NPC.com

CHAPTER 12: I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CLIMB STAIRS

A puddle. A pond encased in a ring of even smaller dots. Maybe a drink. A little spot.

A little town—

The school campus stalls were comparable to a small, bustling marketplace. The sounds of laughter and other chatter filled the pathways, with streams of students pooling around. The mouthwatering smells of different foods entice customers to different stalls and stores like a delicious promise.

The trio had walked around, hopping from stall to store buying food. It had started like this: Steven decidedly ordered way too much food while Zero explained that the food was not free. (Steven ordered the food anyway.)

["Taste the Richness of Eastern Cuisine at Our Stall!"]

["Seeking Qilin Antlers? Look No Further!"]

["Thousand-Year Blue-Silver Grass: Limited Stock, Buy Today!"]

Each stall had augmented pop-ups for ordering and pickup, which Steven noted was convenient. Earlier that morning, Steven had noticed similar pop-ups around the school for mundane things... to which his AI had confusedly pointed out:

[Dieze: "Observation: Adding Braille to a 'VISUAL' augmented reality tag for restrooms is impractical. Logical ERROR: Isn't Braille a 'TOUCH' thing?" X]

While Mayo and Steven went to order their last snack, Zero sat down on a bench. Besides him, birds were frolicking, dancing, and singing. He hummed along until two of the birds started fighting. Curious, the white-haired boy grabbed a stick and poked one of the birds, causing one to nip the stick. Now, splintering at the edges, the twig was very upset.

"I'm back." Steven announced, holding an ice cream cone with a red bean and vanilla scoop, while Mayo held her own scoop. As the two ate their ice cream, Steven brought up that he was broke.

"You can earn money by challenging students." Mayo suggested. "If you beat them, you get to keep their money."

"Ah..." Steven replied back, detecting a pop-up in his view:

[Dieze: "Assessment: viability of successful victories estimated at 1%. Warning: Performance metrics place you in the bottom 1% across various categories. Processing... Processing... ERROR: Strength levels too low to measure. Strategy adjustment recommended." X]

Ignoring the AI chirping away in his contacts, Steven mentioned that they should head back to the dorms now.

The trio trudged in the direction of the dormitories. As they walked, a single drop dripped down from the sky. Nobody paid it any mind, but as it fell, the droplet accelerated and landed on the pavement, bursting into small, scattering flashes.

Around them, the little droplets of rain steadily became torrents. Torrents became puddles and puddles became streams of thoughts.

Maybe a drink. A little spot. A blemish in a perfect family.

When Steven realized he was falling, it was less than a fraction of a second before he realized he was floating. His dazed walking had made him trip, but around his sides, Mayo and Zero caught his arms, and he had ended up suspended in the air, in the rain.

With Mayo's help, Zero carefully placed Steven back onto the floor. Steven's eyes focused on the scenery around him as he stepped onto the floor again.

"We're almost there," Mayo pointed.

He looked ahead.

Behind the main campus lay an apartment complex. Old-fashioned and seasoned, its buildings were tinted with aged bricks. Three interconnected partitions made up the complex, with two of the larger structures jutting outward to create the main entrance. Around the building, green hedge bushes sat on the soil with spiky, needle-leaves. The perimeter of the shrubbery boxed two whimsical gardens, only escaping through a beige road paved in. Garnished with a red fire escape that tapped each floor, select students were given a lucky balcony. The rest were given a window. The resulting atmosphere was akin to a day-to-day Queen's Apartment Building: snug and a little fug.

Now, everything was dripping down. It had happened so fast that a moment might have missed it. The windows were hit by blasts of wind, pittering and patter-ing with every touching drop and tinkering and tattering with every passing second. On the windows, on the ledges, and in the building's valley, pranced a discordant cacophony of howling gasps and chimes.