The Keepers of Azera ( Book 1 of the Keepers Trilogy)

Chapter 5

Every Keeper and Guardian is in the study room on the fourth floor when we enter. The Trainers are nowhere in sight, but that's because they only teach us our lessons. If we have a problem with our homework, we go a member of the older group, or a Guardian.

I pull out my books and sit down at the table with Astrid, Masan, the only boy in my group, and his Guardian. The other Keeper in our group, Alyssa, isn't here. She is a recluse, only emerging from her dorm to eat and attend lessons. Masan fiddles with the atom hanging off of his necklace as his Guardian explains something in his textbook to him. His power is pretty cool. He can shuffle and play with atoms, granting him the ability to alter shapes of otherwise solid objects, and even walk through walls if he messes with the atom structure of him and the wall enough. His family is very stubborn on the traditional ways-which explains his first name- but he's indifferent about it.

Christina, his Guardian looks up. "Hey, Callie!" she says. "How are you today?"

"I'm fine, thanks. How about you, Chris?" Christina had always been weird about her name. She doesn't like her full name, but she prefers to be called a boy name.

She shrugs. "I've been better. Hey James! How's it going?" Chris, not being too good at socialization, tends to repeat her social interactions. It's easy for her to remember facts, so she says that putting acceptable and unacceptable behavior in her mind as facts helps her, but she tends to sound like a robot repeating sentences with little variation, especially with small talk and greetings and farewells.

"I'm okay," James says, sitting down across from her. "Astrid, where's your Guardian?"

"Bathroom," she says without looking from the book she's poring over. Then she sighs. "I don't get it."

"Get what?" I ask, moving over to look over her shoulder. She has her Mathematics book open. As smart as Astrid is, she's never been good at math. If it weren't for me or James, she'd probably be a level below us.

"This," she replies, gesturing to the page. "I don't get any of it."

James gets up to help Astrid. I pull my Literature book out and begin to read the section we were assigned. I finish it quickly and begin my Mathematics, as I have a lot of problems to do. I take a quick ten minute break before doing my History homework, which is always easy, because the History Trainer is beyond lazy. We have to read a section and fill out an easy worksheet. This section is about Bixan's success in stopping war between the North and the rest of Azera,and because of Rest Day, I find it everything but disturbing. I force myself to finish reading it and close the book.

Once I'm finished, I have another twenty minutes until lunch. I'm hungry and I consider traveling to lunch time, but James tells me no ("Ask on Training Day"). When he turns his back, I stick my tongue out at him, which makes Astrid giggle. Masan pulls out a piece of metal from his bag and begins rolling it between his hands, messing with the molecular structure enough to become as malleable as dough. He twists it into an infinity sign and puts it down. I pick it up. It feels as solid as ever, slightly warmed from Masan's hands. There's little prints all over it from his hands. Masan makes eye contact with me, then looks down and mumbles, "You can have it, you know."

I smile at him and say, "Thank you. I think it's really cool that you could do this with solid metal," which makes him blush. Masan has always been taken by me, but he's also very shy, so any positive interaction from me always makes him go tomato red. Astrid enjoys it and even tries to push us together, but she stops when I give her the signature death glare. Which is ironic, given her Death Keeping.

Astrid and I banter back and forth and joke about some of the Trainers until lunch. She sits by us and we talk about who's better looking, wonder what our families are doing, and rant about our studies. Neither of us discuss the war until Astrid stops talking and a look of fear passes over her face. James and her Guardian Isa immediately notice as well. Isa asks, "Is everything okay?"

Astrid shakes her head violently. She's trembling and tears pool in her eyes. "They're back," she whispers.

James and Isa immediately move to get Astrid out of the hall. I'm left sitting at the table, but when I get up, James snaps, "No. Stay there."

I sink back into my seat. I push around the food on my plate, suddenly not hungry anymore. I force a bite or two, but the rest of the time I watch for James. He doesn't come back until the end of lunch. "What happened?" I ask as he sits down and takes a huge bite.

He holds up a finger and swallows. "She's okay. It's just..."

"The fighting," I finish. "Will she be okay?"

"We took her back to her dorm. She passed out totally, but I think she just needs to sleep. She's had a hard eight years," James says. "Come on, let's go back to the study room."

***

After we finished studying and eaten dinner, I go for a walk. Specifically, to a roped-off area where Baya's body was found.

Nobody's there as I approach it. I step over the rope and continue down the hall. This area only has the old boiler room and the original office rooms-and some of those have collapsed- so nobody goes down here anyways. It's the perfect place to hide a dead body. It's quiet down here; I can't even hear the dining hall above my head. It's dark down here too, but I've brought a light.

The boiler room is still cracked open from the last time I was down here. The dust looks undisturbed. So no one's been here lately. It's the same temperature as the rest of the underground building, but I feel cold. I shiver as I step into the old boiler room. It hasn't been in use since before I was born, after they figured out how to use geothermal heat to warm the entire building. It's one of the few bits of the original facility that still survives. The rest is buried under tons of rubble and dirt.

The scent of dried blood still lingers in here. They cleaned the entire room after the incident, but the blood is still in the grates on the floor, hidden under my feet. The entire facility has little holes in the floors, so usually you can hear what's going above and below you, but since there's only sand above and below me, it's dead silent.

This is one of my favorite places to go to get away from the hubbub of the training base, to hide from others. There's no video cameras down here, either, which might be why, before the incident, this was James' favorite haunt as well (usually he was accompanied with Baya). I sit down against the wall, lost in thought. I wonder if this war and Baya's death are connected somehow. I wonder where Simon is, and if he's okay. I hope he wasn't involved in this. I could never imagine Simon doing something like this, but he had always been secretive. And I've heard on more than one occasion that he shouldn't have been given the power of hypnosis.

I stand up and go back to my dorm. James doesn't question where I've been, but he does look up from his book as I entered. I bade him goodnight and go to bed, even though it's still early. I lie in bed for a while, stare up at the ceiling for hours. I don't fall asleep until 1500, the equivalent of falling asleep at one in the morning on Earth after going to bed at eight.