Chapter 1. The day when I died.

*Beep* *Beep*

“Ahhhh! It’s already morning.” I heavily open my eyes.

*Beep* *Beep*

“I heard you the first time!” I say while trying to turn off the alarm clock.

I guess it’s a time to introduce myself. My name is Markus Ryley born about 16 years ago and the 3rd child of my family, or as I refer to myself “The Phantom son.” Most likely you are wondering why, well it’s because I’m somewhat of an oddball while my siblings, let’s just say, “Shine brightly.”

Speaking of bright…

“None! Not even one damn cloud! All that praying… Stupid dancing… And not even one!? God must be ignoring me, as usual...”

Depressed I slowly walk from the window to my wardrobe and begin the tedious task of dressing myself.

While I’m still putting my pants on, my door opens without even a knock

“Damn forgot to lock it.”

“You’re still just getting up?” said beautiful girl who looks like a doll with her slim body and long brown hair.

“Did nobody teach you how to knock?” I say with an unpleasant expression.

“Hahaha! As if there’s anything worth hiding!” said my sister Lily who is 2 years younger than me. She’s also the 4th and youngest child in our family.

“Did you come just to mock me?” I said with a tired expression, ‘Her looks and personality really don’t match up.’

“No, mother said to tell you that breakfast is ready.”

Most likely it’s already cold. That’s how it has always been here and most likely how it always will be.

My oldest brother is an amazing swimmer and what I mean by the word ‘amazing’ is that he’s training for the next Olympic games… My second brother is pretty much a genius who even skipped a grade… and my dear little sister, not counting that personality of hers, plays violin and has a voice like an angel, ‘No matter how much it pains me, even I have to admit that.’ Now we come to me, the amazing ‘I did my best, but sadly failed…’ So yeah, most of the time in this family I’m kind of ignored and left alone…

“Thank you” I say with a smile.

“…” My sister turns around and leaves with a sour expression that only makes her look cuter.

Is it so disgusting to see me smile? Oh well, even on such a hellish day that sour expression on Lily’s face made me feel better.

“Yeah, we are definitely brother and sister” I chuckle a bit while turning around and looking at my reflection in the mirror.

Before me stands a short guy wearing glasses with only his pants on. His upper body has no visible muscle; on the contrary, he’s so skinny that you might think he hasn’t eaten for months…

“Haaaah, I look like someone who was just recently released from a concentration camp…” as I inspect my body further, my mood darkens.

“… I probably need to find time to at least do some jogging, if I continue to spend all my time playing video games and watching anime, even when I die I’ll look like this…”

On New Year's Eve I made a vow to myself that I would change, and with summer break in sight I plan to start my workouts! Of course nothing drastic, only about a half hour to an hour a day of light training should be a good start.

“Just you wait! Before I go to college, I’ll become a different person!” while I’m pumping myself up with a motivational speech. I finish putting my clothes on and leave the room.

“Surprise, surprise!”

What I find when I descend the stairs is an already cold omelet with a glass of juice on the table.

“Haa…” With a sigh I move to the table and the omelet of course, goes inside microwave for few minutes. Well it’s not a big deal but what really get’s to me is that I’m not called to eat together with everybody else… Well I could wake up earlier, but what’s the point if I would feel like an uninvited guest...?

After having my breakfast I head out.

“I am going! Have a nice day!” I shout it as always while about to leave.

“Take care, Markus.” I hear back while closing the door.

The voice came from the other room so it wasn’t loud, but I could clearly hear my mother’s words. Normally no one responds to me, so this was really strange, but with the smile I brush it off and say “okay!!” determined not to be too negative.

Because of that I walk down the street smiling, you see I don’t really hate my family, after all they are still my family (apart from my sister), so I still want to be on good terms with them and feel a part of it (of course excluding my sister because I hate that double face bitch).

Not even in my worst nightmares I would have imagined that it was my last conversation with my mother…

I’m walking to a meeting place; you see today my class is having a school trip. We will be visiting two museums; I believe one has to do with war and about the other… I have no clue since I am not interested. Anyway, today I will have to put my survival skills to the test…

“Ah… Damn I’m already here…”

My meeting place was about 15 minutes by foot from my house, so I got here faster than I wanted to, I see people in the distance so I make my way over to them.

As I’m walking over to them I notice my teacher, she’s wearing simple plain clothes like always. I believe her age is about 35 years and she’s married, but I’m not 100% sure about that. She looks at me and nods to herself. From what I can see apparently I am the last to arrive.

“Sorry for being late.” I say to my teacher, though I’m not very sincere, since I would have preferred not to come here at all, but if my mother would have heard about me purposely skipping a school trip then… Heaven help me!

I hear some of my classmates start to laugh but my special skill ‘Ignore all’ is already on.

“Hey Markus!”

“Yo! Coming last like always.”

Todd Kaminski and Josh Hurrell greet me, these two are something I might call friends. Since both of them are hard gamers I can at least have a normal conversation with them, unlike with most people.

“Todd, Josh.” I greet them “what’s new?”

“Ah… Nothing new, same old.” While Todd was speaking the bus arrived.

“Everyone get inside and find your seat!” Shouted teacher.

Since the bus stopped near us, those two were the first to get inside, next it was my turn, I was stepping through open bus doors when suddenly someone charged in and pushed me aside.

“Ugh” I groaned while hitting my leg to the door. Pain surged through my knee.

“I’m sorry” said the person who charged in, It was Robby Haan… He had mocking smile on his face so I knew that this was no accident.

He’s something like the top dog in our class, and for the past few years he would go out of his way to make my life hell. Another reason why hardly anyone talks to me in class, since they see me as a loser… and no one wants to be friends with loser.

“Rob, be more careful” said Kaitlyn Enslay following him, She’s the most beautiful girl in our class if not the whole school, with her slender body, long dark brown hair and deep blue eyes which seem to look straight into your soul.

She looked at me and gave a simple smile.

“Why are you defending him it’s his fault for not looking around!” Adan Dauer said with an insulting tone.

“Stop stalling and all of you get inside!” shouted teacher from the back of the line.

In my class there is 25 students, 5 of them make something like a top group, which I call ‘five clowns’ of course when no one hears. These ‘five clowns’ consists of Jarvis Gervase, Adan Dauer, Alease Liddell, Kaitlin Ensley and their leader Robby Haan. They are a group of friends who spend most of their time together at school.

Why am I grouping Kaitlyn together with them? The answer is simple, because everything is her damn fault.

It took me some time to understand this, but apparently Robby has wanted to make Kaitlyn his girlfriend for some time. While Kaitlin on the other hand friend zoned him for unknown reasons. So he took his frustration out on me, her neighbor (yes I am that beauties neighbor and childhood friend).

Maybe not really friend but she was the only one who at least talked with me when we were little (yes even as a child I was a person of a few words who stayed mostly alone). But as we got older… Let’s just say in the last few years we haven’t really had even one descent conversation.

Robby doesn’t care about that, he was frustrated, and so I was a perfect punching bag for him. But as Robby was bullying me Kaitlin somewhat took my side and that made things even worse. In other words, we are just going in circles with me taking all the pain.

“Ahh… Why can’t they just leave me alone” I mumble to myself, because of those two love birds who can’t sort out their feelings I have to get beaten up, my money is taken and on top it all I am called loser by everybody (well Todd and Josh are also called weirdo’s so…) on daily basis.

Finally with my throbbing knee I get on the bus, of course as a last person not counting teacher. And of course I sit alone…

With the start of the engine our journey begins.

The bus leaves our hometown and is heading for the city; it will take about three hours until we will arrive at our destination.

Since I was the last to board the bus I got a seat at the front of it, behind me I hear a lot of laughing, giggling and shouting. Apparently everybody is having a great time.

“How annoying” I whisper.

By the way, my two buddies are siting in the same row as me, just on the other side of the bus. And from the looks of it they are deeply immersed in their own world.

I turn silently to my window and go back to doing what I am good at. That is trying to be invisible.

“Mhm… Maybe all that nonsense from the Internet wasn’t just crap.” As I look through the window I notice that it’s starting to rain. (PR: where did he look at the internet??)

I just keep siting here and looking through my window silently, watching the road go by like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. I managed to sit like that already for about an hour undisturbed. ‘All hail skill of invisibility!’ I shout in my head. By the way it’s not just raining anymore because right not there’s a goddamn storm!

“It looks like I am really talented at wishing for rain, but it could have started a few hours earlier.” While I proudly look through the window, a small tomato hits the seat in front of me. While understanding that I was the target, out of reflex, I look back.

There are a number of people looking at me and grinning while some are even giggling.

“Damn these bas…” *BOOM* suddenly I hear an explosive sound that interrupts my thoughts. I think it was one of the front tires.

*Screech*

The bus driver hit the brakes but there is a heavy storm so the road is completely wet.

*Screech* “kyaaaa” *screech*

I heard some of the girls screaming, the situation really got worse fast as the bus started to spin a little.

*Screech*

As I looked straight, I saw that we are taking a dangerous turn, and if we don’t stop we will slide down the hill.

And the bus started going sideways… “This will not end well…”

*Screech*

We really are just stupid kids, trying to look cool by not wearing the god damn seat belts… As I was trying to grab mine, the whole bus shook as it left the road.

“Noooo! We will go down!!!” someone shouted.

Meanwhile I was still trying desperately to pull my seat belt on, but I couldn’t control myself so every time it just got stuck.

We started to slide down the hill. But I guess we hit something because the bus started to roll down.

Everything happened in an instance. When I came back to my senses the bus was already was on its roof.

As I was lying down on the floor (roof), I felt some tingling sensation in my hand; I looked down and noticed that it’s bent weirdly. Strangely I didn’t feel any pain.

“Aaargh” I heard moaning from around me. So I looked and saw some of my classmates lying down, not moving, others gripping some parts of their body like arms, legs or head. Near me I noticed Todd. Blood was coming out of his nose and his eyes were just staring lifelessly.

This was truly hell… and most likely shock and adrenaline was what still kept me going.

“I need to get out of here…” while saying that I tried to get up. But I immediately had fallen back down.

“Strange why is it so unstable? Wait… Don’t tell me we’re still falling!?”

I turned my head and saw that we were still going down pretty fast. And what’s more right in front of us is a huge tree (I feel like I have to mention this but everywhere around is a grassland, and only this one tree at the foot of the hill…).

“Ohhh! Shiiitttt!!!” I shout the only word that came to mind…

In that instant I heard a crashing sound, the impact was so strong that I flew and hit the side of the bus really hard.

Immediately a huge pain ran all over my body, but just as suddenly the pain started to numb. Evidently my last breath was leaving me.

Everything bit by bit was getting darker…

== End of chapter 1 ==