The Core Within Us: Truth (Tragic Love Story) - Joseph Kingston

PRELUDE

THERE IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT Rikers Academy today. I can feel it. Something is coming. Something is about to kick me out of the darkness. I don't know why but it's getting on my nerves now. Am I hallucinating?

   The clock is ticking. I've never heard it so loud before, and this feeling is still inside me. I think I'm one of the few people who have a sixth sense. There are voices whispering in my head. A dark future is standing before me. It's like an empty glass bottle that's shattered into smaller fragments, and somehow I can't quite piece 'em together.

   My eyes slowly open to look at the clock hanging on a green wall. Time is not waiting for me. I've never been in a rush like this before. The questions I have to answer are getting harder and harder as the time goes.

   Shit, I fell asleep again. Just realized I am sitting an exam at the moment. Time has been wasted. The room is so quiet I had to take a power nap. The tension between all the candidates and the supervisor is still here, growing stronger. You can imagine the tension between Frost supporters and Omenma supporters was the same as that during the third presidential debate, which was held at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. This is definitely because the exam is such a pain in the ass. I tell you what, every question in it is like a maze, and many of us, who stayed up very late last night to prepare for the exam, ain't got the right map in our heads. So now we're all friggin' stuck, not knowing how to reach our destination. Therefore, the only way to solve this problem is to cheat. But damn, it is totally impossible to do that because this old lady who always calls herself "the best supervisor in the world" is strict and annoying as hell. She is clever, cunning and fast like a cat that would never get fooled by anyone. About an hour ago, there was this dude who dared to turn around and ask my friend, Jonah, who sat in the back of the room about the first question. The cat caught him and scratched his pretty eyes out before he got the answer. Poor guy.

   Ya know, it's frustrating when you have studied and done a lot of research on one topic, but the exam you take is a completely different bullshit and not related to your topic at all. However, some people like Jonah are so intelligent that they know almost everything and are able to answer all kinds of questions. I admire their knowledge, as much as I admire Google. I bet Jonah and those nerds really enjoy the exam right now. I mean, it's bio – one of his favorite subjects, and he's obviously good at it. A person who is so determined and has always dreamed of becoming a doctor isn't gonna surprise me if he gets an A plus this time. Jonah is better than me and I envy him. I chose to do bio instead of chem because I wanted to impress him and to be with him everyday. Can't believe I made such a big mistake, but I'm glad that he has fun. He wanted me to be with him, too.

   The cat has gone missing. I don't see its shadow anymore. It must have gone outside to talk with another cat about politics. Pfft, pussycat. I am in a very uncomfortable situation at the moment 'cause I only got ten minutes left to finish my exam. I can hear heartbeat in my ears. Music from my favorite movie series, Mission Impossible is playing inside my mind – seriously, there's a crazy war going on in here. These last questions literally crush my heart and blow my head off because they're difficult as fuck. I can't quite comprehend. I don't have the right map for this labyrinth. Oh, who cares? I'm just happy to know that I've done the rest of the exam quite well. So I guess I don't have to bother answering all of these last questions. All I wanna do now is take another power nap or get some answers from Jonah like that dude did, though that might be dangerous to do so.

   The room is windowless and is as big as a hall that could be filled with a hundred of students. There is a layer of a mysterious gas in here that could choke you to death at anytime. I have no idea why the atmosphere seems so odd like this. Everyone is absolutely stressed out because of the exam and because of their duty to serve America and make up what the country lost during the Second Civil War when they're older. And yet at the same time, they're all excited about something. I think I've been in this room before, though I'm not sure when or why. The four walls surrounding me and Jonah used to have the color blue – which is my favorite color – but for some reason, it made the atmosphere so stiffy that I could hardly breathe. Fortunately, some fuckboys who often came here to flirt with girls drew some shitty, cocky graffiti on the walls, and I remember reading one of 'em CUT OFF ALL FRUITY ABERRANTS' BALLS, PRESIDENT FROST! The school was forced to pay a lot of money to get 'em painted and hide those filthy graffiti away. So currently, the color of these walls is green, and people tend to call it "the color of life."