Craynt opened his eyes and found himself in a dark void.
"What the…?" he looked around and saw nothing. Then as he stood confused, he heard the crackling of fire and he turned around to see a house consumed in fierce fire.
Craynt stared in shock, but then he heard a faint voice echoed from the burning house.
"Craynt…"
Craynt looked close to see a teenage girl crawling out the house.
"…Yytha?" Craynt whispered in disbelief.
"…Craynt…help me…"
"Yytha!!" Craynt shouted, but he couldn't move. Then he looked above the house and spotted a blurry silhouette standing on a roof nearby, then the silhouette left in a flash.
And he woke up.
He panted, then he rest his face on his palm and sighed, "It's just a dream…"
On his way to school, his dream last night kept dwelling in his mind. Frustrated, he slapped himself to stop thinking about it.
That's when Rinky suddenly jumped in front of him, "What's up, Craynt?"
"Ah! Oh, Rinky. Don't scare me like that." Craynt jumped.
Rinky chuckled, "My bad, what were you thinking anyway?"
"It's…nothing. Anyways, you didn't get in trouble when you went home yesterday, did you?" he asked.
"Me? Pff, nope. My brother is too busy working in that urban legend research stuff. Seriously tho, he should start finding a real job." Rinky complained.
"Your brother believes in urban legends? Has he ever proven that?"
"Absolutely not. He even told me his boss hired him cuz he's got lots of sources. Like that's real." Rinky scoffed.
"Haha, your brother is interesting." Craynt sniggered.
"He is worse than you can imagine, trust me." Rinky said, then she spotted smoke coming from behind a row of houses.
"Hey Craynt, look. There's smoke coming from over there! You think something happened?" Rinky pointed at the direction of the smoke and asked.
"Hm? Oh, someone's probably burning garbage. It's nothing special." Craynt shrugged.
Rinky used her hands as binoculars and said, "Nope, the smoke is unusually big. Let's check it out!"
"No thanks, we got school." Craynt tried to walk off, but then Rinky grabbed his arm.
"C'mon, what's the worst that could happen?" she said as she dragged Craynt towards the smoke.
When they arrived, they were met with a burning house, the strong smell of smoke made them slightly choked. They saw residents escaping the house with their body covered in burns.
"It's…a fire accident…" Rinky thought to herself, then she turned to Craynt who was staring at the fire with what seemed like fear in his eyes.
Scenes of his dream last night replayed in his head as he stared at the scorching bright fire and listened to the loud crackling.
Seeing this, Rinky patted Craynt's back and said, "Let's just…go to school."
"…yeah."
When they arrived at school, Craynt walked away saying, "I just need to go to the restroom for a bit, Rinky you can go to class first."
"Uh…yeah! Sure!" Rinky replied hesitantly.
In class, Rinky hanged her bag by the chair and laid on her desk face down, thinking.
"Craynt is traumatised by fire? Was it the reason he has that scar? God, I feel so guilty for bringing him there! I should apologise."
Then, she turned her head sideways, looking out the window, seeing two birds flying together.
"But…other than that, for some reason I get nervous when I went up to him…" she thought, her face faintly reddish.
***
In the restroom, water gushed out in the sink as Craynt washed his face.
"Forget it, Craynt. You've gotten over it long ago. Stupid trauma. Stupid sensitivity…" he thought to himself.
Then he looked into the mirror and saw his tired self with the "hideous" burn scar covering half his face.
He felt his scar and thought, "…stupid scar."
As student walks out a toilet stall and gets startled by Craynt.
"I'm just…gonna go."
***
"Dude, did you see that? That mental problem girl came to school with that half-burnt freak!" whispers of gossips caught Rinky's attention.
She turned to the direction of the voice, it was Catharina talking to the other girls.
"Hmph, guess the "special" ones were bound to be friends, they don't have anyone else!"
"Wait where did you see that?" one of the girls asked.
"Oh," Catharina chuckled, "You guys know there was house burning just now?"
"Yeah of course, the smoke was so big no one couldn't notice."
"Yeah well I got curious and went to check it out, and guess what? Those two were there, and that half-burnt guy looked traumatised as hell!" Catharina laughed.
Hearing this, Rinky gripped her fist tightly.
"Well duh, having that big of a scar, he's bound to have some sort of PTSD."
"Yeah but, he's a man, and the scar looks old, probably 8 or more years already. If he hasn't recover from that long, then he's just weak, like super sensitive. Plus he look so hideous-"
"You think you're better than him, Catharina?" Rinky suddenly appeared behind her back and said to her angrily.
Catharina looked at Rinky, then she let out a snicker, "What are you, trying to protect your precious friend? It's a surprise you even have one."
"He did not survive getting his face burned just for you to mock him like this, at least try to empathise for him a bit."
"And what if I don't, what are you gonna do about it? Cry? That's probably the only thing you're capable of doing after losing an argument." Catharina mocked.
"…you piece of shi-"
"Rinky." Craynt appeared, then he walked over and stood in front of Rinky, facing Catharina.
"Wh-what do you want, half face…?" Catharina said, a little frightened.
"Craynt, I-" before Rinky could explain, Craynt lift his hand blocking Rinky's front. Seeing this, Rinky understood what he meant but was still hesitant.
Craynt gulped, then he spoke, "You can mock me, make fun of me, say whatever you want about me, it's okay, I couldn't care less. But please…keep Rinky out of this."
That last line, paired with his intimidating expression, ran a cold shiver down the girls' spine, making them feel uneasy.
"What-whatever, freak. You ain't worth our time anyway." Catharina scoffed, then they walked off.
After they left, Rinky looked down aggrievedly, "Craynt…sorry, you didn't have to finish what I start-"
"Rinky," Craynt interrupted her sentence and said, "thank you for standing up for me, really."
Surprised, Rinky smiled beamingly, "You are very welcomed."
"No but don't do that next time, please."
"Yeah, okay."
The bell rang.
School was dismissed. As Craynt is walking home past the rows of stores, Rinky went up to him and said, "Yo, Craynt! Got any plans for the rest of today?"
"Hm? Nah, I never really have any plans of my own anyway." Craynt said.
"Not even once?"
"Nope, only my family plans."
"Really…" Rinky thought for a moment, then she said, "Hey Craynt! You should come to the garden where we met, I wanna show you some-"
All of a sudden, she couldn't speak, her mouth was forcefully covered by someone's hand.
"Oh you got a surprise for him? How lovely." a man with bandage covering his eye said with a deep and sarcastic voice.
"Rin-" Craynt tried to shouted for her, but he was immediately pinned down by a woman with bandage covering her mouth.
"I suggest you not to speak a word," a voice echoed from the alleyway.
As footsteps slowly get louder and louder, a man showed himself, his ears covered by bandages.
"I'd like it if you meet your demise without me needing to read your lips."