Deflating An Oversized-slash-Overfed Ego…

“You really think everything’s gonna be fine?” I asked Jake skeptically.

"Hm?" Jake was sitting on a chair at my left with an earphone on his left ear.

His eyebrows furrowed and asked me to explain further.

"I mean. You know... Do you think we'll...Erm" I gulped with fear of the single word I was about to say. "Pass?"

Fear was consuming me, slowly and quite painfully. It encircled me and, as the coward I was, I wanted to escape the truth.

I was certainly afraid of what would happen next. Anxiety was a lethal poison that from time to time haunted me.

No. It was certainly far worse than that.

Because if that was a horrendous venom that I accidentally ingested because of my sheer stupidity,
then it would better.

Better because I would only have to put on a brave face once and get it over with.
Better for I wouldn’t have to face it over and over again. Better because I surely would pluck up all my courage and that would be done. Better because it would only happen once.

And it would be over.

Over as in dead, that was better.

“Are you mental?” was all that I heard as a reply from Jake.

I glanced over to him seeing that he was curiously looking at me waiting for me to answer his rhetorical question.

Sighing and relaxing at the same time I realized that Jake was, as always, himself. I was just being silly.

I smiled at him and his smug face appeared.
“I bet you $20 I’ll beat you first in the top10.”

And so I had another reason to be in the top, somehow.

[After Eons of studying immensely and vividly]

It was only hours away before the horrible examinations I was dreading.
Deep, deep down within this extremely weird brain of mine, Iwished hoped
that there would be a green-eyed monster that would just magically appear out of nowhere and I would be saved from this “event”.

Yes, this is one of the many reasons one can call me a coward.

I neither deny that fact nor boast about it.
…
Frantically, I glanced to my left then to my right.

I was too nervous to walk straight without glimpsing forward and backward.

And slowly I took my seat and stared at the board.

It took me a few minutes before I relaxed.

I breathed in deeply inhaling all the oxygen I could drive into my nostrils.
And released all tension from my mouth.

Then I glanced over the room searching for a familiar face.

There was but only one person that was there with me.

Brian Wood.

Then without the slightest hesitation I suddenly used my ability on him.

And so for the last time-I hope- I ventured in his mind.

[and so we enter the brain of Brian Wood]

And so in a few seconds I shall have to answer all the questions the teachers will shower upon me, but I am not in agony

For after this grief moment, I would emerge from this crowd as the victor.

Humanity will bow down to me and plead that I help save their futile existence.

This would be the key thatwould should lead me to the path of adoration. So, I really cannot consider this event as a horrific thing to happen to me.

And even if I consider this to be a terrible incident in my so clever life, I can’t deny the truth that this is just a normal episode in one’s life.

And the sad truth is that I despise being a so called normal person.

I denied the reality that I was just one of the million people that had no reason to live.
I rejected the reality that I wasn’t really special.

I loathed that fact.

That’s why I made myself so special in every way possible.

And as the coward I was and definitely still am, I will continue to deny and reject reality.

I will continuously lie to myself and believe that I am in some way special.

[and thus we turn back to Nadine]
I gawked at the man I knew was an egomaniac.

Was this really him? Was I loosing my mind? Did he just…

I was certainly insane because that was not the Brian that I somehow knew.

“What?” he said in an annoyed tone.

Maybe it was my wide-eyes that were gaping at him that made him look at me.

“Sorry.” I replied.

Where did the egomaniac I came to know go?

Did an alien suddenly suck him to another dimension?

“We are all cowards.” I muttered under my breath.

But what makes us different from each other is the path we choose. If we choose to cower in darkness we will remain cowards for eternity. But if we face our nightmares then we will no longer remain cowards. That is bravery.

[and so Brian enters again]

Her words meant so much. Her words burned a hole into my stomach.

Those were the most painful words I heard. And it made sense.

I was a coward.

But I was surely going to change that.
…
I’m going to obliterate anyone and everyone who will block me from becoming the best. [insert psychotic and extremely demented thoughts here]

[and what would be your reply, Nadine?]
I was awestruck, I wasn’t sure at first that he had heard me.

But a smile ran down my face for my egomaniac was back.