"Are you sure you're all right now?" my girlfriend inquired somewhere around me while I was resting on my sofa. I say 'somewhere' because at the moment I had a damp towel draped over my head while I was lying on my back, with my legs dangling off the side. It wasn't the most dignified of displays, but I still felt a little lightheaded, so I didn't really care.
I'll be frank here: this most recent stunt of mine left me feeling weak, sick, and more than a little freaked out. It was that headache, that infernal pain that felt like it permeated every cell in my body. It was something I could have lived without ever experiencing again, but apparently I wasn't so lucky. At the moment it was gone, but that didn't mean I was fine; my eyes still hurt, my vision was messy, with colours and lights bleeding into one another, and my stomach was still churning. Now granted, this all felt like nothing compared to the headache itself, but it was still bad enough to land me in my current situation with the cool towel and all.
I let out a long sigh and raised a hand to gesture in the general direction from where I last heard Judy's voice.
"Dormouse, please co—" I got this far before my waving palm made contact with something soft, eliciting a surprised noise from my girlfriend before I quickly pulled back. "... Judy, what did I touch just now?"
There was a long moment of silence before she answered with a question of her own. "Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Depends. Would doing so result in comedic shenanigans followed by awkward sexual tension?"
"... Most likely."
"Then I don't want to know. I'm not in the mood for either of those," I told her as firmly as I could under the circumstances.
After that, there were a few more seconds of heavy silence in the air (which, I assure you, didn't contain even one iota of awkward sexual tension) until Judy broke the ice.
"Why did you call for me?"
"Right, that," I mumbled while I tried to clear my thoughts. "While I'm recuperating, I thought we should continue our discussion about my powers." I could hear some rustling nearby, and I was reasonably sure it was Judy getting her phone ready as usual. I waited for her to finish before I continued, "So, ignoring the names you gave them, I have two extra-sensory abilities, I can teleport short distances, I can understand languages I didn't know about, I can engage in ritualistic magic combat humans weren't supposed to be able to do, and on top of all that, I've got a phantom limb that does 'something' that results in... well, let's just say it felt like the entire world whacked me over the head for even trying it. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes," Judy answered while her fingers never stopped tapping on her phone.
"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but all of these seem pretty much all over the place."
"Not all of them," my assistant countered. "Your Far Sight and Chief-sense can be interpreted as psychic abilities."
First I wanted to roll my eyes at her naming sense, but then I realized that it would've been a pretty silly thing to do, considering my eyes were still covered by a towel. As such, I simply said, "I'm still not convinced those even exist."
"Says the person with the ability to teleport around like it's normal."
"Mystic apples and magical oranges," I grumbled back. "Speaking of which though, my teleportation could be magic. As in, the run-of-the-mill kind that others can use. Do you have anything on that?"
"... Why are you asking me?"
"Hey, you are the girl with the photographic memory. Who else am I supposed to ask?"
My assistant may or may not have mumbled something about me being a total, unrepentant slave driver, but ultimately she launched into an explanation anyway.
"We don't have much to go on, as usual. I have a few fragments from the Dracis library and some basic information from the Celestial Hub. First question: From where do you draw your power?"
"... Pardon?"
"Let me reiterate: Where is the energy used by your abilities coming from?"
For a moment I hesitated between upholding my carefully cultivated faux image as a smart person or revealing my confusion, but eventually curiosity won me over and I admitted, "I don't even understand the question. I don't... 'draw' anything from anywhere."
I could swear I heard my girlfriend huff in self-satisfaction, which I graciously ignored as I waited for her to enlighten me.
"As we all know," she began, and I was once again tempted to roll my hidden eyes at the clichéd delivery, "the people of magical persuasion living in this world have three methods of using magic."
"Vocal, kinetic, and harmonic magic," I added, but I only got silence in return. "What?"
"I shook my head," my deadpan girlfriend answered, eliciting a small groan from me.
"This is like our phone talks all over again," I whispered in a voice that wasn't the slightest bit exasperated, I swear, before I asked the most important question: "Why did you shake your head? I thought those were the three basic spellcasting methods and whatnot."
"Yes Chief, but that wasn't what I asked about."
I wanted to protest, but then I thought back on her choice of words, and I only said, "Please do elaborate."
My assistant once again let out a self-satisfied noise that I continued to ignore.
"Those three are the ways to use magic. The source of that magic is different. It's the difference between a power tool and the thing that powers that tool. For the sake of analogy, let's say that each of the magical races is a handyman who has to get through a locked door with their tools. Draconians draw power from their blood, which acts as a huge, heavy-duty battery that can supply their huge drills and saws, but once they run out of charge, it takes a considerable amount of time to recharge it. Abyssals are similar, but their battery is smaller and they use it like a camera flash; they have an intermediary to store power, then they channel it into a capacitor, which allows them to power big tools they would be otherwise unable to use, but only briefly. Knights seem to also use batteries, except they use magical weapons to store power, and they are useless without them. The Magi use the power grid instead. By tapping into these rivers of power they call 'ley lines', they can keep casting spells as long as they please, but once they are unplugged, they can't do anything. Finally, the Celestials have an internal battery too, but it's small, so they use it for powering a WiFi to hack the door instead." There was a brief pause, then she innocently asked, "Which one would describe you the best?"
"... Before I answer that, would you tell me how long it took you to prepare all those analogies?"
"No," she bluntly answered, and as much as I wanted to shake my head in response, I thought better of it and moved on.
"To be honest, neither of them. When I use Far Sight or when I teleport, I do not draw power or expend it anywhere. It's more like… it's like taking a breath or moving a limb. It's natural."
"And that's," my dear assistant began, then stopped for a beat for what I presumed to be a dramatic pause, "why your powers are different from the rest."
"… That's not exactly news," I grumbled, but she either didn't hear it, or she simply ignored me.
"You know Chief, while I understand why you would leave this type of research to me, you should at least read up on some basic magic theory on the Celestial Hub. That way you might have understood how bizarre your abilities are."
"I know already. It doesn't mean they are psychic powers though."
"We cannot exclude the possibility," Judy answered, and her insistence made me wonder if she had spent too much time with the class rep. However, before I could question her about it, her tone took an abrupt turn as she told me, "While I would really love to find out for sure, for the short-term I believe it's more important that you realize that your abilities are strange by local standards. I would even go as far as to call them outside-context. I don't think the others have seen you teleport, but you still drew attention to yourself with your other powers."
"Yeah, yeah, I know…" I answered, slightly downhearted. "I think my ability to see and dispel magic is already out of the bag. Angie knows it, plus the others have seen it when I untied Josh and when I used it against Crowey. Twice."
"I gather that's why you used it so openly to destroy the surveillance in the room."
"Huh? I mean… Yeah, that's exactly why I did so."
After a fairly long pause, Judy simply stated, "That didn't sound very convincing."
It was at this point where I got fed up with not being able to visually express my displeasure at her jabs, so I took the lukewarm towel off my head and gingerly opened my eyes. Looking into any bright light still stung a little, but otherwise I was fine, so I tried to sit up and, to my surprise, I found my dizziness almost completely gone. I blinked a few times, and once I was sure I was fine, I looked at my girlfriend sitting on my favorite comfy chair and I promptly, and finally, rolled my eyes.
"Come on Dormouse. You can't expect me to think of everything, all the time. I don't have your amazing memory, I tend to forget things."
Instead of giving me an immediate counter like I was expecting, my comment seemed to have triggered something in Judy, as her expression slowly darkened. After a few seconds of weird silence she quietly put her phone away and let out a shallow breath, though her face remained as strangely stern as before.
"Chief, I think we need to talk about the meta for a moment."
"You mean, about the prophecies being routes? I remember you mentioning—"
"No, not that," she interrupted me, much to my surprise, and then she warned me, "Do not get side-tracked, or we might forget to talk about it."
"Um… Okay, I don't know what you mean, but it sounds serious, so I'm listening."
Judy lightly nodded and began with a bombshell right away:
"Chief, I think we are being affected by the narrative." I blinked at her and wanted to say it was obvious, but she didn't give me an opportunity, as she continued, "Do you remember what you said not too long ago? How you kept forgetting about your abilities during the incident at the school and you almost died because of it?"
"Yes," I nodded, a little uncertain of what she was getting at. "I…" I wanted to say I reflected on it, but I couldn't really remember when I did that. I felt like I did that. I also reflected on a lot of other things, but I couldn't really recall any of them. As I tried, I felt the cold sweat running down my back. "Now that I think back, things could have been done so much better. I just… I guess I got caught up in the heat of the moment, and—"
"Are you sure?" I got interrupted again. "Are you sure it was just that? Do you remember your Far Sight?"
"Well, of course I do."
"It's a big deal, isn't it?"
"Err… Yes, it is."
"So why did you never use it after our first date and before the fight between Neige and Eleanor?"
That gave me a pause.
"I… I think I just didn't want to think about it? As in, I didn't want magic to be real, so I…" The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.
"Chief," My assistant spoke in a soft voice, as if to soften the coup de grace, "You keep telling me how great my memory is, but… I never really thought about it either. I knew about it, but I never thought about it. Do you know what I mean?"
By this point the cold sweat on my back was running in rivers as I answered, "Our thoughts are being censored?"
"I think it's not so direct," Judy shook her head. "If it was the same kind of perception masking, like how the others don't find the placeholders' behavior strange, we would'nt even be able to notice the discrepancy."
"So it's more like misdirection," I ventured a guess.
"Not just that," Judy told me in a grave voice. "I believe we are affected in multiple ways. For example, I looked at our old notes. I had a lot of time to do that while you were unconscious, and I found that we had all the clues to put together the fact that there were supernatural elements right around the time when we went on our date in the amusement park, even without your Far Sight being revealed."
"Yet we didn't," I said, mostly just to keep the conversation rolling.
"Correct," Judy continued with a nod. "We also never paid much attention to your reaction to Sebastian and Noir."
"Who?"
"… Crowey."
"Ah, right..." I nodded, but then I slightly tilted my head to the side. "What do you mean by 'reaction'?"
"Chief, think about it for a moment."
I did just that. How did I react to those two? Well, when I first met the old butler, I… antagonized him for some reason. No, actually, there was a reason. When I first looked at him, I felt really irritated. Same with Crowey.
"I could have been just subconsciously responding to their power," I told Judy with a frown. "They are both big-shots, and with all those extra-sensory abilities, it's not unlikely that I was simply perceiving them as a threat."
"And you provoke people who you think pose a threat to you?"
"… I have poor impulse control?"
"Chief, I'm serious."
I let out a groan and threw up my hands.
"Okay, so let's presume that the reason why I was immediately irritated by them had nothing to do with the fact that they were both pompous authority figures, but there was some kind of other, underlying reason. Now what?"
"I don't know," Judy said with a shake of her head. "We don't know enough of the narrative that exists to be sure."
"If there is a narrative in the first place."
Judy gave me a look like I just got an elementary math problem completely wrong.
"Chief, it's abundantly clear there is a narrative, and it's subtly steering us. Remember our discussion during the school incident? The whole thing was set up in a way that the authorities couldn't intervene to force us to act."
I took a deep breath and answered, "Let me be the devil's advocate for a moment: We already know that this was a plan by Crowey, and he timed it in a way to make sure he wouldn't have been interrupted by the authorities."
"Yes, it was planned by him," Judy told me with a shallow nod, "and it was executed by Neige. We both saw it happen, but we did nothing to stop it."
"We just talked about that. I just didn't take the situation seriously, and—"
"Don't try to rationalize it," my girlfriend warned me, "You are better than that."
I wanted to retort, but then I closed my mouth and thought about it for a moment, and as I did so, my mind began churning like an active volcano.
I knew about Brang's mission to assassinate me, and while I looked into Fauns, I never made any counter-measures. I was aware of Snowy's weird behavior, her use of magic on school grounds, and I even knew they were leaving soon, but I never connected the dots. On the day of the incident, I had no reason to fight the Chimera, yet I wasted a lot of time trying to kill it, as if doing so was required to save Josh. Then there was the question of me forgetting to use my powers to their fullest. Even if I just recognized them, I used both my precognition and my teleportation very extensively against Brang, yet I repeatedly forgot to utilize them during the incident.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt like Judy was onto something.
"I think you are right. Not only that, this is a huge freaking deal and it was entirely in my blind spot," I finally told her with a weak smile, "Good catch."
"Thank you," she answered with a small smile of her own. "This is why you hired me."
"Indeed," I said as I crossed my arms. "So, if we follow the logic behind what you discovered, where does it lead us?"
"The narrative is rigid," Judy began. "It requires certain things to happen, and if our actions go against them, it creates blind spots and situations to make us follow the script."
"And that takes us back to the prophecies," I said with a frown. "Your hypothesis was that they are routes, right? Like in a game?"
My girlfriend nodded and said, "We don't have enough information to know for sure, but that was the most obvious parallel that came to mind. Joshua is the protagonist. Each female member of the group has a prophecy that revolves around him. It's too much for a coincidence."
"From a meta-perspective, it's obviously not one," I continued where she left off. "If we combine that with the idea that each of the prophecies is 'predicting' a possible future Josh's choices could lead to…"
"It is likely that they are not predictions, but pre-written scenarios being foreshadowed," this time Judy continued my thoughts. "In that case, I believe we must be on the Neige scenario."
That remark made my brows skyrocket and I immediately uttered a stern "No," surprising my girlfriend.
"No?" She asked back, and I could only furrow my brows in answer.
"Honestly… I don't know why, but I have this really strong feeling that Snowy…" I paused for a beat to collect my thoughts, then calmly stated. "I don't know where I heard this or why it feels so obvious, but I think Snowy doesn't have a 'route' so to speak. In fact, I feel like the school incident didn't go the way it was 'supposed' to go either. I mean… I can't really explain. It just feels like it has something to do with Snowy and Josh saving her, and Crowey getting his face burned off, and the Chimera, and…" I fell silent again, this time for a few seconds, and ultimately I let out an annoyed groan and declared, "I don't really know why myself, but it feels like I have this hazy idea that we might have… no, we definitely went off the rails. Do I make any sense?"
For a short while Judy only looked at me curiously, but eventually she simply shrugged her shoulders and told me, "Not much, but I'm already used to it," with a tiny little smirk that probably only I could notice.
"Ouch, that hurt," I responded while imitating her flat tone.
"You'll get used to that," she replied without missing a beat.
I allowed myself a slightly hollow chuckle in response, then asked:
"So then, what should we do now that we are aware that at any given moment some kind of ethereal force could sneakily tweak our perceptions and priorities to uphold some form of narrative flow?"
"Panic?" Judy replied with a completely serious face.
"Nah, it didn't work before, it probably won't work now either," I countered.
"Fall into an existential crisis and cry ourselves into sleep?"
"That's so last season, we need something better."
"I got it," Judy stated emphatically as she raised a hand up high. "We take a ton of notes, scrutinize our every action and reaction, and then try to figure out this narrative and how to beat it?"
I gave her a wide smile and a thumb up.
"That's more like it!" For a few seconds we stayed in the exact same poses until we pretty much just deflated. Heavy topics concerning the meta always took a lot out of me, and this was no exception. As I thought about just how many ways this world could find to casually terrify me, my eyes landed on the clock on the wall and I noticed with a start that it was already past seven in the evening.
"Speaking of Snowy," I spoke up maybe just a wee bit too loud, to clear some of the heavy atmosphere in the room, "It's getting late. I should go and talk to her right about now."
"Are you sure you're well enough for that?" Judy asked with a tinge of worry in her voice. "You still look a little pale."
"All the more reason to go out and get some fresh air," I answered with a toothy smile. "Not to mention, it should help digest this discussion."
It looked like she would protest at first, but in the end she just almost imperceptibly shook her head.
"Take care," she said, then she stood up and took out her phone. "I'll write down what we discussed and make some backups."
At first I almost nodded and left her to her devices, but then I recalled something and I stopped mid-stretch to tell her:
"Could you turn on the water heater in the ground floor bathroom? Also, please prepare some hot cocoa and light snacks while I'm away. I think Snowy will appreciate them."
My girlfriend shot me a glance, then she put her phone back away with a simple 'sure', eliciting another smile from me.
"Thanks, Dormouse. You're still the best."
This time she only responded with a knowing nod as she exited the living room. Meanwhile, I limbered up my legs one more time, just to make sure I completely recovered, and then I headed up to my room. First things first, I took my phone off the charger and checked it for new messages. I had a missed call from Josh, but it was from before he came over, so I dismissed it on the spot.
I also had a text message from Angie asking about my health, so I sent her a message to explain that I was fine and I also asked her about her situation.
I also got several messages from the class rep, half of them inquiring about my condition, the other half apologizing about not being able to visit me while also complaining about being buried under a mountain of paperwork, which may or may not have been the end result of the stunts I pulled off a few nights ago. I sent her a short apology and then finally pocketed my phone and turned towards my wardrobe.
My indoor clothes were fine as they were, as I just put on a fresh set after I took a shower this afternoon, but the weather outside was already flirting with winter, so I looked for a coat to keep me warm. On a cursory examination, I had two black long coats, three black trench coats, something that looked like an honest to goodness duster (also black; figures), and last but not least, a black dress coat with embroidered lapels and fancy metallic buttons. I never wore the last one, by the way.
Yes, my default wardrobe was more than a little monotonous, but I didn't really mind. Ultimately I decided on one of the trench coats and I put it on with practiced motions. It fit me like a glove and was comfortable as usual. I also picked up my spare keys for the front door (my main key was still with Judy) and after making sure I got everything I needed I walked downstairs.
"Chief?" Judy, who just came out of the kitchen with an apron over her clothes, called out to me the moment I got to the living room and gestured for me to go over, so I did just that, "Lean forward."
That line earned her a quizzical eyebrow-raise, but I complied all the same. She then stood on her tippy toes and started combing my hair with her fingers, then once she found my mug satisfying enough, she proceeded to straighten my collar and tug at my sleeves before she took a step back and gave me a full look-over.
She nodded to herself and told me, "All right, now I can let you out into the public without you embarrassing me."
This time I rewarded her with an unsubtle eye-roll and grumbled, "What are you, my mother?"
"No, I'm your girlfriend."
I looked for a good retort, but after a while I just shrugged my shoulder in defeat and said, "True enough," before I beamed a smile at her and added, "Thanks, Dormouse."
"You are welcome." There was a brief pause at this point, after which Judy asked, "So?"
"So what?" I asked back reflexively, earning me a displeased pout from my girlfriend.
"Aren't you supposed to say something here? Or better yet, do something?"
"... I'm... drawing a blank here. What do you mean?"
Instead of answering my question, Judy's shoulders dropped and she let out a clearly disappointed sigh, which made me twitch just by how overt it was, then she told me, "You are still horrible at reading the mood."
I raised my hand and awkwardly scratched my chin with a tentative 'Sorry' on the tip of my tongue, but then she gestured for me to lean forward again, and when I did so, she planted a quick peck on my left cheek.
"Stay safe," she said to me, and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Will do," I answered with a completely plain and normal smile as I headed for the front door, only to stop as Judy called out to me one more time.
"When should I expect you back?"
I thought about that for a long moment before I replied, "Snowy doesn't seem to be too far away based on Far Sight. I'm also going to experiment with my teleportation on the way there; I might even discover something new. Either way, I should get there quick, but then I'll have a talk with Snowy, and as for the return trip, if we catch a taxi... Let's say two hours, give or take thirty minutes."
"Okay. Give me a call when you are on your way back."
I gave my unusually fussy girlfriend a slightly exasperated glance and then waved her goodbye and left the house through the front door.
The cool mid-autumn air felt pleasant on my skin, and the evening sky was scenic as usual. I reflexively made my way towards the usual intersection, and a casual glance was able to show me that things haven't changed much since the first day I woke up and walked down these roads. Things were still squeaky clean even after close to two months, and while the number of placeholders and cars has increased over time, it wasn't drastic enough to warrant any surprise.
Maybe that was the reason why I pretty much immediately noticed that I was being shadowed by not one, not two, but three different sneaky individuals. Well, at the very least I was sure they thought they were sneaky, but they were not only very conspicuous in their actions, but all three of them were glowing with magic, so I could probably see them even in complete darkness.
Now, in their defense, they had no way to know that I could see magic, or that their stereotypical sneaking about made them stick out like a sore thumb, or that I was a really observant guy whose attention no small detail could ever hope to escape. Then I rounded a corner, and I immediately bumped into someone because I wasn't paying attention. In fact, I bumped into three people. Three familiar people.
"Hey, watch where ya goi—" The big guy in the middle, followed by a tall and a short one, began to grumble, but then he looked at me and his lips curled into a huge grin. "HA! Look, guys, it's him! I found him!"
I blinked in surprise, but then I immediately buried my face in one hand while raising the other up to halt the goldfish poop gang on their tracks before they could gather momentum.
"Stop!" I told them in a stern voice and then after taking a deep breath, I looked the three in the eye. "Okay, listen up guys: I'm in a hurry. I promised my girlfriend—"
"Which one? The blonde or the brunette?" the short one interjected, but then he fell silent after I sent a scathing glare his way.
"The brunette one, but it doesn't matter," I answered with no small amount of irritation. "As I said, I promised her to do something and get home ASAP, so I don't have the time to waste on you." I gave each one of them a separate warning glare, then I continued with, "So, here's what we are going to do: You are going to tell me your new naming scheme, I will make fun of you, and then you leave me alone? Deal?"
"Why do you have to make fun of us?" the tall one with the high-pitched nasal voice protested. "You are mean!"
"Yea, ya are a bully!" seconded the short one, but I ignored them and scowled at the leader with the pompadour in the middle and urged him to say his piece.
The guy gave me a weird look in return, but then he cleared his throat and said, "I am ProTony." I must have given him a weird look without me noticing, as he immediately became flustered and added, "Like, it's a combination of 'proton' and 'Tony'."
"So you are going with particles this time," I nodded, slightly frustrated. "That means the small guy is something-something electron, and you two are attracted to each other, but the tall one is the neutron who keeps your group stable and unable to act upon your attraction. Insert joke about unresolved sexual tension here, yada-yada. Am I right so far?"
"What? No! I mean, yes on the particles but no on everything else!" 'ProTony' or whatnot protested, but I simply ignored him.
"Whatever. I've done my part, I made fun of you; now go lick your imaginary wounds and let me get going on my way."
The three of them looked between each other for a few seconds, then their shoulders drooped in unison and they shuffled aside to allow me to pass, and when I did so, the tall one muttered something about me being a 'real mean bully' or something. I didn't care though. I kept walking without looking back, and after I was sure I was out of earshot, I let out a tired groan. Okay, fine, I did care a tiny bit. I mean, this was these poor guys' whole thing, so I felt a little bad for ignoring their raison d'etre like that, but come on! There was a time and place for everything, and this was neither one nor the other.
But speaking of place, I quickly used Far Sight to see which way I was supposed to go to get to Snowy's hidey-hole. While it was convenient to be able to tell her general direction, it wasn't exactly a GPS navigation system; I didn't know the exact location, nor how to get there. Still, it was better than nothing, so I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on the red dot on the edge of my vision. With now practiced motions (if you can call them that), I extended my consciousness towards the dot, and after a short moment I (or rather, my point of view) was inside the dark hotel room I saw earlier. Apparently Snowy hadn't left the place.
With that, I once again had a rough idea of the direction where I was supposed to be going, so I looked for a quiet back alley where I could get out of the sight of my unwanted shadows just long enough for me to start teleporting. Of course, the suburbs had none of those, so I took a small detour towards the shopping district where I was reasonably sure I could find some abandoned backstreet. It took me about ten minutes to get there and about five more to find a suitably secluded place, but once I was certain no one was looking at me, I hurriedly got ready to teleport. I was just about to start when I abruptly stopped myself.
As for why… I had a weird feeling. Or rather, the weird part was that it was a familiar feeling. Now, I'm the first to admit that I never really thought about the mechanics of my teleportation when in the heat of the situation back at the school, but since I wasn't under any serious time constraints at the moment, I allowed my senses to dwell on the process, and I noticed something peculiar. When I initiated my teleportation, for a very short time I became very distinctly aware of literally everything in my environment in a bubble of about ten meters in diameter around me. That wasn't the weird part. I mean, yes, it was weird, but it was somehow intuitive. However, the part that surprised me was how similar the feeling was to something else I felt just a few minutes ago.
I closed my eyes again and quickly brought forth my Far Sight one more time. First I focused on Snowy, and in a moment I was in the hotel room. Then I focused on Judy, and after a quick shift of the world around me, I was looking at her washing the dishes at my place. I made a mental note to tell her that the theoretical ninja maids would take care of them even if she left them alone, but that was for another time. For now, I focused on Snowy again, and I was in the hotel room for the third time.
"It's the same," I whispered in utter astonishment.
I looked around and focused on the interior of the place. I could perceive the furniture. I could perceive the walls. I could perceive the things behind the walls. As for the distance, it was in a bubble roughly ten meters in diameter centered on the girl huddled under the blankets on the bed.
Coincidence? There was no way this could be one.
I only hesitated for a moment. I swiftly glanced at the mouth of the alleyway between the buildings, and I didn't see any of my stalkers, so I inhaled a huge breath and closed my eyes again. In a moment, I was in the hotel room once again. Then another moment later, I was in the hotel room, period.
There was no fanfare, no headache, and only a tiny bit of dizziness that lasted for a few short seconds. In the literal blink of an eye, I suddenly found myself teleported across a vast distance the same way I had teleported a few meters to appear behind Judy not so long ago. Now, common sense told me that both of those were patently impossible and freaky, but my finely honed uncommon sense then told me that the whole 'being able to freely teleport to any place I can see with Far Sight' was an absolute bullshit ability of epic proportions cut way above the rest.
Anyways, I spent a few seconds forcefully calming myself, then I remembered that I stopped breathing, so I softly exhaled the lungful of air I took back in the alley. When I did that, Snowy shuddered in the bed and timidly poked her head out of under the bedsheets.
"Leo?" she asked with a weak, uncertain voice, and now that I could see her, I had to conclude that the rings under her eyes gave Josh a run for his money in the haggard department.
"Hi, Snowy," I answered her with a smile. I expected her to freak out, but instead she returned the gesture ever so feebly.
"I didn't think it would be so soon," she stated while her smile slowly distorted into a heartbreakingly pitiful grimace. "I didn't think I would be seeing things after not sleeping for just a few days."
"You haven't slept for days?" I asked as concern tugged my brows up, but she didn't react.
"I'm sorry, Leo," she muttered almost deliriously as a steadily rising stream of tears began to roll down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."
"It's fine," I told her while I took a few steps towards her, "It wasn't your fault. I know you were forced by your brother."
Snowy kept looking me in the eye with a distorted expression, then she began to chuckle even as it made her face look even worse.
"Even in my delusions, you are so nice to me. You… were… so nice…" As she continued, her voice became a stuttering mess drowned out by soft sobs, "I didn't want to… I didn't… want to hurt you… I didn't want to kill you!" She finally cried just as I reached the edge of her bed, at which point I sat down; the sudden bounce in the mattress prompting her to stop with a blank look on her face. The abrupt change in her expression was a little startling, but to be honest, I was just relieved she stopped sobbing. I hesitated for a moment, but then I raised my hand and tried to wipe away her tears with my fingers. At first she flinched back a little, but then her eyes opened even further.
"You… touched me."
"Yes, I did. Do you have a handkerchief or something here? Or some tissues? Your nose is running."
She ignored my question and instead she reached out a hand and gingerly poked my shoulder. She blinked at me a few times, then she timidly asked, "Are you… haunting me?"
I gave her a long, critical look, but since she didn't seem to get it, I just rolled my eyes and used the corner of her bed sheet to wipe her nose while telling her, "Do I look like a ghost to you?"
"But… But I saw it!" she suddenly exclaimed, startling me for a moment. "You collapsed outside the school! And there was so much blood!"
"Well, I got better," I replied to her with what I hoped was a soothing smile.
"But… But… But… Why are you here!?"
She was getting a little hysterical, so I placed my hand on the top of her head and softly rustled her hair. Head pats already worked once this day, and they didn't fail me this time either, as she immediately quieted down.
"I'm here to take you home," I told her reassuringly.
"To… the Abyss?" She asked tentatively, and I shook my head.
"Don't be silly," I told her while rubbing her head a little harder. "I meant my place, obviously. Judy should be preparing the bath and making you a nice cup of hot cocoa as we speak. So, do you wanna come with me?"
The white-haired girl stared at me with wide-open eyes for a second, and before I could even react to it, she suddenly threw herself at me so hard she almost pushed me off the edge of the bed, and then her slender arms caught me like a vice as she hugged me and began to bawl into my chest.
"Whoa! Easy there, easy…" I soothed her to no avail, and no matter how much I rubbed her head and back, she didn't stop crying and holding on to me like she was afraid I would disappear in a puff of smoke. After a few minutes, I finally let out a sigh and gave up. I wasn't late from anywhere anyway. In fact, with my newest discovery, I doubted I will be late ever again, but that was beside the point, so for the time being I decided to indulge her and let her get all of it out of her system.
"Are you sure you're all right now?" my girlfriend inquired somewhere around me while I was resting on my sofa. I say 'somewhere' because at the moment I had a damp towel draped over my head while I was lying on my back, with my legs dangling off the side. It wasn't the most dignified of displays, but I still felt a little lightheaded, so I didn't really care.
I'll be frank here: this most recent stunt of mine left me feeling weak, sick, and more than a little freaked out. It was that headache, that infernal pain that felt like it permeated every cell in my body. It was something I could have lived without ever experiencing again, but apparently I wasn't so lucky. At the moment it was gone, but that didn't mean I was fine; my eyes still hurt, my vision was messy, with colours and lights bleeding into one another, and my stomach was still churning. Now granted, this all felt like nothing compared to the headache itself, but it was still bad enough to land me in my current situation with the cool towel and all.
I let out a long sigh and raised a hand to gesture in the general direction from where I last heard Judy's voice.
"Dormouse, please co—" I got this far before my waving palm made contact with something soft, eliciting a surprised noise from my girlfriend before I quickly pulled back. "... Judy, what did I touch just now?"
There was a long moment of silence before she answered with a question of her own. "Do you really want me to tell you?"
"Depends. Would doing so result in comedic shenanigans followed by awkward sexual tension?"
"... Most likely."
"Then I don't want to know. I'm not in the mood for either of those," I told her as firmly as I could under the circumstances.
After that, there were a few more seconds of heavy silence in the air (which, I assure you, didn't contain even one iota of awkward sexual tension) until Judy broke the ice.
"Why did you call for me?"
"Right, that," I mumbled while I tried to clear my thoughts. "While I'm recuperating, I thought we should continue our discussion about my powers." I could hear some rustling nearby, and I was reasonably sure it was Judy getting her phone ready as usual. I waited for her to finish before I continued, "So, ignoring the names you gave them, I have two extra-sensory abilities, I can teleport short distances, I can understand languages I didn't know about, I can engage in ritualistic magic combat humans weren't supposed to be able to do, and on top of all that, I've got a phantom limb that does 'something' that results in... well, let's just say it felt like the entire world whacked me over the head for even trying it. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes," Judy answered while her fingers never stopped tapping on her phone.
"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but all of these seem pretty much all over the place."
"Not all of them," my assistant countered. "Your Far Sight and Chief-sense can be interpreted as psychic abilities."
First I wanted to roll my eyes at her naming sense, but then I realized that it would've been a pretty silly thing to do, considering my eyes were still covered by a towel. As such, I simply said, "I'm still not convinced those even exist."
"Says the person with the ability to teleport around like it's normal."
"Mystic apples and magical oranges," I grumbled back. "Speaking of which though, my teleportation could be magic. As in, the run-of-the-mill kind that others can use. Do you have anything on that?"
"... Why are you asking me?"
"Hey, you are the girl with the photographic memory. Who else am I supposed to ask?"
My assistant may or may not have mumbled something about me being a total, unrepentant slave driver, but ultimately she launched into an explanation anyway.
"We don't have much to go on, as usual. I have a few fragments from the Dracis library and some basic information from the Celestial Hub. First question: From where do you draw your power?"
"... Pardon?"
"Let me reiterate: Where is the energy used by your abilities coming from?"
For a moment I hesitated between upholding my carefully cultivated faux image as a smart person or revealing my confusion, but eventually curiosity won me over and I admitted, "I don't even understand the question. I don't... 'draw' anything from anywhere."
I could swear I heard my girlfriend huff in self-satisfaction, which I graciously ignored as I waited for her to enlighten me.
"As we all know," she began, and I was once again tempted to roll my hidden eyes at the clichéd delivery, "the people of magical persuasion living in this world have three methods of using magic."
"Vocal, kinetic, and harmonic magic," I added, but I only got silence in return. "What?"
"I shook my head," my deadpan girlfriend answered, eliciting a small groan from me.
"This is like our phone talks all over again," I whispered in a voice that wasn't the slightest bit exasperated, I swear, before I asked the most important question: "Why did you shake your head? I thought those were the three basic spellcasting methods and whatnot."
"Yes Chief, but that wasn't what I asked about."
I wanted to protest, but then I thought back on her choice of words, and I only said, "Please do elaborate."
My assistant once again let out a self-satisfied noise that I continued to ignore.
"Those three are the ways to use magic. The source of that magic is different. It's the difference between a power tool and the thing that powers that tool. For the sake of analogy, let's say that each of the magical races is a handyman who has to get through a locked door with their tools. Draconians draw power from their blood, which acts as a huge, heavy-duty battery that can supply their huge drills and saws, but once they run out of charge, it takes a considerable amount of time to recharge it. Abyssals are similar, but their battery is smaller and they use it like a camera flash; they have an intermediary to store power, then they channel it into a capacitor, which allows them to power big tools they would be otherwise unable to use, but only briefly. Knights seem to also use batteries, except they use magical weapons to store power, and they are useless without them. The Magi use the power grid instead. By tapping into these rivers of power they call 'ley lines', they can keep casting spells as long as they please, but once they are unplugged, they can't do anything. Finally, the Celestials have an internal battery too, but it's small, so they use it for powering a WiFi to hack the door instead." There was a brief pause, then she innocently asked, "Which one would describe you the best?"
"... Before I answer that, would you tell me how long it took you to prepare all those analogies?"
"No," she bluntly answered, and as much as I wanted to shake my head in response, I thought better of it and moved on.
"To be honest, neither of them. When I use Far Sight or when I teleport, I do not draw power or expend it anywhere. It's more like… it's like taking a breath or moving a limb. It's natural."
"And that's," my dear assistant began, then stopped for a beat for what I presumed to be a dramatic pause, "why your powers are different from the rest."
"… That's not exactly news," I grumbled, but she either didn't hear it, or she simply ignored me.
"You know Chief, while I understand why you would leave this type of research to me, you should at least read up on some basic magic theory on the Celestial Hub. That way you might have understood how bizarre your abilities are."
"I know already. It doesn't mean they are psychic powers though."
"We cannot exclude the possibility," Judy answered, and her insistence made me wonder if she had spent too much time with the class rep. However, before I could question her about it, her tone took an abrupt turn as she told me, "While I would really love to find out for sure, for the short-term I believe it's more important that you realize that your abilities are strange by local standards. I would even go as far as to call them outside-context. I don't think the others have seen you teleport, but you still drew attention to yourself with your other powers."
"Yeah, yeah, I know…" I answered, slightly downhearted. "I think my ability to see and dispel magic is already out of the bag. Angie knows it, plus the others have seen it when I untied Josh and when I used it against Crowey. Twice."
"I gather that's why you used it so openly to destroy the surveillance in the room."
"Huh? I mean… Yeah, that's exactly why I did so."
After a fairly long pause, Judy simply stated, "That didn't sound very convincing."
It was at this point where I got fed up with not being able to visually express my displeasure at her jabs, so I took the lukewarm towel off my head and gingerly opened my eyes. Looking into any bright light still stung a little, but otherwise I was fine, so I tried to sit up and, to my surprise, I found my dizziness almost completely gone. I blinked a few times, and once I was sure I was fine, I looked at my girlfriend sitting on my favorite comfy chair and I promptly, and finally, rolled my eyes.
"Come on Dormouse. You can't expect me to think of everything, all the time. I don't have your amazing memory, I tend to forget things."
Instead of giving me an immediate counter like I was expecting, my comment seemed to have triggered something in Judy, as her expression slowly darkened. After a few seconds of weird silence she quietly put her phone away and let out a shallow breath, though her face remained as strangely stern as before.
"Chief, I think we need to talk about the meta for a moment."
"You mean, about the prophecies being routes? I remember you mentioning—"
"No, not that," she interrupted me, much to my surprise, and then she warned me, "Do not get side-tracked, or we might forget to talk about it."
"Um… Okay, I don't know what you mean, but it sounds serious, so I'm listening."
Judy lightly nodded and began with a bombshell right away:
"Chief, I think we are being affected by the narrative." I blinked at her and wanted to say it was obvious, but she didn't give me an opportunity, as she continued, "Do you remember what you said not too long ago? How you kept forgetting about your abilities during the incident at the school and you almost died because of it?"
"Yes," I nodded, a little uncertain of what she was getting at. "I…" I wanted to say I reflected on it, but I couldn't really remember when I did that. I felt like I did that. I also reflected on a lot of other things, but I couldn't really recall any of them. As I tried, I felt the cold sweat running down my back. "Now that I think back, things could have been done so much better. I just… I guess I got caught up in the heat of the moment, and—"
"Are you sure?" I got interrupted again. "Are you sure it was just that? Do you remember your Far Sight?"
"Well, of course I do."
"It's a big deal, isn't it?"
"Err… Yes, it is."
"So why did you never use it after our first date and before the fight between Neige and Eleanor?"
That gave me a pause.
"I… I think I just didn't want to think about it? As in, I didn't want magic to be real, so I…" The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.
"Chief," My assistant spoke in a soft voice, as if to soften the coup de grace, "You keep telling me how great my memory is, but… I never really thought about it either. I knew about it, but I never thought about it. Do you know what I mean?"
By this point the cold sweat on my back was running in rivers as I answered, "Our thoughts are being censored?"
"I think it's not so direct," Judy shook her head. "If it was the same kind of perception masking, like how the others don't find the placeholders' behavior strange, we would'nt even be able to notice the discrepancy."
"So it's more like misdirection," I ventured a guess.
"Not just that," Judy told me in a grave voice. "I believe we are affected in multiple ways. For example, I looked at our old notes. I had a lot of time to do that while you were unconscious, and I found that we had all the clues to put together the fact that there were supernatural elements right around the time when we went on our date in the amusement park, even without your Far Sight being revealed."
"Yet we didn't," I said, mostly just to keep the conversation rolling.
"Correct," Judy continued with a nod. "We also never paid much attention to your reaction to Sebastian and Noir."
"Who?"
"… Crowey."
"Ah, right..." I nodded, but then I slightly tilted my head to the side. "What do you mean by 'reaction'?"
"Chief, think about it for a moment."
I did just that. How did I react to those two? Well, when I first met the old butler, I… antagonized him for some reason. No, actually, there was a reason. When I first looked at him, I felt really irritated. Same with Crowey.
"I could have been just subconsciously responding to their power," I told Judy with a frown. "They are both big-shots, and with all those extra-sensory abilities, it's not unlikely that I was simply perceiving them as a threat."
"And you provoke people who you think pose a threat to you?"
"… I have poor impulse control?"
"Chief, I'm serious."
I let out a groan and threw up my hands.
"Okay, so let's presume that the reason why I was immediately irritated by them had nothing to do with the fact that they were both pompous authority figures, but there was some kind of other, underlying reason. Now what?"
"I don't know," Judy said with a shake of her head. "We don't know enough of the narrative that exists to be sure."
"If there is a narrative in the first place."
Judy gave me a look like I just got an elementary math problem completely wrong.
"Chief, it's abundantly clear there is a narrative, and it's subtly steering us. Remember our discussion during the school incident? The whole thing was set up in a way that the authorities couldn't intervene to force us to act."
I took a deep breath and answered, "Let me be the devil's advocate for a moment: We already know that this was a plan by Crowey, and he timed it in a way to make sure he wouldn't have been interrupted by the authorities."
"Yes, it was planned by him," Judy told me with a shallow nod, "and it was executed by Neige. We both saw it happen, but we did nothing to stop it."
"We just talked about that. I just didn't take the situation seriously, and—"
"Don't try to rationalize it," my girlfriend warned me, "You are better than that."
I wanted to retort, but then I closed my mouth and thought about it for a moment, and as I did so, my mind began churning like an active volcano.
I knew about Brang's mission to assassinate me, and while I looked into Fauns, I never made any counter-measures. I was aware of Snowy's weird behavior, her use of magic on school grounds, and I even knew they were leaving soon, but I never connected the dots. On the day of the incident, I had no reason to fight the Chimera, yet I wasted a lot of time trying to kill it, as if doing so was required to save Josh. Then there was the question of me forgetting to use my powers to their fullest. Even if I just recognized them, I used both my precognition and my teleportation very extensively against Brang, yet I repeatedly forgot to utilize them during the incident.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt like Judy was onto something.
"I think you are right. Not only that, this is a huge freaking deal and it was entirely in my blind spot," I finally told her with a weak smile, "Good catch."
"Thank you," she answered with a small smile of her own. "This is why you hired me."
"Indeed," I said as I crossed my arms. "So, if we follow the logic behind what you discovered, where does it lead us?"
"The narrative is rigid," Judy began. "It requires certain things to happen, and if our actions go against them, it creates blind spots and situations to make us follow the script."
"And that takes us back to the prophecies," I said with a frown. "Your hypothesis was that they are routes, right? Like in a game?"
My girlfriend nodded and said, "We don't have enough information to know for sure, but that was the most obvious parallel that came to mind. Joshua is the protagonist. Each female member of the group has a prophecy that revolves around him. It's too much for a coincidence."
"From a meta-perspective, it's obviously not one," I continued where she left off. "If we combine that with the idea that each of the prophecies is 'predicting' a possible future Josh's choices could lead to…"
"It is likely that they are not predictions, but pre-written scenarios being foreshadowed," this time Judy continued my thoughts. "In that case, I believe we must be on the Neige scenario."
That remark made my brows skyrocket and I immediately uttered a stern "No," surprising my girlfriend.
"No?" She asked back, and I could only furrow my brows in answer.
"Honestly… I don't know why, but I have this really strong feeling that Snowy…" I paused for a beat to collect my thoughts, then calmly stated. "I don't know where I heard this or why it feels so obvious, but I think Snowy doesn't have a 'route' so to speak. In fact, I feel like the school incident didn't go the way it was 'supposed' to go either. I mean… I can't really explain. It just feels like it has something to do with Snowy and Josh saving her, and Crowey getting his face burned off, and the Chimera, and…" I fell silent again, this time for a few seconds, and ultimately I let out an annoyed groan and declared, "I don't really know why myself, but it feels like I have this hazy idea that we might have… no, we definitely went off the rails. Do I make any sense?"
For a short while Judy only looked at me curiously, but eventually she simply shrugged her shoulders and told me, "Not much, but I'm already used to it," with a tiny little smirk that probably only I could notice.
"Ouch, that hurt," I responded while imitating her flat tone.
"You'll get used to that," she replied without missing a beat.
I allowed myself a slightly hollow chuckle in response, then asked:
"So then, what should we do now that we are aware that at any given moment some kind of ethereal force could sneakily tweak our perceptions and priorities to uphold some form of narrative flow?"
"Panic?" Judy replied with a completely serious face.
"Nah, it didn't work before, it probably won't work now either," I countered.
"Fall into an existential crisis and cry ourselves into sleep?"
"That's so last season, we need something better."
"I got it," Judy stated emphatically as she raised a hand up high. "We take a ton of notes, scrutinize our every action and reaction, and then try to figure out this narrative and how to beat it?"
I gave her a wide smile and a thumb up.
"That's more like it!" For a few seconds we stayed in the exact same poses until we pretty much just deflated. Heavy topics concerning the meta always took a lot out of me, and this was no exception. As I thought about just how many ways this world could find to casually terrify me, my eyes landed on the clock on the wall and I noticed with a start that it was already past seven in the evening.
"Speaking of Snowy," I spoke up maybe just a wee bit too loud, to clear some of the heavy atmosphere in the room, "It's getting late. I should go and talk to her right about now."
"Are you sure you're well enough for that?" Judy asked with a tinge of worry in her voice. "You still look a little pale."
"All the more reason to go out and get some fresh air," I answered with a toothy smile. "Not to mention, it should help digest this discussion."
It looked like she would protest at first, but in the end she just almost imperceptibly shook her head.
"Take care," she said, then she stood up and took out her phone. "I'll write down what we discussed and make some backups."
At first I almost nodded and left her to her devices, but then I recalled something and I stopped mid-stretch to tell her:
"Could you turn on the water heater in the ground floor bathroom? Also, please prepare some hot cocoa and light snacks while I'm away. I think Snowy will appreciate them."
My girlfriend shot me a glance, then she put her phone back away with a simple 'sure', eliciting another smile from me.
"Thanks, Dormouse. You're still the best."
This time she only responded with a knowing nod as she exited the living room. Meanwhile, I limbered up my legs one more time, just to make sure I completely recovered, and then I headed up to my room. First things first, I took my phone off the charger and checked it for new messages. I had a missed call from Josh, but it was from before he came over, so I dismissed it on the spot.
I also had a text message from Angie asking about my health, so I sent her a message to explain that I was fine and I also asked her about her situation.
I also got several messages from the class rep, half of them inquiring about my condition, the other half apologizing about not being able to visit me while also complaining about being buried under a mountain of paperwork, which may or may not have been the end result of the stunts I pulled off a few nights ago. I sent her a short apology and then finally pocketed my phone and turned towards my wardrobe.
My indoor clothes were fine as they were, as I just put on a fresh set after I took a shower this afternoon, but the weather outside was already flirting with winter, so I looked for a coat to keep me warm. On a cursory examination, I had two black long coats, three black trench coats, something that looked like an honest to goodness duster (also black; figures), and last but not least, a black dress coat with embroidered lapels and fancy metallic buttons. I never wore the last one, by the way.
Yes, my default wardrobe was more than a little monotonous, but I didn't really mind. Ultimately I decided on one of the trench coats and I put it on with practiced motions. It fit me like a glove and was comfortable as usual. I also picked up my spare keys for the front door (my main key was still with Judy) and after making sure I got everything I needed I walked downstairs.
"Chief?" Judy, who just came out of the kitchen with an apron over her clothes, called out to me the moment I got to the living room and gestured for me to go over, so I did just that, "Lean forward."
That line earned her a quizzical eyebrow-raise, but I complied all the same. She then stood on her tippy toes and started combing my hair with her fingers, then once she found my mug satisfying enough, she proceeded to straighten my collar and tug at my sleeves before she took a step back and gave me a full look-over.
She nodded to herself and told me, "All right, now I can let you out into the public without you embarrassing me."
This time I rewarded her with an unsubtle eye-roll and grumbled, "What are you, my mother?"
"No, I'm your girlfriend."
I looked for a good retort, but after a while I just shrugged my shoulder in defeat and said, "True enough," before I beamed a smile at her and added, "Thanks, Dormouse."
"You are welcome." There was a brief pause at this point, after which Judy asked, "So?"
"So what?" I asked back reflexively, earning me a displeased pout from my girlfriend.
"Aren't you supposed to say something here? Or better yet, do something?"
"... I'm... drawing a blank here. What do you mean?"
Instead of answering my question, Judy's shoulders dropped and she let out a clearly disappointed sigh, which made me twitch just by how overt it was, then she told me, "You are still horrible at reading the mood."
I raised my hand and awkwardly scratched my chin with a tentative 'Sorry' on the tip of my tongue, but then she gestured for me to lean forward again, and when I did so, she planted a quick peck on my left cheek.
"Stay safe," she said to me, and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Will do," I answered with a completely plain and normal smile as I headed for the front door, only to stop as Judy called out to me one more time.
"When should I expect you back?"
I thought about that for a long moment before I replied, "Snowy doesn't seem to be too far away based on Far Sight. I'm also going to experiment with my teleportation on the way there; I might even discover something new. Either way, I should get there quick, but then I'll have a talk with Snowy, and as for the return trip, if we catch a taxi... Let's say two hours, give or take thirty minutes."
"Okay. Give me a call when you are on your way back."
I gave my unusually fussy girlfriend a slightly exasperated glance and then waved her goodbye and left the house through the front door.
The cool mid-autumn air felt pleasant on my skin, and the evening sky was scenic as usual. I reflexively made my way towards the usual intersection, and a casual glance was able to show me that things haven't changed much since the first day I woke up and walked down these roads. Things were still squeaky clean even after close to two months, and while the number of placeholders and cars has increased over time, it wasn't drastic enough to warrant any surprise.
Maybe that was the reason why I pretty much immediately noticed that I was being shadowed by not one, not two, but three different sneaky individuals. Well, at the very least I was sure they thought they were sneaky, but they were not only very conspicuous in their actions, but all three of them were glowing with magic, so I could probably see them even in complete darkness.
Now, in their defense, they had no way to know that I could see magic, or that their stereotypical sneaking about made them stick out like a sore thumb, or that I was a really observant guy whose attention no small detail could ever hope to escape. Then I rounded a corner, and I immediately bumped into someone because I wasn't paying attention. In fact, I bumped into three people. Three familiar people.
"Hey, watch where ya goi—" The big guy in the middle, followed by a tall and a short one, began to grumble, but then he looked at me and his lips curled into a huge grin. "HA! Look, guys, it's him! I found him!"
I blinked in surprise, but then I immediately buried my face in one hand while raising the other up to halt the goldfish poop gang on their tracks before they could gather momentum.
"Stop!" I told them in a stern voice and then after taking a deep breath, I looked the three in the eye. "Okay, listen up guys: I'm in a hurry. I promised my girlfriend—"
"Which one? The blonde or the brunette?" the short one interjected, but then he fell silent after I sent a scathing glare his way.
"The brunette one, but it doesn't matter," I answered with no small amount of irritation. "As I said, I promised her to do something and get home ASAP, so I don't have the time to waste on you." I gave each one of them a separate warning glare, then I continued with, "So, here's what we are going to do: You are going to tell me your new naming scheme, I will make fun of you, and then you leave me alone? Deal?"
"Why do you have to make fun of us?" the tall one with the high-pitched nasal voice protested. "You are mean!"
"Yea, ya are a bully!" seconded the short one, but I ignored them and scowled at the leader with the pompadour in the middle and urged him to say his piece.
The guy gave me a weird look in return, but then he cleared his throat and said, "I am ProTony." I must have given him a weird look without me noticing, as he immediately became flustered and added, "Like, it's a combination of 'proton' and 'Tony'."
"So you are going with particles this time," I nodded, slightly frustrated. "That means the small guy is something-something electron, and you two are attracted to each other, but the tall one is the neutron who keeps your group stable and unable to act upon your attraction. Insert joke about unresolved sexual tension here, yada-yada. Am I right so far?"
"What? No! I mean, yes on the particles but no on everything else!" 'ProTony' or whatnot protested, but I simply ignored him.
"Whatever. I've done my part, I made fun of you; now go lick your imaginary wounds and let me get going on my way."
The three of them looked between each other for a few seconds, then their shoulders drooped in unison and they shuffled aside to allow me to pass, and when I did so, the tall one muttered something about me being a 'real mean bully' or something. I didn't care though. I kept walking without looking back, and after I was sure I was out of earshot, I let out a tired groan. Okay, fine, I did care a tiny bit. I mean, this was these poor guys' whole thing, so I felt a little bad for ignoring their raison d'etre like that, but come on! There was a time and place for everything, and this was neither one nor the other.
But speaking of place, I quickly used Far Sight to see which way I was supposed to go to get to Snowy's hidey-hole. While it was convenient to be able to tell her general direction, it wasn't exactly a GPS navigation system; I didn't know the exact location, nor how to get there. Still, it was better than nothing, so I closed my eyes for a moment and focused on the red dot on the edge of my vision. With now practiced motions (if you can call them that), I extended my consciousness towards the dot, and after a short moment I (or rather, my point of view) was inside the dark hotel room I saw earlier. Apparently Snowy hadn't left the place.
With that, I once again had a rough idea of the direction where I was supposed to be going, so I looked for a quiet back alley where I could get out of the sight of my unwanted shadows just long enough for me to start teleporting. Of course, the suburbs had none of those, so I took a small detour towards the shopping district where I was reasonably sure I could find some abandoned backstreet. It took me about ten minutes to get there and about five more to find a suitably secluded place, but once I was certain no one was looking at me, I hurriedly got ready to teleport. I was just about to start when I abruptly stopped myself.
As for why… I had a weird feeling. Or rather, the weird part was that it was a familiar feeling. Now, I'm the first to admit that I never really thought about the mechanics of my teleportation when in the heat of the situation back at the school, but since I wasn't under any serious time constraints at the moment, I allowed my senses to dwell on the process, and I noticed something peculiar. When I initiated my teleportation, for a very short time I became very distinctly aware of literally everything in my environment in a bubble of about ten meters in diameter around me. That wasn't the weird part. I mean, yes, it was weird, but it was somehow intuitive. However, the part that surprised me was how similar the feeling was to something else I felt just a few minutes ago.
I closed my eyes again and quickly brought forth my Far Sight one more time. First I focused on Snowy, and in a moment I was in the hotel room. Then I focused on Judy, and after a quick shift of the world around me, I was looking at her washing the dishes at my place. I made a mental note to tell her that the theoretical ninja maids would take care of them even if she left them alone, but that was for another time. For now, I focused on Snowy again, and I was in the hotel room for the third time.
"It's the same," I whispered in utter astonishment.
I looked around and focused on the interior of the place. I could perceive the furniture. I could perceive the walls. I could perceive the things behind the walls. As for the distance, it was in a bubble roughly ten meters in diameter centered on the girl huddled under the blankets on the bed.
Coincidence? There was no way this could be one.
I only hesitated for a moment. I swiftly glanced at the mouth of the alleyway between the buildings, and I didn't see any of my stalkers, so I inhaled a huge breath and closed my eyes again. In a moment, I was in the hotel room once again. Then another moment later, I was in the hotel room, period.
There was no fanfare, no headache, and only a tiny bit of dizziness that lasted for a few short seconds. In the literal blink of an eye, I suddenly found myself teleported across a vast distance the same way I had teleported a few meters to appear behind Judy not so long ago. Now, common sense told me that both of those were patently impossible and freaky, but my finely honed uncommon sense then told me that the whole 'being able to freely teleport to any place I can see with Far Sight' was an absolute bullshit ability of epic proportions cut way above the rest.
Anyways, I spent a few seconds forcefully calming myself, then I remembered that I stopped breathing, so I softly exhaled the lungful of air I took back in the alley. When I did that, Snowy shuddered in the bed and timidly poked her head out of under the bedsheets.
"Leo?" she asked with a weak, uncertain voice, and now that I could see her, I had to conclude that the rings under her eyes gave Josh a run for his money in the haggard department.
"Hi, Snowy," I answered her with a smile. I expected her to freak out, but instead she returned the gesture ever so feebly.
"I didn't think it would be so soon," she stated while her smile slowly distorted into a heartbreakingly pitiful grimace. "I didn't think I would be seeing things after not sleeping for just a few days."
"You haven't slept for days?" I asked as concern tugged my brows up, but she didn't react.
"I'm sorry, Leo," she muttered almost deliriously as a steadily rising stream of tears began to roll down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."
"It's fine," I told her while I took a few steps towards her, "It wasn't your fault. I know you were forced by your brother."
Snowy kept looking me in the eye with a distorted expression, then she began to chuckle even as it made her face look even worse.
"Even in my delusions, you are so nice to me. You… were… so nice…" As she continued, her voice became a stuttering mess drowned out by soft sobs, "I didn't want to… I didn't… want to hurt you… I didn't want to kill you!" She finally cried just as I reached the edge of her bed, at which point I sat down; the sudden bounce in the mattress prompting her to stop with a blank look on her face. The abrupt change in her expression was a little startling, but to be honest, I was just relieved she stopped sobbing. I hesitated for a moment, but then I raised my hand and tried to wipe away her tears with my fingers. At first she flinched back a little, but then her eyes opened even further.
"You… touched me."
"Yes, I did. Do you have a handkerchief or something here? Or some tissues? Your nose is running."
She ignored my question and instead she reached out a hand and gingerly poked my shoulder. She blinked at me a few times, then she timidly asked, "Are you… haunting me?"
I gave her a long, critical look, but since she didn't seem to get it, I just rolled my eyes and used the corner of her bed sheet to wipe her nose while telling her, "Do I look like a ghost to you?"
"But… But I saw it!" she suddenly exclaimed, startling me for a moment. "You collapsed outside the school! And there was so much blood!"
"Well, I got better," I replied to her with what I hoped was a soothing smile.
"But… But… But… Why are you here!?"
She was getting a little hysterical, so I placed my hand on the top of her head and softly rustled her hair. Head pats already worked once this day, and they didn't fail me this time either, as she immediately quieted down.
"I'm here to take you home," I told her reassuringly.
"To… the Abyss?" She asked tentatively, and I shook my head.
"Don't be silly," I told her while rubbing her head a little harder. "I meant my place, obviously. Judy should be preparing the bath and making you a nice cup of hot cocoa as we speak. So, do you wanna come with me?"
The white-haired girl stared at me with wide-open eyes for a second, and before I could even react to it, she suddenly threw herself at me so hard she almost pushed me off the edge of the bed, and then her slender arms caught me like a vice as she hugged me and began to bawl into my chest.
"Whoa! Easy there, easy…" I soothed her to no avail, and no matter how much I rubbed her head and back, she didn't stop crying and holding on to me like she was afraid I would disappear in a puff of smoke. After a few minutes, I finally let out a sigh and gave up. I wasn't late from anywhere anyway. In fact, with my newest discovery, I doubted I will be late ever again, but that was beside the point, so for the time being I decided to indulge her and let her get all of it out of her system.
