the restart 1-2 ing

Chapter 2 – ‘A Piece of Confusion‘
“What in the… d, did I fall asleep?” Aden wondered to himself
out loud, half unbelieving of the situation before him.
The others in the classroom had all stopped mid-motion. No,
to be precise, they were literally frozen in time. They didn’t so
much as breathe!
Suddenly, Aden’s heart thrummed, his blood pulsating through
his veins in a molten fury. They felt on fire, and at the same
time his body became extremely cold. The room, although
lacking color, seemed extremely clear to him as the hidden
war waged on within him.
“Well, at any rate that’s about what I expected…” Somehow or
another, the fox seemed to be laughing with a ‘ka ka ka’. She
—at least, Aden assumed the fox was a she from its feminine
voice—noticed his eyes darting around the room. She was
obviously aware of what was going on.
Although students of Haven Academy were prided on being
advanced for their age, he was still just fourteen years old. It
shouldn’t be a wonder that he was quite unsettled by what
was happening.
“Wha, what… no, who are you?” His voice started with a
tremble, but grew more consistent as he continued. “What did
you do to everyone!?”
“Me? Oh, I’ve done nothing but wait for you to Awaken for
years now. All of this,” the fox gestured towards the rest of
the classroom with her muzzle, “was done by none other than
you.” She ignored his first question.
At a loss of what to say, all Aden could do was shake his head
and shout, “It wasn’t me!”
The fox seemed to find something amusing about his
response.
“Are you sure about that? Well, I thought you would react
something like this.” Her body swayed slightly as she glanced
around at the ones frozen in time. “Though this part… was
unexpected.”
“What happened? What’s going on!?” Though not quite as
violent as before, his pulse still raged on. He was having
trouble thinking clearly.
“Your Awakening of course. It was supposed to happen when
you were asleep, but it looks like you ignored the urge to
sleep last night and woke up despite it. For so many to be
roped in to this is truly unexpected.”
Aden was all but lost at this point, listening to the white fox’s
words. “Th, then,“ He tried to follow what was going on, but
just as he began the fox resumed.
“It’s almost time for this dream of yours comes to an end…”
She turned around and leapt on to the floor. As she touched it,
she began to disappear, leaving him behind with an addition.
“… I’ll see you again soon, Master.”
After the mysterious talking fox vanished, the war inside of
him began to end with both the heat and cold merging
together. He felt as though he’d just soaked in a warm bath,
feeling extremely at ease despite the extreme sensations from
a moment ago. His vision had also mostly returned to normal.
Color returned to the world and everything resumed all at
once. The sounds of the nineteen other classmates pulling out
their pencils and scratch paper could be heard as everyone
hastened to be ready.
“Just… what was that? That white fox could speak, and what
was up with everyone…” Aden thought to himself, dazed from
the occurrence.
When Miss Bells was about to hand out the exam to the
students, she noticed Aden with his bag still open at his side
and nothing on his desk.
“Aden?” He didn’t respond, and after a few moments she tried
again with a slight emphasis, “Aden?”
He returned to his senses, remembering where he was.
Forcing a smile, he responded, “M, Miss Bells! It’s nothing,
nothing!”
He hurriedly took out a scratch paper and the broken pencil.
Next to him, David noticed the half-pencil and held an extra
out for him, nudging Aden’s shoulder with it. “Psst… here.”
The look on Aden’s face slightly concerned David, but
ultimately put it aside. He knew that Aden tended to be weird
about tests.
“… Thanks.” He accepted the pencil and quietly resumed
waiting to receive the exam papers from Miss Bells.
Most of the room had quieted by now as everyone waited for
Miss Bells’ instruction to begin. Most of the students dreaded
mathematics and were either anxious or silently going over
simple things, like ‘standard form’ or ‘point-slope form’ in
hopes that the questions wouldn’t be too hard.
Aden on the other hand had blanked. If someone were to peak
into his mind right now they would find a black abyss, devoid of
anything but the image of that strange fox from earlier. He
couldn’t think of anything else, and almost didn’t hear the
teacher’s instruction to start the exam.
Tearing off the side that sealed the packet closed, he found
everything to be completely… simple. Extraordinarily so.
The height of water in a cylindrical glass jar of a ten centimeter
radius was four centimeters tall; after gently adding a small
stone to the jar the height of the water increased by two
centimeters… There is a square whose corners all touch a
single circle; the area of the square is three hundred square
centimeters… Every question seemed to him like someone
asked what color grass was; it was obviously green, right? The
ease he had with conceptualizing these problems would have
astounded everyone if they knew how he was going about
answering the problems.
The moment he saw the words, shapes and numerical symbols
solidified in his vision on the page and reconstructed the
problem with exact values calculated and displayed along its
sides like a computer program would. He had always been
good with logic-based work, but never like this.
The person in question did not notice in the slightest that this
was out of the ordinary for him, however. He continued to
think of nothing but that fox. Her words, ‘Almost time for your
dream to come to an end…’ and something about calling him
‘Master’ unsettled him.
Before he noticed, fifteen minutes had passed and he had
entirely completed the exam that should have taken nearly
two hours. One should know that the sheer amount of proof
work for each question alone should have taken at least forty
minutes. His hand had not stopped writing since the moment
he began, and his hand was slightly cramped.
He stood up to turn in the exam and leave for lunch, not
knowing the speed at which he completed the exam was more
than six times faster than the average. The teacher, along with
a few of the less studious students, glanced up at him with a
confused look.
“Here, Miss Bells.” Aden held out the packet and blank scratch
paper to her.
“… Aden, are you giving up on the exam? You know that you
can’t make it up in the future.” She looked at him seriously,
slowly raising her hand to take the packet.
“Huh?” This threw Aden off slightly, and only now did he look
up at the clock and notice the time. His eyes opened wide.
After a moment of hesitation, “N, no, I finished.”
Miss Bells raised an eyebrow. “Really now?” She clearly had
her doubts.
He handed it to her and bolted out of the door.
As he left the room, she opened up the packet and her
expression changed to one of astonishment. The problems
weren’t merely completely filled out, but his strokes also
lacked hesitation on the pages and—above all—were entirely
correct! Let alone writing down entirely correct answers, she
had never seen someone finish an end of year exam this
quickly! She turned to call out to him, but he was already
gone.
Now in the hallway, Aden’s mind was entirely immersed in
chaos.
The time stop.
The war in his body.
The exam.
That fox.
Everything whirled through his mind like a tempest.
“What happened to me!?”