a little too real

Two

Yup, you got them wrinkly ass lips.

Ares was in front of the mirror.

Today was Ares' day off.

This morning, she had a hefty breakfast of uthappams, saw her mum off and sat in front of her computer. She liked Brave very much.

As she was surfing through some YouTube videos, she came across a teaser for a new season of a show she had watched a few months ago. She'd rank this one as somewhere between her categories 2 and 3.

She had developed a system for the quality control of the world, all in her mind.

Number one - trash, simply couldn't, one would be surprised how many existed in this division

Second - passable, took a lot skipping forward

The third - better (could be), approx. 2 skips per 15 minutes.

And the golden tier - the best thing to have ever been created

Sadly there was only one book who could make it up this mountain. That was all in there.

That's how the entire day passed by, binging and ultimately finishing the new season.

To think she'd thought today would be any different.

In no time the moon had come up, and as it was approaching midnight, the power in Ares' neighborhood went out.

Forced out of her stupor engaged in another romance novel, she looked out her window into the darkness. It always drew her in.

She is not a paranormal creature.

She realized she forgot about the henna tattoo of the palm bones skeleton thing she had promised herself yesterday.

Her head hurt.

Not out of nowhere, she was bombarded with all the thoughts that couldn't cross her mind before. While she was busy scrolling mindlessly.

It wasn't just the kids on their phones that bothered her yesterday.

Someone else had scored better than her in the recent test they had.

In her previous grades, she didn't like studying, for marks that is. She mostly just understood the concept and that was it.

It didn't work like that here though.

It seemed that all that mattered now, was scoring some 250 on 300.

She tried using her tried and tested method, but it didn't work. Before the questions were subjective, now, objective. The difficulty level was also higher now.

She didn't think that would matter.

It clearly did though. She wasn't used to not being the topper, as bad as it sounded.

This was thoroughly messing with her.

Was the first instinct of hers to go Prime, yes. Did the muscle memory lead her to the shortcut, yes.

But she stopped herself.

She didn't like who she had become.

This was not what would lead her to the future she wanted.

She needed to fight against this.

But how?

She got a website blocker.

As soon as she did that, Ares realized that she didn't go watch something because she thought it was entertaining, it was because that kept her busy.

Busy and away from the nagging thoughts that tried to remind her of what she really should be doing. What she wanted to do.

Do something that interested her. Like learning about the stuff that intrigued.

Also, wherever had the pianist in her gone off to?

And the artist, and the baker? And the pizza maker??

Calling to action, she took out her calendar, she calculated the days she had for the next test, they usually had one once in two months.

She had 28 days.

She also had another test on the portions of both the recent tests in another 7 days.

She had to plan this smartly.

It isn't about the marks for you. You are doing this to prove to yourself that you are good enough. You very well can set a target and dedicate yourself to it. Let's show them yourself what you've got.

Now, how the hell did she plan on doing this?

It was pretty simple, actually.

1. Be reminded of your goal at all times of the day.

2. Countdown till the very last day.

She realized that the very well might be the fact that she solved questions daily because she had to, not in order to learn something from them.

3. Do not solve the exercises just because. Understand the questions, that's important.

4. Let's also need to bring those abs back. Sleeping at 2 is not doing you any good. Wake up by 6, exercise that gorgeous body and get on with the day.

5. Phone's doing no good to you. You don't need it. One hour limit a day is more than enough.

6. Need a study plan. So she did just that. Ignoring all the times she felt like procrastinating.

7. Early bedtime, with an excuse for today. Ares needs her sleep to be herself. The one with the IQ of a hundred.

And forty six.

She still isn't sure if she should believe the test.

Which she hasn't been since she became an 11th grader.

You've got this!

It was two in the morning when she finally went to bed.

Sweet Dreams.