On the top floor of a university residence, inside the apartment 407, there was a tantalizing scent filling the few rooms. A simple yet delicious mixture of bread, cheese and ham were being cooked into a grilled cheese sandwich. A spatula turned the sandwich upside down, letting a perfectly brown slice appear. After a few minutes, the cook turned it around again, seeing a slightly golden slice. He left out a small grunt, and took a small plate in which he placed the grilled cheese. He then turned off the oven and walked to the kitchen counter.
After he put the plate in front of him, he took it from one hand and greedily took a bite out of his quickly prepared lunch. At his left, there was another seat that hadn't been touched, moved or any form of change in the last year. The student continued to eat his meal without taking his eyes off that seat. After finishing the final bite, he got out of his seat and put the plate in the sink. He'll do the dishes another time, he thought. He left the kitchen and went into his room.
The young adult adjusted his pants and went into the corner of the room. He opened his wardrobe and put on a t-shirt, some socks and finally, a purple hoodie. He loved that hoodie more than all of his other clothes, because it represented him for some of his details : The double hood that kept him warm during winter, the hood itself that stopped most of the light getting into his face, and his favorite aspect of them all; A strange K placed in the upper left where his heart should be, with diagram that made it look like connecting the dots of a constellation. After putting all of his clothes on, he went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror.
The young man in the reflection was probably closer to the dead than the living. That white skin showed some confinement marks, and those slightly dark rings under his eyes were probably due to his more than average volumetric eyebrowns. But from a less physical point of view, it would be because of a lack of sleep. He adjusted one of the strands of hair hanging in front of his eyes and put it back to one side. Taped to the mirror, a cut-out image of Aragorn with his broken tooth staring madly at the young student.
-Même coupe de cheveux, même problèmes, hein ? (-Same haircut, same problems, right?)
He then rinsed his hands in the sink to get the dandruff off his hands. He took the opportunity to wet his face. It felt good to soothe the eyes (even just a little) after hours of looking at a screen. Putting his hands on the sink corners, he looked at the mirror and tried to give himself some motivation.
-Allez, un peu de méditation ne fera pas de mal. (Come on, a little meditation won't hurt.)
He then proceeds to leave the bathroom, and headed towards the front door. Just before going out, he picked up his apartment card and his bag full of personal belongings. He poked his head out in the corridor, looking left and right. No one, thankfully. He went outside, locked his door and headed to the end of the hallway. He didn't go down the stairs, but up them.
He reached the building's roof, and like always, no one was there. But everyone knows that he goes here from time to time. Students would often sneak peek through the door to spy on him, spreading rumors about how he's wasting his time doing silly things instead of studying. As a matter of fact, this student was aware of them but gave them no importance. He gave this university no importance for a long while, ever since the day he lost his sister.
-Laisse tomber ces théories superflues, Kôrdina est partie et c'est tout. Passe à autre chose ! (Forget those redundant theories, Kôrdina's gone and that's that. Move on!)
Those words were staying oddly in the air. He wasn't convinced of himself, nor of his words. A part of him wanted to continue theorizing about the why's and the how's of his sister's disappearance. He tried, though ! A few hours after she was gone, her brother was already asking for testimonials from passers-by and acquired enough to know that between 11:05 and 11:10, she wasn't seen or heard. That made him so mad for not knowing what happened to her, and yet so helpless. His entourage tried to comfort him, but he felt that as pity rather than help.
-Bon, qu'est-ce qui pourrait être bon cette fois-ci ? (Now, what could be good this time ?) he said as he took out his mp3 player from his backpack.
That mp3 reader was keeping a good amount of music, but not the kind we find everywhere. Before the great policy changes of Google, he downloaded what he could before everything would be chained up by paywalls and copyright rules. His finger was scrolling and stopped at a random time, getting a mystery song. He pressed the play button without looking at the song and putted the volume high enough so he could hear it.
He got himself to the center of the roof and took a big breath. He started to move his arms in the air, with no precise intention. He tried to feel the wind on his arms and the sun on his chest. He started doing meditation for a couple of months, and he loved that feeling of spiritual wandering. He moved a bit to his left, making smooth movements. It was almost like some kind of dance slowed down enough to be mistaken as actual meditation.
He closed his eyes, trying to feel his surroundings. Of course, he couldn't see where he was going, but he always knew if he was close or far from the edge. He turned around on himself, and at some point...
-!
His blood ran cold, as he standed completely still. What was that sensation ? It sended shivers down the entirety of his body. He rewound his movements until he felt it again. It was constant, not temporary. He tried to put his arm away, it disappeared, but came back as soon as it was realigned. The boy never felt anything like this before. Scared of losing this probably unique experience, he took a step forward.
The feeling grew stronger ! His heart was also beating stronger. Sweat started to appear on his hands and probably on the rest of his arms. With breathing caught short, he took another step forward. This time, that feeling was so strong that it became painful. Whatever it was, it was probably right in front of him. His heart was now beating so strong he might bust a vein at any moment!
-Hff... Hff..!
He opened his hand wider and from the tip of the fingers, he touched something. What was it ? It felt solid, but there was some heat coming from it, like solidified... light, maybe ? What the hell was he thinking, he just got to open his eyes and see he's probably touching the electrical roof compartment-
-Qu'est-ce que... (What is...)
His eyes took about a second to realize what he had in front of him : A white ball that produced a bright light. Even the sun, in the middle of summer, couldn't produce such artificial yet natural light. But the most unbelievable thing was that... it was floating in mid-air.
-Elle est où, la chute ? (Where's the downfall ?) he said, expecting that someone was putting some sort of prank on him.
But no one talked, no one grinned, only that perplexed student, standing in front of a floating ball of light, that with closer attention, was vibrating. And without warning, it was expelled at high speed to the sky!
The young adult took a little step back, not realizing he was at the edge of the roof. Then, at his left, another ball was already going in the sky. And another, right in front of him. What was happening ? The boy felt dizzy, and his vision started to fade. Everything, even the ground was getting unstable.
He tried to move away from the edge, but he stumbled forward instead ! Half of his left knee was about 25 meters from the ground, but bad news weren't over for him. As more and more light spheres were going in the air, his surroundings started to disappear, being replaced with some grayscale, changing in all variants around him. That was too much for him, as his eyes started to close on themselves, he fell headfirst into the void.
About 15 meters in the fall, his existence was challenged. With no corpse to be found on the sidewalk, people were asking themselves what happened to the missing student. Some said that he fled university, while some said he ended himself for the tragic disappearance of his adopted sister. But in reality, the young man named Kataklysm was about to be thrown into a fantastic world full of humanoid creatures with each their opinions on the outer races, secrets and dilemmatic situations.
YOU ARE READING
Broken, yet still robust (Gwain Saga X OC) -ONGOING-
FantasyIt's the story of a student who is devastated by the disappearance of his adopted sister. As if by twist of fate, his university career is wiped away from his life, to be replaced by another kind of career. The kind that will shape his perception of...
