[Ariel’s POV]
‘I’d been noticing this for a while now, I’d been noticing…him. He, he’d changed. He used to look so goofy and cute but now Malcolm, had something cold and sinister about him.He seemed scary and weirdly smarter, at first I thought it was just my imagination and that he’d be back to normal soon enough. But then when I saw him speak to the teacher that day, I knew within me that something had changed about him.I can’t believe he caught me staring at him the other day, Ugh I feel like such an idiot. He didn’t even smile or anything, he just…stared back, coldly.I shouldn’t be thinking about this.’ These were the thoughts that passed through my head when I was alone in class. I arrived particularly early and was bored out of my head.I scanned the class and saw some familiar yet unfamiliar characters, people whose faces I’d seen but didn’t speak to at all and I felt lonely.My friends hadn’t arrived and I thought of what I could do to pass time, then he walked in. I looked to the door and saw his large figure begin to approach. It was Malcolm.‘Don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t look up.’ My face turned bright red as I felt him pass beside me. He radieted a cold, frosty aura that shook me to the bone.I tried my best not to look at him and my attention was finally diverted when my friends arrived. I composed myself so as not to look odd and played along as we laughed and smiled together.It went on like this for a while until the teacher arrived, classes went on as usual for a while before the teacher decided to make an announcement.“Today class, we will be having a pop quiz,” she said. ‘Pop quiz! This is the worst, I haven’t prepared at all for this, uhh why’ I thought.My grades weren’t exactly at the best of places currently and even though I did my best, classes were…hard. I’d already caused enough trouble for my parents when I enrolled into this cram school.Most of my classmates got better grades than me even without having to attend and this brought a sort of shame to my family and so I studied hard, hopefully my studying manages to pan out for me, I couldn’t afford to fail this test.“Everyone put your books and bags away. Malcolm, would you like to help me pass the question sheets around the class?”, said the teacher and everyone in the class looked at the lone figure positioned at the very end of the class.Everyone except me, I didn’t want to get another one of those stares from him.“No, thank you,” he said and there was a large uproar of murmuring around the classroom.I noticed the teacher frowning and began to think, ‘oh no!, what if she punished him?, what should I do?’ And summoning all the courage within me, I spoke.“I’ll do it, ma’am, if that’s no problem,” I said without thinking and immediately regretted it.The teacher directed her gaze to me and said “Fine then, have it your way. Take the sheets from my desk and pass them around the class.”“Yes ma’am” I said leavening my seat and hurriedly doing as I was told.I passed the sheets without issue till I had one last sheet to give out and sure enough, it was to Malcolm.‘No, you can do this’ I thought and I walked up to him and as I was about to drop the sheet my body seemed to freeze.‘Oh no, move! Please!’ My thoughts were in chaos and once again I was jolted back to life when he spoke.“Uhm, can I have my sheet?” He said locking his eyes with mine.“Oh I’m sorry” I said as I gave him his sheet and hurried back to my seat. I felt my face turn bright red and I was so embarrasse, but I wouldn’t let that make me lose my composure.Right now I only had one thing in mind and that was passing this test.I took my seat and soon after the test commenced. It wasn’t that hard for me thankfully and I answered most of the questions without worry.However only a couple minutes to the exam I heard footsteps from someone behind me and looking back I was shocked to see that it was Malcolm, clutching his bag in one hand and holding his sheet in the other.He walked up to the teacher submitted his sheet and left, and as I expected the whole class was as surprised as I was and everyone began murmuring loudly again.“Quiet!” The teacher yelled and the murmurs died down.I felt like I had to speak to Malcolm, I was worried about him and hoped he was alright, I didn’t know what I would say if I met him, but I was genuinely concerned about him.And right then and there a newfound courage came over me. I was almost done with my quiz and hurriedly finished my remaining questions, submitting my sheet and leaving.As I hurried out of the class and onto the corridor I looked in both directions and sure enough there he was walking in my direction.I froze, and simply stared at him and he did a good job of avoiding my gaze. He came closer and closed until he walked right past me and I felt my heart sink.‘No! I’m speaking to him’ I thought and I summoned the courage to grab his arm.He looked back at me with expectant eyes and I said “Malcolm, can I please speak to you?” I was so shy and flustered and I let go of his arm.He turned and faced me, towering over me as he was way taller than me.“Alright, I’m listening” he said with a cold deep voice.“Well, I-I was wondering if-if you could” the words refused to leave my mouth. I just wanted to know how he was and if he was okay but that didn’t seem to want to work.“Yes? I have to leave so hurry it up” he said not breaking eye contact.He gave off this manly vibe and spoke confidently and I couldn’t help but admire him. ‘Alright, I know what to do’ I thought and I summed up all the courage I had within me to speak.“I was wondering if you could tutor me in your free time.” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, yes I needed a tutor but definitely not him, I couldn’t think straight around him and if he tutored me that meant I’d have to see him everyday.‘I hope he declines’ I thought, my face turning bright red once again.“Alright then” he said as he opened his bag to take a book out, tore out a sheet of paper and wrote his email address on it and then passed it to me.“Just email me the details, I have to go now” he said as he turned and began walking home.I simply stood there, stunned and taken aback. It was easier than I expected but that was definitely not the response I was hoping for.He didn’t even smile or say goodbye and i didn’t know if should’ve been sad or happy.I just stood there.I headed home in high spirits, it’d been a while since I’d felt my heart pound and I didn’t think it would be because of a girl.Backtracking to about an hour ago, I’d just left the restroom and was headed home when I was stopped by…Ariel.I had no intention of speaking to her as I made up my mind that girls weren’t my priority at that point, but when she grabbed my arm I felt the anxiety well up within me.‘Ugh I shouldn’t be thinking about this’ I thought. Yes, I’d only agreed to be her tutor on the spur of the moment. Once I got home I would email her how I didn’t have the time and be done with it, yes, that was the plan.I branched at a supermarket to get some groceries before heading home.When I got home I tried emailing her and finally realized my mistake “I gave her my email instead of getting hers! Argh ,how could I have been so stupid!” I shouted, placing my hands on my head as I lay face flat on my bed.Then again this wasn’t too bad, Ariel’s family were influential to an e
I got home that day with a lot of time to spare, contemplating what to do with my time, I decided to learn more about secret skills.“System, what can you tell me about secret skills?”“Huh, and what conditions caused me to acquire access to render?”Now I was confused. I unlocked the render skill because I’d been regressed? Did that mean I wasn’t the only one who had access to the system? I had to ask.“ System, am I the only one who has access to you?”There it went again talking about the code. “What is the code anyway?”‘I guess I’ll lay off for now’ I thought, whatever the code was I knew I would find out sooner or later.I still had a lot of free time and didn’t know what to do with it, I still hadn’t gotten an email from Ariel so that also wasn’t an option.I decided to contact Logan again, I felt weird as we’d spoken just about an hour ago, but having nothing else to do I decided to put my plan in motion.I sent him an email and our conversation went thus:*Logan, I think it’s
[Evelyn’s POV]‘Something is definitely wrong with Malcolm, first he speaks back to me and humiliates me in front of the whole class, then I ask him to run a simple errand for me and he declines.His whole demeanor has changed, I feel something is going on with him. Even when I threatened him by saying that I would have to report him to his father, he hardly even responded.He used to be gullible and timid, but now he answers questions in class flawlessly without even paying attention, I can understand if he’s studying a lot but that isn’t enough to give him this amount of growth.And the most surprising part of it all is was that in the pop quiz I organized, Malcolm was the only student who managed to get perfect scores.Something can’t be right, he has to be cheating or something, this amount of growth in such a short amount of time. I didn’t want to ever have to do this but I feel I have to call Mr. Shade.’These were the thoughts that passed through the head of Malcolm’s cram scho
I left my house that day sad and distraught. My father had sent a driver to pick me up and as I came up to my junction ,there he was, already waiting for me. I said nothing to him and waltzed into the back seat of the car after he opened the door for me.In a couple of more moments we were moving. My life hadn’t always been like this, when was it that I’d stopped being happy and hated myself, I think I was 4 years of age.My father and I loved my mother very much and she felt the same for us. She would often tell me that she loved me the most in the entire world and I would be overjoyed as a child.My mother, Mrs Gabrielle Shade, was a beautiful woman who had long brown hair and green eyes. She was of European descent, Spanish I think. I barely had any knowledge of her and could only remember what she looked like thanks to Render.She and my father met when my father was on vacation in Paris, in his mid twenties. My father inherited the Shade corporation at a very young age and had be
As we pulled up to the giant gates of the Shade mansion, I was once again taken aback by the large structure that was my home.‘To think that I would return here’ I thought. The large castle that was the Shade mansion could never get old to me. It was gently nestled atop a lush hillside and one would have to drive up to reach the large castle like gates.On the interior, it had exactly 50 parking spaces and the environment was lined with various exotic flowers that were tended to everyday by the best gardeners.The entire area contained 3 buildings with 3 floors each and 2 basements. With the central building being stationed at the middle of the three.The building on the right was set out for guests, parties, and official purposes and the one on the left were the workers quarters.It was truly a sight to behold and a sense of nostalgia hit me as we pulled up to the front of the central house.I got down from the car as the driver opened the door for me. My father had been informed of
I was in a hospital bed staring at my mother. I could gradually see life fading from her eyes.“Somebody! Help! Please anybody!” I screamed but no one came. She looked me in my eyes and told me, “Malcolm, I’ll always love you” she said and let go of my hand.“No!” I screamed and then suddenly the ground opened up and I fell through a bottomless hole. I kept falling and screaming for a short while and I hit the floor pretty hard.I lay on the floor and tried using my hands to clean my face and saw blood!. I screamed in fear as I turned to my right and saw a hooded figure approach me.“No! Stay back!” I screamed as I tried to scramble away from the person but as I crawled he grabbed me by my ankle and pulled me back to him.He removed his hood and displayed his face before getting up and pulling out a gun, a large grin on his face. As he pulled the trigger I screamed in fear and woke up in my room.‘I was just dreaming’ I thought as I sat up in my bed. I picked my phone up and checked t
I got home that day and felt a sense of peace, I was finally free from the shackles of the Shade family to some extent and I cherished my new found solitude.A week has passed before I went back home and I spent that week following my normal routine, except for the fact that I’d been tutoring Ariel.We’d made arrangements on that weekend after my father called asking me to come home and for the past week I’d been tutoring her.Exams were fast approaching and I saw her making a lot of progress.We would meet at my place everyday after school and study for about two hours before she would head home.My apartment was closer to school and she always had a driver take her home anyway so it was convenient for both of us.She wasn’t complaining anyway. One day after we’d finished studying we had a deep conversation about our plans for after school.It went thus.****We’d just finished studying that day.I let out a huge yawn as Ariel packed her bags. I had no reason to study, I already knew
A couple of days later, I was fast approaching my exams. I did most of my things the same except that me and Ariel had been having overnight sessions where she would sleep over and go home the next morning.I also slowly grew my wealth as I continued to earn from stocks. Satushi had finally responded to me, and I proposed the idea of him working for me to him. At first he was skeptical and in disbelief but when I asked to meet up with him he knew I was serious.He explained how that wouldn’t be possible as he was very broke and that he didn’t have the funds to transport himself from Japan to America.I spoke to him for some more days and when I finally gained his trust, he finally agreed. I offered to pay for his flight and accommodation when he got here and he happily accepted.He didn’t have a job, his family lived in a village away from the city he lived in, he had no girlfriend or special ties with anyone and when I offered him a hefty sum he complied.And so this was where I curr