No, I was still not mentally prepared for this. Not at all, actually. Did it help that it was still so early in the morning that I barely felt the effect from drinking coffee and the sky was dark blue, although not very dark? Not at all, either. This was truly annoying. I ordered a cab, and I was lucky enough to get into one almost immediately, due to the lack of a traffic jam at this time. Well, it was still the early morning, so it gets a pass.

Airport recommendations aren’t a joke this time around. Normally, you’d have to present at least 2-3 hours before the flight, even if it’s for a destination that is not very far from home, such as the one from London to Dublin, which is why I’m surprised that I was still the first to arrive, and because no one was my precedent for this one, I waited outside. That was really idiotic from my part, because the temperatures were only slightly above freezing, and while there was no rain, the sky didn’t look very good. It must be really cloudy outside. A couple of minutes later, Mr. Spencer and Mrs. Rogers arrived.

“Good morning, Mr. O’Brien. It seems that you’re never too late,” said Mr. Spencer.

“Good morning, sir,” I responded.

“It’s a bit cold. Let’s get inside,” said Mrs. Rogers.

“Oh, definitely, let’s go.”

We went inside the airport with our bags. Both teachers sent a message, announcing that it was best to get inside instead of waiting outside. After several more minutes, some others arrived, including Mrs. Foster, and after a few more, everyone else arrived.

“So, what took you so long?”, I asked.

“Waking up so early was so hard,” Alice responded.

“I see…”

“Hm, what’s wrong with you, Pete?” Ava asked, “you look really bad today.”

“Wow, thanks…”

“No, I mean…you don’t look all that well. I’m not saying that you’re ugly, but you do look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You’re pretty close, but, yes, if you put it that way, I do look bad.”

“Did you drink coffee?”

“I did.”

“Did you drink green tea?”

“No, although I don’t think it would do any better if I drank that when I already drank coffee.”

“What happened, then?”

“I…don’t feel confident saying it with Luke here.”

“Oh…yeah, I know what you mean. Want to handle this in private?”

“Sure. Well, if one of the other girls wants to join in, I don’t mind, but that’s it.”

So, we had to find a place where we could talk this problem. I was obviously not dumb enough to handle it outside, so one free corner on the airport, or somewhere that is tens of meters away from the rest of the group, a spot that was just good enough. It was now just me, Ava and Alice.

“You may find it stupid, maybe not, but, yes, it had something to do with Luke,” I said.

“Is it a nightmare?”, Ava asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Care to describe it a bit?”, Alice asked.

“It felt like I was stuck in a chamber, kind of like one of those games from the early 2000s, with just one source of light. It was an unsettling place, but what made it even more unsettling was the appearance of a shadow, who then turned into someone who was like Luke, by appearance, behaviour, and even voice.”

“That’s creepy…”, said Ava.

“Indeed. He then said that, well, he was not Luke, he was called Death, then he got annoyed by it and one of the walls began to move and reveal its spikes, killing everyone one by one.”

“Ouch…”

“Eventually, the wall stopped. Then, Luke appeared again, this time more or less how you see him right now, and then he got crushed by the only neon light. ‘Death’ appeared for the last time, made his scythe appeared, and before I could see my proper death, the nightmare ended, and it was also due to the morning alarm.”

“I see. Anything else you want to say?”, Alice asked.

“And is this even your first or worst nightmare that had to do with Luke?”, Ava also asked.

“Not really. In fact, right on the night after I met him and we got to be friends, I had a nightmare that felt…a little too real. It was almost as if it was a foresight, something that was about to happen.”

“A foresight?”

“Yes. It had me, in a way somewhat like how I am right now, hit so I could go unconscious. Luke and two people that looked the same as each other were carrying my body, and I had no idea what happened after that, because I suddenly woke up in a basement, with my arms and legs completely chained, and I was wearing nothing but shorts, so I was also not being comfortable in terms of heat. Luke comes in with a very powerful whip and I get a ton of scars, many of them even bloody.”

“Yikes! Okay, maybe don’t continue. It’s too much,” said Ava, trying to stop me.

“Sorry…”

“It’s fine. Haven’t you talked to a psychologist about this?”, Alice asked.

“No, sadly not.”

“I see…are you sure that this was your first nightmare? It sounds dangerously close to what would happen to you now.”

“It was, all of the way back in 2019. Matters don’t really change after almost 4 years, it seems.”

“Right. Let’s just go back to the group now that we’ve discussed this,” said Ava.

“Yes. Let’s.”

The discussion ended. I honestly didn’t want to get past that part after the whipping, seeing as it was already disgusting on its own, much more as part of a nightmare like this one. All three went to the small café to buy donuts, and then we went back to our group.

“Alright, is everyone ready?”, Mrs. Foster asked.

“Yes!”, said everyone in sync.

Now, of course, you’d be excited to go to another place, as you’d get to relax for a bit, but I was feeling really uncomfortable this time around, even after my confession to Ava and Alice, who were willing to listen to me, despite how weird the two nightmares appeared to be, so my reaction wasn’t genuine. Who knows, maybe others had their own reasons not to feel really excited.

After all of that checking, which lasted a lot, we had enough time to get into the aeroplane, though with nothing else to do. If we wanted to go to the toilet, there was the one in the plane, but that was it.

It was 8:01am. The flight started, and we departed from London’s Heathrow Airport, at last…yes, as people say, Heathrow isn’t great…the captain began his announcement.

“Good morning, passengers. This is your captain speaking. First, I’d like to…”

Well, that got boring pretty quickly, and it didn’t matter, all I wanted was to rest for the one hour we had before arrival, because it was absolutely necessary, and everyone was on the same page.

“Hey, Luke, aren’t you excited to go to Ireland, after all these years?’, I asked, albeit in a relatively low tone, probably out of boredom and out of respect for everyone.

“Shut your gob, you twat,” said Luke.

Alright, I guess it wasn’t enough that the guy got pissed off, he also went ahead and insulted me. Gee, we’re definitely off to a cracking good start.

“Why should I shut up?”

“Because you’re just faffing around. Let me have my kip, idiot.”

“Wow, ok…fine…”

Aside from Luke acting mad again, the next several minutes were of pure silence, with nothing but the plane engine being heard. It was a good time to listen to some music and rest. There’s another song that I really like that is also part of the fantastic EDM genre, and it is Speed of Sound. It kind of fits, considering that we’re on a plane. After those minutes, however, Ava approached me, asking for something.

“Hey, Pete, are you there?”, she asked.

“Yes, I’m awake. How may I help you?”, I said, on a low tone.

“May I borrow your charger for a bit?”

“Oh, of course, here you go.”

“Thank you…actually, I do have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why are you talking like this right now?”

“Some of us are sleeping for the hour, and someone is not in his best mood at all, and I’m not bothered to see him go mad and make a mug out of me.”

“Oh, ok. I’ll give you the charger back when we arrive.”

“Alright, thanks.”

The flight went as normal otherwise. The weather didn’t seem bad at all, and, in fact, they did say something about warmth and a bright sun in both London and Dublin, which is great. It just sucks that it’s mostly at noon and during the afternoon, not in the morning.

We arrived at the airport at 9:05am, 10 minutes earlier than scheduled, which is nice. Of course, we had to get checked here as well, but, again, only the ID and the power of attorney were necessary, as everything else was in the clear. Even after that hour, I still didn’t feel mentally prepared, even less so now that someone is angry.

“Here’s your charger,” said Ava, giving me the charger back.

“Thank you.”

“Are you sure that Luke is in a terrible mood and he’s not just, you know, sleepy?”

“You could be right, but he usually doesn’t act like this even in the morning. Maybe he didn’t have enough sleep. Anyway, he has to act up, because we have to sing, we have to act, we haven’t done those rehearsals without a reason, after all.”

“Oh, you’re singing this time too?”

“Absolutely. We’ve been preparing the show for quite some time, and now it’s time to show off our performances again.”

Upon leaving the airport, somebody thought that telling me to shut up wasn’t good enough, so a bunch of mockery followed, as if the demon inside him had taken his mind and he wanted to go to war, declaring that on me of all people. On the way to their high school, I tripped by accident. I didn’t fall on the ground, thankfully, though I still have to be cautious. Someone, however, found that as a good moment to embarrass me when salt to injury was not needed.

“Haha, idiot, you can’t even walk properly anymore!”, Luke exclaimed.

“Luke, now’s not the time, we gotta focus on school-related stuff!”, I responded.

“Whatever. Be careful where you’re going!”

“Yeah, thanks…”

“Luke, why do you have to be so mean to Pete?”, said Amber, one of my classmates. She actually didn’t really say a whole lot so far, since she’s a shy person, but that’s fine, since we still have a few things in common, and we don’t fight each other.

“Who are you to ask me such a question? It’s none of your business!”, Luke answered.

“Dude, stop being this ruthless,” said Phillip in response.

“Hey, shut up, man, no one asked for your opinion.”

“It doesn’t matter. At least leave him alone. He has done no harm to you,” said Ava.

“Whatever, we’ll see.”

After a 20-minute walk, we arrived at that high school, and we were welcomed with open arms by teachers and our fellow guests, now serving as hosts, and a few minutes of happiness were really what I wanted.

“Hello, Pete!”, said the Donovan twins in sync, giving me handshakes.

“Oh, hey! Long time no see!”, I spoke.

“Long time no see, Peter!”, said Grace.

“Indeed, long time no see!”

“You look like you grew a bit in height,” said Patrick.

“Really? I barely noticed. Thanks! You guys look like you got even taller!”

“Ah, yeah, we did. Thanks,” said Leonard.

“Wait…where’s Logan?”

“At the moment, he has something to do. He’ll come soon.”

“Well, that’s not a good sign…”

“I know, but what can you do? He’s the oldest, his tasks outside of this school can’t just…stand…”

“I get it. Each and every person with their own duties, heh.”

Well, it didn’t last for very long, because everyone got into their own topics and, just as I feared it would happen, the feeling of being socially excluded began to sit on my soul, and it was not good. Oh well, let’s hope that it doesn’t last throughout the entire trip.

It wasn’t 10:00am quite yet, so, for the time being, we were given a tour of the high school much in the same way as we gave them a tour of our high school back when they were visiting us in October. The tour guide was, of course, the principal.

I do have to punch myself in the face for this one, as I did not bother introducing the teachers. There was Mrs. Flynn that visited us, who is a history teacher, but due to her busy schedule of having so many other cultural projects, she unfortunately couldn’t be present at this time, which is disappointing, because she was lovely, but we can’t really get everything in life, and almost nothing goes perfect, much less so on a bigger scale such as a cultural project. Instead, it was the principal that took her place for this part of the project, that being Mrs. Clarke, also a history teacher. Finally, the other two teachers that were part of the project regardless were Mrs. Fallon, a teacher of literature, and Mr. Walsh, a teacher of theatre and a really good actor. You shouldn’t worry about the names, they’re not that strange. There may have been at least one other person I omitted from their side and a couple more from ours, but with so many people involved in the project, having everybody appear in a way appropriate to the pace of the events was anything but easy.

The high school didn’t look bad at all. It had considerably more colour than ours, and not in a bad way either. The atmosphere was also nice, seeing as, during recess, teens were talking about their hobbies, not just between each other, but even with teachers, something that rarely happens elsewhere.

School is often hated for a few reasons: a monotonous schedule, lack of freedom, not enough interest in the subjects, high learning difficulty, a ton of homework, a ton of exams, and especially loneliness. These are all valid reasons even in the present day, but schools generally lack the soul colour or even the physical colour that make the school not feel like you’re going to prison. Schools shouldn’t be treated like prisons, as they are some of the most important institutions anywhere in the world, they’re the ones that provide the formal education you need, and they’re a step towards having a good job. In some countries, that’s all you need to live an average life with little to worry for money, food or housing. In some other countries, you pretty much have to attend college, graduate college, get a Bachelor’s degree or even a Master’s degree, and unless you also go for a PhD, you will still not feel satisfied. Even then, you’ll also lose the satisfaction of youth.

Our first session in visit was literature class. I was intrigued by how only Mr. Spencer, who was acting as a student and my desk mate, was raising his hand to answer important questions, and then he went ahead and forcefully raised my right hand. Eventually, the teacher noticed the hand and I was at the call, with everyone else laughing. That was pretty unpleasant, but in comparison to what Luke had told me this morning and a few other terrible incidents, this wasn’t mentally harmful, it was innocent, maybe a little bit hilarious at the end.

10:45am and recess started again. Everybody minded their own business, while I was trying to figure out if the SIM card and its options actually functioned, because I couldn’t access Instagram easily. It was also pretty difficult to call my mother or send her a message, though at least that was still possible.

Around the middle of this break, Luke approached me, with the intention of insulting me once again.

“What’s wrong, numpty? Your card doesn’t work?”, Luke said, chuckling right after.

“That shouldn’t be of your concern, and you really don’t have to add salt to injury,” I responded.

“If I want to, I’ll shove an entire bottle of salt just to make you feel even worse.”

“Okay, Luke, why are you acting like this?”

“That shouldn’t be of your concern, and you really don’t have to know everything!”

“You’ve changed your behaviour for the worse again. I’m not up for another argument, Luke. If you hate me that much, at the very least have the decency to leave me alone.”

Before Luke could do anything else after our dialogue, I walked away from him, trying to mind my own business. It wouldn’t matter that much anyway, since recess was about to end, and our next session was history class, and this was an interesting one, because it was about a very interesting subject: the Great Famine.

To put my knowledge into practice, for seven years, between 1845 and 1852, Ireland went under a period of starvation, disease, and emigration, and that is the period that is referred to as the Great Famine, both by the Irish and the British. A disease affected the potato crop, which represented one third of the population’s food dependency. About a million people died, and the island lost 2.5 million people in total due to even more people heading towards the United States and calling it their new home. This was the largest disaster happening to any modern civilization.

According to the census from four years prior to the famine, the population of Ireland was at 8.1 million people. To this day, it stands as the high population record of the country. After almost two centuries, it hasn’t fully recovered, and it is expected that it’ll get past that peak by the time we step into 2041, 200 years after the 1841 census. It’s such a crazy thing to learn more about, especially since, right now, over 36 million Americans are of Irish ancestry, and they’re the second largest group of Americans of European descent, being dwarfed only by the 49 million German-Americans. That’s a lot of lost potential. In fact, it was calculated that, if the famine did not occur, the population of Ireland would have as many people living in itself as there are Irish Americans right now. While not all of the 36 million are attributed to the famine, a good chunk of those people certainly are.

Well, that was a neat little history lesson, but alas, we had to eat after this class, and we were given Irish stew and soda bread, and the meal was enjoyable, not to mention that both the bread and the stew were cooked extremely well, just for this occasion. There wasn’t a whole lot to say about the whereabouts of this lunch, except Luke being, and I’m sorry for saying it, a nasty little freak, and I almost got some food dropped over my groin because someone was not being careful at all and distracted me. I didn’t say anything, however.

“Really, Luke? Was that necessary?”, Amira asked.

“What?”, said Luke.

“You didn’t have to push Peter like that.”

“Nobody asked.”

Whatever Luke did was already enough to get someone pissed off or concerned, but that reply alone did the job just as well for a few, like Amira, doing more harm than good in the grand scheme of things.

We had one final session, which mostly revolved around answering questions said by our fellow mates. It’s not that I had a fantastic memory or was a nerd, but I was the only one who was able to answer the questions more than once. Most of my classmates, even Nicholas and Daphne who weren’t really from my class, were grateful, but you can’t satisfy everybody, and that pissed off Luke. It seemed that his temper got shortened to that of a grain of salt in less than two days. It wasn’t a long one. Applauses were given, final words had been said, and it was almost time to start a new show. They had their own amphitheatre, thankfully, so we didn’t have to go to an entirely different place.

This time, the Irish went first again, with their monologues, recitals, and even a play of their own, which was nice. They did get me emotional a couple of times, but I can’t find the words or ways to describe them in detail, so my reactions were all that were needed.

And then, it was our turn. Oh, boy, was it fun. Sketches would normally be left for last, but the teachers agreed that the order didn’t matter too much, so we went with our sketch, first. No, don’t worry, it wasn’t the police officer one again. Instead, it was a rather medical one, which I believe was worse than the one from October, but alas. It went something like this:

A medic, roleplayed by me, is seen writing something on a sheet of paper in his office. A young lady, roleplayed by Daphne, knocks on the door.

“Come in,” the medic said.

The door opens and she enters the office.

“Greetings, madam, how may I help you?”

“Madam is how you call your mother. I’m a miss!”, she exclaimed.

“My apologies. Greetings, miss, how may I help you?”

“Why did you say that again?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, just sit down.”

She proceeds to sit down, ready to tell her problems.

“Doctor…I think I have a dose.”

The medic looks at the young lady and stops writing.

“A dose of what?”

“A really bad dose.”

“Okay. What kind of dose?”

“A really bad dose of…sores.”

The medic leaves down his pen in amazement, which adds that comedic effect.

“Excuse me?”

“A really bad dose of sores, doctor!”

“You don’t seem to have anything wrong, though, madam.”

“I told you! I’m not madam! Call your mother that! I’m a miss!”

“Yes, sorry. You don’t seem to have anything wrong, miss.”

“Thank you…and why did you say that again?”

“Say what again?”

“…never mind. But, doctor, I can’t stand the sores!”

“Which sores?”

“These sores!”

The young lady stands up, turning away from the doctor and facing the door.

“Right. Madam…”

“Why are you calling me madam?!”

“Yes, I forgot. Miss, you don’t have anything wrong.”

“And why am I feeling like I can’t sit?!”

“Well, you can sit, you’ve just sat on that chair.”

“But it hurts!”

The doctor then takes off his glasses and puts some questions.

“What was the last thing you did before you began experiencing these…’sores’?”

“I sat down.”

“…and then?”

“That’s it. I just sat down!”

“When did that happen?”

“Often!”

“I’m not asking how often that happened. I’m asking when that happened, like when the last time that it happened for you to sit down and get sores was.”

“I don’t know.”

Since the doctor could not get an answer, he had to approach the young lady differently.

“Alright, I’ll make it simple. Did you have these sores before you came into my office?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Often!”

“Miss…please!”

“What?”

“Again, I’m asking when exactly. I’m not asking how often it happened.”

“Oh…oh, I know, it was a few minutes ago!”

“What?!”

“Yes, it happened a few minutes ago, and I sat down, but then it passed!”

“So, you got these sores again when you sat down on this chair?”

“…I think…?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure!”

“Okay, thank you…phew…”

The doctor then put his glasses back, grabbed his pen and began writing again.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m writing something.”

“What is it so important that you have to write and you can’t take care of your patients, doctor?”

“Miss, I’m afraid that you have something that’s called stress.”

“What? But I get stressed all the time.”

“Yes, and so do I, and that other guy waiting in the hallway. Here’s the treatment for you, and I’ll see you again in 6 weeks max. Take care.”

“Oh…thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The young lady leaves the office, happier than ever, especially after finding out that she does not have sores. Several seconds later, however, someone knocked on the door again.

“Come in…”

A young man, interpreted by Nicholas, enters the office.

“Greetings, sir, how may I help you?”

“It’s not sir. It’s mister,” said the young man.

“Oh, lord, here we go again…”

The sketch ends here, with the medic showing disappointment and frustration.

And now, it was the time we started singing. We started with Someone Like You, which is a pretty popular song even to this day, and, dare I say it, Daphne has one of the best voices of all time? It was nothing short of a perfume to my ears, but she continued with another song called I Follow Rivers, which, while not my favourite, is still a pretty good song on its own. The third song was a classic, Every Breath You Take. This time, I was the singer instead of Daphne because, really, singing three whole songs in a row was a pretty absurd idea, especially after that sketch, and we needed a male singer on the scene anyway. After that, the next song was Hey, Soul Sister, which was really good. And to end the mix with a fiver, we went with Fireball, with the catch that both Daphne and I had to sing this one. We left this one at the end because it offered one the vibe of dancing or having fun, which helped improving the atmosphere and making it, well, alive.

Applauses were given, and only at this time, Logan finally arrived, just as the entire show was about to end. A ceremony was hosted for the sake of finality, and then we got our bags and had to go to our hosts…or so that was how things had to go. While we did have to part our ways pretty soon, we all met at a large table in a small bar near the school.

“Wow, that was a really good performance. I like your voice, your tone, everything, it felt like you were born to be part of such shows!”, Grace told me.

“Same!”, said a few others, including ones from our side.

“Thank you, everyone…it’s sweet of you…”, I responded.

“No, it sucked, and you suck even more!”, said Luke.

Well, I shouldn’t be shocked at this point, but just those seven words uttered by Luke gave me a partial shutdown, kind of like that famous shutdown sound from the computers of the 2000s.

“What?”, I asked.

“Luke, are you for real?”, Ava began attacking.

“Yes, I am for real, and don’t shove your nose where it doesn’t belong, miss Marshall!”

“Hey, watch it!”, said Ivy in defence.

“I’m not watching it. You are the ones that need to shut up!”

“You’re only saying it because you’re jealous of Luke, aren’t you?”, said Robert before he began chuckling, but not for long before almost being hit by Luke, a hit that was fortunately prevented by Mark just in time.

“What’s wrong with you?!”, said Mark, also in defence. “Luke, have you gone as far as hitting others physically just to prove a point?”

“That was something…”, said Robert.

“It’s not about that!”, said Luke.

“Then what is it about?”, Ava asked. “You can’t just harass people for nothing.”

“Oh, but I’m not harassing people for nothing, unless that’s what they are…nothing…like this punk right here,” Luke spoke, pointing at me.

“I seriously don’t get it. What is the matter with Pete? What is there to say or even know about him that makes you so angry?”, Logan asked.

“Who are you to speak? You weren’t even here until a few minutes ago!”, Luke fought back.

“He had problems to solve, actual problems! This shouldn’t be a problem, and you make it seem like it’s the end of the world!”, I said.

“You say another word and I’ll tape your bloody mouth, you twat!”, Luke threatened me.

That threat left almost everyone speechless and emotionless, besides the shock of hearing the best friend of another person, who did nothing wrong, shouting a threat.

“Alright, enough, Luke. Let’s just go,” said Patrick.

“Yeah, whatever, let’s go.”

The twins and Luke left the place, heading home so they could eat and get ready for the night, as they all agreed to take us out in the city at night just as we did. The rest of the conversation didn’t go much better, but at least Luke wasn’t present, which was a godsend at this point.

“So, uhm…hey, man?”, Logan asked.

“What is it?”, I said.

“How are you still friends with this guy?”

“If you remember what happened 5 months ago, we all gathered in a single place. Him and the twins were obviously the last to arrive, and we wanted to solve things there instead of leaving them unsolved or having them solved when it would be too late. The twins were on our side for this one, of course, and Luke barely elaborated. It took a heck of a lot of time before he gave up, began crying and apologized for his attitude.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember…”, said Ava.

“Indeed. Anyone here that is from our class knows that our friendship has continued. We wanted to fix things, and since we had been friends for over three years, I wanted to give him one last chance. I thought I had made a big mistake giving him this last chance, and that wasn’t true...until today.”

“Huh…but he’s acting like he did in October, if not worse,” said Amber.

“Well, that’s the real deal here. I went to that café on Wednesday, two days ago. Yesterday, he was absent. This morning, he was acting like a complete jerk instead of just ignoring me, and it was even worse during recess.”

“I believe that your only fault was being naïve that he’d improve. He didn’t,” said Ivy.

“Why didn’t you just end the friendship? It would have been easier for everyone, especially you and him,” Ava suggested.

“And maybe you wouldn’t have those nightmares,” Alice agreed.

“Nightmares?”, asked Logan. “You didn’t say anything about those.”

“I only briefly mentioned it for everyone. Ava and Alice know about this problem a bit more, simply because I didn’t want to say it to everyone at the airport, including Luke, not because of trust. It’s just that he would have lurked.”

“I see…well, shall we leave?”

“Actually, wait, when do we all meet?”

“Good question,” said Grace. “How does 5:00pm sound to y’all?”

“5:00pm?! Are you a chancer?!” Eff off! That’s too early!”, said Ayden.

“Fine, what about 6:00pm?”, Grace continued.

“Still too early,” said Kate, one of the Irish girls.

“We can’t go much later! Some of us don’t even live in the city outskirts!”

“That’s their problem, not mine,” said Ayden.

“You can’t be this arrogant!”

Wow, what a debate…but I couldn’t be in the middle of it the entire time, so I just told Logan that we could go and it was better off to just establish the perfect time through the Instagram DM group, and the problem would be solved.

And this is what I was talking about when I said that I would normally be staying at Logan’s house. I still had to stay with him, but we weren’t going to stay at him for personal and medical reasons, so instead we stayed at one of his friends’ apartments. That was a bit much to process, but not enough to blow my mind completely.

“Well, since it’s now just the two of us, would you like to talk about these nightmares?”, Logan asked.

“I think it’ll haunt my mind forever if I kept talking about these.”

“I understand, although I know that you can be strong if you want to.”

“Perhaps.”

“The girls are right, though. If he is acting like this, you shouldn’t be friends with him anymore.”

“Yes, mate, everyone said the same thing, and they had every reason to say that, but he was acting so nice to me most of the time, and there weren’t any direct fights between us until October. I knew that he was aggressive, but that was towards other people, and I thought that I’d be free of that in the future, but that was obviously not the case…”

“Nice? It doesn’t seem like it.”

“He really doesn’t act normal anymore. I could understand the first time, because there was the tournament and you guys visiting, and even that can’t be excused all the way. Because of his attitude, I got nightmares, nightmares that were caused by the presence of his aggression, and each time something like that happens, I wake up in complete shock immediately.”

“Oh…”

“And the worst part is that I had one just this morning, and I woke up alongside the alarm because of one of these nightmares. It was really terrifying, and even my mother saw me like this. I had to tell her this.”

“You really need to go to a psychologist for this.”

“Sure, but going to a psychologist doesn’t solve the root of the problem, and it’s Luke.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, now I see that Luke is in full power of hitting other people without a reason at all. I may need some protection.”

“Wait, you don’t know how to defend yourself?”

“I sort of do, but it’s usually against strangers, and they are a one-time appearance. I probably have to do this to Luke so many times and he still won’t give up.”

“Alright. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Thank you, man…let’s just change the topic, I’m getting kind of tired of talking about Luke.”

“What is your favourite music genre?”

“EDM.”

“Yup, nostalgia is written all over you.”

“How did you know?”

“Because only EDM from over ten years ago sounds good, no one else would like that genre.”

“Well, it was good back then!”

“I can’t disagree with that, but if you say something about today’s EDM, I’d ignore you completely and leave you stranded here.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

The talk went pretty uninteresting after this, and the topics changed tens of times, over and over. Among those were a few tips and tricks to stay safe in Dublin, and in Ireland in general, and those were important, such as being careful not to deal with drunk people, not to swear based on mothers, and so on.

It was a pretty long journey from the respective high school to the apartment, so we took the bus after getting to a bus station. It was boring, much more boring than whatever discussions I could possibly have with anyone.

Alas, we arrived at the apartment. Of course, I had to leave my bag in my room, but what I wanted to do was to change my clothes before we could actually go because, my god, for one of the first days of Spring, it was unbearably warm. That was really it, because we didn’t eat anything in the apartment. Instead, if we wanted to eat something, it had to be done at a fast-food restaurant, so from that to a place near the city centre that served burgers, sandwiches, and anything you can think of, we had to walk again, and we wouldn’t even be alone this time, around, because this was when I got to meet some of Logan’s friends. One of them was Paul. Yes, Paul, it goes well with Peter, don’t you think? After meeting him, we were really on our way to the restaurant.

Once we got there, I bought a chickenburger, and it was superbly expensive, not because it isn’t spiritually optimal to eat anything chicken-related on a Friday, though that could be a good reason too, but because burgers here simply are superbly expensive. Considering I had to pay a lot for just one item and I only put some more for a bottle of grape soda, mostly because I was thirsty, I had nothing outstanding to note for the food. The pop is pop, after all, so it stays the same, and I got no comment for it.

Usually, when I’m hungry, it wouldn’t take me a lot of time to eat the burger, but I was being unusually slow at eating. This gave us time to talk about many things, which was, as they say, neat. Living in the year 2023, one would be expected at this point to use his phone wherever he goes. On a normal day, that would be true in my case too, but today isn’t a normal day. My SIM card was really only set for very little Internet, calls with my mom, and messages. That was it. If I wanted to use the phone for anything else, it was just to play games that require no Internet connection, a rarity in today’s world, or to take some pictures. So, what did I do instead? I was just looking at my two blokes, staying on their phones. Wonderful. My luck was only getting more terrible as time went.

The next thing we did was walking in a park, where we met another one of Logan’s friends, this time a girl. Oh, it was actually his girlfriend. Her name? May. Pretty name, it reminded me of one of the months of the year. Much like Paul, actually interacting with her was the way to do it, since I couldn’t use my phone for almost anything except for what they were used for back in the mid-2000s: calls, messages and photos. Well, add videos to this. Back then, if you recorded a video, you would end up with something short, low-quality, and hard to hear. Even then, that was it. That was not necessarily a bad thing, because communicating with people face-to-face is so much more productive in general.

The boys went somewhere to get some drinks for themselves, leaving me and May out

“Hm, I’ve noticed that you don’t use your phone nearly as much,” said May, “how is that possible?”

“I put a SIM card with roaming options. It doesn’t look like they’re working all that well. I do have some bit of Internet, but it’ll hardly be useful for things like Instagram or, well, playing mobile games,” I said.

“Want me to give you some hotspot?”

“That would be greatly appreciated, thank you!”

May was nice enough to give me some hotspot, and I was finally able to talk to people on Discord and check some stuff on Instagram, but even then, I couldn’t use it heavily, mostly out of decency, so we began talking instead.

“I assume you’re one of the Brits.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Any plans for tonight?”

“Hanging out with people…? I don’t think I have anything else on my agenda. Some of those kids said something about a club, but you need an invitation and you also have to be 18 or over, and I’m not going for it.”

“Which club, again?”

“According to what they said in the Instagram group, it’s a place called…Silver Coin Jacks?”

“Wait, do you really want to go there?”

“I wanted to go there at first, but if my roaming options barely work, then there’s absolutely no point. It seems like we’re very divided on this, anyway. Half of us want to go, and half of us don’t want to go.”

“I say go with whoever doesn’t go to that bar. Instead, go for a tournament where you can relax and feel relieved.”

“I might as well. I’m not a fan of alcohol or smoking, and I’m sure the club will be full of that. I’d rather host my own party.”

“For sure.”

A few minutes later, the boys finally returned with their drinks.

“Wow, what took so long?”

“We got ourselves two pints of beer, and for you and May, a milkshake,” said Logan, giving us the milkshakes.

“I like how it looks. Is it vanilla?”, I asked.

“It is.”

“Oh, nice, thank you!”

“Not a problem. Anything to make you feel good here.”

“Well, I sure hope that it works.”

“You don’t seem to be completely strange with this place. Have you been here before?”

“Yes, I’ve visited this place once before. It was back in March 2018 for St. Patrick’s Day, so it was 5 years ago.”

“Wow. And how was it?”

“It was pretty good. I was able to stay here for one weekend, and it was so amazing.”

“Well, again, things aren’t perfect here. You have to be really cautious, even if you’re in a country that is part of the European Union.”

“And I’m from a country that just got out of that…”

“See? You gotta be cautious. Anyway, wanna take a photo?”

“Why not? A photo’s always good.”

We took a pretty nice photograph. I believe I looked just fine. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if it was posted on Instagram, but this was kept more for memories’ sake. Logan did give me the picture through Instagram, but it was not to be posted unless we all agreed.

We only stayed at the table for a couple of minutes before we left and went downtown. More specifically, the very city centre of Dublin. It looked neat, and, after all, that was where we were supposed to meet. On the way, we met Logan’s third and final friend of the day, Ethan, who was actually the host.

“Ay, Logan, what’s the craic?”, Ethan asked.

“Just taking a walk with our bud from the UK right here. Meet Peter,” said Logan.

“It’s nice to see you,” Ethan said.

“Uhm…sorry if I may be, as you say it here, a dryshite," I said.

“You’re not, lad, don’t fret, you’re actually grand,” said Logan.

“Oh, is he anxious?”, Ethan asked.

“Sort of. He also has problems with a friend who is in the same project as him. You don’t get to see him all that much, but still,” Logan answered.

“Ah, I see. Well, that’s fine, because I’m completely knackered.”

“Leg day?”,

“Quite a long one, but, hey, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, am I right? So, where are you lads going? I’m coming.”

“We’re heading towards the city centre.”

“And are you just going to leave him there?”

“Well, I’m not interested in going to that club that those kids were talking about.”

“Don’t worry, he’s not that interested either,” said May.

“How did you know?”, Logan asked.

“During the time you and Paul were gone to buy some drinks and I gave him hotspot, we were talking about what he wants to do tonight, and he said that he just wants to hang out with people and that’s it. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of clubs.”

“I mean…drinking is fine and all, but there’s no need to get scuttered,” said Ethan.

“Tell that to the chaotic ones,” I said.

At some point before 6:00pm, we got to the spot where we were supposed to meet. In fact, according to the clock, it was 5:59pm, so we got here pretty much when needed. Weirdly enough, no one else seemed to have appeared until at least 23 minutes later. How can you be 23 minutes late? My goodness…

However, the only one who appeared was Kate, with her new boyfriend, Matt. Though we only got to see him for a moment before the two went to a shopping mall in the city centre, not having any intention of joining either side.

That was it, however. We then waited another 33 minutes before some of us finally arrived where needed.

“Whoa, hello there!”, I greeted.

“Hi, Pete!”, Ava answered.

“So, how’s Dublin so far?”, Ayden asked.

“Not bad, not bad. I’ve been here once, things shouldn’t be awful,” I responded, before giving a good chuckle, “no, but for real, where have you lads been?”

“We were…mostly walking in the park nearby,” said Robert.

“Oh, okay,” I said.

“Where’s your ‘best friend’?”, Ivy asked.

“Well…I don’t know, I’ve barely been online today,” I spoke.

“Why?”

“I can barely access the Internet because of the very limited mobile data. I thought it was going to fully work.”

“Oh. The twins posted something in the group.”

“What? Where? How?”

It looked like the twins and Luke were in the car, being as wild as possible, and the music was at near max volume, to the point where we could barely hear the lads. It seems that Sweet Love was played in the car, making matters even worse.

“Well, it looks like they’re having fun. Good for them,” I said.

“Perhaps we should go to a nearby park and wait for everyone else,” Ava suggested.

“Sure.”

As we were ready to go to the park, Logan was asked by Ethan to come with him for a few minutes, alongside Paul and May, leaving me practically alone.

“Wait, where are they going?”, Ava asked.

“No idea…”, I said.

“Oh, lord…someone has to take care of you, though.”

“I’ll handle it,” said Mark, “come with me.”

“Uhm…okay, then…”

Since Logan and his friends were gone, I had no choice but to go after Mark and follow him, alongside the rest of the group who did arrive, towards the nearest park, which is where we waited for some more time for everyone else to come. A few sat down on three benches that were glued together, while a few like me were standing up. I swiftly went to a stand that was selling lemon juice and quickly came back.

“Whoa, that was fast,” said Ava.

“I know. I was thirsty, though, so I had to get something,” I responded.

“Hmm…it doesn’t look bad. Is it actually lemon juice?”, Amber asked.

“It tastes like it. It’s a bit sour, though…a bit too sour.”

“Oh. Well, be careful.”

“I mean it being sour shouldn’t be a problem for my thirst, but I’d be worried for my own stomach.”

“Take it easy,” said Robert.

I took a few sips. They were pretty short, which, well, given that the lemon juice was cool temperature-wise, were completely fine.

As you’d expect, a few more people arrived near the park, as they were announced through the Instagram group that the meeting place changed. Meanwhile, Logan and his friends are at a nearby bar, so it was all good, at least somewhat. Also, as you’d expect, Luke was the last one to arrive, alongside the twins.

“And everyone is here this time!”, said Grace.

“What took you so long?”, Ruby asked.

“We had a little fun earlier. We had to decide which outfit went best for this very occasion,” said Leonard and Patrick, with the sentences alternating between the two.

“Oh, good grief…people have just one single outfit for a night and they dress up in a couple of minutes…”, I said.

“Well, sorry, man…”, Leonard apologized, “…anyway, how are you doing, how’s the city?”

“Eh…not too shabby.”

“Not too shabby? What do you mean?”

“It’s not too bad. I mean, in fairness, I have visited this place before, but it was only during the day.”

“You’ll likely enjoy the nightlife here too.”, said Patrick.

“Also, the city is much safer than London when it comes to assault cases,” Robert adds, “with only 90 assault cases per 100,000 residents compared to London’s 730 per 100,000 residents.”

“Wow…well, that is a much lower rate than I expected,” I said in amazement.

“Yes, but do keep in mind that the country average for road deaths is slightly higher here, at 2.7 road deaths per 100,000 residents compared to the British average of 2.4 per 100,000.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Perhaps you’ve already seen some of the recklessness of the drivers.”

“I guess you’re right. Some of them should have had their license revoked.”

“Right, but who asked?”, Luke steps in, shoving his nose where it does not belong, as usual.

And just as I thought things finally started going well again, especially since Luke wasn’t present and I had a couple of moments of peace, all of it gets disturbed by his presence, as if he wants to confront me once more.

“Excuse me?”, Robert asked in confusion.

“No one asked you to tell anyone how safe this city is, we can just find that information out ourselves!”, Luke exclaimed.

“I didn’t mind getting the information. I found it useful, especially coming from a resident of this city,” I dared speaking.

“Well, well, well, look who is here, daring to disobey me once again.”

“You’re not my captain.”

“Luke, I’m not up for another argument. Just stop.”

Of course, Luke did not stop. In fact, he decided it was a fantastic idea to push Robert away and punch me in the stomach just like he did in October, making me drop my glass of lemon juice as well. That put me in shock. It was too quick, and Logan couldn’t notice from a distance. Everyone else was in shock.

“Ouch…”

After that ouch, I coughed as if I was about to vomit, and vomit it was. I rushed to the nearest trashcan and vomited. It was definitely not pleasant, and as if it wasn’t enough, he got someone in the middle. He was already going too far. Ivy stepped in.

“Why are you doing this again?!”, she asked, demanding an answer from Luke.

“He’s getting what he deserves. Oh, wait, I think he should have gotten a fierce punch instead, and not to the stomach, but to the groin!”, Luke said.

“You can’t do this to your friend, pal!”, Grace intervened.

“You stay out of this!”

“No one is going to stay out of this, lad,” Mark said, “and not only did you punch your friend again, but you also pushed Robert, and you had no reason to do it, and yet you did! What’s wrong with you?!”

While Logan wasn’t able to see what was going on, he was still able to hear the argument that came right after this, and since it was getting worse and worse after each passing second, he had to stand up.

“I’ll be right back, something happened there,” Logan said.

“We’ll come with you,” said May, who got concerned.

Several seconds later, they arrived at the scene, seeing me vomiting in the trashcan while also being in pain because of my hurt stomach. There were also shards of glass and a puddle of lemon juice that was, of course, dropped.

“Hey, what’s going on? What happened?”, Logan asked.

“First of all, where have you been?”, Ava responded with another question.

“We were at that table…”

“And you couldn’t have said anything?”, Ivy asked.

“Well, who thought something like this was going to happen, and I thought that he knew how to defend himself.”

“This time, he really couldn’t, with that lemon juice on his hand and things happening so fast that anyone could barely see and stop it from happening,” said Grace.

“He got what he deserved!”, Luke exclaimed again.

Since she couldn’t stand seeing me vomit again, Amira quickly went to the same stand where I bought my lemon juice for a bottle of water and came to me.

“Take this. I hope it makes you feel better,” Amira said, giving me the bottle afterwards.

“…thanks,” I said, faintly.

I drank the entire bottle, and while I did feel slightly better, the pain did not go away. It was only enough so I wouldn’t have to vomit afterwards.

“Right…with all of that said, who’s going to the club?”, Grace asked everyone.

A few raised their hands. From our side, Alice, Amber, Amira, and, to my surprise, Nicholas and Daphne wanted to go, as well as Luke, while from their side, it was the twins, Grace, Anna, and Chloe.

What about the rest? Well, each had their excuses.

Kate, of course, was not to be seen as she was with her boyfriend at the mall and we wouldn’t see her again until tomorrow. That was something I had already known.

Emily, however, is an interesting case. What I couldn’t say earlier was how she wasn’t here anymore. She hadn’t just left the cultural project, but she had left the country altogether. At school, I was told that Emily had an accident sometime in December. After recovery, she and her family moved to the United States, losing all contact with everyone. The last time she was seen by anyone that was part of the project, or anybody else, was just before her flight, as school was about to end, on the 13^th of the next month. Truly heartbreaking.

Logan, of course, couldn’t join, since he was his friends already, although I was his biggest responsibility for the project, so, for the sake of not letting me in danger again, he passed the staff, for now, to Mark.

Lastly, Phillip and Ayden decided to just go home and have fun on their own instead. That was a pretty simple decision, and even though they couldn’t get to see the rest until tomorrow, it wasn’t a big loss for either.

The ones left in the equation are the rest of us, the “Easterners”, those being me, Ava, Ivy, and Nancy, and the rest of them, the “Westerners”, yes, I know, ridiculous names, those being Robert, Mark, Ruby, and, someone that I couldn’t present until now, Nora. The fact that I was the only British male present made me feel slightly uneasy, but Phillip and Luke were already on their own ways, and I was not just going to stay alone.

By this time, however, I was beginning to feel exhausted, even if it was just 7:40pm. After all, I had been awake since 4:30am and I had only had a single cup of coffee throughout the day, and it wasn’t a strong one. It didn’t help that my communication with the outside world was limited, as if I was really sent back to the 2000s, with its intensified flaws. My mom called me for one final time during the day, telling me to check the instructions for the roaming options the next time I got access to the Internet, asking for my health. The call didn’t last very long, since I didn’t have a lot of time at my disposal either, and my options were, once again, limited.

We sat at a medium-size table inside. All of us ordered either pop or juice. I wanted a zero-sugar coke, so I went with a bottle of Coke Zero and a glass to pour in the fizzy drink. It caused a bit of a mess and everyone laughed, except me, of course, because I was too tired to process the funny part. As for snacks, Nancy, Nora, and Ruby went for cheesecakes, and I went with bruschetta, since I was actually a little bit hungry...it was effectively dinner for me, but because I was so tired, I wouldn’t be able to eat all of it, and if anything remained, it could go to Ava, Ivy, or anyone else.

We took a photograph of our drinks, and we said cheers, each to their own pace of drinking. That was about as much inclusion as I got, because other than that, I wasn’t enjoying it all that much. It wasn’t the worst choice made, though. If anything, if I went to the club, it would have been at least ten times worse, not just because of the previously mentioned alcohol and drinking that is prevalent in clubs, and I was surprised that they were allowed in the club despite everyone being minors, but it was also because of Luke, and having the fight extend to the clubs with nobody saving me when I get beaten up was one of the last things I wanted.

Most of the rest of the short experience at the restaurant was relatively uneventful, and everybody was involved in some discussion that I wasn’t part of. I was sitting there slightly farther away in loneliness, contemplating some moments of life, including the ones that involved Luke. I was barely speaking, I was barely moaning, I was barely doing anything besides this. At the end, when everybody paid for their drinks and snacks, Ava got concerned of my wellbeing again.

“Pete, what’s wrong?”, she asked.

“I have absolutely no idea, I’m just…contemplating,” I responded.

“Contemplating what?”

“Life choices.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have bought that fizzy drink, I don’t think it boded well for your stomach,” said Ivy.

“I don’t feel any different from drinking that coke.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, but be cautious. You don’t want to vomit again,” said Ava.

“Thank you for the advice, Ava…well, guess we’re going to part ways now that we’re leaving the restaurant.”

“Not just yet. I need to call Logan to pick you up,” said Mark.

“Oh, he gave you his phone number?”, Ava asked Mark.

“Yup. Someone has to take care of him, anyway, we can’t just leave him here. What if he is left all alone and something bad happens to him?”

Mark did as he said, and he called Logan to pick me up from the restaurant, assuming that I would go rest after this. It was 9:28pm and, under normal circumstances, I would have not been feeling tired whatsoever, but I was only a few small steps away from becoming a zombie this time. My eyes were not happy, my walking speed severely decreased, and my comprehension was beginning to fail. We only did one more group photograph just for fun, just outside the restaurant, and then it was time to part ways again.

Being tired, I really didn’t want to walk for much longer. Well, I guess I was doomed to a certain curse, because I walked around the city centre and even beyond it for another 90 minutes, and the weather was no longer friendly. It didn’t help that I was getting more and more terrified of the city throughout these 90 minutes, as I got to see teenagers and even young adults being completely drunk or “fluthered”, as they say. One even tried to approach me, probably asking for some money, but I didn’t bother. Also, during the entire time we were walking, I was facing the same issue as the one from the restaurant: not being included in the discussion at all and contemplating life choices. After those 90 minutes, Paul had to go home. Eventually, I couldn’t resist saying these three magic words:

“I am tired…”, I said, faintly, like a zombie who only wished to sleep and get a good rest.

“Already? It’s too early!”, said Ethan.

“Well, it is 10:58pm. 50/50 chance I would sleep at this time, even if I wasn’t completely exhausted.”

“Exhausted? Did you drink? Did you dance?”

“I only drank something fizzy at the restaurant and ate a snack, but I’ve been awake since 4:30am and I didn’t wake up well at all. I’ve had no rest since.”

“Man, your fella is being a chiseler right now!”, Ethan told Logan.

“Like it or not, he really looks shattered. Should we crack on for a few more minutes, he’ll be on the ground, dead as a dolphin,” Logan responded.

Just as Logan was saying this, it started to rain, and the rain was only hitting harder.

“Oh my god, it’s bucketing down!”, May said.

“We better get home as fast as possible.”

Despite the heavy rain, it took us several more minutes to even get close to the block, but those minutes resembled an eternity. Consider it an exaggeration, though. I was worn out. A minute or two were left before we finally got inside and got into the apartment.

The first thing I did was changing clothes again, while everyone else was in the kitchen, drinking some hot tea, and I was also served a cup a minute later. Even if it was so late, I somehow managed to stay up another hour and a half before going to sleep. In the meantime, May was nice enough to give me some hotspot, so I could talk to my mother. The instructions were identical to what I did, and, unfortunately, despite trying several times, nothing worked. All I could do for the night was just wishing my mother a good night. It almost made me shed a tear of despair, knowing that I wasn’t able to do almost anything, but alas, I had to live with that. Other than that, I wasn’t involved in anything, since the boys were just talking about a hypothetical Geography exam.

It turned 1:10am after all of the discussion, and I simply wanted to sleep. I left some food in there just in case I wanted to eat something in the morning, I went to my room and told everyone to have a good night, though not before being told to wake up, or to wake everyone else up if I woke up first, at 8:30am. It sounded pretty late, but a few hours of rest definitely worked, not to mention that the meeting was itself set at a pretty late time: 10:00am. All in all, the night would normally end here…but it didn’t.

I couldn’t really fall asleep, because I forgot to close the door, and even if the others closed the doors to their rooms, I was still able to hear them laugh at some jokes, which only made me feel really bad. This lasted for half an hour, which was insane, but things stopped afterwards, and silence was installed, and it was deadly, but only then, my eyes closed, and, well, you could say that I was sleeping, at last.

Sadly, I had yet another nightmare, and it did involve Luke once more. However, it wasn’t a unique nightmare. It was not him using his chainsaw in his silly grim reaper outfit to butcher everyone, while I was trying to run away from it, as he left me at the end for the sake of satisfaction. It was not him pretending to adopt a different identity, getting me stuck in a chamber, with one of the walls moving towards me and revealing its spikes, killing everyone in the process, before the wall stopped, a somewhat innocent Luke appeared and got crushed by the neon light, with his other pretentious version summoning a scythe to kill me at the end. It wasn’t even one of those typical nightmares that one could have as a child or early teenager. No, it was none of them. Instead, it goes full circle, back to the first nightmare I had right after meeting Luke, and it was the same nightmare I had just before the Irish arrived in London: the classic basement, whip and burn. However, even more dramatic yet possibly real details were added, which made the nightmare seem even more like it was going to happen rather than being fictional, including very brief flashbacks.          

At the last second before the lighter was turned on and used on the puddle of gasoline, the nightmare stopped, which was earlier than usual, which lead me to myself waking up once more in shock. It was more jarring than usual. It felt like I was in complete distress. It was a sign of doom.

Not to be done just yet, I began hallucinating as soon as I woke up. It was a large shadow that initially mimicked the physique of a demon. I refused to believe it happened, and yet it did. There was even a fairly deep voice. I could not understand anything at first, since it was in an entirely different language, appropriate to one of a demon’s, but as each second passed, it became more and more intelligible, to the point where the demon was speaking in English too, although I still had no idea what he was mumbling, since he only said random stuff this time around. The demon’s voice transitioned again from one to another, but it wasn’t the language that was changed, but rather the way the language was used, as well as the pitch and tone to closely match Luke’s. Eventually, I blinked a few times, trying to get the shadow to go away, and the shadow instantly took a different form, one that looked like Luke. The shadow had indeed just turned into Luke, and it stayed like that for a long time, trying to intimidate me all the more. Eventually, the shadow “jumped” on me, and disappeared, leaving me in a shock so big that I couldn’t stay awake anymore, and I fell back asleep, while putting me in deep thought for the remaining time before I got to open my eyes again and wake up. I had never thought until that moment that I’d have a night as terrifying as this one had just proven to be. For the first time, my skin went truly pale, with goosebumps, and it stayed that way for the next couple of hours.

I had no energy left to store, so I woke up at 7:05am, far earlier than needed. Thankfully, I only had to go to the kitchen to get the food to eat something, and I was able to get a glass and drink some water, and that was it. 20 minutes later, both the glass and the food were done, and I used up the remaining time to do my necessities, take a cold shower, brush my teeth, change my clothes, tell my mother a nice “good morning” despite all of the issues I had with the card, prepared the bags, as I was definitely not going to sleep here again, and to fill the time left before it turned 8:30am, I decided to just play on my Switch. I had to check the time every few minutes to make sure I didn’t overdo the time limit.

The clock turned 8:30am. There were actually two rooms, and I was hoping that I wouldn’t knock on the wrong door, since Ethan had his own room, while Logan was sleeping with May. I knocked on the door that was slightly closer to my room, and, to my relief, it was the one for Logan’s room. Phew…

Thankfully, they had just woken up. All that was left to do was for Logan to wake up Ethan, have Ethan take a shower, dress up, and then it was departing time with the bags, to a nearby place that served breakfast, and even if I ate this morning, I was still able to eat breakfast from there, alongside a cup of coffee that I got for myself. The cup of coffee did little to calm me down, although not exactly zero.

It was 9:45am. Thankfully, the place wasn’t far away from the place where we had to meet, and that was, you guessed it, in the city centre. Sadly, Logan couldn’t stay with me forever, as he had more things to do, not to mention that May had already left the place a few minutes earlier to go to her guitar lessons, which made him effectively gone from the project as soon as we got to the city centre and lent me the bags, wishing me farewell. That is what happened, and we were the first to get there, at 9:54am. So, we had one more moment available for talk before, sadly, parting our ways, not to see each other again.

“Well, this is the place,” said Logan.

“You know, I was expecting at least a few people here. Can’t believe we’re this punctual compared to the rest,” I said.

“I’m pretty sure the others will come. I’ll stay here for a bit.”

“Right…”

“Are you alright? You’re looking a little pale.”

“I had yet another nightmare…and I also hallucinated.”

“You really need to talk to a psychologist…”

“I sure hope I get the chance as soon as possible…”

“Hm, well, you did look worse a little earlier, so something did calm you down.”

“Maybe it’s that cup of coffee, maybe it’s just the air, who knows.”

Within the last few minutes before the clock hit 10:00am, several others in the group arrived on time. The first other people to arrive were Mark and Ava, followed by Nora and Nancy, then by Robert, Ruby, Ivy, and Amber.

The clock hit 10:00am, and it was time for me and Logan to say goodbye.

“Goodbye, I hope we see each other again at some point in the future…”, I said.

“Farewell,” Logan said, waving goodbye and then leaving.

“Wait, where is he going?”, Ava asked.

“He has to solve some problems. He won’t come back.”, I said.

“Ah, well, that’s unfortunate.”

“I know, but, oh well, it was great while it lasted…”

Everyone else arrived after 10:00am, which was definitely not part of the plan that the teachers had, because everyone had to be there already by 10:00am. Continuing with the entrances, however, we had Anna and Alice, then Kate, Chloe, Ayden, Nicholas, Daphne and Phillip, then Grace and Amira. And even after the extra few minutes, there were still three absentees, so we waited some more. In the meantime, Grace got a call from one of the teachers, Mrs. Fallon. She answers the phone, asking everybody to distance a bit or to keep it low with the talk.

“Grace, what is everybody doing? Where are you?”, Mrs. Fallon asked.

“We’re still waiting in the city centre. Some of us here after ten o’clock, and there are, I believe, three of us who still haven’t arrived,” Grace responded.

“Oh my…alright, get everyone moving to the Museum of Modern Art. See you.”

“Okay, see you.”

The call ended. Only after the call, the last three arrived. As you could have guessed, the twins and Luke arrived last.

“Gee, Luke, you do have the reputation of being ever so late…”, Ava said.

“No one asked for your opinion,” said Luke in his own defence.

“You don’t have to insult us like that, Luke, she was just pointing out that you keep getting here last,” said Ivy in Ava’s defence.

“Hey, who let you talk?”

“I talk because I want to. Don’t try me.”

Luke, of course, was being himself, and he had proven only a couple of months earlier that he had quite the temper. He tried to slap Ivy, but he was stopped by another person: Grace, who gave him a slap that wasn’t harsh enough to leave a sign, while still giving him pain.

“You don’t slap a lady!”, Grace exclaimed. “Everybody, let’s go!”

“Gah…”, said Luke.

“I don’t know about you, but with that kind of behaviour, you do deserve that slap,” Robert said, before he chuckled.

This time, Luke did not say anything or even react to Robert’s input, other than staring at him.

So, we all met just outside the museum, where the teachers were waiting for us. Ashamed that a few students were late, Mrs. Fallon got mad and only told us this one thing:

“Right, whoever did not get to the city centre in time does not get to be in any future projects.”

Of course, if we had still been in the United Kingdom, that would have mattered just as much, not necessarily for us, but definitely so for the Irish. I wasn’t worried considering that, well, I wasn’t late to begin with, but it did get almost everyone else pissed off.

Things took a turn after this, however, and more social exclusion was put in place, unintentionally. Everyone minded their own business, talked about their own things, including the teachers, and I was the only one who could not talk to anybody. It isn’t that I didn’t want to, but I just wasn’t able to. I would have been completely impolite anyway. Regardless, that was for the entire meeting, and it just wasn’t good for me. This was one of those moments when I really wanted to ventilate my feelings and thoughts, as long as it wasn’t Luke, who was already the least likely to start a conversation with me, unless it was, at this point, just to wish me more doom.

The first destination was the Art Museum. We didn’t stay there for very long, only for about a few minutes. However, there was more appreciation for this one visit, as we all pretty much stayed in a single large group, instead of dividing ourselves into multiple groups. After that, we had some group photographs, and I was trying to be as happy as possible, even though so much had added up that it was a miracle to even do a half-decent job.

The next destination was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where everybody went instead except for me, seeing as I already visited this, and the teachers said that it wasn’t mandatory to get inside anyway. Besides, I was only contemplating, since there was nothing else to do anyway. There was another person who didn’t get inside, and that was Robert, who asked me exactly this:

“Huh? Why didn’t you get in?”

“I’ve already been inside. I don’t think I’d be impressed to go there again, so once is enough.”

“I see…”

Short and simple, we took another group photograph, and then moved on to the next destination, the National Wax Museum, and, oh my, it was unlike anything I had seen before! The figures seemed almost entirely real, and there were even some that portrayed popular fictional characters from books and television, which made it all the more amazing! It really was something, and so far, it was the best landmark of the trip. Like before, we made some group photographs, and whoever wanted could just ask for individual photographs of the figures, and there were quite a few interesting ones to be done.

Sadly, we were in a rush for the final activity on the list, visiting the headquarters of the National Youth Council of Ireland, which is where we began interacting and knowing each other some more. The problem with that is that almost everyone, except me of all people, was on their phones, which sucked. I also didn’t have a spot, so I had to get my own chair. It was bad.

The activity itself, however, was pretty interesting, because of games that simply had people interacting with one another. The first game did involve everyone, which was neat. We formed a circle, and everybody had to hold their hands. Someone from the circle has to start first, saying what they have in common with the person to their left, going clockwise. Of course, it had to be something physical, such as “Me and the person to the left have the same jeans” or “Me and the person to the left wear glasses”, because it would have been more difficult otherwise. The second activity also involved everyone, but there came elimination, so, if you didn’t exactly comply with the rules or you did something at the wrong time, you were out. This one definitely took the longest, and in order to make things more interesting, the pace also increased until three people were left. The last activity only involved those who didn’t have important things to do on their phones or simply wanted to play, and I was among the ones who really wanted to play. It was a confession game, where we had to go for one of the faces on the dice showing an emote, and we had to shortly describe something from our lives representative of the emote. That was the gist of it, and I believe it was fun. Never mind the National Wax Museum, this was definitely the best part of the trip!

That was the only time when I couldn’t contemplate, as every part of the trip had me contemplating due to the severe lack of communication with others, and this one got me concentrated. It was a breath of fresh air for my psyche, indeed. Alas, it could only last for so long.

We had one more stop, and that was to get our bags, which didn’t take a lot, surprisingly, and then, we went to a fast-food restaurant. The agreement that was settled between the kids and the teachers before we arrived was that everybody ordered whatever they wanted, but also had to pay for their partners. So, for example, Mark had to pay for both his meal and Ava’s, while Grace had to pay for both her meal and Amira’s. Unfortunately, with Logan out of the scheme, there had to be a different solution for me. It could have been easier in theory and in practice to have just one of the twins having to pay for Luke, while the other twin had to pay for my meal. Instead, in order for everyone to feel at least slightly united, they all agreed to contribute a small amount of money, so it could total to the amount that was needed for my meal. Fortunately, I wasn’t a big spender, as I only wanted some chicken, some chips, and a glass of orangeade, a drink that is effectively lemonade, but with less lemon and more orange. I know, exotic.

I thought I was going to eat the food very quickly out of frustration. What kind of frustration? The frustration of me being ignored during very normal moments, getting punched in the stomach by someone who had gone mad, and paying for my afternoon meal, dinner, and even breakfast. I didn’t have the actual luxury of eating at home, as I was supposed to. At least I didn’t have to pay for this lunch as well, because I was already low on money, and I would have gone crazy if it was the case. At least I was appreciated for my performance throughout the entire show one day ago, because I really needed that kind of support, and I would have gone crazy if it wasn’t the case. However, all of these were incredibly conflicting, and that’s what I contemplated for. Suddenly, while I was on the verge of finishing my food, someone asked me something…

“Pete, is there something wrong?”, Amira asked.

I let out a massive sigh, which gave everyone a sign that things definitely went wrong.

“I’m contemplating,” I answered.

“What are you contemplating?”

“Life choices.”

“Again?”, Ava intervened.

“Unfortunately…”

“If you want to discharge, if you have anything to say, don’t hesitate, just say it,” Amber also intervened.

“Exactly. We aren’t going to judge you for it. We know each other well enough already,” Alice added.

And I began to confess. However, I wanted it to keep it low so that only my classmates heard my confession, and I didn’t want to Irish to interfere.

“I honestly don’t think this trip was all that good…”, I began speaking.

“Why? What’s wrong?”, Ivy asked.

“Many things happened. Yesterday morning, I woke up in shock, and I was unable to rest throughout the day, not even for the one hour we were on the plane. I was stressed, especially for the show. I barely got to eat at home, and I had to pay for my own meals instead, and now I’m very low on money, and I felt excluded from any kind of conversation, unless I felt seriously bad in some way or another, all while I had barely any access to the Internet and I was almost completely unable to talk to my mother…”

After those words, there was a pause. Up until this point, nobody even thought of interrupting my confession, because doing so would have been outrageous. However, the Irish caught on to the story, and later, so did the teachers, as they saw everyone staring at me. The only one who wasn’t paying attention was Luke.

“Go on,” said Ava, encouraging me to continue.

I let out another sigh.

“And as much as those added up make the trip already seem pretty bad for me, one person did manage to make it even worse, and it was Luke.”

Despite my subtleness and my attempt to keep everyone else to their own, everyone was paying attention, and Luke’s name being mentioned was all for him to listen as well. Regardless, I continued.

“Yesterday, I was being told by him a couple of times to shut up. He was not appreciative of my performance at all. He was acting like a demon to everyone, especially me. Just like five months ago, I was punched in the stomach, and I vomited at the nearest trashcan. I could not sleep well at all last night, and that was because I had a nightmare, then a hallucination, and both revolved around him. There was a shadow that initially looked like a demon, and there was even voice output…the voice changed to be more and more like his, and blinking a couple of times turned the shadow instantly to that of a human that was just like him. I don’t feel well at all because of this, and I am not afraid to admit it, and I could not believe that he was about to slap Ivy, despite her doing nothing wrong, on top of pushing Robert last night.”

The entire confession made the whole restaurant go dead silent.

“And this is my confession, and I’m really sorry if I was behaving in the worst ways possible, for all of what I had done.”

“Wow…that’s…that’s really dark,” said Alice.

“Pete, we are the ones that should apologize,” said Ava, “you’ve done nothing wrong. After all, you weren’t the one to neglect everybody else, and you did not insult us or shriek. You only tried to be good to everyone. You may have failed, but don’t put the blame on yourself.”

“Exactly,” said, “and don’t take insults to heart. Your performance from yesterday was really good. No one can do what you already did on the scene, and it was fantastic to see all of those put into action. In fact, I say it was better than what you had to offer in October, and even that one was really good.”

After hearing everything, Robert stands up from his seat and approaches me, giving me a pat on the head, and then a hug.

“Aww…”, everyone said, noticing how adorable the gesture is.

“Thank you…”, said myself before dropping a tear.

All of this discharge felt refreshing. Having everybody, especially the important ones, listen to my feelings, all of my frustration accumulated within just a matter of time, all of my pain and suffering, both physical and psychological, everything that had to be said, was a fantastic feeling, and I was glad to finally be heard. And right after the confession, my SIM card finally began to work properly, and I was able to look at some Instagram posts.

Of course, that didn’t last for very long. Our partners had to pay for our meals, and, as promised, everyone contributed a small amount for my own, with the twins counting as just one, each contributing half to make it one. It was nice. After that, the teachers stayed in the restaurant while everyone else left it, each to their own.

It was proposed that we’d spend the last few hours before our flight back to London doing shopping, but we could just about do anything else that we wanted, and enjoy the last few moments here before getting back home.

Right after I left the restaurant and just as I left its campus, however, something horrible happened. I was swiftly hit in the head unconscious by none other than Luke, falling on the ground, reminiscent of that one nightmare. It really was a foresight, and not just a typical nightmare.

“Quick, get him home!”, Luke ordered the twins to grab my body to their home.

While I wasn’t conscious, the events went just like in the nightmare. The two people that looked the same that carried me? Those were the twins. So…things were, in fact, true, and yet, I couldn’t prevent that from happening, as it was just as sudden as I dreamt it would be.

My body was carried by the twins to their home. Thankfully, their parents weren’t home at this point, so it was the perfect time to go there. It took a bit for them to go home, but their mistake was that they didn’t really stay far from the city centre. As they arrived home, and they got indoors, they thought it’d be a great idea to just take me to their basement, which only had two small orange light bulbs that were barely lit. The next step was to take off my clothing, and the one after that was to put me in a chair and use the tape to block my mouth, my feet, and my hands, in a way that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable as soon as I wake up.

“Good! Now, let’s get the whip!”, said Luke.

“Will I, yeah?”, said Leonard in response.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to let you take the whip!”

“Shh! Be quiet. Let’s go get it before he wakes up!”, said Patrick.

“Brother, why are you joining him? Let’s just free him!”, Leonard questioned Patrick’s actions, much more Luke’s.

“You shut up! Let’s go!”, Luke exclaimed, demanding that he put his hand on the whip.

All three left the basement. Just a few minutes later, I woke up, finding myself strapped with both tape and rope. I was not able to speak because my mouth was taped. I was not able to move my hands, because they were tied to the back of the chair. I was not able to move my legs, because they were tied to the front legs of the chair, not to mention that, for extra measure, all of my limbs are chained. Effectively, I was not able to do anything, except think. Where the bloody hell was I? Had I just been kidnapped? Indeed, according to the nightmares, I had just been kidnapped, hit in the head by Luke and taken away by the twins only to get here. I began crying. At first, my tears simply dropped, but then, the sobbing part began, and my voice was heard, despite it being taped.

“He woke up,” said Leonard.

“Bloody hell! Let’s just get the whip, the gasoline, and the lighter and end this once and for all!”, said Luke in full anger.

“Again, why are we doing this?”

“It’s very simple. I want him to suffer, and die!”

“Patrick, why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Do I have to say something? We just have to do it,” said Patrick, effectively succumbing to Luke’s orders.

“No, we’re doing everything wrong! What we’re doing right now is wrong!”, said Leonard.

“Nobody cares, just shut up!”, Luke demanded Leonard to quit his act.

“You can’t do this to him, though! He didn’t do anything!”

“You say another word and I’ll push you down, and I’ll make sure my fists will be the last thing you’ll ever see.”

And so, the true face of Luke Parker had been shown. Almost four years passed since we had first met, and I had never thought that he would have ever got the chance to act like this, and now he did. However, in reality, time slowly unveiled his friendly mask, now that he had a guinea pig of his own. Vanity, sorrow, pride, wrath, greed and lust had already caught him. Had it been for gluttony too, we would have had the whole seven deadly sins, and I had made the mistake of meeting him. The only wish Luke had wanted, one that was right from the get-go, was to show dominance. I had been warned many times to stay away from Luke while it wasn’t too late. It really was too late, and there was nothing that I could do about it. All of those moments over the course of nearly four years, moments that we spent together and had fun, moments of Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties that we celebrated together, moments of birthday parties that we commemorated, moments of anniversaries that we honoured, many other special moments that we got to feast upon, had only been the means of danger for me, and for Luke, they were the ways for him to know my weaknesses.

Alright, where was I? Ah, yes, the fight continued, while I continued crying.

“You know what, fine, push me to the ground, hit me! Just kill me! If it’s just for the sake of satisfying your bloody arse, so be it, but leave me out of this mess!”, said Leonard in revolt.

“You git…”, said Luke.

“What are you waiting for, you thick bastard?!”

Luke delivered perhaps one of the strongest punches in the stomach he could give to anyone, and it just happened to hit Leonard, who simply refused to comply to the plan. However, it was not without a strong grunt, left out by a scream. It didn’t last long, as he was also punched to the face, and he was also left unconscious, though nothing else was done to him.

“Alright, no, that really is crazy. I’m heading out,” said Patrick.

“You too, Patrick? You know what, I’ll just make it quick for you.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

Luke tried to hit Patrick as well, but it missed this time, and Patrick simply left the house quickly to send a message to the entire Instagram DM group that I was kidnapped, hoping that someone would notice him. He then tried calling Mark, hoping for an answer…and that’s what he got.

“Yes, Patrick, what’s going on?”, Mark asked.

“Please get to my house. We have a situation here.”

“What is it?”

“I say check the Instagram DM group. I sent a message there.”

“Wait…did you actually kidnap him?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t our idea, it was Luke’s!”

“And you thought it was a good idea to call me right now for exactly this?”

“I can’t just save him on my own! Luke hit Leonard unconscious and Peter himself is in the basement, completely locked! He’ll hit me next!”

“Oh, boy…yeah, we should have just kept Pete completely out of this. Tell me the address.”

“You’ve been here once, it’s as soon as you enter the O’Connell Street. The walls are red, there’s an entrance somewhere and you just get into that entrance.”

“Okay, thank you. I’ll not come alone.”

“Yes, please, come!”

“One more thing.”

“What is it?”

“Confess that you guys are accomplices in this.”

“What?!”

“Well, you did this, so you have to assume your faults. If you confess that you two are accomplices, then at least you’ll have your punishment reduced, and the focus will be more on Luke.”

“But I don’t want to go to jail!”

“Well, if you don’t have a good lawyer, you both will go to jail, so be careful. Alright, I’ll come.”

“Alright, but be quick…”

The call ended. Mark informed everyone else to go after the Donovan residents as fast as possible.

“Everyone, go there!”, said Mark.

“Wait, what just happened?”, Ava asked.

“Your classmate just got kidnapped and someone is about to commit a crime, let’s act fast!”

“Oh, no!”

Meanwhile, back at the Donovan residence, Patrick made the courage of stepping back inside, but by then, Luke had already gotten the whip, the gasoline, and the lighter, all on his own. Patrick shivers in fear.

“How did you get those?”, Patrick asked.

“It took me a lot to find these around the house, but I did get them eventually.”

“You know, if you didn’t punch my brother, I would have been completely careless.”

“Well, you still are careless.”

“Not really…”

“What do you mean you’re not careless?”

“…I called them.”

“Are you serious?! Have you just given away the entire plan?!”

“Yes, I have.”

“You don’t have the guts to report yourself to the police!”

“Oh, but you seem to have the guts to actually kill somebody just for your very own satisfaction. I don’t know, we do have to ask the police if this is fine or not.”

Unfortunately, before he could actually finish the sentence, Luke also punches Patrick to the face, leaving him unconscious. This just made finding the exact location of the Donovan residence much more difficult, and it wasn’t a good sign for the rescue group.

“You’re weak.”

Luke went down to the basement with the whip on his hand. Alas, the torturing part really begins.

“Well, well, well, isn’t today such a lovely day? It sure is for me.”

I was only able to mumble a bit because of the tape, so, he couldn’t hear me properly and he began interpreting everything you could count that I was saying as whatever he wanted.

“Oh, yeah…perhaps I should just…”

Luke pulled the trigger, which removed the chair, and then the chains got tighter. I was not able to scream in pain, but, believe me, it really was painful.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. O’Brien, that was just the first course. For the second one, we have this thing right here that I want to use…experimentally,” said Luke in his full arrogance and splendour, before he started whipping me like it was Hell on Earth. It really began hurting, so much so that the tape had worn off and I began to scream, although Luke seemed to have liked it all the more.

Back above the ground, Leonard was finally able to wake up and, well, stand up, but just as it happened, Patrick’s phone started to ring, with Mark calling him again. He rushed to the phone and answered.

“Yes, Mark?”, Leonard asked.

“Wait, Leonard, weren’t you unconscious a while ago?”, Mark also asked.

“I’ve just woken up from that.”

“Oh, I see. I hope you’re not playing tricks on me.”

“What tricks? We’re having a maniac to deal with, and we can’t believe that we even made it through the plan!”

“Alright, where is Patrick?”

“He’s unconscious.”

“What?!”

“It seems that he got punched in the face as well.”

“Oh my god, this will never end…I just wanted to tell him that we’re actually getting close, but now that he is unconscious and you aren’t, I guess it goes to you.”

“Get here quickly! I can already hear screams in the basement, Pete’s being whipped!”

“Don’t worry, we’re very close, only about a hundred meters away.”

“Perfect! See you soon!”

Leonard closed the call. He thought it was best to try getting Patrick back to consciousness through the first aid trick. He went through all the steps, and Patrick woke up.

“Eugh…what just happened…”, Patrick said, having just woken up.

“You were punched in the face,” Leonard answered.

“Oh, no wonder why it feels funny. Where’s Luke?”

“He’s in the basement, he’s whipping Pete! I told you it was a bad idea!”

“You did, and I can’t believe that we went through it!”

“Wait, wait…something’s happening…”

The whipping was not to be heard again. Indeed, he stopped, and I was in massive pain.

“Ugh, you know, this whip is fantastic, but whipping you over and over is boring. Let me get to the dessert real quick,” said Luke, before leaving the basement and closing the door.

After he did that, however, he noticed both twins alive and well.

“How are you still alive?!”

“We’re alive because we’re brothers, and we help each other, like friends should do!”, said Patrick.

“You call him a friend? No, not at all, you shouldn’t call him a friend, the world does not need such people!”, Luke exclaimed in anger.

“You have absolutely no remorse. He helped you through many situations, and even gave you one final chance 5 months ago. You had another chance to repair the friendship between you and him, and you only decimated this chance,” said Leonard.

“Ha, you’re believing the prat even after this much time?”

“You two are the complete opposites. Peter is an innocent soul who gets everything fair and square, with all obstacles included. He cares about other people, he wants to solve problems with as little violence as possible. You are not like that. You are not a human, Luke.”

“I’m not a human, huh? Fine, eat this!”

Luke whipped both twins at once with no remorse whatsoever, leaving them unconscious again. He laughed hysterically, as if he was the ultimate villain, the one that nobody could defeat, not even his own self. He dropped the whip, and got the bottle of gasoline alongside the lighter, which he put in his pocket, only to go back to the basement. Without noticing, by the time he got into the basement, the rescue group arrived, consisting of Mark, Ava, Ivy, Ruby, Nancy, and Robert, as everyone else either minded their own business in the city centre, or, in the case of the Irish, just went home. The rescue group did see Luke getting into the basement, but only barely. The twins were down, unconscious again.

Regardless, they opened the door, and managed to get into the house, trying to get the twins back.

“Leonard? Patrick? Please wake up!”, Mark exclaimed.

Ava and Ivy had a plan. They tried doing CPR on both Leonard and Patrick. Ava would take care of Patrick, while Ivy would take care of Leonard. In the end, it worked, and both got back up.

“Thank you…thank god…I think you’ve arrived in time…”, said Leonard, faintly.

“Right. We just called the police,” said Mark.

“You did?”, Leonard asked.

“Yes, we had to do it. Something like this just cannot be forgiven,” said Ruby in response.

“We better get into the basement before it’s too late!”, Ruby exclaimed.

However, the basement door was locked this time around, meaning that Luke was fully ready to take the last step: the fire. Back inside, my reactions were all gone to the drain, reduced to atoms.

Luke poured the entire gasoline on the ground, especially around the spot I was on. And right after he poured the gasoline, he simply threw away the bottle, also on the ground, because burning plastic was considered fun. He picked up the lighter from his pocket, and began speaking like he was the absolute worst dictator to exist on this planet.

“Any last words, Mr. O’Brien?”, Luke asked devilishly.

I was too afraid to speak…

“No? Well, I better spill the beans before you get the chance to. Indeed, if you remember almost four years ago, there was that Geography teacher that kept saying only good things about you and talked rubbish about the rest of your class back in middle school. I did say that I didn’t care all that much for it, but I found out that you were really the nerd that nobody liked and nobody cared about. I was friends with your classmates, and did as much as I could to get your reputation ruined, and it was through your classmates. It was as simple as that. I thought that bringing you more and more terror as time passed was a great idea. I pretended to be your friend just to know all of your weaknesses, I wanted to know everything about you, just so that I could make the perfect plan to wipe you off the planet, and now, now that I got to be in the very place you used to like and now despise, this is the perfect time to end you once and for all!”, he said, laughing like a maniac.

So, this was the truth after all…he never liked me at all. I was used as a punching bag the entire time. I thought it was only a recent thing, and that the aggression he expressed was not going to be used on me. Everything that happened over the course of almost four years led up to this very moment. He wanted to find the very moment to torture and kill me, bringing me pain and suffering, avenging my classmates for their failure, and all of my enemies for even more.

Unfortunately for him, everyone in the group heard him. The police was about to arrive. And now that he was prepared to light up the basement and burn me to death, Leonard swiftly ran to the fire extinguisher, gave it to Robert, and the twins tried to break the door with brute force.

“Gosh, it doesn’t work!”, said Patrick, faintly.

“What is that door made of?”, Robert asked.

“The door itself is out of wood, but…the lock is from steel,” Leonard answered.

“Are you joking? Obviously, it’s not going to work!”, said Ava.

“Wait, what are you doing?”, Patrick asked.

“I’m using this,” Ava took out her ring and she began scratching the lock. With water, the scratches began turning into cracks. More brute force was applied, and things started to go somewhat well. Sadly, there was barely any time left. It seemed like it was game over for me, and this proved to be the case in the basement.

“If you have nothing to say, then bid farewell to me, to your friends, to your family, to your own life, and nothing more, as that is what you have been, that’s what you are, and that’s what you’ll be. You’re nothing. Adios, O’Brien, burn in Hell,” said Luke maniacally. He chuckles, and proceeds to turn on the lighter. slowly leaning towards the puddle of gasoline.

And this was it. My life was about to end in a matter of seconds. I began having flashbacks of every single thing I’ve experienced, from being born, to the first steps, to the first few words and using the Internet, to elementary school, to middle school, to high school, all of the way until the last few moments before I was sent here. Almost 18 whole years of my life were put at stake for death, all for one social mistake, then the flashbacks of all the painful moments I’d had thanks to Luke, and then, the faces of everyone I had met throughout my entire life, and, finally, a figure of Grim Reaper approaching me throughout all of these seconds. At this point, I had a full seizure, and there was absolutely nothing that could stop me. I had no more control over my body, and all I could see was pure white.

But, without knowing it, and just in the nick of time, the police arrived, opened the door and rushed to the basement. They managed to break the lock and finish the job. As soon as the door opened, Luke accidentally dropped his lighter in the wrong way, and he ended up burning one of his shoes, screaming in tremendous pain. Unfortunately, the lighter did hit the puddle of gasoline and caused a small fire around there too, and I was also screaming. Thankfully, Robert used the fire extinguisher before significant damage was done. One police officer grabbed Luke and cornered him completely, putting him in handcuffs. Two other police officers also put handcuffs on the twins, as they surrendered to the police. Lastly, everyone tried destroying all of the chains with as much force and tactic as possible, the rope was cut, the tape was taken off, and, at last, I fell down on the ground. I was unable to do anything more than cry in pain, horror and suffering.

“Get him out of here!”, Leonard shouted.

“What about you two?”, Nora asked.

“Don’t mind us at all! Just get Pete out of here!”, Patrick shouted, before both of the twins were sent into the police car.

However, since Luke was not a national, we had to deal with him in a different way.

“I assume not all of you are from this place,” said the Inspector.

“We are from the UK, sir…”, said Ava, with Ivy and Nancy raising their hands. I couldn’t do it since I was barely able to move after all of that shock and physical pain, and Luke was in handcuffs.

“Would you like to get to the airport?”

“Oh, yes, please, we have to go today anyway!”

“Very well. I would like someone to get him to the Police Station to give him some new clothing, we’ll give a call to your supervisors, and we’ll have you to the airport safe and sound.”

“That would be nice, officer!”, said Ivy.

“Good. Let’s go.”

The process did not last long. Luke was given permission to leave the country under the condition he’d be supervised by an officer and arrested in the United Kingdom for assault with a deadly weapon, theft, kidnapping, and murder intent. I was given new clothing and I got all of my things back. The twins were arrested, expected to be in court alongside Luke for being accomplices at Luke’s acts. The teachers were informed and, at last, we were ready to leave the country. The last thing the officers had to do for the day was to get us all to the airport.

However, before we could enter the airport, wishing bye for good. I cried for one last time when hugging both Mark and Robert, as they seemed to have been the only boys loyal, as well as Ruby, Nora and Grace. After many checks, we all got into the aeroplane, and, finally, we saw our friends for the very last time, both teens and teachers, waving at us, before the plane left for London, and so it did. The experience in Dublin was officially over.

Throughout the entire flight, my body was shaking in pain and trauma, and I couldn’t control it even if I wanted to. Out of respect, nobody talked about what happened, and even then, it wasn’t clear for anyone involved except for two people: me and Luke. Luke refuses to co-operate, and he can’t do it anyway, since he was under police supervision, while I was not in the right state of mind to do it. Other than that, the only other thing that happened for the hour was Amber taking out my headphones, putting them over my head and music started. I was listening to EDM again. It was nice of her to do this.

Alas, at 10:30pm, we arrived back to London. Everyone got their checks and bags, and everyone left the airport, parting ways. The police officer had to stay a little bit to get his coffee, which gave Luke a moment of freedom.

“I’m still going to get rid of you!”, said Luke, trying to attack again.

I was pushed and I fell on the ground, and just as he was about to punch me again, the officer left the airport, saw him trying to kill me for the second time, and got Luke completely blocked.

“Mr. Parker, it seems that you never learn. Get in the car,” said the officer.

Luke was grabbed and thrown in the car. Instead of the officer leaving right away, he went back to me.

“I’m sorry that it happened to you. If you want, I’ll drive you home.”

I accepted. I didn’t have anything else to do, and I was not going to walk all of the way back home, so, I got in the car. I was barely able to take out my phone, and I only had enough energy to send a few messages to my mom, saying that I was not feeling well at all, I got back from Dublin, and I would get home soon. I was too traumatized to explain everything at once. Alas, I arrived home, and I only wanted to get a good rest, but not before having at least a short talk with my mom.

“Oh, sweetheart, come in!”, said Mom with open arms.

“Hello…”

“…I’m afraid to ask…what happened?”

“I don’t want to explain it right now.”

“Do I at least get an idea for it?”

“It was between me and Luke, again.”

“Oh…I see…”

“I was bullied both verbally and physically, and I was about to die because of him as well. He is under arrest for at least 30 days, and an investigation is about to start.”

“So, that’s how your friendship ended up being, huh?”

“I don’t even think I can call it a friendship anymore. He had been using me as a punching bag for almost four years, and just as things actually got well, he had to ruin it, and not just once, but twice.”

“And is it over?”

“This so-called friendship is over.”

“And what are you going to do next?”

“…I just want to rest, but if I had to answer right now, I’d rather just strengthen my friendship with my classmates and the Irish. They’re more important to me now.”

“Good decision.”

“As for Luke, well, I don’t want to see him ever again. Maybe when the trial comes, hard cold evidence comes in and makes him shiver in fear, alongside a bunch of witnesses, that’s when I’ll want to see him, but that’s all. I would not be asking for such a thing normally, but I was about to be killed by him, and that was far beyond the harm that I had ever wished he got. I only wanted him to realize a few things, and yet he didn’t.”

“I believe you.”

“Right…I want to go to sleep, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, sure, good night, sweetheart!”

I went into my room, hardly able to do anything else. I only wanted to change my clothes and then go to sleep immediately. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to drink, I didn’t want anything, it was almost as if my day ended completely. There I was in bed, looking almost completely dead, traumatized, almost like a pickle. Despite all of this, miraculously, I was able to completely avoid having a nightmare this time, which was a godsend.

Alas, the night was over, and while Luke won some battles and I won others, the war as a whole continued.