Chapter 2: Haunted

Loud heartbeats.

Flashing lights.

Incoherent voices.

A bearded man.

A sharp knife.

Metal clinking.

Rusty smell.

Painful limbs.

Bloody clothes.

A ringing noise.

Metal contraptions.

Long Bandages.

Clear tubes.

Floating pictures.

Bloody Hands.

Dizzy head.

Nothing.

* * * * *

3 Months Later.

“Student Stanley Reed and Marcus Gray, please come up front,” a middle-aged man spoke while holding a clipboard with a paper attached to it.

About 40 different young men surrounded him outside in the middle of the Defenders’ training field.

Stanley walked in front of the group, going into the center area that had been separated so they could fight against each other.

His opponent Marcus walked up to him as well, towering over him with a height of nearly 6 feet, while he himself was 5 feet 7 inches at best. He had still not finished growing as a 17-year-old man, but he wasn’t sure he could reach the same height as someone like Marcus.

Because he had been wounded 3 months ago, the Mayor apparently had to cut off all of his hair to see which parts of him were truly wounded before he could heal him. So, while his blonde hair had grown back, they were still quite short compared to the rest of his classmates.

“Isn’t this the Dull kid you said was one of the best, Jerry?” a man asked the teacher slowly. “I hear he was wounded during the accident 3 months ago. Is it okay for him to fight?”

“He’s healed fast thanks to the mayor,” the teacher named Jerry said. “Although, I’m not sure I would call him one of the best anymore.”

“Hmm? Why?” the man asked.

“You’ll see,” the teacher said and looked at the two fighters in front of him. “Take positions.”

Both Stanley and Marcus had already been standing on the opposite side waiting for the teacher’s go to fight. They both held round wooden swords in their hands and were ready to use them.

“First to 3 proper hits wins. Remember not to attack your opponent’s head or private areas,” the teacher said. “Go!”

Marcus dashed forward, barreling down with his rather huge body.

Stanley dashed forward as well and swung his sword when he got close.

Marcus suddenly closed his eyes and his body stopped unnaturally. Like cotton in the wind, he floated into the sky. Then, when he was high enough, he opened his eyes, and his body suddenly accelerated downwards.

Stanley knew what Marcus’ powers were and knew what he could do. However, by the time Marcus was on top of him, Stanley’s mind was nowhere in the fight at all.

Marcus struck him on his shoulders, delivering the first hit of the match.

Stanley faltered to the ground, his hands quivering slightly while his breathing was heavy. His eyes were wide, as if with fear and he had momentarily forgotten what he was even doing.

Cold sweat appeared all over his body as fear gripped his heart and sadness in his mind.

He couldn’t even manage to get a hold of himself when the second strike had come down. He tried to get back up by the third time, but his mind wasn’t in the right place anymore and he easily lost to Marcus.

“See?” the teacher told his assistant.

Stanley’s face was blank as he walked out of the arena. The teacher handed over the board to his assistant and let him handle the next set of matches while he walked over to Stanley.

He placed his arms around his shoulders and pulled him away to a corner of the field.

“Alright, tell me, what’s wrong with you?” the teacher asked him.

“I… I don’t know,” Stanley said with his eyes looking at the ground. He couldn’t even look the man in the eye as they spoke.

“Are you sad? Is that it?” the teacher asked. “Are you looking for sympathy just because your mother died?”

“N-no,” Stanley said quickly.

“Remember when I asked you if you would want to leave the Defenders? With your brother a defender, you wouldn’t have to worry about going to work in the fields even as a Dull. But it was you who told me you wanted to kill all the crawlers.”

“I do,” Stanley said quickly, his eyes finally looking up at the teacher. “I want to kill them. Every last one of them.”

“Hmm, so you show the drive now? Where is this when you are training? Why do you always freeze in the middle of the fight?” the teacher asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Stanley said.

The teacher sighed. “You can leave for today. Get your head cleared up and come back when you can fight,” he said. “We don’t need people who will freeze when they are most needed.”

Stanley wanted to say something, but the teacher left him. Depressed, he turned around and left the training area.

The Defender’s quarters were right next to the Defenders training area and it was where every Defender and Defender-in-training lived. So, Stanley went directly to his quarters and slumped onto his bed.

“Why does this keep happening to me?” he shouted into his pillow, not understanding the problem.

It had started even before he was fully healed. Once in a while, he would get a peculiar feeling, one that had started that day 3 months ago.

He didn’t know what the feeling was, but it was usually accompanied by an instinct to do something.

However, Stanley could never focus on what that something was as whenever he got the feeling, it reminded him vividly of what had happened back then when he first got that feeling.

He would relive the moment when his house came crashing down. The moment when he was hurt all over and yet he still reached out to his mother.

The moment when the crawler…

Every time he got that distinct feeling, the memory of his mother’s death would haunt him, making him completely unable to function in any capacity. 𝑜𝑣𝘭.𝘯𝑡

“What do I do?” he couldn’t help but shout.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

“Stanley? Are you in there?” a voice came from outside.

Stanley quickly got up from his bed.

“Brother? Are you back?”