Athen Broke Out in a Fight

Yes. Where have you been?" His question still stood there unanswered. 

Travis became my friend from the day first, our bond transformed from exchanging uncomfortable gazes, giving a brief introduction to sharing uncontrollable touches of laughter, notes, and sweet memories.

"I… I… we just met yesterday. What are you talking about? I am not getting you, man!" Muddled, I spoke.

"Haha…" bursting out in laughter he pushed my shoulder. "No, bruh. I'm assuming you slept for long hours and must have met me in your dreams." Nonchalantly he blabbered the astonishingly strange truth. 

"Yeah… umm…" my jumbled-up mind was still trying to process his sayings. Was I missing something? Or was whatever he said the truth?

"Seems a sure thing." I shared his laughter and then we both began walking towards our campus side by side.

Everything felt amazingly the same yet strange. As I stepped into my classroom filled with chattering heads relentlessly moving, mouths bursting in loud waves of laughter. None seemed least bothered by our presence. Sauntering through the rows we reached our desks and took a position. 

"Look who's back. Athen." A Russian accent sounded like announcing the news of his arrival to the class approached him. 

"Oh…" a bolt from the blue forced out of her mouth after she moved to his front to witness his surprisingly hit transformation which like Travis got her bewildered.

Travis got occupied in opening her notebooks, and Athen seemed equally disturbed to find out her reaction as he did earlier when he met his friend.

"Who… is this handsome boy?" She stuttered in obvious disbelief. "Travis, I thought you walked with Athen in the classroom, eh!" 

Averting to him, she called his attention to her. Responding, his hands stopped and eyes followed in her direction.

"So, I did." A smirk gleamed on his face.

"Whattt… the heck on earth is happening?" She spoke.

"Hahaha… are you seriously Athen?" The girls spoke in a mocking tone amalgamated with surprise.

"I am not doubting the fact tho." Athen finally broke his silence over her question and looked her in the face with unbelievable confidence. Where did he get that from overnight was still a mystery for him and the people around him?

"But how this happened?" She asked patting him on the shoulder in her jolly manner, pushing him onto the desk to make space for her, she sat with them.

"Happened? What?" Athen confusedly repeated her question as if he had no idea about what she was asking.

"Oh, c'mon. So this is what you have been up to for the past month. Secretly busy transforming yourself. Eh!" Clancy huffed. 

"Well, let's change the topic," Athen suggested switching the conversation as the more both of them talked the more he was getting confused. What transformation, what disappearance they were repeatedly mentioning were flying over his brain instead of getting in.

The class began as soon as the professor came in, her loud lecturing tone didn't get processed by his senses as his mind was fully invested in configuring the shocking taunts his fellows had hurled at him after seeing him. 

"Did I look different in the past?"

He pondered. But he could not recall any memory from his past. The fact was really disturbing for him.

Lost in his thoughts he didn't realize when the class ended and the trio trudged out of their room with fully roasted brains after attending the boring lecture.

"Hey, grumpy bunny." A familiar sharp-witted voice called him from the back when the trio was sauntering towards the end of the corridor packed with students.

Athen didn't know the shout was intended to call him. He kept on pacing down with his friends when he suddenly felt a hand snapping on his shoulder from the back and with a jerking force turned him around. He nearly lost his balance when Travis backed him.

"What the heck!" He groaned in anger upon this action.

It took him a while to adjust his gaze to the face of the person who pushed him back. Not to his great shock, he found a familiar face his mind had bitter associations with. 

"Neil." Clancy came forward in her boyish accent and called his name attempting to defend his friend.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She overtook Athen with her chest stretched out bravely she confront the bad boy on his behalf.

"Eh, the bunny got a female bodyguard." He mocked Athen looking him straight in the face. A fiery glowed in his eyes instantly upon seeing his pulling him down verbally. 

"You…" Clancy opened her mouth to say something, but her words were cut short by a slight push as Athen sideways her to his right and stepped forward.

He stepped forward without breaking his gaze on Niel. All the eyes were stuck on both of them. It was not the first time that the crowd was witnessing the two of them face to face. The pages of history were smeared with the quarreling stories of these two, getting red and blue. But no page shows a single instance when Athen won him. 

History was going to be destroyed today. The story of a new warrior arousing from the dusted alleys, and marking the battles by this name would be penned down on the golden pages of the diary and the event would be remembered by the batches joining the institute in the future.

"The little grumpy tuart will face the lion today," Neil spoke. 

Athen closed his fist tightly to his side as he passed him a queer look, a prior warning to the enemy to shut his mouth and leave the battleground before he would be all bloody and fleshy.

"So, you finally came out of their filthy hole." Neil joked and the crowd burst out in laughter siding him in the battle. It seems like Athen had a two-person army with only two of his dearest soldiers accompanying him and supporting him.

"You…." Words died halfway, as Athen punched him in the belly. He broke out in excruciating groans, and the corridor filled with gasps evaporating from the surprised stricken mouths of the crowd who were intriguingly witnessing the historical moment.

Soon the wheezing noise got dimmed by his roars as Athen continued to thrust punches on his belly and face until it all turned blue and red, and bloody.

All those eyes fixated on the duo could not process the details of the scene that was currently happening in front of them. Disappointed by Niel, they all were bombshell by Athen, who was just acting so new. 

"Who is this guy?" A whisper arose from the crowd as if no one had known this Athen who also happened to be a part of this institute.

"Athen!" Clancy announced in a loud and proud tone.

Yet no one truly could ever know who this guy was.