Alex entered his school at the last minute, right before the bell for the first period went off, but he didn't attend class. Instead, he went to an empty class and crashed into a chair.
'He is dead but how? I was the one who was stabbed, so how did I survive, and he ended up dead? I must have run away and someone else killed him.' Alex didn't want to believe that he had claimed a human life.
His eyes looked around the empty classroom that was starting to feel small, and he pulled on the seam of his clothes to create a gap because he couldn't breathe.
He fell to his knees and started gasping for air. No matter how much he tried to breathe, it felt like there was some kind of block in the air.
His eyes burned with tears as the world blurred and spun on itself. At this point, any and all reasoning he had flew out the window.
The class door opened, and someone entered, but Alex couldn't even look at them, even if he tried.
"Song, what the hell is wrong with you? Wait, oh shit!" The voice became edgy and he felt someone pushing two arms under him to lift him off the floor. His savior lifted him with a bit of ease and started walking.
Black spots filled Alex's vision, "I… can't… breathe." He rasped before losing consciousness.
Images flashed of his hand wrapped around Skinny's throat, squeezing. It changed to him popping his shoulders out of the sockets. Then finally, it showed him crushing Skinny's skull underneath his foot.
Alex sat up, gasping for air, tears falling as he forced back a sob. 'I killed someone.'
'I can't get arrested. I can't. The deed is done so I can only hide for now… but his blood is on my hands.' Alex couldn't look at his hands without imagining blood painting them crimson.
The guilt was a physical nausea, churning in his gut. He saw Skinny's face not as the snarling thief, but as a man whose life was just… gone. Extinguished. And he was the one who had snuffed it out.
A desperate, pathetic thought clawed at him: 'I could turn myself in. Just walk into a police station and confess.' The image was almost comforting in its simplicity—a clear end to the suffocating secret.
But then what? A cell. A trial. His father, already broken, shattered completely.
The brief, flickering chance at a future he'd just gained, gone forever or worse, he'd be killed because of the beast art.
The system wouldn't care that he was defending himself, they probably won't even believe him because he had no money.
They'd just see a dead body and a killer. His life would be traded for a moment of cosmic injustice, a balance that felt hollow and pointless.
He was trapped. Confession was suicide. The only way out was through. He couldn't wash it away, so he had no choice but to move forward and pray the stain didn't spread to everything else he would ever become.
A jolt of awareness shot through him and he looked up and around and saw himself in a white room with medical equipment and the sterile smell of disinfectants.
"Isn't this the nurse's office? How'd I end up here?" Alex tried to distract himself from the recurring thought of his murder.
A cold breeze made him shiver and alerted him to his shirtlessness.
The door handle turned and the school nurse walked in with a concerned frown on her face.
"Mr Song, how are you feeling?" Alex forced out a smile to reassure her, "I'm a lot better now but what exactly happened?"
She looked at him with suspicion before answering him.
"You had a panic attack, and a severe one. You're lucky the student who found you brought you here so quickly." Her voice was soft.
'I don't have any friends so who is she talking about?' But Alex only smiled.
After a few more examinations, Alex was free to go. She gave him a new shirt, they had had to tear his old one just to give him some air as soon as possible.
It was around lunch break, so Alex went straight to the cafeteria. The moment he opened the doors, all eyes fell on him but he refused to shrink under their curious gazes.
He was sure they were all wondering why he was only just, according to their perspective, entering the school.
"What? Take a picture, it'll last longer." He scoffed and people went back to minding their business.
Alex sat in his usual seat but he hadn't even sat down when he felt someone gaze trying to bore a hole through his head.
His head snapped up and met Tony's heated gaze, "What man? Are you interested? Sorry, but I don't swing that way." Alex yelled so everyone would hear him.
Tony's eyes widened, and he immediately started denying the allegations, but Alex didn't pay him mind. Instead, his mind kept drifting to the memory of those images he had seen.
'I did kill him but panicking will do nothing but get me caught and ruin my life. That detective seems to already suspect me and while my initial fear and uncertainty can be brushed off as initial trauma at the gruesome scene, further panic would only raise eyebrows.'
'What I need to do now is get rid of those clothes and pack for the exchange program. At least that is still going for me.'
A new wave of pain pulsed rhythmically in his abdomen, 'My core!' He closed his focused on the reassembled core. It was exactly the same; perfectly spherical, smooth, and black with the occasional flare of energy.
'Now, I can continue with the practice of the Beast Art. I already killed for it, so I might as well use it.'
Alex stared into the middle distance, his gaze hardening. "Today," he whispered to himself, "will determine my future. Or the lack of it."