Oscar Kingston Is God!

Chapter 2: What My Parents Left Behind

Exactly on this day: 23rd September but in the year 2043 which was ten years ago, Oscar was standing outside a private school with two other students from Sanctorian Community High School, waiting for their turn to enter the academic competition.

Sanctorian was a free community high school, and the difference between it and the private school was obvious.

The students here wore clean and expensive uniforms, carried new bags and walked around with the confidence of people who had never needed to worry about the price of their next meal.

Oscar and the other Sanctorian students were different.

Their uniforms were simple, their bags were old and everyone could immediately tell where they came from.

Still, Oscar didn't care much about that.

He had been chosen to represent Sanctorian because he was particularly good at geography and economics. The other students had been selected for mathematics, English and general studies.

They had come to compete.

Unfortunately, some of the students from the private school seemed more interested in competing with Oscar personally.

"Look at them! The free-school students have arrived!"

Several students nearby laughed.

Oscar continued walking, but one of the boys called out again. "Hey, scholarship boy! I'm talking to you!"

Oscar stopped and turned around. "What?"

The boy looked him up and down before smiling, "So you're Oscar Kingston, right? I heard you're the smartest student from that community free school."

"That's what they said."

His calm response made the students laugh.

"He really believes it."

"Maybe he's proud because he got a scholarship."

"Hey, Oscar, you're the geography student, right?" A girl asked.

"Yes."

"Then you must be really smart."

Oscar shrugged, "I'm good enough."

The girl laughed, but before she could say anything else, another student suddenly spoke, "Forget about geography. Isn't this the orphan?"

Oscar's expression changed.

The boy who had been speaking to him looked surprised. "Orphan?"

"Yeah. I heard both his parents died."

"When?"

"He was three, I think."

The boy looked back at Oscar, "Seriously?"

Oscar didn't answer. He had heard the word orphan many times before usually from adults, sometimes from teachers. But hearing it from a group of students his age who were laughing made it feel different.

The boy smiled. "So what did your parents leave you?"

Oscar looked at him, "I have a home."

"A home?"

"Apartment 101 and I have never had to pay for it."

Someone immediately laughed, "In Swamps Estate?"

"Yes," Boastful Oscar nodded.

"That's where you live?"

"Isn't that the old government trash estate? My dad said it's free and the government is doing you all a favor."

"That's a lie!" Oscar shook his head, "My parents paid for it. And they covered the rent for 50 years."

The boy stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing. "50 years?"

Oscar nodded.

The laughter around him became louder.

"That's your inheritance?"

"Your parents died and left you ten years of rent?"

The boy shook his head as if he found the whole thing ridiculous. "Is that supposed to make you feel better?"

Oscar's hands tightened around the strap of his bag, "They left me something."

"Then what else?"

Oscar became quiet. That was the problem. He didn't know. His parents had died when he was three and he couldn't remember their voices or what they smelled like.

Most of what he knew about them came from old photographs and the information adults had given him over the years.

His parents had left Apartment 101. They had left some documents and they had left him nothing else that he knew of.

The boy noticed his silence and laughed. "See? Nothing."

Another student chuckled, "Don't worry. At least your parents were kind enough to pay your rent."

The group laughed again.

The boy turned around and started walking away. "Come on. Let's go. The competition is starting."

After a few steps, he turned back, "Good luck, scholarship boy with no inheritance!"

Oscar stood there without saying anything. At thirteen, he didn't have an answer. He couldn't tell them that his parents had left him something valuable.

Now... Ten years later, Oscar sat on the floor of Apartment 101 and stared at the wooden box in front of him.

For a long time, he didn't say anything, then he gave a small laugh.

"What did my parents leave me you bunch of rich bullying kids asked?" His eyes brightened. "This!"

His eyes slowly moved toward the hole he had spent days digging in the floor in the same apartment his parents had left him. The same apartment those students had laughed about ten years ago.

Except now, there was something sitting in front of him.

Something that had been hidden beneath the floor all along.

Oscar reached out and dragged the box. The box was barely sixty centimetres long and perhaps thirty centimetres high. It was so heavy that he had to drag it across the floor.

He adjusted it in his hands and stared at it carefully.

The wood was dark and smooth, with golden patterns carved around the edges. The designs were strange, almost like symbols, and despite the fact that the box had been buried beneath the floor for God knows how many years, there wasn't a single sign of rot.

Oscar rubbed the surface with his thumb.

"How old are you?"

The box obviously didn't answer. He turned it around.

He could swear this wood was familiarly African blackwood. And the golden patterns caught the light coming through the window and briefly shone.

Oscar's eyes narrowed. "Is that actually real gold?"

"Wait. That means..." His eyes shone with dollar bills and money and food. "If I sell this box, based on the wood type and the real gold patterns.. it's worth $1,000,000 or more. But since times are hard as fuck. At least I can get goods worth $5,000."

Oscar looked at the box again.

"Like two 10kg bags of rice. One for me, one for Godwin and Chisel to share."

Then medicine and water. Maybe some canned food too.

Oscar nodded slowly, "I should call 133 right now."

That was the government emergency line. If he told them he had something valuable, perhaps an official would come and inspect it.

But Oscar quickly frowned. "What if they take it for themselves and offer me lower goods?"

He looked at the box suspiciously. No. He needed to know exactly what was this box first.

Oscar shook the box on the ground.

He brought his ear close to it and knocked on it but he couldn't hear anything. He frowned. "There's definitely something inside."

The box was very heavy enough to prove it.

Oscar took his time to carefully turn it upside down but nothing moved inside it in the process. His eyebrows slowly rose.

"What?"

He turned the box around again with great difficulty.

Whatever was inside wasn't rolling around with the box. It was almost as if the entire inside had been filled.

Oscar sat down properly on the dirt again. He began examining the lid as his fingers moved along the edges. He checked the corners for anything but frowned.

"Where's the keyhole?"

He checked the other side, checked the bottom too. He ran his fingers around the entire box again but there wasn't even a small opening.

"No lock?" Oscar stared at it.

"Maybe there's a hidden button in the wood or patterns."

He pushed the golden patterns one after another. He tapped the surface. Knock. Knock. He turned the box over once more but there was no lock, no keyhole and no hidden button.

"The fuck?!" Oscar's expression slowly became serious.

For ten years, he had believed his parents had left him only an apartment. Now, after starving in the very apartment they had left him, he had dug the floor and found something they had probably deliberately hidden.

But there was no way to open it?

"I guess I have to sell it then. Where's my phone?"