Flame Touch

Chapter 17-Knox

Taris swears his head still hurts from Melody, but I’m choosing to ignore him in favor of continuing the story.

So after the two big guys in the front let us past I finally got to see the rest of the room. It was set up like a fancy party hall. When we arrived the two big guys asked who we were and almost kicked us out when Sunny said the first guy looked like a bunny, but one look at Taris was all they needed to let us go through. A guy with almost blue skin came up to us and asked if he may take the lordess with him. Apparently the lordess was Melody, who seemed happy to go with someone who called her lordess after Semba gave the nod. Sunny must have stopped to look at something because when I looked back she wasn’t following. I was starting to get worried about whether the building swallowed her or something, but then I heard her yelling about how she was always left behind and why doesn’t anyone ever call her, so I knew she was alright. We continued until we entered a hallway that glowed bright red (have I mentioned we had been walking for about thirty minutes? Long hallways) as soon as I stepped onto the red I felt like I was literally walking on sunshine. And not in the good way.

“What the fffffffflux capacitor???? My feet! My feeeetttt!!!!!!” I yelled in a tight voice. Semba and Taris looked at each other in confusion at first, and then a moment of revelation in Taris’ blue eyes appeared, “Ah right,” he began, “it seems we forgot to tell you…” he stopped when he saw my expression, “Forgot to tell me that the FLOOR IS A FLICKIN’ FURNACE?” I said through my teeth glaring at them. “How the heck are you guys standing on it like it’s no big deal?” I asked, the pain ebbing now. Taris put his hands up in apology, “Ok, ok. All you have to do is concentrate on your feet.”

“Not so hard to do when they’re burning.”

Taris shot me a look, “Now try stepping on the floor.”

“Yeah, um, how about no?” I said happily as he sent me another look. So I, being the stupid person I am, concentrated.

On my feet.

Then I quickly steeped on the floor and closed my eyes tightly. Any moment now I would feel Satan’s furry on my heels. Again, quite literally, but there was nothing and when I opened my eyes I saw Taris smiling at me, “You can stop focusing now. The floor recognizes you as a Luminist.”

“Right. The floor recognizes me. Why am I not surprised?” I grumbled as I continued to walk the halls with the two of them. Semba looked at me sympathetically, “The halls recognize you by element so to make sure no one causes a fight between elements and no Aquatic would come in the middle of the night and fill everyone’s shoes with emu droppings.” He waved away my confused face, “Long story. I’m turning in for the day, the girl’s Luminist rooms are just ahead and right. Focus on your feet again, the halls have to recognize you as a girl for, well you know why.” And with that he waved and started down another hall. Taris almost followed him, when I grabbed his arm, “Wait, don’t different constellation groups sleep in different places?” I asked. Though when Taris gave me a confused look, I knew the answer and just shook my head in a way that I wanted to say “never-mind” but probably said “I’m having a seizure” and so Taris took off down the hallway.

After walking and turning right, I saw a purple glow ahead. So I focused on my feet and walked through. I didn’t feel a pinching sensation, so I knew I was good and continued to walk until I reached a doorway that said GIRLS MAIN HALL. The door had all the Luminist constellations markers on it, but someone had also graphitized the words GIRLS RULE across it. Oh, the creativity is killing me.

I pushed opened the doors to a gigantic hall full of roughly about a couple hundred girls, girls and more girls. Before I had a chance to gawk for an appropriate amount of time, one of the girls with half of her arm on fire ran up to me, “Allo! You must the new girl everyone’s talking about! I’m Stella!” she said and waved, which isn’t a good idea when your hand is on fire, though she didn’t really seem to mind that fact. She jumped up and down and her blond pig tails bounced with her, “We all saw you on the news the other day! Man, I don’t think anyone’s made that type of appearance since ever!” she said, talking way too fast and incoherently for me to understand. “You’re an archer right? So am I! It would be absolutely stellar if I could give you a tour!” she said, the flames on her arms extinguishing. Before I could even nod, she had my arm and was dragging me across the Main Hall, which was a VERY long. She was a queer girl, she was talking, but I couldn’t hear anything except for the fact that she kept using the word stellar.

“The archery place is absolutely stellar!”

“They have stellar food here!”

“The bathrooms have a stellar system!”

I guess she just used it because her name was Stella, but I couldn’t exactly be sure.

Finally, she led me to another hall with a bunch of rooms in it. She pointed at one of the doors, “This is my room!” she said with a bright smile, “It would be stellar if you could be in the one next to me!” I smiled and nodded. Since when do we have rooms? When the heck can I go home and eat my pizza roles? I realized Stella was looking at me expectantly.

“Uh, yeah! That would be ste-great!” I said uncertainly. She smiled even brighter.

Absolutely. Great.