"Amazing."

The vulture's immediate reaction was to frown. "What?"

"You've exceeded our expectations," the headmaster repeated in a similar fashion, as though there was nothing to hide. "We never thought you'd be the perfect watch bird."

All of a sudden, it seized his cage and rattled the creature within—awake. It began as a creeping, a salient itch in his chest whose existence he was aware of and yet, could not contain a single word; an ill, disgusting premonition. His gaze, uncertain, darted from face to face. Stranger to stranger.

"Watch bird?"

A snake slithered past their eyes, glazed and still. Vaughn looked around and all he could see was a world that seemed, all of a sudden, attentive to him. Not himself, but to his use. His sudden, convenient use that would prove essential to their grand, final plan. One that he would, for the first time in his life, have the role of a protagonist to play. Not a tree. Not Person B.

"But of course! In fact, you've been so watchful in your advance that even those on your side were inclined to think differently," Kirill appeared mildly pleased by the way things were going according to his favor. "Now, we know the truth."

What truth?

The vulture found something within that desired company. He never thought Jae-min's presence would've made so much of a difference. It would, now. Or so he figured.

But he wasn't there.

Neither was the phoenix, for some reason.

He was alone.

"For your excellent achievement, you shall receive a hundred credits," the numbers in his academic account spiked. "Perhaps even more if you maintain this advantageous position."

The words that escaped his lips felt, for some reason, scripted and false.

"Is this a joke?"

He couldn't seem to understand or believe the scene that unfolded before his eyes. The conference table warped and discolored before returning to its original shape. They think I'm a spy. How?

"Of course not, dear." His mother was addressing him and that itself was a tremendous feat. Vaughn was beginning to lose his grip on all that was once his own. "The order is applauding you for your achievements. You, having gained the trust and faith of the sparrow and his acquaintances, should be rewarded."

All at once, he registered the true purpose of his having to attend the conference that had never been compulsory for a scavenger like him and the revelation was like being hurled down a deep, dark well. He yelled for escape.

"There must be some mistake," the vulture insisted, like a baby bird flapping its wings without reason. "That sparrow and his acquaintances will never trust me."

"Too humble," Kirill dismissed with a sorry wave of his hand. "That said, you will be assisting the hearts in the upcoming games."

The child was beginning to lose control over his disposition. Everything was falling apart. "Objection, I—"

"Be quiet, Vaughn." His mother's snap was like the pulling of a trigger. He froze, swallowing the rest of his words in a gulp and under her watch, he was a child all over again.

A sickly silence hung like a cloud over the room, dark and imminent. Vaughn was not so inclined to speak ever again and no one at the table was foolish enough to involve themselves in a familial conflict.

"It has been discussed and decided that two teams shall be competing against each other for the collection of Marks under timed conditions."

"You will be led by Yvone's team during the games," Kirill explained briefly, and the very name struck an image of a lowly shrike in his mind. "We shall be counting on your expertise as the reigning victor of multiple seasons."

The shrike's team. What were they planning? He didn't want to be involved. Vaughn didn't want to be involved in anything. He wished to be left—quite alone. Alone.

"Needless to be said, you will keep a close eye on the opponent and do your best to ensure the order of the system, in that the sparrow is kept under rightful restraint. That, and you shall strategize, along with your team, to achieve what we consider to be the best outcome for our society, that is in alignment with that of the Order."

Big words. Little, insignificant meaning—no! He mustn't think of it in such a manner. He had never thought so little of the Order's intentions. So why now?

It was the same. It had to be, because the vulture was the same and he had taken measures to ensure that he remained so; unchanging. Unfeeling.

Or had he?

"The collection of Marks?" Vaughn wanted to be sure. He posed the question to the table, retreating from direct confrontation with any single individual.

"Yes but rest assured, that is not critical to our aim," Kirill answered with a frown, displeased that their tool was veering away from its purpose. "You see here Alekseyev, it does not matter if the prey are caught—the game is a match. A competition, you understand? One that you must win."

The vulture did not appear fazed by the response he was not expecting. Something foreign was brewing within and he was afraid of it. He'd always assumed that the purpose of the season games was the hunt. That said, prey mattered. Of course they did.

Unless the entire thing was a façade and everything was to suppress not just the Joker, but everyone else. All prey.

Was it an unprecedented product? Did the games really mean to show the prey where they stand—at the very bottom?

"So then...Iolani Tori," he started again after a pause, unable to digest anything more than fear and disgust. This was foreign.

Kirill's face lit up with a smile of pleasure. "Yes! Yes, you understand now. The boy has come at a precise moment, perhaps ordained by the Lord Himself. The island has been as of late, restless and disorderly with a wavering in their hearts, the first sign of going astray. Getting rid of the sparrow would be hitting two birds with one stone!"

The idiom struck against the bars of his cage with a resounding clang that frightened the creature within. There was enough fear in Vaughn's heart—what more could uncertainty bring?

Two birds with one stone.

*

The meeting ended on a sour note, assigning duties to each department that only served to add on to their load of responsibilities. Vaughn was left quite out of the equation during the rest of the hour, and it was only upon dismissal that he could walk out of the conference room alone and retreat into his shell.

He recalled the format of his schedule, arranged in a neat and orderly manner inside his mind, stowed away in the second drawer under 'DUTY'. An hour later, he would be required to attend homeroom at a newly-assigned classroom near the west wing or the predator's block. Where was that again?

He acknowledged the rest of the staff with a smile as they passed before mapping out the route in which he would take to reach the classroom perhaps fifteen minutes earlier, retreating into his mind and erasing all that existed independently—

"Cameron!" The name.

The name was enough to make the vulture freeze and break. Keep walking. Keep walking; you have to keep walking. Don't look.

"Sir." Don't look.

"I have yet to thank you for the tremendous help you had so generously provided!" It couldn't be. Kirill was calling a student by his name. Maybe he'd heard it wrongly. Perhaps it was part of his imagination.

Vaughn could not help but despair at the thought. For him to imagine someone else's' name being called was in and of itself a horrible sign of weakness. One that he should erase as soon as possible.

"Not one of us would have thought Alekseyev a voluntary spy. We were close to assuming that we'd lost him astray!" The headmaster gave Cameron's shoulder a hearty pat. He appeared to be in a pleasant mood. "How about you dine with us on Friday night? Take it as thanks for a job well done."

The periphery of his vision allowed for a nod of Cameron's head. And a smile.

"Definitely, sir."

"Excellent. Morrisa will send you an Avian regarding the details," Kirill and his order took a left at the end of the hallway. "Until then."

His pace was off. A tad too slow for any ordinary passers-by. Vaughn was late to realize this and by the time he did, their eyes had met.

A curse escaped his lips and in a panic to appear casual and irrelevant, he looked away and resumed his pace but it was too late.

"I saw you." Stop.

The vulture halted in his tracks turned—reluctantly—at the voice he was once so acquainted with. One that now, he was quite afraid of.

"...Cam."

"You and those hearts. Looking so friendly together," the Nocturne scoffed with a tilt of his head. "Since when did you ever speak to anyone else but yourself?"

He couldn't seem to get the words past his lips. Swallowed once.

"Right," Cameron scraped the bottom of his shoe across the flagged stone floor. "You didn't."

"So I assumed you were putting on an act like you did with me. Guess I nailed it."

He told them.

He told them.

Vaughn's throat was dry and every word was swimming in something close to a desert. The burn across his back began to itch—the scar that had yet to heal—from the time he'd saved his friend by a fraction of a second and told him to run.

"Why the face?" Cameron laughed. "You get the attention that you've always wanted. I get recognition for presenting a brilliant idea. It's a win for both of us."

"I just don't get you," he heard him say with a look of distaste. "I don't get it. Why you lie every single time and cheat the feelings of others. It's disgusting."

He heard the word and it carved itself onto a single bar of his cage, drawing upon every other instance that he'd heard it. Inside, he felt something tremble; weak.

"I...I did not mean to lie and I'm sorry for what I've done but I'd never, never intended to make you feel—"

"Shut up, scavenger."

It was a word. Only a word and yet, it felt so real. More so than any weapon in the world. Vaughn was shriveling under the power of his every utterance—bricks that stacked atop one another to create, yet again, a separate world for the pair.

"Don't apologize. It makes me sick," the Nocturne spat with a turn of his head, as though the sight of the other was enough to make him diseased. "You make me sick."

Vaughn knew not what to say. He wondered how he seemed most unlike himself when faced with an old friend. His only old friend.

What was it like to be him, anyway?

Was this very weak and pathetic disposition the real him or...the one that hungered and sought for power like the predator he was? Was it neither?

Who was he?

"It's like a play for you, isn't it?" He couldn't stop. Cameron knew as soon as he began that it was something beyond his control. "Everything's an act and all you care about is fulfilling that role you want."

The vulture arrived at a strangest, most discomforting conclusion: and that was the possibility of them all—the weak, the greedy and the false—being the real him.

In that instance, he felt as though he might disappear.

____________________________

Iolani Tori was making his way downstairs after sending Pipa to her classroom on the fourth floor of the south wing when he heard loud voices coming from the corridor below. At first, he'd assumed it was a lover's spat—something that Vijay had filled him in about just a couple of days ago when they witnessed two lovebirds speaking in raised voices across the common room. A closer inspection, however, told him a different story.

"Don't apologize. It makes me sick."

He blinked.

The scene felt oddly familiar, as though he'd somehow traveled back in time and come across the exact place with the exact same people, saying the exact same thing. A warped distortion of what seemed to him like a dream.

"You make me sick."

He did not recognize the voice. A familiar back, however—with long, ashen hair that fell almost like a veil—was all he needed to assume the identity of the speaker.

"It's like a play for you, isn't it?"

"Everything's an act and all you care about is fulfilling that role you want." Light fell upon the scene and it dawned on him that his friend was most likely caught up in an argument with another. Although whether or not it was, by strict definition, an argument (a heated conversation, back and forth when it appeared to him that Vaughn was a terribly short on words), he was fairly uncertain.

Why was Vaughn standing so still?

Something seemed rather off about the way in which he was lapping every word like a dog at water, as though eager for conflict. Any form of attention.

"No...not at all," he saw the vulture shake his head slowly. Disbelief, then. "That's far from what I—"

In that very instant, Vaughn knew he made the mistake of speaking for every ounce of inferiority came swarming into his cage like an attack to which he felt the brunt of its bitter sting. He was so close to bursting.

"Why can't you just be yourself?"

He felt something unlock within and it roared to life with a streak of vengeance, bright as a match—struck.

"And what if I don't want to be me?"

Grief and pain seared the creature inside and burned it alive. All of a sudden, he was fully aware of all that had been stowed and kept away within, coerced into silence and forced into a façade. There was emotion and it was familiar. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to embrace it; acknowledge its presence and come to terms with the disorder that was himself.

Cameron's eyes were wide. He felt, for once, an innate humanity in the vulture he thought heartless and disgusting.

"Would you?"

"Would you like to be the most jealous, inferior, wary and fearful creature on the island—green and repulsive?" His voice, pained and in anguish, resounded in the empty hallway that could not afford to bolster the extent of his emotions.

"I wouldn't."

"I want to be someone else."

Io felt as though the world had come to a standstill at his very words, mesmerized by its despair. He understood that it was not the time for him to intervene (was he even entitled to?) and yet, the urge remained prowling in his cage.

Cameron was obviously uninterested. Either that, or he was displaying an immense confusion, shock and even fear at the nonhuman that stood before him.

"You're fucking mental." He pushed past the vulture and began crossing the hallway towards the stairs, where Io was hiding. The latter darted behind a pillar, holding his breath as the sight of Vaughn's shoulders—shaking, just a little, as though he was a leaf and it was only the wind—remained at the forefront of his mind.

The Nocturne started down the stairs and passed the sparrow by mere inches of safety, urgent steps further ensuring his hasty retreat. Cameron did not look back. He would have seen Io standing behind the pillar, positioned at his blind spot if he did.

Yet, a part of the creature in Io's cage willed the other to turn back. His identity remained shrouded in darkness but he was important. Important to Vaughn, at the very least and that itself was sufficient to necessitate his turning back.

He didn't.

The sparrow remained in his hiding spot, waiting to hear another series of footsteps. Vaughn's. He didn't, however. And perhaps it was his imagination, but he seemed to hear a continuation of the conversation at the back of his mind—the strangled voice of a human.

"Anyone else."

______________________________

"What's wrong, Vaughn?"

The vulture had bolted past the front door of the classroom and headed straight for his seat without a moment to spare. It was an unusual sight for most of his classmates—and although they'd been forcefully kicked out of their privileged mahogany tables and cushioned chairs a week ago (replaced, of course, by the supposedly superior flock), it certainly did not guarantee an abrupt change in Vaughn's odd behavior.

"What?" He turned sharply, face drained of color. "No, nothing."

Io, seated a couple of tables away, picked out the uncharacteristic streak of doubt in the vulture's voice and was instantly concerned. Yet, he didn't wish to suffocate his friend by expressing it any further since attention was what Vaughn did not wish for at the very moment.

For convenience sake, he was Luka's tablemate and all he had to do was bump his shoe against the eagle's for immediate attention. Exactly how having someone almost three heads taller than himself as his tablemate was 'convenient' remained a mystery.

"You sure?" Abigail prodded before folding her arms and cocking her hip.

Scattered conversations that lapped around the class—once non-existent in a cold and disinterested environment, solely based on selfish motivations—came to a halt. Vaughn was clearly out of his element, and he was not keen on sharing.

"Hey man, no pressure but," Dmitri popped out of nowhere and clapped him the back, "if you ever feel like you need to spill some—"

"I'm fine," he snapped a little too quickly, confirming the concerns of everyone else except himself. Vaughn was about to elaborate and hopefully get a grip on himself when Professor Faustes entered by the front door. Ten minutes late.

Instead of looking permanently pissed off as he usually did, the hawk appeared as though someone had deliberately tried to pick a fight with him.

"My apologies for being late," he started off by tossing a folder onto the teacher's desk. It skidded across the table top and stopped short of falling off. "It's not my fault they shifted your homeroom to some god-damned part of the school that no one's ever going to find."

Shri's hand shot into the air.

"Sir, you're back. Does this mean Io is no longer under...whatever he was under?"

Faustes nodded, holding up a hand. "I'll get to that in a bit. We've got some administrative shit to settle and as much as I want to get it over and done with, I can't."

"Why?" Meryl piped.

"Because it's not that simple," the professor pinched the bridge of his nose. "I forgot how shitty you brats can get."

A light-hearted air of humour breezed past before returning to a calm.

"I've got many things to cover but first, the council has made a couple of changes to the upcoming games."

"As we all know, it's not season. No shit, it isn't—so if you were wondering why we're playing some damned irrelevant shit that wastes our time, don't ask because I don't know." Faustes scribbled a couple of dates on the blackboard before a final word in which Io had a hard time making out surfaced with a double underline.

TEAM

"Unfortunately for you loners, you will be working in teams this time. And by that, I mean all of you on the same side."

All at once, there was an unusual buzz of anticipation that Faustes himself had never witnessed beforehand. For the several years that he'd overseen top-ranked predators—the class of hearts—a prime example of what he had gathered was that they loathed working together with anyone apart from themselves.

He attributed it to the possibility that none of them were actually listening to him.

"Except Tori, Jane and Alekseyev, the rest of you come up with some strategy for the team. The general rules remain the same but for some stupid reason, it's become more like a competition between you guys and the other hearts."

Me? Io's thoughts of anticipation stopped short, abruptly cut off by the professor's words. He waited for an explanation, glancing sideways at his friend to observe his reaction.

Luka was already looking at him.

"The team with a higher Mark count wins," victory was something that made man sit up and look forth but this time, circumstances differed. "Here's the catch: there's no reward."

The catch garnered a range of response, of which included Dmitri's inability to grasp the point of the games.

"Competing's all cool, but what's the point if we're in it for nothing?"

Vaughn knew the answers to every question only because his presence was required at the meeting that was held earlier this morning. He'd always been the one left in the dark, but now he was beginning to wonder if he liked being in the light.

At times, knowledge was, to him, a burden.

It was just like Io had said — a responsibility upon his shoulders.

"Surface wise, the new rule necessitates that every prey have a predator. Realistically and honestly speaking," Faustes snorted, "the order thinks you're little shits too so good on you kids."

There was an odd spark of amusement that came, unexpectedly, with the thought of being disliked. After all, these people had never been out of their advantage and the sudden turning of the tables was—despite the discomfort and uncertainty—new and almost exhilarating.

"Your headmaster claims that Tori and Jane, as Eyes, would hold unfair advantages and therefore are forbidden to participate as predators. He will have to participate as a prey," all eyes turned to 'he'. No need for further mention. Further elaboration.

Jing glanced over her shoulder, meeting Io's eyes but then before she knew it, he was looking at someone else. It was a given that Io never really put himself at the forefront of his concerns. Yes, he did matter to himself, but more often than so he had long considered such concerns while he was sipping a cup of water, brushing his teeth, walking to class, cracking a sunflower seed, staring at the burnt spot near the corner of his bed that he had all the time in the world to think about the humans beyond him.

"How about Vaughn?" 

_______________________

A/N: Hello there dear! I'm kinda (sorta) officially back to weekly updates? Because I'll probably be stopping updates on my other books for a moment and focus here, but at the same time no promises ;-; sob. It's only the second week of school and scholars have a thesis to write??? Ah well. :> 

This chapter's focus is Vaughn, his purpose, and his being. What does it mean to be "one's self"? Where did this stigma to be "one's self" come from? Perhaps there is some form of aesthetic that the phrase "just be you" appeals to, and that is the aesthetic of the heart. What if we pause to consider something beyond a single entity and understand that the human does not consist merely of the heart, but harbors a war between that and the mind? 

Sometimes, things cannot be solved simply by 'being you', as Vaughn has expressed in this chapter. He is unable to make this known to most of the written characters and struggles to express how he truly feels about himself or the world around him. His self-hatred is so much more than the disgust he feels (claims to feel) for the characters around him, and it is only from this perspective that he can seek understanding of the world because he is far too afraid to seek intimacy and relations with other humans, having been hurt previously by Cameron. 

Self-hatred to the extent that he wants to be anyone but himself is probably the most relatable concept and yet all people say is 'to be yourself'? How does that solve the problem at hand? The heart of the issue? 

Vaughn, in my opinion, is a very intricate but successful character of pain and anguish, depicted in a human being. I really like him! 

I hope you do too. 

-Cuppiecake. 

P.S I'm writing a birthday chapter for Chip (from the Baked series) next week, but I didn't want to leave you Stars out, so I'll probably be writing a short side chapter. Any suggestions on what I should do? :> MORE FLUFF? MORE BACKSTORY? What do you want to know?