Astel

[Noah]

The screen of my beloved monitor turns red as the text of defeat displays with echoes of the lossing trumpets.

With extreme force my fists reach the table, shaking the items on the table.

"What the fuck!" I scream, droping my headphones. "Shity fucking queues man, all the time this piece of shit game gives me teammates that don't know what their doing!"

I pick the beat up water bottle and drink all of the liquid inside, and throw it strait to the ceiling, but it backfires back into my face.

"..."

The door to my room opens and in comes mom.

"Can you keep it down please."

I fix my gaze on the monitor and my gut sank as the clock is way past midnight.

"I'm... well, sorry."

My body now heavy from the situation as if I could feel the gravity pulling me down, my breaths and heartbeat increase by tenfold.

Mom comes up behind me and slaps me on the back of the head.

The trouble I had before now vanished to thin air and returned the silence of the night time where only the clock in the living still ticks.

Mom with a sad expression says, "Your having episodes even while talking to me."

Giving a slightly forced smile, I stand up and say, "It was just a fluke, a false alarm, you don't need to worry about it."

"...Well if you say so," she takes out a picture from her pants. "Here, I found this while I was cleaning the living room."

On the picture are my old classmates a day before school officaly ended, back then everyone was pretending to be happy since the teachers weren't going to be happy with an half assed picture, but looking at it now does remind me about the things I've lost.

"Isn't it nice? Back then you and your friends would play outside all day, you four would mainly cause trouble, but in the end you were all good boys."

"...Yeah."

"Tell me, have any of them contacted you?"

"No."

"I'm, sure their busy," she puts her hand on my head and rubs my hair. "You hair has become quite long, why don't we cut it today?"

I nod.

My regular hair color is golden brown, but over these three years it has become more of a darker black collor, likely from all the grease I've come to collect from all the long gaming sessions.

She does small cuts on the edges of the hair and says, "You really need to go into the showers more Noah."

I sigh, "I'm aware of that."

"You say that, but the time you spend around showers has degresed greatly."

"Isn't good since it meens I might be one of those geniuses out of the one protsent of people."

"Most geniuses put their work up in the real world, instead of holding it in their room."

I lower my head.

"...You're not wrong."

She hits me on head.

"Hey! How many times do I have to tell you to not move your head, I might cut your ear off!"

I rub the place of the hit.

"Your really challenging the child services on these hits."

"Oh shut it, in your early twenties the best you will get are the pigs working for the secret services."

"...are you talking about the cops? Didn't dad tell you to stop watching that stuff."

"He did, but now a days he isn't even home that often and the only two excitments I get are conspirecy theories and..."

The room turns quiet.

"Mom?"

"I'm almost done with the hair, then I'll let you go."

Confusion fills my mind.

"Anyway, I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"It could be becouse of me that he isn't as much."

She chuckles and says, "I don't think that's the reason why," giving a slap on the head "All done, why don't you take a look."

In the mirror I see my new short hair, the brown reddened eyes from all the screen time, my dry lips with the help of me biting on them, my all black clothing to keep at least a little bit of style, even if it doesn't matter now.

"Look like shit, as always." I mutter.

"Did you say something?"

"No."

"...since you aren't busy right now, why don't you take out the trash."

"This late at night?"

She gives me a bright smile.

"No one's going to kill you in this area, most of the bad people are in the slums."

"No, I didn't--" I shrug. "Fine."

Outside, the summer air blows in my face, bringing along the polution of the moddern world. The way to the trashcan is covered in  bright street lamps. All the car engins normally turning on in the mornings lay quiet in their corners.

"Happy fucking holiday to me then, the sooner I get this done the better."

On my way I hear to the left of me in the other houses front lawn two people.

Not wanting to draw attention to myself I duck behind the fence covered with bushes.

"How long do you think we have to babysit this bitc--" Man with sun glasses says.

The man with an anxious face covers the other mans moth and says, "carefull man, she's the bosses girl if the boss hears about this he would cut our balls off!"

"Look, I'll tell you man, that girl will be the end of our boss, it's always the women who stray strong men from their purpose."

"Yeah whatever man, let's just get the fuck out of here before she hears us."

Both the men from the front fence, fading further into the darkness.

"...I don't even want to know."