A day that can change your life always starts as a normal day. You don't wake up expecting to get handed a free bag of money or to get into a car accident.

  Ace did not wake up and expect anything new to change today. It's been the same his whole life. Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, get on the bus, ignore the bullies, go to class, ignore the snickers, eat lunch, sit alone, ignore the pointing, go to class, endure the beatings, get on the bus home, cry, rinse, repeat.

  Ace was on the second step today. Getting dressed. 

  He dressed in a light gray hoodie with the number 15 in bold large white letters in the front. He liked it because that was his age and he felt like it was a funny joke. The back was blank. He slipped out of his pale pink panda-themed pajamas and into black jeans and a black belt.

  He left his small yet cozy bedroom and went down the stairs and into the bathroom. He checked the bathroom mirror, something he did very often.

  "Do I look good enough today?" He would ask himself.

  "Good enough to not get beat up?" He would ask. The answer was always no. School had convinced him that he was a lesser being. Something less than human. An uglier, stupider, slower version.

  In reality, he isn't ugly. He wasn't going to win any modeling contests, but he wasn't ugly. He has nice light brown skin. He's only 5'3. He has big soft black loopy hair and big blue eyes. He got that from his Dad. His dad was white and his mom was black. He had his mother's nose and lips. Or at least that's what everyone said. He didn't see the resemblance. People often made fun of him for not looking enough like one race or the other. Brown skin and Blue eyes? Freak.

  He left the bathroom and went to fulfill the next step, breakfast. His mom, dad, and baby brother is sitting at the kitchen table.

  "Hey, honey. Hungry?" His mother asks.

  "Yes! What's this?" He asks pointing the plate and sitting down.

  "It's called mash potatoes. Heard of it?" His Dad asks cutting in with his usual sarcasm. It's like he was still in high school or something. He meant it affectionately though.

  "Mash potatoes? For breakfast?" He asks while already picking up the spoon.

  "Yes, and also bacon and toast, so eat up!" His Mom says.

  "Eathup Bakon" His baby brother, Miles says. He's only a year old but already forming semi-coherent sentences.

  The happy family ate breakfast and talked. After a while, Ace left for the bus. He swings his red backpack up and onto his shoulders, slips on his white shoes, and is out the door. His parents won't leave for another 30 minutes.

  He goes to a public school named Pearson in a small suburban town called Fallrose.

  He ignored the bullies on the bus, or at least he tried to. This time they sat next to him rather than behind. It was three boys. Randy and Mitch were the minions. The leader: Chad. Of course.

  "Hey, Faggot."

  Oh.

  Ace, as per usual, ignored them. But they never relent until you react, at least a little do they?

  "What? Am I not good enough for you, Maggot?" He asks in mocked concern.

  The bus starts up and begins to drive toward the school.

  Chad reaches over and pushes him, making his head bounce off the glass window with a loud thud sound. Randy and Mitch let out an "ooh" sound while covering their mouths, wide-eyed and laughing. The rest of the bus ignores the ruckus. They've already seen this a hundred times. 

  "Do I deserve this?" He asks himself. "Probably, but shouldn't they? Are they above punishment simply because of their good looks?"

  "Hey? Maggot? Are you listening?"

  Ace responds with a punch square in his jaw.

  The whole bus goes silent. Everything seems to freeze for a second, even time its self. Randy and Mitch are in complete shock.

  Now everyone is staring.

  "You little shi-" He is cut off by the bus driver's yelling. A few minutes of arguing back and forth and Ace is now walking to school. He was deemed the aggressor and with no one to back him up, this is the punishment. Getting kicked off the bus. Great.

  "Whatever." He thinks to himself.

  After a few minutes of running, he makes it to class on time. He goes to class, ignoring the snickers and pointing. He can hear them talking about the bus ride. He can hear how they think Chad deserved it, but that they would rather see Ace get beat on.

  "It's funny," One girl said. "To see such a weak boy."

  He goes to the cafeteria and eats his lunch alone, still hearing the whispers around him. He ignores the pointing, goes to class and when the bell rang, he knew what was coming. He makes his way out of his class and through the buzzing hallway and onto the bus. The bus doesn't stop at his house.

  His house is down a street of houses where the road is too narrow for the bus to go. His house is at the far end. He has to walk to and from his house to the stop. He gets out and naturally Chad, Randy, and Mitch follow him until the bus is out of sight. Do they even live on this street?

  "Hello, Ace."

  He runs. Not quick enough though, because Chad simply yanks on his hoodie to send him backward and onto the ground. The wind is knocked out of his chest and he stars starry-eyed at the cloudy gray sky as if even it doesn't seem to care enough to watch.

  "D'you really think you could punch me and get away with it?"

  Ace attempts to get up and run but Chad stomps a muddy shoe flat on his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs along with any remaining hope of skipping a beating.

  "So Maggot, what do you think the proper punishment should be?"

  "Sorry... Plea-"

  "Oooh, wrong answer." Chad lifts his foot and quickly sends it back down into his chest and leans into it. Grinding his foot as if stepping on a bug. Ace winces and tries to push his foot away, but this is a leg of pure, athletic star, muscle. 

  "What do you think, Randy? What should we do to the poor little Maggot."

  "I think we should give our little Maggot here some fresh makeup. Make him nice and pretty." He says laughing at something Ace can't yet understand.

  "I second that!" Says Mitch raising his hand.

  "I think I like the sound of that."

  Randy pulls out a plastic bucket the size of his head out of his backpack and Mitch pulls out a similarly plain bucket.

  Ace tries to squirm away, but Chad's leg holds him firmly in place. "Stop! Please! Why?" Ace is pleading now, tears streaming from his eyes. He doesn't know what's in those buckets but he doesn't want to find out.

  No longer able to keep up the faux taunting, Chad simply laughs a devil's laugh.

  Mitch and Randy, also laughing, takes the tops off of their buckets and dumps it on Ace's face. White cold slime completely covers his face, hair, and chest. He gasps in surprise and again tries to get up. Blinded, he succeeds but gets thrown down to the pavement. Hard. From Chad's direction comes another splash of slime and now he is practically covered in it.

  Someone kicks him but he couldn't be sure who. He gets back up, blindly stumbling, but again gets thrown to the ground, harder this time. He wipes a glob of slime from his eye only to then be blinded by a cascade of flying colors. An entire bucket of glitter is poured down all over him, getting in his mouth, hair, eyes, and clothes.

  He screams. Or has he been screaming this whole time? Then, through squinted eyes, he sees flashes of light. A phone. Ace holds out a hand to block his face, but he knows it's useless.

---

  Tears. That's the last step of the day before sleep. Ace is laying still on his bed crying. He had to throw his favorite hoodie in the garbage. It was ruined with dried slime and glitter. The pants are salvageable and the shoes were practically untouched besides the soles.

  His parents are both at work. His mom is a security guard, and his dad a banker. Conveniently at the same bank. His brother is at daycare until six. It's five now. School ends at 3:15. He's alone

  He needed a long warm shower to get the gunk from his hair. He cried, and he cries even now as he checks Instagram. He opens his messages which are usually either empty or has a death threat from Chad or Mitch or some other bully.

  There is a message now from Chad.

  Hey Magot, check my newest post!

  Ace, through tear-filled eyes of embarrassment and hate, clicks on Chad's profile picture which redirects him to his front page.

  He sees an enlarged version of his profile picture, which is him posing dramatically in front of some wight equipment, behind that is a horizontal picture of him, Mitch, Randy, and Chad's girlfriend, Caterina. The whole gang. Terrorizing him since kindergarten of 2006. Below that he sees Chad's bio.

  18/ Future Highschool Grad/ Sports Model | Partygoer and future bodybuilder

   Ace looks down below that and sees his most recent post. It's a photo of him. Ace. He lets out a loud gasp as he sees what it is. A picture of himself covered in a thick, white, clear slimy goo, and rainbow glitter. He has tears streaming down his face and is red all over with a muddy shoe print stamped on his chest. It has him holding a hand up, futility blocking his face from the camera.

  A flood of terror, sadness, and anger wash over him like a tsunami as he reads the crude description of the white slime and glitter.

  612 views, 43 likes, 9 shares

  He sobs and wails into his stuffed bear. Fluff. His one friend. He sobs and cries out into his best and only friend. He sobs into his bear and he cries the way you don't see in the movies with beautifully flowing tears. He cries and, snot gushes into his pillow and he knows he'll have to clean it but for now, he just cries and wails because his life is crumbling before him. Yes, he knows there are worst things to cry for, but he doesn't care right now because to him this might as well have been his death sentence and his head is in the basket below the guillotine.

  He feels someone watching him. He whips his head around and locks eyes with...Nothing.

  "H-hello?" He gets no response. Wait. What is that?

  He feels as if there is someone watching him. As if there were someone right there in front of him. Staring at him mere inches away with eyeless eyes attached to an empty body of air. There is no one there but Ace can feel it. Feel the nonexistent breath on his face, and voice. He can feel the pair of burrowing into him as if it could see right through him. No.

  No, there is no voice. It's like an idea but a sentence that just popped into his head. An unspoken sentence that was really only a word. What was that word? It's like a chest floating just beyond his headspace.

  The voice with no sound spoke with an idea of a chest. 

  The chest seems punctuated with a curious question mark. Simply wondering. 

   He reaches for the chest with his mind. No visuals. No sounds. Just a vague idea. Like maybe if he wanted too he could just deny the whole thing and ignore it. Just his imagination. But he opens the chest and he can feel rather than see a dice pop out of the chest and begin rolling and rolling faster and faster until it gets so fast it seems like his head is about to implode. Then a vague memory of the number 1 bursts from the dice like a giant bomb had been implanted in his head. Then, a sweet and powerful aroma that feels way too real seems to expand in his head until it feels like it's is going to bust wide open. All while that thing 

  Then it all vanishes. The thing that stared at him with eyeless eyes and the questioning chest and the entire thing that was maybe never even there, to begin with, was now definitely not there.

  "What?" Ace swivels his head back and forth revealing nothing. He gets up and goes to the bathroom and washes his face. Something isn't right. He rinses his face and looks into the mirror and sees his usual black hair, light brown skin, and blue- wait. What is that? 

  He looks into his blue eyes that used to be calm, sad and distant but now looked piercing. He gazes into his eyes and sees an abyss, and it gazed back up at him. That's when he knew. He knew that what happened was not a vague idea and an uncomfortable feeling that was contained in his head, but something that changed him. For better or for worse is unknown.