I spent the next four days resting, unfortunately even that amount of time was too little in the face of my injuries. I didn’t go to school, or leave my house. Amanda regularly checked up on me, and she was still in a stage of deep thought about her own life.

  Besides a couple of phone calls I did not have much contact with the outside world. However, the context of my phone calls worried me. I had already told Jane about the location of the two girls, and she called me back the day after.

  She was successful in convincing one of the girls, Tracy Jackson. However, the other one, Holly Gosdan, was too secluded and refused to even talk to Jane.

  Overall it meant that there was only one person left. I told Jane that I would help her once I was in better condition and the article was released. I also gave the same answer to her question of when I would go back to school.

  I was starting to feel slightly sick of staying indoors all the time. Listening to music, cooking, bathing, sleeping, and repeat. Though with small variations, it felt like I was missing something.

  Another day passed and I finally got a phone call that marked the start of my return.

  “The article will be released this afternoon and be spread everywhere by tomorrow morning.” George said.

  “Thank you.” I responded with no emotion, this was a transaction between us not a favor.

  “Not at all, Ava and I are going to become famous from this. It was our pleasure.” George said heartily.

  “I see, well I have some things to prepare now.” I responded.

  “Good luck with that, and if you have any other headliners please let me know.” George responded. I ended the phone call with a little laugh, there was indeed another headline, but whether I would use the news or not was still to be decided.

  That afternoon, I finally left the house, I walked around a park and found the latest newspaper. A picture of me and my graphic back were on the front page. The person who owned the newspaper stall looked at my face in silence. He just stared at me, however his eyes felt different from the usual glares. His eyes were not filled with hate, envy, or malice. They gave off a heartfelt emotion, which I questioned to be pity?

  I paid for the newspaper and left quickly. When was the last time I had seen eyes like that?

  I found a quiet place and investigated the article.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Fortunately, it seemed like George and Ava did not let me down. My article took the entirety of the first two pages, and even had a code to their website which had my video. The article itself was excellently written, it did not come to any firm conclusions, but gave the same effect. It leads people to think that my entire school is filled with demons, students and faculty. Even my emotional lines seemed to tie my place as the sympathetic victim perfectly.

  I was satisfied with the article, but would the effect be just as good?

  The next day could not come soon enough, but I still slept like a bear.

  Surprisingly I woke up early, which had not happened since I got the injuries. Was it because of excitement?

  I walked to school easily and was surprised by what I saw. The usual crowd was smaller by at least a third. When I arrived everybody simultaneously looked at the ground or avoided my eyes some other way.

  The shock of the news article made them afraid of me in a different way than usual. Almost none of them would be able to overcome that fear and be able to speak to me.

  I activated my power on a few, and the results were as I expected.

  Many people now had the sins of bullying me.

  It pissed me off, only now did they realize that what they were doing was bad. Not when they put dead animals in my desk, or cut me, or even shot me.

  They regretted doing those things to me, but only because I turned out to be innocent. They weren’t scared of me, but scared of being guilty themselves.

  As such, I ignored everyone and continued to my classroom. There was nobody there, and even as time passed by, only four other seats were filled. One for Kaede, one for Abby, one for Bell, and one for Roger, a bully who I had straightened out.

  Each of them greeted me, but I ignored Bell. She was barely any different than the normal students. She would repeatedly do something wrong and then each time beg for my forgiveness. Then without even thinking about her previous faults she would rush right into making the next.

  Class started with the five of us, and our homeroom teacher just stuttered guiltily through her lesson. The teachers might be even worse than the students. While they didn’t directly bully me they ignored any requests for help I had. Worst of all they did this as adults, they were not just some stupid highschooler.

  Everybody was really foolish.

  Lunch came along, and I found out I enjoyed school much more without the bullying.

  Unfortunately, there was still a group of students who believed Johnny rather than the newspaper. However, none dared to even talk to me, much less bully me.

  I ate lunch with Kaede, Abby and Jane.

  “Why didn’t you ask for my help?” Kaede asked amid casual conversation.

  “I didn’t need help.” I responded.

  “Then what about Abby, or Jane or Amanda?” She responded with a slight tone of anger.

  “The circumstances.” I said in response.

  “What circumstances, how could I not be able to help?” Kaede spoke while becoming more upset.

  “I needed Amanda’s help because of her medical skills and ability to drive.” I said, and was about to move on to my next sentence.

  “You can’t even be honest about that.” Kaede interrupted.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked in response.

  “Don’t forget what I can see with these eyes.” Kaede whispered in my ear.