Someday - A Short Story

Someday: Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

A Fun Life is All About Being Jealous

“AH JEALOUSY. PUBERTY IS fun, is it not?” Oren, the homeroom teacher of Torph’s class whispered behind Aika and Hana, who both were spying on Torph and Isaline going up the stairs.

“Wha-?!” Aika shrieked in surprise.

“Sh!” Hana said sharply, bringing a finger to her mouth.

“This guy suddenly appeared out of nowhere!” Aika said.

Oren melodramatically brought a hand to his chest and said, “Oh! How it hurts my feelings to be called ‘That guy’ by my own class’ class representative!”

“Shut it, Oren!” Hana said harshly. “I can’t hear what they’re saying!”

Oren sighed. “Well, I guess my students will never love me...” Then he said as he turned and waved, “Anyway! You should get to class now. First bell’s about to ring.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hana waved.

“Soon,” Hana murmured.

“Yesterday was just so fun, Torph!” Isaline clasped her hands together.

“Indeed?” I smiled.

“Indeed! Especially the view of the sunset when we got on the Ferris Wheel!” Isaline’s eyes glittered as she remembered the time we spent together yesterday.

“Hear that, Hana?! They went to the amusement park yesterday!” Aika said in disbelief.

“Yes, I did. Can you shush? I’d like to hear more,” Hana said coldly.

But as the two eavesdroppers strained to listen, the first bell rang, ending their eavesdropping session.

“The first bell! Let’s hurry, Isa!” I said as I pulled Isaline along.

I didn’t know what it was. Maybe I pulled too hard? Isaline lost her footing? Whatever it was, it caused Isaline to stumble and sprain an ankle.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” I said as apologetically as I could.

“Oh no, Torph,” Isaline smiled as she sat on the ground, “it’s my own clumsiness that did this.”

“Can you stand?” I asked.

Isaline tried, but her weight was too much for the sprained ankle and she almost fell again. Good thing I was watching closely, I wouldn’t have been able to catch her otherwise.

“Seems I can’t,” Isaline chuckled.

“I see,” I said, pondering for a while before kneeling.

“What are you doing, Torph?” Isaline asked as she looked at me kneeling.

“We’ve got no other choice,” I said as I placed my right arm behind her knees and my left just below her shoulder blades. And I carried her. And that’s how we entered the classroom. Quite romantic.

“Heeh?” Oren mused as Isaline and I entered the classroom. “Practicing for your honeymoon?”

“Wha-what?!” I said, my skin color turning from fair to red in a second.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Torph. You are both quite cute together,” Oren winked. “Don’t you think so too eh, Aika and Hana?”

“Shut it, Oren,” Aika snapped.

“If you’d like to live to see tomorrow, you’d do well to keep quiet, Oren,” Hana said irritatedly.

“Oh. Ohohoho,” Oren laughed. “A love square!”

And that was how my week started.

The morning was run-of-the-mill. Pretty normal, pretty boring, and pretty faces.

And surprises have stopped shocking me since they came by waves and legions last week.

Isaline’s human-ation was the most shocking, though I don’t remember being shocked by the news.

And lunch came with a surprise, which, to my surprise, didn’t surprise me.

Leia from the canteen the other day came by and invited me for lunch.

“No,” I replied, hoping she would leave me alone. She creeps me out. Her eyes in particular. Pretty creepy. Pretty, but creepy.

Her eyes were black- no, it was not a simple black. When she looked at me, it almost seemed as though she was looking through me. Like I was glass. Or air.

Or maybe it was the opposite. When I looked at her eyes, it seemed like I was looking through her, or rather, into her. It was like there was no ‘Leia’ behind them. Her eyes were soulless.

After Leia left, I asked Isaline if she knows of any soulless people.

I was expecting her to dismiss my question as foolishness, but no, she did not.

“Yes, I’ve seen qrailkr before,” Isaline replied.

“Quail eggs what?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Qrailkr,” Isaline repeated, stroking my face fondly like a mother would to her child.

“Well,” I said, “whatever. Where did you see these... quail eggs?”

“To the far north when I flew there once before,” Isaline said.

“And what are they like?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“Ah, they were unnatural humans,” Isaline whispered quietly, as if the qrailkr would hear her from thousands of miles away. “They shambled across the land.”

“Monsters?” I asked.

“Oh, they were human alright, but they were... ynqrail. Their souls were taken,” Isaline shivered at the thought.

“Who would take their souls?” I asked.

“The skeinmur. The skin dancers,” Isaline eerily whispered. “The skeinmur would walk around having two or more souls in them. Completely un-human.”

“How so?”

“Skeinmur with new souls would normally have no synchronization with the new acquired soul, causing pauses and hesitations in every action.”

“Then it’s quite easy telling a skin dancer apart from normal people,” I replied, using the term ‘skin dancer’ instead of the original language since the original was not a simple ‘skeyn-mer’ pronunciation.

“Not quite,” Isaline replied. “Professional skeinmur would be able to synchronize with a new soul within a few hours. Longer if there were more souls in the body.”

“It would be impossible to differentiate a skin dancer from a normal person then?”

“Hm...” Isaline thought for a moment. “Near impossible, not impossible. A skeinmur would always always have their victims with them. There’s like an invisible leash.”

“How far would the leash be?”

“From what I observed, tens of meters.”

“That’s quite troublesome then if you’ve got a lot of souls.”

“Oh, no. Professional skeinmur leashes could reach for miles.”

“That’s... creepy.”

“Yes, very. You never know, you might already be entering a town that hosts a professional skeinmur, thousands of qrailkr, and no human within a hundred miles.”

“Luckily, that’s only in the far north,” I said hopefully.

But Isaline was silent.

“Isa?”

“I fear they’re already here,” she replied.