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~ ACHA ~

It was Resumption Day and there was no other way that Castron High's Sports Committee thought to have me start my morning than sending me a suspension letter.

I could have started the day with anything else, really. A cup of coffee. An early morning jog around the neighborhood. Possibly running some laps in the Chambers public gym. Or maybe, even breaking my fists against my bedroom wall in a fit of rage over something, nothing, or everything.

In an interesting turn of events, I actually chuckled when I saw it. Just a small laugh under my breath, a demeaning scoff, and then, consequently, when the part where I supposed to roll it off my shoulders and move on came, I saw my Samsung Galaxy flying right out of my hands.

And only when the device went crashing onto the speakers of my gaming console with tremendous force did it occur to me that I was the one that flung my phone towards the walls in a crazed temper.

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath as I watched my hands, its fingers subtly moving and shaking as the evil spirit of fury that possessed me suddenly disappeared in that moment that I had realized what I did. "Fuck. Not again." It was hard to feel much, but my eyes were roaming that space behind the console where my phone had disappeared into, a part of me certain that the device I had just gotten a few days ago was probably broken in half behind the mess there.

Again.

Again, for God's sake.

My reflexes were becoming more aggressive by the day. Everything my hands touched... They destroyed.

"She's going to kill me." Was all that resounded in my head as I headed for the bathroom, thinking of the multiple variety she would further consider for the color of my coffin.

Mum, I meant.

She was going to kill me, and she would do it without apology.

The woman had spent the rest of the previous night making sure I had everything: a new phone, a nice meal for dinner and even a cute pep talk on how to 'cope' in school with all the rumors that were going about in my name, telling me that Resumption day is not the end of the world and after all, I was sent to school to read my books. Assuring me that 'it wouldn't be that bad'.

Yet, here I was, on the morn of it, being greeted first thing in the morning by an email from Mr. Ado and the rest of the Sports Committee telling me that they cannot have me on the Football team any longer because I am a 'dent' to the good name of Castron High's prestigious Sports team.

A dent. Me. Me, Marcus Bruno Acha, a dent. All through from my junior secondary school, I had served that team well. Represented them in out-of-school games, won trophies, medals, reputation for that bastardly, ungrateful team. And now that some childish rumors are going around, they still thought to to be enough grounds to kick me off.

And, they didn't even have the decency to do it in person. Sending me a flimsy letter on email as if it's a fucking breakup text. Without regard or respect for anything and everything that I had done for them, forgetting how badly they had needed me in the past.

So much for being the School's Golden boy.

I didn't even look like a golden boy anymore.

Dark circles under my eyes. Eye bags. Tattered twists that started to look like overgrown locks on my head. Cracked lips. And that deep wounded cut that drew itself diagonally across my bushy eyebrows, slowly morphing into a life scar. A scar that would one-day be a testament to every harm I once subjected my entire body and soul to. This rough, beaten up and bruised version of me. That was all I saw when I looked into the mirror, not the cool, free spirited and cheerful golden boy I used to be.

Or rather, I used to be seen as.

Cold hands ran slowly through the side of my neck and stopped right at its back, head cocking to the side as I observed my own reflection through eyes that had completely lost soul and life in them. Dead, hazy, sleepy, and hooded eyes. My biceps tensed as my hands rubbed roughly against the back of my neck, the lines, definitions and muscles all around my body straining by the second. Tensing with every abrasive touch against my own damn skin.

It only took me the illusive smell of gasoline to know that if I didn't leave that mirror and put on something else other than the white towel that wrapped around my waist, I was at the verge of a panic attack.

That was how I resorted to wearing my school uniform, an action that I did painfully slow as a thousand thoughts ran through my already filled up head.

In all frankness, the only reason that I was showing my face in school today was because there was a deluded hope that I would see Dabeluchi...

And, she would talk to me.

Whether she liked it or not.

With that, I made sure to shove my laptop into my bag before throwing the heavy backpack over my shoulder and heading for the door. I had grown more attached to my search on Dabeluchi, more obsessed with the blogs, articles, every thing that had anything to tell me about Dabeluchi or the Bridge girl I suspected to be her. So bad that I could not see myself going to school without something, anything that could lead me access to the Internet.

Or, my email at least.

My life may have been falling apart, but I was a man on a mission.

I was at the door of my room, inches away from the handle when I started hearing faintly the instrumentals of Psycho by Post Malone playing from a distance.

It froze me on the spot.

That was my ringtone.

That song was my new Samsung Galaxy's ringtone.

In an instant realization, I flew. I wasn't sure how I did it, but one minute, I was at the door and the next minute, I was shoving down my consoles at the other side of my room to find the phone that I had nearly abandoned to check who was calling. To check if it was Dabeluchi that was calling me.

All my high hopes and dreams blew out like piñatas when I got my hands on that phone. My delusion playing in 4k before my eyes I stared at the number calling me through the cracked, ink stained screen of my phone. Shoulders dropping down further by the second.

An unknown number.

It was damn unknown number.

I swallowed. My spit felt like a rock going painfully down my throat, ears bleeding and throbbing as Post Malone's voice blared through the speakers of my phone nonstop. Me, watching it in my shaking hands, and on the verge of snapping the device into two with my bare hands this time around.

Having that strange identities coming to tell me 'secrets' had become the new order of my day, a part of me wanted to actually pick up the phone.

So, I did.

But, a word, I didn't speak.

With brooding silence and a heart that paced and raced faster by the second, I let the voice on my speaker talking to itself, ignoring the hellos' and Is anyone theres' as I waited to recognize the voice over the line, and maybe decide if it was a good call to listen to what they had to say it cut the call on them mid speech.

"Hello?" The caller repeated over and over, I didn't seem to know anyone who sounded like this. "Hello? Hello, is anyone there? Hello? Hello ooh? Hello, please am I speaking to Marcus Acha?"

It was a girl's voice.

But, she didn't sound like Dabeluchi.

"Hello?" Her voice had again, a little note of desperation in her tone, "Please, am I speaking to Marcus Acha? I'm trying to get across to-"

"Who are you?"

Her voice was cut off in mid sentence, almost like she swallowed the rest of her words at the sound of pure hostility, aloofness and slight aggression in my question.

It was clear that I wasn't asking who she was, I was rather demanding. And by all means, whoever it was at the other end of the line most definitely picked up that energy from every hint of my tone. The next words she stammered and blabbed from her mouth drove my point exactly home.

"I- Well, I- I don't know if you will remember me-"

Weak engagement. Thin line. Every sentence she uttered out of context was only shutting down any change of indulgence from me and stretching thinner the little patience I already had to stay on the call.

And maybe she - whoever she was - wasn't that slow. She could tell that my silence was an indication to her that she had one last chance to convince me to stay on this damned call.

Just one fucking chance.

"Okay, so, ahem, the thing is that I don't think you will remember me because it's been a long time since we last talked. Actually, we barely had a decent conversation because you seemed more interested in my friend at the time, but that's not important. I just wanted to call to share words of encouragement. I know this period must be very hard for you. The rumors. The pain. The torment. The torture. I mean, haven't they done enough? It's already tough that you have to deal with losing so much over a mistake anyone could have made and I completely sympathize with you and hope that you would let me support you too-"

"Oga," I cut her off while she was rapping, teeth grinding against each other as I asked her the only question I was interested in knowing. The question she hadn't answered yet. "I asked, who are you?"

There was silence over the line for the space of three seconds.

Then, her hesitant voice answered.

"Like, I said, you may not remember me. My name is Princess. Princess Afolabi, from Class B. The one that everyone calls Bunny. You dated my friend, Neche, but you didn't talk much to some of us in her friend group. But, this one time in Ss1, you noticed me. Remember? You complimented my ponytail and told me that I looked just like Ariana Grande. You know, everyone tells me I look like her, but from you, it felt like I was on Cloud Nine. I mean, surely, you must remember me-"

"Okay, just wait for me, I'll remember you very soon."

With that, I cut the call on the idiot.

"Stupid goat," I cursed, pulling the door handle to slam my door open, making sure to block that number on every line I had before sucking my teeth and stepping out of my bedroom.

This was all Aaron and Casper's fault.

After I had left all the school group chats, unfollowed all social media handles and even became a ghost on all my social media apps, I felt common sense should have told them that I was disappearing from the damned internet.

But, no. The boys felt like it was necessary to add me back into the Party Planning Committee WhatsApp group chat and subject me vulnerable to mumu set girls who have been waiting to use my fallen opportunity to get a chance with me. Even if it meant stealing my phone number from their friends who were in the committee groupchat.

I couldn't count the number of girls from school who had contacted me since that day that Casper added me into that groupchat and had his buddy, Aaron, make me an admin, publicizing my presence to the rest of the group. The DMS were uncountable, the SMS messages were overwhelming; I had blocked numbers, left some on read, majority on delivered, and yet, dozens of them came day to day. I just couldn't bring myself to imagine that one of them, aka, Princess Ariana Grande Afolabi, would actually be audacious enough to take a bolder move by actually dialing my line.

The Lord knows that I did not have time for any of this.

My head was a barrage of overwhelming thoughts and in ninety nine point nine percent of them, Dabeluchi Orji prevailed. I didn't care if any other girl in my set looked like a multi million dollar worth A-list pop singer.

Only Aurora's beauty meant shit to me.

"Leaving so early, baby?"

I stopped walking, halting immediately on my tracks, hold strong on the handle of my backpack as I froze on my spot. Figures. I had been thinking so much and had zoned out, not realizing how far down the stairs I had gone. It was the dotting lights of the chandelier that illuminated the room with shades of silver and gold that made me come to the realization that I had already reached the living room.

And of course, my Mum's voice played a part in snapping me out of my reverie and bringing me back to reality.

"So, that's how you're now doing it, abi?" She said, scoffing under her breath. I couldn't tell if she was joking or serious, but all I could hear was the soreness of her voice. Could have dismissed it as morning voice, but something felt wrong. "So, if I did not call you, that's how you would have actually left this house without even talking to me or at least greeting me?"

I felt a pang in my chest, something akin to guilt as I turned to face Mum who sat with victorian elegance in the middle of the largest sofa, cloud in a sleeping robe, bonnet, a face covered in honey - her early morning skincare routine, I guessed - and lemon water in a wine cup, sitting and managing to stare me down in authority.

"You are getting out of hand o," she said to me, legs crossed and clinking against her neon acrylic nails against wine glass as she berated my behavior, "Not even a 'Good morning, Mum' from you anymore, as if I'm part of the people that you are now fighting, eh?" She tssked, dropped that glass on the centre table with class, before looking back to me with a perfectly arched brow. "Hm? So, tell me how I should handle you, baby? Physically or spiritually? Because, trust me, I can be best of both worlds. Fast and pray all night for you like I am possessed by the holy spirit, right before beating the crap out of you like I am possessed by Lucifer. Choose one."

I stared at her like I had seen a ghost.

"Choose, nne," she repeated herself, blinking her newly fixed lashes at me as she dared me to face my dillema, "Choose, Marcus. Because I don't understand how else I am supposed to deal with this kind of attitude from you. You had better choose!"

"Mum, I'm sorry, I zoned out. My mind wasn't here at all-"

"Stand up straight, Marcus," she cut me off, ordering.

I swallowed. Sighed. Took a more upright posture and hoped it pleased her enough.

"Your school shirt," she still pointed out, clearly not satisfied yet, "Tuck it in, Marcus. Don't be unsanitary."

With another exasperated sigh, I pushed the extracts of my school shirt that I hadn't fully tucked in inside my school trousers, pushing everything inside and even pulling up my trousers. Hopefully, she would let me off now.

"Oya, your tie. Now."

Well, no such luck.

"Fix your tie, Marcus. Before I come over there and fix it for you," she demanded.

It wasn't an offer to help me. It was a threat. I was smart enough to know that. So, without arguing, I adjusted my tie tighter, drawing it up from where it hung somewhere over my chest and abdomen to latch tightly around my throat.

"And, would you roll up those sleeves?" She further commanded, "Who do you want to intimidate with those veins on your forearm?"

"Mummy, come on, na-"

"Come on gini?" She scowled, eyes narrowing as she threatened to stand up and come for me, "Roll up your sleeves and you're saying Come on? I na apu mme mme, Marcus?"

I sighed. Apologized for peace to reign.

"Sorry," I said to her, a quick gesture of surrender before I started to roll down ny sleeves to cover my forearms. In order to please her all the more, I even started to adjust my collar as well, hoping she would see I was putting in effort and leave me alone.

It worked.

She smiled, impressed.

"Good, now you are coming," she praised me and if it wasn't so difficult for me to feel much, I would have been stunned at how quickly her countenance seemed to change from what it was before to something more welcoming towards me. "See, Marcus, you may think that I am wicked, but I am helping you. You can't show up to school looking like you are carrying all the world's burdens on your head. We don't look like our problems in those house. Do you understand that?"

I nodded.

"Now, you can go," she said to me, and I fought the sigh of relief that was at the depths of my chest to let out, "And, please make sure to let me know when you have gotten to school. I want to know you reached your destination safely. Can you promise you'll keep me updated, baby?"

Again, I nodded.

"You can use your words with me, Marcus," she insisted.

"Sorry ma," I obliged.

"No need to apologize," she assured me with a warm smile, "I just want to make sure you will be okay. And, remember what we talked about last night. Don't let what anyone says or does get to you. The last thing you want to do is give your bullies any feeling that they are relevant."

I laughed subtly under my breath. I couldn't help being amuses by her fears of me getting bullied. It was cute. Her concerns were heart melting. But, gone were the days where the words of my classmates added value to my life. She has no reason to be afraid for me. Rather, she should be afraid of what I could possibly do to them if they triggered me.

Because even me, I was low-key terrified of that.

"I understand, but I'll be fine," I promised her as that was all that I could assure her.

She gave a soft smile, one that permitted me to take my leave there on.

Hence, I turned around to leave.

Mum's notion was good, but it was difficult. To not look like your problems. She believed this with everything in her. That no matter what, we should not look like our problems.

And suddenly, with a realization, I stopped walking again. My intuition, immediately getting triggered.

When I turned around, I had a good look at my mother again. One thorough look. The gimmick all over her started to have a second meaning to me. And she stared right back at me, a woman who was more beautiful than words could possibly described, maintaining glory and drip in what, her near sixties? Crossing her legs and holding her wine glass like she was a second descendant of Queen Charlotte.

I don't know, in that moment, it just kinda hit me.

"Mum?"

She sat up straigher, maintaining her class as she answered my call.

So, I went ahead to throw the question:

"Are you okay, Mum?"

The woman didn't budge. Didn't flinch. Didn't move a muscle. Didn't even miss a single beat. "Of course."

I looked at her for a little longer, hoping to pick up a bluff, any hint of bullshit in her body language, but she gave me absolutely nothing.

"Okay, then. Good bye."

After bidding her farewell, it was my cue to leave the House.

★★★

Welcome To The Ghetto.

That was all I could see when I looked at that large border that styled across the top of the entrance of Castron Highschool as I drove into the premises.

There was no sober reflection about that border. As far as I was concerned, whoever thought to design the name of the school like that in the boldest letters they could have adopted wanted to prove a point. Wanted everyone who drove by the street, and even across the Crown Bridge, to see it. If only people knew that beauty and magnificence wasn't everything and all that glittered was not gold.

Then, maybe, they would have understood that there was nothing truly good or dreamy about this hellside of a School.

"ID Card," the security guard at the gates stopped my vehicle, his stony face scowling at me as he demanded so.

Without argument, I reached out into my pockets, shuffled my hands within and getting out my ID Card. The new one that they had made us take before we resumed for our Ss3.

"Here," I slipped in my card through the window, but he snatched it away from my hands like we were fighting and roamed angry eyes at the card, looking between my face and it like he was looking for an issue, any issue, to hold against me.

I waited, impatiently tapping my fingers against the steering wheel.

"Marcus Bruno Acha," he pronounced my name like it as bitter in his house, "Na you de turn this whole school upside down now. Na you de reign. Tch." He flung my card back into the car carelessly after muttering something about spoilt, privileged kids.

I held it. The anger that bubbled from within me as I took my card back from the floor of the car and put it into my backpack.

They were like this. All of them staff and workers in Castron High. Angry about nothing and shitting on us. Like it was our fault that our parents had money.

"Tomorrow, lemme not see you driving into school with this your car sha," he spoke as he tapped the body of my father's Honda, "If not, I go seize am."

"Oga, no de hit this car anyhow abeg," I warned him, my words spiralling out of my mouth before I could stop them, "And, I can drive into school with any car I want. Shift, lemme enter school joor."

"Students are not allowed to drive themselves into School, Mister Dreadlocks!" He argued with me. "Look at you, you don reach eighteen? Where is your father, he no dey?"

I wanted to bite back, but my tongue felt trapped. Practically choked over my own words. The last sentence, hitting me and hitting me hard.

"Come with your father tomorrow or you will not enter this school with this car. I'm only allowing you because it's resumption," he continues firing me, "But if I make mistake see you tomorrow, I go carry this your big car and confiscate am for warehouse. Try me and see! Enter jhare!"

"Nonsense." I sucked in my teeth and drove into the premises, ignoring him as he continued being a bitch behind me, swearing and jumping.

I had barely entered the premises and I was already mad irritated.

It struck out to me though, how even the security guards knew my name. I may have truly underrated just how infamous the entire Christmas party incident had made me. For even staff to be in on the rumors now. I didn't need a saint to tell me that the last thing that I wanted was to draw attention.

With that, I got under cover.

I grabbed the sweater at the back of the car and used it as my disguise, rapping it around my bushy mane of hair like a hood and keeping my head low, eyes down, hands stiff into my pockets, after I stepped out of my car and made way into the school.

It worked. I had walked right into a bunch of students, roughly between the classes of Ss1 and Ss2, gossiping about me and how I had killed my best friend in the Christmas party and neither of them even noticed that the serial killer, murderer and devil's incarnate that they were bastardizing and throwing insults at, was the one that literally just walked right through their midst.

"Fuck this school, man," I cursed under my breath, as I cornered into the Junior class blocks, using a route that was dangerously close to the Seniors Blocks, and in turn, the Ss3 Class Block.

The loud giggles irritated me. The shrieking laughter dotted my skin with triggering goosebumps. When I looked above my self-made hood an caught a glimpse of the cliques and groups, a clear representation of segregation between the people who were divided into a class of worthy and unworthy, it all made me realize that these juniors were just like us. Just like their seniors. Everyone in Castron High was all the same, irrespective of their classes. It reeked of social hierarchy.

Some may call it an echelon in here. Others term it a bureaucracy, a simulation of a kingdom under dictatorial monarchy and governance that dwells in the hands of those who eat at the top of the food chains.

But, now, I call secondary school a Secret Society. A dark place with cult like traditions and an ominous precision.

"Jasmine Fejaun looks so pretty! Did you see the way that she packed her hair into two? She looks like a princess. Oh my God. She's definitely the prettiest girl in our set! No one can deny that!"

I stepped around the little Jss1 girls that hovered together, gossiping about their classmate in excitement and admiration. I scoffed, briefly looking over my shoulder to the junior girls before looking away and walking ahead.

It all started in that class. The first class of Highschool: Jss One. That was how it all began. By the second term of Jss1, those little kids have already subconsciously established their social status quo. They have learned enough about each other to pin a status on their classmates. Deciphering the most intelligent kids in class, praising the kids who make friends easily as the most liked ones in the set, looking up to the ones with 'school parents' in senior classes or wishing to be the ones with older siblings that get protection and immunity over certain punishments during the assembly or from the school prefects, and in the case that I just witnessed, already ascertaining the set's most beautiful.

Of course, it is all fun and games and there is no feasible ranking system at the time. Just a selected number of students who are innocently adored by other classmates for one reason or the other. It stays fun, until it doesn't.

"The Lilac girls have updated the list of finest boys in our set!" I dodged a shouting riff raff Js2 boy who ran into the block the exact moment I took another turn to the other side of the building.

I scoffed at the childishness, watching the boys and girls gathering around the bulletin board, hopping over each other to see the paper torn from a 60 leaves that was pasted there, a paper that held the names of the Top Tem finest boys in their Jss2 Class.

"Saliko made the number one spot again!" Another boy announced from the bulletin board, "Saliko! Saliko! Saliko! Saliko!" He started to chant and soon, the other boys around joined in. All of them, jumping and jeering and cheering as they circles a seemingly quiet, shy boy, throwing accolades at him and even carrying him to parade around the classroom block.

Yup. Jss2 was the class where the social status quo game upgraded, where it moved from merely talking about who was looked up to or adored to establishing a clear ranking system. That was where you'd start seeing things like that, top ten lists all over bulletin boards, and everyone starts identifying or accepting their place, due to popular opinion of them. At this point, a seen queen bee or king pin is noted. In my time, I remembered being put up against Ivandor Fejaun for looks. And of course, it did not work in my favour.

Of course, at this point, only those at the good side of the ranking system were privileged. I never thought about what it would be for those who were throlled on the bulletin board, and by the time I was leaving the path, I overheard some of those Jss2 girls saying something about how some 'Osinachi' was preparing a list of the dirtiest and smelliest girls in their set and some other plus sized girl called 'Bisola' was rumoredly taking the number one spot for that.

I shook my head, throwing the hand of my sweater over my neck to stay under cover when a bunch of smaller kids - couldn't place their classes - ran past me and into the block, laying off news that set the entire block into a frenzy.

"Senior Anabel has made a new rule for Junior students! No one is allowed to wear pink socks to school asides her and her clique o! She has banned all the girls, from Jss1 to Jss2 and even her own Jss3 class girls in Jss3 from wearing pink socks! Remove your socks if it has any trace of pink o!"

I scoffed at the nonsense.

It was no surprising still.

Of course, Jss3 was the class where things took a much darker twist. Much darker than I would want to recall, frankly. This was the class where people became absolutely diabolical and ridiculously cruel. The thickness of segregation and discrimination was prevailant there. The status quo placement turned into a ground for division, where the worthy and the worthy are separated. Divisions in the cafeterias, cliques in the hallways, everyone starting to cherry pick who and who to associate with and who not to, via illuded rankings.

Where Students were wickedly bullied for things they can't control: being ugly, being fat, being dull in class, not fitting into any relevant place in the ranks basically. This was the class of bullying, open discrimination, trampling, public slander, humiliation rituals. The class where you embarrass your crushes because they are not in your level. The class that, like Anabel and co, territories are even marked.

The concept of Jss3 students banning their classmates and juniors from wearing certain things and using certain things was normal. It just shocked me a little that these juniors were actually breaking rules and risking dying in the hands of Giwa Falade in order to establish their significance in their set and below. I found it absolutely insane.

When I got to the Senior Domain and sighted my class block from the distant, I started to wonder how far my cover could get me. If it was possible for me to actually walk in there and not get noticed by anyone. Or if I was hoping on mere delusions.

Delusions, I perhaps.

Because the second I stepped into the path, an Ss1 girl seemed to recognize me. There was no way to have been sure. She was my junior, so most definitely, she could not openly start to come at me or do anything stupid, but after she had her eyes linger on my back a while longer before sneaking into a clique that was whispering all sorts of things that rhymed with 'Marcus Acha', I figured that she did recognize me.

In no time, there were whispers all around the block. Just whispers. None of them could look me in the eyes. Not one single boy. Not one single girl. Just a bunch of coward whisperers that has a thing or two to say about me.

Ss1s students were not far off from these junior students in childishness. By Ss1, the boys had come back taller and the girls had returned bustier, everyone arrives with a glow up and a little bit of humanity. The ranking boards stop. Open discrimination is risky rope to thread. Marking of territories is outdated. But, oh, you'd be mistaken to think that this meant that they had turned a new leaf.

Assholes will always be assholes, no matter what. They'd still want to be assholes, without having stones cast at them for being assholes. Everyone has a morality card which is the highest level of hypocrisy, especially since the social status quo, ranking systems, and the differences between the worthy and unworthy still exist. This time, not on a piece of paper or on a bulletin board, but etched deep into their minds. This is where the Invisible rule starts to play, where everyone knows their place, lines to not cross, people to not cross too. Or those who are easy bait.

That was where an outcast would try to talk to someone high on the radar and instead of outrightly washing them down like they would unapologetically do in junior school and tell them they are not worthy of their attention, they would rather quietly look them up and down, dismiss them with an eye roll and get far away from them as possible to not tag along and be a stain to their reputation. Guys would have a mental note on the type of girls they would date and girls keep a record in their head of guys that they would never look at twice. Here, power is not enforced anymore, it is gotten by influence accumulated over the years. Anyone who chose to bully others or do anything that would be publicly drowned upon or declined by the morality card would either have a strong backup behind them or have enough power to solely brainwash the entire set.

Nonetheless, by Ss2 class, things take an even more interesting turn.

"Hi. I'm sure you know the Prefect Post Elections are around the corner and you want nothing better than than the BEST candidate, the girl to be the next big thing after Senior Giwa Falade!"

I watched her climb down the stairway of the Ss2 block, sharing campaign pamphlets to all her classmates who sat there around on the pavilions and the ones who also roamed the paths aimlessly and joblessly. And all my life, I had never seen anyone dress so nearly before. Her whites were sparkling, almost blinding when she stepped into the morning sun. Her hair was shining and new, greasing. And her skirts were well above her knee. The brightest smile plastered on her face as she shared out pamphlets that had her face bold on them with an even wider grin.

"You want nothing but the best and I am the best!" She was shouting her own praises to her classmates, distributing her papers, "Vote me for the post of Head Girl. Vote me because I'm the one most eligible for the role!"

If I hadn't recalled me fighting for my life back in Ss2 for a post Ivandor Fejaun eventually won, I would have found the entire thing hilarious. But, no, I resonated and related with that girl on a spiritual level.

Ss2 was the class of competition. Competition in every single angle. It set in real strong. In this class, everyone started to put it all at stake, in an attempt to overrank others. Hierarchy wars begin. In every angle. Sports. Social activities. Academics. And even prefectship posts. Everyone aims to stand out, be seen, be heard, and ultimately, use the prefect elections to reclassify themselves in the social ladder.

"Hi! Have a pamphlet!" She distributed over five at a stretch, smiling broadly at the audience she was getting, "Hi, there! My name is Kabrina Briggs, and I am applying for the post of Head Girl. Have my pamphlets. Please vote for me and vote for change!" She was giving it her all and I would have given that her.

Of course, in this struggle to get seen, heard and noticed, the ones at the top are still fighting too. Doing anything and everything to make sure they stay in their ranks, making sure they remain at the very top of the food chain.

"Take all the pamphlets and rip them to shreds!" I saw Aminah, the acclaimed queen bee of Ss2 storming into the scene with Michael Ndukwe and his other jock friends who stood as her personal bodyguards for the moment, hot and furious behind her.

The big boys wasted no time, rushing every student on the arena with aggression and force and dragging Kabrina's pamphlets off the hands of everyone on sight, tearing all to shreds. Ripping off the ones on the walls too, and squeezing them into the trash bins. Raining a massacre on all of her efforts, her pamphlets. Each and every single one of them as Aminah stood there, fuming with her arms folded, like a little spoilt princess who had her boys doing all the dirty work for her.

I had already crossed the t-section that divided Ss2 and Ss3 blocks, thereby stepping out of the catastrophe that was ensuing in the latter block just as it started. And once I had gotten to the short route that would take me into the Ss3 Class Block, I saw myself coming to a pause. Preferring to find solace against the thick mango tree in the nearby field, resting my back against it as my gaze travelled from my line of vision to the tall building that was my class block.

My God, I hated being here.

Staring off into the cliques and groups and couples that lingered all around the path, I could already imagine the madness going on in our hallway. The utter madness that we, Ss3s, turned our unlimited freedom into.

Ss3 was Class Ultimate. The class where they made the rules, and hence, had no rules. The class where all the laws given to us by the school authority was broken without apology. Resumption day, for example, looked like a party night. Even on the outskirts of the block. Hairs of assorted colors: blue, green, red, white, blonde. Nails, all sorts of sizes and shapes, long and short alike. Banned hairstyles, wigs, weaves, attachments that had its tips dancing at the buttocks of my set girls. Boys sprouting tattoos, ear rings, of course, but I was in no place to judge, since I had showed up with literal dreadlocks.

Or something that accidentally turned into it.

Everyone of us broke a rule. Or two. Or multiple. Unapologetically roaming the place without the fear of punishment or consequences. After all, we enforced the rules, so we had the wrong notion that we were somehow above the law. Having authority over the whole school, taking advantage of prefect posts and supreme reputation and power, just because we could. Every other form of hierarchy bowing before ours.

"Ss2 boys and girls, to the Assembly Hall! Fast!" One of the prefects from my set had shouted from inside the block, his voice resounding from inside the halls, so loud and thunderous that even I could hear him from outside too.

And so could the now disarrayed Ss2 students that I watched from my short distance.

"Jss3 and Ss1 students, I know that you all can also hear me loud and clear from your class blocks!" Giwa Falade burst through the midst of her co-prefects, eyes sharp and fiery as her voice reverberated around the entire atmosphere, "You had better join Ss2s to run to the Assembly Hall before I get to zero. In Five! Four! Three! Two!-"

She has started a fierce countdown and I was shocked to see how even Jss1 and Jss2 students who she has not included in her warning joined the multitude to turn their class blocks upside down, stomping and shaking the building in loud, absolute and sheer terror. The entire school, disrupting into utter chaos and panic at the sound of her voice.

Meanwhile, I laid there against the tree, hood over me as I watched it all unfold in silence.

"Who's that girl wearing pink socks?!" Amarachi, the Sports Prefect screamed, hot with fury, "Anabel Omorodion and co, if you try to escape! Run down here with your clique before I get to you! If I chase you, I will catch you and I will break all your little legs!"

I chuckled, shaking my head at the entire irony of it all. How the mighty had fallen so soon.

Everything was just one big illusion. Looking at it now from a third eye point of view, everybody claiming 'worthy' were actually all clowns in their own way. This place was filled with misguided teenagers who are in thirst for relevance, like blood sucking demons to gore. All these risks, all these lies, all these fight for a place in an unstable social hierarchy? And all for what, temporal worth? To be worthy?

And, ironically, no matter how high you were up that ladder, you can come down. You didn't need to be like Anabel who was caught like a deer in headlights and subject in the hands of an older school mates. It didn't matter if you were in Ss3 enjoying your enforced rights, there are and would always be subjects beneath you who pray for your downfall. Especially the ones that smile at your face, while at it. They would watch like serpents, their eyes darting at every corner you turn, waiting for the right time to strike.

"Move na!" Someone shoved me - an Ss1 or Ss2 boy who seemed to be fighting for his life while running away from Giwa Falade's countdown. "Head girl is doing countdown and you're here as if you are a ghost-"

His words, and every thought that he would have spewed out through them, died in his throat the second his eyes jammed mine.

The boy's face flushed, as though he had seen a ghost. Color drained from his face. Terror in his wife eyes as his body reeled back, nearly falling over himself as he choked on his words of apology.

"S-Sorry, I-I didn't know it way you!" He stammered, right before running out of my sight with shaky legs, my unfeeling gaze following him still.

That boy actually almost lost his life.

Yet, I couldn't blame him for nearly passing out before I even had the chance to touch him. My blood would have ran cold if I looked directly into my eyes too.

Nonetheless, these were eyes that seemed to now see things clearer for what they really were. And it all mused me, truly, how I just came to the realization that after we all graduated from secondary school, who we were in these four corners and ends of Castron High would mean absolutely nothing in the real world.

I left the hellmess behind me, walking in the midst of juniors who somehow figured it was a safer option to avoid me than to bump into me, and went to find a new coven. A new hideout. Somewhere to take me away from this suffocating place. A part of me, though, kept asking myself over and over if I could hide forever.

★★★

The Morning Assembly was taking expectionally long to round up.

I'd have known because I could hear all it's proceedings from the Basketball court beside the Jss3 block where I had chosen to sit, to stay in and covet as my own personal hideout. The bench was uncomfortable, its metal hot and burning under me, even though it was barely a few minutes past eight.

The discomfort was a better option over being seen. And from time to time, I glanced over to the wrist watch around my wrist to check how much more time they had been spending in there, readjusting my hood over and over, to avoid any unfortunate mishaps.

Castron High's first assemblies for the term was usually, for all I could remember, busy. Busy was the word to describe it. It was the same as it should be, typically, just with some extra busybody. They had already sang the school and national anthem, should have been rounding off with the Principal's speech and the Chapel prefect's announcements to the school, but of course, this was the first day of the term and our chapel prefect, Ella was not the only prefect who wanted to be on the spotlight. All the Ss3 prefects are trying to show off themselves in all causes as well.

Ninety percent of them would have insisted to give their own set or rules and regulations for the new term, the 'nonsenses' that they would not take from anyone this time around and how much more wicked that they have pledged to be to their junior ones this year. And of course, how punishment is thicker and more severe in this new term.

I mean, I had heard Winnie Ezra's voice from here, screaming into the microphone and warning Ss1 girls that she was ready for them and their 'ashawo skirts' after the Assembly, which was funny to me because I gotten a brief glimpse of Winnie Ezra back there on the path to Class Block and if I wasn't so dead to emotions, I would have double-taked at that handkerchief she tied around her waist and called it a school skirt.

And judging through Aaron Godson's belt lashes that I could also hear all the way from the court, resounding like bullets, I needed no saint to tell me that the junior boys of Castron High were not having a field day. I could only further imagine how the entire hall and even outside of it would be filled with students serving all shades of punishments, from kneeling to picking pin and sitting on the wall, as those who looked at dear Anabel of Jss3 as a role model and source of inspiration had to face the likes of Giwa Falade without nowhere to run.

With all the caricature going on and with all that I had observed, it didn't even look to me like Dabeluchi Orji was actually in here, in school with us.

I came here for her. Just her. Only Aurora. And, for the life of me, I did not envision myself doing this. Hiding from everyone else in the Basketball Court. Even after I spent the entire morning, assuring my mum that I was not afraid.

Yet, here I was, sitting in here in my temporary refuge, my hideout, only to run again and find a new place to retreat once all the students of Castron High come pouring out of the Hall after the morning assembly. The realization that I was just as much as a clown as the rest of the other students I was judging hit me, and a feeling of disdain started to creep in, rising from the depths of me by the second.

This was me. This had always been me. Hiding from showing myself. Before, figuratively, and now, physically. Figures. I had always been a coward myself. And ever since the Christmas party, ever since these attacks and rumors became my social identity, a part of me had wanted to escape. Crawl into a hole, any hole, to avoid the negativity, this treatment from my classmates that I had always been terrified about. Since, once upon a time, their opinions of me defined me. Shaped me. Made me who I was. Accoladed me as 'Man Like Acha'.

But, now, all I wanted to do was damn them all.

"To hell with this," I cussed, rising up to my feet and making a turn towards the the Assembly Hall.

My senses screamed no, but my body was too heated to turn back. With a rage over absolutely nothing and outrightly everything, I made way towards that Hall, not even bothering to adjust my disguise when the sleeves of the sweater I hooded on me started to loosen around me.

The Hall had the best seats in school and I was not going to subject my self to getting my ass burnt over some bunch of idiots who were thin threads away from taking an uppercut to their throats from me, one gossip or whisper away from getting knocked out or sent on a spiritual journey to meet their maker.

"Excuse me, where do you think you are going? No student is allowed to enter the Hall through the entrance during the Morning Assembly— Christ!"

Giwa Falade shrieked, jumping out of the way when I slammed my hands against the two-way doors behind her in the middle of her mid rant.

I may have underrated the strength I had. Honestly. Only God knows how those doors didn't come crashing down with the cruel force that I had pushed against it with, a velocity that sent that underneath of the bottom rail screeching against its threshold like a thousand pins on a white board, the sides of the doors slamming with a loud bang against the walls as they burst right open for me to walk through.

Needless to say, the atmosphere dropped in temperature. The immediate silence, deafening.

I felt it the moment that I had stepped in, but my feet didn't stop marching. Not until it had reached its destination. And, if I was not too determined to give a shit, I'd have shuddered at how cold, quiet and eerie it felt to have all eyes suddenly turn my way from all angles, all classes, all eyes. Everyone was mortified, lips shut in shock and confusion and eyes wide as saucers as they watched me descend, watched the hooded mystery boy who had almost just broken down the sealed doors of the Hall.

Every row I passed, every class I crossed, I started to hear the whispers. It started subtly, as quiet conspiracy theories that were shared in little, low-voiced gossips. Until quite soon, the quiet hall that was once silenced with mortification was gradually turning into a noise, and I needed no one to tell me that all of them were starting to put two and two together.

"Is that him? It can't be him! I heard that he was getting expelled!" One junior student had exclaimed.

"Ehn? How could he be allowed to come back here after what he did?" Another bewildered fellow commented.

"That's not Senior Marcus Acha! Senior Marcus Acha was expelled from Castron High!" A bunch of junior boys were discussing and debating amongst themselves.

"Didn't he literally kill two people last year?" Someone from the a row of Ss1 girls gossiped to her friends.

"Sh! Don't let him hear you, abeg," I overheard an Ss2 boy whisper-shout to his 'mates, "If you all are ready to risk your lives, I'm not signing up for it! I can't enter coma in Marcus Acha's hands the way that Sean and Ghadafi did, abeg o!"

In a reflex action, my jaw bone was clenching over and over again as I heard the talks come from every angles. Debates on if the hood boy was Marcus Acha or not and the majority of it being a thorough slander of my name.

"Damn you all," I muttered through gritted teeth before making the next move to yank that sweater off me, revealing myself to the entire hall.

All Hell broke loose.

Students, teachers, Prefects, everyone was right about losing their damn minds. I was like a plague, repulsing and throwing people off from everywhere around me the second I got even two feet close to them. A walking curse, a living embodiment of terror. These students looked like I was the Halk, the fear and trepidation on them just seeing me thick in their eyes as they fell over each other, everybody moving out of my way like I was carrying a curse.

They were terrified of me.

Each and every single one of them.

And while the students were losing their minds, crying for their life like I was the grim reaper, the prefects had gone mad. Screaming at everyone to shut up. But all to no avail. Teachers, joining in to tame the crowd, but as far as I walked further into the Hall, these people were going to keep convulsing in sheer horror of me.

I got a glimpse of the helpless principal, whom I supposed was giving his speech when I barged in. The man was able to do nothing. His shouts into the microphone were drowned in the house of the petrified students, and above all, as much as they tried to call the crowd to order, teacher and prefects included, not a single one of them thought to come to me.

Or rather, dared to.

I had the entire school in my palms right now and only I could control this crowd.

"Stand up. Three. Two.—"

My countdown didn't reach one, and the Ss1 boy jumped up from his seat, offering me the chair that I was demanding.

I only came here to take a chair.

If they wanted to have epileptic seizures, that was their business.

Grabbing the seat, I started to drag it towards the exit, every path I wanted to cross clearing with remarkable speed as I dashed towards that door without looking back.

I could hear the backtalk from my classmates as I headed towards the doors, but when I turned my head to look towards the area that Ss3 boys and girls sat, not a single soul had the audacity to look me in the eyes. They looked everywhere, literally anywhere, but at me. Everywhere but at the person whose name they couldn't get out of their mouth.

And just when I was about to turn away, my gaze got trapped, eyes landing on something, someone, whom I didn't imagine or envision that I would actually come eye to eye today of all days.

I could recognize that reddish-brown hair anywhere. Those freckles that glared on his sunbright, light skin face as I caught him, hiding behind some Art boys from our class. Shielding himself from sight, occasionally bending down against the chair in front of him in a bid to avoid being recognized by me.

"Little Bastard," I grudgingly spat, my eyes roaming the area that he was in, trying to find a hole to desperately crawl into and avoid my gaze.

Jeffery Jarah Jarah.

That bastard, JJ.

The sight of him alone triggered me.

Enough for me to want to rush him like a bulldozer, slam him against the ground and rub his face against the tiles of the ground until he bled out.

The bastard thought he was being sleek. After everything the traitor did, all his coward self told him to do was attempt to hide from me. 

"—Acha, please!" I was immediately cut off from my focus on JJ, as the Chapel prefect, Daniel limped towards me, "I'm sorry, but you can't carry any seats outside. It's prohibited!"

The boy had only one good leg, it was inhuman to push him. But by all means, I wanted him to get the fuck out of my face.

I didn't say anything. When he made eye contact with me and saw my death stare, he made the right decision. The prefect further moved out of my way, letting me pass and do what I wanted with the chair.

I cast JJ one last look before I stormed out of the Hall, fury burning inside my chest.

Much to my dismay, I didn't even have much time to sit down outside and feel the fresh breeze as I relaxed on the chair I had snatched out of the Hall. Just as I stepped outside, Mr Charles Bassey followed me, dashing out to block my path immediately while the chaos inside the hall was still ongoing, hot and heavy.

"Marcus Acha, what has gotten into you, for God's sake!" He screamed at me, he was the first teacher who had the audacity to come at me. Charlie Ba looked anything but pleased, eyes blazing with shock and anger as he berated me, "What has gotten into you, what is this behavior?!"

I looked at him, eyes devoid of any form of feeling of emotion as I stared blankly at the shorter man fuming in front of me.

"I sent for you, Marcus, because I was worried about you. I didn't expect that you would walk in here and try to turn the whole school upside down, and where do you think you are going with that Hall chair?!" He asked me, lips shaking with anger, "I am not coming here to tell you to do the right thing and return that seat because I know you already know the right thing to do!"

"Get out of my front, sir," I told the man, my voice clipped and my tone, warning, "I really don't want to disrespect you, Charlie Ba."

I braced myself for a dirty slap. Anything. I wouldn't flinch because I saw it coming anyway. But, the man did not give me the reaction I expected.

He looked disappointed.

Not even remotely close to angry anymore.

"Watch yourself, Mr. Acha," he said to me, his fingers pointing at my face as he laid his warning, "Watch yourself and watch your actions, Marcus Acha."

I fought the urge to slap his hands out of my face.

"Watch yourself!" He kept repeating, "You may think that some things are fixable, but the marks you make in a place are never forgotten! Things that you do here go down in history, stays in your legacy as a student of Castron High, even years after you have graduated. Don't, in an unreasonable anger, mess up everything that you have worked so hard for. A word is enough for the wise!"

He looked dumbfounded when I laughed at what he said.

But, frankly, I had to ask him.

"What's there to lose anyway?" I folded my arms, waited for him to give me a befitting and convincing answer, "Haven't I lost everything already, sir? What the fuck is there to lose again, if I may ask?"

The man didn't flinch or budge at my curse word. Just stood there and held my gaze, the same gaze that no one I had come across since I got here had been able to stand for more than two seconds.

"Yourself," he answered me, a tone of certainty and finality in his voice, "Yourself, Marcus. And believe me, that is the worst price you would have to pay." And while I sat there, folding my hands and staring at him with an amused smile on my face, he just sighed and walked away, leaving me to whatever.

I watched behind him, the chaos in the hall still shaking the building. That man didn't understand. He just didn't understand. He didn't get that I had nothing. And there was nothing scarier than a man who has nothing to lose anymore.

"Legacy, huh?" I scoffed, shaking my head at how ridiculous it was in my analysis. What legacy did I have to protect anymore? When the entire school had me nailed on a cross.

It was all bullshit.

"Okay, then, Marcus Acha. Let's create a legacy na," I laughed mockingly, a dry bitter laugh that was sore in my mouth as I picked up the chair I was holding, anger rising in me and blinding any form of reasoning that I had left. "Okay, then. Time to make history in Castron High."

And with that, I ran into the Hall like a man gone mad, reeled my hand back and flung the iron chair into the air, and watched the crowd of Ss3 boys and girls scatter into a disarray, in an attempt to dodge the chair that came flying in the air towards them.

I was satisfied when I heard JJ's shout from the distance, the splat that I heard on the ground accompanying his scream was all that convinced me that my aim had connected.

But, this was only the beginning.

Damn. 🙂

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. 😂 But what I know is that I absolutely enjoyed writing this chapter. Before I go on to ask your opinion on other things concerning chapter, I need to hear my readers talk about Marcus Acha for a moment...

In Book One, Acha was a sweetheart. This dark side of him was not him. So as much as you will see some things from him, I want you to remember that this is not who he is. And like Charlie Ba said, if he doesn't watch himself, he will lose himself. May that never happen, in Jesus name.

The thing is that Acha hasn't found himself in the first place, and you can't even lose what you haven't found. In Book One, his self worth was determined by Classmates and their opinions of him. And soon, he turned his obsession over popularity to an obsession over Dabeluchi Orji. Now that he has lost both, he doesn't seem to have a direction anymore. An aim in life. No meaning to his life. No direction. He's just a lost kid who is angry. At the time, he is dangerous. Both to himself and to everyone else around him. If you had two minutes with Marcus Acha, what words would you say to him? (Remember his temperament is low now, so no make mistake misyarn sha, before he go commot ya teeth😂).

Moving on, can we praise Mama Acha's parenting skills?😂🤞🏽 I love that woman so damn much sha. And I dropped a hint in that scene with Mama Acha and Acha. Did you get it?

I also struggled at first to find a name to give this chapter but thanks to a comment from Mummy Affy in the Too Many Broken Things Part One, where she referred to Castron High as a ghetto, I immediately got my lightbulb twinkling. 😂 So, yes, tell me. How ghetto is Castron High from a scale of one to ten?

It's crazy how the hierarchy system is so thick even in junior school. At least Ivandor's sister is on her way to become their set's beauty queen, but sha, sorry for Anabel because after today, the color of her socks will change from pink to red. 😂😭🤞🏽And wahala for who is dragging Head Girl post with Aminah sha. (Winks at Stella Chioma😂🤞🏽)Nonetheless, tell me, if you had this issue of hierarchy in your secondary school or if you're currently in secondary school and can relate, tell me how similar Castron High's system was to yours. Gist me, lol.

Anyways! That's all for today sha. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. See you next week Sunday!❤️🔥