“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Mooooom!” I woke up suddenly. I was sweating and breathing heavily. I tried moving my arms, but I couldn’t. I looked at my right arm. It is in a cast and elevated. The same with the left. I looked at my legs. It was the same. I tried getting up and suddenly a huge pain in my chest hit me. “UGH”. I groaned. I looked around for a bit. I could see white walls, a window opened with curtains that were being moved by the air. Those things and stuff like the smell of disinfectant made me understand I was in a hospital bed.

  The last thing I remember is Cruz beating me up, the cocky smiles of my once called friends and someone approaching me. I calmed down after analyzing everything that happened. I sigh. While I was lost in my thoughts. Someone appeared on the door.

  “It seems that you have woken up, kid”. A guy with a cap entered the room. I knew who he was, but I didn’t want to deal with him right now. I turned my head to the other side.

  “What do you want, geezer?” I said.

  “Uuuuh, that’s how you talk to the person who carried you to the hospital”. He replied.

  “Tch. T-thanks”. I muttered.

  “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you properly”. He said in a teasing tone while approaching me.

  I got pissed off and turned my face to him. “I SAID THANKS MON PARK, YOU OLD FUCKER!”. I shouted. “UGH”. I couldn't control myself and the pain came again.

  He looked at me for a moment and suddenly burst out laughing. “Hahahahahahaha. You haven’t changed a bit”.

  I calmed down a bit. He is Mon Park. The only teacher in the school that makes me stay in his class. He is also the person that saved me that august and the reason I haven’t didn’t kill myself. He has been taking care of me since then and is the person who taught that in life the most important thing is to be strong. I don’t know anything about him because he has never talked about his past. The thing is… the quantity of scars he has on his body tells me that he was no ordinary person. Especially the one that seemed to cover his whole body from the upper chest to the bottom of the abdomen.

  “So, what will you do now?” Says while crossing his arms.

  “I… haven’t thought of it for now”. I replied lowering my gaze.

  “Hmm. Wanna do a bet?” He says to me suddenly.

  I raise one of my eyebrows. “What is it about?” I ask.

  “After what happened at the gym, you could say that anyone will ever think of you again as someone scary, but as an object of mockery and insults. Am I right?”

  “Probably, yeah.”

  “And after all you still want something”. He looks at me with a serious face.

  I gulp. “W-what?”

  “Revenge”. He says. His cold gaze reminded me for a second to the one Cruz had during our fight and my father’s.

  I turn my face to the opposite while I click my tongue. “M-maybe. Why? What are you trying to say?”

  “I will give you one task”. He says. I look at him again with one of my eyebrows raised.

  “If you succeed in it, I will help you with your revenge”.

  “What could you possibly do to help me?” I ask him, starting to get pissed off.

  “I’ll tell you when you complete it. For now just focus on it.”

  “Tch. So, what is this task?”

  At first I thought it was going to be something hard or completely impossible. But what he said caught me completely off guard.

  “A-are you serious? Is that all I have to do?” I ask taken aback for what I just heard

  “What, do you think it's easy for you?. Remember, if you fail I will never help you and you will have to live like a shit for the rest of your life.”

  “Okay, I’m in. Don’t back out later.”

  He sighed and walked up to the door before stopping.

  “By the way, the task starts after you are discharged from the hospital. Before you ”. He said before leaving.

  A few minutes later, a doctor came into my room to explain the situation of my body. So, apparently this was the result of my fight. Well to be fair that couldn’t even be considered as a fight. Anyways, I had both arms bones broken. My legs are also broken. Seven ribs broken. My nose, also broken. My skull was also importantly damaged.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The doctor continued talking about more technical issues I couldn’t understand. In the end, Cruz did a lot of damage to my body. Even with all that, the doctor was incredibly amazed that I didn't have any organs damaged. He even checked it several times. He even said that a normal body that endured all that would have died with no doubt. I didn’t understand what happened to my body, but apparently it may be special somehow. I thought.

  After that I stayed alone in that hospital room. Of course, no one else came to see me except for the doctor regularly to see how I was and the other workers that had to do something in my room. What could I have expected? That’s exactly how my life is and I don’t hate it. Being alone, relaxed, immersed in my own thinking is not bad. It's the only thing that will never leave me. That will never hurt me.

  With that, 3 weeks passed by. The doctor came to see her many other times. He told me that all my bones were completely healed. He couldn’t believe it. A normal person's recovery would have lasted several months. He said that I should stay another week to do rehabilitation. I accepted, I didn’t have anything to do anyways until I was completely healed.

  One week later I got discharged. I got out of the hospital. I was just in front of the door breathing the fresh air, when I suddenly got a message from Mon Park.

  “The task starts now. Good luck”. Said the message

  I sighed. I raise my gaze to the clouds and I smile. I looked at my clock. 10:15.

  I walked to school. It wasn’t that far, just like 20 minutes walking. During my way to school I kept thinking that the task was too easy. That it may have some trick.

  I arrived at school and stared at the front doors. I had a feeling. That couldn’t be described. I don’t know if it was anger, nervousness or fear. I shook my head and I entered the school.

  In front of me is the main hallway. In it, people. Before everything that happened they would avoid even my gaze. Now, while I walked I could feel their gaze sharp as a knife in the back of my head. I ignored it and just walked through it. I could still hear people muttering behind me. I even ignored that. Then, I arrived at my class. Inside of it, people whose faces I remember. I entered the class. Every person in that class turned to look at me. I could instantly recognize Ethan, Ryan and Chris. All of them stared at me for a moment and then started laughing while covering their mouths. I was getting pissed off, but I chose to just sit and ignore it. They stopped laughing and turned their gaze to the lesson.

  After the class I stayed in my seat waiting for the next teacher to arrive. The whole trio came to my desk. They stared at me without saying anything.

  “You are not gonna say anything, you bastard!” Said Ryan before slapping my cheek.

  I got up in a fast motion and hit the desk. They took a step back. I was pissed. I thought for a second. I clicked my tongue and got out of there with my hands in my pockets. Behind me I could hear them talking.

  “What is wrong with him? It would have been normal to beat the shit out of someone who hit him”. Said Ryan.

  “He understands what his position is now. He probably thinks that I can call Cruz anytime”. Said Ethan.

  Crish just stared at me without saying anything. I got out of there and just walked to the bathroom.

  At the hospital when I was with Mon Park…

  “The task is going to be that you have to attend every class and not skip any for one and a half months.” He said

  “Just that. It's a bit bothersome but its not difficult” i replied

  “I haven’t finished. During that time you can’t hit or harm anyone. That includes insults, punches and every other method of harming physically or psychologically”.

  Going back to the present…

  I got back from the bathroom to the class. On the door I encountered Ethan. I just walked trying to enter the class, but he blocked my path.

  I tried talking to him in the most normal way without letting him feel my anger. “Do you need something?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise to my question.

  “Meet us three behind school after class. Make sure to come. Or, are you scared?”

  I frown the hardest ever, but put a smile on my face. “Okay, I will be there”.

  The rest of the class, I kept thinking on what they could be wanting from me. I couldn’t really come up with anything.

  The classes ended and as Ethan said, I met them behind the school. It is a place I actually attached to. I used to spend a lot of time beating people or just avoiding the lessons.

  “You know this place really well, right Mark?” Said Ryan.

  “Why did you want to meet with me?” I ask. Trying to get over this as fast as I could.

  Suddenly Ryan slapped me. I clenched my hand into a fist, but fastly I let air out and calmed down, relaxing my hand.

  “Anything else?”. I said

  “I told you Ethan, this guy is scared. He won’t even hit back!”. Said Ryan looking at Ethan.

  After that Ethan punched me in the abdomen. It didn’t hurt, he wasn’t someone who could hurt me. After Ethan punched and looked at his fist smiled and punched me again, but this time in my face. Ryan joined him and started punching my stomach. I tried covering myself, but then I remembered my task. With that on my mind I stopped covering myself.

  After 5 minutes they both got tired. I was bleeding from my nose, but nothing else important apart from pain. At that moment, Chris, who had been silent the whole time, came upfront and prepared to throw a punch. I got a flashback from the gym and my instinct started screaming to cover myself. Instead of that, I decided to do something I would have never done in my life. Run from them. The whole trio looked at me surprised at what just happened. They started laughing so hard their laughs could be heard from any point of the school.

  Those laughs made me remember how kids laughed at me when I was little every time I got beat for stealing in the market. I shook my head and just ran home without looking back. I entered and closed the door fastly. While I was recovering my breath I saw behind the front door a letter. It was from Mon.

  “I had to go for a ‘business trip’ with some old friends. I will come back when the time for the task is over. For that time, I have left in the kitchen what you have to eat everyday. I have left some money too. Don’t use anything, because there is no more than that”.

  With love.

  Mon Park