Chapter 13 - Sometimes you have to fight on your own.

"Four days left huh, " Jamaal thought, sitting upon his bed.

He had slept for a good while, about ten hours. This meant that he was wide awake and not tired. Unfortunately, that also indicated that he would be alone for a couple of hours, about three.

Glancing at the alarm clock that read five am, he forced himself to get up, slowly walking towards the shower.

Jamaal yawned, opening the bathroom door and entering inside. Turning on the shower as he leaned against the bathroom wall and closed his eyes. The water droplets slowly began to drip down from his body and on to the floor.

After some time, Jamaal got out and dried himself, putting on some fresh and clean clothing.

Once done with all the dressing up things, the boy left the bathroom and journeyed downstairs, walking into the cold marble tiled kitchen.

"Oh God, " The coldness of his feet touching the tiles hit him, causing him to want to jump and avoid standing on the tiles.

However, Jamaal bottled that feeling inside and continued walking up to the fridge, grabbing milk. He then grabbed a box of cereal and poured it into a bowl before he did the same with the milk.

After putting everything away, he put the cereal filled bowl onto a table and began to eat.

As he ate, the teen glanced at the windows, unable to see anything due to the cream coloured curtains which covered them.

"Chirp, chirp, " The sound of birds could be heard, singing their songs and living their lives.

Jamaal had always wondered how it would be to live such a simple life, though he wasn't dumb. However, a bird's life was simple though it was also quite dangerous. With how they had to find food and survive against predators, it made sense to think that way though. Jamaal always thought that perhaps there would be a time when humans would go in a similar place in the food chain once more. Maybe a recession would come into society or extinction would occur causing humanity to collapse. The future was always an unknown factor after all, but that was enough thinking for now. Right now it was time to watch some tv.

Jamaal washed his dishes quickly and walked to the living room, swiftly grabbing the remote from the coffee table and plumping down onto the sofa. He then turned on the television and switched to Netflix, browsing through movies until he found one he liked.

Its name was 'Murder Mystery' and it was about a couple who were unfortunate to have come across a murder while doing their honeymoon after years of marriage. Now that they know everything, they must survive without getting the blame, or else.

So as time went forward, Jamaal enjoyed watching the movie, laughing at times. There were good moments, the sad moments and the hilarious ones. Generally, it was a decent movie, that was what Jamaal decided.

He glanced at the clock above him and got up. Going upstairs and packing his bag as well as getting dressed. However, since he still had time, the boy also cleaned his room, all in a days work. Or rather an hour's work.

Once he finished all those chores, Jamaal decided to grab a snack and munch on it while having a read of a book he had been hanging onto.

And so there he was, sitting on the sofa, reading while taking a bite out of an apple, time ticking as there were only ten minutes left, soon there were only five minutes left. Then one minute, it was at that moment where Jamaal got up and left as quickly as possible, he had not even noticed the time and would've been late if he hadn't set up an alarm beforehand.

In a flash, he reached school. Hurrying inside and into the class, just in the nick of time. The boy sat down on an empty seat and waited for the teacher to appear, pretending like he didn't run the entire time to school, or wasn't too into a book.

When the teacher did appear, Jamaal began to take notes. The subject the class was teaching was English and the students were, unfortunately, going to have a mock test soon.

"As if there weren't enough things occurring..." He sighed, leaning back into his chair as he rubbed his forehead, slightly stressing out.

As he kept working, Jamaal began to think about the dreams more and more.

"I wish I could go back, it's kind of boring, even though I'm glad I got a break." He thought, looking up from writing and glancing through the windows at the cars zooming by on the main road.

"I suppose I'll find a way to go back into that dream... I have to be able to do something else as a break." Jamaal decided on it and then sped up his work, trying to get through school as quickly as possible.

Eventually, it was lunchtime and Jamaal headed from his class to the cafeteria, quite hungry. He lined up in the queue and grabbed his food, paying as he left. Once he was with his food, he sat down with his friends on a table and began to talk, eating while doing so.

It was then where he noticed that Zain wasn't around, looking at his friends questioningly, he spoke.

"Where's Zain, guys?" The others looked at each other and spoke.

"That guy left us for another group, seemed like a lie to me," William spoke.

"He seemed a bit worried too, I was planning on seeing what was up later on but... He disappeared." Jamaal interrupted him before he could speak some more.

"So? Anyone see where he went, if something's up, it'll be happening right now."

"He went down the street, but off towards Old Harvey's Path. I don't get why he would take the long route though. Zain hates wasting time for no reason." Indus said.

"Then let's go there, eat quickly, something's up. Let's do something about it shall we, instead of gossiping?"

"Like maybe telling a teacher?" Hussein looked at Jamaal questioningly.

"He may be our friend, but this isn't a fight we should get involved in, we can't play 'hero' you know? Unless we have a teacher and we're the sidekicks." He explained, finishing his food as quickly as possible.

Jamaal sighed.

"You're right, but he's still our friend, we can't leave him. Or else next time he'll leave us." He got up and began walking, his friends gradually joining the boy (Jamaal) who slowly ate his sandwich.

"Let's go."