"Tell me, little seed, what is your reason for descending into the Abyss?"
The voice was neither cruel nor kind. It wasn't curious either, in fact, it spoke as if it already knew my answer. It slithered through my mind like a whisper, the sound too easy to forget.
A grin curled at my lips as I turned to face the elongated figure. The answer to its question already materializing as my thoughts.
Pfft! It's because I'm insane, because no sane person would.
My grin was wide, my thoughts certain and yet deep in my eyes was a flicker of emotion.
A want for affirmation, for validation of my answer.
But....
Wyrtweard's next words completely shattered my expectations.
"I see… so your reason to descend is loneliness."
Loneliness.
A small word. A simple yet familiar word.
One that had stuck with me for too long a time before I tore free from its chains.
So... why?
Why did the word sink so deep into my thoughts? Why did it give me pause?
I frowned.
No, that's not right. That's not-
FLICK.
...
My eyes fluttered open to a familiar sight.
M-my class?
Indeed.
I had suddenly appeared in the confines of my classroom back at school.
What?
The transition was seamless.
It was like stepping through a door and forgetting the room left behind. No disorientation. No flicker of awareness. Only the sensation of existing, as though I had always been here.
Sunlight poured through the window panes, washing the wooden desks in soft gold. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with worn textbooks and abandoned papers. A light breeze made the curtains sway, carrying with it the scent of flowers and something faintly metallic.
It's quiet...
It was quiet. Not silent, but quiet.
I looked around, my environments seeming imperceptible at first before slowly the sound of chatter and the envisage of my classmates came to view.
CHATTER! CHATTER!
The murmurs of a hundred conversations overlapping, weaving together into the tapestry of an ordinary day.
I turned my head slightly, recognizing the faces of a couple of my classmates.
To my right, a tall girl sat with her arms on her desk, hands gripping her liberal arts notebook. Her posture was relaxed, yet her chair was subtly angled away from mine.
I recognized her face in an instant, my eyes narrowed.
Eni...
To my left, two boys whispered back and forth. Every few seconds, one of them would glance in my direction before quickly looking away.
Ola and Quy...
I exhaled through my nose, a soft huff of laughter.
How amusing.
There was no need to ask why.
This wasn't new.
Ever since, my last stunt the whole class-no... the whole school has been on edge around me.
I shifted in my seat, resting my chin on my palm.
SHIFF.
A faint scrape of wood against tile.
The girl, Eni, beside me inched her chair away.
I glanced to the floor, my gaze bored.
Hmm...her chair's sole is metal...
The whispers from the two boys, Ola and Quy, lowered, though not entirely. One of them still dared to speak, his voice barely above a murmur.
"...he's just… weird, you know?"
"I don't know, man. It's like… he doesn't get it."
The words drifted through the air like leaves in the wind. Light and insignificant. Yet, I caught them all the same.
Doesn't get it.
That was a funny way to put it.
Did they think I was unaware? That I couldn't see the way their shoulders stiffened when I walked past? The way conversations slowed, paused, shifted when I entered a room? The way people instinctively gravitated away, as though I carried some invisible, repelling force?
Oh, I understood perfectly, in fact, much more than they ever would.
But...I simply didn't care.
Why should I?
Their unease. Their nervous glances. Their hushed words, spoken just loud enough to be overheard but not loud enough to be confronted.
How insignificant. How utterly, utterly meaningless.
I leaned back, letting my fingers tap idly against the desk.
Human beings' opinions are like buckets – they only matter when you give them water.
It had once been a motto of mine, then a defense mechanism and now it's just a part of me.
I glanced at the window, looking down at where the sunlight was pouring down on. The shadows of leaves webbed the floor but there were no trees beyond the window.
HUAM...
I yawned, before listening to the sounds around me, barely picking up on some due to my poor hearing.
The rustling of paper.
The shifting of desks.
The scribbling of pens and pencils.
The hurried footsteps.
The ticking clock.
HOO...FWOO...
Time trickled forward ceaselessly.
"Hey."
I turned to the girl beside me.
She flinched. Not visibly, not in any way that could be pointed out, but I saw it. The smallest pause in her breathing. The faintest tension in her shoulders.
She turned her head, meeting my gaze for exactly two seconds before looking away.
"What?", she asked, voice carefully neutral but I could feel an underlying tension beneath it.
"What's today's lesson?"
A simple question. Nothing odd about it.
Yet it took her three seconds to respond.
"…Physics."
A smirk pulled at my lips, "Ah. Then, hypothetically speaking, if I threw a desk at someone, how much force would I need to smash their ribs?"
Silence.
Her expression remained passive, but her grip on her pen tightened. Her knuckles paled. I could see the calculation behind her eyes, the subconscious measure of distance and also the hesitation of whether she should move further away.
Humans were indecisive like that.
I chuckled, "Relax, Eni. I'm joking."
She didn't laugh.
Of course, she didn't.
She turned back to her chemistry notebook, pretending I wasn't there.
I stared at her book for a moment and scratched my head.
Am I forgetting something?
HA...
I exhaled through my nose, tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling. The fan above spun lazily, the blades slicing through the air with slow, methodical rotations.
I could probably stop it with a finger though...
Loneliness.
The word crawled back into my thoughts, taking the shape of Wyrtweard's voice.
But instead of a nasty scowl, I grinned.
Am I isolated?
Definitely I am.
In fact, it's not even an uncommon occurrence here. Many of my other classmates are secluded individuals as well and so as countless humans across the planet.
But the difference between me and the others is that, while they broke under the weight of isolation, choosing to conform, taking their lives or spiraling into turmoil. I embraced it.
I accepted isolation and the dangerous edge that came with it.
Willingly deciding to become abnormal than to be normal.
I had long since stopped trying to bridge the gap between myself and others. Not because I couldn't, but because I saw no point.
People were fickle. Their opinions shifted with the wind. They feared what they did not understand, shunned what they could not categorize.
HA...
I sighed.
One of the greatest psychoanalysts to exist, Carl Jung, stated that isolation stems not from a lack of company but from the inability to conform. He stated that those with 'greater consciousness' tend to be isolated.
I didn't see myself as one with a 'greater consciousness', no. That sort of damnable mindset will only set one on the path of a prideful idiot.
What I simply had was an odd consciousness.
People looked at me and saw something wrong.
Something off.
A machine with misplaced wires. A puzzle with missing pieces. A picture that should make sense but didn't.
And frankly...
I liked it.
I didn't want people to understand me either.
So then…
Why did the word 'loneliness' bother me?
I frowned, my expression passive.
There was no reason for it to linger.
No reason for it to…stick.
TCH.
I shook my head, dragging a hand through my wavy brown hair.
RING! RING! RING!
The bell rang, signifying the end of the period.
SCRITCH! SCRITCH!
Chairs scraped as students rose from their seats, packing their stationery into their pack.
Voices rose as students shuffled toward the door, eager to spill into the halls, to escape the confinement of routine and seek the illusion of freedom in the brief minutes between classes.
But I didn't move.
I remained seated, staring at the metal desk, listening to the fading footsteps, the closing of the door—
Until silence returned.
Alone.
I let out a slow breath, a grin creeping onto my lips. My legs found their way to the surface of my desk, crossed.
I glanced to our classroom walls, our gray lockers standing like safes, then up to the ceiling which was trailed with fluorescent bulbs.
AH...
"I remember what I forgot now... Eni is from the Arts department."
I nodded my head in satisfaction before looking around.
This...
This was better...
SHIFF.
I leaned back, closing my eyes.
And for a moment, just a brief moment—
I almost believed it.
That I was truly alone.
Or at least...that was what I wanted the gardener to think.
The gardener outside stops watering the flowers and smiles, looking at me from beyond the window.
I tilt my head, my hands still behind my head.
That's weird...our class is on the fifth floor...