NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Sol Vestitior
If time can be rewind Sol would rather stay home that day, because what to come is worse than a nightmare.
Sol Vestitor is 25 years old senior high school science teacher, tall lean body, yellow skin tone, brown hair and eyes, and youthful face. Sometimes his youthful face makes him depressed because every new student thinks he is a part of the student body that is standing for the teacher.
"Miya, today is the day of the school field trip so you don't need to wait for me to get back" Sol turn around and jog through the street.
As a contract teacher, Sol can't afford his own vehicle so he needs to catch up with the public bus. Because today is a field trip day for the third-year student, Sol needs to come very early to prepare with other teachers.
This year's field trip destination is the mountain 2 hours away from our city. Sol needs to take attendance for class B because he is their homeroom teacher. Class B is filled with Baseball players and that means they are very loud and hard to control.
Sol can't help but wonder, "why are they bringing baseball bats everywhere, we are not going for baseball camp you know... Well, I can't blame them because even I bring my prized possession for today lunch"
Sol takes cooking as a hobby since he graduates high school, he takes pride in his well-maintained cooking ware.
"Mr. Vestitor what are you dreaming in the middle of the day?" Sol comes out from his muse and turns to Allan, the baseball team captain.
"Nothing" with an awkward laugh Sol dismissed Allan's question and turned to the rest of the class "Everybody please take a seat, we are about to depart, if anyone is feeling sick or any other concern please consult me."
Sol takes his own seat behind the driver seat and puts on his navy blue jacket. Halfway through their trip, Sol falls asleep.
"Mr. Sol, wake up," Sol opened his eyes and turned to Anya the school number one beauty. "Anya's delicate little face and her long black hair deserve to be called school number one beauty," Sol thought.
Sol secretly liked Anya even though he knows that it is unprofessional to fall in love with his own student, he can't help it so he just buries his feelings so nobody finds out. But of course, his red face is a dead give away that he likes Anya.
"Can we turn off the air conditioner? It is getting cold here" Anya said without waiting for Sol's reply.
"Sorry little missy, I had turned it off fifteen minutes ago," the bus driver said.
"it is common for the air to get colder when we are going up the mountain. You can wear a jacket if you are still cold," Sol wanted to offer his jacket but Allan beat him to the punch. "Here you can use mine," Allan offers his baseball jacket.
"Thanks, Allan."
Feeling a little down Sol continues his sleep until their destination. At their destination, they hike a little and play under a waterfall.
Everyone only takes photos because the weather is somehow too cold to swim and the water is freezing cold. Allan tried the water and he instantly regretted it.
Sol is preparing lunch with the other teacher when it starts snowing. "Hey look outside, it starts snowing!" shouts a student from the hall. Snow is rare here even on the mountain because they live in a tropical climate.
Sol is about to continue his work cutting cabbages when a voice booms through the sky.
"TEST... Test... hello everyone. Pluto here, your loveable and handsome God of the underworld and the dead"
"What the hell?? Is this guy nuts or something?" Sol thought while Pluto continues his announcement. "This guy is definitely a psycho"
"It is true. I can see without my glasses!" someone shouts.
"Really? My ankle is still hurting though."
"Maybe because the injury is not a disease?" Student's chatter can be heard through the building.
Some students run out and try to find the sun, "I can't find the sun!!"
"The sky is not dark so I think it's just cloudy so we can't find the sun"
"No, it's noon so the sun is supposed to be right above us, but there is none"
"This is not scientific at all !!"
"You should have said that when you realize that you don't need your glasses anymore"
When Gaea's voice resounds through the sky and the ground is shaking, everyone runs out of the building. After the earthquake stopped, a sudden realization struck everyone, "everything is real!!"
"Where is this shattered divinity that this Pluto talks about?" one said.
"Sssh... you can't say His name, in roman myth anyone that says the name of the God of underworld died" another told him
"But the gate to the underworld is closed, maybe we can't die"
"You want to give it a go?" one asked to the other
"Nah... I will skip"
"I found it!!" Allan who starts digging through the snow when everyone is still talking suddenly shouts.
"where is it?"
"How does it look?"
"can you share it with me?"
"Let me have a look" everyone surrounds Allan.
"it looks like a piece of red glass and it melds with my body when I touch it. You can try digging through the snow"
The hunt for divinity has begun. Sol still can't believe all these changes, his mind is not as flexible as his younger counterpart. Turning around to the kitchen to put back his knife that he brings in a rush, suddenly Sol feels like he stepped on a stone. Sol looks down to see what he steps on only to see that his hunch is correct.
A red glowing piece of glass, the fabled piece of divinity. Still wary about divinity, Sol doesn't give in to his desire to touch it but poke it with his kitchen knife. When his knife touches it, it suddenly liquefies and melds with his knife's blade, only a tenth of it flows through the handle to his hand and melds with his body.
He feels no changes, no power or any magical thing happens to him, at most his knife feels more comfortable in his hand. "Strange, I don't feel any different," mused Sol.
To find out if there will be a difference if he touches it directly Sol tries to find more Shard but he is out of luck.
By then almost everyone has found at least a piece of divinity and the luckiest even find five-piece of the shard. When there is someone lucky there is someone that is unlucky, the student that blatantly named Pluto's name is of this unlucky person.
After some time of fruitless labor, the one that had not got a piece of shard makes small groups and goes a little deeper in the mountain. While Sol contemplating whether to go deeper too, he saw Anya with a group of three go up the mountain. In the end, Sol decided to stay and find out more about these shards.
From his discussion with his coworker he concludes that by directly absorbing these shards, people grow a little bit stronger, faster, and even smarter. This growth is not as much as what he thinks, the one that finds 5 shards at most grow as strong and as fast as a professional athlete, nowhere near godlike or demigod.
The biggest boon of these shards is as long as we have a single shard we don't need to be afraid of dying because of the cold weather. While we still feel the cold, we won't be frozen to death. That is if dying is still a thing.
Sol about to browse the internet for news but he can't get any reception when there is a scream coming from the mountain. "Did they meet a mountain tiger? This is bad, Anya is with them too." He tightens his grip and his face is laced with fear and worry.