"Hey, have you heard?"

"About what?"

"About the disappearing schools?"

"Yeah, a bunch of schools just vanished all of a sudden, right? Nobody knew what happened, only that there was a hole in the ground like it was gouged out by giant hands. Come to think of it, there was a story about a mall as well, right?"

"Yes, the mall was the first that vanished."

"Scary, isn't it? For something as large as a mall or a school to disappear all of a sudden. It makes you feel like anyone can be whisked away willy nilly. The government said it was an act of terrorism-"

"Terrorism?"

"You know, those bad guys with some fanatical ideals who go around bombing public places and killing civilians instead of fighting real soldiers. I don't think anyone actually believes that it's the work of terrorists. Which terrorist can make a building disappear in just one night? I don't know who did it, but whoever did it can only have bad intentions."

"I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"It's happening again."

"Again? Which school is it this time?"

"It’s Blue Forest High School."

"That sounds familiar - wait, that’s my school!"

"That’s right! You’re next."

Carl awoke with sweat pouring down his face and body. He fought to remember as the details of his nightmare started to fade and disappear. There was something important in his dream. A message. A warning. As his brain continued to awaken, it became an increasingly futile fight as the memory slipped further and further away.

“Wake up, sunshine!” the cheery voice of a teenage girl punched through his futile attempts as the owner of that voice kicked him out of bed. It was literal, not metaphorical.

“You bitch! Can’t you wake me up like a normal person?” Carl complained while pressing his right hand against the bruise on his leg. When the teenage girl kicked him out of bed, his left leg hit the foot of his study desk, effectively waking him up from the crushing pain in his leg.

“Can’t you wake me up like a normal person? Wuuueeee! Mommy, Big Sis is bullying me again, wuueee!” the girl mocked.

“Shut up!” Carl said, getting up on one feet.

The girl crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing the voluminous bell-shaped flesh upward, as if emphasizing their size. “If you want someone to wake you up gently, then get a girlfriend!”

“I tried! You scared them all off, you hag!”

To be fair, Carl wasn’t at all ugly or undesirable. He was a fairly average 16 year old boy. Standing at 168cm tall and weighing at around 60kg, he had an angular face and slightly muscular body that the girls in his class found desirable. He however, wouldn’t be in any hurry to compete with popular pop idols in a popularity contest, mainly because he could neither sing nor act.

If one would ask any of his friends about, the common answer would be, "That guy is totally tone deaf. Please don't give him the mic."

“Not my fault they were so hopeless. You don’t need those gutless little bitches," the girl said with a wide smile on her face, as if she was extremely satisfied with herself.

The girl went down on the bed, crawled on all fours towards him with a coy smile. As she crossed the bed, the contents of her school blouse jiggled from side to side, inadvertenly drawing his eyes towards the jiggling twin pieces of meat and fat covered in a school uniform. The cleavage created by the baby blue lace bra she wore provided a mesmerizing sight, and he found himself unable to tear his gaze away. He remained compelled to look at those beautiful hanging fruits, those sinful temptations, even as they came closer before they captured his face in the space between.

He thought, If only these puppies don’t belong to my sister.

“You’re getting fat, Maya,” Carl said without making any attempt to remove his face from the cleavage of her boobs. He could smell some kind of perfume, but it wasn't overpowering. He knew this was the sweet smell of his sister, a smell he had recently become aware of and a smell that he started to look forward to every morning.

He truly wished one of them were adopted.

This wasn't the only time he had wished she wasn't his sister. For the past few years, he had thought about the same thing. Back then, he thought of her as a mean bully and he had wished that he was born earlier, so that he would be the one doing the bullying instead of being the bullied.

Everything changed on last year's Valentine's Day. That day was the first day he called his older sister by her name and he continued to call her by her name, at least where their parents couldn't hear. It was the day when their sibling relationship changed, for better or for worse. Just thinking about what happened that day made his face hot, and if he was alone in his room at this moment, he would be rolling on the floor screaming, "Why did I do that?" As for the moment though, he decided that the status quo was satisfactory.

She pushed him away while saying, “This isn’t fat. It’s called tits, you virgin pervert!”

“Ah... has it ended?” Carl murmured while feeling as if something great was taken away from him.

Maya quickly leapt to the door of his room and said, “Virgin pervert!” she pushed out her tongue and pulled down one eyelid with her finger in a mocking gesture, “Go take a bath quickly, you have ten minutes. Don’t want to miss the opening ceremony.”

Ai-chan

This story was first published on Tapas for nanowrimo. Unfortunately, it was very discouraging. Ai-chan had to compete with long-time established authors and people who had already completed their stories months in advance and only needed to post what they have already previously written every day. Ai-chan's posts ended up disappearing in a couple of hours. So Ai-chan gave up on the nanowrimo at tapas. Now that the contest has ended, there is no restriction on where Ai-chan post this story. So there it is.

Please take note that the tragedy tag is no joke. A lot of people will die in a few chapters.