—§—

Ella just finished class and looked the time. She missed her bus. Just to be sure she looked up the time table on her phone and quite rightly, she missed the last buss. The teacher had gone over by almost 20 minutes by first trying to explain that it would only take 5 minutes to give them one last math example. Then one of the more problematic students had gotten angry and thoroughly explained to the teacher why and how he needed to visit his grandma at the hospital. And why it may be his last chance before she died. This was a lie of course, but quite a good one. Ella almost believed him. The teacher though, who already knew that this student had no grandma that was alive; got angry and started explaining about how he wouldn’t need to take 5 more minutes if they all didn’t talk so much and listened to him. It kept going like this for almost 20 minutes. Ella had thought about asking for her to be allowed to leave. Luckily, she didn’t. Another brave student had done it before her and was thoroughly screamed at. The only thing she wanted right now was to quickly get home, but that wouldn’t be happening. She thought about calling her mum to come to get her but then she was working and would be coming home very late. She would be alone with her father, he probably…. couldn’t drive right now, and she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to ask. Maybe Max would let her sleep at his house. Ella grabbed all the things from her locker and put on as many layers of clothes as possible. She said bye to her friends and went out. It had gotten very cold and she shrugged. A feeling of anger ran down her spine as she thought about how she missed the bus. The next day she would make sure to let that boy know why he should never do that again. While making up a plan of revenge she reluctantly made her way through the schoolyard and further away towards the city.

—§—

Back at the café Max slowly reached for his phone. He made a big relieved sigh as he saw that it was Ella.

The message wrote:
“Max, can I sleep at your place tonight? I will cook you dinner.”

He quickly texted Ella “Sure, call me when you are close, I’m not at home right now.” Just as he sent the message another came in.

“Meet at the place.”

This was the messages Max had been worried about. He quickly sculled down the coffee, stuffed the book and biscuits into his backpack and walked out. Max arrived at a back alley. It had started to get dark and the alley was dimly lit. He took out his phone and started to listen to music again. Max was quite nervous, and music helped him to cool his nerves. He took another good look at the alley. If someone were to die in here the body wouldn’t be found. There was trash everywhere. Someone has had the brilliant idea to tip over a big yellow garbage can. On the other side of the alley, he could two men walking over. While sticking his hands into his pockets Max started walking towards them. One of the men struck up a conversation to introduce himself.

“Hey, how are you doing man?”
“Hi.”

Max who was very nervous just quickly answered as he took something out of his backpack. It was a plastic container.

“Do you have the money with you?” Max said.
“Yeah, sure kid you’ll get your money….. This is your first time, right?”

Without letting Max say anything he answered his own question.

“Yeah thought so. Try to relax a bit, it’s not like you see in the movies, Hehe.”
“Can I look at it?” The other man said.

Max slowly nodded and opened the container. Inside the box, it was a big ziplock bag with some green “herbs”. It was quite a lot.

“Come over here so I can take a look”

Max walked over and handed the bag to one of the men. The man inspected it and then said with a smile.

“Well, nice doing business with you Max. I think we will be on our way now.”
“The money!” Max said.
“Yeah about that, we’ll pay next time.”

The two men were not going to pay. Max who also realized this and did not really know how to respond. As Max stood there they began to leave. The song in his ears started to reach its climax.

“Give me my money! I really need it!”
“No-can-do kid.”
“Please, I really need the money!.”

Max started running at them as the song’s intensity increased.

“Fuck off!” The two men said as they turned around ready to face him.

The song reached its climax and with an explosion, a synthesizer together with an electric guitar started playing the main tune of the song. Just like the synth, Max felt his anger exploding… He lifted his hand from his pocket and gripped it tight.

—§—

Ella had just left the grocery store and once again she made her way through the now dark, cold and snowy weather. She was planning on making Max a chili. Ella realized that she was nearing the café that Max liked, maybe she should stop there for a hot chocolate. She thought about how nice it would be. Maybe, if the bookstore was open so she could buy a book. Suddenly Ella’s train of thought was interrupted by some people screaming loudly in an alley. Firstly, she didn’t think much of it and decided to just not take the way that went past the alley. But as she got closer she started to recognize one of the voices, it belonged to Max. The voice sounded nervous but angry and she decided to quickly make her way over there. When she arrived, she saw Max furiously running towards two men. Suddenly a cold metal light flashed, and one of the men pulled a knife. To her surprise, his body moved on its own and started running towards Max. Max looked at the knife but at the same time, he didn’t notice it. The man not holding the knife told the other one to lower it. After that, he took a stance and when Max got close enough he threw a strong kick at him. Max who never had been in a real fight got the man’s foot right in his stomach and flew a couple of meters backward. The book in his backpack flew out and opened a random page. At this time Ella stumbled over the book and arrived beside Max. She screamed.

“What are you doing!?!”

Mainly after the men who were running away but also at Max. Max who laid on the ground started to cough loudly and after a while, the coffee he had at the café came back up. The book Ella just tripped on had started glowing, quite faint but glowing in fact. It was a weird white glow. Super white.
Suddenly the viscous white glow quickly increased in both strength and volume. It grew so much that it even started to envelop them.

“Ehhh Max, what’s happening?!” Ella said while trying to not look at the light.

Max didn’t say anything he just kept laying down on the ground. The light kept growing until it had covered the whole alley. Max couldn’t help but wonder if the kick from before had killed him and this was him passing to the afterlife. The white light had now enveloped them entirely. It slowly started changing to black as their eyes slowly closed. Just before their eyes closed Max heard a voice presumably from the book.
[Bootup Sequence Finalized…… Welcome Max.]

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