­ A Whole New World

It’s 9:00 P.M right now.

‘Normal’ people would have already finished their dinner, found their own comfortable positions on their couch and been watching TV up until now. But, well, I’m not one of those ‘normal’ people.

What kind of person am I then? Well, I guess it can be simplified in to one single word. ’Grade 12’.

(‘Grade 12’ or ‘Senior’ in South Korea is known to be extremely tough for the students) – Translator

Jaewook, sitting next to me, quietly complains again.

“Man, I really don’t understand this.”

“What are you on about?” – I replied.

“It’s 9 man! 9! All the good kids have gone to bed already! You feel me?”

“….”

I could consider buying his bullshit if he was really trying to study.

But look at this guy. He’s got a tablet in between his textbook trying to fool the teacher.

I look up and take a look around the class room. With all due respect, this waste of time we are all doing is called the ‘Night time self-studying session’ but for God’s sake, no one is really ‘studying’.

French philosopher Voltaire apparently once said “the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” Well I am pretty sure he would’ve actually said “the Night time self-studying session is neither overnight (starts just before dinner till late night), nor fully self-driven, nor really studying if he found out about this bullshit activity.

Seriously, look around. Most of the guys sitting here are just having a good nap on their desks or fiddling with their phones.

Of course, I would have to say I sincerely admire those smart asses trying to really study.

They will have a bright future indeed.

“hahaha!” – Jaewook randomly cracked up.

“What’s so funny?” – I asked.

“This novel man. It’s hilarious.” –He replied, still giggling.

He’s been reading this famous fantasy novel on his tablet these days.

Of course he was technically supposed to have paid for it but no one really gives a crap about that right?

He probably downloaded a scanned version or a text filed somewhere.

Man, illegal copies and downloads everywhere.

All of a sudden, the classroom got dead quiet. I immediately ducked down, pretending to do some maths. However, Jaewook, having absolutely no idea what is happening, was still giggling into his tablet.

“Having a fun read?”

“Yea! This is actually fucking aweso……oh shit!”

He finally realised our homeroom teacher was standing right next to him. Of course he freaked out. Big time.

“I told you numerous times not to bring this kind of devices to this session!” – The teacher said.

“But I’ve got all my study materials in there…”

“Wow, really? This? This is your “study materials”? God…What will become of you…”

To the teacher’s scolding full of concerns, Jaewook replied with confidence,

“Fantasy novelist, of course.”

The teacher reached out, grabbing Jaewook by his year with all his strength.

“Oh God that hurts!” – Jaewook screamed.

“Yeah, You sure can become the best novelist ever when you illegally download all these novels and murder the market right?”

“Well…I mean… It’s not like….”

“Just shut up already. We’re having a talk in my office”

Like so, Jaewook got dragged out to the teacher’s office.

As soon as the teacher disappeared, everyone who was pretending to study started carrying on with their own procrastination. Still an hour left until the end of this session.

I was bored. Extremely bored. Hundred days left until the University Entry Exam but I could never really feel it on my skin at all. On top of all that, I really didn’t want to study.

I really really did not.

Just the thought of doing this for 100 days to come was already driving me insane.

If I was born in somewhere in Africa where there is no school or anything, I wouldn’t have to try this hard to get into university right? Why did I have to be born in Korea out of all the countries and go through all these struggles?

Is there something better to do with life?

I was really hoping something fun to pop out of this life full of endless boredom.

Just when I was thinking that, my surroundings again got dead quite. Like before, I ducked down immediately, pretending to study.

“So the cosine and tangent…..”

Murmuring some random stuff I didn’t even know about, I quickly had a look around.

It was the weirdest scene I’ve ever seen in my life.

No one in the classroom was longer moving. It was almost like the time had stopped or something. Nobody was even blinking their eyes.

Weird noise started to fill the space around me. Like a hissing wind in the deep middle of a cave.

Soon, with an intense vibration, everything around me started to turn grey and slowly melt away like someone was crushing a piece of paper full of drawings.

“What the hell is going on?”

A bright light started to shine right before my eyes.

It was so bright that I for a moment thought I would go blind.

Before I even realised, the light already came around me, absorbing me into itself.

Then, I felt something snatching me deeper into the light.

Screaming as I was getting pulled into the light, I fell unconscious.