Although Argen was a coward at things related to horror, he was an undisputed warrior at academics!
Currently a teacher was brightly smiling at the grades on a sheet, that stood blazingly at the top, seemingly unshakable throughout the histories to come.
Sadly the parents wanted the genius' progress discreet lest the teacher would have already been broadcasting it to the world.
A beep was heard on the front door, and the teacher knew his excellent student had come.
Since young, Argen was home-schooled by him. Because the learning materials being discussed varied almost every day, the teacher decided with the parents that Argen's school be at the teacher's place where the materials were readily situated, saving time and effort. Eventually, it continued that way until today.
Of course, Argen wasn't alone as a student since he has 4 schoolmates on different rooms that his teacher would teach one-on-one on various times.
"Mr. Ron, sorry for the wait." Argen politely greeted him and went to his own seat.
Mr. Ron was a teacher and a renowned expert psychologist being entrusted by families to their young patients. His slots' were limited to 5 and each learning session was an extravagant price to pay. It wasn't until 3 years since he had started this that the 5 slots were finally permanently filled by desperate powerful families.
His first permanent student was Argen, however how he received the slot was a different case compared to his wealthy schoolmates. The doctor owed a big favor to his father and repaid him through teaching Argen, who happens to be an extremely weird child in the past that needed professional counseling.
"Argen. It's time for your skills to breakthrough from Expert Decoding" Mr. Ron led him to a computer. "Show me"
Expert Decoding was already a subject way beyond what an adult of that specialization could learn. Mr. Ron took great pains in digesting these and imparting the theory to Argen despite the former lacking the skills to do so. The reason was because his pride didn't allow to impede the genius' growth due to his own incompetency to teach.
Looking at the scene between the teacher and the student, everything was peaceful and normal. But the history to achieve the current was definitely a harsh past for Mr. Ron.
Like the previous statement,
Argen was an extremely weird child in the past.
He didn't even know whether it was him, the boy, the family, or time itself fixed Argen's anomaly.
_____
After teaching his last student, Mr. Ron's day ended normally----cough...except for a particular 14-year-old successfully decoding the country's military base's security code (using a sub par computer)---all was well.
Of course, Argen left no trace of his meddling whatsoever to avoid trouble. There was no way Argen would position himself to jail just because he was careless.
"Argen just did something shady, didn't he? No. He was just decoding. It so happened that he made a mistake(?) in the procedure that brought him to that base. Un. He didn't have bad intentions. Yes. He was just decoding." Mr. Ron murmured as if trying to console a guilty heart.
Mr. Ron knew that for the boy's family, despite Argen having a weak constitution, he made up for it through wits. Argen being bedridden is nothing short of ordinary, but his health now wasn't so drastic as to prevent him from doing normal activities so it was somewhat alright.
Mr. Ron stood up and reinforced the house's security. After all, if the protection was to fail when the students were here, kidnappers would not hesitate to barge in, seeing one child could fetch a ransom worth a lifetime of luxury.
Since Argen wasn't exactly that rich, out of kindness, Mr. Ron had provided a special daily service car to protect him. Once the student was at home, it was the family's job to protect the child.
---
Meanwhile, Argen was heating up his dinner in the microwave. His older sister would be back from work late, so he was left alone at home to fend for himself. He decided to eat dinner early so he could immediately gobble up the snacks given by Mr. Ron as rewards.
As the scaredy cat that he was, the lights inside the house was blinding; not even leaving the restroom nor the basement unperturbed. Similarly, the TV wasn't spared and its non-existent throat was already hoarse from all the shouting. Despite the TV's stress, Argen ignored it's antics and went online to browse some memes.
This was the case every time Argen was home alone. Thankfully his parents condone such wasteful actions on the condition that once it was time for bed or they arrive early, the electricity would be back to saving mode until the next black sky.
Contrary to a particular someone's knowledge, a figure was on its way to Argen's home. Riding a cab, there was only a few seconds left before the distance finally closes in between them.
The cab's door opened and dropped off its passenger at the front gate.
Unexpectedly, a countdown emerged from the newly arrived. "Ten...nine...eight" Counting down slowly as if some big surprise was about to unfold.
"Seven...six" No one could tell whether the upcoming event was going to be a happy one through the person's expression seeing the figure's eyes were cold as ice yet the lips had a smile that was cheerful as a child's.
The person took out something that made the door's lock, click open "Five...four..."
Time seemed to have slowed down as the last digits were about to be uttered.
Three
Two
The figure turned the knob and opened the door with a click and there the person entered.
One
Her smile deepened when she saw Argen about to turn his head to greet her.
Zero
"Good evening sis. How was---"
Suddenly Argen's world became blurry as an abysmal pain pierced his head. Feeling as if his brain was repeatedly mashed and sliced by knives, the suffering began to cover his entire vision with darkness. With a thud, his body lay limp on the sofa.
His throat subconsciously died down the notion to scream as it went to conserve his remaining measly energy to breathe for dear life. His mind was in a scrambled mess, and couldn't even screech his misery mentally.
It wasn't long before half of his respiratory system failed it's purpose that death's scythe was finally visible as day.
He was dying.
'No...I d..don't w-w-want t-to die!' Argen fought back the invisible knives torturing his mind and tried to summon the effort to call his sister for help.
Scientifically possible or not, his tenacity to live made him regain a small dot of sight. But, the miracle energy wasn't enough to move his vocal chords.
'Sis Archelle!!! HELPP!!!!' Argen's mind hoped for her to hear him.
"Argen? What did you say? Oh he went back to sleep." Even though it was suspicious for Argen to suddenly halt his sentence midway and limply fall on the sofa he was sitting, Archelle turned a blind eye at his situation.
She had no choice but to do so.
The house had 24/7 audio recoding cameras pointing at their positions. To succeed in her plan, she must smoothly act the dense innocent as she had always projected herself, lest she'd accidentally spout some evidences against her.
But, she wanted to convey some words to Argen before he departs. Already wearing a discreet telepathic headband, she tapped into Argen's mangled thoughts.
She could finally hear Argen's cry for help. But would the criminal give an f about her victim?
A few seconds later and Argen would have already succumb to despair if it wasn't for the voice of his sister appearing inside his mind.
'Argen'
It was as if she had just thrown a life saving rope to his drowning soul.
Argen felt relieved after hearing his sister's response. But he couldn't shake away the forming trepidation within him.
'Do you know why you're suffering right now?' Her tone in speaking was slow and heavy, as if instilling dread at the target.
Her question finally made him double-check his pain and deduce the reason. He understood.
'G-grell's de-demise...help l immediately' Argen could already feel his remaining working lung slowly kicking the bucket.
He was poisoned. These symptoms are from intaking Grell's Demise, a newly discovered slow-acting versatile deadly poison, which the cure is still being concocted. Although, it was quite life-threatening, that would only be the case if the person hasn't spat them out immediately. But Argen was confused. He should've had noticed the first moment his tongue makes contact of it. So how...?
'As expected. But incomplete answer.' His sister replied.
Suddenly everything clicked into place after hearing the schadenfruede inside her tone.
What could I have intaken this day that eradicated the poison's flavor?
'I-it was the milk wasn't it?'
But why would she...
'You guessed right' Archelle knew that a few more seconds and he'll breathe his last without finishing the conversation, so with the pillow infused with a temporary universal poison antidote stench, she secretly unraveled the smell and took it out hidden within the fellow couch pillows and laid Argen's head down on it.
Argen received a few minutes of life. Knowing that, his sister resumed.
'An outsider should always stay an outsider. What gives you the qualifications to be a brother of mine? To be loved by my parents more than their own child?
You have lived long enough. I can't take it anymore. If you interact with my parents more, I'm afraid they'll lose themselves.
Though you had indeed change, it doesn't change that you're still dangerous.
A crazy psycho.
I know you're plotting something inside these past years. A twisted person such as yourself will always mistake the dark as light.
I'll kill you first before you kill us.'
She sat near Argen and ruffled his hair with a soft expression. She was trying her best not to let her emotions take control of her.
Argen was confused.
When did he ever thought of murder? He spent some seconds and tried to remember every detail of his childhood.
Like any normal person, his could only start vaguely remembering stuffs when he was seven. And the lasting memory was only when he was first adopted by his parents.
He remembered how he was diagnosed with a new sickness and had to be treated to intensive care, which the only memory was him sleeping and waking up for a new injection. He had never spoken a single syllable within the hospital until he was taught words at 8 by Mr. Ron.
Argen loved his family and everyone that cared for him. He always wants to be with them so how in any way would he want to commit a vicious crime with them being the victims?
He conveyed his honest thoughts to his sister and was replied with a deranged laugh of hers.
'Do you know you weren't only diagnosed with a new sickness physically but also mentally?'
Argen was stupefied.
'Do you know that you had once driven 13 individuals in the hospital to mysterious gruesome deaths because of you? That the authorities never dared to associate their deaths to you because it was an impossible situation until one doctor noticed your smile to the 10th victim whom injected you the medicine and had finally switched to a humanoid robot after the 13th death who did similarly?'
Archelle could never forget the conversations she listened between her parents, the authorities and the hospital.
One had a car accident and fell down the cliff. Survived yet paralyzed, however landed at a large ant hill and his eyes, ears, mouth...every part of his body was viciously chewed on. His screams were met with no one. Authorities found him with his flesh already rotten and mangled, with some parts of the skeleton opened to the world.
The 9th casualty was the most gruesome. She was a cheerful and positive woman yet commited suicide by mutilating herself. According to autopsy, she plucked her every fingernail and teeth, which was followed by scooping her eyes off with a spoon---crushed it before peeling away her layer of skin with a blade. She sliced off her fingers then her toes and died with a happy expression in her own pool of blood. Her kid was binded in a chair was forced to watch.
'Do you know that the you only smile at every death announced in the news? That you silently laugh at funerals?!'
I..
'Do you know that the first time you spoke, you were facing your best friend's corpse, whom it's service car just exploded and you said "How lucky. If only I was allowed too, like you." and had this soft and envious expression towards the poor thing?!'
...was
'Do you know that we never wanted you?! That mom and dad were only forced because of their position as the only eligible executives from the hidden government? You had this twisted logic that death was a blissful thing and kept on gifting deadly devices to us? You even printed out some fking tutorial on how to die during sleep!'
...a
'I still don't understand why you keep on encouraging us to take our own lives ourselves instead of you using your own hands. You were envious to those that died, but why won't you take your own and have to drag us down?!'
...creepyas* little fk in the past?!
'I WISHED MOM AND DAD NEVER FOUND YOU FROM THAT EERIE TOMB!' Argen's sister vehemently said.
Sht...How come I don't remember?!
'Now, I'm doing you the favor and gifting you the thing you envied in the past and possibly until now!'
'DEATH!'
The pillow's antidote timed up and its miraculous effect was now receding.