Not Guilt

Tranquility

"Quite gruesome?" remarked the girl standing beside me. Her blue eyes scanned the entirety of the painting in the front. The continous scribbles of green markers stating the obvious pain and guilt of its creator. The gold background overpowering the green. It was as if a lifechanging philosiphical declaration was being made. The heaven's last warning. The brightness of good being stained by the oddness of human nature. A simple expression. A flaw. That was what it was. Human.

"Yes, but it has this odd appeal to it, you know? It is oddly relatable." I remarked. I couldn't help but smile at the name of the piece. 'Not Guilt'. It suited it so well. I changed the whole perspective. Yet it remained original and unchanged. As if denying a natural law. It was still and ageless. Like a ghost. Like me. 

"I don't think I like the idea of you finding a genocide criminal's painting relatable." She sighed. 

"I drew it, obviously I like it." I reminded her.

"What will it take for you to revive me?" She looked at me, her face showed she expected the inevitable question. 

"First, tell me your story and I will sentence you to your fate." She smiled.

God complex. That was what it was. But I didn't feel like pointing that out. I sat down on the bench, beside her. And I dived back into the abyss. Into the past.

It was chill that day. I remember running towards after I caught a glimpse of that familiar red jacket. I skipped through the crowd. I called out her name from a distance but my voice muddled with the noise in the background fell deaf on her ears. I strided and finally got a hold of her. I breathed hard trying to catch my breath. 

"Leave!" I comanded.

"Dude, I know you are scared of injections but I am not. And I already got the shot." she replied, gravely offended by my way of speaking.

"Listen I don't feel right. You don't get it there is something seriously wrong here." I pleaded.

She fell silent but she obliged when she noticed how serious I was. We both reached the ground and grabbed our bicycles. And we left.

"You know, usually I would've ignored you but I also have this odd gut feeling. If it wasn't for the threat that we will not be allowed to sit and give the exams I would have bailed early on. But still they made quite a big deal out of that vaccine programme. And I have this really bad headache and its only been five minutes since we took the medicine." Mel stated the obvious.

Mel, was my only friend. We were in the same school year but never actually ever taked to eachother because while Mel always hung out with the popular and smart kids. I hung out with the troublemakers. That had made her keep her distance from me while I just aspired to be her friend from a distance. Our big break came when we were forced to participate together in the teachers club. Which resulted us in having lunch together for five years and becoming best friends. The intend of the club was simple. The seniors look after the juniors so the teachers can rest. 

Mel was right. There was something out of the ordinary about the vaccine. But I was not on edge because of some headache or stomache. No, that would have never caught me off guard. It was the peace. The stillness. The tranquility. I had always hated noise. Hated people. I only got along with Mel because be both had the same dislikes and respected eachother's decisions. But for the first time in my life, after I got that vaccine it felt as if the whole world had come to a stop. It felt as if the time itself stopped. The quiet was wonderful. I felt as if I was high.

That is when it hit me. That was not normal. Maybe they were giving us drugs. I had lost Mel in my contemplation. And I hurried off to find her, stop her, warn her. But I was too late. What made me more anxious was that she was suffering different side effects. Was I the only one drugged?

A dreadful anxiety washed over me. I just had this feeling that we should get out of there and luckily we did. After parting ways with Mel I stopped by a cyber cafe. It was time to dig deeper.

I sighed as I reached for the handle. Suddenly my vsion blurred and I felt my head hit something hard.

I would say that was the start. But no. We still had a choice back then. We were still alive. Breathing and human. 

I failed my trial. The next quest was for Mel.