Chapter 2: Ever Since That Day

5 years ago, at about mid-day...

A chubby version of Jonah walks up a concrete road with almost nothing else but various farms populating the area. He is wearing a plain green t-shirt and red shorts.

Jonah sweats vigorously walking up this road. His curls are overgrown and messy. His face is dejected, filled with anger, grief, and frustration.

His mind is replaying a scene that just happened earlier that day. At Caedi's house, he faces her, his face as calm as ever.

"Caedi, why are you ignoring my texts? I don't expect you to respond immediately, but you read them and don't respond."

"Jonah, I think we should... take a break from each other," Caedi says plainly.

Jonah's heart threatens to drop at that moment.

"But why?" Jonah says, puzzled.

"I want to... focus on my studies, and I think you—" she cuts herself off. "Nevermind, uh, let's just see how we feel about each other afterwards, you know?"

Jonah was devastated. He desperately tried to salvage the situation.

"But you're my—"

Caedi cuts him off.

"Stop it!" She shouts, "stop with that 'you're my reason for living' bullshit! I can't handle it..." Caedi looks away from him.

At this moment, Jonah's eyes turn pitch black.

"Never speak to me again," he says coldly.

Caedi's eyes widen, and with a heavy heart, Jonah leaves. Jonah, who now feels he's been abandoned, tries to walk off his shattered heart.

"Now I'm alone again. From being broken once to being shattered into pieces."

The words of his mother ring in his ears, 'you don't need friends, just talk to God, he's your friend that's always with you.' At this thought, his anger intensifies.

"Maybe if God would speak back once in a while!" He grits his teeth, "You say that, but you're the same as me! Hurt by people, but I can't use religion to cope."

Jonah looks at a stone on the road and kicks it with all his might. It only flies a few inches away, and he hurts his toes but just grits his teeth and keeps walking.

"Why does existing have to be so hard?"

He thinks back on all his wrongdoings of the past, as if answering his question. To this, he feels not an ounce of guilt.

"I may not be a good person, but I'm by no means one of the worst out there."

His mind thinks back to his younger days. He goes through the same things as he does today, but he was happy. What changed?

"I hate people, but I need them. What do I do now?"

Just then, Jonah hears a strange wavy sound above him, then he hears someone shout from above.

"Oh no, the cargo!"

Jonah looks up to see what's happening but only sees a wooden box falling down from the sky... A wooden box? As soon as Jonah takes note of it, the wooden crate is making its way down towards the ground, he tries to get out of the way but ends up only going closer to where it was falling.

The box falls right in front of him and just barely misses him as it makes a loud thud on the ground.

"What's wrong with me?"

He sighs heavily, then looks up in the sky to confirm that there's nothing up there, then he looks around him to make sure no one was there to witness the box fall. He then turns back to the box.

"I've wished for something like this to happen for a long time. There better be something good in here."

Jonah tries his best to pry open the box with his fingers. He lifts with all his might but the lid doesn't budge. Seeing this, he takes a step back to think.

"I can't leave it here, or someone else will come to claim it. Hmm... it doesn't seem to have any nails holding it down."

Jonah pulls out a medium-sized knife from his pocket. He then uses it to slide into the seams of the box. He tries lifting the lid once again and this time it comes off. Jonah smiles.

"Looks like my paranoia finally paid off!"

He rummages through the box and pulls out a grey metal hoop with a keypad on it and something that looked like a gun but was weirdly blocky.

"What are these? Maybe they're instructions in here?"

Just then, a white car appears behind a distracted Jonah. It honks at him and the box blocking the road.

"Get out of the f**king road!" The driver shouts.

Jonah frowns at the man, thinking that the people in his village have always been deplorable. He looks at the gun-looking object and points it at the driver then pulls the trigger without hesitation.

A small beam shoots out from it and pierces through the windshield and hits the driver. For a moment nothing happens, and both Jonah and the driver watch each other in silence.

But suddenly the driver's face distorts, and he screams in pain. His skin begins to melt off his body, leaving only his skeleton behind. Jonah is slightly taken aback.

"Well... better get out of here as soon as possible."

He goes back looking for any sort of instruction manual. He pulls out a larger metal hoop with a heart in the middle. It didn't have a keypad on it.

"This is a collar, isn't it?"

He tries to pull the hoop open, and with the sound of a click, it does. He puts it around his neck. He observes his body.

"This box is full of them, so I figure it should do something useful."

Suddenly tons of information floods into Jonah's brain. The action gives him a severe headache which makes him drop to the ground, holding his head and rolling in pain.

After a few minutes, the pain stops. Jonah breathes heavily and at the same time processes the information given to him. A smirk grows on his face.

"With these, there are so many possibilities! I finally have the power I wanted. No more suffering, no more waiting for things to get better. Now I can shape the world with my own two hands, just the way I like it!"

Jonah starts laughing uncontrollably until it finally devolves into maniacal laughter. In that moment, his mind thinks up several plans to achieve his goals.

The maniacal laughter stops, and Jonah frowns once again. His mind floats to an image of Caedi.

"But without you... maybe I'll do that. It's one of your favorite types of stories, right? I guess it's finally time to lose all this weight. But before that, let's get this box out of here."

The next day with the collar on his neck, Jonah begins training vigorously every single day, his mind only focused on one goal.

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