Totentanz

Book 1 Chapter VII: Das Unglück

Warning: contains references to suicide.

DAS UNGLÜCK
German, "the sorrow; the misfortune; the calamity"

Progress just means bad things happen faster. -- Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

The world has some laws that can never be broken. Bread will always land on the buttered side. The phone always rings at the most inconvenient moment. And no one is ever as conspicuous as when they try to make themselves inconspicuous.

Karandren's classmates generally tried to ignore his existence. They'd stopped outright bullying him after their ringleader died so mysteriously. After that they adopted a policy of pointedly turning their backs on him when he walked into a room. The students at the table closest to the door automatically began to turn away as soon as he entered the dining room. Then they stopped. Their heads swivelled round. Their eyes grew rounder and rounder until they were practically standing out on stalks.

Karandren barely even noticed their baffled stares. He was too busy concentrating on trying not to fall over. Being well over a foot shorter than he had been yesterday left him unable to properly control his legs. If his shoes had been magnets drawn towards the metal table-legs he could hardly have found it more difficult to navigate the room.

Conversations around him slowly died as more and more people noticed his extraordinary behaviour. When a student staggered around like a drunkard, nearly falling over chairs, tables, and uneven bits of the floor, it tended to attract attention. Karandren collapsed into the nearest empty seat without caring who else was sitting at the table. The students already there surreptitiously inched away from him. All of them eyed him dubiously and whispered to each other.

One of the teachers came up beside him. Frowning suspiciously, she said, "Are you ill?"

No, I'm just not used to being fourteen, Karandren thought. He looked up at the teacher with his best expression of wide-eyed innocence. "I put my shoes on the wrong feet."

She stared at him with the confusion of an adult who couldn't comprehend the way a teenager's mind worked. "Then put them on the right feet and stop making an exhibition of yourself."

He hummed noncommittally. Let her take from that whatever she wanted. He turned away and began to pile scrambled eggs onto his plate. Food at the academy was undeniably horrible. But it had been over fifty years since he'd lost the ability to taste anything at all. After so many years of food turning to ash in his mouth, it no longer matter how bad the food was as long as he could taste it. Karandren helped himself to the entire pot of simultaneously soggy and overcooked scrambled eggs. The other students stared at him as if he was a visitor from another planet.

~~~~

"Congratulations. You're dead. Again."

If anyone could hear her they would have scoffed and told her not to be so dramatic. Diarnlan wouldn't have listened. It would probably have ended in an argument. Or maybe they would have just assumed she'd lost her mind. Next thing she knew she'd be locked up in an asylum. 

Diarnlan stared moodily down at her teacup and let her mind run wild. It conjured up increasingly ridiculous images of what might happen if anyone thought she was mad. Their very ridiculousness was somehow comforting. At least they were a temporary escape from reality. There was nothing comforting about the thought of facing what was really happening.

Her thoughts turned back to the situation in spite of her attempts to keep them away. She found herself dwelling on her death even as she tried to forget about it.