Chương 2: My Mom's a Blue-Box?

Oh dear, your face is so pale! Don't worry, I haven't turned into a blue-box. This is just how I talk to those under my care since I can't be in a million places at once. Now please do what I say and get to Ring asap! The blue-box vanished before Sid could decide whether he wanted to scream at it or fall into an insane fit of laughter. Mother's stupid mind games could wait until he figured out what had just happened to his captors. He found himself just outside the school's music room.

He looked inside and saw his classmate Milo happily plucking at the keys. He hadn't heard the screaming in the hallway. Sid let out a long sigh and smiled. Maybe the meeting had been nothing but a nightmare. Sid took one step and started sliding forward until his back hit the ground. The area around him was wet, but the liquid was too thick to be water. The scent of iron flooded his nose and made it clear what he was lying in before he even opened his eyes. Just to humor the world, he opened them anyway.

Sid slapped his hand over his mouth as he took in the massive amount of blood splattered throughout the hall. The piano was still going, the student at the keys blissfully unaware of the mess just outside. Sid looked back towards the shock room and found the mangled corpses of the two guards and the headmaster. That should've been a beautiful sight, but all Sid could see were the jagged edges of cracked bones and a future interrogation by witch hunters.

His mind screamed at him to run and get a change of clothes before it was too late. He had to keep moving, keep lying, and keep fighting until the day came when the Holy Rose got sick of playing games with him and just ended his pathetic existence. He wasn't sure how long he had before the authorities showed up. The school had other faculty members that would surely report the carnage, and the strange nature of their death would bring up allegations of witchcraft.

Sid couldn't use any magic, yet here he was, sitting in a crime scene that had no other reasonable explanation. But Sid was a man, and a woman was a more believable suspect when it came to real witchcraft. With the two guards dead, it wasn't like there was a shortage of women to pin the blame on. The dead guard couldn't defend herself. Sid's classmates would probably vouch for him. No one else saw what happened, anyway.

Once his musical friend was finished playing, Sid would explain that he had stumbled onto the scene none the wiser. He stood in the doorway of the music room and let Milo continue the song. The last few notes rang in Sid's mind and provided a bit of comfort. Milo swung his legs over to the other side of the bench and looked up at Sid.

"Sid! Happy birth-" The color drained from the boy's face as he eyed the blood covering Sid's tunic.

"Good heavens! Are you alright?" He ran up to Sid and started scanning his entire body for injuries. First, he lifted Sid's right arm and pushed up the sleeve of his habit. The arm was clear; not even the self-inflicted burn wound remained. Milo then moved to the left arm and stopped as soon as he lifted it. Sid turned his head to see what he was looking at. Blood dripped off the blade of a butcher's knife his left hand was gripping. Sid released the weapon.

His hands felt so numb after the blue screen's glitch that he hadn't noticed he was holding anything. Milo put his hands to his mouth as the blood coating the hallway floor started drifting into the music room. He walked through the doorway with trembling legs. Sid covered his ears for the impending scream.

"What in the heavenly rose gardens?! Sid, what happened?" I can answer that. Sid jumped back into the hallway. The same blue screen was floating above the corpses of his captors. His classmate was staring up at it as well. At least he knew it wasn't a hallucination, and whatever happened to the headmaster was probably its fault and not the result of Sid finally losing it. Positives — He had to think of the positives. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Failed mystic student Sidor Sokolov defeated his enemies! The coven is pleased. We will come to collect the flowers shortly. You performed your part well. It was still using his mother's voice, which meant it was absolutely fucking with him. No witches were coming. He was not part of any secret plot to get his classmates kidnapped and married off, but the truth didn't exactly matter when a floating blue box was talking. How could he argue with that?

"Sid, why would you…Are they really coming for us?" He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Milo, please listen—" Failed mystic… failed mystic… failed mystic. The voice started barking the same message from various parts of the school. He followed one line of screens down the hall and turned the corner. There was another mess of guards and school faculty members piled on top of each other. A full-blown massacre. Of course his mother wouldn't have settled for a measly serial killing. More screams filled the halls as Sid watched his classmates start popping out of rooms.

Teenage distress had a domino effect. Once the first boy got started, others began funneling into the hallway in search of the disturbance. The noise was becoming unbearable. His brain refused to tell his body to run, even though his classmates were looking at him like he was the plague. Instead, he turned towards the hall that led to the exit. Despite his distaste for his classmates, he planned to unlatch every penance chamber he passed on the way.

Starving to death in one of those rooms was a fate he'd wish only on the people who put him in one. Milo continued following him like a baby duck. He faced Milo one last time and smiled.

"Hey, there's no witches coming for you. Now that the teachers are gone, you need to make sure the flock doesn't starve. I'm sure everyone's heading straight for the basement panic room. Don't let them rot down there." He took Milo's hand.

"I'm leaving them to you. Take care." He wasn't sure why he even cared about them at that point. Perhaps he just wanted to feel human again. Their school ran on fear and awe, two things Sid sorely lacked. That left him with hatred. As fun as it could be at times, hatred was exhausting, and now that most of the people he hated in the world were dead, he had even less left inside. As he continued towards the exit, he heard Milo's hurried footsteps disappear down the hall.

Every penance chamber was opened with the click of a lock. The door leading outside was in his sight. The guards that monitored it were dead on the floor. Despite the mess, everything seemed to be falling in place for him. It wasn't as if his scatterbrained classmates were going to stop him now. UNREGISTERED PAWN: Sidor Sokolov Sid almost fell backwards as the blue screen popped in front of him. You have no role assigned. Please report to Ring to receive your role and reward.

"My what?" Your enemies were slain. A juicy reward of 50 XP awaits you on Ring, along with the [Mobility] and [Brawn] I granted you earlier. Everything will be factored into your status screen once you arrive. You're already halfway to level two and you're not even level one yet! That's my boy. Sid couldn't believe his eyes. He couldn't believe his ears, either. Here was this thing—this blue box monstrosity—talking about XP in his mother's voice.

There weren't enough drugs in the world to get him to hallucinate this scenario. His mother was the one who lied about him wanting to marry a witch in the first place. Now she was rescuing him to play a game? That didn't sound like the mother he knew and hated.

"You never played a single game with me as a child; you didn't even let me buy video games." Well, I have a lot to make up for then, don't I? Since you were never able to learn magic from me, I figured this system would be a good compromise. I can't play favorites though, so don't expect any cheats. I just leveled the playing field for your broken mind a bit.

"Yeah, no thanks. I'm not interested in whatever augmented reality game nonsense you have planned." Sid tapped one of the dead guards' bodies with his foot.

"Thanks for killing these assholes, I guess, even though you blamed me for it." Sid walked straight through the blue screen blocking his path and started pushing against the door's metal bar. He met a strong wave of resistance that shoved him back a few feet. He fell onto his back and the screen moved, hovering just over his face. Oh Sid. My dear, sweet boy. Do you think I disposed of them for free? Don't worry, you'll pay me back soon enough. Either that, or you'll rot like the mediocre failure you are.

I know you can be more than that, Sid. So prove me right, okay?