The corners of his lips slowly slide upward.

They only see anangelic, heaven-sent smile, but I know it’s fake.  It sits like make-upon his face, as if he’s spent years and years drawing it to perfection in front of a mirror. His unnatural snow-white teeth are visible under his pale peach-colored lips. And his rosy-pink fingertips are tapping at his face as he stares at the front of the room. His skinis the color of a Victorian porcelain doll, ivory-pale, and impossibly smooth, thick curls of ebony-brown hair sweepcarelessly over one eye. Those crescent-shaped, chocolateorbs stare at me, peering into my soul, searching out my weakness.

“Minhyun.” A shiver crawls down my spineat the sound of my name being called, but I can’t look away from thosedreaded eyes.

“Yes,JR?”

He nods and casually his head towards the front of the room.

The slow monotonous drawl of the professor echoes throughout the room as he introduces the new student. His low-pitched voice resoundsfrom between his thin lips, his already miniscule eyes squinting into his papers and his thick eyebrows begin to furrow. He yawns and reaches up to scratch at the small tufts of black curls that sit on his head. The rows of heads following his every unnecessary movement, their ears absorbing every meaningless word the professor utters.

“Nice to meet you all,” the new student says politely. The dyed dirty-blond hair is a familiar sight; it resembles Ren. But they are nothing alike. Ren was thin, fluffy, waifish, and meek; the all around polite kid. He was delicate and shy, like the first flower buds in the spring. The new student is surrounded by a charismatic air. His bronze, sun-kissed skin and short mohawk contrasted with Ren’s pale skin and long ponytail. His large frame and taut muscles are visible through his thin dark clothes, adorned with plenty of violent accessories. He’s clearly not the most respectable person, no person would dare to come in contact with a juvenile with such a blatant bad atmosphere hovering around him, but it was not him that I feared.

It was him.

He can see through me. He can look deep down into my brain and knows what I’m feeling—fear—,and he manipulates it. You can see he’s scribblingsomething in his little book again. He’s always writing about all the bad things in the world, how we’re all trash and dirt compared to him, and how he’s going to fix us into perfect soldiers. So he can control us into following his every order. Like me.

You can tell that he’s up to something again. Youcan hear the carving and slicing sounds of his mechanical pencil as he scrawls down nonsensical codes, methods of changing us, that only he can understand. The air is stagnant and warm, like the basement of an abandoned building, it’s almost suffocating. I can’t hear the voice of the professor coming from the front it’s so dark; I can’t see in front of myself anymore.

When the darkness disappears,I find myself in an unknown location. The air is now stale, dry, and cold. It penetratesmy uniform, the chillsinks deep into my bones. I cannot remember what had happened last, nothing but darkness. I find myself trapped within an enclosed area, devoid of any life. Something constricts tightly around my neck and panic begins to set in as I vaguely find myself in a situation of déjà-vu. A swirl of laughing faces dance along in a circle, each colored in a different shade of neon. The laughter is deafening—it’s almost frightening how realistic this is, or is this real? When was this ever fake? I struggle to remember what is happening tome, but I can’t find anything. The terror eventually continues until the darkness gradually fades out to a bleary fog, where I can hear a voice calling out to me.

He calling my name, softly, andsuddenly I’m out from that dark space.

He’s smiling that signature grin of his and you can telepathically hear all the sinister thoughts racing through his mind. These thoughts get louder and louder until I can no longer hear my own heartbeat.Only the instinct of escaping fills my mind. I try to slip away noiselessly,but they all can see me. The attention of the others isall drawn towards me, their heads rotating mechanically, and their dull lifeless eyes piercing my flesh. My heart is beating erratically; I can’t stand this. I fleefrom the room. They won’t follow me.They wouldn’t bother with a dirty, corrupted child like me.

Now I can’t feel their stares anymore, and I can escape this torture.

Being in that filthy brain-murdering roomdrives me crazy.Every time I step in there,there’s always more smogbuilding up so much that it just fogs over everything. It’s all fake. The people in that room, they’re not people anymore. They act as if they’re all prim and pristine, trying to seem like perfect little angels in their little orderly rows. But they’re just remote-controlled humans; designed to learn and follow every word told to them. They sit there, no thoughts running through their heads, just blindly absorbing the fake knowledge the system puts in their brains. Until the system finally melts their brains, then the next batch is switched in and the cycle just begins again.

It’s better out here in the open, where the walls are not enclosing me, where I’m not suffocating with the stares of all those people, and where the sky can engulf all these unnecessary emotions of mine. I don’t need to feel this way, I can returnto my indifferent state and live like how weused to. (Ren taught me that when we were younger. We used to always dream of how we could one day grow taller until we reached the sky, to where we could feel the clouds on our fingertips. Guiding me with his frail, small hands, we walked hand in hand with one other. And whenever we argued, we just laid on the ground and stared at the sky for hours,forgettingall of our anger and sadness.)But now, I have to do it alone. 

The invisible chainshave returned, they wrap around my throat againand constrict my windpipe. The shortness of breath returns as I can feel his eyes upon me. I just want to get away from this person, hide and never return. He’s calm and smiling on the outside, but youcan feel the anger swell up from within him. I feel the icy glares his eyes give off; he’s irritated and ready to lash out at any moment.

One wrong move and he’ll start ripping your chest open and gouge your soul out, just like an unstable beam inside a hundred story skyscraper. One move and everything will just crashing down on you, and you can’t get out of it.

“Why did you leave the classroom?”

His façade is disturbed; I can see the make-up on his face peeling off. His image is faltering slightly; his smile isn’t there and his eyes aren’t shining as usual. They’re darker and my soul being ripped out and into those dark holes. His hair is ruffled, and sticking out at random spots; he’s been running his hands through his hair. He does that when he’s frustrated. I sense the oncoming danger and I shrink away. I feel myself choking from the chains, drowning as he looks down his nose at me.

 “…I’m sorry.”

“As long as you understand then, I guess it’s all right.”

Lies.He’s not really forgiving me; he just doesn’t want to deal with it at this moment. I will pay for it later. He never forgets a slight, real or imagined.You can see he’salways pompously puffs himself up when he’s angry, to show his dominance over the rest of us. Even though he's the same as me, but he's not the same as me, he's calculating and manipulative.I can see him apply the make-up back on, his face slowly returning to that unnatural smile.

"Minhyun, you recall the new student from this morning?"

 I nod.His eyes are smiling nefariously, he’s planning something. There’s always that glint in his eyes, whenever he wants something to change, and he wants those changes now. And I’m the one who has to do it. He’s patting down his hair; setting it back to the plaster. He won’t get his hands dirty.

“He seems in need of,you know,a person to talk to, a person to support him.”

He must have sensed my hesitance, for he leaned forward and whispersinto my ear.His voice sending chills down my spine and makes my breath hitch. He sets his hands on my shoulders, and the chains tighten, sinking into and piercing my neck.

“You don’t have a choice in this,Minhyun. I’m the President. Not you.”

His voice is high-pitched, squeaky almostlike a broken hinge on a door,annoyingbut it still holdsthat authoritative tone which makesme cower in fear. Inwardly, I scream to myself. His lips are still curveup, but his eyes are far from smiling.

“Do you understand now, Minhyun? You cannot defy those who have more power. You are at the bottom of the system. Powerless.”