A story about a young teen that can see the "colors" associated with people's actions-that is, the moral good or bad of the choices they make. With this power, Hantei Denwa has developed a point system by which he judges others: helping the elderly? +2 points; vandalism? -4 points; murder? [Value not found]. The bonds that Hantei forms and the people he encounters based on his autonomous morality. How many points will he accrue?

The world resembled an unfocused picture taken by a polaroid camera. Grey adjourned the film and brief splotches of black and white spontaneously combusted into existence and thereof died. From their death, small patches of color burst across the boundaries of the photo, colliding, merging, and disassociating in a frenzy. As the chaotic dance of red, yellow, blue and more continued, the view slowly came more and more into focus. First, a nail. Then, a finger. Finally, a hand that reached towards his neck and began to squeeze. The myriad of colors swirled with a sort of almost twisted glee as the air left his lungs. Tighter and tighter the Picasso-abomination squeezed.

Connected to the hand was a face, blurred from the still focusing photo. A smile slowly crept across said face as the pressure became unbearable. With no voice to cry help and no body to g̶o̶u̶g̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶e̶y̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ fight back, he could only feel his neck and lungs and eyes all throbbing in unison until-pop!

My eyes flew open. The first sound to leave my mouth was a low growl as the desert that was my throat refused anything more. The second sound to be heard was the frantic movement of my hands flying first to my stomach, then my neck, and finally my eyes. I grabbed them so tight that a metallic feeling began to run through my hands. Bearing the blood, the third sound I heard that day was a sigh. The pool of arctic water began to recede, my body slowly stopped shaking, and I could finally risk opening my eyes.

My room was as silent as I remembered it. The faint strays of morning dew invaded through the slits of the curtains hanging across the windows. Everything was arranged exactly as I had left it: drawer with TV on the top across from me, desk with boring notes and schoolwork to the right, and a miniature couch, table, and rug off to the left. It had taken some getting used to, but after a couple of months, my old room had begun to feel like my own again.

Slowly collecting my belongings, my mind still jared from the nightmare, I reluctantly took off the covers to begin the day. Immediate regret ensued. Bullets of cold air hit the exposed skin of my body as if they had been shot by a professional sniper.

What the hell am I thinking?

Shivering, I grabbed the clothes that I had placed on my dresser yesterday and fumbled to put them on. As I did, a small yellow note fell to the ground. Curious, after I slipped on the rest of my uniform, I picked it up and began to read it aloud.

"Dear Hantei, I hope you slept well. I'm sorry, but the office called me in early, and you know I can't afford to say no. Once you put your clothes on and handle your business, there's some hot bacon sitting on the table in the living room for you. Please remember to turn off the stove this time, so that we both have a home to return to. Love you, and hope you have a great day at school. -Love, Mom"

Wasn't it her that almost burned down the house?

With a light grin on my face, I placed the note on my drawer. Looking up, I saw my reflection on the television. My jet black hair was ruffled, courtesy of my brick of a pillow, and looked like a potential settlement home any bird would die to have. My naturally bright purple eyes caught my attention next. From where I had grabbed too hard, there was a small patch of blood under my left eye. Funnily enough, it almost seemed to match the small oval-shaped scar under my right eye, the one my mom told me I had had since birth.

"I still can't get over how weird it looks." I muttered under my breath.

Besides those peculiarities, I looked pretty average.

Tipping the scales at just about 145 pounds, in this corner we have Hantei Denwa. Known for his average yet modest build. At 165 cm, his chosen style of fighting, taekwondo, is very appropriate! But wait, wasn't this supposed to be boxing?

Smirking at my own imagination, I went to go to the bathroom to clean up when I happened to see something out of the corner of my eye. Two people, barely able to be made out, were fighting in the streets. Although this was, unfortunately, a normal occurrence where we lived, I felt my shoulder sag from the invisible weight pressing on them.

A red aura surrounded the guy on the left. He seemed to be the more aggressive of the two anyway. Going for any and all opportunities to hurt the guy on the right, the latter had an orange aura about him; in other words, just as aggressive, but also with a tinge of fear. Sighing, I watched the scene unfold in the highest resolution possible, like the eyes of a hawk tracking the movements of a mouse through a thicket of grass. As the two went at it, their colors collided into darker variants. The very concept of air dissipated into the collusion, the ground cracking under the weight of it. The high pigh vibration left the clouds singed with a grey scar which transmitted through the very molecules of the world. Black to white as white to black, the world seemingly collapsed under its own contradictions. And as the center of it all whirred like an unruly chainsaw, I could only speak three words.

"Minus two points."

[Timeskip]

Throwing on my backpack, I opened the door and began the long trek to my godeung hakyo (high school), Hyeogsin Prime University. Though it's referred to as an "university," in reality it's more like a prep school for university. According to the official definition, Hyeogsin Uni is a place "where students can exercise creative liberties in deciding what to study. To this extent, we prime students with the resources and information to make the best possible choices toward furthering their chosen career." In other words, it's a school designed for the children of the upper class or those with exceptional talent; which makes me wonder how my mom managed to score me an interview, and even more so how I managed to pass the entrance exam. The only thing I'm even remotely talented at is being lucky.

Taking my time on the concrete sidewalk, I took notice of the sun peeking through the gap of two buildings. A potent mist carried throughout the air an eerie sense of silence, something I hadn't noticed previously. Combined with the moon's presence still barely visible in the receding night sky, it was as if reality truly had dulled and lost its edge.

Seems typical for 6 a.m. weather, I thought to myself.

People were beginning to shake off the drowsiness of night and embrace the new day, with the sounds of car engines and early construction coming to life. Despite this, the sheen of night had yet to be quelled. Those on the construction site worked, but they did so with half-dead eyes; in contrast to their engines, the people in each car could barely keep their heads lifted.

This was by far the best time of every day.

The cusp of night and day, wherein it was impossible to tell whether it was the former or the latter. The perfect combination of laziness and productivity. There is sound, but not too much sound. There is light, but just enough that those that wished to hide from it could. It was a delicate balance that complimented the overall mood surrounding Ilhdos, or as the founders called it, "the city of the lost."

Supposedly, this city used to be home to a very small settlement. There was nothing very remarkable about it. Everything from the climate and landscape to the buildings and people that inhabited it was mundane. However, according to sources, there was a mysterious time of day in which everything changed. The buildings took on the appearance of both sun and moon, a forbidden eclipse that overtook all accompanying space. The people glittered like stars against the haloes of fire that surrounded them-angels that were birthed and died within a single instance. One minute, this village seemed to captivate the earth and all inhabitants on it. The next, it returned to being a hillbilly, out-of-the-way settlement. Said founders stood in silence and bewilderment, until one of them spoke the following,

"Sigan-eul ilh-eossda…"

Lost in time. Or, in this context, a moment lost in time.

A cliche and ironic name as always, I thought to myself.

Still, it did capture the almost supernatural sensation that accompanied the early morning. A time that exists in one occurrence, unchanging and permanent. As I turned the street heading toward my school, I pondered the glee of having this moment last forever.

"Yoo, Hantei!"

Unfortunately, I just happened to have a friend that could smash even the invincible.

I sighed loudly as the frame of my self-proclaimed friend came into my peripheral vision. His strides matching my own, I cherished the span of time between his last words and his next, knowing that the succulent silence was once again about to be banished into nonexistence.

"How are you doing on this fine morning?" Gideon said, his eyes turning to meet mine.

Reluctantly turning my head towards him, his honey-soaked hair was the first of his features to command my attention, as it usually is. His hair seemed to shine like the Golden Fleece against the early morning light. His eyes were perhaps the only thing that could surpass the intensity of the rug-I mean Fleece-on his head. A combination of gold with a combination of chestnut, his eyes always seemed to vibrate with a small tinge of excitement. Being about 183 cm with an athletic build, despite not working out, solidified Gideon's position as Hyeogsin's only English transfer student.

"My day was alright until I met a certain individual," I responded.

"Is that so?" Gideon stroked his chin, as if he was capable of a deep thought.

"Well, it's impossible to run away from yourself, so that's a condition you'll just have to live with," he quipped, a joke that took him all of ten seconds to come up with.

Is his sense of humor genetic?

Shaking my head, I turned my focus to the darkness that began to cover the earth.

"Your sense of humor must classify as a sense of desertification," I said as Hyeogsin came into view.

"Ouch," Gideon flinched while holding his hand over his heart.

"That's the same way I feel when we you open your mouth."

"Whatever man," a grin formed on the outskirts of my vision.

As we fell silent, the sight that graced my eyes never ceased to amaze me.

One would think it a palace. Another, a skyscraper that pierced the heavens. Someone else still has even described it as being heaven. All of them are essentially correct: a building of perfect horizontal and vertical length with methodical placement of rooms, adorned with the blue of the sky and the white of the cliff that inhabits said sky. An assortment of windows, roofing, and foundation that would make any Euclidean enthusiast or budding architect faint upon mention. Even to the untrained or unindoctrinated, the magnificence of something that seems impossible, yet exists, is enough to render them mute. In that sense, Hyeogsin's reputation was near godlike.

To me, this place was nothing more than hellspawn.

As we trudged closer to the entrance, I caught a glimpse of someone passing by on my left. Slowing down the match pace with Gideon and I, a petite body came into focus as a new voice spoke up.

"Surely you two haven't forgotten about me," Alisa's voice dripped with pseudo animosity.

"Hey Liz!" Gideon's eyes sparked with characteristic excitement. "How's your day treating so far?"

"Gideon." Alisa considered the blonde before speaking.

"My day has been fine, with the exception of being left hanging by someone in particular," Gideon slightly cringed as the gravity of his situation hit him.

As Alisa chewed out Gideon, I looked between the two in minute amusement. How such polar opposites got along was one unlikely scenario-how they were childhood friends was an entirely different anomaly.

How do these two even tolerate each other? I wondered in astonishment.

Alisa has dark oak hair that just passes her shoulder blades, with equally as dark eyes. Being around the same height as I, 166 cm, we were both shorter than Gideon by a modest margin. In spite of this, she somehow managed to make him feel like the small one. In contrast to Gideon's optimistic and outgoing personality, Alisa is much more reserved and does not talk as much. But when she wants to be heard or has something to say, she is quick to do so, and in such an articulate way that debate is infinitesimally improbable.

This, in combination with her looks, assured her a spot high in Hyeogsin Prime's social hierarchy.

In comparison to Alisa, Gideon is a more sporadic character. He is quick to make friends with others and integrate himself into conversations that beforehand had nothing to do with him. This innate ability of his is insane, it being to the point that he can join others that he has had no prior experience with or that, at first glance, would not meld well with his personality.

There's no other way you would have fri- I stamped out the idea from the stem.

My eyes snapped to attention as a potent mist seemed to rise from Gideon's feet. The haze wrapped around his body, consuming the person beneath like the jaws of Scylla herself had snatched him up. Rubbing his eyes, his body came into focus again. But this time, the hum of warm air surrounded his figure. Much like his hair, the apparition of air took on a mellow yellow light, signifying his satisfaction of his current conversation. Noticing sparks of blue, my brain went fuzzy as I instantly snapped my head to the left.

A relative mix of blue and yellow filled the canvas of Alisa's visage. Like Van Gogh's A Starry Night unfolding before my eyes, her feelings of content flooded my senses. Wherein a purple sheen would typically reside, the color had been reduced to a single splash on the canvas, almost like a spill. To the unconcerned, such would be written off as a simple fever dream. A trick of the mist, perhaps. But then, why could I feel the colors? Why could they whisper softly in my ear, soft as a seductress, of their feelings of enjoyment and tranquility? My nerves unfurled from the sensation as my blood ran backwards, the arteries, veins and capillaries in my head unraveling like string from a mural. Slither slither, the ache on my skin and bones wept as my body was unwrapped from the inside out. A cornucopia of red, and Red, and RED, the strings of my being came undone and exited through my mouth, a scream blocked by the sheer volume of red on red upon red, the skin and bones caught in the war-esque mess as splotches of ivory and white, until nothing left but red flowed where a person once stood.

"Hantei, are you alright?"

Alisa, +1.

"Yeah dude, are you alright?"

Gideon, +1.

Noticing that I had broken out into a cold sweat, the ones that I called my friends gave me concerned looks. Looking around and seeing that others were beginning to look and ̶l̶a̶u̶g̶h̶ gossip, I pulled myself together. Blood still cold, I forced a response from the arctic residing in my lungs.

"Yeah," I softly replied, unsure of whether I was hoping to convince them or myself, "Yeah, I am."

Still looking concerned, they slowly nodded.

"If you say so," says Alisa.

"We're always here if you need to talk," Gideon affirmed.

"I know," I muttered under my breath.

Catching my faint breath, I looked once more to the building that held my looming fate. Knowing that today was about to be another long one, I mentally nodded to myself, reaffirming that I would be okay.

Probably.

"On second thought, you've yet to respond to my greeting," Alisa inconspicuously pointed out.

In hindsight, I was definitely not going to be alright.

[Timeskip]

One fear that all students universally share is the fear of being late to class. The sensation of knowing you've committed an error and being forced to own up to it as soon as possible is horrible. Especially in the case of school, one can expect to be endlessly shamed by the eyes and muffled laughs of those fortunate enough to be on time. The teacher's apparent disappointment, the ridicule of one's peers, and the imminent shame combine to create one of the most regarded, unspoken rules of school: never be late.

If only that were the case, perhaps I would be grateful to be early.

Trudging my way up to homeroom, I lamented my decision to wake up early in the morning. Despite the undeniable bliss associated with a slow and peaceful walk to Hyeongsin uninterrupted by the traffic and impatience of those anxious to get to work, there was one major drawback to this. And that would be the absence of a teacher.

To explain, South Korea has always had a history of profound bullying. Petty name-calling, social isolation, physical and cyber harassment: these are all examples of the sort of things that first come to mind when mentioning. It's almost laughable really, seeing as this is only the cream of the crop. Virtually anyone can get away with such surface level bullying here in South Korea, and Hyeongsin is no exception. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to call it a part of the status quo. A socially accepted practice.

It's much harder to come across the more gruesome reality, however. Getting strung up naked in front of the school gates for all eyes to bear witness to. Bodies found in dark crevices of the school, such as bathrooms, closets, alleyways between the buildings, and even lockers, all beaten to the point that some have been assumed to be victims of Thanatos's scythe. Choice students seen with the glint of weapons-knives, scissors, one person even had a makeshift short sword-and of course the ever present threat of guns.

Though the authorities and politicians try to hide it, not every story has successfully been silenced. For example, there was an honors girl who seemingly had it all. Good grades, good looks, and a lot of friends. Everything seemed to be going exactly her way.

Then one day, she simply disappeared. Left without a trace, like how apparitions slip through walls and leave not a single trace of their presence. Her parents and law enforcement searched for her for a month without any leads and no successes. Then, one day, a woman working at the local gas station went to use the bathroom after a particularly difficult shift. These bathrooms were the antithesis of well-maintained, with rats and spiders and the like making it their permanent base of operations. A place no human being would consider hospitable. Imagine the woman's surprise then, when she found a body slumped down on its knees in the final stall, its head slammed into the rim of a toilet that bled black. After a short investigation, it was found that this half-decayed body with rat-sized holes in it matched the description of the missing student. From there, all hell broke loose.

A massive excursion was launched by the school to find the culprits. Police officers could be seen on the campus of said school everyday performing daily questionsings and inquisitions into the students' belongings, where they came from, what classes they had, and more. A risky decision on part of the school's administrative board permitted teachers to carry officially-issued guns on campus, and an entire department was even set up to "monitor and ensure the student's well-being." Which, when translated, is more along the lines of "we will decide by our own hands which of you are criminals and deal with you accordingly." Ultimately, it was found out that this girl's close group of friends had committed the crime. When asked their motive, the ringleader admitted that she had a crush on the same boy that her "ex-friend" had been making a move on. Disgustingly, the others agreed to it under the pretense of fun.

Fun, to take someone's life for the hell of it. Fun, to watch a person suffer and see just what expressions you can coax out of them. Fun, to drive one you called a "friend" to the brink of your insanely grotesque torture game.

Fucking detestable, I spat in my mind.

-100000-

Feeling the fracture in the glass of my mind crack a bit, I shook my head a little and tried to pull my thoughts away from the topic. Sliding open the door to my homeroom, I exhaled the breath I hadn't noticed I had taken, and slowly made my way to my seat.

Head down, look uninteresting, and do not talk.

Fortunately, I managed to reach my desk without attracting much attention. Around the room, numerous little interactions characteristic of idiotic adolescenes were taking place. A clique of the popular kids were talking and comparing the magnitude and excellence that was their trips from over summer vacation. Another group of kids were huddled toward the back studying and discussing the contents of the new curriculum. Some were on their phones, while others were taking naps. And of course, some were getting pestered by the resident gang of bullies.

Even Hyeongsin was not immune to the treatment commonly found in public schools. Despite being a prodigious school, the students still had a degree of autonomy that allowed their behavior to contrast the school's outward appearance. After all, when you have the sons and daughters of politicians, corporate heads, and even the yakuza, grouped in one place, it is exponentially hard to create policies that appeal to all sides.

But that's not why I considered this place hell. Oh no, the one responsible for carrying that honor belonged to-

The back and front of my head simultaneously shared the same sensation. Shrapnel collided with the latter as the unloaded shells of a shotgun blew the brain matter out of the former. As my head kissed the desk, a metallic taste ran through my mouth as the back of my head was pressured by an unknown force, locking it and I in a deadlock.

Except, the unknown force did not remain so for long, as it soon learned to speak and announced itself to the world.

"Wassup."

My voice hitched, and nothing but a sharp inhalation could be heard. The world went silent.

A multitude of presences stabbed themselves into my head. Front, back, and center I was provided no escape from the amusement that danced in their eyes. First, it was sight. Then, it was hearing. A light, muffled hum settled on either side of my ears, burrowed their way through my semicircular canals, and spun itself around my cochlea. It grew and grew in frequency, festering like a leech deep inside my ears. The soft giggles tore and ate through my being as if a predator was turning over and churning its prey over in its mouth. Squelch. Trickle. Munch and chew. As my sight and hearing overturned, integrated and split, the overload of information detonated the C4 inside my guts, spilling a greenish black substance everywhere.

"It tastes like a slug!" Some exclaimed.

"Ew! What the hell is this?" Another shouted in surprise.

The laughing grew louder.

"Hey, he should get to taste it too. No point leaving him out." A person suggested.

In the next instance, a goopy substance gripped at my gums and pulled the inside of my mouth into it. Teeth, tongue, blood and skin picked itself off my insides and attached itself to the substance. And then, it began to chew. Ate at my person like some casually snacking on radioactive waste and petroleum. An itchy heat forced its way down my throat, down the esophagus, and began its trek to the stomach. It ate, pierced, gouged, tore through, disposed, excreted and spat out remnants of my insides into my insides. Like someone had forced the epitome of Gluttony into a human and left it to devour the unfortunate individual from the inside out. An ocean of fire reaching degrees of absolute zero gouged out my eyes and flowed freely, spilling into the room and drowning all within it. Red green blue yellow violet pink orange grey black white amethyst aqua lime violet burgundy fuschia ebony denim saffron turquoise cerise sienna magenta brown granite crimson cream penny rose chocolate charcoal cerulean celtic sugar maroon lilac beige azure ash apricot almond alabaster, and grey. The colors feelings emotions perspectives and all of that shit coalesced, descended, and erased my concept from existence and nonexistence.

Feeling my sanity break, I held my head about to pierce my eyes

When the door opened.

"Alright everyone, take your seats," said the teacher.

Noticing the pressure encapsulating and surrounding my existence, I opened my eyes with all the pace of a snail.

Staring back at me were the eyes of my homeroom teacher.

"Mr. Hantei, would you kindly lift your head? It is too early to be taking a nap."

"A-Ah," I stuttered. "Yes ma'am."

Picking my head up, the ensuing snickers made me wish I was six feet under.

Or maybe they should be.

[Error]

[Timeskip]

Flopping down onto the bed, the events of the day began to flood my mind again.

Jeong, my longtime "friend" had slammed my head into my desk. From there, his friends came over and pestered me until the start of class. Punching parts of my body, ripping up my notes, and calling me out in front of everyone else.

And they all laughed.

I of course hid this from Gideon and Alisa, and parted with them at the end of the day with them none the wiser.

Looking at the clock, I saw that it was 7:30. It would be some time until my mom came back.

So there was no other place to be than my mind.

So of course those feelings found me again.

Two people, barely able to be made out, were fighting in the streets. Although this was, unfortunately, a normal occurrence where we lived, I felt my shoulder sag from the invisible weight pressing on them.

A red aura surrounded the guy on the left. He seemed to be the more aggressive of the two anyway. Going for any and all opportunities to hurt the guy on the right, the latter had an orange aura about him; in other words, just as aggressive, but also with a tinge of fear. Sighing, I watched the scene unfold in the highest resolution possible, like the eyes of a hawk tracking the movements of a mouse through a thicket of grass. As the two went at it, their colors collided into darker variants. The very concept of air dissipated into the collusion, the ground cracking under the weight of it. The high pigh vibration left the clouds singed with a grey scar which transmitted through the very molecules of the world. Black to white as white to black, the world seemingly collapsed under its own contradictions. And as the center of it all whirred like an unruly chainsaw, I could only speak three words.

"Minus two points."

My eyes began to hurt.

The haze wrapped around his body, consuming the person beneath like the jaws of Scylla herself had snatched him up. Rubbing his eyes, his body came into focus again. But this time, the hum of warm air surrounded his figure. Much like his hair, the apparition of air took on a mellow yellow light, signifying his satisfaction of his current conversation. Noticing sparks of blue, my brain went fuzzy as I instantly snapped my head to the left.

A relative mix of blue and yellow filled the canvas of Alisa's visage. Like Van Gogh's A Starry Night unfolding before my eyes, her feelings of content flooded my senses. Wherein a purple sheen would typically reside, the color had been reduced to a single splash on the canvas, almost like a spill. To the unconcerned, such would be written off as a simple fever dream. A trick of the mist, perhaps. But then, why could I feel the colors? Why could they whisper softly in my ear, soft as a seductress, of their feelings of enjoyment and tranquility? My nerves unfurled from the sensation as my blood ran backwards, the arteries, veins and capillaries in my head unraveling like string from a mural. Slither slither, the ache on my skin and bones wept as my body was unwrapped from the inside out. A cornucopia of red, and Red, and RED, the strings of my being came undone and exited through my mouth, a scream blocked by the sheer volume of red on red upon red, the skin and bones caught in the war-esque mess as splotches of ivory and white, until nothing left but red flowed where a person once stood.

"Hantei, are you alright?"

Alisa, +1.

"Yeah dude, are you alright?"

Gideon, +1.

They bulged.

My voice hitched, and nothing but a sharp inhalation could be heard. The world went silent.

A multitude of presences stabbed themselves into my head. Front, back, and center I was provided no escape from the amusement that danced in their eyes. First, it was sight. Then, it was hearing. A light, muffled hum settled on either side of my ears, burrowed their way through my semicircular canals, and spun itself around my cochlea. It grew and grew in frequency, festering like a leech deep inside my ears. The soft giggles tore and ate through my being as if a predator was turning over and churning its prey over in its mouth. Squelch. Trickle. Munch and chew. As my sight and hearing overturned, integrated and split, the overload of information detonated the C4 inside my guts, spilling a greenish black substance everywhere.

"It tastes like a slug!" Some exclaimed.

"Ew! What the hell is this?" Another shouted in surprise.

The laughing grew louder.

"Hey, he should get to taste it too. No point leaving him out." A person suggested.

In the next instance, a goopy substance gripped at my gums and pulled the inside of my mouth into it. Teeth, tongue, blood and skin picked itself off my insides and attached itself to the substance. And then, it began to chew. Ate at my person like some casually snacking on radioactive waste and petroleum. An itchy heat forced its way down my throat, down the esophagus, and began its trek to the stomach. It ate, pierced, gouged, tore through, disposed, excreted and spat out remnants of my insides into my insides. Like someone had forced the epitome of Gluttony into a human and left it to devour the unfortunate individual from the inside out. An ocean of fire reaching degrees of absolute zero gouged out my eyes and flowed freely, spilling into the room and drowning all within it. Red green blue yellow violet pink orange grey black white amethyst aqua lime violet burgundy fuschia ebony denim saffron turquoise cerise sienna magenta brown granite crimson cream penny rose chocolate charcoal cerulean celtic sugar maroon lilac beige azure ash apricot almond alabaster, and grey. The colors feelings emotions perspectives and all of that shit coalesced, descended, and erased my concept from existence and nonexistence.

Feeling my sanity break, I held my head about to pierce my eyes

They burst.