tassel

NANCY FRAPPE WAS TIRED OF RUNNING. Although she couldn't see the blisters on her feet through her shoes, she felt pus wetting her toes. Pabi and Gogi looked better than her, but there wasn't enough energy left for the three of them to continue finding their way through the woods. Moonlight peaked in from the the canopy. Nancy stopped running. Seeing her, the two dogs did the same. 

She collapsed onto the muddy ground. Huddling her dogs closer to her, she carefully laid on her back, staring at the streak of light coming from between the canopy. Pabi moved out from her grasp and nuzzled into her face. He reached her nose, which made her sit upright and give out a loud sneeze. Gogi jumped.

Nancy laughed at herself. She took off her shoes, revealing the damage on her feet. They were awfully red and swollen, and there was not just pus, but a few bleeding blisters too. What she needed to do right now was to wash it off, but there was no water body in sight.

She heaved a disheartening sigh, going back to the job of staring at the moonlight, laying down. The air cooled down her burning wounds. Pabi and Gogi pawed back to her side. The branches above felt like a dark green shield.

When Nancy was about to shut her eyes, she saw the line of light shift a little and come back to the same place. As if it just blinked. It lasted for a fraction of second, but she was as sure as the sky it wasn't a hallucination. Nancy squinted, trying to look beyond the leaves. Nothing much was visible. She sat up and squinted once again. 

Pabi and Gogi suddenly stirred uncomfortably from their positions. One of them whined and buried himself into Nancy's ribs, causing her to lose balance. "It's alright, Gogi," she comforted.

But just a few seconds later, it turned out that it wasn't. The earth beneath them began to judder, and Nancy barely manged to stand without stumbling onto the ground. 

Just as she was taking off to run, the streak of light cut through leaves and the ground in front of them. Soil and dirt erupted onto her face. The light continued to cut deeper, uprooting few of the trees around. Pabi's bark alarm went off, while Gogi stood trembling between Nancy's legs.

The intensity of the light seemed to double, and then all of a sudden it vanished entirely. As an eerie feeling spread across, the forest grew almost pitch dark. The earth began to calm down, silencing Pabi too.

And in a few moments, everything turned deadly still. 

Nancy's heart filled with an unsettling aura, paralyzing her body. Suddenly, there was a shadow in front of her. It's mine, she thought, looking at it originating from her feet. It kept growing longer until it was not in front of her any more. 

Because Nancy clearly saw the magnificent source of light now visible right in front of her.

"Luxora," her voice escaped, gasping a little.

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To be Continued
Free Tickets to Water Hill
Last updated : 4 hours ago
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A sigh comes out of my mouth. The writer just had to end it at a cliffhanger. She's been ending them like these since the last three chapters. This time, it's worse. Luxora is the light fairy, and unlike her counterpart Tenebrie, she's a ruthless, calculative killer. Not to mention the best fighter out of the trio is the two year-old dog, Pabi.

I don't shut down the laptop. I need to calm my heart from the cliffhanger, so instead, I open my G-Mail. The chats pop up on the bottom left, showing new messages from Arohi.

Hiiii

Wassup

By this time, both of us have changed our usernames. A-rowtheboat-hi and Tassyissassy are just Arohi.N and PagerTassel now. And it makes me think that growing up really makes you feel good about using ordinary usernames that would otherwise be considered boring at the age of Tassyissassy.

I'm good

How r u?

Arohi responds immediately.

Good too

School's been hell lately tho

I've had to catch up on a lot of things because things in
Cormer's proceeds at a different way from Portmouth

It's pretty exhausting

Ah I see

All the best with catching up then

Yeah, thanks

There's no messages sent or received for a while, as if we're both thinking of what to say. I see Arohi's profile showing typing... more than once but don't get a single text from her. I finally break the drought.

Are you getting along with the people there?

She should be. Arohi's always been pretty and popular among boys and girls both.

Yeah, I am

They're really nice to me

One girl even watches a lot of anime like you

Lol

Ask her what she watches

Maybe we can fangirl over the same anime together

Tas

What

You're supposed to be helping me make friends

Oh shut up

You don't need help with that personality
of yours

You're not wrong lol

I really don't

But I do need help with my math homework

Oh Ok

Tell me the question

Arohi sends a picture. The question is really long, but that's only because there's a lot of unnecessary sentences in it. It's not very complicated in actual.

I quickly turn into a blank page of my notebook and form the equations. After scribbling down the entire solution, I take a picture and press send.

I just then notice that Mom and Dad are fighting again. It's so regular, it almost feels like a background score for everything I do. Like playing songs with half of the lyrics nothing but swear words. To some extent, it explains why I study better in chaos than in silence.

Arohi doesn't reply for a whole minute. When she does, she thanks me, but says there's one step she does not understand. I try my best to explain it to her. She thanks me again when she gets it.

I gtg

Mom's calling me

I nod at the message.

Yeah sure

Bye👋

A little while later she replies.

👋

Gn✨

Good night :)

|| ~~~~~ ||

"Chemistry's been incredibly hard these days," Kim says, pulling her books out from the locker.

"Yeah," I agree. "I just can't remember anything about transition elements."

I take out my Chemistry text book. Arashi and I had decided that we'd solve our homework together during Leisure period today because their teacher handed them the same homework as that of the AP students.

"How's Arohi?" Kim asks. "Did she break up with Silas?"

I reply with a yes. Her lips form an 'oh' and she shakes her head a bit.

"She was thinking of ending it anyway," I say. "Their relationship wasn't doing very well."

Kim smiles. "Well, I'm glad. I never liked Silas anyway. He played soccer with us once and he's arrogant as fuck."

I laugh and she hits me on the butt. Kim has always been a subtly violent person. To be honest, her smacks are the only touch I'm not awkward with.

From absolutely nowhere, Lilly pops up from behind Kim, smacking her in the butt. She tells me hi. I say it back and laugh at the way Kim's eyes grow slightly larger.

"You look cute today. That pink top really suits you," Lilly tells me. I grin. I've gotten that from a few other girls in my previous classes today too. "Thank you."

They start bickering about something I don't quite understand, so I just stand there and laugh at the two passing opinions and butt-smacks back and forth. Just when it starts to get a little awkward for me, Arashi walks by us. 

"Hey!" I immediately shout. He turns around and smiles at me. I hold up the Chemistry papers and gesture for us to go out and solve them. He nods and waits for me.

"I've gotta go," I say to Kim and Lilly, who stop bickering at the sound of my voice. 

"See you at lunch, then," Kim tells. Yeah, I confirm, and then walk out of the building with Arashi.

Although the afternoon sun is out, it's very chilly. Halloween's only after three days, and the cold breeze keeps reminding me of it. The grey clouds make the atmosphere of our anciently designed school seem ghostly.

Arashi and I make our way to the mango tree. Once we're both comfortable with our sitting positions, we take the papers out and start to solve it. The level's okay; even a non-AP student should also be able to solve at least twelve out of twenty question without difficulty. I get stuck at the ninth question. Hoping to solve it together with Arashi, I look at him, only to find out he's still at the third one.

"Is it hard for you?" I ask.

"No, I'm just slow. But I'm getting it," he assures.

I smile. He looks stuck. But in the end, he's able to finish off the question without any help from my side.

I try to do the ninth question again. It's a direct objective question, and I'm confused between option C and D because both seem very probable. This time, I just ask Arashi. "In the ninth question -" Arashi looks at it "- Is it C or D to you?"

"C, I think," he says. "I can see in your paper the last four options were D."

We laugh at his answer.

None of us are sure, so we agree to mark it as C and move on. The place around us goes quiet, except for the sound of the soccer players shouting and students chatting on the ground.

I get stuck at the fifteenth question this time. I feel a little horrible to ask Arashi once again. I'm supposed to be helping him here, not the other way round. Setting my pride aside, I look at him again. He's staring at his shoes, biting his pen. His eyes constantly grow wider and then smaller. At one point, he even tilts his head, like he's having a conversation with himself.

"Yo," I say softly, waving my hand. Even if it's not right in front of his face, he still notices it. He looks at me, his eyes questioning my action. I'm shocked at how tired his face looks suddenly.

One thing I've observed about Arashi is that he zones out really often. I don't know if it's because of adjusting to a new city or because he keeps thinking about his mother, but I do know he's not aware of the fact that he zones out. He acts as if he's been talking to me or doing his work the entire time, as I see it, it's not just a lie. He literally looks like he's convincing himself rather than anyone else.

I decide we've done enough Chemistry for this period. Putting down my sheets, I ask Arashi to come for a walk with me. He looks surprised that I've finished so fast, but I explain him that I still have a lot left, but I can't concentrate anymore. He agrees, and we get outside the shade of the tree. 

After walking a few steps, I start to jog. I look back at Arashi, smile, and take off into a run. I'm expecting him to run after me, but on turning back I just see that he has increased the pace of his walking. A little annoyed, I run to him and pull him with me as I take off again.

"You said we'd take a walk, not run," he fights. 

"We're still pretty slow," I say. I leave his arm and this time, he stays in my speed. I increase my momentum slowly, increasing his too. After some time, we've broken into a run at full blown speed. 

I smile at the wind hitting my face as we go around the ground. I feel like I'm flying. I want to fly faster, but this storm I've grown closer to will not be able to catch up. He won't even try to. For now, I need to stay with this storm, not run away from it.

We stop after two rounds. I hold my knees and lick my dry lips. Arashi barely crawls to the tree and falls there. I go there and laugh. 

"We weren't even that fast," I say, catching a breath in between. 

"Oh, shut up. I don't want to know your idea of fast anymore," he says, laughing dishearteningly. I snigger and rest my back on the bark. I don't feel cold anymore. For a while, none of us speak.

I close my eyes. I see an unevenly coloured orange scenery. Nothing else except for dark orange, light orange, sunset orange and shades-I-can't-name orange. It feels good because today, I feel like an orange person.

Before I get sleepy, I open my eyes. Arashi lies on the ground, staring at the branches enclosing us. He meets my gaze. "Hey, Tassel?"

"Yeah?"

"What's better, feeling sad or feeling empty?" 

"None of them are exactly nice." 

"But if you had to choose from one of them, what would it be?"

I think for a few moments and then respond. "When you feel empty, you feel like a drop of water that has been thrown into outer space. First boiling rapidly and then just vaporizing, never to be touched again. When you're sad, you're like a drop of water on Earth. Surrounded by million others, yet so alone. But in the end everything turns out awesome. You replenish yourself. You die and then you're reborn."

Arashi looks at me. "So you choose sadness," he states. I confirm.

The bell rings. I get up instantly because I'm hungry from all the running. I ask Arashi to get up too.

"I'll come in five minutes," he says, closing his eyes. "I want to rest here for sometime. It feels so good."

I don't argue. Arashi has never asked me questions like this before, and it's very obvious something is quietly irritating him. Mostly, I think, it's something related to his mother. 

Even if I'm worried, I leave him there anyway, simply hoping the tree would emanate some good vibes for him to bask in.