Chapter 4 - Youth's crisis

"YOU DISGRACE!"

"I did not raise you to be like this."

"You are such a bad influence to your little brother!"

"Kids with no manners like you should be taught a lesson!"

Floating on an unknown empty space, my head has already turned around a number of times to see where these voices are coming from, but the place was a pit of nothingness and everywhere was just pitch black.

Bemused by my summoning onto this dark world, I did another search, and suddenly there was a warm sensation coming from behind.

A straight beam of light streamed through me from out of nowhere, brightening up about about a meter or two of my surrounding and in which it made me to cover my face from the brightness for seconds, but despite it, I forcedly peek through its blinding consequence, and there was a man who has shown out along on the blinding light.

I became curious to who it was. It was not clear for me to see but he has an orange cloth tied around on his forehead that had signs or symbols on it, and surprisingly that man has reached out his hand to me.

"Is this a sign? A sign of hope? Is God currently giving me signs?" I continue with my delusions.

But who am I for God to show up himself?

I am not that great and good of a person, and this is really confusing, but still I tried moving closer to grab the person's reaching hand.

As I was floating on the empty space while nearing the man at the same time, I noticed that his face seems to be somewhat familiar.

He is not someone I know, but when it was a bit clear enough for me to see his whole face, it was surprisingly shocking to know that during this whole time I was gazing at a reflection of my own image that was wearing an orange short cape and a somewhat blue suit and a black undershirt, seeming to be battle gear. Yet on the other hand, the lower part of my image's body was too bright to see for me.

What is this exactly? I have no idea what is going on anymore, yet still I grabbed his hand when it was close enough for me to do so.

My expectations: this hope should be giving me the strength needed to face problems.

But right after I held his hand, a scorch of blue flames has shockingly lit on mine and was starting to spread slowly throughout to the rest of my body.

Taking a few steps back, thunderous clouds have shown out all around with lightning passing through the unknown space, and then it was followed by a ravaging land falling down from above, a number of strong spinning hurricanes, and together with a titan-sized tsunami in which at any minute would devour me.

Filled with fear, I let out a scream from the hostile act that has made my situation a sudden death and the flame's burning sensation was taking its time in eating away all of my flesh, making it look like charcoals in the end.

I tried tapping myself everywhere to stop the flames, but not a bit of it have been put out and in which it had me yelling non-stop from the ridiculous pain that it was inflicting on me.

"AAAAAAAAAARRGGGHHHHH------- ACK!"

Panting from the questionable and unknown scenario just recently, I quickly rose from the ground with a frightened face.

After that night, I woke up from a dream early in the morning with my bed hair on, and still worried about the responsibilities and consequences alongside with me.

The place was still cold even though the sun has risen, but more importantly, there's no time to be idle around. I planned to start moving yet, the dream continued its disturbance.

'What was that all about?' I thought, so I held my head up and took deep breaths in trying to forget. "Alright, let's start this new life of mine." I added from standing up and while doing some light stretching.

"My scholarship shouldn't be a problem until I'll graduate, and the cash that I have currently should likely last for a week. Then by that time, I just have to find a job to accommodate for my daily expenses. But the real problem here is… where in the world should I stay? Probably most of my expenses would go to rent. I hope everything would go well for me. God bless me!" I sigh.

Without any hesitation and having no confidence to actually get one, the hunt has been initiated anyhow.

Furthermore, I've also got no ideas and background knowledge of finding one and asking for help from a close friend would be risky, so it would be best to search for one at the heart (in the middle) of the city where the opportunity to get a job is higher, and to search for any news or any information that might give a lead was the only thing in mind.

-----*-----

*Somewhere around Corrales Ave.*

Under the burning daylight, there were posters posted on the different walls along the way and torn parts of newspapers were left on the ground, yet its details were neither credible nor reliable from having to finish analysing it.

It looks like these needs to be done face to face at every place in order to be assuring, but I doubt things would go smoothly on my side.

[Fast forward]

I went at a cafeteria:

"I'm so sorry but we don't need any more staff."

At a random residence:

"I'm sorry kid, but as you can see, there are already a lot of people helping around the house"

Another is at a merchandise kind of business entity:

"All of our shifts are already full"

And at a construction site:

"What!? Hey kid, there is no way I'm letting you in. Look at yourself, you'll break!"

Hopping from one place to another wasn't that simple, or in other words, asking and begging for a job to get for 3 straight days and along with a number of rejections got me exhausted.

I slept at the streets again within those times and had forced myself to be comfortable to the environment.

Moreover, I wasn't been able to take a proper bath but had only taken a wash on one of those days which it rained, and I forced myself to buy cheap foods to save as much of my money as possible.

[Current day, the 4th day of desperation]

Going down on a stair, I sigh with a disappointed face once again coming from another rejection of job application, walking off the frustration while still having my patience and motivation under control, at the least.

Shortly after, I took a seat at the side of an empty road with a lot of sweat, dripping and panting, and while also taking my time to rest for the moment until.... there was somewhat suspiciously odd going on around me.

It seemed that someone from a distance, towards my left direction, has been standing under a streetlight for almost five minutes while facing towards me--- or maybe just at my direction--- or maybe it was just my imagination.

Now I'm confused. Good grief.

Having a stalker is impossible, because this face of mine is not that quite attractive and handsome, in my humble perspective.

The person is quite suspicious to me, but it was only a passing thought, and accusing someone just because of it would be out of the question.

Furthermore, it is kind of hard getting a clear look and I could not turn my head over since things might get complicated--- well, more likely it is because I'm lazy enough to deal with such things, so leaving and forgetting all about it has been in mind since from the start. I sigh.

"I should probably stop from overthink--- huh?" Noticing back after I calmed myself down, the person has started making his or her way towards my direction.

My suspicions were not that credible, but the sudden act got me alerted.

This is becoming more dangerous than I thought, yet at the same time surprisingly thrilling. Thrilling?

Anyways, if that person would dare to try anything funny, I will be letting him or her see stars even though it is still early in the day, but it would be best to observe things first to avoid misunderstandings and more complications.

And with a silent guy like I am who has great observation skills (the perks of being an introvert… and don't think funny, I'm not using this for any inappropriate reasons), hearing the sound of footsteps from a far and deducing that human being's coordinates would be a no sweat.

My head fixed forward, I secretly and intensely tried staring to the left when the scenario started, yet in the end...

"Goodness gracious. It's painful! Ow! Ow!"

Having to force myself from getting a good look of the scene has pained my precious eyes, making me rub them gently with the both of my hands, but as I made a few blinks of it…

"Eeehh?"

A shadow has emerged and swallowed my whole presence all over.

Looking up, an old lady has appeared in front of me.