Malik's First Morning in New-York
A young man sat alone in an abyss. Phantom-like images of a woman seemed to revolve around him. She pulled on him. Trying to guide him, but he refused to budge.
"You're not real." He said simply, turning his head away.
The phantom seemed hurt at that, and weakly let go of the boy's arm.
And instead of continuing to try, she simply mouthed a few words. But the boy wanted no part of it. Not even bothering to look at her.
He knew what she was going to say.
'I love…Loved you too…' He thought as the abyss returned to the quiet it should have been.
The abyss being his sleeping mind.
He needed all the sleep he could get, considering school starts tomorrow. Or probably today depending on just what time it was.
He didn't know, even if he was lucid dreaming, keeping track of time while lucid dreaming was impossible regardless of how hard he tried.
He would lucid almost constantly, it was often that he felt almost compelled to experiment with it. Or at least he used to. But now he simply wanted to escape from it. Nothing good ever came out of his dreams now.
Not ever since…
'No, I don't want to think about that. I just want to sleep.' He reprimanded himself.
He ignored the hands grabbing at him, or the insects crawling over the back of his neck. He didn't care. He simply emptied his mind as he attempted to sleep in his dream. An odd way to keep his mind off of the more depressing memories that his lucid dreams usually brought.
Eventually, the sun pried his eyes open. It was time for a new day. He survived until 6 AM.
Now it was time to put on the most atrocious-looking clothes he had ever seen. Oh, how he hated school uniforms. Khakis were simply disgusting.
But his new school in New York deemed it necessary after quite a few incidents involving hoodies. Funny enough, you could still wear hoodies because of just how cold it was and the fact that less financially fortunate students attended his school.
He walked out of his room, wearing what he could only describe as an uncomfortable villain arc maker, he made his way to the kitchen to eat breakfast, only to find the table empty, and the kitchen unused.
It would appear they didn't make him breakfast.
"Oh yeah, no more breakfast." He mumbled to himself.
'So I'll have to make my own food, no time now though and I'm not even hungry right now considering I snacked a lot before I slept… I might have to go to bed an hour earlier so I can take care of my breakfast. For now, simple eggs might be possible… '
He wandered over before deciding on a simple easy over egg with toast. A simple five-minute breakfast.
And he could do other things such as brushing his teeth, dealing with his hair, and other stuff in the meantime considering the low attention needed for the food. He'd just have to be quick.
He spent the time it took to make breakfast brushing, combing, and generally taking care of his kinky hair.
He held his hair to high importance.
At least the hair that was on top of his head… The rest was simply there to make his hair look pleasing in a fade.
He wasn't completely finished, but it was enough for now. He sat in silence eating his buttered toast and eggs. Calling it a light breakfast would be an overstatement. But he could eat school breakfast if he felt hungry once he arrived at school.
He finished his meal in silence before making his way back to the bathroom to clean his face further alongside making sure his hair was alright. He then brushed his teeth and made sure he didn't wipe off his deodorant in his sleep.
He didn't know a better way around this situation, since he'd rather not sweat in his sheets, but he'd also like not wearing deodorant in his sleep.
But out of the two, he knew which one was worse. Of course, he took baths before sleeping to keep his bed clean. But he's been recently thinking about switching things up. Thoughts for another day though.
He looked into the mirror at himself. His blank face was almost unsettling. He eventually decided to gather everything he'd need.
He grabbed his backpack, phone, wallet, hoodie, and phone charger.
He also grabbed a belt after a bit of deliberation.
'It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.' He recited in his mind before loosely adorning his belt.
He looked over himself one last time. Checking his wallet to be sure he has all of his cards.
He checked to see if his phone was charged, and if his bed was properly made.
Once he got everything out of the way, he tiredly sat back down on the end of his bed.
He was quite sleepy still, he was not exactly a morning person, especially when considering he was fresh off of summer break, so he kind of sleepily made his way through his morning routine and finished after thirty minutes.
And as he grabbed the handle on the front door, he realized he didn't have to leave just yet, or unplug his phone and charger now. so he plugged his charger back into the wall and into his phone.
He checked his social media platforms for any messages, finding none, he put his phone back down and picked up his controller to waste time until it was time to go to school.
One may ask why exactly he would need any extra time to cook breakfast if he had all of this spare time.
To answer that question, It wouldn't be the first time he slept through his multiple alarms, or just forgot to turn his volume up after turning it down as he usually does. So to be sure he gives himself ample time every day to prepare and to make sure he doesn't forget anything like he usually does.
Another reason is that he was accustomed to walking considering his grandmother didn't have a car. So he assumed he would be walking to schoo. But now, considering his parent's healthy financial situation, he now found himself with a car to match his driver's license.
So he found himself with more than enough time to even game.
He truly felt stupid.
'I'm honestly not even feeling all that hungry… Maybe my eating time is messed up because of how often I ate at sporadic times over the summer… I'll have to fix that. School should help me with fixing that easily.' Malik noted as he booted up his Y-circle S.
He noted how slowly it booted up.
'Maybe it's to be expected from such an old console, it is four years old and all. Man, I miss 2010. Maybe it's time for a gaming PC?'
Malik eventually hopped into his car and drove himself to school, and he made it with ten minutes to spare. But as he almost mechnically forced himself to go to school his trance was broken because of a Afro-Puerto Rican.
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Okay, SUPER late chapter even though I finished this the same day as the announcement. But it didn't feel right. And... I might've gotten a nerdgasm from getting four new AC games. Alongside Skyrim, The Technomancer, and Watchdogs 2. Ps plus extra is low-key solid.
Anyways, I got caught up trying to finish the Brawlhalla battle pass and AC: Revelations(I was supposed to finish AC:R before summer break) so that I can hurry up and play AC III.
And I essentially did nothing but edit the next chapter a bit. No stockpile. Luckily, I'm getting to that phase in AC games where I'm repeating stuff over and over with no knew introductions and just annoying speedruns. So I have more time on my hand now.
So uh, yeah, all I need now is motivation!
Sorry about the extremely long AN. But I kind of felt disappointed in taking so long. I hope I can do these next chapters quickly.
Anyways, chapterly advice.
-Even though hot water freezes faster than cold water, putting hot water into the freezer will not allow it to freeze faster, but instead increase the freezing time. This is because why hot water freezes faster. When water is hot, suddenly introducing low temperatures to it forces a lot of the water to evaporate. which decreases liquid volume, therefore requiring less energy aka, cold to freeze. Technically lowering the time needed to freeze it. This does not work in a closed environment like a freezer, but will work in an open area like a snow covered back yard.
Second bit of advice.
-Dont trust everything you see. The advice above was something put together with meager understanding of liquid physics, choppy memory of a video about it, and overall BS. And I'm 70% sure Im spreading misinformation!
Anyways, thanks for reading this far. Enjoy.
Words of the chapter(AN not included): 1.2k