My awkward powers can calm the anxieties of those around me. My social disabilities can sometimes be so terrible that my friends or peers who are equally awkward, will watch me fail at a human interaction so badlly that they gain the bravery points necessary to finish and/or patch up the mess I started.

It's like I delve soooo far into my head, trying not to screw up the conversation that all the brain cells necessary for proper human communication is forced out of my head for the taking. For example:

Me: Hi um can I um please have the uh, oh...oh wait no- okay can I um have combo number 2 instead- I mean... okay wait between combo 2 and combo 5 which do you think is better?

Cashier: huh?

Friend:...

Me: *in a quieter less confident voice* betweencombonumber2and...actuallynevermindI'lljusthavecombo1.

Cashier: Um... sorry I missed what you said...

Friend:...

Me: *covers face* Sorry, I mean-

Friend (with the boosted power-up effect of my social incapabilities):

She'll have a small size combo #1 please, with a Nestea.

Me: Yeah that.

I wish I was exaggerating, but this^ happens almost everytime you find a TaiSensei in the wild- I mean- in public.

"Child, the people in that building feed off hopes and dreams like its breakfast. They devour innocent souls like yours for entertainment purposes. Do your best to fend for yourself. If you survive, we'll meet again on the other side- wait..... Oh no!

Don't tell me... you forgot- y-your battle armor!

MY POOR BABY!!!"

*bursts into tears while driving away*

I sat perched in a crystal sphere; listening, waiting, measuring the weight of time in a cross-legged stance, for my predators to come back. I watch the refracted outside world and the bleakness of it all.

Shrrrk

This was the gentle hiss of a blade being drawn. I spun my neck, tracking the muted sound outside my glass sphere. I spotted the source and pivoted to a stand, gracing my hand to the prismal back wall for support, feeling what I imagined to be fear.

My long hair and robes moved in slower waves, caught in the virulence of my life force. The boy outside the walls did not look like my predators. His movements were careful, but not fearful; he did not prowl with the same cruel, timid horror as the uniformed ones did. He wore a mask that covered up to his nose and had a skin that almost camouflaged into the dark room outside, and his hair... It was a ropey texture I’d never seen before, strung up in a rigid ponytail.

I leaned closer to admire it, when the blade he drew from his back pointed on the crystal surface between my eyes. I looked at the blade’s tip and then back to him.

What was he planning to do? If he broke this barrier, surely he’d die.

I rested my palm to his end of the dome, more out of curiosity rather than the notion of telling him to stop. He took a moment to look around the room. Then our eyes made contact. I tilted my head to the side. He held my gaze a second longer then focused on his blade.

He took a step back, keeping the blade’s peak perfectly in place, and flicked his grip to the end of the hilt. He held the sword like it was a cup of sake, two fingers carried the weight from underneath and a thumb angled it all upwards. Next, he shut his eyes and raised his left arm. Movements on his mask suggested he was saying something, though I could not hear it.

From his left wrist, wisps of darkness stripped off and formed a floating orb above the sword that was now glowing an ominous silver. As I watched the orb grow, the strangest thing happened; all the toxins of mana keeping my hair afloat began to die down. The staticky pull within my crystal shell diminished to nothing. The only thing pulling my hair and droopy sleeves now was gravity - a foreign feeling.

After gawking at my own body, I stared back to the boy and began to mouth a word of thanks when both our eyes flicked to the side where a door had open. Two of the uniformed ones slinked into the room. Once they acknowledged the scene, the books in their arms came to a float above their palms and the pages flew forward quicker than any reader could read. Glyph-lite symbols began to dot the air as I heard their muffled chanting.

In one swift motion, the boy grabbed the floating orb and hid it behind his cloak then he placed his palm on the crystal surface. A huge magic circle illuminated the room from beneath me. He made a small push and I fell backwards, the darkness of the room flew up and away while the entire sphere I was caged within started to tumble down a hill that wasn't there before. Down and down I rolled, colours I never knew existed, whizzed by, but I spun and flipped too fast to retain a sole image.

The crystal dome slowed and made one final lurch before it shattered. I made one final summersault and landed on my bum and my knees on a cliff's edge. The momentum threatened to hurl me off, but my hand on the cold rock edge put a sudden stop to my roll. A painted mixture of my long white hair and shimmers of crystal shards whooshed out in front of me and my eyes fell on the sparkle glistened world below for the first time.

My heart shatters a bit every time I reach this part of my tea.

It's like a cup of me was killed; brutally murdered by society;

leaving behind a shrivelled up carcass within a mesh bag,

His name was Mr. Grey, but Earl was on his tag.

The Happy Birthday Mug of this morning turned Sadist in the blink of an eye

Distant remnants of a heavenly memory gained the aftertaste of a bitterer lie

That final sip no longer exists

And the innocent light steeped into my soul starts to resist.

Hear me out. I know, with so many shows and movie recommendations being thrown left, right, and center, your list of things to watch keeps growing, its hard to find time, but see, that’s the thing. With the show RWBY, you don’t need time. First season’s episodes range from 4-5 minutes long with the exception of the halfway point and the season finale. That’s right, one episode is shorter than the length of time it takes to mute your way through one mid-show batch of commercials; shorter than how long it would take you to microwave a potatoe; and for a few thorough, thorough individual’s, shorter than the time it takes you to brush your teeth. So abandon your teeth everyone! Abandon your dinners! And give RWBY a five minute chance! Or just watch all the trailers!!!

I won’t summarize the show for you with back-of-the-book type spoilers - its best to go in blind - but I can assure you there’s something for everyone. Action, adventure, sci-fi/fantasy, major drama, MAJOR FIGHT SCENES, a dash of romance, and extremely lovable characters! Even the villains are lovable! In fact, the majority of those reading this, already know and love these character. They’re all based off fairy tales, famous myths, legends, and nursery rhymes, from Red riding hood, to Goldilocks, to Snow white, to Beauty with a fair share of beasts. I mean it, there are quite a few beasts in ‘The World of Remnant.’ But what’s a story without a bit of chaos... or a lot of it, who knows.

I personally have succeeded in getting 14 people (included my mom) to watch and continue to watch this show, and I’m an introvert so that’s saying something.

It’s on Netflix; better yet, it’s on youtube, freer, easier, and litterally a click away if you scroll down a bit. The only reasons people have ever had for not loving this show is 1) voices, there are two specific characters whose voices are very high-pitched, but they both get such great character development that these voices grow on you. 2) graphics: the style of animation looks like it was meant to be a video game, and although there is a game based off the show, I assure you it was meant to be a show. My third warning to you all, and this one's a tough one, please note that Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, did pass away. This was a devastation for the fans, and a nightmarish thought for those jumping in, but fear not, the legacy of Monty continues, for Mr. Oum did leave a completed story manuscript for his crew, and the show is going on strong! He was truly an inspiration and for this I implore you,

Give RWBY a shot, and watch all the trailers (they're related to the plot.)

Red Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYW2GmHB5xs

Bonus mission: throughout season one, see if you can figure out which character is based off Mulan (hint: he or she is very loved)

In a shadow lit arena, littered with pillars and incomplete ruins, an assassin named Ratenza hid behind an archway. She sat with her back to grainy, ancient designs, clutching her shoulder in one hand and resting her spear along the wound of the other. Over and over, in her head, she fought with her body, willing her lungs to stop pumping so excessively.

The glass-like surface on which she sat, acted as this chamber’s only form of light, forever moving in random splotches like fire turned to liquid. She’d grown tired of its orange hue, the way it spit out faint puffs of faulty flames, the way the strange substance followed sound, and the way it reflected the colour of her eyes.

The quiet of the room broke with a kshhh- and a woman’s voice sparked from the darkness above. Ratenza often liked to think the voices were truly coming from beneath her feet; beneath the fake flares. “You hereby enter your final round.” Ratenza used the moment of noise to take her much needed gulps of air. If her final round of the day was starting, that meant the poison finally resolved the life of the last bastard who gave her this wound. Unexpectedly, the voice continued. “If passed, this will mark the end of your testing. You’d have reached your 50 000th kill.”

Instinctively, Ratenza shot her eyes skyward in shock. She had not realized she’d driven her blade through enough enemies to reach the finale; the end of it all, not just today; the years of it. If the voice overhead spoke any more, Ratenza heard none of it. She gripped the leather hold to her polearm and rolled to her feet like the bottom rails to a soundless rocking chair. In the next instant she pounced off, far enough from the center-most summoning ring to be undetected by the new coming monster. The sound-leeching flames did not follow. Her shoulder stung with the passing brush of air, but she’d fought through worse injuries.

When she felt far enough, she settled atop a chipped and roofless second floor, Ratenza pushed out a small corked bottle, with her pinky, from an arm-belt. Then she poured the last of her poison over the sheen of her weapon; a cheap solution, but a reliable one.

Clack.

Her heart stopped. A flutter of light drew at her peripheral. The sound rang too close. How? Whatever it was, it shouldn’t have made it to her this fast. Next, came a growl, a low guttural noise that ended with several clicks, sounding like chattering teeth that had grown into the back of the monster’s throat.

k-k-k-k-k---k-----k--------k-------------k- the clicking slowed. Ratenza chucked her poison vial over a wall to her left. When she heard its clink, she ran to the right, down the ruined building, over fallen pillars, through pre-shattered windows, until- “GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH ~~~~” filled her ears with a volume so colossal she thought she might pass out.

The entire surface, spanning under the whole arena, turned a blinding pastel shade of orange. Ratenza clutched her head and buckled to a knee. The ground seemed to double up and twist, pushing her further from balance. When the roaring stopped, she could only hear ringing, but she felt the creature’s presence drawing near. She couldn’t move.

It was using echolocation? She thought. What kind of monstrosity did they find this time?

‘kkk-k-k-k-k-k-----k--------k--------krrrrrrgh’

Ratenza took her hand from her bleeding ear and snapped her polearm in two with the quick twist of the middle dial. A second blade slid out of the bottom half. She twirled them both, spun around and up from her knee to her feet. In the same fluid motion, she rose one spear half over her head and pointed the other straight forward both aimed steadily at the being that tried sneaking up on her... until she saw its face.

Her grip, shoulders, and jaw went lax.

First, it was his hair she recognized; the muted blue colour peeping out from under an equally familiar zig-zagged, winter’s hat. The hat drooped at the sides of his head, almost covering the stretched and pointed ears which angled out behind their flaps. Piercing through the woolen hat were two large, out of place, silver horns, which curved towards the wolf fur pompom behind him. The popping veins combined with the fangs, were too much for Ratenza.

Her weapon tips clinked to the floor in defeat.

“Kien”; her friend. Her single, irreplaceable, gentle, kind, loving, and forgiving friend. She watched as his fingers-turned-claws twitched and jittered, broken completely through a pair of mittens that clutched, by threads, onto the boy’s palm. She watched these strips of fabric with anguish, as they zoomed up to her face right by the curl of his claw. Red cast across her vision and she was struck backwards off her feet. The floor whizzed by, her split spear flew out of her grasp, and she crashed, back-first, into a brick wall.

Kien made another ear-splitting roar, forcing bright wisps of orange into the air between them.

Ratenza’s head was bowed. How could they do this to him? How could they do this? How could anyone...

...Could it really be him? She forced her gaze upward. The streaks of her blood stood stagnant in the air thanks to the high density of mana all around them. The droplets made an arc to her face, from where she stood to where she landed. Kien was prowled over on all fours. Yeah, Kien - it was really him.

The winter jacket he wore was no more, but the scarf remained, rippling upwards in mingle with the orange. The blue choker necklace he always used to wear never looked so much like a collar until now. His Jeans were shredded, his boots had vanished, and his smile wasn’t there, but it was Kien. No one else had the sky-bright eyes of Kien, but Kien.

How dare they do this.

-kssshh “This boy is your weakness, Ratenza. Fight it. Break past your earthly desires of camaraderie and friendship. Demolish your one flaw!”

This was the first target they pitted her up against that looked more like a human than an animal. It made her think; how many of the 49 999 foes she was ordered to brutally murder, were people before their hideous forms? The thought brought her to her feet.

Distracted, Kien shook his head and looked all around for the voice, probably scared out of his mind.

Ratenza spoke:

“If my one flaw...” she stared at Kien, ”...is my one friend,” Kien followed the voice and stared back. “Then I’d rather demolish-”

She summoned the compartments of her spear to her hand, as a whole. A circle of darkness sprouted beneath her, where the orange could not enter. Her fiery hair turned to ebony black as she raised her spear above her. Kien made an instant dart towards her, with a killing intent.

“ALL MY STRENGTHS!!!!”

With her shout, the flames curled up like a chrysanthemum enravelling the two, and like threading a needle, her poison-tipped blade shot through a floating blob of blood and straight into the glassy ground.

The arena collapsed.

The next morning I woke up scared and confused.

Scared: because of a nightmare. Well, a terrible set of nightmares; one involving my family, the next was a repeat of recent terrorism, and the last was of Axel… an Axel who wouldn’t wake up no matter how much I tugged.

Confused: because I woke up holding a stuffed wolf plushy, staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room at an angle that slanted everything in a way that suggested I was halfway away from the floor. Then full-way on the floor.

“Aah-h-h-ooww” I groaned. Then rolled over. One more time. I rolled until I was back on my back to groan some more. I pulled myself up, rolling my aching neck around, and yawning, then stretching, and blinking my confusion away.

It took a while, but I convinced my legs to work. I couldn’t laze around in another person’s house the way I did in my own. I needed to change and get out as soon as I could and thank them both for letting me stay the night. After returning Kiba to the bed, I trudged to the bathroom across the hall. If there were any foreshadow-y sounds of preparation for what was to come of this morning, my drowsiness didn’t allow me awareness of it. I reached the bathroom and brushed my teeth in a falsified, civil, chaos-free state. Then, I tended to the impressive display of modern art that had formed on my scalp; ‘bedhead’ brought to you by the demons of the Underworld.

I exorcised the dark arts that defied the laws of gravity in my hair, and built up the courage needed to speak to Axel’s mother about leaving - using the mirror’s help.

...I should have brought my clothes in here to change, I telepathically told my bag-eyed reflection. We glared at each other for a moment out of mutual discontent. I decided to be the bigger person here, and left to get my clothes with a heavy sigh. Before I could reach the guest room, my eye caught the slightly opened door to Axel’s room. A flash of his KO’d face swept through my conscience. This made me freeze up and clench the fabric at my tummy.

I peered up and down the hall, one side was the presumably empty store, the other was the bright glow of their kitchen. I pinched my lips together. I just wanted to make sure he was safe and sound. It would only be a little peek, nothing more. My hand pressed gingerly against his door, thankful for its lack of creaking, not that he’d hear it anyway with his forever-radio . . . I shouldn’t joke about that… not even telepathically.

When I looked to the bed and didn’t see him, distress and relief smacked me both ways across the face. If he wasn’t in bed that meant he was well enough to be up and about, but at the same time, if he wasn’t in bed, it could mean he wasn’t well enough to stay home. What if he was sent to the hospital? What if the events of that incident affected the way he tolerated survival without his headphones? Was that a thing? Could that happen? I wish I understood sell-soul bodies.

I widened the door a bit more, hoping to see him next to the piano-desk area, where he was not. Relief was out of the picture now, there was only anxiety. I retreated from his door and looked to the kitchen. My side quest, of changing back into my own clothes and looking presentable, was abandoned. I’d grown blind with the dire need to see him okay.

He’d be in the kitchen for sure. It was natural for home-inhabitants to venture to their kitchens in the morning, right? He was just hungry for breakfast and therefore in the kitchen eating breakfast, it made sense…

…So why were my steps so slow? Why was I so afraid to walk through that doorway? To round that corner and see or not see the kindest people I’ve ever met, why was that so hard?

“Good morning.” A voice zipped past me. I blinked many times before I managed to follow the voice and see Axel’s mom. She was wearing a plain loose black tank top that showed off her melodic tattoos in full galore, as well as a white apron tied around her waist. I blinked. “Hope you like pancakes~” I was too stunned to respond. It was like someone left the dream world entrance in my brain ajar and all those bizarre nonsensical thoughts were floating around distracting me from reality.

Atop the high chairs, to my right, sat Axel with his back towards me and his legs arched up to the chair in front of him. Both headphone muffs were covering his ears; he wouldn’t hear my ‘good morning’ unless I waltzed over there and tapped him to his senses myself.

I let my shoulders relax. I was just glad to see him alright.

“I’ll ship the pancakes off to dreamland for you.”

“Oh, ah- sorry, good morning! Y-yes, pancakes are fine. Thank y-… GAH! Wait no-”

“You don’t like pancakes?” She practically dropped her spatula to the frying pan in defeat.

“No! Yes! I like- That’s not what I- pancakes are great! I like pancakes very much!”

“Then there’s no problem if I make you some.” She continued her cooking as if nothing happened. Likewise, Axel was scrolling through his phone as if nothing had happened since I entered in the room.

“But- but I don’t want to intrude any more than I have already. I’ll just change and make my way back to my place. I really appreciate the offer, though.”

“Who’re you, Miss!?” a little voice from behind me made me jump forward and fling my arms up in surprise. Under my flailed arms, I saw a little boy child staring up at me with curious and mystical little eyes. My eyes were snared in the wondrous look that flooded his gaze. Who? What? When? How? …Who?

“Oh Keita, you’re here early.” He dashed past me towards the kitchen. I dodged out of his way and leaned my arms to the other side. “Aunt Kaiaaa!!! You’re making pancakes?!” He jumped up and down beside her. His tiny auburn coloured head of hair was bobbing up above the island.

“PANCAKES!!!” yelled someone else. I made another leap out of the door frame, making way for the boulder of a man who manifested there.

As retro as it was, the moment I saw him, I thought: Hulk. This would be an accurate statement if The Hulk were human sized, brown-skinned, young, and beautiful. Oh and if the Hulk wore actual fitted clothing, like this casual loose, open-button grey linen shirt - fit for a model - hanging in front of me.

Behind his head I barely caught glimpse of the coloured hair band that loosely held a short ponytail together. He stopped just in front of me and looked down at my miniscule figure. “Hi.” He blinked. I blinked back. I forgot how to English. As well as how to bring my arms back down to my sides where they belonged.

“Who’s this?” He looked over me to Axel’s mom, to pose the question. If I could, I’d evaporate where I stood. It would be what I’d sell half my soul to do. The man in front of me was sooooooooo intimidating, like he popped straight out of a classic Bollywood movie about body-building. I pictured him stepping out of a multi-million dollar car as the camera rolled up to his face, and then he’d rip off his sunglasses, and chuck his keys to some off screen nobody like me.

Something the mother said or did behind my back made him grin and raise his pinky in a mischievous sort of way. He then proceeded to lower a hand down to me; a friendly gesture I was meant to return. Though, it took my brain a while to understand how to perform the simple handshake.

“I’m Sunal nice to meet you.” His mighty fists completely wrapped around my single puny hand. “She’s cute, Kaia, where’d you find her?”

Cute?! I added this to the list of words I’ve never been called before entering this house/shop/place-thing.

“As shocking as it may be, I had nothing to do with it this time. Axel’s the one who guided her here.”

“Axel did?” There was a pause as everyone in the room, even the kid, peeping over the table, stared at Axel’s unaware figure. “Even though he’s like that?”

“Yeeeppp~”

What was this motherly betrayal happening behind me. I’d been stuck in my handshaking position even though the muscly-man had moved away from me long ago. It was not until she started discussing yesterday evening that my senses were snapped back into place. ” Rei-chan came looking for him all thanks to his quote on quote – ahem – ’slightly attract-”

“PANCAKES SUDDENLY SOUND GREAT! I would love to have your pancakes Axel’s mom! Thank you.” I shredded the words through my teeth.

“Great! This one’s yours; there are strawberry bits inside, because the world can use more strawberries~ Oh, and please… call me Kaia.”

“Aunt Kaia! Aunt Kaia!” said the little jumping head behind the counter.

“Or Aunt Kaia if you really want.” She placed the boy’s strawberry pancake on the counter and lifted him to sit next to it. From that angle Axel should have been able to see the kid, but he stayed invested in the virtual world in his palm.

“Did the rest of the boxes arrive, Kaia?” said the Bollywood star.

“Oh yes, I left all the heavy one’s for you. Thanks.”

He almost looked excited hearing that. As he breezed by Axel towards the back door, he ruffled, roughly into Axel’s hair. His head was pushed down from the weight and the bridge of his headphones leaned down in front of his face. He looked up ahead in annoyance, but nowhere else.

He started to fix back his headphones without aware-ing himself of everyone else in the room, but I wanted to get his attention, because he was currently the only one here who I wasn’t fearful of. I took a few steps towards him and hesitated. I regret hesitating.

The moment I retracted my hand away from his shoulder, this sudden, random kitchen party grew a member. Some rude chick shoved her way pass me and grabbed Axel’s arm, leaning her… chest area against him.

“Good morning Axelle. How’re you today?” He barely reacted to her leeching onto his arm like that, and he definitely didn’t notice when she shoved me to the side. I was still pretty sure he didn’t know I was there.

“Excuse me.” I directed this at the random girl who so rudely interrupted what was going to be a refreshing conversation. She cocked her head to the side, angling her chin up to Axel’s shoulder and lowering a dark fuchsia coloured contact lens on me. She had long beige hair, hung in two high pigtails that reached to her back. Peeping above the bundles of hair were two golden hairpins with hoop shapes on top.

Her clothing was black, pink, and neon pink, with silver bangles that covered her neck, ears, wrists and waist. Beneath her skirt, she wore diamond-shaped, pink on black lace stockings that filed into long high heel boots. She wore a sleeveless open jacket with a ripped black undershirt that had one long sleeve still barely attached. On the hand without the bits of a sleeve, she wore a black glove that stopped being a glove where her fingers began. Overall, she was the kind of girl I could never get along with.

Lo and behold, the first thing she said to me was proof that I was right; “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something, it didn’t look like Axel was paying you much attention, so I assumed you were just some wandering stalker maybe.” she threw a daggered side eye my way.

“Excuse me!?” I repeated. I shouldn’t have taken offense to her comments since they were true; I was practically a stalker… by accident, but was this the kind of thing you say to someone you’ve never met?

“Oh, you’re excused. The exit is that way.” She pointed an impressively manicured finger in the direction of the front of the store, behind me. I twitched.

“You’re playing a dangerous game little girl.” I stalked up to her crossing my arms and craning my head down in an emphasized manner, though she wasn’t that much smaller than me thanks to those heels. She moved from Axel and put her hands on her hips twisting her neck up high to lean threateningly close to my face. If nothing else caught Axel’s attention, this did. He was facing us with one of his ear-cushions shifted off his ear.

“Little girl? Don’t you need your eyes checked? I’m way more of a woman than you’ll ever be.” She was referring to her curves. In that sense, she hit the nail.

“Oooh~ this looks fun.” The Bollywood star reentered with boxes in his arms.

“I’m not very good at pulling my punches so if I were you I’d just apologize to the woman standing above you. The woman you don’t even know and are foolishly picking a fight with.”

Her eyes tightened for a moment, then an eyebrow rose. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Aren’t those my pajamas?” Axel interrupted, adding to the raised eyebrows sniping in on me.

“Your pajamas?!” I exclaimed.

I looked to my right where Kaia the culprit was supposed to be, with the kitchen and the pancakes and whatnot, but all that stared back at me was the counter-seated child holding a strawberry pancake between his two hands and mouth.

“Fine! You’re right! I’m crazy!”

That was… a familiar voice.

“I’m delusional!” the voice continued.

In a cringing fashion, I began to turn my head to the left, peeking around to the dining table where Kaia sat with folded legs, smiling down at a tablet in her hand. A tablet that needed to shut up,

“-Much too sick in the head to answer all your stupid, self-answering questions!”

That familiar voice was my voice, the me that was ambushed by media parrots in a hospital, during a morning migraine. I peeked at Axel who was staring wide eyed at the backwards, holographic image of me throwing a pillow at the camera.

“Oho” laughed the Bollywood star. “This ones got spirit.”

“You’re the gif-girl!” said the child. His excitement made his words swing in that innocent way children voices did. Axel and the pig-tailed rude one were stone-cold frozen in shock.

“Wait, wait, the full version is better.” Added Kaia as she rewound the video: “As much as the news tries to censor great material like this, the internet always has your back. You’ve gone viral Rei-chan.”

“What would you like to say to the police force for saving your life?”

“What? No. It wasn’t the police force; it was that kid with the headphones.” Almost everyone’s stare went to Axel who had his face in his palm at this point. The video continued; “Where is he? You should be asking him the questions, not me.”

“Axel you were there?!” yelled the rude girl. “At that crazy event!?”

“How could you have gone without telling us? That was dangerous!” Added Sunal. “Kaia aren’t you upset about this!?”

Kaia shrugged. “Any anger or concern I may have felt while hearing this yesterday died off when I realized Axel made a friend from this experience.”

“Pfft what friend? It’s just some stranger that he sav- Wait! You saved this girl? But then-” she shut herself up while rudely eying me from head to toe.

“Does this mean Gif-girl knows we’re all Sell-souls?!”

I – including everyone in the room – turned to the child on the counter in blatant bewilderment. Then there was the distinct sound of someone slapping their palm against their face.

#TaintedTracks

Axel finished eating and was impatiently waiting for me to end so he could show me all his music. I was excited too, but I really couldn’t compete. I wolfed it down for him as he started telling me about some of the bands he listened to. When I was done he surprised me; he took a deep breath and leaned in close to me, placing his headphones snuggly over my head. I thought he would just unplug the cord and let it play by speaker so I was very surprised and tense when he made that move. As if I weren’t red enough. Why’d he go and do that. I soon learned why.

“Daa~” The first sung note struck through me like a lightning bolt. I instantly forgot all my prior worries, the thoughts died away from unimportance in comparison to the sound that punched my ears. Daa daa daa-ah, da.” The voice ascended ever so slowly, then drooped. Lyrics came; real and authentic, meaningful lyrics. Lyrics you’d never hear on the radio; a song that wasn’t about love, or money, or drugs, or girls. The song didn’t consist of one repeated phrase sung in different techno waves. It wasn’t a song made for fame or fortune, you could tell, the tune wasn’t meant to be played at some bar where the listeners were all too drunk to care for music quality. This was poetry in the form of a melody. A song the singer’s soul was steeped into.

“[insert symbolic, life-changing, world-building lyrics about the sky]” was a line/verse that stuck out to me. The lyrics came from my left side and the ascending daa’s rose and fell on my right. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision on the maker’s part, to feed me the lyrics through the side closest to my heart, but it worked. The words reached my heart stronger than any song I had ever heard before. I didn’t know headphones could be so powerful, now that I think of it… this was the first time I was listening to music through headphones.

“That was beautiful.” I whispered. I was so lost in a music-brimmed world for the entire duration of the song that I forgot where I was and who was there to listen. When I opened my eyes, I saw Axel giving me another wide-eyed grin.

“I know right? Here try this one.” He scrolled down with many sped-up thumb swipes and tapped his screen for a new song. I think I was developing a new found joy for seeing his amusement. While the headphones began conjuring some more magic into my ears I managed to sustain eye-contact with him as he fanboyed to me about the amazingness of this masterpiece. It was hard to connect this boy before me to the same one who sword-fought a terrorist, “Did you hear the guitarist there? It sounds like there’s another but he’s just using a two-neck guitar flawlessly. That reminds me, there’s this one song where the guitar sounds like a saxophone! He switches over from generic electric guitar sounds to the saxophone one throughout the song, but wait before I show you that one-” somewhere along the line I stopped listening to his voice and kept watching his changing expressions until more music was thrown back on.

The first song he showed me was purely soul music, and the rest were all interesting combinations of different genres; rock tied to classical, festive music slid into blues, some type of a sparkly-sounding jazz, and ‘modern punk with an orchestral accompaniment’ as Axel put it - that one sounded like it belonged in a dramatic, flying car movie. They were all so new, so exotic, and strange to me, but I couldn’t express to anybody how much I loved them. Every bar, every beat, every unforgettable moment.

“And this one is gentle metal, you’d probably really like the melody in the background, since you liked...”

“Whoaa, you’re right!!! I especially loved the…”

“Yeah, not many people notice that, I’m surprised, in that case you’d appreciate this one.”

“Oh my gawd, how did she do that with her voice? It was so soothing.”

We kept a consistent smiling spree going while sharing our views on song after song. For each tune, he’d quiet down as I listened and perk back up the moment I finished. This repeated for a few more songs and after a while we were both fandom-ing about how great the music was. I got so caught up in things that I didn’t notice when he started getting sleepy.

“The violin in that one was so nice; I never expected rock to have instrumentals like that. It made me want to learn violin or piano even!” When I looked up at him, expecting an excited response and another recommendation, I saw his head bowed, and his hand unraveled loosely around his phone. His breathing was slowed and there was a calm air around him.

He fell asleep? How can anyone fall asleep in that position? And so fast?! This song was only around two minutes long and he was definitely awake when he chose it for me. I tilted my head to analyze some of his sleeping beauty, yet something about the sight was unsettling to me. Perhaps it was the trauma of having to yank bloody arrows from his back, or watching him die sometime before that, either way I didn’t want him to stay in this state.

“Um, Axel?” I hesitated.

No response, so I tried again, reaching a hand for his shoulder. I felt bad in waking him up, maybe he was just really tired, but if this sudden exhaustion was thanks to yesterday’s injury, I’d prefer if he were in bed resting than trying to entertain me.

“Axel?” I shook his shoulder a second time, adding a little more vigor. This time he gritted his teeth and took a jittery breath that sounded hoarse like he was breathing through a cloudy mesh. He remained unconscious. My worries skyrocketed. “Axel!?!”

He slumped forward and I quickly held him up. “AXEL!!!” At that moment, the door opened from behind me and as I looked back to see who, the headphones were pulled from my ears. Confused and scared, I watched his mother breeze over to his side and place his headphones back over his ears, and twist the swirly coloured cup over his left ear as she held him upright. This action must have raised the volume because I heard a low buzz of the last melody I listened to.

His mother’s expression was blank and void of emotion. This was such a huge contrast to how I was used to seeing her that it sent chills down my back.

In roughly three seconds after receiving back his headphones, Axel’s eyes fluttered open – just barely open. He immediately re-clenched his grip on his device and started scrolling in slow-motion through his playlist as if he never lost consciousness.

“Axel.” his mother called.

He flinched and slowly brought his squinted gaze up to hers. I don’t think he realized his mother was there in the room until that moment. There was a cold sweat sticking to his temples, his face was pale, and I could visibly see the strain he had in the simple task of breathing.

“You know you shouldn’t have given it away for that long. Four or five songs should have been your limit.”

He looked exhausted, but he still put up a fight for his mom and scowled, “I can still show her one more.” He looked back down to his phone and continued searching for songs.

“I wonder how many ’one more’s it would take for you to consider the danger you placed on your life.”

This conversation was scaring me. What were they talking about? What did she mean?

“Come. It’s time you rest up.” She stooped to a knee and wrapped his arm around her neck, then heaved him up. It looked like he knocked out the moment they were standing. She trudged him over to the bed and peeled the music player from his hand; on it, she played with some settings and rested it on his bedside. The outer design of his muffs swirled into a blue-purple whirlpool (eliminating the red that used to be there). Then she pulled a blanket over to his Adam’s apple and patted his hair. I watched with slight terror.

Did I cause that? Was he struggling to breathe because of something I did? Or didn’t do? Why didn’t I notice sooner? Was he really still injured from that day with the arrows? Maybe that magic I saw back then had only healed the outside of his wound and not the inside. Does that mean he was suffering all this time? And did his mother know about his injury? What did his music have to do with any of this? I didn’t really know anything about Sell-souls. What should I do? What if...

My hands were shaking violently under eachother. Flashes of his bloodied body shot over my vision like the AMVs on the internet that were made to evoke tears.

What if-

“Come with me for a sec,” His mother interrupted my freak out, “…Um, what was it again?”

“Wh- huh?”

“Your name?”

#TaintedTracks

My eyes creaked open. There was a window…? I was on a bed. There were voices too. I blinked a few times before I tried getting up. “mmmm” I groaned. Getting up was a mistake. It only aroused the slumbering headache within. I grabbed my head with both my arms and attempted to squish the pain away.

“It seems one of the survivors from yesterday’s radical attack has awoken to tell her story.”

Getting up didn’t only arouse my headache. I peeked up through my hands and was quickly bombarded with an infinite amount of flashing lights. The clicking and blinking and snapping and shouting were migraine-inducing. I groaned some more.

“We’re here; live, with one of our waking survivors of the Klover Community Centre Radical incident.”

“It is an absolute miracle for so many of yesterday’s Klover hostages to come out alive that dreadful afternoon. We at ENN have live access to a waking-”

“A grateful day it’s been today for families to be reunited with their respective victims, here is one young lady who has yet to-”

Multiple news reporters were facing their individual cameras, speaking to their respective channels about how shocking it was that I was alive. It was absolutely horrifying. I looked down at my clothes which were even more horrifying. Some evil nurse or devilish machinery had taken full advantage of my unconscious docile nature, to unforgiveable extremes by forcing me into these polka-dotted hospital duds from hell. I normally never cared whatever the heck I was wearing; my usual attire consisted of a pullover hoodie and a sacred scarf wrapped around my shoulders after all, but I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious with all the heavy-duty video cameras and foam covered microphones pointing down at me from every angle.

Why were they allowed in here?

… Oh… that’s right, you needed parental dissent or objection from a relative in order to disallow media access. Probably while everyone else had their relatives signing repelling forms, the news channel gangs were all forced to pool together at the only opening room left for gossipy intel. No relative of mine would be fending off their legal rights to pillage my privacy. Not for this incident or any I could find myself involved in. No matter how life-threatening. Not now… nor ever…

I heaved out an exhale that seemed to take away my spirit for an intense number of seconds… until I found myself a powerful distraction: the hospital workers had changed me during my unconsciousness, we’ve established this, but where did they put my clothes? Specifically my scarf?

Panic much deeper than mere embarrassment started infecting all corners of my mind. I looked around the bed, avoiding the curious gaze of the many onlookers, I looked around a desk, over the TV (with the lagged image of my waking face on it – a sight I had to rip my gaze from), then under the sheets, and around the room towards the door when-

My panic subsided. On a chair, near the door, lay a pile of my folded clothes, my scarf rested with care, on top.

I hadn’t noticed, until I located my belongings, but the news staff were all questioning me about the events that occurred in that building.

“So Miss, what was it like to be a hostage in yesterday’s attack? What was it like knowing your life could end at any second?”

“I… um-” I stuttered.

“Miss” -click click- “Miss” “Miss”-click- “Miss”,

“Miss, can you describe to us how the threats were started?”

“Miss, were you traveling with anyone that day, did you know anyone else in the crowd who was in any immediate danger? Did you have to witness anyone else getting harmed like yourself?”

I tried not to look at them like they were all insane, keeping in mind of the fact that my face was gawking at multiple different channels at once. By the speed and rate of their questions you’d think I were a celebrity.

“Miss! I’d imagine you’re overwhelmed by the traumas you’ve faced yesterday, but please tell us exactly how it feels to be a living miracle?”

“Miracle?” I scoffed. “It wasn’t a miracle, I was saved by that-”

“So you’re saying a police officer is responsible for this miracle? What would you like to say to the police force for saving your life?”

“What? No. It wasn’t the police force; it was that kid with the headphones. Where is he? You should be asking him the questions, not me.” A little twang of guilt struck me for wanting to push these reporter hawks on the guy who saved my life, but at the same time I felt like I’d do anything to get them out.

“So there you have it Jim, just like the other victims we’ve interviewed, it seems the trauma has affected her memories.” Many of the reporters were saying similar schemes of my trauma being the reasoning for the lies spewing from my mouth.

What interview? You idiots just interrogated me and forced the info you wanted to hear down my throat. I clenched my teeth and looked out the window to calm my spirits. Gazing for anything at all that might help my racing heartbeat. The sky didn’t work, I always felt like it was a fraud; projected there as a holographic mirror of this utopian city.

I looked down to the distant mountainous land I’d never reach nor get past, just another blockade to keep me from freedom, down further, my eyes sunk, now to the trees along the streets. They didn’t strike me as a natural stimulant either, just the perfectly planted pieces of plastic aligned the way the developers had planned, real or not, from up here they were only models posing as eye candy. Down again, losing hope as I looked into the streets. The reporter’s voices were filtering back into my mind. Rushing people, busy movements, fast paced transportations causing a ruckus like the news people noise streaming straight through my skull.

Then I saw it- the- g- that- that- Him! Out there, many floors down, in the middle of a four-way cross-walk, I thought I caught someone staring at me. Someone who had to be him! The guy who saved me! My eyes widened as I scurried closer to the window. A crowd of people crossing the street sucked up the person I was preoccupied by, and I lost them. Was that really him?

“As you can see, this poor young miss behind me is dazed from the traumatic events. It is only thanks to the brave police forces of Ezveria that she is alive but she is delusioned into thinking she was saved by one of the radicals themselves.”

Desperate fools dying to hear a story they want to write. I smiled an irritated smile and turned to them. Unbelievable. Completely unbelievable. I knew these people were scumbags, but I never would have imagined it to be this bad.

“Fine...” I breathed. “Fine! You’re right! I’m crazy!” I got up to a knee and reached for a pillow behind my back. “I’m delusional!” I screamed and threw the pillow straight to the reporter’s head. I threw it so hard that it squirted out puffs of coloured feathers all over the room. I quickly reached for the other pillow and stood up on the bed. Behind my back I edged towards the help button and discreetly poked it repeatedly.

“-Much too sick in the head to answer all your stupid, self-answering questions!” I chucked another pillow across the room to a video camera this time. More coloured feathers exploded across the room, then a number of nurses piled in. I sprang off the bed and dashed towards my clothes near the door. One nurse tried grabbing me, but I was too quick. Hugging my stuff to my chest I skidded out the room, a flurry of feathers followed me out. Then I sprinted down the hall, pulling a lot of attention and chasers with me.

“Out of the way, delusional maniac coming through!” I’d leave the bill with all those reporters that caused this. If they can afford to barge into people’s rooms with their fancy tuxedos and tuxettas, and gadgets and hairdos, then they can afford my medical treatment.

At the end of the hall I saw a sign that pointed left for elevators and right for stairs. I’m sure my pursuers didn’t want to take the stairs, so I turned left out of consideration for them.

Once I turned and was out of their sight, I entered a random room and hid behind a curtain away from the door. There, I wrenched on my jeans. Some kid eating a lollipop was in the bed gawking up at me while the charging mob of cameras and nurses ran past. I gave the child a quick smile and ran out the room in the opposite direction towards the stairs.

I shoved the door out of my way and slid down railing after railing, all the while tugging off the hospital sheets, throwing it to the side, and diving into my hoodie. By the time I reached the last step, my hood was on and I was flinging my scarf over my shoulder and strolling out of the stairwell like a normal person – which I was by the way; normal.

I made my exit out of the hospital and rush-walked to that street I glimpsed before where I thought I saw that kid. I wouldn’t live my rescued life in peace if I never thanked him for it. Therefore I’d find him no matter what. I was determined.