In fairy tales and fantasy, two types of people go in towers: princesses and wizards.
Princesses are placed there against their will or with the intention of ‘keeping them safe.’
This is very different from wizards, who seek out towers to hone their sorcery in solitude.
I would like a story where a princess is placed in an abandoned tower that used to belong to a wizard, and so she spends long years learning the craft of wizardry from the scraps left behind and becomes the most powerful magic wielder the world has seen in centuries, busts out of the tower and wreaks glorious, bloody vengeance on the fools that imprisoned her.
That would be my kind of story.
When
Princess Talia was fourteen, her eldest sister was placed in a tower.
Princess
Adina was eighteen by then, and so of a marriageable age. She had grown quite
beautiful, though she was more willful than winsome, and she did not care for
the notion of the tower very much at all. Their mother did her best to persuade
her on the subject. After all, the queen herself had been eighteen when her own
parents had sent her to live in that very same tower, to be safely tucked away
until her husband could be chosen, and then ride out to claim her. A tradition
going back ages and ages.
“It was
such a sight,” their mother said, wistfully. “I had been alone for so
long. Reflecting upon the nature of the world, and my place in it, and what it
would mean to serve my kingdom. And the solitude was difficult. But then one
bright morning I saw a vision of a gallant knight riding towards me; and I knew
I would never feel lonely again.”
“Then
you had best make certain you pick a strong man to be my husband,” Princess
Adina had replied. “For if I go to that tower you can bet I will spend my
time honing my skills with a blade, rather than staring wistfully out of
windows. And any man who thinks to claim me for a bride by anyone’s leave save
my own will need to defend himself.”
Their
mother had tutted, and their father had rolled his eyes; and when Princess Adina’s
belongings were packed with a very pointed dearth of swords or spears or
knives, it was Talia who slipped a wrapped sabre into the travel wagons, and it
was their middle sister, Devorah, who tied another to the underside of the
first food cart to leave for the tower.
Barely
a few weeks had passed since Adina left the castle, however, before word began
to spread of dragon sightings in the south. The king and queen, of course, saw
this is a good sign; and they let it be known that any lord bold enough to slay
the dragon would be granted leave to rescue Princess Adina from her tower. It
seemed all too fortuitous, for surely any man who could defeat a dragon could
handle a willful princess; and Adina could hardly deny
the bravery or skill of any such person.
“It is
perfect,” their mother had said.
That
was before the dragon reached the tower.
Talia
had been present when the messenger had arrived, bursting hastily into the
hall, and speaking in broken tones about barricades destroyed, and mountains
crossed, and ancient enchantments broken as the dragon had forged its way
straight to the hidden princess. Rumours abounded of the dragon absconding with
Adina; though some varied as to whether she had been seen clutched, terrified,
in the menace’s claws, or riding on its back, whooping loudly. (Calling for
help, the court agreed – if anything; the confused descriptions of startled
shepherds were unlikely to be too reliable, under the circumstances, of
course).
The
matter of rewards changed, of course, and so it became that any brave soul –
lord or no – who could rescue Adina from the dragon could claim the princess
for their bride. Talia worried, but she didn’t worry too much. She was of a
mind that if the dragon was still alive, then it was likely because Adina
wanted it that way; and her sister was, at least, out of the tower she had held
such contempt for.
Not six
months after the incident, a story came back, too, of a renowned hero who had
nearly slain the dragon at its caves in the west; only to be disarmed by
Princess Adina herself, who, by his report, made a very rude and anatomically
improbable suggestion, before knocking him down a mountainside.
The
king and queen seemed convinced the report was nothing but slander; but Talia
was inclined to give it far more credence than tales of her sister weeping
whole rivers of tears or cowering beneath the dragon’s glare.
It was
around that time that Princess Devorah began sneaking out of the palace at
night.
Talia
discovered this one evening while in the midst of her stargazing. If her eldest
sister could be said to be beautiful and headstrong, then it would be easy to
claim that the middle sister was plainer, and yet more charming. She owned a
pale blue cloak, that suited her quite well; but that stood out, too, in the
moonlight, as she slipped away through the palace gardens.
This
went on for quite some time before Talia at last confronted her sister, who
blushed most tellingly at being discovered.
“I have
found my knight,” she admitted. “There is a doorway in the gardens, and it
opens to the fairy forest. I did not mean to go, the first night. It was only
that I saw the doorway, and I wondered where it went. And I could not help but
think that my own time to be locked away in a tower is coming swiftly, and what
a thing it might be to escape, and that perhaps fate had given me a chance. But
then I got lost in the fairy forest. It was strange and dangerous, and I feared
I had been too foolish for words, until my knight found me.”
Talia
saw the lovestruck look on her sister’s face, and felt a great well of sympathy
for her.
“Fairy
folk are strange and dangerous, but Mother and Father are not without pity. If
your knight is as noble as he sounds, perhaps they will understand,” she suggested.
But
Devorah only sighed, and shook her head.
“Perhaps
they would, if my knight were a man. But she is a maiden, as fair as moonlight.
And I would have her no other way.”
Talia’s
sympathy increased tenfold, at that, for she knew as well that their parents
might make some concessions, but that would be a bridge too far for either of
them. As she began to offer comfort, however, Devorah turned it back towards
her.
Her
sister told her, then, of the plan she and her fairy knight had concocted; that
when Devorah was taken to her tower, her knight would come, and open a door
there; and then Talia’s sister would away with her to the fairy realm for good.
The tower would sit empty. The suitor their parents at last settled upon would
ride out to find no one waiting for him.
“I
planned to tell you,” Devorah assured her, and then offered her a single silver
bell. “When it is your time to go to the tower, stand on the highest point
and ring that bell. A door will open, and you can come away with us. The fairy
realm can be frightening, but my beloved will help us, and as well-read as you
are, I am certain you will have more of an idea of what to expect than I ever
did.”
Talia took
the bell, and hugged her sister, and thanked her; though she admitted that she
did not know what she would feel, when it came her own time to go to the tower.
But Devorah only said it would be her choice, whichever she made.
And
indeed, after a year had passed, her sister went to the tower with none of the
fuss nor complaint that Princess Adina had put up. Being as charming as she
was, there were no lack of suitors for their parents to choose from; and it was
not long at all before the king and queen made an advantageous match with the
eldest son of a neighbouring kingdom, just beyond the western mountains where Adina
and her dragon still roamed.
When
the son came back empty-handed, accusations of trickery abounded. The western
kingdom accused the king and queen of withholding their daughter; and the king
and queen accused the western kingdom of stealing her to some unknown fate. In
the end matters were only settled once a scryer confirmed that Princess Devorah
had not been in the tower when her suitor arrived; and then, the dispute was
settled with the consolation offer of Talia in Devorah’s place.
The
rulers of the western kingdom demanded their princess at once; but Talia’s
parents insisted that she was still too young. A compromise was reached. Since
the tradition of the family was to ensconce their princesses in towers, and
since twice these towers had been breached and the princesses lost, the king of
the western lands offered a tower in his own domain. There Talia would stay
until she turned eighteen, and was of age to marry the prince.
Even
so, the king and queen would not have agreed, but for the fact that the western
rulers were renowned for their masterful sorcery and spellwork. Should conflict
break out, the armies they could amass would be formidable indeed.
“Sometimes
princesses must think of their kingdoms first,” Talia’s mother told her.
And so
Talia did think of her kingdom.
She
thought of it as she rode with her accompaniment through the mountains, and
when a great dragon’s roar split the air; and when her guards scattered in
fright, or else were pinned down by the claws of a great, emerald beast, with
eyes like flames and wings that sounded of lightning when they clapped. She
thought of it when her eldest sister slid down from the dragon’s neck, and
rushed to hold her, and begged her not to be afraid.
“You
come with us,” said Princess Adina. “The western prince is a monster, and
the rest of his family no better. I would not let a pig marry him, nevermind my
little sister.”
Talia
marvelled at how well-informed her dragon-riding sister seemed to be, but Adina
only waved off such questions.
“I go
into town all the time,” she said. “No expects to see a princess who was
kidnapped by a dragon wandering around a market square.”
“And
you spend enough of my coin for them to overlook it, even if they were
suspicious,” rumbled the dragon, though it sounded more amused than anything
else.
“You
are the one who demanded expensive company,” Adina returned.
Talia
watched them with fascination, and wondered if they might not be able to fight
an army themselves. But her sister was forced to sadly admit that her dragon
was nearly more show than substance, and that any well-armed force would take
them down with relative ease. Particularly when they could bring magic to bear.
And so
Talia thought of her kingdom, as she declined her sister’s offer, and sadly
sent both she and her dragon on their way. Then she set about encouraging her
guards to come back, and help gather the horses, so they could head out again.
She
thought of her kingdom all the way up to the tower itself. It was a bleak
spire. Once a sorcerer’s lookout and secluded place of study, according to
their guide; who then helped set up the wards and enchantments. Talia thought
of her kingdom as she bid everyone goodbye. As she made her way inside with her
things, and found that though the place had clearly been cleaned and dusted, it
was sparse and severe and cold. Dark stone twisted up the walls, and drafts
blew through the ragged edges of the window frames. The lights were magic, at
least, but only half of them worked, and there was little in the way of artwork
or decoration.
Talia
thought of her kingdom as she selected a room on the highest floor, and
unpacked her things.
But
when at last it was dark, and she was alone, she did not think of her kingdom.
She thought of herself, instead, and she wished she had flown away with Adina
and her dragon. She wished she could climb to the top of the tower, and ring
her silver bell, and escape with Devorah and her knight. She thought of the
unfairness of being sent to her tower too soon, and even vindictively imagined
having told her parents of Devorah’s escapades, and being spared this fate by
forcing her sister to do her duty instead.
And
then she felt an awful wretch, for thinking such a thing; and she cried herself
ragged until she fell into a deep sleep.
In the
morning, her mood was grim.
She
woke to the discovery that the usual enchantments were in place, which was
something of a relief. Princess Talia was educated in matters of diplomacy,
finance, tactics, mathematics, literature, history, geography, and many more
besides, but she had no idea of how to boil an egg. The tower gave her meals in
the kitchens, and warmed the hearth against the cold; and she spent her first
day mostly in that room, with one of the books she’d brought clutched firmly in
her hand, wondering how she was supposed to survive years of this without
going mad.
Or if,
perhaps, the intent of all this business with towers was precisely to drive a
princess mad. It would explain a good deal about her mother.
The
second night, she cried again, and the one after was much the same; but on the
fourth day, she woke to the grey dawn, and the cawing of ravens outside her
window; and she decided that if she was going to live in this tower for many
days yet to come, then she may as well explore it. She made a point of mapping
out all the floors, and figuring out how to reach the highest part, if it ever
came to it. And she found that the attic was full of old boxes of clothes.
Robes and hats and gloves and scarves, worn things and shimmery things, and a
very impressive collection of walking sticks.
That
was all well and good, and sorting through it gave her a diversion, at least.
She aired out some of the clothes. They were much too big for her, of course,
and the tower wardrobe could provide her with some very nice dresses. But she
imagined she might tire of very nice dresses, after a while, and some of the
robes looked very comfortable.
The
real find, however, came the next day, when she discovered the door to the
basement.
She had
thought that the spareness of the tower was owed to its lack of usual
occupancy; but when she found the basement, another answer made itself clear –
someone had taken practically everything out of the main rooms, and shoved it
all haphazardly into the basement, and closed the door on it.
Talia
supposed she could see, on one level, why someone might have deemed the objects
in the basement unsuitable for a princess. Though she could not fathom why they
assumed a bored princess would not simply go downstairs at some point. She felt
inexplicably insulted at the lack of locks on the door; though this feeling
swiftly gave way to curiosity, instead.
The
rooms contents had not been kindly handled. She tsk’d over books that had been
dumped in piles, their pages crinkled and their spines twisted. Some heavy
tomes on stands had been left to accumulate dust and cobwebs, and boxes full of
glass bottles had been ungently handled, leaving some to crack and leak
suspicious liquids that stained the floor. Several rune-marked skulls lined a
shelf in the room, and looked to be the only things that had not been touched
much. There was strange furniture, and jars of things like powdered unicorn’s horn, which
told her plenty about the ignorance of the people who had cleaned up this
place, because even she knew that was valuable stuff.
At
length, she rolled up her sleeves, and set about organizing it, just as she had
done the attic. Though, in this case, the task was much larger. She broke down
into its simplest steps. Step One – the books. Going through the mess, she
picked out all the books she could find, and did what she could for them. Some
were in languages she did not recognize. Even the ones she recognized had
uncommon titles, like A
Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy, and The
Lost Art of Summoning, and A Comprehensive Bestiary of the
Northern Wilds.
The
books proved not only to be the first step in cleaning up the basement, but
also the world’s most sufficient distraction. Talia found herself paging
through them out of sheer fascination with the volume of subjects available,
and the fact that she knew next to nothing of these topics. Soon enough she had
gathered up every book for beginners she could find, and before long she
discovered that one of the largest tomes was a dictionary, and she unearthed
also a translation guide for one of the unfamiliar languages that seemed common
to the texts.
It was,
then, slower going for the tasks of dealing with the broken bottles in the
crates – in the end she found a pair of thick gloves in the attic, and picked
out the ones that were not broken, and shoved the rest – crates and all – into
one of the empty closets.
After a
reading a bit more, she then barricaded the closet.
She
left the skulls be until she opened up the book on Necromancy, and then she
carried them up to a room where the moonlight could hit them. That evening she
had her first proper conversation inweeks as she took a chair into
the room, and waited for nightfall, and then spoke to some quite interesting
and helpful spirits. They were transparent of course, and not all of them were
very coherent. But they seemed happy to be out of the basement, and keen enough
to help her get a better understanding of some concepts from the books that had
been tricky for her.
She
organized the jars of ingredients, and discovered several discarded cauldrons,
and after some more reading, she went back up to the attic and fetched down the
wizard staffs that she had taken for walking sticks, and put them where they’d
be closer to hand. In a box under an overturned table she discovered a smashed
crystal ball, with a tiny pixie’s skeleton in it; and an unbroken crystal ball
which gleamed and glowed only faintly when she held it up to the stars.
It made
her think of Devorah and her knight. So that evening she did at last go up to
the highest point of her tower, and ring her silver bell.
Sure
enough, a door appeared in the basement. She wrapped the pixie skeleton in a
piece of black velvet, and tucked the crystal ball under her arm, and opened
the door.
Her
sister was delighted to see her, though confused as well. It was too soon for
Talia to be in her tower. So it was that Talia had to explain what had
transpired, and when she did, Devorah was overcome. It made her feel triply
awful for her uncharitable thoughts that first evening, to see her sister cry
and offer to go back and take her place.
“You
have to stay here with your knight,” Talia insisted. “It isn’t all bad.
There are some interesting things in the tower. And if I can talk to you
sometimes, as well as the skulls, I probably won’t go mad.”
Devorah
blinked back her tears.
“The
skulls?” she asked, in a voice that said she was worried her sister’s mental
state had already faltered.
So then
Talia found herself explaining about the tower, and its basement, and the
crystal ball she had brought, and the little skeleton, too. That made Devorah
cry a bit more, because she was a kind heart, and she had grown fond of the
little pixies in the fairy realm – even the vicious ones. She called for her
knight to come, then, and Talia watched as a silvery figure rode up on a white
horse that looked more like a ghost than a proper steed, however solid it may
have been to the eye.
Devorah’s
love looked like moonlight made flesh; slender but sharp as the blade of a
knife, and she bowed with courtly grace. She showed less grief over the pixies
than the princesses did. But then, her expression seemed to reveal very little
at all, until it turned to Devorah. At which point it would soften, and stars
would seem to dance in the dark pools of her eyes.
“Who is
this prince, who is so perilous a betrothal?” the fairy knight asked.
“I do
not know him. I know only his reputation, which had seemed fine enough, until Adina
spoke to me,” Talia explained.
“I know
a little more of him,” Devorah admitted, frowning. “Adina and I went to
one of his sister’s weddings, years ago. You were too young to come along. He
was a horrible brat, but then, he was a child. His father wasn’t much better,
though.”
The
fairy knight looked at the tiny pixie skeletons, and then at once broke the
crystal ball. The wisp of a sprite which escaped was small and quick, barely
there before it was gone again. But Talia didn’t mourn the loss of the crystal
ball. And after a moment, her sister’s knight tilted her head towards her, and
went and drew a small vial from her saddlebags.
“This
is a poison of sleep,” said the knight. “If you drink of it, you will fall
into a trance, and will not wake but for true love’s kiss. In dreams you may
find freedom. I would have offered it to Devorah, had she refused me, and her
suitor proven cruel. I will offer it to you, now. Should the worst come to
pass, drink it.”
The
tiny vial was silver and elegant. Pretty enough, even by the reckoning of
princesses. Talia took it, with gratitude. And when she left through the fairy
door before dawn, and came back into her tower, she felt lighter than she had
since leaving home.
For
several months, then, the little silver vial rested in her pockets, as she wore
dresses but also sometimes robes. Talia learned the few benefits of a life
primarily alone, in an empty and unoccupied tower that was locked up tight –
though even her mostly-indoor spirit began to long for the feeling of wind in
her hair, and grass between her toes, she could also parade around the rooms
naked as she pleased. Or clad only in a long robe which railed behind her, as
she sang songs with no one to care that they might be off-key, or that they
were ones she had overheard drunken servants singing.
She
poured through her new books and consulted with spirits, cavorted with her
sister and the fairies by night, and one morning she woke up and snapped her
fingers in a moment of grand epiphany; and flames darted up at the gesture.
And
alone, in the long and quiet days, she learned.
Four
months into her stay, Talia discovered how to unlock the tower door. It was a
simple spell, in fact. More a matter of tricking the tower into doing as she
wished. She strolled the grounds, well away from any guard posts, and found
wild vines and strange plants growing in the tower gardens. There was a book of
plants inside, and so she dragged it out with her the next day, and set about
identifying all the growing things she could not recognize; which, apart from
the dandelions, was nearly everything.
She
dusted off the cauldron, then, and must have burned herself sixteen different
times in attempting to master the various magical recipes involving the garden
plants. And plants from the fairy realm, as well. In one of the big, heavy
tomes, which always seemed to fight her every time she turned the pages, she
discovered a recipe for the sleeping draught which Devorah’s fairy knight had
given her; and by the gleam of a full moon, she gathered ingredients from both
worlds, and set about trying to recreate it.
Success
was difficult to gauge without tasting the end results, though. She was very
sure to label her own attempts accordingly, and dared not drink any of them.
It was
not a bad life. Not at all. It was lonely, at times, but with Devorah and the
spirits, not terribly so. And the freedoms she found were beginning to seem
more and more appealing. As time went on, Talia found herself thinking she
would much rather stay in her tower than see any shining prince approach from
the horizon.
But
when at last he came, she was ready for him.
The
time almost snuck up on her, but the terrain visible up from the tower window
was wide and barren, and one night as she went to bed she chanced to see a
campfire burning. And she counted the days in her head, and then fell into a
flurry of activity. She readied a fine dress, and packed up her things. She
slipped the best staff in amongst her chest of clothes, and packed the skulls
in with her jewellery. She slipped the sleeping potion into her pocket, and
emptied out the bottom of the crate containing her shoes and slippers; and she
did away with half of them, and fit as many of the most important books she
could manage in their place. She hid potions ingredients in among her make up,
and her own notes were kept safely in her diary. And every spare nook or cranny
she could find, she stuffed something she deemed worthy; until the things she
had first arrived with had become like a veil for the things she had uncovered
since.
“You
find yourself in that tower,” her mother had once told her.
And her
mother had found her place as queen; and Adina had found a dragon; and Devorah
had found her doorway out. As the sound of hoofbeats grew closer, Talia stared
towards the horizon of the western kingdom. Her fingers toyed with the stopper
of the sleeping draught.
She
wondered what she had really found.
Why
drink it yourself? one of the spirits had asked her, the first night she had
come back from visiting her sister, with the tiny vial in hand. It seems to me that the logical
thing to do, in an unhappy marriage, is poison the other person. Especially
when that opens a door to you taking his kingdom out from under him.
Such
interesting things, her skulls had to say.
And of
course, the kingdom she would marry into was one ruled by magic. Sometimes
princesses must think of their kingdoms first.
With a
wry little twist of her lips, Talia practised her best expression of swooning
relief, and waited for her prince.
there is a farmer who has a beautiful and strong wife, and
she bears him three beautiful and strong sons. the eldest is of soft voice and
hard temper, and his name is jae-shin. the second is quick to anger and yells
too much, but is quick to forgive, and his name is ki-tae. the third is of even
temper and soft voice, and his name is min-woo.
the farmer loves his family very much, but he feels as if
it’s incomplete. he loves his sons, but he desperately wants a little girl to
call his own. he prays and prays, asking for a little girl. he doesn’t care if
she’s not like his other children, if she is weak or ugly, he vows to love her
just the same no matter what.
his prayers are answered, and nine months later his wife
gives birth to a baby girl. but she’s not weak, and she’s not ugly. she’s every
bit as strong and beautiful as her brothers.
they call her yeon-saeng.
~
yeon-saeng is smarter and stronger than her brothers, than
her parents, but she doesn’t say anything, never points it out, because she
loves them dearly and would never want to hurt them.
yeon-saeng is ten years old when the hunger grows to be too
much to ignore. she’s hungry constantly, and they are not a rich family, but
her mother gives her all the food she asks for with a smile, pats her hands and
kisses her cheeks and says nothing of the strain her eternal appetite puts on
their household.
but no matter how much she eats, she’s never full. it’s not
what she craves.
she is ten years old, and it’s the night of the full moon
when she sneaks into the barn. she knows what she wants, what she needs, but
she hesitates even now. she wishes there was another way, but she knows if she
doesn’t eat, then she’ll die. she doesn’t’ want to die.
she kills the cow, and eats its liver, bites into its heart,
and her hunger is sated.
the next morning, the cow is found, and her father says it
looks like a fox did it.
yeon-saeng burns with shame, and says nothing.
~
she doesn’t have to eat every night, if she did then they
would run out of cows and her family would go hungry. she doesn’t want them to
go hungry, and she does not want to die, so she waits. she waits until her
stomach is bloated with hunger and she feels ravenous with it, half mad with
it, then sneaks out under the night of the full moon to kill another cow. for
now, she does not need too many, can go months between feeding so long as she
pushed herself.
she’s changing. her nails are sharper, more pointed, and her
hair gleams red in sunlight. she doesn’t think she’s a little girl. she doesn’t
even think she’s truly her parents’ daughter.
but the thought is too heartbreaking to contemplate, so she
doesn’t.
~
the father worries after his livestock, and the fox he can’t
seem to catch. he sends jae-shin to hide in the barn and keep a look out, to
kill whatever is killing their cows.
jae-shin waits, and he hides, and he watches his sister kill
the cow and eat its liver and heart. her hands become claws, her hair turns
red, and fangs sprout from her mouth. she’s a fox demon forced to into human
shape, an abomination to humans and demons alike. he’s horrified, and afraid,
but he can’t bring himself to kill her.
she is his sister.
the next day, he tells his father everything. he says they
have to do something, that she’s a monster, that soon she’ll hurt them.
jae-shin could not bring himself to kill her. but he still
believes she should be killed.
the farmer is furious that his son could say such horrible
things about his beloved daughter. he says that jae-shin must have fallen
asleep, and had a bad dream, that he speaks of madness. but jae-shin will not
back down, and eventually the farmer throws his son from the house, saying
never to darken their doorstep again, that any son that could speak of killing
family is no son of his.
yeon-saeng pleads on her brother’s behalf. she can’t risk
telling them the truth, she should be happy it is jae-shin who is tossed aside
and not her. but she loves her brother. he is mean and surly, quiet in his
misery, but he let her ride on his shoulder when she was little and taught her
to tame a horse and let her huddle into his side when she became frightened by
thunder storms. she does not want him to go.
but father will not listen, and jae-shin is forced to go.
a few months, and another dead cow later, he sends ki-tae to
the barn, to find what is killing the cows and to kill whatever animal it is.
ki-tae is terrified of falling asleep and being thrown out like his elder
brother, so he stays wide awake and vigilant the whole night.
he sees what jae-shin saw – his little sister half
transforming into a fox demon, and killing and eating a cow’s heart and liver.
he’s not afraid. he’s furious. he is quick to anger over small things, but this
is not a small thing. yeon-saeng allowed their father to kick out their
brother, even what he told the truth. she said nothing as he left them, when
she could have saved him. she did nothing.
he sneaks back to the house and wakes his father, bidding
him to come to the barn quickly. but when he returns, yeon-saeng is gone. the
cow is there dead, it’s liver and heart gone, but his sister is nowhere to be
found. he runs back into the house, his father at his heels, and finds
yeon-saeng fast asleep in bed. he pulls her from her bed onto the floor. she
cries out in pain, and his father pushes him against the wall, furious. ki-tae
yells at her, says to tell father what she did, calls her a monster with all
the disgust he can muster.
yeon-saeng pulls her knees to her chest, crying, and for a
single moment ki-tae feels a stab or remorse. but she is a monster, and his father must know. they all have to know. how
long before she kills one of them?
father is just as furious with him as he was with jae-shin.
again, yeon-saeng pleads for brother, begging her father to let him stay. no
matter his temper, ki-tae is always kind in those small moments, in the quiet
lulls between his anger he has bandaged her scraped knees and braided her hair,
and he would roll her rice into the shape of a snake when she was little and would
grow stubborn and refuse to eat. she loves him, and she doesn’t want him to go.
but father will not listen, and ki-tae is forced to go.
a few more months, and another dead cow later, father sends
min-woo to spend the night in the barn, to find out what is killing the cows,
and to kill whatever it is. he sits, and waits, and sees what his brothers saw.
he sees yeon-saeng kill the cow, and eat its heart and liver.
he does nothing at all.
the next morning, he tells his father that he didn’t see
anything. whatever is killing the cows was too quick for him. father wants to
be angry that min-woo failed, but he’s secretly relieved that at least his
youngest son, so calm and even tempered, hasn’t been affected by the madness that
had taken his eldest sons, and resigns himself to the lost livestock.
it is not ideal, but it’s not crippling them, not killing
them.
~
yeon-saeng loves min-woo, but misses her eldest brothers
terribly. on the surface, min-woo is nicer, he’s never made fun of her or
gotten mud on her clothes, never yelled that she was too young to play with
him. he never seeks her out, but always welcomes her when she comes to him.
he’s not as mean as their elder brothers, but he’s not as
nice either.
yeon-saeng is thirteen the first time she eats a cow’s liver
and heart, and still feels the gnawing pains of hunger. she keeps eating,
desperate, because this is her only option. she eats the rest of the internal
organs, the muscle, all of it. she keeps eating until the red of dawn beats
against the barn doors. she’s covered in blood, more fox than girl, and there’s
nothing left of the cow but bones.
she’s still hungry.
~
she hopes it’s a fluke, a mistake. she waits, to see if time
will make her full, but it’s just the opposite. her whole body aches with
hunger, her limbs grow sluggish and heavy. she sleeps the day away, hoping it
will help, that she’ll wake up feeling normal, but it doesn’t work.
her parents fret over her, and her brother watches her with
calm, even eyes that give away nothing at all. the days pass, and she seems to
flip, instead of becoming weaker, she becomes stronger. her body fills with a
frantic, desperate energy to feed, and she huddles under the blankets, afraid
to let her family see her. she can’t get her claws or teeth to go away, her
hair is bright red. she looks like a fox, and nothing she does makes it go
away.
late at night, her hunger becomes too much, and she snaps.
she’s outside her parent’s door when she realizes what she was about to do, her
hand just about to slide open their door.
she’s so certain that a single human heart could sate her
hunger.
yeon-saeng runs. it’s painful to walk away, she can smell
them, smell her brother down the hall, and her mouth waters. she’s so hungry. but
she forces herself to walk away and runs to the barn.
she kills half their heard that night, gobbling up hearts
and livers in a frenzy. she slaughters the next cow while the previous one’s
warm, wet heart is still in her hand.
it’s not quite daybreak, and she’s not hungry anymore. she’s
not quite satisfied, but the ravenous
yearning deep in her gut is gone.
it’s a devastating loss. her father will struggle to survive
now that half his cows are dead. and what’s worse is this – she cannot stay.
she will either eat the other half, and leave them penniless to starve, or she
will give in to her urges, and kill them herself. she’s selfish, but not that
selfish. she loves her family too much to do this to them.
when the sun rises into the sky, she’s gone.
~
her hair never goes back to black. it’s a permanent dark
orange, and her nails are too sharp, and her teeth a little too long. but she
almost looks like a person, as long as no one looks too closely.
the first few years are the hardest. she wanders through towns,
too young to do any real work, but sometimes a kind innkeep would let her clean
tables in exchange for a room. other times, she sneaks into barns and sleeps
among the warm, dry hay.
she has to eat, and she has to eat often. small animals
don’t satisfy her, she tries chickens and rabbits, even sheep don’t sate her
hunger. cows and boars will do, and horses probably would too, but she’s
reluctant to test her theory. partially because killing a horse will certainly
garner more attention than she wants. but also because, well, she likes horses. she thinks they have kind
eyes, and she’ll sooner eat a horse than she will a human, but would prefer to
have neither, honestly.
she misses rice cakes. they were her favorite as a child,
but now they taste like ashes in her mouth.
when possible, she hunts for he own food in the forest,
searching out wild board to feed herself with. but sometimes that’s not
possible, and when that happens she sneaks away to a pasture and kills a cow.
they always say it looks like a fox attack.
she doesn’t want people to go hungry because of her, to
suffer because of her, so she doesn’t stay in one town for long. she moves
around constantly, killing and stealing the livestock of farmers she needs to
live, trying to keep her head down and not cause trouble.
she still craves human hearts more than anything else. but
as long as she keeps herself well fed it’s … well, not easy to ignore it, but manageable.
she’s managing.
~
yeon-saeng is sixteen, and it’s much easier. people hire her
to serve drinks in restaurants now, will hire her to smile at customers now.
she still doesn’t look quiet human, but people never seem to
notice that.
she’s beautiful. they don’t know what she is, they don’t
care, all they care for is her pretty face. she always smiles with her mouth
closed so they don’t see her teeth, but that’s okay. things are easier now.
she is sixteen when she makes a friend.
it’s not one she expected to make, if she ever thought she’d
have one. she keeps everyone way, women are nice to her and men want her, but
she rejects them all, keeping to herself and offering them nothing more than
her close-lipped smile.
she’s a monster. those around her risk one day being eaten
by her, and the pain of that potential loss stops her whenever she fees the
urge to reach out to someone. she thinks of her parents often, of her brothers.
she hopes they’re happy. sometimes she hopes they’ve forgotten her, but she’s
still a selfish girl, and the thought that not one person cares for her cuts
like a knife.
but one person does come to care for her.
his name is bou, and he’s a monk. he is plain, and
nondescript, but there are not many buddhist monks, and he stands out, somehow,
with his calm face and plain grey robes. he follows her from town to town, and at
first she thinks it is a coincidence, that maybe they are simply traveling in
the same direction. but soon it’s too much to be a coincidence, and she can
only think of one reason a monk would have for following her. he must know what
she is, and be here to kill her.
she does not want to die.
yeon-saeng corners him, nails and claws out, eyes blazing
red, and says she will not die easily, says that she does not want to kill him,
but she will to preserve her own life.
she’s already thinking that if she does kill him, she’ll
have to tear out his heart and liver and grind it into the dirt so she does not
eat them. once she starts eating humans, she doesn’t know if she could stop,
and to leave them whole would be a temptation she would be unable to refuse.
he looks at her, unflinching, and tells her a story. he happened
upon two brothers not long ago, with very strange histories. born into
near-poverty, they were separated as teenagers and led remarkable lives. the
eldest was adopted into a noble family and became one of the hwarang, the
refined and cultured warriors who live on the edges of the country. the younger
became the assistant to a yangban, the high level civil servants of the
country. both now had prestigious positions rarely achieved by nobility. they
happened to pass each other on the street one day just a few short months ago,
both visiting a city they were not from, and recognized each other instantly.
they cried to find each other again, and it is here when bou
overheard them talking while at a tavern. they spoke of their sister, who killed
their cows and devoured their hearts and livers, and was the reason they’d been
thrown from their homes. they spoke of their sister, who was not their sister
by blood, but a demon sent from the heavens, for some misdeed none of them knew
of. they spoke of their sister, who they knew to be a monster, and who they
could not face. they spoke of their sister, who they loved in spite of everything,
to this very day.
bou intended to find her, and kill her, to rid the world of
her evil. but he finds her, and finds that she is not evil. that she is kind,
and hurting, and alone, and trying so desperately to do no harm, to be a good
person in a world that does not have enough good people.
a demon she may be, but a monster she is not.
yeon-saeng is sobbing by the end of this, stepping away from
him. bou has decided that she is the best kind of person, and that he would
like to follow her, to travel with her, if she will allow it. she tries to refuse,
says she will put him in danger, but bou does not listen.
she doesn’t have to let him be her friend. but he will
follow her wherever she goes, so she might as well make this easier on both of
them. she does not give in until he makes her a promise – if she ever does
become a monster, he’ll kill her himself. when she cannot trust herself, she
can trust him.
bou and yeon-saeng travel together, and although she worries
constantly, yeon-saeng never harms him. years pass, and she grows stronger, she
leans even further into her demon powers.
she is at least part kumiho, part nine tailed demon, and there
are certain skills that come with that. with bou and his holy powers by her
side, she feels comfortable exploring them for the first time. if she ever goes
too far, bou will stop her.
she is a young woman when bou convinces her to seek out her
family, to try and make amends with them. she cannot yet face her eldest
brothers, whose lives she forced off course so dramatically, but agrees to try
and visit her parents and youngest elder brother at home.
when she arrives, there are no cows in the pasture, and she
worries. the house looks worn, and it feels empty. she knocks on the door, fear
and worry making her shake, and it is only bou’s presence at her back that
steadies her.
but the door opens, and it’s her brother, min-woo. he’s
older, of course, but he looks healthy, looks fine. he’s startled to see her,
but welcomes her inside like nothing has changed, like she hasn’t been missing
for a decade. he doesn’t move to embrace her, and she holds herself back,
uncertain. he tells her she has good timing, because he has invited their elder
brothers home.
min-woo tells her that their parents have died, and she’s
nearly bowled over in her grief. but he implores her to stay, says that now
they can be a family once more. yeon-saeng agrees because she doesn’t know what
else to do, her kind mother and father who loved her so very much are dead, and
even though she hasn’t seen them in years their loss is just as devastating.
min-woo comforts her, tells her they were simply old, and these things happen.
she doesn’t think they were that old, but what does she know, she hasn’t been
there for years.
she agrees, and min-woo tells her he has nothing to feed her
and her companion, but she doesn’t mind. pretending to enjoy rice that tastes
like dirt is a waste on both of them, and bou has endured much worse than a
night’s sleep on an empty stomach. min-woo does offer them water, which they
accept. it doesn’t taste clean, but both are too polite to say anything about
it.
so they settle down, and bou falls asleep at her back, like
he always does, and she eventually falls into a fitful sleep, thoughts of her
dead parents and her living brothers chasing around her head.
when she awakes, everything has somehow gotten even worse.
she’s tied up, and she twists to see bou is as well,
wide-eyed and with a gag in his mouth. min-woo sits in front of them, a cruel
twist to his mouth she’s never seen before. her head is foggy, and it takes her
a moment to process everything. the water must have been drugged.
he tells them their timing is perfect. he’d nearly run out
of their parents’ flesh to eat, and so had invited their elder brothers home,
intent on killing them and eating them. but eating her flesh, consuming the
heart of a kumiho, will sustain him so much longer than mere humans would.
she looks at him in horror, not understanding. she asks if
he was born a demon too, if he’s like her, but he laughs at her. he is just a
human, but if he eats her maybe he will be something more.
min-woo takes a hunk of something folded in butcher paper
and unwraps it, and in the center is a heart. the scent hits her nose all at
once, and she knows it’s a human heart.
that it’s her father’s heart.
he’s been saving this for himself, but the stronger she is
when he kills and eats her, the stronger she will make him. he holds it to her
mouth, and parts of her wants it, it’s not fresh but it hasn’t gone bad, has
been kept frozen and recently defrosted by the smell, and her mouth is already
watering. she lives with a constant low-level hunger, but now it’s out in full
force, begging her to bite into the heart her brother is holding to her lips.
she closes her mouth and shakes her head, turning away from
it. this isn’t right. it’s not fair. she asks why, asks if it was because they
ran out of food, was there truly nothing else for him to eat?
he says business was fine. they had plenty to eat. he just
wanted to eat them, he just wanted to
kill and eat human flesh, says he wanted to become stronger, and this seemed
like the easiest way to do it.
this is incomprehensible to yeon-saeng, who has struggled
against the gnawing in her stomach her whole life. she could break the ropes,
could break min-woo. she’s a kumiho. her power is so far beyond min-woo’s that
it’s laughable.
but guilt and grief swallow her. maybe the true reason she
was born into her family was not divine punishment, maybe she was meant to
protect them, to keep them safe. maybe her true purpose was to protect her
beloved parents from min-woo, and she has failed. her parents are dead, her
brother is a monster, and she has failed at the one thing she supposed to do.
she has no reason to live. once min-woo eats her, he will
have no need of bou, her friend will be fine. she won’t eat her father’s heart,
even now, at the end, but she can’t seem to muster the will to defend herself.
bou is screaming through his gag, surely begging her to do
something, but she can’t move, too numb to do anything at all. min-woo gets
tired of trying to force her to eat the heart, and lifts up a knife, moving to
slit her throat.
before he gets the chance, a blade is shoved through his
chest and out his mouth, killing him instantly. yeon-saeng looks up, wide eyed.
min-woo slides off the blade, revealing the man holding it.
it is her eldest brother, jae-shin. her second eldest brother ki-tae is at his
side. they’re older too, more steady, firmer than she remembers them being. she
bows her head, waiting for her own death blow, but it doesn’t come.
instead ki-tae throws his arms around her, her eldest
brother doing the same. they heard everything, they know everything. they cry
as they hold her, apologies falling from their lips. she is their sister, and
they love her, and they’re sorry they ever doubted her.
they could never bring themselves to hurt her, but did not
hesitate to cut down min-woo. maybe deep down they’d always known who the true
monster was.
jae-shin cuts her free, and does the same for bou. yeon-saeng
is shaking in ki-tae’s arms still, but jae-shin pulls her forward and cups her
face in his hands, kisses her forehead and tells her he’s sorry, that if he
hadn’t acted so rashly so long ago maybe none of this would have happened.
yeon-saeng won’t accept their apologies, instead offering
her own for letting their father throw them out when they only spoke the truth,
for remaining silent in the face of their banishment.
their parents are dead, killed by their brother, who has
been killed by jae-shin. they are as broken as ever, but the three of them are
together once more, are willing and eager to rebuild their relationship. they
all made mistakes, but all are willing to forgive.
bou is furious with yeon-saeng for freezing, for doing
nothing to save herself. but he’s pulled between his anger and his worry that
now she has her brothers back, she won’t need him anymore. but she knows him
just as well as he knows her, so she assuages his worries and apologizes for
freezing, says she won’t do it again. she tells bou that he’s her best friend,
and she never wants him to leave.
so now this incredibly strange group is traveling together,
roaming the country – a short tempered yangban’s assistant, a charming hwarang
warrior, a buddhist monk, and a kumiho.
together, they do their best to figure out the extent of
yeon-saeng’s powers, and try to leave everywhere they go a little better, a
little less broken.
ok LISTEN. first of all, keep your tom wilson hate out of my inbox. let’s just get that out of the way right now. alright, moving on.
clearly you have no idea what a power forward is, because you said, and I quote, “whatever the fuck you were talking about”, so let’s review that first. according to wikipedia, a power forward is “a forward who is big and strong, equally capable of playing physically or scoring goals and would most likely have high totals in both points and penalties.” wikipedia ALSO mentions that power forwards are also often referred to as the ‘complete’ hockey player.“ (source) wikipedia not a good enough source? ok, let’s look at a bleacher report article, where the author defines power forward as “a big guy who puts up points and likes to throw his weight around.” (source) let’s throw in another definition, just for good measure…oh, how about one from former NHL head coach Barry Melrose: “There is a certain criteria a player has to fulfill to meet my definition of a great power forward. He has to be a frontline player, he has to be very physical and he has to fight. A power forward to me is not just a big guy who scores goals. He is a big, mean, nasty, physical, tough guy to play against as well as being a very good hockey player.” specifically, they “have a lot of penalty minutes, they have a lot of goals, but they [are] also the type of guy the other team didn’t like to play against.” (source) so, to put it neatly, the main components of a power forward in the NHL are:
1. high point production 2. physicality 3. lots of PIM
now that we’re all clear on the definition of a power forward, let’s move into what we all came here to talk about, tom wilson. let’s look at his stats from the past 3 years and compare them.
(source) (these stats haven’t been updated after tonight’s game, so his GP is at 66 and he tallied another assist tonight which brings him to 20 on the season and 100 career points)
even just looking at his goals, assists, and point totals you can see the offensive improvement. PLUS the 15-16 and 16-17 stats are for a full 82-game season, but he’s only played 66 games so far this year. he’s ALREADY surpassed all 3 of those stats. additionally, look at the MASSIVE increase in shooting percentage he’s had this season! he went from 7.4% last year to 11.1% this year. that’s a team-wide top-10 stat.
speaking of team-wide stats, let’s check on a few other stats and see where he falls this season (team stats accurate prior to tonight’s game):
average TOI: 10th (15:50) points: 7th (30) +/-: 6th (+7)
another interesting stat to look at is point shares, or an estimate of the number of points contributed by a player. his PS for this season is 2.8, ranked 12th on the team! and then we have OPS (points contributed by a player due to his offense) and DPS (points contributed by a player due to his defense). wilson’s OPS is 1.3 and his DPS is 1.4, ranked 10th and 8th on the team respectively. those are great stats!
still not convinced on his offensive production? let’s look at an article RMNB published titled “Tom Wilson is the new bacon bits” (source) where they discussed Wilson’s top-line production. I could re-type the important points but I think a screenshot will suffice, no? here are some fun stats on how wilson has improved the two lines he’s skated with the most this season:
but point production and good offense isn’t the only marker of a power forward, right? I know what you must be saying right about now: “but what about his penalties?! he’s such a dirty player! he spends so much time in the box!!” yeah. yeah he does. but remember the second and third points we listed at the beginning? physicality and lots of PIM. wilson is currently ranked 2nd in the league in PIM with 166 on the season (source). he is ranked 8th in the league in hits with 207 (source). so yeah. but I would like to point something out about his penalties. some of the calls against him are due to what I like to call the “Skating While Tom Wilson Effect”. wilson gets called on some things that other players don’t because of his reputation. and whose fault is that, you may ask? yeah, it’s his. because in prior seasons, he was more of a goon. but this season I think he’s trying to distance himself from that label and grow into the player we thought and hoped he would be when he was drafted. he doesn’t take nearly as many boneheaded penalties as he used to. and I am by no means trying to excuse every time he gets sent to the sin bin, because sometimes he does something stupid or blatant and you’re like “oh that’s definitely 2 minutes.” but tom wilson is by NO means the only player to whom that applies. you’re telling me that your fave player has never done something stupid to get sent to the box? I don’t think so.
I would ALSO like to add something that not a lot of people (especially people who share your opinions, anon) talk about, and that is the fact that while tom wilson spends a lot of time in the box, he also draws a lot of penalties. wilson has drawn 30 penalties this season, which not only leads the team, but is also tied for 7th in the league so far. so yes, he spends a lot of time in the box, but he offsets it by drawing on average .462 penalties a game. (source)
bottom line, tom wilson has been playing top-6 minutes this season and he deserves it.
ok so. we’ve talked about tom wilson a lot. now I would like to talk about something else. don’t you DARE insinuate that I, or any of my friends, only like players because of how they look, or that we don’t know what we’re talking about, or that we are lesser fans than you. I am so fucking tired of being looked down on as a female sports fan. we do not have to prove ourselves to anyone, we do not have to show you how much we know, because, quite frankly, we don’t owe you shit.
also, SO FUCKING WHAT if people like to look at players because they think they’re pretty? you think male sports fans have never looked at, oh I don’t know, women’s beach volleyball players and gone “oh yeah, she’s hot”? you can bet your fucking sexist ass they have. so, with no due respect, shut the fuck up.
don’t you fucking dare come at me with this sexist shit again. I am so over it.
My family is not very religious most of the time. We pray at Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, and my mom’s entire side of the family excluding her parents and siblings is hardcore religious so whenever we do anything with them it’s kind of religious.
But the point is, most of the time we aren’t, but every year at Christmas time, a church in the next town over puts on a Bethlehem and it’s kind of a tradition to go. They go all out. The building is massive, and they’ve got it all decked out. There’s animals and stalls and everyone is in costume and in character. When you get there, they give you some pennies and you can go and barter for cool little trinkets, and there’s other more expensive things you can buy with your own money. And they have the best apple cider. All in all, it’s pretty cool.
But anyway. We go every year, bundled up in hats and scarves and mittens, and have a good time. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, and my mom talks about going when she was a kid.
I’m going to mention again that everyone is massively in character, especially the really super hardcore religious adults. Because this is an important fact.
Every year since I was about thirteen or so, there’s been this one lady who worked at a stall selling ponchos (I have, like, three. They’re really cool). She was probably there before that, but I was thirteen when she started trying to barter for me to marry her son, who was also about thirteen.
“What a pretty little thing. I think you’d make a very good wife for my son. These are your parents? I’ll give you six goats for your daughter’s marriage to my son.”
Her son, meanwhile, is in the “shop” behind her looking absolutely mortified and like he’d rather be anywhere else than there, and I’m pretty sure I probably looked just as embarrassed.
My parents gave her some sort of excuse, like it wasn’t enough goats or they weren’t ready to marry me off yet or something, and we moved on.
The next year we’re back again, and come up near to the same stall.
“Ah! You’re back again! Have you married your daughter off yet? I can up my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your daughter to marry my son.”
Somehow she remembered the exact people she’d tried to buy their daughter off of for an entire year? So my parents are refusing her offers again and me and the son are trading embarrassed looks and we go on our way.
And then it happens again. And again. And again. Each and every one of the last six years this lady has tried to buy me in goats to be her son’s wife.
A couple years ago when we were waiting in line to get inside my mom jokingly said that they should accept this year and see what she’d do and I completely refused because it was mortifying enough as it was.
One year we brought my friend with us and we’re waiting outside and my sister was like “Are you gonna sell Kee this year?” and my dad was like “Maybe if there’s enough goats” and my friend was confused as heck and I was like “This lady tries to buy me to marry her son every year. I told you that” and she’s like “Yeah but I didn’t think this was a thing that actually happened” and she was still skeptical and by the time my parents had finished refusing the lady’s offer, she’s killing herself laughing and then spent the next few months telling me I couldn’t look at guys because I already had a fiancée.
Anyway, it happened again this Christmas and the son has somehow gotten almost ridiculously attractive since last year. The speech this year had something to do with how I was far too old to not have a husband yet, and the son and I just rolled our eyes at each other as his mom tried to barter with my parents for me.
This year’s offer was twenty six goats and nine chickens. My sister looked up how much goats are worth, and was mad our parents didn’t sell me so she could have sold the goats and gotten $2000-$8000 for them. My dad says they’re waiting out on an offer of a camel. My brother thinks they should have it more than once a year so he can get more apple cider.
Now I’m back at uni, and in my first psych class of the semester the guy sitting beside me looked really familiar.
As in his-mom-tries-to-buy-me-with-goats-every-Christmas familiar.
That kind of familiar.
We introduced ourselves before class started and I sat there for a couple minutes readying to make a total fool of myself in case I was wrong before turning to him again.
“This is going to sound really weird if you aren’t who I think you are, but by any chance does your mom try to buy you a wife with goats every Christmas?”
His friend gives me a weird look as he walks past me to sit on the other side of him, but he’s definitely putting the pieces together.
“That’s you? Bethlehem in [city name], right? God, my mom is so mortifying.”
And we both kinda laugh and meanwhile his friend is giving us both weird looks now because apparently he didn’t know that his friend’s mom was trying to buy him a wife using livestock.
So he turns to his friend and is like
“Oh, I forgot to introduce you. Danny, this is my fiancée, Kee.”
And I kinda rolled my eyes and was like
“I’m not actually your fiancée. Your mom hasn’t offered my parents enough goats yet. But apparently my dad will sell me for a camel.”
And he laughed and shook his head like
“I am not telling my mom that. I don’t want to see what she has planned for if your parents ever accept.”
So yeah. His friend was really confused by that point and we explained it to him and it turns out he’s pretty cool and we’re Facebook friends now and hang out in psych classes. Apparently his mom only ever tries to buy me for him and she and my mom had gone to the same church growing up which is why she can always pick us out.
So yeah. That’s the story of how some lady tries to use goats to buy me to be her ridiculously attractive son’s wife every Christmas, and how he’s in my class and we’re friends now.
It was the 23rd of December, 2017, and my sister had convinced her friend to come with us this year.
“And that’s where Kee’s fiancé usually is,” Sam explained as we stood in the line waiting to get inside. Her friend gave her the same sceptical look she’d apparently been giving since Sam had first told her.
“He’s not my fiancé,” I pointed out, trying to rub some feeling back into my hands. The Goat Guy had been texting me updates since that morning. The organizers had discussed it at length, but apparently temperatures of negative eighteen, thirteen inches of snow, and a blizzard warning weren’t quite enough to have Bethlehem cancelled (or for my parents to decide to skip it this year). Hashtag Canada.
The line was long this year, and we’d already been standing out in the cold for the better part of half an hour. My brother was loudly lamenting the fact that we couldn’t get to the hot apple cider until we’d made it inside.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I braved taking off a glove to check it.
“Who do you keep texting?” my mom asked, not-so-subtly trying to peer over my shoulder at my phone.
“Gregory from psychology,” I told her, sending off a text informing him that we were still in line. It wasn’t technically a lie, since, you know, that was his actual name and he was in my psychology classes. It wasn’t my fault that my family only knew him as the Goat Guy.
“Ooo,” Sam teased, elbowing me in the ribs, her bony elbows hurting less than usual through all our layers. “I’m going to tell your fiancé he has competition, and then maybe they’ll offer us something useful. Like a car or a trip to Hawaii or something.”
I snorted again. “One, he’s still not my fiancé. Two, he doesn’t have competition, because I’m not interested in him or in Gregory. And, three, this isn’t a game show. If anything, his mom will just offer maybe a horse or something.”
“Can I have the horse?”
I rolled my eyes, glancing at my phone as another text came in. Hurry up. “Sure, Cole.”
My brother pumped his fist in the air. “Nice.”
It took another ten minutes or so to make it to the front of the line, and my family had placed their bets on the amount of farm animals that would be offered this year. My dad reminded me that he was selling me if they offered a camel, and I rolled my eyes, trying to act as reluctant to get to that part of the night as I usually was. Apparently I didn’t do as good a job as I thought I did, since Mom questioned me.
I shrugged, feeling my phone go off again. “I guess I’ve just decided to go with it.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “She thinks he’s hot,” she told her friend. Which, well, it wasn’t exactly untrue. Objectively the Goat Guy was ridiculously attractive, but that doesn’t mean I want to (or have time to) date him.
We’d reached the entrance by that point, and were given our little pouches of pennies to buy small trinkets and ducked into the (compared to outside, at least) warmth of Bethlehem.
Roman soldiers milled amongst the people, asking for taxes and wanting to see our papers. We didn’t have papers, obviously, but the soldier who checked us took an extra penny as a bribe.
“Wait,” Sam’s friend said, stopping in her tracks. “There’s a petting zoo?”
There was, in fact, a petting zoo. The petting zoo and the apple cider were there to keep us pacified as we waited for the soldiers to allow us entrance into Bethlehem, and Cole and our parents went off to get us something to drink while I followed Sam and her friend to see the animals.
“What is this?” Sam asked, frowning. “Where are all the animals?”
There were significantly less animals than usual. Two whole pens were empty, and I could see a few soldiers and townspeople whispering to each other in a panic.
“Maybe they were too cold,” I suggested, reaching out to pat a pig’s head. It snorted and turned away.
My parents and brother returned with our drinks, and I sighed into the bliss that is Bethlehem hot apple cider, and, by the time we made it to the gates to listen as the soldiers reminded us of laws that I don’t remember, I actually had a bit of feeling back in my fingers and face.
I pulled off a glove, typing up a quick text. We’re in.
The stalls were as neat as they always were. I bought a wooden hammer to add to my collection for a couple pennies. My mom dug out her wallet to buy a carved wooden bowl. Sam and her friend took selfies with a girl from their soccer team who was working in a bakery and she snuck them a free scone. Cole found another apple cider vendor and took three cups for himself.
“Look,” Sam said, grinning wickedly as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “There it is.”
And there it was. The Goat Guy’s mom was standing outside her shop, heckling with a couple over the price of a rug.
“That is a poncho,” I agreed, glancing at one hanging on the side of the shop and deciding I was going to buy it after this whole thing was over.
Sam rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean,” she pointed out, craning her neck. “I don’t see your fiancé, though.”
“That’s because I don’t have one,” I pointed out, stopping to look at the smithery so I didn’t look too eager to get there.
No one bought that I actually wanted to see some guy pound metal with a hammer (there wasn’t an actual fire or anything, so he was really just sitting there hitting it), so they dragged me across the hall, grins on their faces.
The Goat Guy’s mom, who we will henceforth refer to as the Goat Mom for sake of ease, perked up as she saw us heading towards them, finishing up her bartering and holding her arms out in greeting.
“Ah,” she called, grinning at us. “Back again, I see. Surely you must have found a suitable husband for your daughter by now.”
“Nope,” my mom said, giving me a pointed look. “She’s still single.”
(And, yeah, I was, and still am, but she doesn’t have to be so judgy about it)
The Goat Mom gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “My dear, you’re far too old to be without a husband,” she cried, causing people to stop to watch. I could feel my face heating up, and glanced around wondering where the Goat Guy was at. We had agreed months ago that this was always far more embarrassing for me than it was for him, so why was he taking so long?
“You won’t be young forever,” the Goat Mom was continuing, grabbing my hands and forcing my to look at her. “You’re running out of time.” She glanced past me to my parents, a smug look on her face that said she got just as much enjoyment out of this as my family did. “My son is still in need of a wife. I’ll tell you what, I will give you thirty goats and ten chickens for your daughter. She—”
“Aww, Mom. You started negotiations without me? How are they supposed to know I’d be the perfect husband for Kee if they can’t see how hot I am?”
The Goat Mom froze for a moment, her grip on my hands loosening enough for me to pull away. I followed the shocked gazes of my family and his mom to the Goat Guy.
He was leaning casually against the shop, somehow managing to look good in clothes that were 2000 years out of fashion, a smirk on his face and a half dozen goats and a llama surrounding him.
“That’s Kee’s fiancé,” Sam whispered to her friend, as if there was any doubt about his identity.
His mom blinked out of her shock, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are you drunk?”
The Goat Guy looked offended, raising a hand to his chest. “What? No!”
Cole started cackling. I don’t think he had any more idea what was going on than the rest of them, but fifteen year old boys are weird.
His mom glanced back at us for a moment, and I had to look away to keep the grin off my face, and noticed quite the crowd had gathered.
She took a deep breath as she turned back to her son, pressing her fingers to her temples. “Then why do you have goats?”
I couldn’t keep myself from snorting then, but, thankfully, everyone seemed too distracted to notice.
The Goat Guy rolled his eyes, relaxing back against the shop once more. “I mean, you’ve been failing at bartering me a wife for eight years, Mom,” he pointed out. “I think they just don’t believe we really have as many goats as you say we have. So I brought goats!” He waved the ropes in his hands, and sent me a wink. “And a llama! Girls like llamas.”
“I think that’s actually an alpaca,” my brother helpfully pointed out, and the Goat Guy grinned.
“You’re probably right, my man,” he agreed and turned back to me. “I’m adding this alpaca onto the list of whatever my mom’s already offered. We can ride off on it into the sunset. What do you say?”
“I say it probably wouldn’t hold us.” I was grinning now, too, no longer able to hold it in.
The Goat Guy just shrugged and stayed silent, letting our families stew for a moment.
“Are you sure you aren’t drunk?” his mom finally asked, glancing between us in confusion. “Maybe you’ve been spending a little too much time at the, uh, tavern.” She glanced at the goats and the llama (alpaca?), realization dawning on her face. “Gregory, you had better not be the reason everyone is panicking about the animals going missing from the petting—trading post.”
“Not drunk,” he insisted, ignoring the part about him stealing the animals from the petting zoo as he thrust the leads of the animals into her hands before she had a chance to protest. “I’m just excited to see my future wife.” He crossed the distance between us, my family stepping back, still mostly in shock, and wrapped me up in his arms. “How’s it going, Kee?”
I laughed, hugging him back quickly before pulling away. “Hey, Gregory,” I echoed loudly, my grin growing at the gasp that came from someone in my family. “How’d you find the psych final?”
He groaned, burying his face in my neck. “Ugh, don’t even get me started,” he whined, an arm wrapping back around my shoulders. “I didn’t fail, but that’s about all I can say.”
I hummed in sympathy, watching our families try to piece together what was going on and the crowd that was wondering if this was supposed to be happening. His mom’s mouth was opening to say something as I caught sight of a couple of soldiers pushing through the crowd, and nudged him.
“You!” one yelled, and the Goat Guy’s head snapped of my shoulder, staring at the soldier in shock. “He stole the king’s animals!” One of the others came forward, pulling him away from me.
“You, uh, have the right to remain silent,” he started, fixing his grip on the Goat Guy’s arm. The soldier who grabbed his other arm rolled his eyes.
“He doesn’t have any rights.”
“Oh, right.” The second soldier nodded and turned back to the Goat Guy. “You don’t have the right to remain silent,” he amended.
“Take him to the king,” the first soldier ordered, taking the leads from the Goat Mom. “He should be tried at once.”
The Goat Guy regained his wits and started to struggle against their hold.
“Wait for me, Kee!” he cried as they dragged him back through the parted crowd. “I’ll come back for you!”
By the time he’d disappeared and the crowd had filled in their path, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. It’d gone better than either of us could’ve hoped.
I calmed down after a moment, and the Goat Mom was still staring in confusion in the direction her son had disappeared in. I stepped past her to the shop, pulling the poncho I’d noticed earlier off the wall.
“I’d like to buy this, please,” I said, and her eyes snapped back to me. I grinned and handed her the money, and she pocketed it without bartering, and I walked away, the crowd parting for me as I wandered towards the next stall.
My family joined me a few moments later, as I was browsing some blown glass ornaments and ignoring the fact that the shopkeepers were whispering about me.
“What was that?” my mom demanded.
I shrugged. “That was her bartering for me to marry the Goat Guy like every year.”
“Yeah, that was not like every year.” Sam snorted and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Since when do you know the Goat Guy?”
“Since January?” I tried to look confused, but I’m pretty sure I was still grinning. “You knew that.”
“No?”
“Yeah?” I countered. “Gregory from psychology?”
The stared at me for a long moment before any of them spoke. Sam’s friend was the only one who seemed more entertained than confused.
“That was Gregory from psychology?” my mom asked, and I shrugged, grinning wider. “You planned this, didn’t you? That’s why you kept texting him outside?”
I shrugged. “I mean, we didn’t plan him getting arrested,” I admitted. “But, yeah, we planned the rest.”
“How’d he steal the goats and the alpaca?” Cole wondered.
“He knows a guy.”
“Like that’s what’s important here.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“Why?” my dad asked, and I shrugged again.
“Seven years’ worth of revenge.”
“That’s not what’s important either,” Sam interjected, huffing loudly. “Kee’s totally dating the Goat Guy. I called it.”
“We’re not dating.” I rolled my eyes, pushing past them to continue through Bethlehem. There should’ve been another apple cider vendor coming up soon, and I’d lost all the heat from the last one.
My family did not drop it through the rest of Bethlehem, and neither did any of the vendors who, apparently, knew exactly who I was (my toque was kind of distinctive, so I guess I’ll give them that) and let me know how sorry they were to hear that my man had been locked up just for trying to provide for his family.
We also saw the Goat Guy again, who had been locked up with the prisoners in a large cage, guarded by a handful of soldiers.
He grinned as he saw us approaching, calling out for me and sticking his arms through the bars.
“Can I borrow your notes later?” he asked. “I’m in here for nineteen years, so I’ll be missing a bit of class.”
Sam and her friend posed for selfies with him, and then she made me pose for one with him that will definitely be used for blackmail at a later date.
And that was Bethlehem. No one shut up on the entire drive home, or for the rest of Christmas break, for that matter, about the fact that I’d been keeping my knowing the Goat Guy a secret for almost a year—which I hadn’t, as I pointed out multiple times. They all knew about Gregory from psychology, and he was literally in my phone as The Goat Guy. It wasn’t my fault they hadn’t put the pieces together.
My family is convinced the Goat Guy and I are meant to be and still not entirely convinced that we aren’t currently dating, and I’m kind of dreading what that might mean for Bethlehem 2k18. Honestly, I’d rather not have to deal with the fallout of my parents actually giving in and getting me a bartered husband, no matter how hot he might be. But I feel like they’re going to accept one year, especially after what we did this year.
The Goat Guy says his mom isn’t any better, and is already planning for next year but won’t let him know anything. Maybe I can convince my parents that I never have to go back ever again.
Two weeks later, I caught the Goat Guy’s eye from across the psychology lecture hall, waving him over.
“Hey,” I said, grinning at him as he slipped into the seat beside me. I turned to my friends. “Guys, this is Gregory the Goat Guy.”
“Her fiancé,” he added, and I snorted at my friends’ incredulous looks and punched him gently in the shoulder.
“Not my fiancé,” I corrected, and turned back to him. “The llama was impressive, but you know my dad’s expecting a camel.”
“Darn,” he said, laughing. “I could have sworn you said llama. I guess I’ll have to find a camel by next year if we ever want to get engaged.” He paused, raising an eyebrow. “But you know, I did get arrested before your parents had a chance to decline the offer this time. Maybe they were going to say yes to the llama.”
“Wait,” my friend said, leaning around me to give the Goat Guy a once over. “That story was real? The Goat Guy actually exists?”
The corners of Jake’s mouth are still pulled back into that dangerous smile. Their little andalite fighter is rushing toward the Blade ship, full steam ahead, already gathering too much momentum to pull back now. Marco’s gripping the console in front of him so hard his knuckles ache. The modified Blade ship rushes at them with shocking speed, closing, closing—
And then…
Lights. Noise! Too much to make sense of. They’re surrounded on all sides by cacophony. Flashing, screaming. Mayhem. Marco’s halfway through trying to morph in panic when he realizes he can’t. And then Jake grabs his arm. Jake, who is about a foot shorter than Marco remembers him being. Jake, who is baby-faced and wild-eyed. Before Marco can say anything someone bumps him from behind. He whips around, but Tobias is already shoving past him, heading deeper into the room. The arcade. The arcade at the mall that was destroyed over five years ago in the last days of the war. And Jake and Tobias both look about thirteen. Which means…
Jake calls out a warning, but Tobias ignores them, shoving through the crowd like he’s running for his life. He’s headed for the far door where two familiar figures have just emerged: one small and short-haired, the other tall and blonde.
Rachel runs forward two steps. She and Tobias slam into each other, babbling over one another with questions and exclamations and words on top of words. Their first pause for breath and they’re kissing, desperately breathing each other’s air, grasping at each other as if they are drowning—or eating each other alive. His hands drag themselves through her hair as if he wants to pull her even closer but cannot physically manage. She crosses her arms over his back, devouring his mouth until they are one being.
“What the hell?” Marco says loudly, looking from mini-Jake to mini-Cassie to the four-armed Rachelntobias creature. “Seriously. What the hell.”
“So we rammed the Blade ship.” Jake’s face is screwed up in thought. It looks painful. “And… and it created some kind of sario rip, and now…”
“Sario rips can’t bring people back from the dead,” Cassie says quietly.
Tobias extracts himself from Rachel and looks around as if only just remembering that there are other people present. “She’s right. And this has the Ellimist’s fingerprints all over it.”
Jake drags them all outside before they can say anything else weird within earshot of potential controllers (“hell of a battle, yeah?” Rachel’s saying. “We won, right?”) and they emerge into the quiet of the warm California evening.
“Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out,” Jake says. “We will. Let’s… let’s plant to meet at the Gardens tomorrow afternoon. Get some morphs, figure out what to do next.”
“What to do next is to go rescue Ax,” Rachel says. “Now. If we’re all here, that means he’s stuck twenty thousand leagues under. So let’s hit the Gardens now that it’s closed, get us some dolphin morphs, and have him back on land before midnight.”
“I think you’re forgetting.” Tobias turns toward the construction site, expression grim. “There’s something else we have to do first.”
When Elfangor’s ship lands, Cassie slips her hand into Jake’s. He glances over at her, startled, and she starts to pull away until he gently squeezes her fingers and she stops.
“We know why you’re here,” Marco calls. “We’re in, man. The morphing, the killing, the nightmares, all of it. God help us, we’re in.”
Elfangor stumbles—and Tobias catches him before he can fall. He looks around at them all. <How…?>
“Current working theory is that the Ellimist’s messing with us.” Tobias, with Rachel’s help, lowers him to the ground. “But you and Mom have used the Time Matrix before, yeah? So maybe we should just tell you that we’ve had this conversation before and hopefully you won’t think we’re nuts.”
Jake goes and finds the morphing cube as they continue talking. One by one they press their hands against its sides.
“Come with us,” Tobias blurts out, staring desperately into Elfangor’s main eyes. “Morph, escape. We can hide you, keep you safe. We did it with Ax—Aximili—for years—”
<Aximili survived the Dome ship crash?> Elfangor asks sharply. <He’s all right?>
“By any given definition of ‘all right,’ given this is Ax we’re talking about,” Marco says. “Retrieving his sorry butt from the bottom of the Pacific is our sad excuse for weekend plans.”
“I mean it,” Tobias says, as if neither of them spoke. “Morph. Come with us. You don’t have to die here.”
Elfangor smiles sadly, the expression never reaching his stalk eyes. <I can’t, Tobias. If Visser Three thinks I’m still alive and fighting somewhere on Earth, he’ll annihilate this entire continent before the Council of Thirteen even has time to disapprove. If he thinks that he’s eliminated the resistance, however, or that there are only a few unknown andalite warriors left on the planet… You’ll have time. He’ll underestimate you, and you can use that.>
“But…” Tobias gasps for air, tears thickening his voice. “But you can’t just…”
Elfangor presses the flat of his his tail blade against Tobias’s forehead. <I am so proud of you, and how I wish I could witness the warrior you will become. But you must go. Go, and don’t watch. The Blade ship is already approaching.>
He’s right. There’s no more time for words. Jake grabs Tobias’s left arm; Rachel grabs his right. They run. The five of them sprint (Tobias hesitating at first, but soon moving willingly) toward the far exit of the construction site.
They burst out the far side just as the Blade ship is descending upon the andalite fighter behind them. For a moment they all stare at each other in shock. Then they hug, and wipe tears off their faces, and go home.
When Tom opens the front door of their house, Jake has already grabbed him in a hug before he thinks through what he’s doing. Stupid, stupid, he tells himself as he feels Temrash 114 jerk back in surprise. It’s just… it’s been five years. No, it’s been eight. Jake pulls himself away with a force of will. “I, uh, I got cut from the basketball team,” he mumbles, by way of explanation.
Marco walks past his dad, not bothering to say a word, and goes for the computer sitting on the desk by the door. He forgot how much technology advanced since the war, he thinks, staring at the boot-up screen and drumming his fingers on the mousepad. Eventually when he manages to log on, he starts entering the code that will allow the crappy internet signal to intercept yeerk messages. It takes all night for him to hack the Sharing’s internal servers, but it’s not like he was going to sleep anyway.
Tobias goes home with Rachel, although he’s forced to scramble awkwardly up the tree outside her house in order to slide through her window. Once he’s inside she pulls him into her arms, and pulls them both onto the bed. They whisper to each other about the things she missed during five years apart, all through the night.
“Cassie?” her dad says over dinner. “What were you thinking just now?” She smiles, and comes out with a lie. Because there’s no telling them that she was watching her parents in awe, wondering if they were ever really this young.
The next day they assemble outside the Gardens. The dolphin exhibit isn’t open for visitors for another two hours, so they wander: Marco to where Big Jim is kept, Rachel to the elephant exhibit, Cassie to the horse stalls, Tobias to the aviary. Jake’s not actually stupid enough to wander into the tiger enclosure a second time, instead waiting until Cassie can create a diversion long enough for Rachel to morph and pick up the world’s angriest kitty in her trunk in order to carry it over for Jake to acquire. When all’s said and done they still have time to kill, which is why Jake takes them all to the reptile house, Rachel leads the way to the polar bears, Tobias reluctantly points out the duck pond, and Cassie lets them into the owlery. They never know what they might need—except that they kind of do know.
When they finally get the chance to acquire dolphin DNA (Jake asks about orcas, and wilts a little when Cassie points out that exhibit won’t be by for several more months), they all morph ducks and fly out to the shore right away. It’s a Saturday, and they don’t have much time to waste.
“Anyone actually remember where the Dome ship was located, last time we found it?” Marco asks, as they pull off their outer clothes.
“I mean, I know the general direction we should be headed.” Tobias shrugs. “Let’s keep going that way for as long as we can, and hopefully—”
“We’ll run into another helpful whale, I’ll almost get eaten by sharks, Ax-man will blare out a distress signal that summons Visser Three, and it’ll take me two hours to get the taxxon guts out of my hair tonight?” Marco suggests cheerfully.
“Great plan,” Rachel says. “Let’s do it.”
They’re all so much more adult now, Jake thinks with a touch of sadness, and it shows. None of them allow themselves to get distracted by the dolphins’ playful euphoria, instead forming quickly into a tight pod as they head directly out to sea. He catches at least two of the others—Cassie and Tobias, if he had to guess—watching the dolphin he knows to be Rachel as if expecting her to disappear at any time. Rachel and Marco aren’t teasing each other the way they were last time, instead discussing whether to search in a grid or to start yelling for Ax once they get close.
Demorphing and then re-morphing in the water is surprisingly efficient. It turns out that Marco remembers how to swim, even if his body is smaller and clumsier than he remembers, and of course Tobias being able to tread water as a human in between morphs makes the whole process much easier.
Further proof that they’ve grown up: they’re approaching what Cassie thinks she remembers might be the right area (although she’s already offered eight or nine apologetic explanations that her memory’s not perfect) when they all “see” a sharp-edged shape approaching in their echolocation. Jake doesn’t even have time to think a command before they’ve all already snapped into battle formation, fanning out behind Rachel at the head of their phalanx. And then—
<Prince Jake?> the shark says.
<Prince Ax?> Jake calls back. When there’s a collective burst of silent laughter, he says, <Only one of us actually earned that title, dudes. And it wasn’t me.>
Their little group slides together with shocking speed, complete now in a way it hasn’t been in five years. They continue teasing each other the whole way back to shore:
<However it may have happened, in this timeline I am only an aristh. So you really shouldn’t call me ‘prince,’ you know.>
<I know, Prince Ax.>
This time around the near-giddiness that infects the whole group, causing Rachel to try and knock Marco off course while Tobias dryly lists off all the things he’s not going to miss about being a bird and Cassie points out distant fish species with childlike awe, can’t be chalked up entirely to the dolphin morphs. Still, Jake thinks, if anyone asked, that would be the excuse they’d give.
Nonetheless, when they all meet up in Cassie’s barn the following afternoon, they’re all business. On the chalkboard where Cassie’s dad normally keeps track of his patients and their meds, the six of them start the most exhaustive list they can recall of everything they did in the war and whether or not it actually worked. One whole side of the board is devoted to a list of people they want to bring into the war as soon as possible—James is at the top of the list, but Jara and Ket are directly below, whereas Arbron and Erek both have question marks next to their names. There’s another section for people they want to keep out if at all possible, including their families but also celebrities like William Roger Tennant and Jeremy Jason McCole.
There’s one name none of them have mentioned so far, Rachel thinks. One person whose presence, or absence, has been a festering sore at the center of this team since he first crawled into their lives. She doesn’t have a solution for David. Not yet. But she will come up with one, she resolves. Because that’s what she does for this team: she takes out the trash.
They spend almost an entire afternoon arguing (at one point Cassie’s mom comes out to offer them lemonade, terrifying them all before they remember that Ax is currently human and Tobias doesn’t exactly look suspicious) but at the end of it they have something approaching a plan.
“We’re going to do it right this time,” Jake says, grimly looking over the rough battle plan doodled across the far wall. “No mistakes, no needless deaths—”
“Good luck with that,” Marco drawls. “The rest of us, who are only human, are going to screw up plenty. But hey, if we muck it up too badly, the Ellimist will probably just let us start over again, and again, and again…”
“We get the point,” Rachel says. She watches Marco startle for the fourth or fifth time as he remembers that yeah, she’s alive. (None of them have asked her what it was like being dead. Which is good, because she doesn’t remember anything. Maybe there’s nothing to remember.)
The following afternoon, Marco and Tobias and Ax work together to go through every inch of the construction site in a grid pattern, but they find no trace of the morphing cube. They suspected that might happen. David didn’t find that thing by accident. And it didn’t survive the destruction of Elfangor’s fighter by chance, no matter what the Ellimist might claim.
They have a busy week. Cassie and Tobias pull Mr. Tidwell aside, tell him outright that they know about Illim and the Yeerk Peace Movement, and set up a cautious line of communication. Marco takes Ax with him to talk to Erek and the rest of the chee, dodging any questions about the pemalite crystal as they stoke his need to fight back. Jake gives Rachel backup as she marches up to Mertil and Gafinilan’s front door, rings the bell, and (when Gafinilan answers) announces that she’s recruiting them both to fight and doesn’t care about any vecol nonsense when it’s all hands on deck on this planet.
Arbron is trickier. They all admit to one another, when pressed, that they probably couldn’t pick out one taxxon from another in a lineup. They’re also not sure how to get ahold of the rebellious taxxons without accidentally alerting the voluntary taxxon-controllers to their presence. Jake tells them to keep thinking about it, but to worry about other problems in the interim.
Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak are also out of reach for the moment. The problem there isn’t that the Animorphs don’t know how to find them; it’s that even all six of them aren’t necessarily enough to sit on two hork-bajir-controllers for three whole days as they wait for the yeerks to starve. Waiting around for the Ellimist to help seems like a bad idea, since they’ve never been able to count on him to do anything.
On top of that, if they try and recruit James and Erica and the others without being able to offer them the power to morph… “They’ll laugh at us,” Marco says flatly. “And then James will do that thing where he grabs you and throws you on the floor with, like, his pinky muscles, and then they’ll all laugh at us some more. And then Collette will call security.”
Lacking other options, they decide to wait. Wait for the Ellimist to make his move. Wait for Crayak to make his. Hope that, this time around, they get the chance to do it right. In the meantime, there’s plenty of work to keep them busy.
The day before the governor of California is due to arrive at the local hospital for an unspecified treatment, a small-scale bomb at just the right power station shuts down the entire grid for that section of the city. Rumors—which have no traceable origin, but seem to be all over—suggest that there’s going to be another attack, even bigger, on the governor when he arrives. He cancels the visit.
“Hey Mom, you think we’d be able to visit Grandpa G this weekend? We just haven’t seen him in a while, is all. Could we do that, just for a day or two?”
Jeremy Jason McCole shuts the door of his dressing room, and gets about half a second into a scream of terror before a thing grabs him from behind and puts a part-human paw over his mouth. “You will not join the Sharing,” the creature sitting at his dressing table (it looks like a horribly mutated grizzly bear, one with blond hair) growls at him. “You will cease all communication with them. If you don’t, we’ll know. And we will come for you.” Jeremy Jason McCole bobs his head in frantic agreement, and the werewolf (oh Jesus, that’s a werewolf, he’s never seen one before but he knows what one would look like) releases him. He collapses to the ground, gasping for air, and by the time he finally looks up both monsters are gone.
“Aunt Ellen?… Yeah, it’s Rachel. Look, I had a weird experience earlier… And anyway, I wanted to make sure… Could you make sure Saddler’s always wearing a helmet, like, every time he bikes anywhere? … Yeah, Brooke and Justin should probably do the same. I just don’t want… You’ll do that for me? You’ll make sure? … Oh, no reason… Thanks, you too.”
None of the other Animorphs ever find out about it, but Taylor’s parents receive an anonymous phone call telling them to check the wiring in their house. The voice on the other end claims that there have been over a dozen house fires in properties made by the same developer, and that he can’t give out any more information for fear his employers will find out he leaked this information. Tobias doesn’t know whether or not it works; he never bothers to find out.
“Ms. Robbinette, hi! Mind if I call you Nora?”
“Yes, Marco. Yes I do.”
“Sure thing. Mrs. Robbinette, then. That was a great class today, with those, uh, binomial quadratic functions and all.”
“I must say I had no idea you were paying so much attention. Judging by the expression on your face, you spent the entire class either daydreaming or dozing off.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve heard it all before.”
“What?”
“I just mean, uh, from my dad! Because he’s taught me a lot about the FOIL stuff. See, my dad’s a great guy. Really. All that stuff about him stealing prescription meds and getting high off pain pills he doesn’t need, it’s… Okay, fine, that’s all true, but he’s really a nice person. When he’s sober. Which isn’t that often.”
“Marco, honey, is there a reason you’re telling me all of this? If you’re having problems at home, then Mr. Chapman—”
“He’s thinking of asking you out! My dad, that is. Not sure why, since he’s already got two or three girlfriends he’s seeing. Well, not sure if they’re girlfriends, but a lot of them come by and spend the night. I don’t mind, not really, and I guess if you don’t mind him cheating on you all the time…”
“I’m not dating your father, Marco. And I have no intention of doing so.”
“And that’s awesome. Anyway, have a nice day!”
“But—”
“See you tomorrow. Can’t wait to get started on factoring those second-order polynomials!”
Joe Bob Fenestre’s house, after the grounds are soaked in accelerant by several birds of prey that are illogically each carrying their own gas can, catches on fire. It burns to the ground in less than an hour, although the fire is controlled enough that the entire household staff and even the guard dogs escape unharmed. Web Access America goes offline for three hours in the ensuing chaos, leading Marco to compose a fifteen-line lament about how they’re going back to the dark ages.
They’re all so much less careful this time around, Jake thinks with weary concern. It all just matters so little, even less than it did when they were first fighting. He’s twenty-two years old, not thirteen; it’s annoying rather than panic-inducing to realize that he’s already been out over an hour past his parents’ curfew. His mom’s attempts to ground him are somewhere between exasperating (because they’ll inconvenience him for an hour or two before he can sneak out again) and endearing (she’s just doing her best to be a responsible parent, he can see that now), but either way they don’t slow him down for long. Still, at this rate—none of them doing any homework, most of them lying only halfheartedly to their families—something’s going to crack. Much sooner than it did the first time.
Marco and Tobias are the ones who manage to get footage of William Roger Tennant grabbing one of his own cockatiels out of the air and throwing it at a wall, mostly by lurking in his bushes for several hours at a time with a long-range zoom camera that Ax helped them assemble from Radio Shack parts. However, Rachel’s the one who walks them through the process of mailing the tape off to her dad, and of ensuring it will make the six o’clock news. Contact Point gets cancelled (and good riddance, Marco insists) before the Sharing ever comes up in conversation.
“My parents would kill me if they knew about this,” Rachel mutters. Somehow the gun—yes, that’s a freaking gun in the brown paper bag she’s holding gingerly—seems so much more awful than the dracon beams or even claws and teeth she’s used before.
“My parents would probably be fine with it, especially given what’s at stake.” Marco lets out a high-pitched little laugh. He’s rubbing at his arms as if he’s cold, even though it’s a perfectly mild night.
“Fine, then.” Tobias smiles, although there’s no humor behind it. “You want to be the one to…?”
Marco holds up both hands, taking a step back from the bag in Rachel’s hands. “You know,” he says slyly, “If your parents knew about this, they’d probably give you a freaking medal.”
“Nuh-uh.” Tobias crosses his arms. “I went through all this trouble to steal some perfectly good ski masks. I’ve done my part.”
“December sixth, right?” Rachel cuts the boys off before they can bicker any more. She’ll be the one to use the gun. She’s done worse things before, and lived with herself afterwards. Tom’s alive, and so is David. An old man who would have had a heart attack in a TV studio is going to live another few boring years. All things considered, she’s fine.
“I’m sure.” Marco is now jumping up and down in place, jitters infecting his whole body. “He brought it to school on a Monday, said he found it the night before. I know it was the first Monday of December because we went on winter break just after…” He coughs, clears his throat. “It was December sixth. I’m sure.”
“Let’s do it.” Rachel pulls the mask over her own face, tosses the other one to Marco. Crumpling the paper bag in her pocket, she adjusts her grip on the pistol.
David is walking home alone, having unwisely cut through the construction site to get from the mall to the suburbs exactly the way they used to do. He freezes, putting up both hands, when Rachel steps out of the alleyway in front of him and points the gun at his head.
“Give us the backpack, asshole,” Marco growls, stepping up behind her. “Or we’ll blow your head off.”
David’s face is dead-white, but even Rachel can grudgingly admit that he shows an impressive amount of bravado when he says, “I’m a kid. I have a couple textbooks and maybe three dollars—”
“Don’t care.” Marco steps forward, arms crossed and stance squared in what is clearly an attempt to look bigger than he is. “Give it up.”
Rachel thumbs the safety off the gun. It’s not loaded, but she’s pretty sure even David isn’t stupid enough to test whether it is.
“Fine, fine.” He swings it off his shoulder and tosses it at their feet.
“You got any more money in your pockets?” Rachel wants nothing more than to grab the bag and run for it, but she also knows they have to make this look like a real mugging.
Rolling his eyes, David shrugs out of his light jacket and tosses that at them too. “Happy?”
“Get out of here,” Marco snaps.
Rachel’s heart is pounding so hard she feels the rush of blood throughout her entire body. It’s not until they retreat back into the alleyway and pull the morphing cube out of the bottom of David’s bag that she finally feels her heartbeat start to slow. “Yeah,” she breathes, “Jake’s not exactly going to be annoyed with us for long.”
That same week, the G7 summit scheduled for the conference center downtown gets cancelled after a bomb goes off in one of the hotel’s satellite buildings. At least, everyone assumes it must be a bomb, because even the Secret Service agents don’t know of anything else that could cause that much destruction in that little time while leaving the surrounding areas untouched. If they’d been from Sudan or the Central African Republic instead of California, they might have recognized the aftermath of a rhinoceros rampage when they saw one.
Two days later, a group of kids wanders into the long-term pediatric care ward of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. James takes almost as much convincing this time around as he did the first time—none of them have exactly become master persuaders in their old age—but once again he agrees after he sees what the morphing power can do. Jake gives him the morphing cube for safekeeping, with instructions to use it as he sees fit. Cassie, at least, suspects that James is going to have a couple hundred new Animorphs ready to go by the time they need his help again.
The EGS tower gets infiltrated by a large collection of cockroaches, and half an hour later the ground-based kandrona generator gets shut off. Erek King talks them through the process of hammering a hole in the side and then pouring salt water into the crack. The damage will look accidental, a product of wear and tear and improper maintenance, but it will also result in the core ceasing to put out its life-giving rays. This time around the secrecy is a must, because this time around the Yeerk Empire doesn’t even know there are morph-capable agents on Earth at all. At least, not yet. It’s only a matter of time, Jake knows. It’s only a matter of time. And they have to use their advantage while they have it.
“This is cruel,” Cassie says. “It’s cruel and it’s wrong and it’s inexcusable.”
“Do you have another way?” Marco demands. “Another way that won’t result in even more people dying?”
She hunches her shoulders, crossing her arms over her chest where she leans against a post of one of the horse stalls.
“Seriously, though.” Jake looks up at Cassie from where he’s sitting on a bale of hay on the floor. “Do you? Because I don’t know how to do this without killing so many of them that the rest don’t have the will to fight.”
It’s just the six of them, sitting around in a circle in Cassie’s barn. Almost like old times, except for all of the ways it’s not.
For instance, Rachel thinks, it never occurred to them last time. Because they never knew. But they know now: yeerks are like slugs in most of the important ways. Most importantly of all, if they dump salt in the yeerk pool…
Saddler did it one time when they were kids, mostly just because he thought it would gross her out since she was a girl. He’d waited until the little brown slug had slithered up onto the front porch, and then he’d taken his mom’s salt shaker and…
And the result was more horrible than Rachel could have imagined. She didn’t know in advance that it would stiffen like that, that the tiny body would convulse and shake. That despite not making a sound the slug could put out such a visible scream of pain and bewilderment as its very skin peeled back from the pale muscle underneath. That it would blister and deform as if it cooked alive from the inside. She never found out how it ended; she’d stomped down as hard as she could, ground the body into the wood of the porch, and then she’d punched Saddler in the face so hard she’d blackened his eye.
There are three 25-pound bags of road salt leaning against the door frame of the barn. Marco has already made four and a half jokes about how salt allegedly kills evil things in the old urban legends.
“We’ll warn the Yeerk Peace Movement in advance,” Jake says. As if that will make it okay.
“Let’s do it.” Rachel doesn’t know what else to say, if there even is anything else.
In the end it works. God help them, it works. They hit the yeerk pool during its peak hours—midafternoon on a Tuesday, when there are always Sharing full members’ meetings—and simply break down the door of the entrance in the closet of their school. There are no Gleet Biofilters, since Visser Three doesn’t know there are “andalites” on this planet, so it’s no problem at all for the six of them, along with the twenty-three members of James’s team, to burst through the door. They are mostly elephants or gorillas, creatures that can drag the huge bags of road salt with them, and they are in and out with vicious speed.
Over one hundred thirty-nine thousand yeerks die in the most horrible way imaginable in the span of about ten minutes. Cassie thinks, sick to her stomach, that even flushing them into space would have been kinder.
The seventeen thousand-odd yeerks on the Pool ship are lucky, though they don’t know it. They are the ones, along with the few surviving yeerks in the pool and the handful at known yeerk-owned locations like the community center, who see Jake’s message when it plays. Jake is the one speaking into the camera, but Cassie and Marco were the ones who wrote most of the message.
Jake offers the remainder of the empire peace. He holds up the morphing cube where the camcorder will pick it up, and explains that he is willing to offer its use to any yeerk who surrenders. He tells them that he is as weary of fighting as he is sure many of them are, and that if they do not comply then he will slaughter every single one of them. He lists names: hosts they know are infested, sub-vissers they can find and kill in an instant, plans from within the highest levels of the empire that prove he has insider knowledge.
The recording isn’t live. Jake’s not there to see it play. He, and the other Animorphs, are crowded into the Kings’ basement along with their terrified and confused families.
Well, not all the Animorphs, and not all their families. Because Visser One was overseeing the construction of the underwater base that would prepare their troops for Leeran, as they expected she would be. She also summoned the nearest Bug fighter and took off for command central the instant she got the news, as expected.
What Visser One couldn’t have expected is the second Bug fighter that rams into hers at top speed. She doesn’t have time to expect the explosion that comes, or the crash that follows. She certainly isn’t expecting the gorilla that comes wading through the wreckage toward her, or the young andalite who grabs the dracon beam off her belt before she can even think to reach for it.
Most surprising of all is the voice that says <Hang in there, Mom. Not much longer now,> as enormous arms lift her and toss her over one black-furred shoulder.
He’s right, as it turns out. Eva lives to see the end of the war a scant month after Visser One dies. She sees things she never could have imagined: her own son planning battles before he’s old enough for his voice to change. His best friend, no older, commanding armies hybridized from their own bandit force and the U.S. Military. Humans and rebellious yeerks and even a handful of taxxons and hork-bajir working together to turn back the andalite force when it finally arrives to “help” with the after-battle cleanup. Reconstruction. Something almost like peace.
<You think someday it’ll end?> Marco asks. He and Tobias and Ax are floating half a mile up from the area out in back of Cassie’s barn, blatantly spying as they watch her try and work up the gumption to ask Jake out. So far her first two attempts have petered off into awkward stammering while Jake remains as clueless as ever; any minute now Rachel’s going to get exasperated enough to drag them together by force if she has to. In the meantime, it’s better than daytime TV.
<You mean, are we going to wake up one of these days and be, what, back on board the Rachel?> Tobias asks. <About to die, with none of this ever having happened?>
<There are no records of a sario rip lasting more than one of your weeks without becoming permanent,> Ax says, but he doesn’t sound that certain.
<Yeah, well, maybe this is all a weirdly elaborate dream and any minute from now I’m going to wake up.> Marco tilts around to look at him. <You ever think of that?>
<And there she goes,> Tobias says. Rachel is now standing between Jake and Cassie, gesticulating wildly. <Marco, if you jinx us, then so help me…>
<Andalites simply exchange will flowers with one another,> Ax says. <Have you humans ever considered the merits of such a policy?> He doesn’t seem particularly interested in the drama below; Marco suspects he’s just looking for every excuse to spend as much time as he can with the others. The shuttle that will take Ax home to see his parents at long last will be leaving one week from now. He’s been trying to talk Tobias into coming along to meet his grandparents, and Tobias has already shown signs of wavering.
<Marco,> Tobias says, <You think too much. Ax, I’ll come with you, but only if we can be back within a month or two. It’s a brand new reality, and I’ve got plans.>
<Plans? When do you ever have plans?> Marco regrets the words as soon as he says them. <Does this mean you’re in on my idea about the World Series?> he adds quickly, trying to cover. <Yankees beat the Braves, four games to nothing, six whole months from now. If we put down just one or two liiiiittle bets…>
<You’ve decided, then, that we are still going to be here six months in the future?> Ax is doing that thing where he’s being a little bit sardonic and a lot bit literal.
A Volunteer Avocado is when you mom was raised in Cleveland by people with only a passing relationship with fruit but a tremendous interest in both urban agriculture and not paying for things, so she can’t stand to get rid of a perfectly good avocado seed, so she gets it to germinate in a mason jar on the kitchen counter, then plants it in the front yard to see if it’ll actually grow but your house is on what used to be a chicken farm so it’s got stupid good soil and the little avocado grows hell-for-breakfast in the CA sun and chicken-shit dirt and in three years it’s as tall as the house and your mom leaves the front door open at night so the wolfdog can get outside in short order because your neighbors love avocados too and come into your yard at 3AM with a ladder to steal them and you wake up in the middle of the night to your parents yelling at Mrs. Mcgurkey about what the FUCK do you think you’re doing, and you use that word the next day on your Demon of a fourth-grade teacher and she actually hits you because she’s a piece of shit but one of your classmates throws his chair at her first and you become best friends and spend the rest of the year giving her hell culminating in the Mantisocalypse.
I might have gone off-topic.
………….
I swear to God you’re the OC of some vengeful writer who keeps putting you shit for ‘character growth’
Like it’s the only explanation I can’t think of, other than you were cursed as a child to have an ‘exciting’ life.
…mantis-WHAT now?
TW: death, cancer, abuse, excessive religiosity, blood, mental illness, sexual assault and bugs.
1999 was a bad fucking year for me, though ultimately, it’s a hopeful sotry. Mind the content warnings.
There is only one animal I’ve ever really earned the wrath of- The Praying Mantis- probably because in fourth grade I used about 50,000 of their children to fight evil.
Fourth grade started promisingly enough- had just had an excellent third grade with Mr. Jay, who was probably ADHD himself and therefore got me on a truly spiritual level. I’d starred in the school play was reading at a freaking collegiate level and had a tremendous interest in marine science. I’d been assigned to Mrs. Ruth’s class, the other teacher that regularly did theater with kids, and had any certification to deal with special ed kids like me.
When I arrived on the first day, she was smaller than I remembered, nearly bent double, skin like old rice paper. But she was still kind and sharp with a vivacity that I wouldn’t see again for years to come. Her hands shook too much to write I had her for three really great weeks before she gathered the class around her, and in a very gentle tone, told us we were going to be having a new teacher on Monday because she was sick, and couldn’t give us the classroom we deserved.
Two weeks later she was dead from the malignant breast cancer that had gotten into her spine and lungs.
I was still reeling from the sudden demise of my grandfather the year before, and mourning the disappearance of Hale-Bopp, who had come to me like a guardian angel in that dark time. I went into what I’d later recognize as regular dissociative states, which was probably good because the rest of the class went insane as well.
The large boys, the ones who had hit puberty early, took out their anxiety by forming a gang that went around terrorizing anyone physically smaller than them. By fall break, they’s started targeting the smaller girls, cornering them behind the school and tearing clothes off. Since I was the second-smallest human in class and didn’t have a protective clique, I was a favored target. Mason who was aged 11 due to being held back, took to flashing his dick at anyone during class, up to and including our string of wholly unprepared substitute teachers.
Erica, the girl I was head over heels for, started a campaign of violence as well, though it was just as likely to be directed at herself as anyone in her immediate proximity. Another girl, Sabrina, became convinced the world was ending on January 1st of 2000, and spent all of ‘99 telling us to repent. Another girl cut her arm in the middle of a math lecture with a sharpened protractor.
All of this was accelerated by the fact that the administration had crammed 35 “problem” children into Mrs. Reith’s class because she was the only teacher who had even a basic handle on classroom management, then refused to shell out the money for a long-term substitute, so we literally had a new teacher every week for a few months there. Parents complained that this was bullshit, and my principal, former Procter & Gamble rep, suggested that we were at fault for behaving so poorly and that all 35 of us needed to be on Ritalin.
Yes, really.
By October, my parents were looking to get me the hell out of there, but School Choice had not come to that part of CA yet, and my parents were both working full-time and couldn’t afford to home-school me. So they looked up truancy laws, and determined that I could “pass” as long as I didn’t miss more than 2 weeks of school.
So they struck a deal with me. As long as I went to school every day until April 15th, I didn’t have to attend the last fortnight of school, and could go anywhere I wanted for summer break. I chose Humboldt State Park, and didn’t tell them about being beaten up at school so they wouldn’t take back the offer. Armed with the promise of being able to flee to the woods come April, I was determined to survive the year, and took measure to do so.
This started, as all good rebellions do, with an alliance.
Dashell was the only child in class smaller than I was, but he was approximately 39lbs of pure, unadulterated psychotic mania. He could bend himself into a pretzel, small enough to fit in a backpack, ate nothing but slim jims and Hi-C brand punch and apparently didn’t feel pain. He was not good with words- there were too many ideas trying to get out at once to finish individual words, let alone whole sentences, but I was unnaturally precocious with absolutely no fear of adults or respect for administrative consequences.
Hence, every recess he’d follow me about as I hunted for the small lizards that lived on campus, and would beat the tar out of Bobby and Mason when they came for me, despite the fact they had a collective 150 lbs on him. And during class, I’d engage any adult in verbal battle so that they wouldn’t call on him and he could hork down slim-jims in peace.
And for a time, things were good.
Eventually, the complaining had gotten bad enough that the administration shelled out for a long-term sub, though apparently not enough to get someone without major disciplinary issues.
And thus, we got stuck with Mrs. Linden.
Mrs. Linden was one of those “Old-Fashioned” teachers who started her introduction to the class by giving a rambling lecture lamenting that “Paddlin’ and Jesus” were now banned. She then asked about all our families, including where we went to church. I was attending a school that was roughly equal parts White, Black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian. Literally only 40% of the class attended Christian Church, and most of them were Catholic and Orthodox. I was in the back row next to Saari and Parja, and by the time Mrs. Linden had finished lecturing them on The Dangers of False Prophets, they were in tears and I’d made up my mind about her.
“[FLAGRANTLY IRISH SURNAME REDACTED].” She glared over her eternally filthy horn-rimmed glasses at me. “Catholic as well, I assume.”
“I’m agnostic Ma’am.” I corrected her.
“Do you believe in The Lord?” she asked, glaring at me like a particularly vindictive turkey. Her face was comprised mostly of disappointment and wattles, as I recall.
“I believe in Hell.” I offered.
She looked like she was about to approve.
“I mean, you had to come from somewhere.” I explained.
At that point, the bell for recess rang, and Dashell kicked it off by letting out a truly demonic shriek and throwing his chair through the window. Twenty minutes of broken glass and bedlam later, she’d forgotten she was going to beat me for that. Saari and Parja decided to start hanging out with me at recess, which discouraged the budding rapists, for a while.
And so it went, Dashell and I playing a game of alternating Uproars, one directing rage away from the other based on ability to handle that particular bully. I’d correct Linden on her teaching material in the most condescending manner a ten-year-old could pull off, which wasn’t difficult- it’s hard to teach geology curriculum when you think the world is 6000 years old and flat.
Things died down for a bit during winter- the continuous California monsoons and Linden’s propensity for grounding the entire class for one person’s offense meant we spent most recesses indoors, where the Boys would have to leave the girls alone now that an Adult was watching, and Saari would let Dashell braid her hair while I re-explained multiplication to Parja.
In March though, things began to heat up. We were let outside again and Bobby and Mason had quite a bit of pent-up ragelust to let out, and were now being commanded by Erica, who thought making me suffer for her affections was Great Fun. I don’t quite remember what happened with the three of them and me behind the computer building, but I know I can’t stand the sound of and old apple computer starting up anymore.
Furthermore, Linden had figured out the disciplinary loophole, that while she wasn’t actually allowed to beat us, she could slam her ruler on our desks, and if your hands or faces happened to be caught in the blow, well, we should have moved faster. Not this is not actually legal, but she was banking on us not having the legal wherewithal to take her to court.
Dashell was growing tired of the constant stress of school and had taken to leaving early when he felt like it, leaving me to fend for myself in the afternoon. My sole consolation for those long afternoons was that we were having a bumper crop of praying mantises that year, and I had found no less than four nests in the backyard, and was keeping them in a large jar in my room.
If you’ve never seen praying mantis nests, they look like someone fucked up and globbed insulation foam on a stick. They sorta sit there, looking stupid, until it gets hot enough, then the day they’re going to hatch, they develop a large, ominous crack, and over the course of a couple hours, a Couple Hundred itty-bitty, very sharp flying rage insects will drip out, covered in ooze like some kind of alien, and once they are all dried out/carapaced up they fly off in a fit of barbarian rage, ready to slice up anything remotely edible or potentially predatory. Like children’s eyeballs.
So imagine my joy that on April fifteenth, the last day I had to attend class, all four nests had developed their large cracks, and tiny little baby ragebugs were slowly dripping out of them.
My initial thoughts were not of malice, but of showing Saari and Parja my cool insect friends, the latter having gotten into entomology of late. But after I arrived at school with the jar, I realized that Thursday’s usual show-and-tell had been replaced with Mrs. Linden’s Semi-weekly Rant About How We’re All Going To Hell. So I kept them in my backpack, with the intent of showing Dashell and Parja at recess.
But, after dealing with Mason trying to flash me his dick all through math, I had grown a mickle furious, and was contemplating flouncing from my Final required Day Of Class In Grand Style. But what?
Then Mrs. Linden started ranting about the Plagues Of Egypt.
She’d construed that the plagues were about Pharaoh Not Respecting God as We Students Weren’t Respecting Her, and hence he Needed To be Punished.
But from my perspective, I was rather heavily identifying with the slaves and would really like to call down the wrath of some higher being on Mrs. Linden and Mason. Then I realized that the mantises had been sitting on my bag on top of the radiator for the past three hours, and were probably all hatched and furious by now.
And for the first time, I truly understood “The Lord Works In Mysterious Ways.”
I signaled to Dashell that I was about to start shit, then quietly went back to the coat room to retrieve the jar. Sure enough, they had all hatched and dried, and were now clawing furiously at the glass, little scratches audible through the holes in the lid. I waited back there for a good minute, lightly shaking the jar to enrage the mantises, while I waited for Linden to get to the Locusts.
She really went overboard, claiming that entirely vegetarian grasshoppers could eat a cow to the bone in minutes, like aerial piranhas, and that they’d crawl under your skin and eat your eyeballs, because You Disrespected God So You Deserve It.
Unbeknownst to me, Dashell had gotten up during her rant and had pulled the loose plate off the lightswitch and had been tampering with the wiring, and just as she got to Darkness, he shorted out the lights.
I took this as my signal, and stepped out of the coatroom, and chucked the jar straight at the back of Mason’s head, shattering it, sending blood and glass everywhere, along with releasing approximately six fucktillion rage-filled insects into the room.
I cannot explain how deeply, soul-satisfying the chaos was.
Screaming children, screaming Linden, screaming insects, Mason screaming about the pain, Sabrina screaming that it was the End Of The World, and Dashell laughing demonically, wriggling the wire to make the lights flash like a literal Panic at the disco. There was glass everywhere, Insects landing on and attacking children as they tried to escape, people running into each other, someone pulling the fire alarm, creating MORE noise and setting the sprinklers off.
After a few minutes standing and watching, feeling the satisfaction of releasing hell settling in my soul, I quietly packed up my backpack and left, walked home and ate six ice cream sandwiches before mom got home from work.
“I’m done with school!” I told mom happily, sitting on the couch and watching animal planet with the dog.
“Did you show your class the mantises?’ She asked.
“Yes. I don’t think they liked them.” I said, watching Steve Irwin juggle snakes.
“Aw, that’s too bad. Are you ready to go camping?”
“Yes. Yes I am.”
And so the next morning, we left for the wilds of the redwood forest, so my mom didn’t hear anything about the incident until we came back a fortnight later. It never got pinned on me or Dashell, probably because Mrs. Linden left the classroom shortly after I did and was last seen in Arizona two days later. The district never actually managed to Fire her, because they never found her.
And that’s the most Chaotic Evil thing I’ve ever done.
Grace fuck, why would you invoke her name like that???
Okay, fine, gather round children, buckle up because we’re going on a bumpy ride back to everyone’s collective least favorite place: 7th grade.
Some background: I went to a very small Catholic school. One class per grade (we were the largest with 19 kids), everyone knew each other whether they wanted to or not. Despite basically every teacher and faculty members insistence that we were The Best And Most Special Class In The School and that everyone loved having us, the longstanding 7th grade teacher Mrs. O’Haradecided to retire in the summer of 2008, meaning the school had to find us a new teacher for the upcoming year. This would be like, the first new teacher in the school in a while, and as she was getting the ‘best class’, it was viewed as a Big Deal. Somewhere in like July or August we got a letter announcing Mrs. Stubel, and it came with a list of books to pick for the summer reading, and that was basically all the information we had.
So…the first day of class. She seems nice enough. Very…ditsy, I guess? It was very easy for her to get herself off topic while talking. She constantly paced around the room, never staying in one spot for longer than a second, complaining she has restless leg syndrome. Which like, I’m sure she did, but she was in the middle of introducing herself and then went on a 20 minute tangent about restless leg syndrome without anyone prompting her. It was almost like you could see her scattered thoughts flying around her head.
So anyone, she eventually gives somewhat of an introduction- she had only taught in public schools before, and kept worrying she ‘didn’t know’ how to teach in a Catholic school despite the entire class insisting literally nothing was different, you just teach the curriculum, twice a week we have religion class with Sister Mary King, that’s literally it (she still talked over us in worry), she told us about her kids, she told us about her obsession with Emily Dickinson, stuff like that.
And then she hands us this worksheet.
She’s like, “Oh, these are just some basic questions for you to answer! Just so I can get to know you guys better!” like in lieu of an icebreaker game, which is fine, but…the questions. The questions were all “What is your most haunting fear?”, “What is your deepest regret?”, “Have you ever experienced the pain of loss?”, “What was your worst injury?”, “What was your worst nightmare?”, all questions like that, and then on the back she wanted us to draw a gravestone and write out what we wanted our epitaph to be.
We were twelve year olds, mind you.
Oh my God and one girl missed the first day because of her grandmother’s funeral, so when she came the next day and saw what the teacher was insisting she do for homework, she almost had a panic attack? And the lady still made her do it? Literally who wants to think about death anymore at a time like that omfg.
Okay, so then we get to the summer reading book reports, right? Now, she had given a list of maybe, 20 books that you could pick from, read it, and then present an oral report on it. You had to have notecards and you had to be able to answer questions from the class at the end. All in all, I’ve had worse projects.
So, on this list, she apparently put Madeleine L’Engle’s entire book series on the list…only she did not make it known that this was a series and not multiple stand alone books, so when reports started up it caused mass-panic of kids trying to put together plot points and make connections on what the hell they had read.
I was the only kid in the class who had chosen to read “A Wrinkle In Time”, and that has since lead to a series of events that…really actually scares me, I’m still incredibly freaked out, I’m not going to get into it right now because it’ll take away from the current story, but just know that I’m not above wondering if it only happened because I read the book for Stubel.
Anyway, so like, I got through the report okay. The class asking questions about it was fine, but the teacher kept asking questions that didn’t make sense, like, at all. My friend Angie has always had super neat handwriting and Mrs. Stubel got like, obsessed with her notecards and asked if she could borrow them for something. When we got our grades back a few weeks later, Angie had points taken off for not having notecards.
And then her teaching just…didn’t happen. She’d never stay on a topic, she’d always get herself distracted! We were not learning anything. And like, this wasn’t a class of advanced smart kids that loved to learn. By all accounts we should’ve been thrilled. But it got out of hand. It got to points where we had to start teaching lessons to ourselves, asking teacher from other grades for help, always coming home in tears, complaining constantly to our parents and the principal because this woman wasn’t teaching us anything. There were two kids who asked her multiple times for extra help, and she told them each time to ‘talk to me after school’, but then she’d leave immediately after school so they wouldn’t be able to talk to her. They finally brought up the issue in the middle of class and she had a breakdown, yelling about how nobody ever thinks that maybe the teacher has a lot of work to do, and maybe she’s entitled to taking off early, but when we tried to argue she shouldn’t schedule meetings and then break them off in the name of relaxation, she stormed out of the room and tried to get the principal to give us detention. (Which, like, our school didn’t even do, and she was the only one in the wrong during this situation) We are still in September at this point, and already at least ten kids have parents considering transferring them to another school. (And remember, there was only 19 of us, and most of the class had been together since preschool, so that was a big deal).
Then, she starts coming in with all the weird bruises. All the Moms™ immediately started gossiping that her husband had to be beating her, and that’s why she was so screwy in the head. But the way she talked about her husband made it seem like he *might* be dead, and we actually did witness her fall and smack her head into a doorknob once, so no one really knew what to believe. (Also, I’m not trying to imply that abuse would make someone crazy or ‘damaged’ or anything, this is just what was being said. I think they were trying to turn her into a more sympathetic character, because if you feel sorry for her you don’t have to hate her for frustrating your kids so much, and Hate Is A Bad Emotion.)
Also…this woman and Emily Dickinson.
She talked about Emily Dickinson every chance she could get. None of us knew who Emily Dickinson really was before she got there and you could see in her mind it was a capitol offense. She found out the curriculum didn’t have room to cover her (because like, we had a text book), and was way too upset about it. She started reading her poems whenever she found the time (usually somewhere in history class), and always gave us very detailed accounts about her dressing up as Emily and reading her poetry at the library.
Now, two things to note here:
The library did not hire her to do this. She would literally just get in the mood, put on an Emily Dickinson costume that she made by herself, drive to different libraries, and just read poetry out loud to everyone there until someone eventually asked her to leave.
The way she described these events…her tone, the look on her face, her posture…you could just tell that she was getting some sort of sexual gratification out of this? Like dressing up as Emily Dickinson in public and reading her sad poems is really what got this lady’s jollies rocking? Got her all hot and bothered? Which is…a lot, but why would you tell a bunch of seventh graders about it holy shit. What about that sounds like a good idea! What about that turns you back on!
So anyway, we learned a lot about Emily Dickinson against our will.
One of the Davids™ was reading a book for pleasure- which shouldn’t have been a shocker, a lot of kids always had books on them, but Stubel got really interested and asked if she could borrow it from him. He was like ‘sure, after I finish it?’ but she took it that day. He asked her for it back for like five weeks straight.
And…the strudels.
Okay, so the school was trying some dorky thing to promote ~togetherness~ or some virtue or something, I don’t remember the specifics of why, but each class had to make a huge themed poster and hang it on the wall outside the classroom. Which was like, whatever, not the most thrilling project but at least it allowed us to be productive vs just sitting there as the teacher runs about the room rambling about her family vacation from four years ago. Mrs. Stubel decided we needed a quirky nickname and after like three days of deliberation we were christened “Stubel’s Special Strudels”!
(points for alliteration or whatever, but no one actually voted for that and what exactly do strudels have to do with Catholicism? It became a big running joke amongst the kids)
Also, in case you were wondering, she didn’t explain the assignment correctly to us- so every other class had like these beautiful, artistic, well-themed and put together posters, while ours was just…literally a bunch of shit thrown together on paper. Nothing fit with each other, it was literally embarrassing to look at.
But then…she wouldn’t drop the strudel thing. Like she kept bringing it up. She got really into strudels and would just tell us random shit about them. Finally, someone jokes that we should get strudels one day for a party (like instead of a pizza party), and she’s Freaking Out and On Board. She really wants to buy us strudels and have a breakfast party now. She talked about it for like two days straight.
So like… you know in school when you would have a pizza party, usually the teacher would buy it? That’s how they always happened in my experience (not counting the last day of 10th grade when some kid had pizza delivered to the school for lunch but it didn’t get there until math class lol). But especially in grade school? Like if it wasn’t a PTA made party that’s super organized, the school would buy the food, right? Right?
Yeah, so she was like, if this is happening you guys need to give me the money. Just give me the money and then I’ll pick them up on my way to work!! And after some arguing some kids are on board. Strudels should only cost a couple dollars right?
And she’s like, oh no, I’m gonna get them from this high end bakery near my house so it’ll be special, but they’re not cheap and it’ll be a big order! I’m gonna need like fifteen dollars from each of you!
And at this point I’m just like…lady. Come on.
But she keeps insisting. She’s not gonna go until every student in class pays up.
And I’m like…I’m poor. I don’t even like strudel. And some of the less-naïve kids are siding with me.
And then she pulls that “you guys are just spoiling all the fun for your classmates” shit, like the naïve kids who already paid up, so it gets to the point where we just gotta cave and give her the money.
(I ended up stealing it out of my Crazy Bitch Aunt’s wallet so it’s whatever, I guess.)
And then of course, shockingly enough, every morning she was met with “where are the strudels?” and every morning she went wide eyed, slapped her forehead and yelled in embarrassed horror “I totally forgot! Tomorrow, guys, I promise!”
Honestly, with how scatterbrained and confused she always was…like to this day I can’t tell you with 100% certainty whether she hustled us or was just actually forgetting about the damn pastries, I choose to lean towards the hustled us side because that’s just the type of people I’m used to, but if I found out it was innocent forgetfulness I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.
She couldn’t handle more than one person talking at a time. Like, we’d have break periods, or group work, or something and all the talking made her go wide-eyed and batty. She’d look overworked and anxious and would be darting around the room trying to do work or something but she couldn’t focus and she’d yell at anyone who tried to talk to her directly. I remember one time she was using this boys desk for something so he asked “where am I supposed to sit?” and she snapped “Sit on the ceiling for all I care!”. And this kid was the Class Clown™ , so he immediately grabbed a chair in one hand and started climbing the bookcase to try and reach the ceiling. She’s standing right next to this and doesn’t even notice. He got all four chair legs planted on the ceiling and was trying to somehow maneuver his way into the chair (I really don’t know what the plan was exactly– he was really tall and it was a small building, so I think he probably had the idea that if he can get his body upside down and in the chair, and stretch out his arms like a hand-stand to hold onto bookcase, he could arguably sit on the ceiling.) but he slipped. Crashed into my desk and the two desks next to me, knocked over the book case, broke the chair in half and hit the desks with enough force to knock them down lower. It was hilarious. Everyone was loosing their shit cracking up (he was fine) and it still took Stubel like five minutes to notice his lying out across the desks right in front of her eyes. She was pissed but how did she miss any of it in the first place? She was barely being helpful in whatever it was she was trying to do.
This was the year the Phillies were going to the World Series, and all the grades were having a Phillies Rally in the cafeteria so a news crew was coming to the school and each class was supposed to come up with fun little cheers for them to broadcast. Multiple cheer ideas were presented to her and she vetoed all of them, someone even suggested just singing the damn eagles theme song with replaced words and calling it a day but she vetoed that too, she was very adamant that she could come up with a cheer all by herself and it’ll be the best one (whoever had the best cheer was winning like an ice cream day or something idk). And then like…literally five minutes before the rally she just hands us signs with the letters and was like ‘we’re just gonna spell out Phillies it will be cute won’t it my strudels???’. We were the weakest class there, predictably. I think we lost to the kindergarteners. There might still be a video online of me yelling “i “ passionately at the top of my lungs. It was online bc our cheer was so bland the news crew cut it out of the broadcast.
I literally can’t say enough about how she never taught us anything. She’d be going on some tangent about how she doesn’t understand the science behind skiing, and I’d be like “Okay yes but please can you just tell me where Romania is on a map???” And she’d start fights whenever someone actually wanted to learn. It was so easy to get her angry but so hard for her to stay on topic. Kids started teaching the class themselves! Like seriously, she’d be rambling and one of us would just go up to the podium, open the teacher’s guide textbook and just start reading out loud and talking over her. By the time she noticed we’d be halfway through a lesson. And we understood it better than when she tried! You know something’s wrong when pre-teens are more qualified for a job than an adult who supposedly went to school for this.
We were in the church having run-throughs for our upcoming Confirmation and she almost set the church on fire…fifteen different times. In less than half an hour. How hard is it to hold a candle?
Okay, and here’s when stuff starts kicking up. It was October 28th, a Tuesday, and it was our last day of school that week because they were having parent-teacher conferences the rest of the week. So we were just hanging out, watching movies in class and reading (lord knows we weren’t learning), and Stubel calls me over to her desk.
So like, she had given everyone little bags with candy for Halloween, but I get up there and she hands me an extra one. And she’s like “Molly I know your birthday is tomorrow and I bought you a present but I left it on my coffee table this morning by accident! So just have the candy for now!”
And I’m like….”Ma’am I’m like, the sixth birthday this year. You didn’t give anyone else presents?”
And she goes “Oh, I know but this is a special secret surprise. I just know you’re gonna love it! Do you wanna stop by my house later this week to pick it up or should I just give it to you Monday after school?”
And like…In writing this sounds like a non-threatening exchange, and like, it was, but I felt so uncomfortable holy shit. I’m looking over my shoulder and shooting my friends SOS signals. Something about this felt so weird in my gut omfg. I told her thanks and I’d just see her Monday.
So we flash forward to Wednesday- my 13th birthday, the day the Phillies won the world series, and also the day my mother innocently strolled into the school for her meeting only to be met with screaming, the sound of heavy destruction, and the school secretary Mrs. Daily running at her in a panic, waving her arms and yelling “YOUR MEETING IS CANCELLED YOUR MEETING IS CANCELLED GET IN MY OFFICE NOW!”
So my poor mother, who thought she could handle this whole meeting in a few minutes and barely be an hour late for work, is now barricaded in the front office with the school secretary, as the noises from down the hall get louder and louder. The woman explains that they had gotten so many complaints about Mrs. Stubel that this morning, when she got to the school, the principal Sister Patricia called her in and said “Listen, we need you to be professional and still have the parent conferences, but we have to let you go. We just don’t think you fit in well here, and the kids need to come first and feel comfortable in their school.” and like, I’m paraphrasing because I wasn’t there, but we all know she was very polite and professional about it.
Mrs. Stubel, however…was not.
She flipped her chair and stormed out of the office, and locks herself in the seventh grade classroom. She started wrecking the shit out of that place, screaming obscenities and the top of her lungs, they had to call the cops on her! She was locked in there for almost an hour! And let me just give you a nice little list of everything she did in that classroom:
Smashed three windows.
Threw everything off her desk and carved swear words all over it.
Got cleaning fluid that she knew would damage the chalk boards, smeared it all over.
Cracked the chalk boards by repeatedly smashing chairs against them.
Wrote swear words all over the walls and on desks
Went into students desks, ripped up their books.
Stole my glasses. (which were in my desk bc I only used them in class at the time)
Threw some desks around.
Carved swear words into the boards. (there was so much carving I’m assuming she just had a knife on her person, which has to lead to the question, did she have a knife on her while she was in class with us?)
Physically ripped the hooks to hang backpacks on out of the wall.
Knocked the closet door off it’s hinges.
Ripped up all the books in the bookcases and threw their pages all around the room.
Wrote lewd phrases inside student’s desks.
Broke multiple chairs.
Used her podium as a battering ram against the wall that’s in front of where the backpacks go. (the wall won but Damage Was Inflicted)
Set a fire in the trash can.
When the principal and other teachers started trying to get in, she tossed her rolling chair at the door to scare them off.
She was screaming curse words at the top of her lungs the entire time, and cursing the school and the kids and the principal and the church in general, and the school building was small, so all the parents and the smaller children that had to come to the meetings (who were locked in their respective classrooms in fear) heard everything.
So much more? But it’s 4:30 in this morning and this list is already long.
So my mom is in the front office and deadass the
entire police force
shows up, running down the hallway to the classroom yelling at her to stop, and it takes a while for them to get her out holy shit. They knocked down the door and she tried to escape out of one of the broken windows! But they got her and dragged her out.
So of course, in such a small school with very involved parents this shit spread like wildfire. The entire town knew within the day. The poor principal called the newly retired old-seventh grade teacher and was like “So we…need some help” and the lady was like “I already heard I’ll be there Monday” omfg. I remember I got a text from one of my classmates saying “if your birthday wish was for us to be set free from the beast I love you” omfg.
So, we eventually go back to school on Monday and everyone’s buzzing. The principal has us go to the cafeteria and she ‘delicately’ explains the situation, and that the old teacher is coming out of retirement for us, the school has a restraining order against Mrs. Stubel now and that she’s sorry we had to deal with this mess. Our classroom had to go under some heavy reconstruction before we could be let back in there, so for like two weeks we alternated between the cafeteria and the preschooler’s classroom, we had no books or anything, just provided loose-leaf paper and pens. It was like, surreal, but everyone was just so happy to be rid of her and to be in the presence of a competent teacher omfg. We eventually were able to get back into our usual classroom.
It took a while for things to go completely back to normal, though. After the big spectacle she made, for weeks after she was fired we were all very scared of the possibility of Mrs. Stubel returning to the school with a gun in hand. It was always a topic we whispered about at lunch with wide eyes and shivers. Like…genuine nightmare scenario.
About two weeks after she was fired, a boy in the back of the classroom gasped loudly during SSR, and when we all looked at him, he whispered in anger “She never gave us our freakin’ strudels!”
About three months after she was fired, we were lined up at the door to go to Library when a few of us looked through the windows and saw something darting through the trees. It was fast and we couldn’t make anything out, so we let it drop. When the class and teacher returned half and hour later, the book she had borrowed months before from one of the boys was sitting on his desk. It was just laying there, the room was silent, nothing had been disturbed…but I have never seen a book look so threatening. People were freaking out. Someone kept insisting that she turned the book into a bomb. No one figure out how she got in the school, and no one could figure out how she got it on the right desk, as we had switched the seating arrangement since she had last been there.
A full six months after she had left, it was nearing the end of the school year and our class was dicking around during our last computer class. Someone found a website (that we weren’t allowed to be on) that pulls up any police records attached to whoever’s name you enter, so someone decided to search Mrs. Stubel as a joke. We ended up finding out she had like six DUI’s.
Aaaaand that’s the story of the horrendous teacher I had for two months in 7th grade. One of my favorite party stories but tbh she still haunts me™ .
… I’m not sure this earns World’s Worst Teacher but it sure as hell earns World’s Most Bizarre Teacher. Good gods.
…Guys, I think she’s still teaching out there.
Jesus fuck this was a ride from start to finish
Wow
This was so long, but absolutely riveting. I’d scroll back up and start if you skipped it. Or if you dont have time, save it to read for later.
okay I got a few asks about this so let me see what I can remember right now. These might not all be in chronological order
– At orientation, they were talking about the reservation near campus and all these pretty sites and this kid in the back of the auditorium goes “So uhh…heard this place might be built over a Native American burial ground?”
– The speaker: “…Let’s not think about that, okay?”
– The freshman were on campus alone for like a week and a half (other than the RA’s) before the other students and I just. The parties. Were out of control. An ambulance was called basically every night.
– I walked into the bathroom the first night there to find a girl literally dying because someone slipped something in her drink and she was having a Very Bad Reaction
– Sting- you know, the singer- ‘s son lived in my residence hall. This boy almost accidentally killed me on three separate occasions (while I was just trying to do my laundry)
– I told my family about this at Thanksgiving. Everyone in the room advised me to seduce him
– I ate breakfast in the dining hall exactly once. I got scrambled eggs. I noticed no one had brought out ketchup with the condiments and politely asked about it. I received glares from at least ten different people. Apparently people there don’t believe in ketchup on eggs.
– There were these two boys in my English class known as “The Lumbard Guys”. They didn’t live in my residence hall, but they would come over almost every night, start a party, and destroy part of the basement.
– At orientation this one kid got mad and set his shoe on fire to prove a point
– Also at orientation like??? My roommate disappeared???? And I never saw her again???
– Listen like…this campus just looked like the perfect setting for a horror film, but none of the people from the area got that. They all thought I was crazy until some comic from Comedy Central did a stand up act and said “Why the hell is this campus so creepy? I feel like I’m gonna leave here with someone else wearing my face!”. I felt way too validated.
– ALL OF MY CLASSES WERE SO FAKE
– My “math” class was actually a disguised home ec. course???? All we had were word problems that were incredibly detailed recipes or instructions on how to fix things. The teacher, who I swear to GOD was actually my Mr-Rogers-Wannabe guidance counselor from high school in disguise, spent more time trying to come up with names and backstories for the models in the text book than actually trying to teach
– I had to take a class called “first year seminar” because neither of my parents went to college. It was supposed to be teaching you about how the school works and stuff but SUPRISE BITCH WE’RE JUST GONNA YELL ABOUT RACISM AND PRIVELGE FOR AN HOUR.
– Literally that’s all we did. Just the whole class bonding over all these struggles we had gone through and getting fired up. Like, it was great, but I also ended up knowing very little about campus and school stuff bc that was the class that was supposed to be teaching me lmao
– My Psych teacher was fucking hysterical for the first few classes but then he just. Vanished. I had to drop the class
– My Fine Arts teacher just. Couldn’t stick to a teaching plan. Her entire wardrobe was scarves. She was very passionate about African masks. She had a flapper haircut. She spoke quietly, but with a marvelously forced tone of voice that I’m certain was her trying to sound impressive and hide a Boston accent. She didn’t seem to understand the year was 2014. She took us into the city to go to the Art Museum and we lost her in there, never to be seen again
– I’m not even kidding
– My “writing” teacher was my absolute fav omfg. She was this long grey haired hippie lady who worked as a nurse for the Grateful Dead and was still stuck there. She may or may not have hooked up with my uncle. I was her favorite student because one day I came in wearing a “HAIR” shirt. She wanted to take the class to England for the sole purpose of going on a Beatles tour
– But like…she did not teach a writing class omfg. She taught a social justice class. All we did was have informed debates about The Issues and listen to music and occasionally watch the Breakfast Club. Every time there was a big paper due on the syllabus, she’d just sit on her desk and go “I mean, I don’t have to cover anything, right? You guys know how to write!” Like I genuinely don’t think she knew what class she was teaching
– There was a boy who sat next to me in that class. He was deaf in one ear and used that as an excuse when he got caught blatantly not paying attention. It worked every time. But I was right next to him. I saw him playing Yu-Gi-Oh on some website on his phone under the table. One time we started talking about model cars and he pre-cummed.
– There was a boy who roamed the campus in a long black trench coat and a weird hat. I never saw his body and started to suspect he might not have one, just the theory of one. He took interest in me because I was the only person in class who ever got his Doctor Who jokes. He’d come up to me at dinner and blast quiz me on various nerd culture before running off and disappearing into the shadows. Just as I was starting to grudgingly accept I was probably going to have to eventually hook up with him for the greater good, I apparently offended him by saying I like Picard more than Kirk. He didn’t stick around to listen to my reasoning. Whenever I saw him after that he would loudly start talking about how great his girlfriend was. Everyone knew he was lying. I wonder if Kirk ever sucked his theoretical dick as well as I would have.
– I gave a football player a shout out on Yik Yak. He really appreciated it, and gave me some fries laced with weed as a thanks. That was such A Night ™ , I watched the Lorax and left the dimension.
– Every time we had dances, this creepy guy named Horace would find me and use my obvious discomfort to make me dance with him. He’d hold my wrists and shove his crotch on mine while vaguely swaying to the beat. I had to escape to the bathroom every few minutes. Finally the security just banned him from the events altogether. I can still see his face clearly in my mind.
– One night, I walked into the bathroom to find a perfect, untouched pizza laying on the floor…but not in a box. Someone literally just took it out of the box and laid it down. I’m still fuming.
– One time I was in the mostly empty library when I smelled something. I walked down the rows of shelves before rounding the corner, and found the President of the college hidden there, sitting on the floor, smoking, a bottle of vodka in his hands. We held eye contact for a solid minute. He slowly shook his head at me. I said “Sir, your house is like…literally across the street.” He shook his head more vigorously. I left the library.
– One night, I heard screaming. I looked out the window to find a girl in a giraffe costume scaling my building. People were throwing water bottles at her. I was concerned. I didn’t know who to talk to for answers.
– I was in line trying to pay for dinner. One of the lunch ladies climbed on top of the ice cream machine and refused to come down. Her friend came over and they started recreating the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Very few people acknowledged it.
– Someone jacked up the soda dispenser so it was only dispensing beer. None of the staff cared enough to fix it.
– I caught my RA in the middle of a drug deal so she gave me a coupon for free ice cream
– Also side note: The soft served ice cream machine on campus was actually a frozen yogurt machine. I had no problem with that, but like, advertise correctly, you know? Nobody else seemed to understand my confusion. Nobody else seemed to understand that froyo and ice cream are two different things. What the hell.
– There were just…so many moths all over the campus. A terrifying amount. When it started getting colder I was like, finally, I won’t be attacked by moths anymore! Only for even more moths to appear. I asked a local about it. “Oh, those are the winter moths!” What the fuck are winter moths? What the fuck, Massachusetts? My friend back home grew convinced that Mothman was in the area. I was inclined to believe her. Sometimes I close my eyes and all I can see are moths everywhere, waiting for the moment to strike.
– I’ve encountered deer many times in my life. I know how they act around people. But the deer on this campus were just weird. They’d run out at people all the time. One almost shoved me into traffic.
– My roommate gave my phone number out to literally anyone she found who mentioned they liked to read or liked Doctor Who. She was concerned I had no friends. No one ever called.
– I met a small Greek girl in my Fine Arts class. Our first day of talking, she made me climb a mountain with her so she could get to tutoring, even though I had no reason to be in that building. Her roommates kept mysteriously disappearing. She was late to everything. She’d call me randomly to get food at 1 in the morning. She kept somehow breaking phones and tvs and other electronics. When I asked her how they kept breaking, she waved it off with “Oh, I have OCD. You wouldn’t understand”. I have OCD, and I still don’t understand. One time she invited me out with her friends from high school. I waited outside her building for two hours, while the other friends waited in the parking lot for two hours, because we didn’t know how to find each other. She eventually came outside at 10:30 pm. We went to Friendly’s. She made us stop at her house so she could grab something. We pulled up a long, winding driveway and stopped in a parking lot. At the end of the parking lot were stone stairs that lead up to a mansion on a hill. She ran inside and the rest of us stayed in the car, listening to High School Musical and talking about Supernatural. When she came out 40 minutes later we decided to try and prank her. It went wrong. We almost ran over her friend’s sister with the car. They invited me to a pumpkin patch. When I started complaining about my roommate, she asked me to move in with her. I thought about the other three girls who had seemingly gone missing. I politely declined. Six months after I left the school, I received a text from her asking for notes for an exam, and radio silence after that. I can’t find her on facebook. I fear she might have gone missing too.
– One night, as I was standing outside huddled in the cold, a boy came up and offered me a cigarette to help me stay warm. I turned it down, but he stood around talking to me for a few minutes afterwards. I felt absolutely no awkwardness at all. He was a musician from Colorado. He sang a bit of one of his songs. He was dropping out of school to go to California the next week. He told me I had beautiful eyes, but his were the most alive eyes I’ve ever seen so I couldn’t believe the compliment. We talked for about ten minutes and I fell a little bit in love. He had to rush off to a club meeting, but he told me he’d rather keep talking. He gave me the sweetest smile before he left. I didn’t get his last name or number and I never saw him again.
– There was a dance on Halloween. I couldn’t think of a sufficiently slutty yet classy costume, so I just went as Osgood from Doctor Who. When I got there there was a huge crowd, but people quickly grew bored and started leaving. There ended up being six people left (myself included). We stayed because we could see the upset faces of everyone who had planned the event, but actually had one of the most fun nights of my life. We- myself, the girl from across the hall, Trench Coat Boy, his tiny friend who never spoke, and a boy and girl I didn’t know who seemed to be professional dancers- danced nonstop for almost three hours. The strobe lights and poppy music solidified an unspoken bond. I had never and to this day haven’t felt as free as I did that night. The tiny quiet boy’s smile could have lit up a city. It’s etched into my mind. We all left the dance talking about the surreal feeling in the air, as if something had shifted. None of us ever mentioned the dance again. It’s still one of my fondest memories.
– For a solid month, there was someone in a gorilla costume running around campus.
– There was a rash of sexual assaults on campus. A gang of boys kept jumping girls in the woods. The only thing the school board did was give out free rape whistles at lunch one day. I missed that day, making me one of the only students on campus without a whistle. Later that night when I ordered pizza, the delivery guy tried to start up a conversation with me about all the assaults. He blamed the girls. I took back my tip.
– Sometimes the showers just…filled up with black sludge. No one knew why.
– The girls in the room next to me were very bizarre. They always shot me odd looks and whispered to each other constantly. I couldn’t figure out if they were sleeping together or not. They never washed their hands when we were in the bathroom.
– The doors to each dorm were thick and heavy and required effort to push them open. My roommate and I made sure to lock ours every night, and would triple check it. It swung open by itself almost every night. The channels on the tv would change with the remote equidistance away from us. Sometimes I heard humming in the showers when I was the only one in there.
– My roommate…deserves a whole separate post dedicated to her, honestly.
– She would call her mother and have her do her homework for her. She blasted music constantly, and it was either country or hard rap, nothing in between. She sexiled me constantly. I once walked in on anal. She’d meet guys on Tinder, fall in love with them after a couple of days, and then bring them into the school and into our room like it was no big deal. One of them made it clear he was a budding serial killer. She was in a new drama every week. One time someone called her a dilf on Yik Yak. She was firmly convinced her cousin was blonde because her aunt dyed her hair when she was pregnant. She tried her hardest to get me laid by a football player. She was the loudest drunk I’ve ever encountered. Honestly there’s just too much about her for this omfg
– John Zaffis, the famous paranormal researcher, came to the school on my birthday. I went because I’m a loser who’s been watching shows with him since I was a kid, and I was having a bad day so I decided it could be a treat. I sat in the front row. He held an uncomfortable amount of eye contact with me the entire presentation. He was impressed with my questions. He lamented about the fact he’s always cut out of movies or replaced by priests that look like him. He apparently came to the school every year around Halloween to do a ghost tour around the campus for the students. A girl allegedly killed herself in my floor’s bathroom. He apparently always got a lot of activity around the campus. Everyone in the freshman class started wondering if the rumors about the Native American burial ground were true.
– One time in “writing” class the teacher gave us a number and then whatever song came up as that when we put our music on shuffle we had to play for the class. I ended up with “Touch Me” from Spring Awakening. Midway through the song, the teacher from another class came to complain that they could hear everything. My teacher tried to defend that all music has an important message. “Molly, dear, tell her the message in this song!” I looked around the room and at the other teacher. “It’s about sex,” I said quietly. She stormed out of the room while the class started laughing.
– There was this girl that just had the natural ability to make anything boring. I feel bad saying that, because she’s such a sweet girl, and she’s smart, and she’s gorgeous, and she’s talented, but just…every time she says anything, it’s boring. I’m still friends with her on facebook, the talent transcends to writing as well. You could be having a fun, lively conversation and she could say something completely relevant to the point and yet it would still just be boring. It’s a baffling talent, I still don’t understand how she does it.
– There was a boy who’d come into my room. He lusted over my s’mores poptarts. He kept trying to hit the high notes in Broadway songs. He didn’t understand my sense of humor at all, so we both were constantly worried we were offending each other. He cried about Selena Gomez a lot.
– The dining hall only offered horrendous food. I had pasta almost every night because it was the only thing remotely edible. If you wanted good food, you had to go to Late Night, which was between like 10:30 and 1 I think??? They set it up specifically for stoners and people leaving parties. I was frequently the only sober person there. Except for the moths.
– The chief at the pasta place found out I like theater and got like…weirdly passionate about it. He kept telling me about different theater groups in the area and wanted to know if I was in the school musical. He asked me every time I went up for food.
– There was a disproportionate amount of large black birds to trees. It wasn’t hard to figure out why we so rarely saw smaller animals
– When I told my advisor I was thinking about leaving (mostly for financial reasons but also the fake classes were preventing me from getting an education I wanted, you know?), this little old man looked around his office as if checking for people listening in, then put his hand on top of mine, leaned in close, and whispered “Oh, you sweet little girl. Run as fast as you can.”
There’s definitely more but listen. This school was weird and fake and vaguely surreal and off-kilter. I am fully afraid that one day, years from now, I’m going to be driving through the back roads and pass the place where the campus should be, only I won’t find anything there at all, and won’t be able to find any trace of it ever existing. I won’t be able to find any record of it. I won’t be able to find a record of any of the people. Every time I think about this place I just get a weird feeling, like I somehow managed to escape the Twilight Zone but left a part of me behind in the process. Be careful when applying to college, kids.
this is a post that pops up at two am and only makes sense at two am. if i read this post at nine pm it would be like reading a foreign language but somehow at this cursed hour the words rearrange themselves to english to reveal a secret message written in a code no one has cracked yet.
^^ This is the best comment I’ve gotten on my post 😂😂
Summary: Midorima is broken in pieces and Takao is the only one who knows how to put the pieces back together.A/N: Eheh
~•~•~.
Takao has a recurring dream.
Nightmare
It’s not that scary. It’s rather simple. He’s walking alone, on grass as the shards pierce his skin. Midorima is always walking a little ways away from him. Always out of reach-Takao learned that no matter how long his arm is he will never be able to reach for Midorima. The tip of his fingertips are too far to even brush against Midorima’s skin. Every step Takao seems to take, Midorima takes three. In real life, Midorima moves two step ahead, two steps farther every time Takao takes merely a half step.
Takao would call, but no matter how much he calls-he would always trip on invisible obstacles that even his hawk eye can’t see. Hands screaming in protest as he falls. Midorima would turn around every time, as if Takao’s agony filled screams are the only thing he can hear. His green eyes always cold, Unfeeling, unrecognizing as they roam over Takao’s face for the few seconds he pauses.
Midorima continues walking, until the only thing left for Takao is his footsteps
. —
Takao stopped setting an alarm. Midorima has taken a fair liking to waking him up precisely at seven AM and he doesn’t need an inanimate object screaming at him as well. This morning was not any different.
There was a high keening that starts out as a small whine then it reaches the intensity and pitch of a boiling kettle until Takao jolts awake to feel himself being shoved out of bed, blankets and all. His head cracks harder against the floor than usual today, he winces and lets his cheek linger a little longer against the cold hardwood floor, untangling the last tendrils of the dream from his consciousness, watching little dust bunnies dance to the music of his heaving breaths.
”You’re not Takao,” Midorima says, coiling into the sheets on his own side of the bed, “What are you doing in my bed?”
”Good morning, Shin-chan,” Takao says, sitting up rubbing his forehead he shoots Midorima an uneven smile. “What do you want for breakfast?”
”I don’t want anything,” Midorima hissed at him narrowing his eyes as he pushes up his glasses. “I want… Takao. Not you.”
”I shall go find him then.” Takao chimed brightly, “Is there anything you want to tell him?”
Midorima pulls his pillow to his chest, curling his arms and legs around it. He rolls his eyes up and blows a few locks of green hair out of his eyes, Takao’s heart clenches slightly. This is the shin-chan he remembers.
”Tell him to stop leaving in the middle of the night,” Midorima says rocking back and forth resting his chin into the soft pillow. “Tell him to get back earlier if he does. Tell him that I’m sorry for all of this… That I hope he’s not cheating on me because I’m not cheating on him. Even if there’s a stranger that looks exactly like him sleeping in my bed.”
”Just the same old then?”
”Mhm..” Midorima murmurs with his mouth pressed against the pillow. “Tell him I miss him.”
”… Okay,” Takao says, his heart once again clenching tightly. “I’ll tell him that.”
—
Takao isn’t mad.
That’s what he tells everyone, that’s what he tells Midorima, that’s what he tells himself. He’s not so sure about that, he’s not sure he believes it himself.
Takao tells himself that Midorima isn’t crazy, but he’s still the one that sees Midorima’s cold, untrusting eyes everywhere he turns. In the morning when Midorima shoves him out of bed and screaming at his face, the face he would call impostor. The face he can’t even remember as he would always cup it with his hands and bring it closer to him. But that’s the past, Midorima is different now but Takao refuse to think he’s crazy. When he gets home after class, Midorima would turn hoping it is the Takao he is looking for, only to be disappointed. When Midorima curls into himself and say how he misses the one that comes in the morning.
Takao trudges his way to Kagami’s apartment three floors above, where half of his clothes are just so he can change into them in the morning and possibly trick Midorima into thinking he’s the right Takao. Rain is pouring relentlessly outside, and Takao stops by an open window just to watch it pelt against the grimy glass.
Kagami’s doorbell is so loud he can hear the buzzing from the other side of the door, and there was a bit of banging and tumbling around before it opens. Kagami’s steps back for Takao to step in delicately, raising an eyebrow at the mess on the floor of the living room. Clothes are thrown everywhere and he bends down and picks up a pair of boxers with puppies printed all over them.
”Nice,” he says, and Kagami splutters, snatching it out of Takao’s fingers.
”Go change,” he mutters and Takao snickers, shucking his shirt off.
”Didn’t know you’d be sleeping with anyone on a school night,” Takao calls, his voice echoing through the hallway.
”I-shut up, okay?” Kagami says, his face red. Takao feels something soft connect to the back of his head and a dark blue settles over his vision. “I forgot, I threw your stuff in my wash. Your welcome.”
”Oh, thanks.” Takao says. “Well, is he worth a school night?”
”If you don’t stop talking I swear I will stick this toothbrush-”
“Okay, okay. Christ.” Takao says, slipping the blue cardigan on. He realized it’s just a little small on him, then he remembers it belonged to Akashi. The one he borrowed from a month ago when this all had happened.
Kagami softens slightly, “Any improvements this morning?”
”No,” Takao says, with the pretense of sounding extraordinarily calm, “Shoved me out of bed and told me to rely stuff to myself. Then here I am again. Nothing new.” He squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush slowly, deliberately watching it settle into it’s bristles before laughing humorlessly. “I wake up with one guy in the morning and get ready with another and neither of them gets angry. That’s all I can ask for right now.”
Kagami shoots him an apologetic face through the mirror. “Do you wanna talk about it?” He asked gently through a mouthful of foam.
”What is there to talk about?” Takao says as he jams his toothbrush to his mouth as of this sealed his point.
”You’re my friend,” Kagami states. “You and Midorima both. I just don’t want to see you hurting… Either of you.”
”We’re past the point of hurting,” Takao bends slightly to spit into the sink. “We have no idea how long this will last, no one really knows. It’s been different in every case. We just have to learn to live with it and-” he sighs. “Hope for the best.”
Kagami holds out Takao’s phone, exactly seven thirty. Takao takes it from him grunting his appreciation, and trudge his way to the kitchen. It’s the quietest in the morning and Takao settles into the only unbroken chair. Taking a deep breath, he dials Midorima’s phone.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Takao?” He asks hopefully.
”Hey, Shin-chan.”
”Takao, why are you never home?” Midorima asks. “You’re never home. It’s been a month now- where are you?”
”I’m sorry Midorima shin.” Takao says. “I have to do something and.. I can’t tell you what it is.”
”You’re not cheating on me,right?”
”Of course not, I just…. I’m sorry.” Takao says.
”Takao, there’s a stranger living in the house, aren’t you worried?” Midorima asks. “He looks exactly like you. A perfect carbon copy.”
”I’m not worried,” Takao says. “You don’t even kiss me in public what makes you think I’d be worried about you sleeping with. Stranger?”
”Urusai,” it was almost like Takao can feel the heat of Midorima cheeks through the phone. “Though you can never be too sure, what if I get drunk? You know how low my tolerance is with alcohol.”
”Let’s not talk about it.” Takao says and Midorima cackles. Tears almost comes to his eyes at how much he misses hearing Midorima real laughs. Sure he’s rare to show it even before this had happen. But he would always show them to Takao and he misses being the Takao he asks for every morning.
”When are you coming home?” Midorima asks in a small voice.
”Soon.”
”How soon?”
”Not soon enough,” Takao says, and Midorima makes a little whine of agreement. “I have to go now.”
”Okay, Takao?”
”Yeah?”
”I love you.”
Takao’s heart does something a little funny.
”I love you too.”
—
A month ago, Midorima had been walking home from practice, just an hour before Takao got out of extra classes he took. Midorima had been walking at the crosswalk, tired and weary and he hadn’t been looking for the walk signal, just eager to go home and crash into the sheets. From what Takao was told, at least it had been fast and relatively painless, but he’d gotten there to see the blood and he’s never been so terrified in his life.
Honestly, he’s amazed at how Midorima is even alive. He landed head first onto the asphalt and he woke up after surgery and had miraculously, still been able to talk. Kagami told him that Takao had been the first person he asked for.
The thing was, when Takao had bent over Midorima’s bedside, sick with worry and sleep deprivation.
Midorima frowned and said.
“You’re not Takao.”
That had only been the beginning.
—-
”Hi Akashi,” Takao says not bothering to look up at the figure shadowing over him as he works diligently on his essay. The boy dropped into the chair across the library table.
”Kagami told me you were here.” Akashi did not bother stalling, as he stare back at Takao with those hetero chromatic eyes.
”I’m far more curious as to why you we’re looking for me to begin with.” Takao says. “I’m listening.”
”Wow, aren’t you sensitive.” Akashi sneers, and Takao just sighs and turns his attention back to his essay when Akashi speaks again. “Kagami told me nothing’s getting better.”
Takao pressed the graphite of his pen harder into the paper that it breaks and twiddled away. He turned to Akashi eyes filled with anger.
“If you don’t shut up. I will take this textbook and smash it into your genitals.”
”If it was getting better you wouldn’t had broke your pencil.” Akashi says. “I’m not here to laugh at you or tell you what to do. Even I think that’s a dick move, I’m just here to inform you I’m studying it.” Takao’s eyes roam over him with a hint of confusion.
“I’m working with the best neurologists in the field, we’re looking into conditions similar to his.” It almost seems like he’s trying to comfort Takao but he feels far from comfort.
”You suck at comforting people,” Takao says. “And you’re mean.”
”No,” Akashi smirks and stand up, taking his backpack and lazily slinging it over his shoulder.
“I just tell people the truth they don’t want to hear.“
—-
Sometimes Takao needs Akashi, needs the truth. To possibly snap him out of that mindset that maybe one day when he gets home Midorima will greet him with a smile on his face like he would.
This time was not any different.
”Oh, it’s you again.” Midorima says flatly eyeing him above the rim of his glasses that are forever sliding down the bridge of his nose. “Are you staying the night?”
”Yeah, I hope you don’t mind.” Takao says forcing a smile off his face. Midorima sets his book face down on the table before speaking again.
”Look, Akashi talked to me.”
”Damnit. When will he learn to mind his own business?” Takao says angrily, not to Midorima but more to Akashi. Midorima curled into himself. It’s no wonder he thinks you’re an impostor, Takao thinks bitterly. You usually don’t act like this.
"He told me the main gist of it.. I know you’re Takao.. But.. Your just..” Midorima trails. “Your just not.. Him. You’re not Takao."
”I’m sorry,” Takao says. “Midorima, I’m sorry.”
”I am too.”
—-
Takao always seemed to have an awkward timing, he lets himself into Kagami’s apartment when Kuroko happens to be there. Midorima is having another episode in which he talks about the other Takao, their other home and the other Midorima-and the only way to stop it is for Takao to get out of his sight.
He squints at the couch, which was vibrating from the force of the bed frame slamming into the other side of the thin walls and decides to sit in the kitchen instead. Taking out his phone, Takao stares at the background- Takao had his arms around Midorima neck his smile so big that his eyes were dark half moons. Midorima on the other hand covered his visible blush reaching out to the phone as to snatch it away. Takao remembered taking it six months ago when things had been beautiful.
He wants to call Midorima, calm him down. But he doesn’t want to scare him either.
”Whoa, Fuck,” Kagami says walking into the kitchen stark naked. Takao turns to look at him dully.
”Want a towel?”
”Screw you,” Kagami says, his face crimson and grabbing a dish towel to cover his still-hard member. “Can you.. Like not?”
”I would say don’t walk around naked with come dripping off on you, but I guess I’m not really in a position to talk.” Takao says.
”Yes, exactly, now can you please look away so I can get myself decent. Please and thank you.”
”Okay, princess.” Takao says, turning away until Kagami splutters again. He now at least has sweatpants on and does not have.. Dripping stuff on his chest.
"Is he-freaking out again?”
Takao stares into the dregs of the wineglass on the table wordlessly.
”Takao I don’t think you should leave him when he gets like that, what if he hurts himself?”
”He doesn’t want to see my face during those times.” Takao says. “That’s how I got this.” He shows Kagami two long scratching along the length of his left arm.
”Do you prefer to let things stay like this over a couple of scratches?” Kagami says looking unimpressed. “Takao, you say he goes on about things like the other Midorima-that he doesn’t even believe he is his real self sometimes. How do you know he won’t do something stupid?”
”Like what?”
Kagami sighs running his hand through his messy hair. “Where is Akashi when you need him?” He mutters before exhaling harshly again. “Kill himself, goddammit, do I really have to say it like that? What if he accidentally kills himself?”
Takao opens his mouth to protest but closes it quickly when he remembers, the way Midorima’s hands start shaking when he slips into his episode. The way he’ll grip and pull on his hair so hard he doesn’t seem to realize he’s pulling strands. The way he’ll dig his nails into his own palms until he releases them to be left with two handfuls of crusted blood. The way he’ll scrunch into a ball, keening, shrieking, and screaming for truth.
Then Takao finds himself taking the stairs back up to the floor for two-three-four at a time. His fingers fumbled with the jumble of keys and he drops them twice, but he eventually bursts through the door to find Midorima curled on the floor, breathing hard and shivering.
Midorima doesn’t respond , and Takao kneels down until he’s sure he’s in Midorima’s field of vision. When the other doesn’t flinch away, he inches forward slowly until he can curl his finger around Midorima’s unusual and frightful bony wrist. Midorima looks up at him and whimpers, and Takao feels his hand moving on their own accord, pulling the boy into his chest until he can feel Midorima’s rib age shuddering against his own. Midorima doesn’t pull away.
In such a long time, Takao hasn’t feel so right for so long.
—
”How much do you know?”
”Enough,” Takao says. “But enlighten me.”
”What did the doctors tell you?”
”Don’t push him into believing anything.” Takao replies simply.
”Would you like me to dumb into down for you?” Akashi says.
”I’d rather not hear the textbook recitation of it, thank you.” Takao says, around a mouthful of burrito.
”Well-you need to know some things. There a specific place in your brain that controls your sight, another one that controls emotion- or rather plays a part in controlling emotion. They are connected. You follow?” A nod. “Looking and seeing are not the same thing, that’s what people say. Well this is basically a scientific explanation of it, if you look at something you only see it for what it is. But if you see something, you have some kind of an emotional response to it.”
“So?”
”What that means,” Akashi continues. “Is that to see and recognize something, or someone your vision and emotional centers have to be connected. At least properly communicate.” He says “You see me, you brain goes and evokes the appropriate memories. Then you interpret me as Akashi Seijuro, the mean asshole.”
”Sounds accurate. I’m following.”
”What might be the issue with Midorima is that the accident severed that connection between his occipital lobe and his limbic system-” Takao stops him with a hand.
”English is fine, thanks.”
Akashi rolled his eyes and continues. “Well okay, his vision and emotional centers- and when he sees you he feels nothing.”
”Nothing.” Takao repeats numbly.
”He doesn’t feel the same warmth and affection as he used to when he sees you. Think about a stranger you meet eyes on the street. Do you feel anything when they look at you? Usually not. His memories are perfectly intact, there is nothing wrong with his frontal lobe where his long-term memory is stored. That’s why when he sees you- he knows your face, but he doesn’t feel the same way. So his brain is telling him your some kind of impostor.” Takao opens his mouth,closes it and opens it again.
“I.”
”You’re still wearing my cardigan.” Akashi suddenly points out. “I need that back eventually.”
”I.Wait,Go back. What?”
”Please clarify what you’re confused about.”
”How do you know that he remembers me.. And that he’s not just..”
”Insane?” Akashi supplies. “Does he ever accuse you of being an impostor when he hears you over the phone?”
”He. I.”
”Kagami told me that too. That you call him every morning after you two are done washing up,” Akashi says. “So I brought it up to my professors and they think that his vision center is severed from his emotional center, but his auditory center isn’t-that’s how he recognizes your voice on the phone. On the phone, you’re not an impostor.” Akashi drops his voice, even though it’s so loud Takao doubts anyone could hear the conversation anyway. “On the phone, he still loves you.”
Takao dry-heaves. In the next seconds, he running to the trash can bending over to watch all his lunch come back up, the smell of acid burning his nose. He feels a light hand on his back and Akashi hands him his can of Coke. It makes his mouth feel even nastier but atleast his nose just burns with the fizz of bubbles this time.
”Sorry, I suppose I should’ve waited until all that Mexican food was out of your system,” Akashi says smiling ruefully. He hand him his water after takao downs the rest of the coke.
—-
Takao is so supremely late to class the next morning. He ends up sleeping in through every single class before lunch. He wakes up and stares at the blank ceiling and wonders just what the hell happened. When he turns and sees the imprint of Midorima’s body in the sheets next to him.
For a second nothing makes sense until Takao realizes that this morning did not start off with being shoved out onto the floor and losing a neuron or two. He’s too shock to jump our of bed, pulling socks and a shirt on in panic and simply lies there and lets the truth sink in; Midorima didn’t freak upon waking up with the other Takao in his bed.
Takao falls into his seat in economics in a daze, Kagami who sits beside him gives him a long once-over before he says, “hello to you too.”
”Oh, uhm. Hi.” Takao says a little hazily. “Good. Afternoon?”
”What happened this morning. I thought you were stuck in a tree or something.”
”Midorima didn’t wake me.”
Kagami glance at him.
“Didn’t wake you as in didn’t kindly shake your shoulders and lift you out of slumber, or didn’t wake you as in he didn’t kick your ass out of bed?"
”The latter.”
”Are you saying he didn’t had another episode?” Kagami clarifies, “which is why you didn’t wake up?”
”Yes,” Takao says carefully. “Don’t say it too much, I’m scared it won’t be true if you keep repeating it.”
Kagami rolled his eyes at him, “Did you tell Akashi about this yet?”
”I didn’t want to.” takao sighs, “He’s going to objectify and trivialize it.”
”But that what Akashi does,” Kagami says, “He breaks things down little by little until they are nothing but the pieces from which they are made.” He turns to look at Takao. “But he’s also exceptionally good at showing you how to put those pieces back together when he’s done. “
—
Takao doesn’t even have to ask, Midorima brings it up the second he pops into the apartment to grab a jacket before he has to go to a project meeting with Miyaji and Kimura.
”Takao-the real one- he was here last night, wasn’t he?”
Takao freezes halfway through shrugging on his jacket, one hand in the slew and the other still on the collar.
"Sorry?” He says, afraid to turn around he didn’t realize Midorima was even home.
”He was here last night, in my bed. Where did you go?”
”I thought.. You might want to see him. So I told him to go visit you. I didn’t want to scare you so I told him to come by when you would be asleep. You know how bad he is at staying awake.” He finish off with a forced chuckle.
“That was awfully nice of you,” Midorima swallows. “Thank you."
”You’re welcome,” Takao says, his throat constricting. Threatening to cut off any steady speech he had left.
”Will he be back?”
”Maybe,” Takao murmurs. “Maybe he will.”
—-
Takao is too scared to tell Akashi, he doesn’t want to be told that this is all just a fluke. That there’s no way Midorima is possibly getting better. If Midorima is Takao’s delusions, Akashi is his truth, and Takao has spent the days after the accident running from the truth.
He doesn’t really need Akashi to tell him anything, the next morning, Takao has been woken up by being shoved out of bed at seven AM. Midorima hissing at him like a rattle snake. It took every willpower he has to not show how crushed he is and ask Midorima what he wants to tell the real Takao. And he was answered sentences to rely to himself and they burn harder in his head. (Where are you? Come back. I miss you. I love you.)
”Good morning,” Kagami says pleasantly when Takao decides to just let himself in the bathroom without knocking, he thought since he’s seen Kagami in the nude he decides he’s seen it all. “I see you didn’t forget to set your alarm this morning.”
”Very funny.” Takao grumbles. He took his toothbrush. “Wow.” He says, examining the blossoming bruise across his cheekbone. “That looks nasty.”
”How rough is he? Does he actually still hit you?” Kagami asks, with genuine concern in his eyes.
”Not anymore.” Takao says, running his hands under the cold water and pressing his icy to the bruise to keep the swelling down. “Usually only when I get too near when he’s having an episode, I think I scared him.”
”And he’s getting better right?”
Takao blankly stares at the running water, “I don’t know. I don’t want to get my hopes up for anything right now.”
—-
Takao ends up turning in his project just in time.
But his spirits are ruined when Akashi corners him with a dark look on his face. Now he had no where to run. Akashi even buys him a drink, so by the time he’s sitting down, he’s getting ready not to panic, but the vibration of his phone in his pocket as an indication he forgot to charge it made him even more jittery.
”I heard he’s doing better.”
”I give up in trying to figure out how you ‘hear things,” Takao says. “But. There have been instances.”
Akashi narrows his eyes at him. “If his occipital lobe is really severed from his limbic system-“
”Human-speak, please.”
”If his sight and emotion have really been disconnected, there’s no saying he’ll ever get better,” Akashi says. “Neurons don’t grow back. Even if they do not completely.”
Takao feels something heavy settling in his stomach. “Just.. Can you just give it to me straight.” He whispers.
”He could be like this forever, Takao. For the rest of his life. We don’t know. “
”But.. He cant..” Takao whispers.
”He could be.” Akashi says heavily. ” I just want you to be fully aware of this so it doesn’t come as a complete shock.” He looks at Takao. “Midorima Shintarou isn’t Midorima Shintarou without Kazunari Takao,” he says, a sad smile fitting across his lips. “You are so intrinsically his as he is yours that I can’t see him ever being whole without you.” He then scoffs and turns away. “Wow, that was actually the nastiest thing I ever said in my life. But you guys are like roman arches- every single piece is needed to support a roman arch, especially the keystone. You’re like… You’re like his keystone. He’s like yours. Without it neither of you can really hold yourselves up.”
”Stop,” Takao says, “I don’t want to make it a routine to vomit every time I talk to you.”
Akashi stand up, sits up on the table and slides into the empty spot next to Takao. Here he is, telling Takao how to put every piece back together only to admit there is no way for Takao to fully achieve a complete piece.
He brings his arms up, pulling Takao’s head down to his shoulder. For the first time, he doesn’t have a word to say.
—-
Takao doesn’t remember where Akashi says he has to go, he didn’t really bother to remember either. He’s unfamiliar to this part of the campus and he looks up when it starts to rain. Frowning at the sky before running for cover. There isn’t a single convenient overhang anywhere near him, so he settle into the campus phone booth to escape the downpour. His phone is completely dead, and he frowns again.
He needs to call Midorima before he starts wondering.
Would Midorima wonder where he, the imposter Takao, is? His hand rest on the cold plastic of the public phone for a few seconds before he can even bring himself to lift it off the receiver and drop in several coins. Midorima’s phone rings four times she he answers it, sounding like he had rushed to catch it.
”Hello?”
”Midorima?”
”Takao!” He says. “I-what-where are you calling from? What is this number? I didn’t see your caller ID.”
”Midorima, I can’t find my way home.”
“What? How can you not? Where are you?”
”School, I was talking to Akashi and I wondered into the part of the campus I haven’t seen before. It’s dark and raining so, I’m just going to hang out here until the rain lets up… I guess.”
”No,where are you? I’ll come find you!”
”I don’t have enough money to stay on the line very long, Shin-chan.” His voice suddenly breaks without warning.
”Hey,hey,What happened?” Midorima asked, sounding worried. A mousing rustling tells Takao he’s probably pulling on his raincoat. “Takao,what’s wrong?”
”Just keep talking.” Takao says thickly. Hot tears brimming his eyes. “Just keep talking, I don’t know how long you’ll be able to hear me.”
”I hear you! Don’t worry!”
”Shin-chan, what if you can never find me, ever again?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
"Midorima what’s wrong?"
”I’m fine, it’s okay.” His voice contradicting his every word. “I’m just scared you’ll never see me again.”
”Don’t be an idiot,” Midorima says. “Don’t be an idiot.”
”I’m sorry.”
”Where are you?”
”Uh.. A phone booth,” Takao says, “it’s at the medical side of the campus, Rakuzan, I think.”
”Oh, I know where that is,” Midorima says. “Don’t hang-“
The line suddenly goes dead and Takao curses, digging around in his pockets. But he’s out of change. He turns his bag upside down on the cold stone floor to search for coins. He goes through the papers rifling through then until he scrounges up enough change for another few minutes. He straightens up pushing the coins into the slot and dialing Midorima’s number again.
”Sorry, ran out of coins.” He says the second Midorima pick up. “Where are you now?”
”Rakuzan has three phone booths and the second one is empty, so I’m going to check the last one. If you’re not there then clearly you’re so lost that you don’t even know which division you’re in.” He pauses. “Wait.”
”What?”
”Wait, are you sure you’re in Rakuzan?”
”I’m sure?”
”Can you look up for me?” Midorima asks, voice shaking,and Takao not fully understanding, looks up. Midorima standing just outside the frosted glass of the phonebooth. umbrella held over his head and phone to his ear, making his face glow pale and eerie in the darkness. Takao stares at him, then he realizes, Midorima is hearing the real Takao and seeing him at the same time.
”Shin-Chan,” he says, Midorima steps back as though he had punched him. “I’m scared I’ll never see you again.”
”I can see you just fine, Kazunari Takao.” Midorima says, voice fragile. Almost broken. “I can see you just fine.”
—
That night, things are beyond awkward until Midorima reaches forward and embraces Takao. There is nothing out of place about Midorima tangling their legs together. Nothing out of place about his arms around Takao so tightly. It was all so right and for once it is no longer a fantasy, or a nightmare. They held each other so tightly that there isn’t room for a single seed of doubt.
—-END—-
A/N:
Based on a real condition called Capgras Delusion.
After a week I finished this…
just moving along like everyone else 