When walls don't explode, they hold pictures.
But his mind felt too blurry to think about that.
Only that...
Pictures disclose a thousand words. And when he held his breath, he found...
A thousand more.
The scene before him was like a painting. A dimly lit foreground. A messy, disoriented background. It was funny, in a way. His mind begged him to persist like the bristles of weeds he had seen before. But every stroke of rain washed the color seeping out of him.
Now that it was unearthed, he felt the feeling rearing its head with colors flaring around him. Keeping his vision still, he picked up the brush. With the ugliest shades branded onto his eyes, he finished the piece. The hues within his veins mixed with the puddles of paint and he heard a sound far away from the darkness.
GONG!
The sound of a gong... And like a remote pressing the channel away, his view changed.
Everything morphed and he was now away from the canvas. At once, a spotlight shone upon him from above, and his eyes winced.
Using his hand to hide from the suffocating brightness, he looked up and saw a figure.
Draped in white cloth and inscribed with golden patterns, its black limbs were covered by glowing tattoos. With an ancient air radiating different prospects, the manifestation didn't possess a humanoid face. Instead, where a face should have been, he found a bell.
'I am your greatest threat,' the bell figure warned. 'Ignore me, and you shall face great misfortune in your future. For I am the Waker, the harbinger of inevitability and consequence: a warning for DILATORINESS. I have arrived to fulfill my task of waking you up.'
'Huh?' Steven quivered and blinked his eyes open to see the bright classroom. Most of the class had already scrambled away. He smacked his face, as he pulled himself up.
"Ugh," Steven muttered. "What happened while I was asleep?"
Zero told him nothing much, just that the janitor had to come to fix the walls, but then class resumed session.
Steven glanced at the time. They were going to be late. What did 'dilatoriness' mean anyway?
"I was gonna wake you up," Zero continued. "We were waiting."
He pointed to Mayo.
"It's fine." Steven answered. "It's the first day. Teachers don't mark you late on the first day."
Zero seemed like he wanted to say something but didn't.
Dieze did though, gently reminding Steven with a digital pop-up: "You're dumb."
Steven ignored it, heading out.
Once again, the group made their journey across the hall. This time, Steven crouched, narrowly avoiding a girl leaping past him. The late bell rang as they stepped in.
In front of the class, an attractive blonde lady stood casually, arms under her assets. She waved her hand in poised elegance, looked at the class, and introduced herself.
"Hello, class. My name is Jessica Simpel deVitch, Call me Jessica! I shall be teaching you simplified English." She paused for a second, "Oh, excuse me! American English, not that there's much of a difference."
Ms. DeVitch held flashy, gorgeous jewelry that came off as tacky, and played with them one by one.
"So Ms. DeVitch-" Call called out.
"Excuse me?" Ms. DeVitch interrupted. "Do I look old to you?", her golden hair bouncing away from her face.
"You're Not...
Expecting...
Someone to say no, right?"
(Call said something along those lines).
Ms. DeVitch exclaimed in displeasure, as she looked at the class, "Aaaaah unbelievable! How dare y'all! Imma be shocked to be teaching ya... ya b-bunch of rascals!"
Naturally, not all Americans were cowboys, despite Jessica's quick switch to the language. Historically, most Americans were grass-fed cows.
Ms. DeVich proceeded to rant:
'Oh, teenagers.' As she gritted her teeth, she crushed the ruler in her hand into fine bits of powder. Teenagers, so disrespectful these days! She opened her hand, and the granulated "ruler" bits fell out. Besides, even if she was more than a hundred years old now, she was "forever 21" in her heart!
Ignoring her, Steven focused on reviewing basic grammar skills. He took out a little blue book of grammar and punctuation, which he had brought from home.
Item: Blue Book of Grammar [D grade]
[Description: A nice book. A couple decades old. Contains words that can be read.]
And it was so soft and comfortable... for his head.
Muted snores drizzled out.
"..." Zero and Mayo looked at him, and then back at the teacher... whose eyebrows furrowed, oblivious.
On the side, a student prepared to jump out of the window.
"Sweetie, excuse me, where are you going?" Ms. Devitch smiled at the handsome lad.
"Sorry Ms. Devitch, I have an event to attend to?" The boy replied, squatting on the ledge. "I'm an idol trainee... Special exceptions."
"Isn't my class the most important," Ms. Devitch struck a pose.
The boy looked at her, and jumped out of the window.
Ms. DeVitch's now exploded into screams about how annoyed she was at them. Students should know not to disrespect their elders. Elders! She came from a prestigious family of Simpel deVitch's. DeVitch's! They should grovel under her feet. Feet! She smiled, knowing at any second now, they would apologize for their misconduct. After all, she was Jessica Simpel deVitch!
Her face beamed with pride.
For a while it seemed like the storm was over...
Zero laughed apprehensively-
-But then, it started again:
"I have never seen such atrocious behavior in my class!" Ms. DeVitch batted her eyelashes in disgust.
The girls looked at her, then continued to read their books.
"Why are you not paying attention to me?"
"#FAE7B9." The pink-haired girl said, which earned her a "what?" from Jessica.
"Your teeth." The girl explained.
Ms. DeVitch looked up at the shade, before hissing and pulling out teeth whitening strips.
With an angry look in her eyes, she "hmph!"-ed before sashaying away. Gathering herself, their wonderful teacher turned her attention back to the class, jumping around and berating one student after another. Her energy seemed boundless, her tirades inexhaustible!
But just when everyone thought it would finally end, Ms. DeVitch found herself another target:
"Why are you sleeping in my class?"
Snore.
"How dare you talk back to me!"
Snore.
"That's it! Your class is so disrespectful. You can thank this boy for what I'm about to do. MINUS 50 POINTS!"
The class groaned and glared at Steven. Zero nudged the sleeping boy, whose eyes fluttered open.
Since, it was almost lunchtime.
"What?" Steven shot up and ran out of class.
Zero blinked. The bell hadn't rung yet.
"MINUS 20 POINTS!"
YOU ARE READING
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