Arc 1 Chapter 2: A Waste of Effort

“~Kyosuke, wake up~!”

A faint voice soothes Kyosuke’s ears, it was a familiar voice, one he has heard before. Even though he had heard this voice before, it was like he hadn’t heard this voice in what felt like a long time.

“Kyosuke! Get your ass up and get ready for school!”

His eyes shot open- ‘Where the hell?’ Kyosuke sat there in the middle of his bed. He sat there quietly, making sense of his new surroundings. Just then Kyosuke’s mom made her way into his room.

“You’re gonna be late to school if you don’t get up.”

“I know, I know. I’m just feeling a little funny right now, I just had one hell of a dream.”

His mother was the first person he’d remembered in a long time. ‘Hey, mom, where are we right now?’ A stupid question, he knew was in his room, but after that weird dream, he wanted to make sure.

“What a dumb question boy, you can clearly see that you’re in your room. Why exactly would you need to ask me that?”

Using a quick get out of jail free chuckle he said ‘I just had a weird dream that’s all, it must have been because I went to bed so late.’

Kyosuke forgets that his charming appeal was a hand-me-down from his own mother. After a quick lecture, Kyosuke’s mom gave him some much-needed breakfast. It was almost like he hadn't eaten for a whole day. He was so hungry; bacon, eggs, and toast, he was living the dream filling up on the best foods an average teen would die for.

A sudden edging feeling was in the back of Kyousuke's brain, usually, he forgot his dreams after this long of being up, but these dreams stayed. He saw that moment in the school so clearly. He saw his life end so clearly.

Kyosuke rushed to finish up, before getting his backpack on and sprinting to school. People stared as he ran down the stream saying ‘Please be alright, please be alright!’

He ran into the school doors expecting the worst, but everything was the same as it’s always been, people walked the halls and got their books ready for their classes. It was as if nothing happened. He felt as if it was just a dream, nothing but a silly dream.

Still on edge but relieved, Kyosuke went and got a drink of water. He felt like he had not drunk anything in ages. The coldness of the water woke him up enough so getting to lunch would be a breeze.

His head felt funny as if he could sense today wasn’t going to be the normal day he initially thought it would be, not that after a dream like that he’d just go back to normal. It was so real like it actually happened, ‘did it even happen?’

Kyosuke made his way into his first-period class whispering to himself: ‘The day before Thanksgiving break? That’s the same date as that dream.’ He still had that strange feeling in his head. It wasn’t like he knew for a fact something bad was going to happen, but it felt like he didn’t want to take the chance of something going wrong.

Behind him, he felt a slight jolt on his back- ‘Hey Kyosuke!’ It wasn’t anyone suspicious, just his friend Aaron, he poked his back so hard it almost felt like an actual electrical shock.

“Damn It, man, you scared the hell out of me! I’ve been really on edge today and I don’t need to be electrocuted.”

Aaron laughed and told him to lighten up, they’re young and shouldn’t be worrying about trivial happenings.

“trivial happenings my ass, that’s easy for you to say since you’ve been sheltered your whole life, I mean, shit you don’t even need to get a job with all of the money you get from your parents to stay out of trouble.”

There was a slight snappiness with Kyosuke today, he wasn’t acting like himself.

“It’s true that I’m sheltered but it makes me a hell of a lot happier knowing that I’m safe from any dangers and getting paid while doing it too!”

He let out a quick laugh after this, unlike Kyosuke he got his charm from his looks, not his personality.

Aaron had black spikey hair, a sharp face, and sexy-looking eyes. He could get any girl he wanted with just a look, it didn’t help that he had tons of money saved up since middle school. His parents paid him a hundred bucks a week as long as he kept his grades up and didn’t get into any trouble, can you believe that?.

Walking back to his seat, Kyosuke starts to ponder to himself.

-Aaron? Did I ever have a friend named Aaron? Why do I even need to think this? I definitely had a friend named Aaron!

The class started and the day began as normal, the first period always went the fastest. He had English first period which he enjoyed the most, mainly because that’s the period where he had most of his friends placed in one class and he could talk with them the whole period.

This time was different, Kyosuke didn’t talk with his friends, he just watched the clock waiting for that time. Within what felt like an instant, Kyosuke was already walking towards his second-period class. He always looked like he wasn’t getting enough sleep, black circles around his sharp eyes and his bad posture from carrying around a heavy backpack all day. Sighing, Kyosuke finally made his way into his second-period class.

He hated his second-period class, it always felt like if you tried to drag a wooden desk on the carpet, it takes forever and usually ends up breaking! It was math, Kyosuke hated math. He didn’t hate the whole numbers, he hated remembering all of the formulas. It was tedious and hell, it was boring.

Aaron has been in all of his classes since middle school. It’s what made them such good friends, even if they got into a silly fight, they’d see each other the next period and makeup. They were kinda locked together.

“Ready for the government test today?”

“Government? I have lunch next period.”

Aaron was confused since he knew for a fact that Kyosuke had government next period. ‘We’ve been in the same classes since middle school, you should know that if I have government class then you have government.’

Something wasn’t right, his third period wasn’t ever government. Reluctantly tiptoeing his way into class, not sure if this was the class he was even supposed to be going into. It felt like he played this path thousands of times, yet he knew he hadn’t.

“Have a seat, Mr. Matsuda, I’ll have to mark you late if you don’t.”

Kyosuke was always quick to chap back and forth between his teachers. ‘You’d never dare to mark me absent anyways.’ He had a charming smile, it never worked on his peers since they all felt his appearance to be off, he couldn’t help that though and it’s not like he was evil; trying things like that would just get him hurt in the end.

-I have my reasons for knowing this isn’t my right class, I normally had lunch in 3rd period.

“Damn public schools, they always had me eating lunch in the morning, I’m always so hungry by the end of the day.”

With Aaron, and his classes being moved around, he felt like this wasn’t his life; but it had to be. He was called by his name so it had to be his life, however; it just wasn’t. All of it didn’t make any sense, why did things change?

The speakers came on but no sound played through, just static. The school was only built a few years ago, so things shouldn’t have been breaking down already. Seconds after the static stopped, a sudden popping noise came through the speakers, not enough to sound like anything specific, but enough to cause a panic in the classroom.

A ringing erupted Kyosuke’s ears - ‘what the hell!’ Shots were being fired, it was as if that day in the dream was repeating itself. Not sure what to do, Kyosuke grabbed a few near desks to build a wall around the door. He hoped that it would give him enough time to think of a real plan.

“Shots? Who would be shooting in a school?”

-What the hell?

“Oh please no, I can’t die!”

-What… The hell.

“Please God let me live, I’ll be good, I promise!”

-What… THE HELL!

Students were crying, begging for their lives and Kyosuke was pissed. ‘You’re not going to win this time, I’ll make sure of it!’ As if the gunman heard Kyosuke from down the hall, a bullet smashed the door’s glass window, the shot hit a desk inches away from his head.

This caused an even bigger ruckus in the classroom, students began grouping up together, praying that their lives would be saved.

-Why this classroom?! Were on the top floor in the middle of the damn school, this would be the last place he’d go! There’s no way he heard me from in here, those shots were way too far away to be close enough to here.

“Let me in you little shits, I’m not gonna hurt ya!”

He could hear the crazy in his voice. He sounded like he’s been crying for hours, every sound the gunman made sounded like a cry for help. Kyosuke didn’t want to die, he didn’t know what would happen to him.

“Am I going to go to heaven, hell, or would I be reincarnated? What religion was right?”

Kyosuke got those thoughts out of his head, Kyosuke has felt the pain of being shot, he knew that if anyone was going to save everyone it had to be him.

-Can I win? Do I have what it takes? HE has a GUN, I only have ~school crafting supplies~. What do I do in this situation, what can-... Shit, I was too late.

The door slams open, desks fly everywhere crushing Kyosuke in between them. He let out a quick groan before he watched helplessly in what felt like slow motion as his classmates pleaded and begged for their lives. They were being gunned down one by one.

-blood wasn’t what it looked like in movies, it started light, and got darker the more that came out.

Kyosuke threw up, he knew what he had to do but didn’t know if he had the strength. Throwing the deks off of him and out of his way, Kyosuke- filled with anger grabbed a pair of scissors that fell off one of the desks. Racing over to the man, he buried the scissors deep into the gunman’s neck. The scissors weren’t sharp enough to go all the way through, but he dug them as deep as he could into the artery of the neck, blood squirting all over Kyosuke’s face.

Laughter ensued from his mouth, It’s not that Kyosuke enjoyed it, he just had to laugh to calm himself down, he wasn’t crazy.

He had seen this man before. He wasn’t even a “man” he was a teenager just like Kyosuke; maybe a year older? It’s the same person he saw in that “dream” of his. Seeing his face caused him to detract the scissors a little bit, showing that slight bit of mercy gave the teen enough time to reach his gun around and shoot Kyosuke in the chest.

“Your weakness was the death of you.”

Kyosuke slumped onto his stomach, he heard one final shot out of his sight before the gunman kicked the door open with enough force to knock it off its hinges.

“Kyosuke Matsuda, I’ve been looking for you!”

-Why the hell did he say my name? He’s not even looking at me.

Kyosuke Matsuda started to cry, blood came out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. He sobbed and he couldn’t stop. He began dragging his slowly dying corpse outside the classroom. He was getting sleepy, he could feel his eyes dropping every few seconds. Kyosuke laid his head to the ground looking down the hallway.

He saw someone sitting on the ground, looking at the blood on his hands.

-He looks like me, why the hell does he look like me?

Even in Kyosuke’s mind, he couldn’t scream, the blood loss made even his conscious tired. Kyosuke was twitching now, he couldn’t feel the pain of the bullet in his chest, he only felt himself getting rapidly more tired.

“KYOSUKE MATSUDA YOU EVIL LOOKING SON OF A BITCH LOOK AT ME!”

Using the last of his dying breath, from the top of his lungs he screamed.

“Run… RUN!”

-Dammit my lungs burn, I doubt the first time I yelled run even got through to him. I hope he heard me, at least some version of me can live.

As weird as it was saying that, Kyosuke watched as his body double got up, sprinting away. It didn’t take long before he saw the blood splatter onto the lockers, he watched himself fall onto the floor. The still crying Kyosuke got onto his back, he slowly felt himself beginning to laugh, it wasn’t a loud laugh, just the last of his air being forced out of his body. The gunman slowly walked over to Kyosuke, towering over him.

With an evil look on the shooter’s face, he spoke to Kyosuke as if he knew something personal that Kyosuke didn’t.

“You poor bastard, you still haven’t figured it out yet. You’ve got one more chance befo...-”

The strange gunman couldn't finish his sentence before darkness ensued just like before, at that moment the life of 16-year-old Kyosuke Matsuda ended.