Something's Wrong With the Different Realms

Seventeen: Veracity

Harry Silvio

A memory of Allaira and I running around in the central hub, or downtown of Zenobia flashed through my mind as I bent over to pick up the books that I'd dropped. I sighed then poked my head up and snaked my way through the hall. I thought about everything as I climbed the stairs and rotated around the halls to get to my class.

I guess school had been as okay as it could have been. Of course every time I saw people chatting animatedly or communicating with each other, a pang shot up in my chest. I cowered inward whenever someone mentioned their siblings, or parents, or family, or the place that they grew up. It was involuntary. It was a reflex but I had to do it otherwise I might spend the whole day thinking about how I was forced away from my family instead of continuing on with my life.

I slapped my textbook down on the desk, a little more harshly than I'd intended to do so. And placed a chin on my hand. A couple of classmates shot me with worried glances but when I raised my eyebrow, they turned away. I understood that they were concerned about my well-being, but if I opened my mouth, I probably wouldn't be able to refrain from spilling everything. And that would be infinitely worse as I would probably get dragged into some sort of lab to be experimented on.

I deflated on my desk and spread my arms out. What even was the point of this? Why me? Why us? Why was Allaira and I sent here? I recalled what Allurie had said some time ago and everything that Allaira and I had theorized that day we were celebrating our village's anniversary. Allurie had mentioned something about this Cassie figure wanting to send us to Earth. And Allaira and I had made this theory that maybe there's something wrong with the different realms and we were sent here to fix it. It made sense since Earthens had more wars than Shallngseans. But what could two kids do to fix everything?

All this thinking was leading me nowhere. If I came up with any more theories from the little information that I had, I might drive myself insane. Right now, all I could do was to focus on the present and distract myself from these thoughts. I would focus on my class and look forward to meeting Allaira, Isla, and Jasper in the café later and work on our book.

I supposed that I could ask Fleur if she had any new information. Or ask Fleur to ask Allurie. Or even ask Gillian since he had some of Fleur's ability. Or even Allaira. I doubted that they'd have anything to share but that eased my worries.

"How are we doing?" asked Ms. Valance as she came up to our table, clipboard in hand. "Are you almost done writing yet? It's May and a finished version of the book is due by the end of the month."

"Almost," replied Isla, "we need to come up with an ending though. But we'll get to it."

"Besides," snapped Allaira a little too harshly, "we've been editing the book while we're writing."

Ms. Valance looked a little surprised. "Oh, okay," she said. "Just a heads up though, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

We hopped back to our manuscript. We were now at 75,000 words which wasn't a bad place to be considering that we still needed to add an ending. I touched the keys of my laptop once again. It was still a little difficult to maneuver around the laptop but nevertheless, I was glad to have it. If there was one thing I was glad about being on Earth, it was the discovery of their technologies. Technology has made it so much easier for humans to travel to and fro. For humans to capture light. For humans to print out scripts. In Zenobia most of the scripts were generally hand written. There were some things that helped with the mass-production of scripts. As well as spells that could help you write faster. But typing on an Earthen laptop was much easier.

"Are you admiring your laptop again?" asked Jasper.

"Sorry," I whispered. "It's new."

Jasper smiled, "at least it's a lot easier for you to write now."