Beginning of The End

He felt like he was in the darkness for years. Time went on at a painful, staring-at-the-clock-until-algebra-class-was-over pace. It was like arriving at school by 6:25 AM and realizing that you had to sit there for 8 more whole ass-fucking hours. Uneventful. Boring. Slow. The shoot-me-in-the-head-already, the absolute.

His eyes were sealed shut. Sluggishly, he blinked open his eyes, a harrowing bright light stabbing into his vision. He struggled to stand, staggering. A hand touched his shoulder, pulling him down the hallways.

He entered a room at the end of the school, down stairs that winded, causing an epiphany. Am I... in the basement? Or is this another section of the school?

His eyes shot open, widening with alarm as he'd been sat into a chair; his pupils contracted, an intense, luminous light bouncing off the walls and into his eyes. Leather restraints squeezed his arms and wrists, allowing him to be glued into the seat. A collar was placed around his neck, tightening as it locked.

Arley blinked hard, focusing on the figure before his view. Fear would've struck him, but it was an immense anger that'd instead snaked its way into his veins - like ice, it bit him, the snake's fangs digging deep into his skin. He glanced up. There it was, the Headmaster.

Could his luck save him now? He didn't know if it could. If it could, and if it did, he thought he may meet with a fate much worse than the shock collar.

It zapped him at a high intensity. Arley groaned; he said nothing, glaring at the Headmaster, his eyes of daggers. Arley huffed, his fists pulsing with fury as the Headmaster shocked him again. Electric eels erupted from the collar, scraping against and burning his insides, like a terrible fire ignited. The feeling was indescribable. Huh. Still, not the worst pain I've felt.

The Headmaster's words weren't clear. A great scorching pain overcame Arley until it subsided, lessening by a little - the shocking had halted, though the wave of electricity still clung to him.

"You never listen, Arriaga," the Headmaster said, meeting his eyes with Arley's. "That's why I have to teach you a lesson."

Arley spit in the Headmaster's face. "You're a persistent fucker, aren't you?" Before Arley could speak further, another shock surged throughout him.

Something struck his head.

The walls warped, blackness consuming him, the last indicator of his consciousness being a stinging sensation that cut through him like a blade. Alongside it, his head throbbed ceaselessly. Before he lost complete consciousness, he heard the Headmaster.

"...in honor of our Lord. A lesson to be taught and learned."

***

Arley woke up in the void that was solitary confinement the next day; the time was unbeknownst to him. Was it day? The evening? Night? Had he only taken a nap, or had he slept an entire day? He didn't have his Sailor Moon wristwatch. The device where he could access Xenet had died. I wish Harley was here.

He kicked back, breathing in largely. His vexation persisted, his body stinging with a sizzling pain from the shocks he'd endured. It'd ebbed by some, but not entirely.

The Headmaster's babble poked into his thinking.

Does God even care? Is this punishment?

Has God ever loved me? God loves all His children... so why am I the abomination?

Am I really the issue here?

I can't listen to the Headmaster. I can't take it anymore. I don't need to be fixed.

What's the point anymore? What if I choose the wrong path? What if I end up where I'm not supposed to be? How can I be sure of any of it?

Is this really how it has to be?

What am I, without...?

It was at that moment that he heard a muffled voice through the wall, hushed whispers accompanying it.

From then on, he waited. And waited. And waited... and then he waited some more. How much longer would it take?

***

"Can we beat them up on our way out?" a student riddled.

"Sure," the agent admitted. "As long as you don't kill them."

The agent trekked into the winding hallway until she'd found the solitary confinement spaces, unlocking the doors.

Arley and Delta walked out of the two rooms, seeing the two other kids that would be helping the agent. Arley learned one's name, a girl called Jamie. She was the one of blue fire, from the Assembly that'd been days ago. The other student was Josh, the roller-skate conjuring cat-guy.

"My associates already took care of some of the students," the agent announced. "We just have to round up the rest of them. We'll get those in the cafeteria and such - after, my associates and I will take care of the others."

As the five of them walked down the hallway, Delta fell behind.

She queried Arley. "Did something happen? You look... shaken up."

"I'm fine," Arley mumbled.

They passed by arrays of rooms. While they walked by one of the only rooms that withheld a door, Arley and Delta's eyes fell upon it.

One of the other agents in the school had some of the orderlies locked up in one of the rooms - the detention hall. The agent would hand them over to the feds eventually, Arley speculated.

Some other orderlies were hiding in the faculty room, the few left locking an inconsiderable amount of the students and themselves in a separate detention hall.

The kids that remained were in the Cafeteria. There may be one or two in the Bedroom.

Arley wondered where the Headmaster could be. Did he lock himself in a room? Were some kids beating him up? Did the Headmaster have the upper hand, somewhere in the school, setting some of the kids straight? The thought dissipated as he moved through the school with Delta and the others.

The agent moved ahead, retrieving a pinched amount of students from the cafeteria, escorting them to one of the three vehicles that sat outside the school. Arley held his care on a small, collected group of students, - Delta helping two pairs of students - leading them out of the school. Josh and Jamie escorted the youngest of the bunched-together students.

Arley and Josh entered the building, leading some kids out of the school, Delta, Jamie, the agent and her two associates tending to the students outside.

Arley and Josh returned with two victims of the Headmaster's shock "therapy". They approached, bringing them to the agents' line of vehicles.

"About... seventeen more are in the school," one of the agents informed Arley, Josh, Delta and Jamie, the three of the agents situating themselves in their vehicles. "We'll be back for the rest, including you four." Then, they set off.

Somehow, something had felt off about the agents. Are they really in our best interest? Arley considered this for a moment, but he knew that he could do nothing now.

"We should get the students somewhere safe enough in the school," Jamie said, "until the agents return."

The door located on the side of the school building opened with a slam. Arley followed the noise, his eyes being set upon the Headmaster who tumbled out of the school's two door exit. Delta, Josh and Jamie turned to face the scene.

The three of them headed for the main entrance, Jamie hesitating for an instant - Delta glanced behind her as they left. She caught a glimpse of Arley's sullen face; Delta nodded to him. Arley knew what would happen next. The three students disappeared, cutting the corner of the building.

The Headmaster called out to Arley in a rage.

"You're nothing," he preached, ranting like a mad cow, "nothing but an abomination to God. You are nothing." For a moment, Arley almost believed the words he heard. And just maybe, for a second or longer, he truly believed it. "You're going to burn in hell. Your reckoning is over."

I'm not an abomination to God, if a God really is out there. Why would He think that, if God truly does love all His children? If He's any God, He wouldn't be so ugly.

I'll never know God's true intentions. I'll have to hold faith in what is good and true to me.

I can't pick and choose my religion, but I can choose what I believe in, and what I believe is ultimately right.

Arley shot his arms forward, taking hold of the Headmaster by the folds of his suit.

A strange essence radiated off from Arley. His eyes briefly flashed of gold, his hair picking up in the wind's howls. He reminisced about Jamie, the thought overlapping with the Headmaster's words that echoed in his mind.

"A lesson to be taught and learned."

"Sinner."

"Do you take this as a joke, Arley?"

"I intend to make the lives of those that don't take the chance for redemption a living hell."

"Cooperate and you'll do fine."

"...your soul is unclean."

"...unclean Xeno-things..."

"No matter how badly you want to get out of here..."

"Conversion is your only option..."

"That's why I have to teach you a lesson."

"You have quite the imagination, for a sinner."

"Why do you try so hard?"

He forced the Headmaster into the air, slamming the Headmaster down to the earthy surface.

I have no fucking idea if God cares, but this is no punishment. I can't blame everything on a God. Sometimes, life just happens. Shit happens. As a wise cat once said, you can't look at everything as a bad omen.

It isn't God that's disgusted by me - it's His followers, bending His words to suit their fucked up scale of morality. Isn't that how it is?

I'll never know if God hates me or not.

I know that I don't need anyone's acceptance or approval of my existence.

Arley lifted the Headmaster from the dirt. He readied his fist, aiming for the Headmaster's face, the weasel's shirt tightly locked in Arley's opposite hand.

"I don't need your bullshit idea of... whatever sort of God is out there. I don't need faith to keep me alive."

The bible's morals are a little outdated anyway. People believe whatever the fuck their heart desires nowadays. Is anything ever right or wrong?

If what the Headmaster said was true, what he says about God, then what kind of God is that? It's a sick perversion of what the Headmaster wants God to be. If God really thinks that, why doesn't He descend and tell me what He really thinks?

How can I be sure of anything? That's the thing. No one is ever sure. There is no "wrong path". I'm not supposed to serve any duty. I'm not supposed to be anywhere, I'm not supposed to be this or that.

I don't have to believe in anything, and I certainly don't have to believe in any God.Christianity shouldn't have to be my only option. You know, I'll figure the shit out later. But for now, I have to follow what I know is the right thing to do - that's all I can do. And... that's that.

There was no reason that he was here. He simply existed. Whether there was a reason or not for his being here, it didn't matter anymore. He looked at Delta through the door window, heedful of his surroundings. She looked right back at Arley, her eyes that of blue crystals, the two of them sharing a long, thoughtful gaze. He knew his reason for being here. It was clear to him now.

The golden presence flickered. "I'm better than that."

Arley released his grip on the Headmaster. The weasel hit the ground with a thud.

***

Shasti peered out from the inside of the school, behind one of the school's emergency exits. The door was cracked open, her and two of her eldest acquaintances squeezing to see through it.

Two agents lingered outside; the agent lady wasn't there, only her cohorts were. Men in military esque suits circled around five students, the men in their battledress. Heavily armed, elephantine guns clung to them. Through the men stood a woman in a more official suit. Is she their commander?

The two agents quarreled with the commander, the men lowering their weapons when the commander had rose her hand.

Shasti threw her eyes behind her, then digging them into the scene that sat outside the door which shielded her and her comrades. In a flurry, two of the students, trapped in the circle of men, attacked one of the soldiers.

Shasti stumbled backward.

Something wasn't right.

Delta and Arley were gone.