“I’m sick of this life!” That was the only thing in his mind when the young adult male came out from the building which was only a few minutes ago his work place. His name was Justin, He’s been in and out of work for years now, it maybe due to his luck or because he believed about always doing the right thing, he actually thought it was the latter.

He was a man who always did what is right, but sometimes being right isn’t enough. When he was still in primary school he would always try to help his classmates that were being bullied and try to befriend them. He was mostly successful. But when he was in middle school things have changed, mostly the people. The people whom he had once helped and befriended, the people that were once bullied, have, after sometime, became bullies themselves. He did not understand their logic, why would someone who has been through something unpleasant do it to someone else?

That was a mystery to him at that time. Then one day he was confronted by a group of three of his peers that he had once helped. They tried to beat him up but ultimately failed, they had known that he always had strength that was just enough to stop anyone attacking him or anyone he tried to protect without hurting the attacker too much.

“Why don’t you seriously fight back?!?” one of his attackers asked him.

He looked at them a bit bewildered.

“Don’t look at us like your so high and mighty!” said another.

“I… I just don’t want any trouble, you guys, I tried to help you all before and tried to be friends with you. Why did you try to attack me?” he asked his attackers while still unable to comprehend their actions.

“Bah! You’re just full of shit, who asked you to help anyway? Did you really not know?” said one of them while trying to stand up. “You trying to help us just made things worse! Every time you tried to meddle with things, we just got bullied more outside school! Fuck you and your help!”

He didn’t understand a thing that he just said, why would helping someone get them into bigger trouble? His young middle school mindset still can’t grasp such a reasoning. He just left them without saying anything, not even listening to anything they just said to him while his back was turned.

He returned home thinking about the events that have transpired just a few minutes ago. He turned the key on the front door of their house, yet the only person to greet him was his grandmother. He actually didn’t talk much to his grandmother, maybe it was just because he has nothing in common with her, or maybe because his grandmother just started to live with them just a few months before.

He was still happy though, since there was someone now that would be home when he also came back from school. His parents are only around sometimes. He hasn’t seen his father in a year now, since he went to work in a different state and only comes home a few times in a year, and at those times he was either at school studying or making preparations or he was asleep and he just left before he woke up.

His mother however was always coming home, but would only come home to sleep and take a bath, since she has been studying to become a surgeon her schedule was very hectic and he could only his mother a few times in the morning. But still her mother would always greet her good morning and tell him to take care when he would go to school.

After greeting his grandmother who greeted him back, he went to the kitchen and started to cook dinner for the both of them. Cooking was one of his strong points anyways, and he was also very happy seeing someone eat the food he has made with happiness.

After studying and cleaning everything downstairs and taking a bath he went to sleep in his room.

The following morning he wouldn’t see his former classmates anymore.

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He didn’t know why the heck he would remember something like that from the past. Maybe he blamed himself for them disappearing, he couldn’t even remember their names anymore. Maybe trying to help would really make things worse for someone.

He was laid of work today because he tried to stop his manager for trying to assault one of his co-workers. He knocked out his manager who was half way trying to pull down his pants. But after that, his co-worker was not happy, instead she was angry at him. Saying that she couldn’t even live now that someone saw that she was being assaulted and that he would try to tell people how she was almost raped.

Again he was bewildered by such reasoning. And when his manager came to he was brought in front of their boss. His co-worker and manager just denied that anything has happened, and his boss concluded that Justin just knocked his manager out cold for no reason at all which lead to him getting fired.

How many times has his kindness and sense of justice get him in trouble since he was young? He doesn’t even know anymore, maybe around a few hundred? Thousand? Maybe tens-of-thousands of times now. Who knows, why would he even care anymore?

He drove his car home today, he was renting near the “bad” part of town. It’s been around five years now since he moved out from his parents. His mother was sad, but what he hadn’t expected was his grandmother was even sadder. It was then that he realized that she was one of the people who loved him so much.

Maybe it was time to go back home and try to find work at his home town. He didn’t enjoy in the city he is working in anymore. He didn’t have any friends here. He thought about just trying to start a local business there.

He looked at the time, 5:32 PM, he wasn’t sleepy or anything, but he felt that tried of shit now and decided to close his eyes and try to forget everything that had just happened.

….

…

…

…

He woke up after maybe a few hours of sleeping, he doesn’t know how long actually, he just noticed that everything was dark around him. He was still in bed, he could feel that, but his apartment was just too dark, why were the street lights not illuminating his room today? Maybe there’s a black out.

He walked to the light switch, nothing happened. ‘Yup it’s a black out’ he said to himself. His eyes were already accustomed to lack of light, and he navigated down to the kitchen. Feeling for the cabinets he finally found a candle and some matches, good thing he was always ready for anything.

He lit the candle and walked to the front of the apartment. And he saw that his apartment was surrounded by grass and hills…

“...What the fu-”