▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 12 ║▌║▌║█│▌

When I arrived home, my parents were all over me at once. They bombarded me with questions about the exam. I tried to answer them the best I could, but honestly my mind was still racing from the adrenaline rush from the exam.

I didn't know what to think about anything anymore. Apparently, I have a dormant power, that I don't know if it will ever come out. That completely flips my life upside down. Everything I was taught and told about myself are wrong. Are sagarus just people whose powers are just dormant and need to be awakened? Can we somehow find a way to manually awaken them?

I made a new friend during the exam, I think. Will I be able to see her again? She seemed pretty nice, and she didn’t ignore me and trash me just because I was there at the exam. She seemeddifferentfrom everybody else. What’s this feeling?

Did Lainey do enough to pass the exam? I didn’t see her the rest of the day after the exam. Did she end up getting knocked out? I hope she did well. Even if I don’t make it into Crystal High, I would want her to make it to help her family.

Why did Zen go out of her way to help me back there too? She definitely had more than enough points to not need to have the rescue points from rescuing Via and I. I never talked to her before, and I could never get close to her to even get a good look at her because her fan club would always surround her. Is she just that nice of a person to everyone?

What were those sparks that I thought I saw coming out of my hands? Was that just a hallucination due to traumatic stress? What could I have done better in the exam? At this point my parents questions have become white noise, and I drowned myself in my thoughts and questions.

I finally told them that I needed to get some rest, and tried to say it's just because it's been a long day. They wondered if I was hungry, but I shrugged it off. I couldn’t get my mind to stop racing, and I just needed to relax in a hot shower and go to bed to get my thoughts in order.

I laid in my bed wide awake for a couple of hours in silence. I could hear my parents talking about various things that had happened today in the city and on the news. Sometimes I hear parts of them talking about how Max Powers saved the day again from a dimensional rift threat near the edge of the country, and how there has been a string of terrorist attacks in the city involving multiple power research facilities. I also over heard them talking about how the tensions between us and the neighboring country of Peak State is rising. They always wanted our greater knowledge and understanding of powers. I guess now they are starting to get more forceful in wanting that information. With my mind finally starting to calm down, I slowly started to drift asleep while they were talking.

They next week seemed like a blur. School seemed meaningless now that I'm waiting for the results of the exam, and I was almost sleep walking through it. I tried to say thanks to Zen for the help at the end of the exam on the first day back, but her flock of fanboys and clout chasers blocked me. They all just pushed me down on my ass and sneered at me when I got close. Some even jeered, "Don't even dare come over here, and contaminate Zen's presence with your defectiveness. Go back to the shit hole you came from!"

Through the crowd of faces, I thought I could see Zen's eyes meet mine, and I felt my breath leave me when I saw her beauty. Her eyes seem to look at me apologetically, but I didn’t know why she would be apologizing to me for. This is normal for me, and I’m used to it. It’s me who should be apologizing to her if anything because I put her in a situation at the exam where she had to help me.

Drazen didn't talk to me at school at all. He gave me scornful looks in the hallways, and his stooges bumped me and stuff. Overall though he seemed pretty tame. He probably went back to his holier than thou persona from before the exams, and now he probably will just ignore me for a while.

I still got picked on, and beat up like usual though, during and after school. It has just become a part of my life now. My mind is no longer worried about the normal everyday beatings for once though. I just go back to my training and studies. For once in my life, thanks to the exams, I had the feeling of hope.

Lainey didn't text me to meet up at all after the exams. I started to get kind of worried. Was she embarrassed that she didn't do as good as she thought she would on them? I texted her that she couldn't have done worse than me. She still didn't text back though. I debated on whether or not I should visit her house, but I didn't want to intrude on her. I know that I would feel weird if people showed up at my house without asking, so I left her alone. This went on for 2 weeks.

I don’t know if I did anything to her or what. I started to feel really bad about myself again because of this. The first friend that I’ve been able to make since I found out I was a sagaru has suddenly started to ignore me. I could feel my shoulders getting heavier and my feelings getting more depressed as the days went on without talking to her or anyone else aside from my parents.

The worrying about the results of the exam, how I could have done better on the exam, and Lainey, all took a toll on my mind. All while my mind was filled with this, I was also constantly hearing about the terrorist attacks and rising tensions on the news. Most of the protectors couldn't do anything about it because they had bigger dimensional rift problems to deal with, so it was left up to the police. This created a large buzz around the school and city. Finally, at the end of those 2 weeks, the results finally came. This was going to be the most stressful moment of my life so far.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌