Jack was unaware of who he was.
He knew the basic information that formed an individual — his name, the house he lived in, the people he calls family. But not a day went by they he didn't feel different. Life moved around him like a trance.
His parents talked about school, chores and the future like it all meant something, like the world was stable and things work out so ordinary.
But Jack could feel the cracks.
He saw them in a way the air shimmered and how the sun dipped low, and a strange quiet that sometimes wrapped around him like a second skin. He tends to notice too much— the weight of silence in a room, the lie beneath a smile, the pulse of something unspoken humming just beneath the surface of things.
He always pitied his parents, because he could see how hard they were trying— the smiles, the comfort they offered. But Jack could see how hard it was for them, how tightly they held themselves together around him, like they were handling something fragile or otherworldly.
They weren't cruel, just ordinary— unshakably, painfully ordinary.
This made him wish that he was more like his siblings— Mark who always cared about sport and the ladies, Susan who was just like any other lass in her age bracket.
He tried, prayed and wished for an ordinary life, but nothing changed. He didn't know what made him different. Only that he was.
And the older he got, the louder the difference became.
Lola was the only one who understood. She never asked him to be normal. Never told him to stop thinking or day dreaming. They had been in the same grade and best friends since they were nine—drawn together by quiet lunches, shared detentions, and a mutual dislike for loud crowds.
She walked with him after school, arms swinging, eyes sharp and a mouth that never stopped moving.
"You're not broken." She'd say when he got quiet,
When the bruises showed, "You're not just built for this place."
She was the only reason he hadn't disappeared into himself completely.
Jack was a smart kid— top of his class without even batting an eye, but being smart didn't help when bullying came. His quiet demeanor and thin frame always made him an instant target, and high school hallways were battlegrounds where kindness went to die.
He never raised a fist, Never screamed or attempted defense.
And so the bullying continued.
Sometimes it was shoved.
Other times, it was words carved to open wounds.
And once, it was a punch so heavy that he saw stars that lasted hours. That day Lola had snapped.
She threw her backpack at the bully and invited him to take on someone his size, of course the bully took the opportunity, but before he could land a blow. He was tackled to the floor, and she made sure his nose bled before a teacher pulled her off.
Jack had barely had time to breathe and process what just happened.
When he came home with a black eye, his mother's face crumbled. She didn't yell. She never did.
Instead she just whispered his name like a prayer and sat him at the kitchen table with a bowl of cold water and a cloth.
Her hands trembled as she dabbed at the swelling.
"This has got to stop."
She said, voice stiff.
Jack felt hopeless. He could see how exhausted she was, especially from reporting the same incidence and nothing changed.
She stopped massaging and looked at Jack with a sorry look, before she said .
"You can't let them do this to you. You've to take your life into your own hands. Fight back."
He wanted to tell her he couldn't. That it wasn't fear exactly.
It was something deeper, something he couldn't name. When the blows came, he always shuts down. Part of him even believed he deserved it, as if the world was trying to teach him a lesson and pain was the only way it knew how.
So he nodded, pretended to be in agreement and counted the days until he could leave.
Graduation was coming. He didn't have any future plan, just hope— that somewhere far from this place, he could start afresh. That maybe, away from his family's wary eyes and tbe ache of hallways that swallowed him whole, he might finally understand what or who he was. He was fifteen. Few weeks away from freedom.
Just a few weeks until his fate changed.
Or so he thought.
But deep down, he knew fate wasn't ready to let him go, because something was beginning to stir— Not in the world , but in him. Strange dreams tormented his sleep. Symbols he didn't recognize, stars that pulsed like heartbeats. A door in the forest. A voice, distant but familiar, calling his name.
He hadn't told Lola.
Not yet. But in his heart, he sensed it— the part of him didn't fit here wasn't broken.
It was waiting.