's bored tone.
"Hehe, it's nothing. I just want to… 'borrow' your textbook… hehe!" She said in a fake sheepish manner. What a joke, did she think I would give it to her? To obtain more information, I dragged on the pointless conversation, "What kind of textbook?"
"Mathematics. Ten of them."
"Talk about greedy," I thought. "Nope, don't have it with me today."
"Just take it from the others! See, no one's around."
"What's the difference between that and stealing?"
"Huh?"
"I. Do. Not. Steal! Get it?"
"Why didn't you bring it? Everyone has Math classes every day, you know."
"Since you knew better than me that we have Math every day, why didn't you bring yours?"
"… When do you have Math?"
"You had just answered yourself earlier," I started to get impatient.
"Don't play the fool! You had it on the nth period!"
"Why don't you stop playing the fool instead? You had surveyed our class' timetable outside! What a rhetorical question."
"Are you lending or not?!"
"What do you think?" My tone was really serious at this point.
Knock knock! Zexion and Demyx were back. And of course, she panicked and said, "Forget it! You'd better watch your back!" And then she ran away. She really did not know the meaning of "I hate thieves". Looking for trouble… Ugh…
"Yo, Nemix! That textbook stealing thing-a-ma-bob again?" Demyx came over and asked, patting my head. "Yeah, Dem. Seriously, I had to put a sign on my face that reads 'I hate textbook thieves' from now on," I sighed. I could probably establish an "Anti-Textbook Thieves" Society. About the number of members… it might not be more than five.
Suddenly, a question came into my mind, so I asked, "Oh yeah, right. Have you guys seen Axel and Roxas?" "Umm, no?" Demyx scratched his head and said. Zexion shook his head and said, "I did not either."
"KABAM!" A very loud slam of an iron door rang out, I directed my ears outwards and listened attentively. It sounded like it came from the third floor.
"Uh-oh…" The three of us said in unison. We just stared at each other, thinking: Oh crap. Not again…?!
Without further ado, we rushed to the third floor. But we ran into another problem; there were eight classrooms per floor, and one metal cupboard per classroom (the speculated source of the noise), so which one was it? If not, which floor was it?
"Dang it, we don't have much time left!" I said, glancing at my watch. "… Screw time. Make use of the witnesses here," Zexion stated seriously. Demyx could not catch the drift initially, but he figured it out after my explanation; if the noise was so loud that even we could hear it from the ground floor, then people on the third floor had no reason to not hear anything. There should be some students who stayed in their classrooms. We could ask around.
We parted three ways, I took the classrooms in Area C1 to C4. Zexion took those in Area C5 to C8. Demyx pretended like he was on patrol, walking around the corridor back and forth while looking out for abnormalities. I checked everything in C1: no result. So, I proceeded to C2 quickly. Luckily no one was in there. I was not comfortable asking around unless absolutely necessary. I stood before the metal cupboard in there and knocked its surface softly with my fist. No response at all. Well, time to move on.
Just as I turned around, a vague muffled sound came from behind. Aha! I found it! I intentionally clapped my hands as if hitting a mosquito; this caught Demyx's attention. He got my signal and left to get Zexion over here.
In less than one minute, both boys arrived at C2 to join me. I said, "It's in here, but I don't know what's inside?" Zexion said, "We do not have the key, how are we going to open this?" Demyx seemed to have a bulb lighting up in his head and said while snapping his fingers, "Want me to pick the lock?"
"No sweat! Leave it to me," I replied and showed them a key. "You… Key?" They were staring at me like idiots. I rubbed my nape and said, "I just remembered that I was supposed to check the stock on behalf of the Chess Club, but I forgot about it… Hehe!" "What the…?" They muttered in unison. (Why were we doing things in unison a lot today?)
No time to lose, I pushed the key into the keyhole, spun it and pulled the door- Ah? It would not budge? Forget it, try again! But… it still did not budge. I widened my eyes at the sight of the motionless door and I turned to my right to look at them. "It's no use…"
"Impossible, there must be some sort of a mechanism or something. Maybe a trapdoor…" Zexion did not give up that easily. He went around the metal cupboard to examine it thoroughly. I blew at my bangs in frustration. Demyx said something that woke me up from confusion, "Nemix, what's that?" I looked at where his eyes were focused on. The junction of the door knob and the door had a thick layer of super glue or something on it.
"What the Kingdom Hearts is that?!" I shouted loud enough for them to hear. Demyx exerted his full force twisting door knob to open the door, but all we heard was "KABA" and voila; the door knob broke off along with the thick glue layer. He also widened his eyes and stuttered, "Um, Z-zexy? I broke the door knob…?" "What?"
I simply did not get it; something was off, I knew it. Amidst confusion, I suddenly figured out why, "Ah! I remembered! This freaking cupboard never had a freaking door knob in the first freaking place!" "Huh?" Zexion looked at me. "It had already broken off about two months ago…" I explained. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?!" Demyx flailed his hands to emphasise his exclamation. "Why didn't you ask me earlier?" I retorted while pushing the key into the keyhole once again. I hooked my forefinger into the hole where the door knob once had been, twisted some "mechanism" behind the door's surface and pulled. Job done! The door opened.
Open Sesame! After that was "open your mouth and say 'oh my god!'" Roxas was all tied up and had his mouth taped. He was sweating and his face was as red as a tomato. He was so weak that he had to lean on one of the walls of the small confined cupboard. We were stunned at first but we snapped out of it after three seconds.
"Ohmigosh! Roxas! You OK?!" Demyx grabbed Roxas' arm and pulled him out. He untied him at once. I grabbed a not so dusty chess reference book and fanned more fresh air to Roxas. Judging his condition, it was stifling hot inside. Worse still, he lacked oxygen in there! Who in the world did this to him?! If I ever catch them, they were going to die!
Then again, they should not have put a fake door knob and applied the thick glue. They left a lot of unnecessary evidences for us. Hmm… Was it a mistake or part of a plan?
"*Pant* You guys had no idea! *Pant* Those p-people tricked me into *pant* the restroom, and they hit me in t-the stomach and tied me *pant* up! Luckily I evaded that fatal *pant* kick where the sun doesn't shine! They were surely going to *pant* beat me up some more, had you guys not found me in time. *pant* Thank goodness…"
… Where the sun did not shine?! Holy Bananas! Roxas… You were one lucky guy…
Suddenly, the bell went off. We cleaned up the mess as fast as we could and left the scene. My thoughts were clumped together. We were being toyed around like a bunch of fools, yet we hardly got any clue on what was going on. We could have died if we were not lucky enough! What was the meaning of this?!
Wait, we? The five- Axel! Yes, he was the only one in our group who may have not gotten pushed around yet. It could be today or tomorrow. Axel, please watch out.
After Math class and Science class, it was now Moral Education Class, which I also disliked since 7th Grade due to its absurd teaching and grading methods. Unfortunately, to our worst luck, Mr. Sephiroth was in charge. (HELP MEEEEE!) He was the scariest teacher I had ever met in my schooling years. He could get moody sometimes and he always made us copy tons of notes while he speed read the whole text. We had to keep up like crazy until our wrists dislocated. Most importantly, he would always start this torture ten minutes before school dismissal. What to do? I copied them in pencil first, using random abbreviations, diagrams, images, signs and whatnot. When I got home, I had to rewrite them again with pen in full. I would have crossed out many words here and there if I used a pen first, and Mr. Sephiroth detested such assignment qualities. Gulp, a trip to the edge between Earth and hell coming right up.
"Copy what I said and if no one finishes the notes, no one's going home," he used his deep and scary voice. No one dared to squeak. Trouble, lots of them. Let me tell you, the following lecture was a sped-up version. Besides having nimble hands, high speed and quick responses, an above-average amicability was crucial. Why? If you happened to miss out one of the many parts or unable to finish the task, you would have needed help from your friends and classmates, right?
The normally noisy and chaotic K2D was so quiet as if someone vacuumed its voice. The hands were the busiest, zooming across the notebook pages like possessed by a monster. Seriously, why did he not just tell us to copy whatever page he wanted instead? Weirdo. (Do NOT tell him that or the story would end here abruptly, since no one would be writing anymore.)
"… Ugh, I'm not doing this anymore! Hey, Zexion. Can I borrow yours later?" Axel whispered exceptionally softly. "If I can finish this…" Zexion replied just as softly while writing furiously. O. M. G. Spare me! At this rate, I would have represented K2D in weightlifting in the Olympics in the future in just a week's torture practice!
Only a minute left before the school bell would grant us freedom. Sweat seeped out of my palm. My hand just lay paralysed on the desk. I did not want to move it at all; even a teeny tiny twitch of my finger would tear my ligaments.
"KKRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNGG!" It was over, so long, torture. (Hey, it rhymed!) I grabbed my bag and headed for the bike shed to retrieve my bike. My mother's car broke down and my dad was occupied by this very important meeting. Since no one could to pick me up, I guessed I would have to pick myself up then. It was not really far away, actually, it was ten-minute drive home normally. I would need twenty minutes at most. Oh well, some exercise would be good.
I pedalled and travelled in moderato towards the school gates. There was no one in my way, so I decided to speed up. My legs were like acrobats spinning in circles. Full speed ahead! Now it was allegro, and then accelerando, finally - PRESTO~~! Hahaha! That was fun.
ちょっと待ってください! [Translate from Japanese: Please wait a bit!] Just then, I felt a force akin to that of a safety belt pulling at the front wheel of my bicycle. "CLANK!" I was thrown off of the bicycle and was flung frontwards… "BANG!" The bicycle crashed onto the paved road… Damn you, inertia! Wait! Someone was in front of me!
"Out of the way!" I screamed instinctively at the random person who I was about to crash into. I was practically flying in the air. "Wha- Whoa!" This voice?! It was-
"CRASH!" I crash-landed into that unfortunate person's stomach and we flew through the air due to impact and then rolled on the floor. That hurt; my skin was like grinded. I could vaguely make out a figure of a hole in front of us. "Thud!" Rustling noise whipped past my ears as we fell into the hole. HELP! Help… Me… That was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness.
I lost track of time. By the time I opened my eyes, I found myself inside an "egg". It was white and translucent. Surrounding the exterior of the egg was a colourless liquid because I saw bubbles. The surrounding started to turn brighter. "Oh god… What is happening?" I was about to get out, but the liquid seemed to diffuse into the egg rapidly and filled up the space in an alarming speed. The liquid chugged into my airways and I could see bubbles floating out of my mouth and nose. I was suffocating… *Cough cough* Help!
… It was cold…
… Was it because the blood was not flowing anymore?
…I … WHAT?!
"Whoa!" I bolted up from where I seemed to lie on. An icy cold sweat trickled down from my forehead into my mouth. It was tasteless; whole scene just now must have been one hell of a nightmare. "What was I thinking…" I quietly scolded myself for assuming myself dead.
"Finally awake, huh?" A male voice which was heard somewhere around. It sounded somewhat familiar… Ah yes, that unlucky one! Sorry for the crash, hehe… I had to wait for the pupils of my eyes to enlarge for me to see the person clearly- WHAT?! AXEL?!
"Ah? Axel? How… Oh! Sorry! I didn't mean to crash into you a while ago! Are you… OK?" I almost stuttered while I tried to get up. A jolt of pain caused me to fall back to where I sat. "Ow… What? Bleeding?" I stared at the wound on my knee, blood was slowly seeping out. The eerie moonlight shone on the red fluid. The colour looked creepy… Yikes, I shivered a little.
"I'm fine, just a few grazes and a sprain. Oh, and squashed by your bag…" Axel intentionally emphasised the last words. I could only smile at him awkwardly. I had this paranoia of not bringing the correct things to school. Except the textbooks which I was pretty sure to bring accordingly, I crammed everything else into my bag, so… yeah.
While I fumbled for a special weapon in my bag – the plaster – I said, "Anyways, we have to get out of here before school tomorrow!" "But, you know, considering our situation, can we do that?" He had a point; he sprained his leg pretty badly and I could not even stand up. So, perhaps not.
After applying the plaster, we sat in silence. The atmosphere was a little tense. Hello? Somebody? Anybody? Say something? I was the first to break the ice, "Um, sorry for crashing into you." "Huh? It's OK. I'm not gonna blame you."
"Looks like we're camping here tonight, haha."
"Obviously."
"But I sure hope there aren't any insects here."
"What? You scared?"
"Well, yeah, especially the ones that fly."
"Oh… eh, right. How are we going to camp?"
"Hmm, let me see… Aha! Wait a sec…"
I had a nasty plot again, and I started to dig out the stuff we would need from my bag. In the end, I found these: a) Two really large plastic bags; b) textbooks; c) torchlight; d) ropes made of plastic strings; e) a foldable umbrella and f) leftover wooden planks of today's Living Skills class. (Yeah, sometimes these random craps came in handy… My head was still perfectly fine, thank you) Time to get to work!
I gave Axel one large plastic bag and one for myself. We laid them out at where we were going to sleep. And we used some textbooks or bags as pillows. Next, I stacked up the planks in the middle of the hole we were trapped in, forming a mini table. We sat at opposite sides of the table, facing each other. "So… no lights?" The redhead asked. I replied leisurely, "No need to panic. Watch this." I extended the foldable umbrella, and to my pure dumb luck, its length fitted into the width of the hole horizontally above the table. Then, I used the plastic ropes to tie the torchlight to the stem of the umbrella so that it hung above us. I switched on the torchlight. "Blink! Voila!" I said, smirking. "…"
In the next ten minutes, we finished all the homework for today, including the most annoying Moral Education notes! How great… So far, our communication devices (cell phones were not allowed) ran out of batteries somehow. "Ah~~ *stretching* Finally done!" Axel had a relieved expression on his face. I snickered, "Judging your tone, you sound like someone who hasn't done their homework in a very long time." "… No… Really…"
I tilted my head up to look at the night sky with blinking stars scattered all over it. Although the stars were not many, I could still identify Orion in the sky. "Hey look! There's a constellation," I said, not removing my eyes from the stars. Axel asked, "Where? All I see are a bunch of stars…" "There… Three stars arranged together in a straight line, the slanted one! See?" I pointed at Orion's belt.
"Do three stars make a constellation?"
"I'm not sure, but I know the three stars made up the belt of Orion, the Hunter. The Chinese called those stars as "Good Fortune" (Fu), "Prosperity" (Lu) and "Longevity" (Shou)." (These were the gods whose figurines could be found in some Chinese households.)
"Oh, OK… *Yawn* I'm sleepy…" Axel rubbed his tired eyes. All that work must have worn him out.
"*Yawn* Me too… Let's just sleep… Good night." I was very tired too.
"G'night…"
And I fell asleep drowsily…
"… ZZZZZzzzzZZZZzz…"
"POOOOOOOOONNNNNN!"
"HOLY BANANAS! WHAT?!"
"WHAT! WHAT THE HELL!?"
Axel and I jumped from where we slept, almost scared to death. If only we jumped high enough, we could have gotten out. "Ba-dump! Ba-dump!" The sound of the violent heartbeats could be heard. When I finally calmed down and perked up my ears to listen, car honks were blaring. What were the idiots honking for? Scaring people?!
The air around us was a bit moist and chilly. I subconsciously glanced down at my watch- holy crap! Half past six in the morning? That explained everything. In Malaysia, half past six in the morning would still be dark or near daybreak. Schools and work normally started around seven to eight. So traffic jams were common, so were car honks.
I asked, "Hey Axel, is it normal to have emergency meetings at a time like this?" He thought about it for a while and said, "I guess so. Why?" "Nothing, if I hit the 'emergency meeting button' now, will it work? We could try mix and match up our batteries and see which combo works." "Huh? Wha- That's it! Why didn't I think of it earlier?" "OK!" Luckily the button worked after we managed to find a battery combination that generated electricity.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!" A string of alarms went off. Zexion had just finished brushing his teeth and washing his face. When he heard the noise, he thought it strange and picked up his pager on the table beside his bed. (P.S. Zexion set the emergency meeting button and receiver in his pager. I set it in my GPS device; Axel set it in his electronic dictionary; Roxas, of course, set it in his laptop and Demyx did it in his pen which he used to jot down random inspirations in creating music.)
"Huh? Meeting? Hmm… Whatever it is, I guess I will have to get to school. Roxas and Demyx should be there soon, I hope," Zexion thought. After changing and eating breakfast, he grabbed his school bag and headed off.
At the field, in Kingdom Hearts High School…
"What the heck? Our earliest meeting in history was at half past seven even though it was really urgent. Why the heck is it at half past six…" Roxas slurred. He was bleary-eyed while grumbling to Demyx, who yawned all the while. Demyx sighed sleepily and said, "How would I know? Where's Zexy? *yawn*"
"Ello!" We could vaguely hear voices outside of this damned hole we fell into. So, we yelled with all our might to grab whoever-was-out-there's attention. But even after we yelled and shouted until our throats were getting sore, the blondes outside were too sleepy and oblivious to notice our calls. No one came over to help. I was pacing up and down in the limited space, and then I saw the umbrella and the torchlight… Aha! I got it! Hehe…
Zexion: "Sora, Myde! You guys at school already?" (P.S. This was their interphone conversation)
Roxas: "Well, yeah. Why?"
Demyx: "We came here after we received the 'emergency meeting message'*yawn*. Almost immediately."
Zexion: "Huh? Received?"
Demyx: "Yeah, *yawn* what about it?"
Zexion: "What? I thought you were the ones who sent it…?"
Roxas: "Eh? What about you, Ienzo? You pressed the button?"
Zexion: "No. Why would I ask if I did it?"
Demyx: "Haah? What a mess…"
Zexion: "This… Oh! I got it! If the three of us are not the ones who sent it, that means-"
Demyx and Roxas: "Nemix and Axel!"
Zexion: "Correct! The button can only work if activated within the school compound, which means those two are within range now. But…"
Roxas became impatient and asked, "But what?" Zexion answered, "They are not at the headquarters." "What?" Demyx did not know what was going on now.
"They sent it and were not there?" Demyx started pondering on the question since no one understood what was happening. Roxas ran his hand through his golden yellow hair in frustration and grumbled, "What the heck are they up to…?!"
Just then, Demyx screeched, "HOLY CRAP FUDGE FISH!" Roxas almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden burst of sound waves. He calmed himself down said, "Um… Demyx? It's not the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar, you don't happen to see something, do you?" (In the Chinese or Lunar Calendar, the seventh month is known as "The Ghost Month", similar to Halloween but without trick or treat) "… *Gulp* I-I think I j-just did… Look…" Demyx was shivering and shakily pointed at the centre of the field.
Roxas averted his glance towards where the taller blonde pointed in fear. A shiver went down his spine too. There were ghost flames! "Hey! Demyx! Roxas! I am here! What are you… doing?" Zexion saw the blondes as he looked around the field to find his friends and went up to them. He also saw them frozen on the spot. His eyes followed their stare out of curiosity. He looked at the ghost flames and said, "I do not believe in ghosts, not at a time like this! Follow me!"
Just as I thought we might have scared the living daylights out of whoever was out there, I heard Demyx screamed something about "crap fish", so I yelled together with Axel, "Hey! Anyone out there?! Hello!" "Help! Hurry!"
"I think I heard someone screaming," Demyx said to the other two boys and ran faster. Zexion and Roxas followed suit. "Whoa! What is this BIG pothole doing here?!" Demyx saw the hole and exclaimed. When Roxas got nearer to the hole, he crouched down and said with an amine sweat drop, "Ignore the hole. Those two are in here!" "WHAT?!"
Now, we were eating in the school canteen, the time was eight in the morning. "… That was how it happened!" I swallowed the fifteenth steamed roll and said. "So that was why… It must have been tough, camping and all that…" Zexion said, dumbfounded. "That was too much! If I ever catch them, they're finished, big time!" Axel cursed while eating his food. I nudged him and said, "Hey, that's my line!"
"Anyways, now that they had messed with us at least once, we had to track these pranksters down and put an end to this," Zexion said, determined. "OK! CSI ROCK ON!" Demyx jumped onto the bench we were sitting on and pumped his fist into the air. Roxas almost fell off the bench. "Dem, seriously, CSI? Copyright issues, you know…" Axel laughed and said. I facepalmed.
"What? I just thought we could use another name for our group! That'd be cool!" Demyx replied innocently and pouted. "Alright, then let's have a referendum! Everyone suggest a name and then we vote."
There were many random and crazy names. For example, "The Ferocious Five", "Organisation 13", "DRANZ", "Thunderstruck" (there was a Chinese idiom of "five flashes of thunderstruck on one's head", meaning "shell-shocked"), "Quinque" ("five" in Latin) and many more…
"Well… You guys did a marvellous job, but they seem too, eh, odd…" Zexion commented. "You are the one who's odd! What's with 'DRANZ'?" Demyx almost died of laughter after hearing all those names and said. "It is because we were not meant to be ferocious. And those words are our initials," Zexion retorted sarcastically. Demyx smiled sheepishly at the name he gave. Yeah, we were not here to kill anyone… "Fearsome" was out of the list.
"Speaking of initials, I think we should change our codenames as well, if those twerps ever find out about them," Axel suggested. Roxas nodded his head in agreement and said, "Agreed, how about… numbers?" "Good going Rox, let's do it!" Axel said.
I had a random idea, and I said, "How about 007 for me?" I said with a wide grin. But they all shot me down, "Over my dead body!" I laughed awkwardly and said, "Guys, I was just kidding! Call me 207 then, since my school number is 08207. Hehe! How's that?"
"Then I would be… 006." Zexion looked at his school number on his school badge and said. Axel said, "I'm 222! Catchy huh?" (2 cubed=? Thank me later.) "Don't get too cocky, Axel. Mine's 013," Roxas said. (Original, much?) Demyx happily clapped his hands and said, "My codename's 135 then!" (Sum up the numbers.) OK! Perfect!
After that, we voted for the group's name. You guessed it, Organisation 13 came out at the top. But Demyx suggested changing the numbers to Roman numerals. He said it looked cooler. So, Organisation XIII it was.
Now that we had our new group name and codenames, our confidence seemed to increase. To those malicious provocations, no matter what you may have up your sleeve, just bring it on!
~ CHAPTER 5 FIN ~
TO BE CONTINUED
Thank goodness Chapter Five is finished! Haha, I almost went nuts while trying to translate everything into English. Anyways, please rate or comment or both. The future updates are going to take more time, I guess. SPM is coming up in early November, I have to ignore the story for now, have to study though. Oh well, enjoy! Bye!