What have I done?

Chapter 5: The Bullied becomes the Bullier

"NO! No...No...This can't be....can it?"

"Oh god...no..."

A few years later, after the 'incidents' in the shop (that still continued, even then), Darius was much older, about 11 years old, I would imagine, in Year 6. He was nearing the end of his Primary School days and everyone was getting all teary and emotional over it. 'Oh, boohoo, I'm never going to see you again. It's such a tragedy.' But Darius was glad to be going. Because, while everyone else was going to St. Savelli High School, supposedly the best high school in the city, the 'cool' one, Darius was going somewhere much more obscure and unknown. So obscure, in fact, that even I don't know it's name. But Darius was going there, mostly by the decision of his mother, but he totally agreed. Not that it made a difference.

Anyway, she thought St. Savelli was 'dirty', which is to say that she thought it was kind of infected, and that Darius would pick up bad things from there, even though in her opinion he already had. So she was sending him elsewhere and Darius loved that, because that meant no more. No more from the bullies. Better yet, Kevin had persuaded his parents to let him go there too, so Kevin could continue to teach him. Of course, Darius already knew plenty, but there's always more to be learned, and Kevin agreed with that statement.

But then something changed everything. Why Darius did it, I do not know. Everything could have been perfect and he would have escaped them anyway, but he had to go do it and miss out on a fantastic opportunity.

Only days before their last day, he was approached in a most likely organised event by a large majority of his main bullies. And they were ready. Ready for it. Supposedly, they were going to give him 'the big one'. The beating of the century. Even with Darius' new found knowledge in English, he was still terribly afraid, and he had a right to be. But there was no reason for him to do it what happened next. In any other situation, it might have been good, but not now. Not when the time was so close. So near. Oh so near.

He fought back. He stood up against the bullies. And you may think that's good. But it's not. Especially the way he did it. It was terrible. So terrible. I suppose he only had his mother to blame, but I would of thought that with his sudden surge of intelligence, he would of known to better than to let her control him.

But when I said he fought back, I meant it literally. He literally did fight back. Despite his short size, he suddenly found some new, unforeseen strength hidden somewhere in his body, and he pushed them to the ground, and did to them what they had done to him. And packed all into one. The beating of the century. Then, all of a sudden, he was the bully. And he was punching them. And he was calling them names. The teachers did nothing, as expected. And all of a sudden, everyone was afraid of him. Every bully, and every non-bully. The injuries on those bullies were terrible. They really were sent to hospital. They certainly weren't as bad as everyone thought, but they were still bad. Very bad.

And that was that. It had happened. The bullied had become the bullier. If that makes sense. And I thought I was better than Darius, even with all he knew. That was very naive of me to think that.

And I really mean he had become the bullier. He could have just stopped there. The bullies would have been too afraid to bully him again, because they knew the power he had, but he just kept going with it anyway, even with non-bullies. That was the worst part. He really had become a real bully and that was terrible. Very, very terrible.

In fact, maybe that wasn't the worst part. Maybe the suffering of a whole schools worth of innocent children wasn't the worst part. Maybe the worst part was Kevin. Kevin wouldn't take it, and rightfully so. If I had been him, I would of done the same. Because after that, Kevin was suddenly no longer his best buddy. He totally ignored Darius. Darius would go up to him, give him a friendly greeting and try to make friends, but Kevin wouldn't have it. He didn't even show up at the shack anymore. And before Darius had a chance to take his revenge by beating up another innocent child - namely Kevin - the last day came and went, and Darius barely noticed.

Now Darius truly haden't a friend in the world. He couldn't be friends with the nerds because they were afraid of him. He couldn't be friends with the bullies because they were afraid of him. He couldn't even have maybe a sidekick bully, because everyone was scared of him. No one dared go near him. And when he arrived in high school, Kevin wasn't there. In fact, it almost seemed as if there was no one there. No one went near him. Anyone who greeted him on the first day got a big punch in the face. You might be thinking, wouldn't Darius maybe reconsider these actions, and make some friends? Well, Darius had thought of that, and then he remembered the bullies who bullied him in Primary School; how he loathed them and dreaded them - shouldn't other people see what it's like? Experience what it's like to be bullied? If he had to be bullied, why couldn't they? That's not my train of thought, by the way, not in a million years. That's Darius. That's how Darius thought the world should work. But that wasn't it at all.

Perhaps the worst part about all this (and perhaps not - there are so many absolutely horrendous things that happened that they could all be the worst) was that the previous happy, friendly, bully-free school he had gone to was suddenly a terrible, miserable, mean school, chock full of bullies everywhere you looked. And nowhere was safe. Especially when you were around Darius. Not even the bullies went near Darius. That's how bad it was. I suppose it's at least pretty good that Darius got good grades. At least he did some good. Thank goodness for Kevin.

I suppose it's not all bad. Well, it wasn't all bad. The world of today is much better than the world of yesterday. And that's nice. That's really nice. I suppose you would need some time to learn your mistakes and fix them, and make up for them. But it's so sad that it took 28 years for that to happen. And you know what's the worst part about that?

It's still not perfect, not even now.

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Author's Notes: Apologies for the lack of updates. Been very busy recently, but you should see updates coming a lot faster now, so you won't have to wait in suspense for as long as you previously did. And, of course, as usual, feedback, good or bad, is appreciated. And constructive criticism is especially appreciated.