A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Twelve: Part Two

I wandered down the wide courtyards with my gaze attached to the gray, concreted grounds.

I ran my destination through my head. Division of Fine Arts, Room #6.

I lifted my head and glanced from one identical building to another—and another—and another. They all seemed to surround the forsaken red-headed girl.

This gave me a strange sensation at the pit of my stomach that sent a chill up the back of my spine.

I am not lost, I silently insisted, gritting my teeth and peering back at the concrete below. I am not lost! I’m just not sure which of these clones to walk into is all!

But unfortunately, that was exactly what defined as being lost.

I shut my eyes so tightly that my head gave me a somewhat queasy sensation. I kept my balance. Perhaps if I move my thought onto something else, I’ll magically appear in front of where I was supposed to be. Somehow, whenever I attempt to find lost things, I can’t find them until I just leave the thought out of my head for a little while. I believed that the lost things would show themselves if they were just forgotten, and I was usually right.

But that was when I was loosing singles of socks around a small, two room apartment.

What I was wondering through at this particular moment was a tall, freakishly exaggerated, intensely exclusive academy for the super-rich. Perhaps dozens or even hundreds of my whole apartment complexes might fit into just one fourth of this campus.

Which was my first example of exaggeration since I had started school that morning, but perhaps it was not an exaggeration after all?

I succeeded onto changing my own thoughts, but I had morphed them into something that kept my stomach tied in knots for the past ten minutes.

Keita, my blonde-headed upperclassman housemate, had collapsed during his Phys Ed session.

Somehow this thought didn’t bend out of mind very easily.

Maybe he died, I silently murmured, inching my eyes open in my depth thought. That saves me one assassination.

I immediately shoved that thought away with a headshake so rapid that bundles of auburn hair whipped the sides of my face. I knew Keita’s death would allow me to return to my apartment and non-exaggeration. Returning to my previous life was something I truly wanted at the moment.

But wishing for someone’s death in return for my own possibilities was unforgivable.

I silently hoped for a third option for which he could release me that didn’t include as much waiting as marriage or old age.

I kept my eyes focused on the spotlessness of the concrete I walked on. He probably ran into another fever.

Perhaps it was the same fever that caused him to collapse in the middle of the street that fateful day.

I wrinkled my nose. If that dude ends up collapsing in the middle of the street again, I won’t save him. I’ll just cheer on whatever monster truck happens to come his way.

I repeatedly shook my head across my shoulders. Wishing for someone’s death is unforgivable! I recited, curling my lips.

It would definitely be ironic if I had saved him from being run over by cars just nearly a week ago, but I was wishing for his death. If I had to jump in the middle of a busy street for him, he must live.

His face etched from the earlier morning floated into my mind. I pictured him wobbling before me just like he had languidly wobbled towards the car.