The Shadows Within Children's Footsteps (Hiatus/exams)

4- Be Lost in a Reverie (part 2)

Theo decide to ponder on that on another day before he start to doubt himself.

"I wonder what the Oracle was thinking." Breanne said, tapping her fingers against her lip. "Giving you that mute."

Theo was about to brush the topic off, try to avoid it all cost and come up with another one when he stilled. He turned and gawked at the three. His mind felt blank and it took him three blinks for him to snap out of it.

"Oracle?" He asked. "Mute?"

The three stared at him as if he said something that was obvious, something that was right in front of him yet he was too blind to see it.

"Oracle." Hugo repeated. "Put you in our cabin, the box head did." Theo widened his eyes and then nodded, getting it. So that's what that man's name was.

"Don't be fooled by that name though." Breanne said, giggling. "I heard he wanted to call himself that because it sounded cool to him."

"Why am I not surprised?" Theo said with a smile. In all honesty, he found it both amusing and terrifying that he could imagine the box headed man thinking that way. Now that that problem was solved, onto the next.

"Mute?" Theo repeated, taking a sly glance at the Scabbard in the corner before looking back at the three again.

"Yea, that klank is a mute." Xellos said. "Never heard him say a word to anyone ever since he joined Arcadia four years ago. He seemed to hear just fine though, but never makes an effort to communicate with anyone. Just ignores us as if he was some king on a pedestal."

Theo frowned, shocked and confused with that Xellos stated. He would have sworn Psyche had spoken to him in the forest last night. He wasn't in a chatty mood, Theo would admit that, but he heard him talk. In fact, he can still remember Psyche's voice clear as day.

Then again, had his sleepy mind tricked him to believe that he did talk?

As he mulled on it, he felt the bell in his right pocket started to grow warmer and ticklish. It startled him at first, but something about it made Theo certain that it was not a dream and that Psyche did speak. He wasn't a mute. Perhaps he just doesn't like to talk to people.

But then, why did he talk to him? Because he was ordered to? Does that mean he would never talk to him again?

Speaking of mute, Joshua was mute too wasn't he? Theo frowned as he remembered that boy, still unsure what to make of him. Throughout his childhood, he has memories of him being there, but there are no traces of his existence at all. Yet, the boy seemed so real.

Like for one thing, he knew Joshua was around his age, wore glasses and was mute. He was born without a voice, he couldn't even make any sound. He relied on sign language to convey his messages across. Even then, Theo knew sign language thanks to that boy teaching him, once again confusing him whether Joshua existed or not.

After all, if he didn't exist, how had Theo, along with Drake, learnt to do sign language? Who was Joshua? Had he really made that boy up? Was he so alone, he fabricated a person so real that the line between illusion and reality gotten blurred?

But, Joshua couldn't be really. Like Drake, Theo hadn't seen the boy since he was about nine years old. So he must be an imaginary friend, but there was that issue on where Theo learnt how to speak the language of the deaf and mute.

"He wasn't that bad." Breanne said, cutting through Theo's thoughts, surprising him. Even the other guys reflected his expression.

"I mean, not until that incident, he was very shy and timid remember? Those girls used to tease him to death."