“Who are you running from, Criollo?”
The snarky, arrogant voice was all too familiar to Luke. Stiffening and rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he turned around, bag swinging. He wished one of his friends was with him, but the last he saw them was yesterday.
“You. Your stench would make anyone run,” he retorted.
Harker grinned at him, arms crossed. “Where’s your friends?”
“Some place else. They don’t want to see you, like everyone else.”
“Okay, if it’s you that wants to play rough, I’ll quit playing nice,” Harker said maliciously, stepping closer.
“If that’s your definition of nice, I don’t think I’d like to see what your definition of rough is,” Luke snapped.
“Oh, relax, Criollo,” Harker said with a dramatic sigh. “I just want to let you know, Professor Pirelou’s officially banned you from the Tech classroom since yesterday’s explosion.”
Luke’s heart nearly stopped. She can’t do that. “What?”
“You heard me,” Harker nodded impressively.
“But,” Luke protested, his voice, he would shamefully admit, a tempter-throwing three-year-old kid’s whine. “She can’t do that! It was an accident!”
“This is why I wonder how the teachers think you’re a good boy if you blow up laboratories,” Harker said smugly, as if talking to an imaginary audience.
“I didn’t blow it up! At most, I just scorched the walls!”
“Scorch the walls, blow it up, same thing,” Harker sighed melodramatically. “It means you’re a careless idiot.”
Luke’s final restrain of self-control broke. “I am not.”
With that he lunged at Harker.
He didn’t care if there were more than a couple of witnessing students around, didn’t care that he would get in trouble for this, didn’t care everything in his bag was dropping out. All he wanted to do was punch Harker, to get revenge.
Harker dodged. He dove into the crowds. Still, it can’t be easy to hide with those horns of his. Luke chased after him, politely shoving aside students as his feet slapped the ground.
I’m going to kill him.
When I find him…
Luke was mad enough to set fire to the whole corridor. Sparks – of electricity or fire, he couldn’t tell – bounced off his arms. He stomped his foot, childish, he knew, but couldn’t help it.
Standing at the corridor’s turning point, he scanned around, looking for Harker. Stupid irutinb who gave me the slip. Luke had been forced to slow down at the corner, which gave Harker time to run off. Luke wanted to wring his neck.
Grumbling and frustrated, he picked up his fallen books, odds and ends and dumped into his bag, cursing oaths so foul Jiriasa would have washed his mouth with soap.
He hated Harker. It wasn’t the insults, but the way Harker said them, full of disdain and scorn, as if Luke was nothing but something stuck under his shoe. He acted like Luke was a thing, not an actual person.
Roughly stuffing a cylinder into his bag, it slipped out and rolled away. That made Luke even angrier unreasonably. Squatting down, he viciously snatched it up and threw it into his bag, glaring at the floor.
Everyone else was gone. The school bell was ringing. He should be in class. His friends would be wondering where he was.
Yet he was here, in a deserted corridor, throwing a tantrum.
He smacked his hand against the wall to let his feelings out. Today had been going bad enough, what with him cleaning up the refuse chamber Tsalor had made under his desk, leaving his stationery at his dorm, taking the wrong turn, ending up in a totally different section of the school and skipping breakfast.
“Curse it,” He mumbled to himself.
Click.
He straightened, glancing around. What was that? Did I drop something? Then, he saw it. Jaw dropping, he turned around so fast he almost got whiplash.
A part of the wall was sliding away smoothly.
Revealing the entrance to a room.
A secret room.
He stepped closer, tracing the door frame. He smacking the wall probably triggered this, therefore opening up the room. He walked in, entranced. Hypnotized.
The room was like a security guard’s, full of screens. Pipes and wires ran along the walls. Weird instruments and mechanisms fused together was squatting in the heart of the room. As Luke walked in, his footsteps echoed in the metal room.
“Cool,” He breathed, all his worries and grumpiness rushing away. “A secret room. This is awesome!”
Click.
He dropped his bag, startled by the sound of the door sliding close. But he didn’t mind. The room was too interesting, taking his attention from anything else. I can figure out how to get out later.
He crept closer to the center machine. The screens were black, dead. All the machines were off. Hesitating, he reached out, slowly, nervously, to touch the machine with a quivering hand.
Intuition was telling him to find a switch or a button. He ran his hand over it, searching for something to turn it on. He found nothing. Disappointed, he turned around.
Is that a generator?
He scrambled to the corner. Hidden from sight by two screens, the generator was there. But with no power.
I can fix that.
Gleefully excited to see what would happen, he grabbed a part of it. Half of him demanded that he sparked it. Half of him urged him not to. He paused, but curiosity gave in.
He summoned electricity into his palm.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then, the generator jolted and came to life.
Lights flashed. The screens flickered. The machine in the middle began to vibrate. Luke rubbed his hands together.
He didn’t realize what was going on at first.
It finally dawned on him something was showing up on the largest screen as he stepped back.
The top of a humanoid figure was blurrily taking shape. Luke could make out dark hair, small eyes and a hook nose. As the details came into focus, Luke could see it was a man, with a sallow face and a sad expression. Grief.
“Who are you?” Luke asked, surprised.
The machine buzzed. A baritone voice came out of nowhere, slightly interfered by static. “Who awakened me?”
Luke cleared his throat, feeling a bit silly. “Uh…Luke?”
“A Human name,” The man mused. “So long since I heard one.”
“Okay,” Luke said slowly. “But, um, are you a guy in a computer, or just a programmed person?”
“Allow me to show you,” the man said instead.
While the largest screen still showed the man, the rest began to show a building.
“That’s the training base,” Luke recognized.
“I do not know what it is now,” The man said, a little sadly. “But before what it is now, it was a research center.”
The screens zoomed in.
"At the beginning, when the exiled first discovered the magic that constrained them here, they wanted to find a way to undo it," the man explained as the screens flashed scenes of scientists wondering the halls that now was full of students, in the rooms where lessons were now taught.
Luke stared, fascinated. "They failed, didn't they?"
"Yes," the man agreed. "But they made a break through. They didn't have or know about the magic required to undo the spell, since only in the past did we have that sort of power. They decided to find souls of the past, to ask them."
"Soul magic by then was already forgotten, but traces of it was still remembered. The oldest masters were called to help. With modern technology, they could find the souls and hopefully communicate to them."
"They say Soul magic is a myth now," Luke mused. "Nowadays Soul magic is pretty much forgotten."
"How disappointing, yet expected,” the man sighed. “Anyway, to do that, they needed a fusion of man and machine."
On the screens, it began to show a room, full of machines and bustling scientists. A bed was in the middle, amid the confusion. On it, lay a thin, gangly man, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed. As if he's asleep.
"They needed a Hlundran for maximum results. None wanted to do it, due to the high risk of death or terrible consequences of failure."
"Wait," Luke interrupted slowly, as it sank in. "You were the Hlundran?"
"I'm afraid so," he replied grievously. "At first, it seemed like an honor to help everyone escape this wretched place. But now, so many lifetimes later, I wonder if made the right choice. All that happened is that I am stuck in this machine forever."
"You mean this machine is you?"
"No; in reality, I died. My soul and brain is simply encased in the machine. The plan was that I could detect any souls around, but the project was abandoned after the whole fiasco about the criminals began. I am here, shut down for always. Forgotten."
"How many years ago was this?" Luke asked. He could feel the man's sorrow. He sacrificed himself, but it only led to eternity in a machine that no one knew about. Regret was his aura.
"I don't know, but perhaps if you could tell me a bit more about the present, how did you find me and how you got me functional again I could try to figure it out."
Luke scratched his ear, like he did when deep in thought. He took a deep breath, and started his story.
As he wound down, the man shook his head. "With a little electricity, you could awaken me. Yet, I feel as if I am fully functional, young one, but your power could not be as great as to do that, could it?"
"I'm not sure," Luke pondered. "Maybe you could try to detect anything? Just to see if you work. If anything goes wrong, I could try and fix you. I won't get hurt, because electricity doesn't really hurt me."
"A good suggestion. I'm afraid I will need help on this though." The man motioned toward the machine, which Luke tentatively walked to. He began to direct instructions to Luke, requesting him to flick a switch or set up some settings.
"Done," Luke announced.
All the screens went blank. Luke felt a twinge of worry. Had I done something wrong?
Then, the screens started flashing scenes and numbers - coordinates - quickly, too fast for Luke to follow. Winding down, the man appeared again, his facial features taut.
"You really have gotten me functional," he said, with some surprise in his voice. “I do detect souls in this school.”
“Obviously,” Luke said. Pride was filling him that he succeeded where no one hadn’t. “I mean, there’s a lot of people in this school.”
“But this is not the usual souls of the living, young one,” the man said gravely.
Luke’s grin and pride collapsed like a house of cards. “What are you talking about?”
“You must alert everyone. All must leave the school within two days. You cannot stay,” the man warned urgently. “The souls I see are not the living. They are the dead.”
“Slow down, I don’t understand-”
“All of you are in danger. You must leave,” he repeated. The screens flickered uneasily.
Luke clenched his first, confused. “But why?”
His question was left hanging.
It looked like his power didn’t last long.
All the screens turned off, the machine stopped whirring.
The man opened his mouth but was cut off as he disappeared.
What was he talking about?
One thing was for sure: Luke would be back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rongo was starting to wonder if he was doing the right thing.
He banged his tray down, sitting next to his foster brother and only other male at the table, Cazerilo. Ecalias was readjusting her barrettes, gazing at her reflection in a spoon. Belriam conversed with Dierlos in low tones. Lu’rinou carefully drank out of her mug, keeping a wary eye on her sisters.
“What’s up?” Cazerilo asked him, seeing his expression. But as Cazerilo was in the habit of talking with a full mouth, which was rather interesting and disgusting to watch, it sounded like “Awsh ah?”
“I need a favor,” Rongo announced, immediately regretting it.
Everyone stopped what they were doing, whipping their heads around to face him. Cazerilo looked startled, Ecalias smug and the rest amazed.
“What sort of favor?” Ecalias inquired. In a stage whisper, she said to her sisters, “I told you he would need our help eventually!”
Rongo ignored her, as did everyone else. Cazerilo went back to stuffing his mouth, but this time his full attention was on him. Lu’rinou and Belriam leaned in closer.
Sweat formed at his brow. He wondered if he was making the right decision. He pushed away his food. “Can you skip lunch?”
“No!” Cazerilo exclaimed at the same time Belriam said, “Sure.”
Lu’rinou rubbed her temples. “What we mean is, yes, we will skip lunch and eat them later if you want a favor.”
Is this how much they accepted me already, enough to drop everything just to do what I want?
Family was an uncomfortable word for Rongo. And he had a good reason for that: his mother didn’t want him. She dumped him at Exterion’s orphanage in order to get rid of him.
The orphanage was horrible. He ran away after some time, to the Other Side where he joined the gang.
So, his whole trashy life was because of his jerk of a mom.
He hadn’t had a family like the Hongoros before; trusting and willing to do anything for each other. It made him awkward, never sure if he would be like them.
He didn’t really believe the Hongoros took him in because they wanted to. Probably because they felt sorry for me.
Maybe his cousins and siblings were going to help him now just to make him feel like family, then later on would forget about him.
But for the first time since being with the Hongoros, he actually felt that maybe, just maybe, they really were family.
“Thanks,” he muttered, feeling glad that they were going to help, along with feeling bad about making them skip lunch.
“No problem,” Belriam answered cheerily. She wrapped her lunch in a clean cloth and did the same for the others, not seeming to mind. Rongo watched her. Would I have done the same?
They all got up and trooped out of the canteen. Ecalias and Dierlos leaned on the wall, listening to Cazerilo bemoan his missing lunch. Lu’rinou scratched her neck sheepishly.
“So where are we going?” She asked.
“Library.”
With that, he began walking, the others following.
Ecalias, Dierlos, Lu’rinou, Cazerilo and Belriam all had their fair share of horrible histories. Yet they could laugh and talk and trust one another so easily. Rongo felt a tiny spark of envy.
Ecalias was thrown to the orphanage the moment she was born. Her birth, her real parents must have considered, was a gigantic mistake. A mistake that could be taken care of by abandoning her. I would bet when the Hongoros first took her in she would be too afraid to do anything wrong for fear of being sent away.
Lu’rinou’s parents worked at the old mine, where they dug for precious metal that Exterion had. She had come home one day to find a Council member there instead of her parents, to tell her the mine collapsed. Maybe this was why she was so clingy, scared that one day if she let go everyone would be gone.
Cazerilo’s parents attempted to care for him for a few months, but being one of the poorest families in Exterion didn’t help. Out of options, he was put into foster care. And it wasn’t like they said goodbye either; he simply woke up one day to find himself in another place.
Belriam was the child that cruel parents like to shuffle out of sight. Always invisible, always alone. She tried to get their attention by getting into trouble or pleasing them, but that didn’t work. Eventually she ran away and was brought to the orphanage. Maybe that explained why she would sometimes act narcissistic.
The Jagr race had super-senses, but Dierlos wasn’t the same. All other senses were blunt, not very good, except for hearing. It seemed more like a curse as every sound in the whole area could be heard by her. Because of that, she was a failure at everything, too distracted and pressured by the noise. Her parents considered her damaged goods and kindly dumped her. What a loving father and mother.
All had their own scars left by their biological family, but they accepted this family easily.
Maybe I could do the same.
Rongo pushed the Library’s doors open and lead them inside. He headed to one of the Library’s many tables and put his bag on it while the rest of them did the same.
Cazerilo flexed his wings. “Why are we here?”
“I have something to explain first,” Rongo finally confessed.
They all took a seat opposite him, intrigued and all ears. “Fire away,” Belriam said pleasantly.
He glanced at them all. Am I really going to do this?
If there’s one thing The Other Side taught me, is that you can’t trust anyone. Not even your family.
He flashed back to a conversation he had with his foster mother, the day before leaving.
Mollenyi had come into his room, carrying a stack of papers and books, to see him sitting on the edge of his bed, aimlessly throwing torn pieces of paper at the wall.
Downstairs were where everyone else was. The banging of pots as his aunt cooked a feast, the usual thudding of Lu’rinou setting down heavy bags, the yelling of Ecalias and Belriam’s fight of who-took-who’s things, the rustling of Dierlos stuffing last-minute items into her bags, the whooshing of Cazerilo flying around, the bumping of his uncle and foster father getting into another accident and the squealing of his younger brother Tioanno’s pets.
“How come you’re not down there?” Mollenyi asked.
“Too noisy,” he said listlessly.
She set down the stack at his table. Rongo’s room was close to bare, nothing more than several junk keepsakes. “I know you’re not feeling like we’re family now, but we are. You can talk to your siblings and cousins anytime you need help.”
Mollenyi’s thoughts on Rongo’s avoidance of speaking to any family members were clearly written on her face. He considered saying nothing, but he wasn’t impolite. “Sure.”
“Dinner’s almost ready,” She sighed. Obviously her new son didn’t want anyone around. “You can’t avoid forever. Your old family may not have wanted you, but you can’t assume everyone is like that.”
If his foster mother had one fault, it was being to blunt. Rongo flicked another piece of paper. “Be down soon.”
He briefly looked at his them again. His foster mother was right. Sooner or later, he would have to start trusting his new family. No tie like the present.
“This is going to be very weird,” He warned them before launching into his story.
He told them how some time ago (time didn’t really have a meaning for him) Luke started talking conversations held by other people in his sleep. He rehashed several of the conversations for them. He finished up by explaining Luke had threatened him if he ever told anyone.
Cazerilo stared at him. “It sounds a little creepy.”
“Of course it is,” Dierlos agreed. “Why is he talking?’
“That’s not what I meant,” Cazerilo corrected. “What’s creepy is Rongo looking at Luke and listening while he sleeps.”
He flinched. It never occurred to him he was doing something that creepy-sounding. “Anyway, I thought maybe I could check the Library if there are any books about, I don’t know, dreams? Maybe it’ll explain what’s going on.”
“And you want us to help you,” Ecalias finished.
“Well then, we better get started,” Belriam said briskly.
Just like that, they all got up and split up, strolling casually to different sections of the library, perusing the shelves.
While Rongo sat there in a stunned stupor.
He shook himself out of it. Amazed by how much he trusted already, the new feeling of acceptance made him sluggish. He finally stood up and walked to the nearest shelf.
“A Study of Extinct Creatures,” He mumbled to himself, running a finger along the book spines. “Scroll Magic Through the Ages, Beginner’s Guide to the Realms, Advanced Arithmetic…”
“This is boring,” he finally admitted to himself after about five minutes. Books were never an interest of mine.
Sighing, he moved on to the next shelf. The books were thicker and older, which meant evenmore inhaled dust. He coughed and spluttered, yanking out three books.
When he finaaly stopped, he brought them to the table. Lu’rinou and Cazerilo were there already, with piled books they were flipping through. Rongo took a seat opposite them.
“The Future: A Hlundran’s Tale…”
“Omens of All Events…”
“The Oracle of the Lost…”
Rongo looked up from his book. “Why did you choose those?”
Lu’rinou shrugged. “Well, you said he was carrying conversations in his sleep, right? Maybe he’s actually seeing real-life happenings in his sleep. You know, like predicting the future.”
Rongo shuddered. “Let’s hope it isn’t. Some of the things he said were something about death.”
Lu’rinou winced. “Forget I said anything.”
Ecalias and Dierlos joined them a few minutes later. They opened the old tomes and got to work along with them. Different subjects were checked, entire books read, but even thirty minutes later they had no luck.
Dierlos closed Encyclopedia of Augury. “There isn’t anything!”
“Maybe your roommate is just crazy,” Ecalias said tiredly.
“There has to be something,” Lu’rinou insisted.
“Tell me when you find it,” Cazerilo yawned. “I’ve read about ten books, and that’s my fill for the whole year.”
“Where’s Belriam?” Ecalias said suddenly.
They whipped their heads around, realizing they hadn’t seen Belriam after they split up. Right at the moment, however, Belriam rushed over, tentacles flying and out of breath.
“I think I found an answer.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke had missed a class when he was at the secret room, and his detention lasted the whole day after classes.
Still, he was determined to go back.
Even though he was sweaty, slouching and sleepy after cleaning the whole canteen.
Okay, fine, maybe he didn’t actually do everything by himself.
He grabbed his bag, moped sweat off his forehead and hurried out of the canteen, jumping to touch the top of the door on the way out. Grease and oil was all over his clothes, but all his clotes that wasn’t the uniform was dirty anyway.
It was peculiar to walk alone in the hallway. Usually it was noisy and crowded, but now the only noise was his footsteps. The silence was eerie. Just to be sure, he checked that there weren’t any creepy ghosts following him.
He retraced his steps that he had walked earlier in the day. It was easy – he simply opened up the screen on his armband to see where he had gone. Like my personal sat-nav.
Because of the amount of students attempting to sneak into the fourth corridor, the teachers had set up a tracker on all their armbands. You couldn’t go anywhere you weren’t supposed to now; your armband would simply show where you were.
Luckily, the secret room wasn’t anywhere in the training base plans, so Luke would’ve gone off the radar for the whole time he was there. He wondered what the professors would make of that.
He scratched his ear, like he did when he was thinking. His mother used to say that was the only way to differentiate him and his twin. Whereas Leo would mess with his hair, Luke scratched his right ear. It was probably a little weird to strangers.
He was standing in front of the wall now.
One last chance to turn back.
Ha. I’m going in.
He slapped his hand on the wall as hard as he could. The door slid open with a click. He stepped in. The door closed.
At first it was dark.
He snapped his fingers and kindled a flame on his fingertip.
And realized he wasn’t the only one here.
A silver staff was pointed at his face, a spear point threatening to turn his face into a horror show of cuts.
A silver staff?
“What are you doing here?” A hard voice demanded.
Luke leaned back as much as possible, to make distance with the staff. “Is it a crime?”
“Lucas Criollo,” The voice said, exhaling.
Luke recognized the voice too. “Uh…can I call you Foliasou?”
He stepped into the light. Foliasou was a couple inches shorter than him, but he was intimidating enough for him to look taller. However, he looked exhausted.
“That will be fine, if you answer why you are here.”
“I will,” Luke promised. “Could you put that thing down?”
Foliasou rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but stowed it away. Luke released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I sort of discovered the room today at morning.”
“What did you do then?”
“I accidentally started whatever this is,” Luke continued. “And he told me to get everyone to leave here.”
Foliasou scowled. “Back up a bit. What do you mean you got it started it? Why did you call it a he? What did it say?”
“You didn’t start it?” Luke asked, surprised.
“Of course not,” Foliasou said sourly. “It’s been broken for years. I found it three years ago, and I’ve been working on it, trying to fix it. No luck.”
“I think it’s just out of power,” Luke said helpfully.
“Whatever,” Folisaou said dismissively. “Go on. Why did you call it a he? What exactly happened?”
“A man appeared on that screen,” Luke said, pointing. “He told me that this used to be a research center. They wanted a machine that could detect souls, but they needed a Hlundran. So they… he said he’s dead, that his soul and brain is in that machine in the middle. The scientists quit so he was stuck there forever”
“Fascinating,” Foliasou murmured. “What else did he say?”
“That there are dead people among us and everyone should evacuate,” Luke said seriously.
“Strange, after all that has happened,” Foliasou trailed off. “Show me how you turned it on.”
Luke felt a twinge of anxiety. What if I can’t do it again? Still, he went up to the generator. He gripped a part of it. Summoned up every bit of electricity he had in him.
Wind howled. I’m generating a miniature storm. He heard Foliasou shouting. A gale whipped his hair around. Sparks flew out of the generator.
This didn’t happen before.
I’m channeling too much.
He jerked his hand away and the storm promptly died. He caught his reflection in the screen; he looked wild. Behind him, Foliasou got to his feet. “Too much.”
“It worked though,” Luke noted, looking at the largest screen.
“We meet again,” the man said, obviously recognizing Luke.
Foliasou staggered. “It really worked.”
“I hope you did as I said,” the man said, oblivious to Foliasou.
“No,” Luke admitted. “One, I’m just a first-year. I don’t have the authority to do that. Two, I’d like an elaborated explanation.”
“It’s too late,” the man said sorrowfully.
The screens flickered. Random scenes showed up then vanished.
“What is too late?!” Foliasou demanded.
He dashed to the machine and hit a button. Numbers and symbols flashed in red. Luke stared at the largest screen in disbelief.