It was a quiet morning. Too quiet to mean anything.
Yuuma Sangakai walked to school with his head down, counting the cracks in the pavement because looking up made things worse. Eleven years old. Too thin. Too easy.
He checked over his shoulder once.
No one.
His stomach loosened just a little.
"Please," he whispered. Not to God, not to anyone in particular. Just a habit. "Not today."
"Hey Yuuma!" said Zoruhiko, his best friend, running towards him. Yuuma waves, "Hey Zoruhiko!! How are you?"
"Hmm... Cool. What 'bout you?" asked Zoruhiko.
"I'm awesome!!!!" said Yuuma. He remembered and said "Ay! I got this new bicycle today!! With gears!!!"
"Woahh!! Then let's have a cycle race today from the bus stop till the new supermarket!!" screamed Zoruhiko in excitement...
"Sure dummy!!! Be ready to get defeated!! At 8 PM today!!" proclaimed Yuuma, arrogantly smirking.
"Tch! We'll see 'bout that loser!" said Zoruhiko, annoyed...
Both the kids walk to the school together... Yuuma looks at his watch, and says, "Guess what? We are early again...."
"Cool... We got time to grab some juice cans then?" asked Zoruhiko...
"Nah... I got my homework to do..." said Yuuma.
Zoruhiko squinted at Yuuma, and said, "Don't tell me you haven't done your maths homework yet!?"
"Uhm... Yep... Didn't do. Why though?" asked Yuuma, confused.
"BECAUSE I WAS GONNA TAKE YOU HOMEWORK AND COPY IT DOWN DUMBO!!" cried Zoruhiko.
Yuuma burst out laughing, "Bwahahahaha!!!! You really are a dumbo!!"
Zoruhiko sighed, and they both walked inside the school...
"See you at recess then!!" said Zoruhiko, going towards his class.
''Yeah... I'll be waiting!!" said Yuuma, entering his classroom.
The bell rang and all the children headed to their respective classes. Yuuma being a skinny boy was body-shamed by his fellow classmates."HERE COMES THE THIN-ASS MAN!!!" screamed a boy from the back.
Yuuma pulled out a middle finger and sat on his bench. But the teacher didn't arrive. "OUR MATHS TEACHER IS PROBABLY ON A DATE WITH OUR ENGLISH MAM IN THE STAFF ROOM!!" screamed Haruto from the back.
Nozomi, the daughter of the English teacher got angry and said, "Do you even have some shame while speaking something so vulgar about someone more qualified and older than you?!"
Haruto whispered to her, "Shut your ugly mouth or I'd make your secret crush Yuuma drink toilet water AGAIN! Hehehe!!!"
Nozomi got flustered and screamed "SHUT UP!!! THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THAT!!!!"
Yuuma, ignoring the chaos behind, unzipped his bag and took out his notebook to complete his maths homework....
"Ratio of 30 minutes to 1.5 hours? Hmm..." murmured Yuuma, solving the questions at light speed.
Yuuma completed the homework in 15 minutes and stretched, yawning.
"That was easier than I thought! I'm intelligent!!" thought Yuuma, proud of himself.
3 hours later...
The recess bell rang. As promised, Yuuma went out to meet Zoruhiko, but he was stopped by Haruto and his friends...
"Uhm... What's up? Guys?" said Yuuma, nervously...
Haruto grabbed and pulled him into the washroom, spat on him, and pushed his face into the toilet bowl...
"DRINK IT... YES... DRINK IT!!!" screamed Haruto, pressing the flush button...
Haruto, and his friends laughed.....
"Yuuma is a..... WEAKLING!!!" screamed one of Haruto's friends, kicking Yuuma...
They left Yuuma there and went away. He was breathing heavily, and vomited out the water he gulped...
"Where is this dummy??!! Recess is almost over!!!" thought Zoruhiko, kicking his feet in emphasis.
4 hours later...
School ended... Yuuma returned home, brutally bullied. As always. Nevertheless, he was used to it now. He went to his room, changed his clothes and jumped to bed, getting lost in the world of dreams....
It was somewhere around 5:30 pm when Yuuma's sleep was broken by a loud noise, a type of noise he had never heard before as he jumped off his bed, frightened by the sudden noise.
"YAYAYAAAHAHAH WHAT THE HELL?!?! It is not dad's old car's engine. It's unfamiliar.... What is it?"
Yuuma rushed down the stairs in curiosity, and he found everyone were standing in the lawn, watching at the sky as almost 150 helicopters and fighter jets were hovering above their whole city of Hanadiro, although a small one....
Till now all of the city people were wide awake, out of their houses witnessing something they never even imagined. "Why the hell is the internet distrupted too?!" said Yuuma's elder sister, checking her phone.
Yuuma, nervously said, "Something feels off... It doesn't seem like an airshow or something. LOOK! All of them have a logo!!!".
"I've never seen that logo anywhere" Yuuma's dad proclaims. Yuuma's mom panicking, says "Its better if move out of this city, get the car keys!! They might just harm us!! I don't fee-"
The bomber jets dived straight towards the ground, shoot missiles and hover back up. Everyone froze. No one expected something as horrifying as that. Gunmen in suits jumped out of the helicopters and started to shoot whoever they saw.
A stampede all over the city... Cries.... Shrieks.... Smell of fire... Sounds of explosion.... Yuuma and his family started running along with other panicked people...
Yuuma tripped over something and fell, getting left behind.... He looked back at what did make him fall, and as he saw it.... He couldn't scream, cry, run.... All he could do was stare with a cold face... The feeling of trauma filled his body.... It wasn't a rock, someone's belonging that fell.... It was someone's burnt piece of arm with bone still stuck and a burnt eyeball at some distance, boiling blood oozing out from it, probably of someone who came in the impact of explosion.
The smell of burning flesh filled his nose. His stomach twisted, heart pounding." How... how could someone end like that?" He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, just stare...He then realised he was left behind and looked around....
He saw a wave of panicked people running for their lives. He started to run again and find his family. Tears started to flush in his eyes, but he couldn't cry. The smell of burning flesh still lingered...
"SWWOOOOOOOOOOSH" the sound of missiles caught the attention of the panicked people. It felt as if it would land right above Yuuma... Yuuma froze again.. But the missile exploded at a little distance, but the impact made Yuuma fly and fall inside a broken pipe of an old sewage system... It was deep, and long, and Yuuma lost his consciousness. Missiles screamed. People screamed louder. Smoke choked the streets.