The Innates (Book #1)

Chapter 13

Days felt like weeks and weeks felt like a decade with all this rushed training. The more potential I have, the more I had to absorb. Luckily, my brain is a dry sponge. It feels so enlightening to explore around the school, going to different classes with no time limit or schedules--yet. I have a few more days to get my class schedules, which means I can go to training whenever I want.
I spent my days walking around the vicinity, learning that there was a hospital in a small distance from this school. I start to walk toward it, but perhaps next time now that I spot a miniature exhibit a couple buildings over. I only took a peek inside, where numerous students roamed the halls and surround the glass cases. This place does not run out of people wandering, walking around. Besides the ground, there were some kids flying above the school, windows cordially opened for them from the top of the buildings as a shortcut. It's incredulously remarkable how a huge number of Innates used to live on earth, and now they're here--most of them. One day, when I become a Seeker, I will soon bring back the lost and terrified.

I arrived at 12th Grade Trigonometry five minutes early, slowly peeking my head through the door frame. Dozens of teenagers walked around the classroom, some were pelting each other with crumpled paper and laughing, some were running around, popping into random places as they try to chase each other. The teacher arrived shortly, she was a stubby sixty-five year-old lady who looks more like a librarian than a math teacher. Her eyes bulged out like a frog's, good thing her glasses kept them in place. Her skin was pale white like a hairless poodle. Everyone retreated. Her eyes fixed on me.
"Hello, young man," she greeted with a sticky, hoarse voice. "aren't you a little too young for this class?"
"No, I don't mind."
"Brilliant young minda these days are lacking, glad you're here then."
"I'm just a new student so...don't mind me. I'm just listening and observing around the school."
"When did you arrive?" she asked.
"This is my third day, I think."
"Well, good luck on your first week, young lad." She didn't even ask for my name, but she continued on with the class.
I listened to a collection of words thrown around in class as a couple of hands were raised.
Sine...cosine...tangent...inverse sine...adjacent...
It all echoed in distortion in my head. But I took good notes--I guess. I've filled four pages of paper I got from the lobby desk. I've only filled 1/4 of the stack. I need more classes to take notes on. I stand up to leave, but my pen rolled off my grip, down all the way under an asian boy's desk. I bend down and crawl under his desk to retrieve it. His legs and feet rotated like blades, out to slice me at will. I swipe down at my pen, but his right foot crushed down at my palm. I held back a wail, feeling every nerve go flat, stopping the tiny blood flow. I was too smart for the other class that I ended up here, and yet, I'm too dumb to even pull my hand off. So instead, I try to stand, which proved more of my stupidity. How can a claustrophobic really be under someone's desk right now? I have no words for this imbecile.
His whole desk rattled like a caged beast, and my head erupted in hot, searing pain. He looked down upon me, apparently in disgust, and groaned in madness. He stomped on it harder, angrier. I held back the tears this time, yanking at his ripped jeans. I chitter my teeth, clenched my jaw, shut my eyes. I swore I heard a bone crack, possibly a knuckle. I was too pained to even phase, but he took mercy ten seconds later. I shook off the pain which clung to me until I retrieved the pen. That rat!
I crawled out of his desk unnoticed. Wait, maybe not. Because there was a boy that held a powerful stare. His eyes twinkled in sincerity, icy blue and crystalline, like fractals of ice. I excused myself in raw silence, the teacher didn't even bat an eye, despite the squeaky wooden sliding door when it's opened. I held the stack of papers and the pen in my prosthetic hand. For a split second, I made a small vow not to cry about this. Come on, I tell myself. You stabbed a dummy despite being flipped in midair, fell off a thousand-foot building and survived, amd you're crying because someone stepped on your hand? I need to toughen up. But a voice came in, but I sense no physical presence from behind or infront.
You only think you passed because the teacher wasn't paying full attention.
The faster and farther I walked, the louder the voice seemed to amplify through my mind.
If you think you got lucky, you're wrong. You're gonna wish you stayed on Earth.
The voice was raspy but steady, as if that was his natural voice. I'm caught up now. That was the asian boy who stomped on me. He clearly knows mostly everything. So how can he not know how to press my buttons.
I grasp my shirt and try to steady my breathing. My eyes were too damp to even look ordinary. Shoot, I'm cracked. I thought this was a new beginning. What am I doing? I'm crying. I shake my head, struggling to keep my head from bowing down. I refuse to crane my neck, until the classroom door loudly slid close and a hand laid flat on my shoulder. According to how the heel of his hand is too hard on my clavicle, he's at least an entire foot taller than me. I didn't bother to look up, not because I was rude, but I'm just not worth looking at.
"Hey," his voice was deep, but not too deep. Also not too calming, close to a purr about to turn into a snarl. "Class would've been more fun if we had a seventh grader in there that's actually paying attention."
"Eighth grade," I corrected him, clearing my throat, choking on my half-sob.
"My apologies," he said coolly. "Why'd you leave the class?" he asked. His hand slid off but he walked closer, almost pressing into me.
" 'Cause I can." I try to sound modest, but I think that's too harsh for a stranger.
"Lemme see your hand." I take a turn and he follows, I could feel his eyes trailing on me. I say nothing, handed him nothing, did nothing but kept my head down. My tears are drying up, making my cheeks sticky.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, I don't bite."
"Just leave me alone. I don't want to be a burden." I start to walk faster, start to run, but he caught up to me in a matter of few steps.
"Lars is a total rat," he said, gazing up on my hand. "He thinks he's all that just 'cause he's a Reader." He doesn't take his eyes off until I reach the elevator doors. I awkwardly press on the buttons repeatedly with my full hand, just to throw him off his stare.
"You gotta wait," he said.
"Well, I am waiting for you to stay away and leave me alone." I stood a great distance from the elevator, he follows me still. As the doors split open, I rush in immediately and kicked various buttons just to get the doors to close. But he's too swift, swift enough to squeeze in between the gaps and scoot inside.
"Well that was fun," he chuckled. "Think you can just get rid of me like that?"
"What do you want?!" I now face him, eye-to-eye. "Don't you have to go to your class or something?"
"Please, I hate Trigonometry."
"So you came to me and asked for a tutoring session?"
"You know what, just gimme..." He took my hand, not minding my refusal, and clamped down his hands between it. Despite the weight of his textbooks tucked in his armpits, he stayed still. I stayed still, my struggle cloaked by the coldness of his touch.
"What--" I started to say. "You're a Freezer."
"Aren't you full of surprises?"
"Why are you being nice to me?"
" 'Cause you're letting me."
"No, I didn't. Apparently, you squeezing you way through closing elevator doors is a way of people letting you be nice to them these days."
"Yeah. Yeah, something like that."
He kept my hand sandwiched between his cold skin until I see faint smoke and condensation surrounding it.
"I think I'm okay," I said. "Thanks anyway." The elevator stopped, doors splitting open.
Once I had my back turned for departure, he calls out at the last moment.
"I'm Zach, by the way." The doors started sliding back together, and the sympathetic look on his face forced me to blurt out my name in a sudden disconcert.
I want to hate him for unknowingly letting me let him be nice to me. I was so thankful to get to Psychology Intervention around the hall, anything to get me distracted from the soothing feeling on my fleshy hand. That boy is full of gifts, it's like he molded my broken bones together and be well again.

I couldn't take it anymore. This class is mocking me. All its various types of depression and articles about self-harm, the teacher seemed to be sneering by the time I exited the domed classroom. Maybe I do need to sort out my priorities now that I'm in this school--sanctuary. If there's anywhere in this place where I can be myself without crying, it'd be the library. For once, I feel like I have a right. I have the right to become a person with a purpose. If no one reads these days, then I'll give the librarians a smile.
Unfortunately, it wasn't as much fun as I thought about being alone. It turns out that more people liked to read in the Innate world. Half the library is packed with students in all ages, even college majors reading teenage gothic vampire novels. All that sickens me, where all the female main characters turn into one of the monsters the guy's associating with. I found a lucky spot by the corner, by the science fiction-fantasy section at the very end of the other side.
My legs spread out, angled across the shelf of my finding. There's enough space for me to breathe and to encase my joy with this book. I had my own world, my little barrier of Jess.
And soon, despite all the events from today, I found solemnity.