As the adolescent entered his house, Eric was following him behind, a few steps but enough to keep an eye on him.
As the adolescent opened the door to the inside of the house Eric sprinted to him and the door and was able to knock the adolescent to the ground and enter the house.
With the door still open, Eric grappled the adolescent on the ground and began to vituperate at the adolescent for what all he did to him when he couldn't defend himself.
Eric began to punch the adolescent as he was grappled on the floor, finally getting his sweet revenge on one of the adolescents.
Eric stayed there for roughly ten minutes, lambassing the adolescent whilst delivering harsh punches, letting all his long-held rage go wild at him.
After Eric was done with all that he, still enraged, told the adolescent "Let all the others know that, eventually, i will catch up to them".
What some would say was a reckless phrase, for Eric, it was intimidating, finally being able to do thing an eye for an eye with the group, who once Eric thought he was friends of, are now way more than simple enemies.
As Eric let go of the adolescent Eric walked away from his house, with a mix of relief, scare and somewhat disgust.
Eric walked home, and his feelings started to catch up, this was too much, Eric started getting disgusted and lightheaded at the thoughts and vision's he was having of the beaten up adolescent.
For some days Eric was unable to rest and go to school, shaking, even tho what he did to the adolescent was nowhere near fatal, he was still feeling terrible, especially at the pressure he put on the situation by alerting the other adolescents from the group.
Although Eric was exteremely pressured at that time, he didn't stop training, as he needed to become stronger incase the adolescents decided to gang up on him.
When Eric started doing secret push-ups on his room he couldn't do five in a row, now he could do around 25 without breaking form, Eric was proud but he knew it wasn't enough, Eric needed real combat skills, not just raw strenght.
When Eric was open about his wishes of becoming stronger he told some people he thought were strong and told them he wanted to become stronger for "self defense" purposes, They didn't know it was a lie and agreed to help him.
This led to Eric knowing some people who did boxing and asked them for help with learing combat skills, this combined with muscle training improved Eric's skills and strenght.
After some time training Eric was ready to show up to school again. As he entered school, soon after, he was met with teachers, school workers and a few police officers. And behind them all were the adolescents, playing the victim and "hiding" from Eric.
The adolescents were not scared, they knew they had won the battle, having set up Eric with pictures of their beaten up friend. Eric was in serious trouble.
As the police took Eric and his mother to the station Eric's mother was presented with a fee of 15.000$ indemnization. Both Eric and his mother were shocked, as they didn't have all that money.
A lot of things that belonged to Eric and his family had to be sold in order to pay for all that, his mother's car, and a lot of belongings.
Eric's mother was furious, she insulted Eric, about everything he had even done. Calling him a parasite inside her life, saying she'd be way better without her son, even going to the point where she said she should've aborted him.
Eric was sad and lump-throated at his mother's words, Eric didn't know what to feel, but he surely wasn't proud nor happy at his actions and its outcomes.
After hearing everything his mom had to say. Eric retaliated by saying:
"Everyone wants a genius for a kid. Doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs... Anything else is forbidden right?
Everyone has their own capabilities, their own desires, their own dreams. If you're so fond of racing. be it to catch my dad or to make me do what you want go breed racehorses. Why have me?"
His mom, either speechless or too heated to care about what was said by Eric stopped talking and went back to ignoring him.
Eric couldn't hold himself and started crying amidst all of this. In order not to show weakness he rushed to his bedroom, where he could cry to himself without anyone noticing.
After crying for a few minutes, Eric fell asleep, and Eric had a dream, a dream so strange and unique it could change his perspective in life if he took the dream to his heart.
Eric dreamed about having what he truly needed, someone to guide him, someone to support him and tell him what needed to be told, be it a critic or an advice.
Eric's advisor appeared as a spectre, which later had him confused about why was it not represented a person.
In that dream Eric was shown visions of the adolescents, his mother and his old friend, Nick. In those visions Eric saw their childhoods, their best moments in life, moments where true compassion and love were coming from them.
Eric saw those memories, for the entire dream, when he woke up he didn't forget the dream, he sat down, in bed, re-thinking about his opinion on people he thought were bad.
He actually enjoyed seeing those visions, although it was based on the lifes of people he didn't like, he saw past that, and realized there was good in bad, and after some more pondering he realized it was not worth it looking for the bad in people anymore. As of now he would search for the good in most people, as there always is good in the bad.
Eric got out of his bedroom, he looked at his mother, and slightly smiled. His mother didn't notice, but Eric's heart surely changed since that dream.
But there is also something left for Eric to uncover, who is that spectre that showed Eric the visions, and is it really worth chasing after it?