I cursed after falling for the umpteenth time. It is really hard to ride a bike with your hurt leg holding you back. Bob helped me back on to my ride, fussing over my safety. With each fall, all my temper did was to rise. Refusing to ride pillion on Bob's cycle, I sped onwards, seething.

Reaching the school gate brought back several memories. Good ones. Bad ones. Terrible ones. Especially the current one. Smirking at the sight of the security guard nodding off, I jumped over the wall with help from Bob. I couldn't stick the landing though and I fell adding a few new scrapes to the ever-expanding roster.

Dusting myself off, I set out as quietly as possible, so as to not alert the targets to my presence. As my fitter body made plans to take down the enemy, I tried to remember the pesky idiots who irked me during the school days. After everything that happened in my life, I couldn't be expected to remember them, right? As the plan fell into place, so did my memories.

But not the names. There was the fat kid. He was too stout for any kid of his age. He was so awfully cheerful about it that it irked me. He was the one who made for perfect target practice. Always coming to his defense was the quippy one. Always making fun of us with one-liners he presumes we don't know the meaning. We don't. That doesn't prevent him from getting the pummeling that he deserved. That was what that got me suspended in the first place.

There was also a weird kid who always hung out with those losers, right from the time he transferred into the school. He never talked in school, never came around for the parties we put up, and usually spent his time doing weird stuff. Like he always had a deck of playing cards on his person. He would talk animatedly to the other two dirtbags but would go completely silent when people are around. Really weird. But whenever we try to socialize with the losers, he would always be jumping in defense, even when it is not him that we wanna talk to.

They always got on my nerves. "Not today", I was thinking, "Today is the day they learn that we are friends. Like always. They are going to the principal and inform that we were just playing around. And if they try this again, they will understand how deep my friendship goes."

The plan was simple. We open the door to the roof where they were staying/observing/whatever as quietly as possible and as I enter Bob will seal the door and say in wait. I waltz in their little huddle and have a friendly chat. Perchance, if the party gets too loud, Bob would keep the guard busy till I give a signal. Then we all go home as friends. Simple enough.

Bob broke into the teacher's room to get the spare key to the roof. Then quietly, like mice, we ascend along the stairs and I quietly let myself in as Bob locked the door noiselessly. Then as it was wont to, everything went to hell.

They were chatting among themselves happily. The weird kid was performing some trick with his omnipresent deck of cards which amused them all so greatly. They all just sat there, laughing, oblivious to my presence. Blood rushed to my head. Here they are, clearly enjoying themselves, while my old man was beating the shit out of me. They did this to me and what were they doing now, playing? having a night out? I moved lifelessly towards them when the quippy one caught me at his peripheral vision.

"Holy Shit, Bill! What the hell happened to you?", he jumped up along with rest of them.

Now that I see it, he seemed really concerned with my state. To my younger self, it felt like a quip. Shredding all reason, I just went and tackled him. As he fell down, I laid on top of him and kept pummeling his face as he pulled his hands to the rescue.

The fat kid immediately ran to the door to get help, which, unbeknownst to him was locked. The weird one immediately pulled me off the quippy one and threw me to the ground. He had strength. I immediately flew to attack him, while he took a defensive stance and stood his ground. The fat guy came back to back up his friends and he started to kick me from the behind as the quippy kid picked himself up to put himself back in the fight.

The fight raged on. I could have taken on three nerds with no problem in my heyday, but with my injured self, I could just about make it an even one. I take a step back from the fight, while my body does the damage to assess what was happening. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

I was supposed to gently warn them to recant their complaint and stay in their place. Maybe smack them around a little till I feel full. This was not what I had in mind. All this adds to my pain and the security guard seems to have reached the door. I just put myself back in the fight to see that it was moving closer and closer to the broken section of the railing. They put a rickety wooden spare while they waited on repairs. Slowly everyone forgot about it. This is going to remind them.

I punch the quippy one in the jaw, which sends him in a daze. I shrug off the clinging two to the ground as I turn my attention to deliver my message to the quippy one. My bad leg slipped from the blood that pooled as the first aid came undone and my fist came on harder than I meant to, knocking the quippy kid into the wooden guard that gave under the weight. I reached out my broken hand but the pain stopped me from reaching him. He was gone. Into the chasm.

"___________!____________!", the two kids screamed into the night.

"Coming back ...", the chasm replied.