Memori: Tower Shadow Sword - Volume 1

Chapter 5: Vikey Trishire Part 2

The next day when Ves returned to the bedroom after showering, he noticed that the other boys—Jayden, Jerod, Marc and Muranda—kept staring at him with curious expressions on their faces.

"Good morning," he greeted them as he pulled his tooth brush out of his mouth.

"Oh, hello Ves," Marc said. "Um, do you know me?"

Ves gave him a weak smile.

"Of course I do. You're Marc," he said.

"Really?" Marc said, "Are you sure—?"

"—Hey Marc, let Ves get dressed, will you? He knows who you are," Muranda said.

"I was just making sure he remembered me." Marc said.

Ves frowned.

"What did you say?" he asked Marc.

"It's nothing. Just forget it," Muranda told Ves.

"Yeah," Jayden sniggered, "just forget it."

Ves ignored this remark and quickly changed into his fencing gear, grabbed his fencing mask, and made his way out of the room.

"Will you be able to find your way down to the dining hall for breakfast?" Marc called after him.

"Yes," Ves answered.

"And remember, you've got fencing lessons after breakfast," Jayden heckled.

"I'm dressed for it, aren't I?" he told him, angrily.

Ves swore loudly in the elevator as it went down. He knew that Jayden, Jerod, Marc and Muranda knew about his memory loss. He hadn't tried to hide it or anything but he knew that there was no way they could have learned about it by mere chance; someone had told them about it. The only people who knew about his memory before were Jacobius Trent and Lercia Cromweld. Ves knew that they'd been informed about it in Miss Twisty's letter but he also knew it wasn't the kind of thing that they'd go around telling everyone. Ves must have told someone about it... but he couldn't remember who.

As he had his breakfast with the other children, he could tell that all of them knew about his memory by the way they looked at him and the things they were saying under their breaths, thinking that he couldn't hear them.

"I thought he had some case of autism, but memory loss... that's kind of worse, isn't it?"

"It's no wonder he's always looking at us as if he's never seen us before sometimes."

"Talks a bit odd too, with lots of pauses and mispronounced words."

"Doesn't like to associate with anyone too much, does he? I wouldn't either if I had a delicate condition like that."

"I feel really sorry for him."

Ves ate his breakfast in a rush and was the first to the grounds for the fencing lessons. He performed terribly that day; his anger clouded his focus and concentration. He failed to execute any of the advanced parries and counter-attack combinations that Philippe was teaching the boys that day.

"Come on, Mr. Asirin," Philippe said disappointedly, "you're not doing as well as you did three days ago,"

"That's probably because he can't remember anything from three days ago," said Jayden who was watching from a distance.

After the wolf attack in the greenhouse, the girls' gardening lessons had been cancelled until futher notice. And so they were free to do whatever they liked in the meantime, Jayden included.

"Alright, that's it for today," Philippe told the boys.

Exhausted and sweaty, the nine boys made their way back into the Tower to either take a shower or change into their clothes and then go down for lunch. Ves did not join them; instead, he grabbed his scrapbook and left the room to explore the Tower on his own. It was something he'd wanted to do for the past three days. Sketching all the interesting things that he saw in some of the rooms helped him calm down and forget about the others finding out about his memory for a while.