Autophagy

"Don't move you fucking loser!" The guy with blond hair shouted. They were in an abandoned classroom of a high school. This school was one of a kind filled with all kinds of delinquents and young criminals.

"Stop! Why are you doing this!?" The boy that was lying on the ground shouted. He had a small stature and a bowl cut. His appearance was enough to make him a bullying target, let alone his personality.

His clothes were torn apart and there were all kinds of drawings and writings on his body. His glasses had been broken and thrown to the ground.

There were three people outside of him in the room. They all had flashy clothes and mean faces. A normal person would probably change their way if they encountered these guys on the street. 

"Do we look like we need a reason?" A boy with long black hair asked.

"Come on Hayden! Don't be that mean to him. It's because we don't like your face little guy," another guy said. He had the biggest body out of the three and he had a buzz cut. He kicked the boy lying on the ground in the abdomen. Getting kicked in the abdomen, the boy started puking.

"Eww... This disgusting little bastard puked all over the place. You were already so ugly but you look much worse now," the blond guy said while frowning.

"Well... See you loser. Don't forget to clean the place," the guy with the buzz cut said. They left the classroom and closed the door behind them.

The boy laid on the ground without moving.

'Why is my life like this?' He asked himself. 'Am I at fault for being short? Or is it that because I'm ugly?'

"Great huh?" Someone said. The boy, hearing the voice, turned around to see who it was.

"W- Who are you?" The boy whimpered. This person was sitting on one of the desks. Considering that the window behind him was opened, it could be guessed that he had entered from the window. This classroom was on the first floor so he wouldn't need to climb if he had really done so.

"Me? I'm Ryan," the person said. He had a lanky body with a pretty good face. He could easily be called handsome with his features. "And you?"

The boy lying on the ground wiped the tears off of his eyes and got up.

"I- I'm Damien..." He whimpered.

Ryan looked at Damien for some time and chuckled to himself. Hearing Ryan chuckle, Damien looked at the ground. He was prepared to get another beating.

*SLAP

"Your back will hunch if you stay like that. Straighten up," Ryan said. He slapped Damien in the back and smiled widely.

Seeing this, Damien's mouth was left wide open. He would never think that he would meet with a person like this in this school.

Ryan, having said that, left the classroom too. Damien looked at the door in a daze for a long time. When he finally came back to himself, he started cleaning up the puke from the ground.

He contemplated the things that happened that day. He was already a Junior in high school and he hadn't gotten any friends up until now. He had chosen this high school because it was the nearest one to his home. The nearest school other than this was more than 30 km away.

He had been getting bullied since he started high school. He had somehow managed to become a target of bullying the first day he came here.

"I should go..." Damien muttered to himself. He finished cleaning and left the school. Instead of going home, he went to his part-time job. Because of his family's situation, he had to work part-time. His father had long left them and his mother had to work all day to take care of him and his two brothers. Damien had to work just to have some spare money left to use in dire situations.

After he clocked out of work, it was already 8 p.m. He walked home and opened the door.

"I'm home!" He said. His mother wouldn't be at home at the moment. His brothers were younger than him and weren't at the age that they could work. They were already back at home.

His youngest brother Dylan rushed to his side and hugged him. Dylan was 6 years old and he had just started school.

"Welcome! How was your day?" Dylan asked with a wide smile on his face.

"It was great! How was your school?" Damien asked back with the best smile he could put on. He hugged his younger brother. Dylan started talking about his school day. Damien listened to him attentively and made sure that Dylan felt that he was important. He didn't want his brothers to become like him.

His other brother was sitting on a couch in their living room, watching TV. He was already 13 and was a bit rebellious. Damien made sure that he was approaching him in a careful way.

"Sup' bro," Daniel said. He didn't look at Damien.

"Sup'" Damien answered back.

He prepared a meal for his brothers and made them go to sleep. When he was done, he studied for his classes that day. His mother came back home when it was 1 a.m.

"Hi, sweetie!" She said. After chatting with his mom a little bit, Damien went to bed.

That was it. This had been his daily life since he had started high school. He was really good at hiding that he was getting bullied and his mother still hadn't realized that he was experiencing such things.

He would keep thinking about what he could do to get away from his miserable life but would never act on those plans.

The next day, Damien finished his routine and went to school. He had to prepare some extra money every day as it would get taken away from him by the bullies. Weirdly, that day, no one came to bother him.

'What's happening? Why are they not here?' He thought to himself. Not being bullied was actually making him nervous. While he was sitting in his classroom, he heard a somewhat familiar voice.

"Hey! How's it going?" Ryan said. He sat on the seat in front of Damien and smiled widely. Damien was surprised that Ryan could be so cheerful all the time.

"I- It's fine..." Damien muttered. He wasn't used to speaking with those of his age.

"Wanna hang out later today?" Ryan asked. Damien smiled awkwardly.

"Well... I've to go to my part-time job so..." He said with a low voice.

"No problem then. Whenever you're free is okay," Ryan said. He then started chitchatting with Damien.

'So this is how it feels...' Damien thought in his head. He hadn't felt like this for a very long time. 'Having a friend that I can casually talk with is so nice...' Although he wanted to ask Ryan why he was approaching him, he was scared of angering him.

"See you later then," Ryan waved at Damien and left.

Damien's days went on like this for some time. Although he didn't have the time to do so out of the school, he could still chat with Ryan when he was there. Because of the way he was raised, Ryan had a very free spirit and a playful personality. Damien and he were polar opposites.

Damien couldn't stop himself from getting a little jealous.

Apparently, Ryan was the son of a rich CEO. He had insisted on coming to this school as he didn't want to hang out with rich people all the time. 

One day, though, Ryan stopped coming to school and the bullying began again.

"Did you get cocky because you've been hanging out with that asshole huh?" The blonde guy said. He held Damien by his collar and threw him to the wall. Damien felt his lungs contracting as the air was punched out of him.

They were currently in front of an abandoned warehouse more than 5km away from the school. These people had found out that Damien was working part-time. They caught him while he was clocking out and brought Damien here by threatening to break his mother's legs. Hearing his mother being mentioned, Damien had followed them without any questions.

Hayden, Adam, and Anthony all had very rich families. Damien honestly couldn't understand why these rich families would send their children to this rundown school.

Adam opened the gates of the warehouse. The dark warehouse was illuminated by the moonlight.

"Look inside. We have your best friend here!" Adam sneered. Damien frowned.

"What do you... Oh god," Damien clasped his hand over his mouth.

Ryan was tied up with a rope around his waist and was hung down from the ceiling. His face was filled with bruises and blood.

"His family actually went bankrupt! He was acting so high and mighty. Now, look at him." Adam said while pointing at Ryan. " This is the reality, Damien. This is the difference between us rich people and you poor bastards. Do you understand?" He asked. Seeing that Damien wasn't answering he slapped him in the face. "Answer!"

"No!" Damien shouted as loud as he could. Until now, he had always thought that these people weren't more than your average school bullies. But that wasn't the case. They were true criminals who would hurt people because of their weird ideologies.

Seeing Damien stand his ground against them for the first time, Adam started chuckling.

"Haha... HAHAHA! That's great! Then watch what we will do to your bestie..!"