Vincent woke up suddenly, sweating profusely and panting hard like he had just run a few kilometers. It took a few minutes for his brain to register the pain coming from his right eye.
It took all he had not to scream. The pain he usually felt in his head had now been transferred to his right eye. It was like hundreds, no thousands, of ants were crawling through it. After about five minutes of mind-wrecking pain, it finally subsided. And for the minutes that followed, the world was blurred.
"Oh damn it!! Why did I pick up that piece of shit in the first place!!?" he said out loud, hitting his bed, remembering the warm pool and its steam. "It's true something must always come to destroy my joy," he concluded with a sigh.
It was still dark out, and since it was the normal time Vincent usually woke up, he was ready to start the day.
After a few minutes of getting ready, the roll call came signaling the official start of the day for TopHill students.
He took one quick glance at the mirror and once again failed to notice the blue threads that had miraculously appeared in his iris.
As he closed the door of his room, simultaneously the rooms on each side of his also had their doors closed. Oh great! he thought sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Oh hey Vin, good morning bro."
"Good morning Vincent."
The boys said at the same time. Adams and Daniel were his classmates.
"Good morning guys," Vincent replied with a smile.
Naturally the three of them made their way to their class. It was such an ironic trio. One was giving off the noisy, rough, outgoing boy kind of vibe with his uniform tucked out and his first three buttons unbuttoned. The other was a normal guy, had nothing special about him, and the third was giving off the nerdy, silent, shy boy vibe with his clothes properly ironed and that round glass he kept on raising up his nose bridge.
"Hey guys, I realized yesterday night that the girls' dorm is quite a distance away from ours," Adams started.
"Christ, Adams, is that what you spent your night doing?" Daniel was almost shocked when he heard Adams, meanwhile Adams still had his proud look on like he had just solved the secret of time travel. "Hey, Vincent are you not going to tell him something. Hear what he was doing, on the very first day for that matter!!"
As soon as Vincent was about to talk, they suddenly heard some noise coming from the back of one of the buildings close to them. Adams, who could not hold himself from going to check it out, dragged the two of them along despite Daniel's constant plea that they should just not interfere with whatever was going on there.
And right there in front of them was the very act of bullying going on in its villainy. A group of three Class 1A students were harassing just one Class 1C student, doing all they could for the boy to hand over half of all the points he owned.
"Hey guys let's just go, it's none of our business after all we are Class 1B students," Daniel begged, tugging at Adams' clothes almost in tears. It became confusing if he was just scared or seeing the victim was hurting him.
But it seemed Adams was no longer in their midst. He became totally unresponsive to what was going on. All that was in his mind were those three boys in front of him. Vincent, who was a moment late to notice Adams new sudden mood, was also a moment late to stop Adams as he rushed towards the three boys and with all the strength he could muster punched the boy that was about to slap the victim in the gut. If not for Vincent who had already reached Adams and was holding him down, he was about to go on a rampage.
"What? Class 1B?" one of the Class A boys said as the other went to pick up the boy who could no longer walk by himself again. "Well you called for this! We'll never forget your faces!" they shouted as they quickly walked away.
"Why don't you pick someone your own size!!" Adams shouted back.
"Hey that's enough," Vincent concluded.
On their way to class after the victim had already cried his appreciation and praises, "I'm sorry guys, I cannot just hold myself whenever I come across bullies," Adams said and for a moment he looked sober.
"Nah, it's cool, it's cool," Vincent assured.
And Daniel who was still processing all that happened, "Yh it's cool bro," said with a blank face and lost expression that he had to be shaken back to life.
In class, Vincent easily attracted attention as it was like his desk was the joint of everyone to talk and gist. Soon enough Ms Aimme, their class teacher, came in. This time she started giving out timetables and the schedule the school had planned for them.
With a few groans here and there as the students had little to no time for themselves.
Again the pain struck, it came so suddenly and massively Vincent just had to release a little sound. This time apart from the ringing in his head his eyes also seemed to want to pop out.
"The rest of you, go for your class. Vincent, come with me," Ms Abigail said.