Waiting To Die

It is dark inside Lucy's apartment. It's also silent too. The only thing that can be heard is the water droplets that are coming from the kitchen sink. Inside the bedroom, Lucy is asleep. While in her sleep, she heard various voices, telling her to do all kinds of things.

"Wake up Lucy .... You must wake up."

"Kill them .... Punish all of them ...."

"Bring them to hell ... give them no mercy."

All of those voices start hurting her head. It feels like being stabbed by needles. She quickly wakes up and tries to grab one of the bottles of pills on the small table beside her bed.

Lucy: "Arrrgh SHUT UP!" she screams and groans as the voice becomes louder and her headache starts to feel more painful. Her head hurts so much, she is having a hard time just to see. Her vision is blurry, and her balance is all over the place. As the pain rises up, the items inside her bedroom start to shake and move around. Her books start to fall from the shelf. Glass, table, and furniture start to vibrate violently. The lights in her bedroom start to flicker. While trying to grab the bottle, Lucy loses her balance and instead drops onto the floor. On the floor, she's trying hard to get up and grab the bottle of pills that she needs to stop all of this. After struggling so much, She's able to grab it. She quickly opens it and pours the pills onto her hand. Without thinking further, she quickly ate it and gulped it. Not long, her headache started to fade away. The furniture and items in her bedroom start to stop moving. The lights on the ceiling stop flickering. On the floor, Lucy is panting. She looks like she just did a marathon run. She slowly gets up. The pain is already gone, but now her head feels heavy. She grabs the other 4 bottles of pills and tablets and takes them with her to the kitchen. In the kitchen, she grabs a glass of water. She noticed that her hands were shaking. It looks like the side effect of the pill she just ate starts to appear. She quickly eats the other four pills and tablets one by one. She realizes that she's almost run out of pills. The pills that she had right now will only last for a couple of days. She goes back to her bedroom. She sees that her bedroom is a mess. There are books and items on the floor. Her furniture is also all over the place. Lucy looks at the time on the clock on the wall. It's almost morning already. She decides to tidy her bedroom and then straight goes back to the kitchen. She picks up the frozen food from the fridge and puts it inside the microwave. There's a lot of frozen food inside her fridge. It's the only item that she has inside there. While waiting for the food to cook inside the microwave, she goes back to her bedroom and prepares her clothes. She opens the drawer and picks up a towel and her clothes without putting too much thought into it. She proceeds to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth and takes a shower. After a couple of minutes, she got out. She looks at the mirror in the bathroom while drying her hair with a hairdryer. Even though she just took a shower, her face still looks tired and her bloodshot eyes haven't turned to normal. In the kitchen, her food is already cooked. She took the food out from the microwave and ate it on the table. She eats her food slowly as if she doesn't really have an appetite for it. Halfway through, she stops eating her food. She picks it up and just throws it in the trash bin. She goes back to her room and prepares to go to school. While preparing to go to school, she checks her wallet. She realizes that her money is only enough to finance her for a couple of days. After locking her condo door, she goes to the lobby while also taking out the trash. At the lobby, she goes to the mailbox to see if Stryker already sent her money and medicine. There's nothing inside. Stryker should've sent her money and medicine by this time. She pulls out her phone to see if Stryker left a message. There is no message from him. Lucy just sighs, thinking that Stryker was probably kind of mad because she was being harsh to him when he visits her. She puts her phone back in her pocket and goes out, walking towards the nearest bus stop. Her morning commute is kind of plain. There's nothing really stands out other than the usual different thieves who try to steal her stuff, the random people who always try to hit on her, and the hobo who occasionally tries to sniff her. It really is morning in America. After a long ride, she finally arrives at her usual bus stop and straight walks towards the school which is only a couple of hundred feet away. On her way, she sees a couple of students who're being dropped by their parents at the front of the school. Some of the students also came in with their own car and motorcycle. She can hear people being rowdy in the school bus that just passed her. It's unfortunate that Lucy can't take the school bus since her condo is just too far away. After arriving at school, she quickly gets her books from her locker and goes straight to her first class in the morning. She sits down at the last row of seats at the back of the class. While waiting for the class to start, she decided to read her book that she brought from home.

Mike: "ZZZzzzzzz" Mike snores loudly. Lucy looks to her side, seeing Mike who is sleeping like a log on his chair. She quickly ignores him. Not long, the school bell rings signifying that the first period is starting. As usual, the math teacher, Granny Alister came just in time. Mike quickly wakes up as he feels the presence of his math teacher.

Granny Alister: "Good morning kids. It's good to see you all again. I hope you are all well and ready to study this morning. Tell me, does anyone remember what chapter we last did last week?"

Mike: "It's chapter 3 ma'am." Mike shouted from the back.

Granny Alister: "Thank you, Michael. Let's start chapter 4 then." Granny Alister starts writing down new equations on the whiteboard. The class goes as usual. Halfway through, Mike goes to sleep again. Granny Alister noticed that Mike just went to sleep while she was explaining.

Granny Alister: "Lucy dear, can you wake up the slacker next to you?"

Lucy looks at Mike and wonders what she should do to wake him up. First, she tries to shake him a couple of times. But it doesn't work. Lucy looked at granny Alister and shook her head.

Granny Alister: "He won't wake up is he? Try kicking him." Granny Alister said. Without any second thought, Lucy kicked him hard, making him fall from the chair.

Mike: "Argh, yo what the hell girl? Why did you do that?"

Granny Alister: "Er-erhm." Granny Alister grum, notifying her presence to Mike. At that point, he realized that Lucy was probably being asked by the granny to kick him to wake him up.

Mike: "oh."

Granny Alister: "Did you stay up late again, Michael?" asked the old lady.

Mike: "uh, yeah."

Granny Alister: "You know you shouldn't stay up late that frequently, you could get all those brain damages if you do that. And I know you're very capable in regard to math subjects, but that doesn't mean you can sleep in my class, dear."

Mike: "I'm truly sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to disrespect you or anything, I was just genuinely tired because I didn't get enough sleep last night."

Granny Alister smiled knowing that Mike was being honest.

Granny Alister: "I forgive you. But could you please try to stay awake for the rest of my class?"

Mike: "Sure ma'am, I'll try that."

Granny Alister: "I'll keep that in mind. Now, why don't you go to the front and help me finish this equation? Perhaps it will help keep you awake."

Mike: "Oh, sure ma'am." Mike got to the front of the class and straight away did what Granny told me to." As usual, Mike was able to solve the equation with ease. It's no wonder he can do it seamlessly. He already knows what book Granny uses to generate those problems. With the help of his friend Kevin, Mike was able to get his hand on the pirated solution manual for that book. With that, he was able to solve every problem that granny throws at him.

Mike: "Is this enough ma'am?"

Granny Alister: "wonderful, as expected of you. Thank you, dear, you can go back to your seat."

Mike: "Thank you, ma'am."

Back at the seat, Mike tries to stay awake. Lucy noticed that Mike is having a hard time trying to stay awake. 'Damn, I should've gone straight to sleep instead of watching memes last night.' He thinks. Next to him, he notices that Lucy is looking at him. He stared at her back, hoping that she would get creeped out by his tired face. 'Yeah, you like seeing me like this? Are you ready to kick me again? You should aim for my balls next time you wake me up, bitch.' he said in a half-awake state. Out of nowhere, Lucy puts a mint candy on his table. She doesn't say anything. She quickly goes back to focus listening to granny. Mike wants to say thanks to her, but she doesn't seem to want to be bothered. He quickly eats the candy. 'Yeah, this feels kind of better.' he thinks.

Granny Alister: "Now, since I already explained how the equation works, let's practice it. Please bring out a piece of paper and solve these equations that I write on the board." Granny Alister said while she started writing those equations. Mike quickly shrieks out a piece of paper from his notebook and starts solving the equation. There are some equations that he instantly recognizes, but It seems granny also has some aces on her sleeve. it's not really a big deal for him since those aces aren't that hard. After a couple of minutes, he was able to complete it. It's not perfect. But he's confident in all of his answers. Beside him, Lucy is still struggling. From her face, she looks a bit stressed. In front, Granny is busy helping a student. Seeing this chance, Mike peeks at Lucy's paper out of curiosity. From the looks of it, she's almost done. There's just one equation left that she has to solve and It is a tricky one.

Lucy realized that Mike is peeking on her paper. She quickly pulls her paper and covers it. She thinks Mike is trying to cheat by looking at her answer. Mike realizes this and just acts chill about it.

Granny Alister: "Alright you wonderful people, you have 5 minutes left. If you are already done, you can put your paper in front and take a leave."

As Mike is about to get up to collect his paper, he gives Lucy a piece of small paper. She looked at him confused. He just winks at her and gives her a big wide smile.

Lucy stared at Mike while he collected his paper and left the class. She then looks at the paper that he gave her. It's the answer for her last problem that she hasn't been able to complete. She turned the paper around to see another writing.

"Thx 4 the candy :D" the writing read. After reading it, she quickly shredded it to pieces.