Rising Shards

“Do any of you want to hear a story?” He asked to the students sitting near him. 

Oka didn’t want to hear a story from him, but she had learned the hard way it was better to just humor them when they wanted to talk. She and a few of the other students murmured and nodded.

“Wonderful,” the teacher said. “A few years back, or maybe not a few…gosh, it’d have to be more than fifteen years ago now. There was a girl at this school.”

The teacher looked over to Oka, who crossed her arms. Another dumb ghost story.

“She was a bright student, a young Cani like all of you, which was even rarer back then. One night, a night just like this—“

A clap of thunder interrupted him for a second, but he continued on.

“A rainy, stormy night like this, she disobeyed her teachers and broke curfew, running off into the forests around the school. Like you, she was too young to have her own bloodsaber, so she was unprotected. She stopped to rest under a twisted and dying tree, with branches that looked like cracks in concrete and leaves that looked like ashes. Suddenly, the branches and leaves grasped around her, grabbing her like twenty ghostly arms. She acted fast and bit down on the branch closest to her mouth, but her fangs were instantly stuck in the bark. All she could do was howl into the night for help…but no one came. By the time she was found…it was too late. The story goes that she still wanders the forests around this very school, and on nights like this, if you step outside, and you listen close, you can hear her howl. And when you hear her howl, some say you can even see the ashes fall. And when you see the ashes fall…you better run, because she’s faster than you.”

Looking satisfied at the trembling students, the teacher laughed and abruptly left.

“Goodnight kids!”

* * *

That night, Oka couldn’t sleep. She told herself over and over that it was just a dumb story. That the teacher hadn’t left them alone, there were still the night guards. She told herself all that, but still shivered and held her comfort bunny close. 

Oka gasped when she heard a noise in the hallway outside. Then footsteps. It’s just the night guard, it’s just the night guard, it’s just the night guard. She told herself over and over as the footsteps slowly walked past. She couldn’t tell if they were the normal sounds the footsteps of the guards made…or if they were lighter. 

“The story was she was outside,” Oka whispered to her comfort bunny. “She wouldn’t be in here—“

Just as she said that, she froze as she faintly heard it.

A howl.

* * *

After a sleepless night, some students were looking around for ashes in and around the school grounds. Oka stayed in her room, not wanting to join in with them, especially not after asking if anyone else heard the howling. No one else had.

"Friend is Acting Suspicious..."

Kalei knew she might get in trouble for following her friend Syval all the way to the boys’ dorm, but she wanted some answers. Every day for the past few weeks, Kalei had spotted him walking strangely; he was hunched over, checking around every few seconds as if to make sure he wasn’t being followed. It was a bit tough making sure he didn’t see, but she had worked up the nerve to trail him this far so she didn’t want to turn back. All her years of playing games with crappy tacked on stealth sections had led her to this.

The boys’ dorm was laid out similarly to the girls’ dorm so she didn’t feel lost. Syval walked past the lounge, towards an unassuming door past it. He quickly scanned around, forcing Kalei to duck behind a potted tree. While she couldn’t see him, she heard the door open and shut. 

Kalei chuckled to herself, feeling proud that she had managed to follow him this closely. Then she realized she hadn’t thought about the next steps now that she’d gotten there. She couldn’t exactly just follow him into the room. A sickly green light suddenly began to glow under the door. Kalei carefully stepped closer to the door, trying to look casual in case any boys walked past and wondered what she was doing there.

Up close, the light from beneath moved strangely; it almost looked like some kind of smoke made of lasers somehow. She leaned close to the door. She didn’t need to lean in too closely, as she heard a rattling noise, like someone was loudly clacking hard candy around in their mouth. There was some kind of…music? Playing alongside the clacking. Every few seconds, she heard something like a computer screeching. She could also hear some kind of breathy sound, which unnerved her the most for some reason.

All of the sounds didn’t make sense together. Could Syval be practicing some kind of dentistry themed interpretive dance? The longer she listened, the less sense any of it made.

One more particularly terrible sounding techno screech followed by whispers and Kalei decided she was better off not knowing and bolted back to the girls’ dorm.

"Trapped in a Haunted House"

Ovie shivered in the cold. She waited for her eyes to adjust in the darkness. She could smell the dust and cobwebs around her. Just slightly adjusting her feet made the floorboards creak.

Jeans had brought her to this place. She said this was something every Wildfire Hearts student had to go through. And since she was one of Wildfire Hearts’ newest students, Ovie had to spend an unknown amount of time alone in a desolate shack.

“Do you have any advice for this?” Ovie had asked Jeans.

“Try not to think too much. And don’t use your powers.” Jeans told her. “Try to stay calm no matter what. Especially if…well, you’ll see.”

Ovie wished she had Jeans to reach out to as rain began pouring outside. She had been brought there with her eyes covered, so she had no idea what the outside looked like either. She jolted at a clap of thunder mixed in the torrent that almost sounded like waves crashing into the roof above her. 

It’s nothing, She told herself. They just want to see how I’ll do under this kind of pressure. That’s all.

There was a strange sound outside, like broken wind chimes. Before she could even try to picture what made that noise, she heard footsteps. 

Ovie clamped her eyes shut and just tried to picture Jeans. She tried to think about how nice it’ll be to finally go to the same school as her, even under the circumstances that brought her there. 

The footsteps moved up wooden stairs. Ovie heard a door creak open, but it didn’t brighten anything up at all when she looked. It took her a second to notice the pair of glowing red snake eyes across from her.

“It’s…you…” Ovie said through a hushed breath.

Ovie had the stories about the Exile, and seen them reported. They were striking members of the Order of Terina, brutalizing them and leaving them out to dry. To what end they did this Ovie had no clue. She wasn’t part of the Order, but the eyes locked onto her looked like they were silently judging her. Determining if she’d join the rest left in their path.

"A Scene from a Nightmare Becomes True"

The storm ended. But the quietness, the stillness felt too familiar for Stella Faleur to relax and fall back asleep to the sounds of distant thunder and settling rain. It took her a few moments to ground herself, making sure she wasn’t having that nightmare again. 

A void storm was incredibly rare, maybe hitting LE in particular once or twice within every five years. Stella still had very regular nightmares about them. To non-Cani, it just appeared to be a regular thunderstorm, maybe a bit more harsh than a regular one, but nothing out of the ordinary. For Cani, in particular ones born in a void node or had family or friends that did, it was always a tense night at best, and a terrifying disaster at worst.

Stella didn’t dare turn on the lights as she got out of bed, slowly walking out of her room. Neither Stella nor her younger sister Zeta were born in a void node, but the threat of losing Zeta to a void storm felt so real to her. Especially after what had happened during the last one.

As her eyes adjusted, Stella’s heart rate increased. The silence of the apartment felt just like then. But it couldn’t be.

Stella made it to Zeta’s room. The door was shut. She willed her shaking hand to reach for the doorknob, then open it as silently as possible. 

Her heart dropped when she looked at Zeta’s bed. It was empty. The feeling of still, sudden, loneliness that hit her around five years earlier crashed into her once more. She rushed to Zeta’s bed, already whispering frantically as she searched through the sheets, then around the room. She had dreaded this day, even though she had been told it was impossible. 

Zeta was ten, she wouldn't run out, right? Stella winced at the image of Zeta vanishing to go among the lost in a void storm in the middle of the night. She quickly searched the rest of the room, then rushed out to check the other rooms. As soon as she went into the living room, she froze when she saw Zeta returning from the kitchen holding a glass of water and yawning.

“I was thirsty…” Zeta said groggily. “Did I wake you up?”

“N-no, it was…the storm.” Stella knelt down to hug Zeta. There was a moment of confusion at receiving a hug in the middle of the night, but Zeta’s left arm hugged back while she kept the water in her other hand. 

“I don’t want to drop my water.” Zeta said.

“It’s OK,” Stella whispered. Stella didn't tell Zeta a void storm was coming, or what one even was, but she was too relieved to hide her emotions about it as she usually did. She didn’t want to let Zeta go, but she knew she needed sleep. “Goodnight, Zeta.”

“Goodnight, Stella.”

Stella watched Zeta go back to her room and shut her door. Her heart was still pounding when she went back to her own room. A wave of emotions hit her at once, and it took a few minutes to get herself back together after she cried for what she felt had happened there, for what maybe almost happened, and for what had happened last time. For a moment, the nightmare had come true, but like the torrents of rain, it had mercifully passed over the Faleur sisters once more.