A heart from the dark sky fell, torn and tattered in half.
The priest raised two fingers.
"Two"
Cale's breathing turned ragged, but he managed to compose himself.
'There is still one more team left'
Despite that fact, Cale couldn't help but curse at the helplessness he felt at this very moment.
Everything counted on some brats guessing right.
No one would sit still and actually have faith in some brats.
[Ah! Too bad~ Kyle, you tried at least, right?]
Kyle, nodding away, returned briskly to his desk.
[Team 3, you are the last one to go~]
Another boy raised their hand, it was Regi. Another popular kid in Cale's class.
There was one distinct fact about him that his young self remembered clearly, Regi was dumb, really, really freakishly dumb.
[Take your time]
The teacher said, and Regi took it quite literally.
Cale needed to figure out something, and fast at that.
"Why can't you just kill me then?"
He asked the priest another probing question.
If they didn't want to resurrect him, what stopped them from just killing Cale the instant the trial started?
The priest stopped its erratic movements.
"Ah, that"
The priest glanced at the moon in the far distance.
"Olive Gardenia, that one man was the sole reason we had to make the trials fair and have them at least be beatable, no matter how unfair it may seem"
'Oh?'
The answer was satisfactory to Cale.
"I see then"
He glanced at his side, looking at anything that caught his eye, and a mold of a shadow kissed on his vision.
He traced the shadow to a street lamp.
Cale raised his arm to the fedora resting on his character.
"That must mean there is a chance for me to survive right?"
The priest nodded.
"Yes?"
The priest said, clearly not knowing what Cale tried to convey.
With a smirk. Cale began to hold trust in himself—No, he began to trust his younger self.
He knew better than anyone that when he paid attention, his mind would sharpen unbelievably and ridiculously.
"Then I will play this game of gambling, you sick zombie"
The fedora that rested on his head was tipped to the side, his arm, outstretched, couldn't move anymore than that.
Meanwhile.
On the whiteboard, Regi, the teacher and everyone in class looked at the sprite.
"Teacher, why is it moving?"
Regi asked.
"Ahaha, maybe an Idle animation?"
She only brushed it off with a chuckle however.
'How am I supposed to know!'
She also did not know. She only found the game and just thought it would be a fun little experience for the children.
The young Cale next to the whiteboard only focused his eyes onto the sprite and his outstretched hand.
He involuntarily traced its direction, to an ordinary street lamp.
"Well, I guess I will p—"
"The lamp"
With a curt tone, Cale bluntly cut Regi's guess off.
"Ugh, don't listen to him, just pick the clothes shop at the middle! It must be it!"
A girl from his team said, and multiple other kids on team 3 jumped to the bandwagon.
Regi was about to pick the clothes shop, hovering his finger over it and just about to tally to the teacher.
"It's the lamp"
But Cale's confident voice made him stop.
"How do you know?"
Regi asked, curious about the reason.
Cale creaked his head toward the classmate who he did not know much about till now.
His eyes missed the vitality they were supposed to have, yet they looked sharper than any knife he had seen.
The rapid tapping on the floor bellowed from him and him only.
His cracked lips opened and parted like a revolving bridge.
"I just do"
In hindsight, it was just a 'guess' to others.
There wasn't anything in this game that helped with guessing where the 'Master Key' truly was.
But Cale saw the bigger point, the sprite had only moved when there was one 'heart' left, deducing it was a 'tip', he traced the direction and landed on the high street lamp.
A simple deduction, but sometimes, something simple is all it takes to be right.
"Alright, whatever you say~"
'It doesn't really matter if he is wrong anyway'
Thinking this, Regi hovered his finger over the street lamp Cale pointed.
"I choose this!"
He told the teacher, the teacher looked at him with a stunned expression. Features twitched in the ridiculous guess.
"...?"
Regi didn't understand why she looked at him that way, but simply urged her to hurry.
The cursor hovered over the lamp and it pressed onto it.
──────────────────────────── ୨୧ ───────────────────────────────
꧁ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ꧂
✦「 You Found The Master Key! 」
➥ Incredible Spatial Awareness!
──────────────────────────── ୨୧ ───────────────────────────────
The game showed a tiny window, showing that they were correct.
Regi looked at Cale with a perplexed expression on his face, Cale only continued drumming his fingers over the porcelain surface of the desk.
*
*
*
"How?"
The world inside the small game tore itself apart.
Ridiculous or not, the trial had been passed.
They could not hold or trial Cale for longer.
They had to comply with the resurrection.
As the world fell apart, Cale fell through the cracks.
The priest looked at him with pure contempt.
"Curses"
Grinding his teeth for what felt like forever.
He finally came and accepted the outcome.
"You pass"
The words reverberated in the torn world, it reached Cale's ears as he closed his eyes.
Opening them again.
He saw that he was in an office.
Across him was an old lady, the principal of his primary school.
"...?"
Confusion filled him for a moment, but he took the situation with a grain of salt.
'Don't tell me I am still in the afterlife'
Hearing that he passed the final trial, he felt relief, but the inconsistency with the situation made him fuming steam.
"Cole Dice, I sincerely apologize for making you come all the way here, despite your busy schedule"
Cale looked at his right, a neatly dressed man met his vision, it was his father.
"No, it doesn't really take much from my schedule"
In a monotonous voice, he spoke.
"As for the reason you called me here...."
His words trailed off, motioning her to continue.
"Yes"
Clearing her throat, she spoke again.
"It is just that your child here has been causing problems around the school premises"
Cole narrowed his fishy eyes.
"Such as?"
She cleared her throat again.
"Well, for example, he has been abusing his seniority to beat up kids younger than him, while also trying to make it look like just a kid's squabble"
Cole's lips twitched and Cale felt his face redden.
'Please, stop talking'
He could barely hold himself back from bursting out in pure laughter.
The way she tried to paint him like he was a genius mastermind made him so and so embarrassed about the whole thing. The fact that she did not stutter even once made the situation more embarrassing.
'I remember this happening'
Hazily however, he remembered that after this alteration, his father switched him schools.
His young self couldn't remember much that was talked about.
As the principal kept going on and on about how evil and spoiled Cale was, albeit, in an indirect way.
Cale didn't really listen closely to that nonsense, they were false after all, he only focused on hearing words his father spouted.
But.
"I see"
"Yes"
"That is quite surprising"
Every answer that left his lips were half-assed.
Completely unbothered by the words the principal made so much of a drama about.
'Shouldn't he....at least give me the benefit of doubt?'
Feeling stupid for worrying what his father might say for a while, both him and his father eventually left.
The bells tolled for the finishing hour.
Leaving the gates, Cale occasionally looked at his father, and he looked at the spot of shade they were going at.
He was going to tell something to him, he didn't remember what since it had been just that long since this insignificant incident had occurred.
Reaching the spot with a shade, his father spoke, disregarding what Cale felt completely.
"That boy over there"
Motioning with his chin to a boy in the distance, Cale spotted him.
"That is the boy you hit right?"
Nodding, Cole looked at Cale.
"Good, go apologize to him"
Widening his eyes, Cale was going to protest to what his father had said, but stopped at the cold glare of his father.
"I won't tell your mother nor sister if you do apologize"
Casting his defeated gaze downwards, he trudged toward the boy.
"Hey"
He opened the conversation awkwardly.
"I'm sorry"
Cale's eyes didn't meet him at eye level, he couldn't look at his disgusting face any longer.
He just wanted this to be over with.
But the next move from the boy opened his eyes wide awake from the certain fatigue that he could just not spot where it originated from.
"Ah"
Instead of speaking another word, the boy that Cale had beat up instead shoved him away, pushing him onto the slope.
His skull was inches away from crashing into the concrete.
But it stopped, inches away from concrete.
A shadow cast itself onto his face.
It was his father, veins had popped onto his face, and his eyes were filled with motion.
"You damn brat!"
Raising his child's body to its original position. He walked with heavy steps toward the 'brat'
"My child sincerely apologizes for his mistake and you instead try to give him a concussion?!"
The scene unfolding before him created a crowd, the parents of the child that had pushed Cale came and tried to calm down Cole.
Cale knew better however, he knew that his father. Was merely pretending, but perhaps a part of the performance did hold emotion and true frustration.
Nonetheless, the parents left the scene before long after understanding the situation, with their child apologizing to Cale for pushing him off out of mere spite.
Cole tugged at Cale's shoulder.
"Let's go"
They left, leaving the crowd that dispersed just as quickly.
Cale looked at his father with curious eyes.
'What was the point of that?'
Lips parted with curiosity slipping down his tongue.
"Dad, what was the point of that?"
He asked, seemingly not understanding.
"The person you made me apologize to was someone who always made fun of me and beat others up"
So why make him apologize to someone like him? It was karma that he got beat up, he had it coming.
Cole looked at his child.
"Did you like it then? Beating him up I mean"
Cale's eyes sharpened immediately and the answer was swift.
"Yes I did"
Cole....smiled?
"Good"
"??????"
The word perplexed the clogged gears inside Cale's brain.
"But why did you stop?"
He asked yet another question, but this time, Cale couldn't answer immediately.
Was it because he wanted to let him get up and beat him up again?
Was it because the teachers saw and tried to separate them?
No, it was none of that.
There was just one special scene that made his heart fall with a thud.
"He cried"
That was it.
There wasn't any special reason like he had done enough or just plain old empathy.
It was the fact that the kid he beat up shed tears that made him stop throwing punches at the brat.
Cole's smirk grew and stitched across his cheeks.
"Good"
That was all he said the rest of the road that followed.
Cale had completely forgotten that he was still in the afterlife, he just kept—
CRACK!
Walking until something shattered in the distance, like glass and.
F
O
U
N
D
Y
O
U
Something utterly incomprehensible latched onto his soul with multiple hands crawling across. The letters "Found You" tickled down his ears and mind.
In an instant, Cale left the warm presence of his father and darkness consumed his surroundings.
The light returned, blinding.
His deep cerulean eyes winced to the side, where the light was weakest.
And to the side.
He saw a figure in tatters, a bloody mess was what she was.
Slowly, she raised her head.
At first, it was transparent, invisible to the world, but as if something clicked between them.
He could see her clearly, her short, dark-blue hair stretched to the shoulders, her cerulean eyes, just like his, glowed with a deep tint.
Sharp at once, but softer the moment she saw Cale open his eyes.
She fell down, unconscious, and another flash of light caressed his body, Cale blinked to avoid the burning light.
After a while, he opened them again.
He saw his faint reflection in the glass propping a mannequin to advertise.
Right at this moment, he had been resurrected.
And right at this moment, he was in front of a clothing shop, inside of a shopping mall.