Saving Grace- And the Pedagogy of Survival

Unparalled

Prologue

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No matter where I go, all I can see is darkness. It was a pure, intoxicating shadow. Even the distant stars are unparalleled by the obscene and obsidian hue that separates the good from evil.

No imagination can save me from my despair, nor can my reality. But there was still a way to change it.

There must be.

"Roxanne, can you hear me!"

A distant and familiar voice reverberates through my ear, calling out my name, time after time. However, I cannot seem to notice where the origin of the sound is coming from, despite searching far and wide to this space.

Exasperated, I averted my gaze over to my side, hoping that, somehow, to notice something from far away. And there it was. A figure of some sort greets me with dignity and confidence. Woefully, I cannot recall the identity of the person calling my attention.

"Who are you?" I shouted at the top of my lungs. I can feel my chest getting tighter at every breath I inhale, as if there was something wrong inside my alveolars.

In the blink of an eye, the apparition I saw disappears without a trace. It left nothing behind, which made me frozen and still.

After a few seconds, its image reappears multiple times around me, as if haunting me with its terrifying silhouette. Eventually, its movements stop and vanish utterly once more, this time turning into specs of dirt before me.

Confused, I stepped back, creating a fair amount of distance from the trail of dust that had followed me here inside this realm.

"Stay back!" I panicked. "Don't come any closer..."

But it was hitherto too late as I witnessed my body become nothing but the same ashes that consumed me moments ago. My feet felt numb, followed by my hands, and continued to rise upwards to my face.

"Ah, I remember you now." My consciousness was undeviatingly fading away, and I knew for sure that this was the end of my trials and becoming.

"His name was Nicolas."

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CHAPTER 1- Unparalleled

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The ringing of bells chimes against my ears. It was an unpleasant sound if you'd ask me, but my opinion does not matter in this school.

I turned my head around and saw the clock vibrating on the wall, showing that school had already dismissed us, students, early.

"Tomorrow, for your next lesson, be sure to study everything written in chapter two of your book. Especially you, Roxanne."

My professor's eyes focused on my still figure, with the rest of the class following her gaze.

All of a sudden, a burst of laughter can be heard and noticed inside the room. And the centre of this chuckling was at my blunder during class. The rest, I do not know what had happened.

"Serves her right."

"I can't believe she did that."

"Poor little girl."

A mixture of emotions sprawled inside my head as I evermore listen to their reactions and comments about me. But the saddest part has yet to come by. I stood on my seat and instructed to pay a visit to the professor's lounge and wait for her for the remaining time.