1 The Day It All Began
This was in the middle of Autumn, nearing the end of October, where the seasonal leaves were changing. They were in the process of transitioning slowly changing from the usual leafy-green colour to either an orangey-brown or murky-yellow.
The winds were blowing quite profusely strong today, as it left a deep impression on Aaron Lee's state of mind, determining the mood to start the day off.
Whilst, at the same time, flawless numbers of students had just gathered congregating outside of the school premise. Awaiting patiently until it was their turn to walk through the school gates.
The school yard were quite packed, filled with energetic and enthusiastic young people.
The earliest signs of loud activities in the early morning.
Friends of a similar age, would indeed gathered up, meet and greet each other with joyous laughter.
Whilst, the other side, we have the loners.
Those who don't have that many friends outside of their social group.
They are extremely timid and quite well reserved, almost unapproachable to a certain point, whilst standing out like a sore thumb from the crowd.
They stood alone by themselves, whilst gazing enviously at others.
One such character is our main protagonist, Aaron Lee, who is this story's MC (main character).
He stood still on the pavement, on the opposite side of the road, across the aforementioned secondary school that is within sight.
A light breeze blew through his unkempt bed hair, blissfully gone by unnoticed.
As his russet brown coloured eyes remained motionless, bored out of their right mind, and unamused for quite some time.
That is until he heard the sound of the school bell ringing.
It rung impressively four times, as it manages to successfully captured his unwinded attention.
Di-ring! Di-ring!
The sound of the school bell ringing.
The school stills uses the old fashioned mechanical bells like it did all those years.
Aaron Lee then looked at the digital clock, displayed, and hanging around on the side of the main school building.
The stationery digital clock shown that it was '8:45 AM'.
Here in the UK, we have form time, which usually last for about 15 minutes, before classes officially starts at 9.
Aaron Lee thought so to himself, 'It's time for school...' Whilst, sighing dejectedly.
He then muttered quietly underneath his breath, and nobody heard him.
"Another boring day of school. What a drag..." Aaron Lee said.
○ ○ ○
Several hours later...
Classes and subjects are usually devided into periods, lasting to utmost a hour, as there are 5 periods within a full school day.
This also includes 'Break time' & 'Lunch time' in between.
And currently it was now lunch time, the corridors on the second floor were now empty and quiet, but there were still people within the ICT classroom.
The ICT teacher was busy having his own lunch that he brought, and scanning through the work sheets of his previous class.
However, there were still a few students that are in the ICT classroom. They were either finishing off their Computing coursework and some work assignment, or just simply playing games on the computer.
Seated within the corners of the room, beside his computer, Aaron was being quiet as he was on his phone.
His sloppy tired eyes remain fixated on the phone screen.
He is unable to shift his eyes off and away from it, like any other teenager obsessed with surfing the internet; watching short YouTube vids or plainly being on social media.
However, Aaron was different. He was preoccupied with surfing through the internet, searching for any good light novel or web novels to read.
He was on the old Royal Road Legends website, where there is a growing collection of authors; aspiring and young, old and very experienced, who post their works.
Aaron then thought to himself, 'It's been quite a while since I've last logged onto Royalroad...'
He then continues, 'How long ago was it? Since I've first created my Royalroad account, maybe it was 2 to 3 years perhaps.'
'I don't know?' Aaron thought.
He then lets out a big sigh, out of disappointment, whilst shaking his head slightly.
He started reminiscing on the past, the good old times.
The memories of when he first started out; creating his first Royalroad's account, reading his favourite author's stories, and looking for exciting books to read.
He was actively conversing with the Royalroad story community, participating in polls to determined what the author would write, commenting on the author's novel, and such.
All good things will eventually come to an end, as they don't last forever.
He scrolled down the list of bookmarked fictions on his Royalroad account.
He immediately saw many of the old fictions that he used to read are either labelled completed or dropped.
The vast majority is labelled 'dropped' in simple grey text.
Aaron then thought to himself, 'So many of my favourite novels have either been dropped or just plainly been abandoned by the author themselves...'
'Simply, it is a pity.'
Aaron's pair of eyes then slowly drifted away from the phone, as he leans back against his chair.
Aaron then said something in a quiet voice, pretty much inaudible to others. "It's been five years, huh. So much things has changed within the span of five years."
"I can't hardly tell what life onced was five years ago." He spoke to himself, internal monologing.
This complex feeling that he is currently feeling, a mixture of sadness, nostalgia, and content.
So much so, that it is starting to rack his brain thinking about it.
Unaware of what's to come, Aaron helplessly smiles at himself.
He knows full too well that his peaceful highschool lifestyle won't last long, and will sooner or later comes to a end.
Aaron knew, he only has about half a year left of school, before he is forced to either go into further education in college or get a job in order to earn a living for himself.
'Life itself is a drag.' He thought.
Aaron then spends the remainder of his lunch time lazying around on his smartphone.
He surfed through the internet on phone, whilst looking for anything interesting to read, when all of a sudden, his phone started to ringing.
It played the phone's ring tone on full blast, so that any people within the current classroom could hear clearly.
Aaron then visibly panics, showcasing a clearly distraught face, as he quickly tries to lowers down the ring tone volume on his phone.
'Goddamnit!' He curses himself internally, whilst biting down on his lower lip. Unsatisfactory.
'I forgot to put my phone on vibrate.' He thought to himself.
'And who would call me at this ungodly hour! Could it be either mum or dad?' Aaron thought, and grimaced.
It caught him off guard, as he then turns around, looking somewhat embarrassed.
He saw all of the people within the room, one by one, turning away from their computer monitor, and are now eyeing him.
The numerous pairs of eyes are now focus solely on him.
Aaron has become the sole centre of attraction of all this many people's gaze. It felt nerve wracking.
A strange rather uncomfortable feeling began to unravelled from withinside his chest.
His core body temperature steadily rising; as his cheeks, face, and ears have turned slightly red in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry for my phone ringing, everyone." Aaron immediately apologises.
He was being extremely sincere, from the bottom of his heart.
Mr Davies, who was the current supervising teacher in charge of watching over the kids in the ICT classroom, during lunch time.
Mr Davies asked Aaron a question. "Was that a phone call?"
Aaron simply nodded his head as the indication, and then said, "Yes, sir."
Mr Davies was being lenient, as he then lightly smiles.
Being a responsible teacher, he then gave some advice towards Aaron, "If it's not inportant you can leave it, but if you want to answer the phone call, then you must leave the classroom as to not distract the others."
Mr Davies was a nice ICT teacher, despite the way he presented himself.
He is always being lenient and extremely patient with his students, rarely you would see him ever raising his voice beyond the normal volume.
Mr Davies then lectures Aaron Lee, "However, if this was during an normal class period, then I would have no choice but to confiscate your phone, because it is distracting the class."
"Do you understand, Aaron?" Mr Davies called out his name.
Aaron responded, "Yes, I understand."
He then continues, "I will switch off my phone, or put it on vibrate, whenever it is time readying for class."
Without much thought, he then picks up the phone, and checked for the name of the caller.
He was then immediately surprised, as it turns out that the caller's name was 'Sameer'. A good old friend of his.
Sameer's name was highlighted in white bold text, behind the usual lime green coloured background.
'It's Sameer, so why is he calling me at this time.' Aaron Lee thought.
He then thought to himself, 'If Sameer really wanted to find me or either Anik, then he would come up here with the others.'
'I'm definitely sure that Mr Davies wouldn't really mind the extra people.' Aaron Lee thought.
Sameer Chowderick was a dear friend of his. One of the few many friends he has during high school, and of the five people he is mostly closest to in his friend group.
He met him mid way through his first year, as Anik then introduces him to their friend group.
Before Aaron was just about to leave the classroom and answered the phone call, a chubby Bangladeshian boy then calls out to him.
The chubby Bangladeshian boy was none other than Anik Mackallick, the affirmation friend who Aaron was talking about.
He founded the friend group, and brung the current people that we know together.
Anik then asked Aaron, out of curiosity, "So who is it?"
"It's Sameer." Aaron responded.
He was quick on the up take, and Anik smiles.
He soon broke into a sudden burst of laughter, as he then nonchalantly said, "So it Queera, huh..."
"Hahaha..."
Queera was a nickname that Anik gave to Sameer.
Queer means odd or strange in the English language.
Sameer always has had a strange personality, and peculiar tastes, despite his nerdy appearance.
Unlike his nerdy appearance, and pairs of glasses, he is not that at all smart nor intelligent, but he is highly sociable and friendly.
Sameer has a slight obsession over adult horror movies, especially ones that depicts gruesome scenes and murder.
Horror Films that a young teenager who has yet to turn 18 years of age, shouldn't watch.
Thinking about it, it immediately gave Aaron some chills, as he remembered the scene of the horror film 'Meat Grinder' that which he shown the group in the library.
It depicts an eastern Asian girl, with a meat cleaver, dicing the human meat into bits and slowly putting it into a meat grinder, where it will then be turned into minced meat.
The girl would then shaped, and turned the minced human meat into meatballs, where she would later served the human meat ball to a customer in a soup dish.
The customer would then eat the soup dish without noticing it was made from human meat.
The sight of it all, immeduately gave him goosebumps.
Aaron quickly exits the ICT classroom, and then closes the door lightly right behind him.
* * *
Onced he is outside the classroom, Aaron then picks up the phone, and answered his friend Sameer's phone call.
He slid his thumb over the green answer call button, in order to accept the call.
Aaron spoke, answering the phone caller, "Yeahello."
Since the corridors were empty, with no people around within the facility, Aaron Lee then decided to place the phone call on a loudspeaker.
On the other side of the phone, Sameer sounded quite urgent, and is panicking.
"Where the fuck are you, Aaron?" He shouted at Aaron.
Whilst, berating him with many questions. "You idiot! Why didn't you answer your phone calls much sooner!"
Aaron was at a lost for words, showcasing visible confusion, as he tries to make sense over whatever just happened.
He told Sameer to calm down and speak more slowly.
"I can't hear you properly over the loud noise in the background." He said.
'Something's strange, here. Is that people screaming in the background.' He was somewhat able to make out what the people were kind of saying.
And it does not sound too good. It could be a fight, or much worse.
"What is happening over there." He asked Sameer.
Aaron was starting to feel anxious, after the prolonged silence of Sameer over the phone.
Sameer only said a few words over the phone, and he immediately got the gist of it.
"Its a literal pandemonium out here!" Sameer said, screaming over the phone.
"A widespread epidemic of chaos! People are dying, and monsters are invading, whole school is being quickly overrun with monsters..." Sameer informed Aaron.
'Is he being literal serious. Monsters invading the school, I don't believe it all, but Sameer is not that kind of person. He won't tell such an inconceivable lie all of a sudden.' Aaron was starting to have some doubts.
"So where are you now?" Sameer asked Aaron over the phone.
He sounded rather worried, showcasing a sense of concern for his wellbeing and the others within the group.
Aaron responded, not wanting to further worry his friend any longer, "I'm on the second (B) floor right now, just outside of the ICT room."
Sameer sounded a bit relieved, and his tension eased a bit.
"The ICT classroom. It should not be that far away from here. Just a couple of minutes reached away from the library." Sameer commented.
He then says to Aaron Lee, "Don't do anything too irrational, and quickly find a safe place to stay at."
"We will definitely come to find you and Anik." Sameer Chowderick said over the phone.
And off into the distance, down the corridorway, a green skin humanoid creature then enters Aaron's line of sight.
The green skin creature was bipedal, as it stood on its own feet, much like the way a human does.
Standing roughly 3 ft tall, about the average size pre-adolescent child. Lanky arms, with a slightly rotund belly.
Its face was horrendous and extremely ugly, resembling a gremlin, with its wrinkled facial skin.
And the creature was only wearing a loincloth ti cover its lower half, and its important body part.
'Is that thing a goblin?' It was Aaron's first assumption, and he was not wrong.
The green skin goblin immediately gave off a hideous grin as it saw Aaron's figure.
It thereby reveals its sharp rows of yellowy carnivorous teeths, as it gave Aaron a deathly quiet stare.
The goblin wore a tribal necklace, an indicator of its own ranks within the goblin tribe.
The goblin tribal necklace is made up of woven plant fibre, decorated with canine fangs or the bone claws of the wild beasts they've killed.
There is an unspoken rule within the goblin tribe, that you can only claimed a pair of canine fangs from the wild beast you've killed.
This is so that an individual goblin cannot make false claims on the number of kills they haven't done.
A clear indicator of the goblin's rank is the number of tailored beast skull, dangling around on its tribal necklace.
1 tailored beast skulls represents the lowest ranks within the goblin tribe.
The tailored beast skulls is made from the grinded remains and bones of killed beasts, crushed into a sort of clay mixture, where it is then molded into the shape of a skull by the tribal chief.
Aaron has saw many pictures of goblins, depicted in media and video games, that he could easily differentiate them from other monster like fantasy races.
"What is that thing doing there, or am I hallucinating and seeing things?" Aaron said, speaking what was on his mind.
He didn't quite believe whatever his friend Sameer was saying to him previously.
He just assumes that they were just playing a prank on him.
'Sameer, David, Malachi, and Gerard is probably also included in it too.' Aaron Lee thought so to himself.
However, it was not possible for the green skin goblin to be a prank, as no adult or teenager would fit in that small of a size costume.
'It was neither an illusion or fake. Simply too realistic.' Aaron Lee thought to himself.
It is breathing and moving its body naturally in front of him, not with motors and machinery, so it can't be an animatronic.
The goblin immediately gave chase, as it charges on over towards Aaron's location.
It viciously eyeing down Aaron's figure, like a hunter and its prey.
The goblin was armed with a crude 6 inches long stone dagger.
The stone dagger was made from a rock mineral named Alkhan Hardstone, a tough rock mineral that is alot stronger than iron tools, and it is not from our world.
Its boney fingers wrapped around the hilt of the stone dagger, tightening its grib, as it holds the stone dagger like sabre.
The goblin then points the stone dagger in his particular direction, when it got close, before thrusting the stone dagger right at Aaron's figure.
"What the..." Aaron spoke, somewhat interrupted.
"Get back! Stay the hell away from me!" Aaron's delayed response.
"Aaron! Aaron! Get the hell outta there quickly! Aaron..." Sameer was on the other side of the phone and heard Aaron screaming.
Sameer Chowderick felt that something was undoubtedly wrong.
However, Aaron's grip on his phone suddenly loosens, thereby dropping the phone by accident.
Aaron's smartphone fall and drops to the ground.
With a loud thud, hitting the rough hard carpet floor, thereby cracking the surface of the phone screen.
As Aaron was suddenly overcomed with a deadly sense of crisis, none of that which he has ever experienced before.
His body froze on the spot, overcame by a strong sense of fear.
His legs were trembling uncontrollably, as Aaron's body reacted unconsciously, thereby taking few steps back.
The goblin quickly lunges the dagger blade forwards, attempting to stab the left abdomeninal region of Aaron's stomach.
However, Aaron instinctively reacted, in order to escaped the danger.
His body moved out of the way of the incoming stone dagger by itself, before even his brain could consciously make a logical decision, on the spot.
Aaron jumped back, a couple of inches away, out of the trajectory of the lunging stone dagger blade.
It missed him and his stomach by a hair's breathe.
