The Illusions of Change (Gustholomule)

5: Sick Days

1147 words

!(TW: Bullying, physical harm, telling someone to off themselves)!

(A/N: This chapter is longer than the others, being 1,132 words)

~Matt POV:

It had been a few weeks since our incident with Boshca and things hadn't gotten better. She continued to harass me in the hallways. Luckily, I didn't have any classes with her, and I walked to school and back with Gus most of the time and sat with him and his friends at lunch. The human, Luz, and Amity had finally warmed up to me which was... good to say the least. It was more protection from Boshca, and because the human took all the tracks, I got to hangout with her in construction sometimes. Luz doesn't really understand the concept of personal space, but I've told her before that I don't really like being touched all that much, and she tries to be better about not touching me without permission.

Today was different though. I woke up to a message on my phone, and it was from Gus. Excited, I opened it and it read:

<Sorry, I won't be at school today. I'm sick. Could you maybe bring me my homework? Thank you. Have a good day <3>

My heart sank. If Gus wasn't at school, then there would be more chances for Boshca to pick on me. I was getting good at illusions, but I wasn't as good as Gus. I couldn't change my appearance or anything. I guess I'll just have to prepare for the worst. Feeling drained and tired already, I dragged myself through my morning routine and headed off to school, alone. I walked up to the steps of the school building and waited for the doors to open. I had a little extra time because I wasn't picking up Gus today.

I watched from the bottom steps as the first students arrived and stood around, talking to friends, on their scrolls, or quickly rushing through the homework assignment they forgot. I gave a little smile at that. Thanks to Gus, I never had to worry much about forgetting my homework, because we hung out after school most of the time, and Gus always got his done, which reminded me to do mine too.

After a little while the doors open to let students go to their first class. I decided to go in and wait in my classroom, because although Gus' friends were nice, I was pretty awkward. I walk into the building and go directly to my construction class. I could've used my locker, but I didn't really trust them that much, and I didn't really have too much to carry around, so it wasn't a big deal.

The day went by smoothly, which was... odd to say the least. I never saw Boshca. Not in the halls, not at lunch, not at all! I sat with the friend group during lunch, but they didn't really talk about anything I found interesting. Just the latest news on the flyer derby club and Luz talking about her classes. I started to text Gus about the news on Flyer Derby, but stopped and palmed my face. I was so stupid. Gus was IN the Flyer Derby club. He didn't need me to text him about it. Instead, I sent him this:

<Congrats on Flyer Derby! Are you feeling any better?>

<Thanks! Not really😅> he sent.

I feel bad for him, and a little worried, but I push that to the side. I have illusions after lunch, so I make my way down to the homeroom a little early, set down my stuff, and walk up to the teacher.

"Um... Gus is gone today... and I was wondering, well, he was wondering- I was going to take some notes for- Is there homework I need to bring him?" I finally spit out.

"Oh," the teacher replies, "Thank you for telling me Matt. I'll have something for him by the end of class, if you could come see me then."

"Okay..." I reply and awkwardly walk back to my seat and sit.

An awkward silence filled the room. Well, maybe it wasn't awkward for the teacher, but it was for my. After all, no one else had come into the room yet. I felt like I should talk to her, but I wasn't really great at striking up a conversation, especially with adults, and I didn't want to interrupt whatever she was doing either, so I kept my mouth shut.

What felt like an eternity later, but probably was only 5 minutes later, kids started trickling in. While I waited, I tried to do a few illusion spells Gus had taught me. For the most part, I could make any simple object with clarity, but I couldn't make any opaque, moving, or masking illusions. Currently in class we are working on how to make more detailed objects. At least, that was what I was working on. The class was split up into a few groups based on experience, and we all tried to help each other. The teacher comes around to each of our groups to help us, and sometimes more experienced illusionists would come help us if the teacher was too busy.

All the kids in my group were pretty nice, because we were all learning and failing at most of the same things, so there wasn't really anyone to belittle us for failing at something 'easy'. It was a nice break from some of the more competitive spirits in the construction track. I was one of the best in my class, so when I failed people laughed. It wasn't very fun to say the least. There was one person though, in construction, who was really sweet. She had a softer personality and was really nice, so I liked to hangout with her in class. She wasn't quite as good as most of the other students, but we had fun together. Her name was Icara.

She was nice to hangout with in class, but we didn't really see each other outside of class. She was at her dad's house over the weekend, and that wasn't very close to Bonesburrow. Also, after school she was with her partner, Sage, most of the time. Icara had shown me a few pictures of them. Sage went to St Epiderm, so I hadn't seen them before, but Icara and Sage were a pretty cute couple, I couldn't lie about that.

After illusions was over, I grabbed Gus' homework from the teacher and started to head home, and that was when it happened. Once I had gotten a little bit away from the school, I felt a hand grip my shoulder, OW!, and then push me to the ground. From my prone position I swiveled my head to see Boshca. She stamped her foot hard onto my back, knocking the wind out of me, and I tried to gasp for air. She kicked my side, then my head. I started to black out, and the last thing I heard was,

"Go kill yourself, you're just a waste of space."

Then everything when black.