Negativity Culmination

"You musta got shocked so bad, you dun' lost yo' mind! Haha!" one of Grountin's friends teased him at school.

Grountin's self-proclaimed friends from school were aware of the blue spark for three reasons: they had witnessed his family whip him, joining in the celebration and even occasionally whipping him with them themselves.

"This is whatcha get for beating me at a game you swear you're playing for the first time, you damn hustler!" shouted one of his friends as he whipped Grountin during one of the few times Grountin was permitted company at home. "Hey! I can do the sparkly thing, too! Whoo! Did anybody see that?"

His friends not only accepted, but embraced the lifestyle Grountin's family had cultivated. There was entertainment value, comradery, and sufficient retribution for everyone aside from Grountin.

The second reason was because Grountin told them all about his gaming experiences, including the misfortune awaiting him for each bad play. After having first been told, one of them said sarcastically out of disbelief, "That's shocking. Hahaha!"

Once having seen first hand evidence that it was true, they all chided simultaneously, "Get good, noob!" Upon trying to play under the same conditions as Grountin by testing his set of equipment for themselves, one sympathetically remarked, "Not sure why we ain't get shocked, but with that lag, you need to ask your parents for some new tech."

"Why don't you ask?" Grountin inquired.

His friends, after asking on his behalf, came to him and apathetically stated, "They would've gotten you better stuff if you weren't so misbehaved. You brought it on yourself, reject."

Grountin decided to no longer participate in online gaming sessions; this worked until a smear campaign was launched by his friends in which he was mercilessly whipped at school repeatedly until he began attending again.

Speaking of whipping at school, the third reason was that the blue spark, although initially a private event, soon turned into a school sanctioned event. A teacher in his elementary school was complaining during parent-teacher conferences that no matter what she did, she could not find a way to effectively punish their son. "It's like nothing gets to him!" she angrily whispered.

Grountin's parents smiled at each other, both knowing what the other planned to say in response. "Have whippings been working?" they asked together.

The teacher pontificated that teachers cannot whip children without permission. In less than half a minute, permission was officially granted. In less than a week from that point, there was a school whip, similar to his family's, specifically dedicated to him, since he was the only child being whipped at school. In less than a month from then, classmates would steal the whip when the faculty was preoccupied and whip Grountin; seemingly for the fun of acting like the adults. A month later, the teachers stopped intervening when children used the whip as long as it was aimed at Grountin. In one instance, Grountin unknowingly dodged an unannounced whip attempt, resulting in a little girl getting hit with it instead. He was given two months detention, two months grounding, and all the whipping that the teacher whose class in which it happened; the student who was hit; the student who tried to hit him; the little girl's parents; and his own family could give him over the course of two months. Needless to say, everybody's arms received a thorough workout.

"You're making us strong, boy! Hhnnnn-yaaaahh! Who wants a turn?" Grountin recalled his dad saying back then.

The teacher, while whipping him, hollered in cadence with the whip, "I don't have a high enough salary to have to tolerate your non-sense!"

The victimized young lady, as much as she unquestionably understood the pain of the punishment, nearly threw her back out in order to teach Grountin the lesson of "not moving when someone is whipping him."

Inevitably, somebody noticed the blue spark amidst the whipping. At first, science teachers were the primary adverts of it simply because it seemed like an enjoyable discovery project. Grountin would be whipped daily purely for the sake of scientific research.

Outside of physics classrooms, the students reached the same conclusion that his family did: if it is not constantly appearing, something must be a determinant; thus, began competitive whipping at school. It was essentially a game during recess. The gym teacher would even allow it as part of the course load. There was a leaderboard written in chalk on the side of the building where the whip resided on the inner wall. The only rules were that two witnesses were necessary and that all whippings had to be consecutive successes to count. Grountin was often requested to be one of the witnesses. One of his friends topped the leaderboard by means of conspiracy: one of the other friends just felt like helping; but Grountin, who was recruited to be a fake witness, only felt the need to do so because he was whipped until he acquiesced.

Teachers that became weary of whipping Grountin started delegating the discipline responsibility to their students. It basically became a classroom chore. One teacher even made Grountin whip himself. The entire class giggled at the absurd teenager who would actually do such a thing. Eventually, one of few ingenious kids taught the class pet how to whip Grountin. Everybody chuckled when viewing the ridiculous sight.

Whipping Grountin soon became a social event. People would stand around Grountin's locker with a whip in hand inbetween each period, having casual conversations that broke during strikes, and asking their buddies to count their blue spark streak as it progressed. There was tranquility and unity throughout the halls of the high school as long as Grountin and a whip were present. They just needed to find anything they could consider a misbehavior to justify it.

"Hehe haw haw! Look at that!" snickered Grountin's teacher in one memorable circumstance. "Grountin missed a question on the test. With how often this kid is grounded, there's no excuse! Alright, everybody line up. I reserved the whip for this period. If somebody starts a streak, you let them finish before you ask to go next. Get cracking!"

His only break from his school life was home. The depression further progressed with each blue spark. Grountin was not sure if he was incredibly durable or outright insane, but he did know that one day, the excuses would not be good enough.