A man with streaked blond-brown hair braided back into a dual-coloured ponytail stood with his sword and his snarl over the lives of countless frightened civilians. An outer ring of lackeys stood with him, carrying blank expressions and wooden bows planked across their thighs. We were in the middle of a terrorist attack. And where was I?

Kneeled smack dab in the front row, forced into submission with the other poor, helpless individuals, on the more dangerous end of the group huddle. And why was I here?

Job hunting. Although, I seem to have screwed up somewhere along the line, because I was the one being hunted.

Whimpering and muffled sobbing sounds harmonized from behind; an entire flock of distraught people. Their fright was infectious. Whether that fear had sapped into my gaze or not, I did not know, I only remember feeling an intense blaze of hatred directed at the selfish man who coordinated the attack. Pace after pace after pace, I watched him march around in a little U that passed over my turf more often than others.

I remember simmering in my own rage with each clacking step. The slightest droplet of provocation could have set me off and flying out of this pan of prey and into the fight of my life. A few more seconds or a few more paces might have made me lose my cool and commit to an idea stupid enough to threaten my own life along with the rest behind me. A few more childish complaints from his voice on his headset and I’d be the one to cause the first death, because sitting here? Doing nothing. While they did whatever the hell they felt like! Would be the end of me.

“Is this some kind of joke?” the man had clicked a button infused into his belt and was now speaking on a headset banded over his scalp. “What did I propose to you officers? The release of my comrades, right? And I told you I’d know if you were screwing me over, right?”

Garbage. This man was a waste of a human being.

“My associate doesn’t seem too happy with what you so foolishly claim, from what I heard, only one of the eight prisoners in that list I sent you, were set free. I need all eight if you want even one of these 50-or-so to survive, understand? I’ll give you five more minutes.”

Despicable.

The man clicked his belt and swung his sword over to rest on his shoulder. This meant he was addressing us now.

“Listen up dimwits, your corrupt officers don’t seem to care about you enough to follow simple instructions so because of this, some of you will have to start dying in a few minutes.” hysteria exploded through the whimpering and the sobbing all around me, but I remained silent. These scum didn’t deserve my tears or the sight of my fear. Such an action would only receive satisfied smirks. Barbarians like these didn’t deserve the feeling of victory.

I knew what they were doing was with reason, I knew the people they were trying to free were wrongfully accused, I knew how corrupt our society was, but despite that… Despite the corruption, and the excuses and the pain and the motives, I could never forgive anyone – good or bad – who involved the innocent. I wasn’t a cop, justice, injustice, the two had no meaning to me, I honestly couldn’t care less whether the heroes or the villains came out on top, what I did care about was watching a human disregard another, specifically those who had no part in the conflict to begin with.

If our roles were reversed and I was up there holding the sword, fighting for what I believe to be right, there would never be a crowd of lives on the line. There would be me, my voluntary crew, and my enemy.

“You have a fierce look in your eye there, little lady. Are you trying to be the first to go?”

I had already been leaning against the brink of my patience, and he decided to isolate me then. My thoughts had already been taking me to levels of disgusted rage I didn’t even know I had and he chose now to segregate me.

His filthy hand held tightly on my cheek, and the silver light of a blade gleamed along the side of my neck and through my hazel hair.

“If you knew anything at all about the corruption of your government you couldn’t look at me like that.” He smirked the words in a seductive manor, trying to persuade me into seeing his views with some sort of psychotic dark humor.

If I knew, my butt! I do know, I thought. I’m not so ignorant as to not notice the public lies of our media. And yet I’m still glaring at you.

He was the one who didn’t understand; if I knew how to wield a sword, or a dagger, or a claymore, or a weapon of any kind, that’s the only way this situation would’ve changed. I would have taken the chance he gifted and stolen the blade he so foolishly threatened me with, bloodying my hands just to get it in my grasp and use it against him. I thought the whole scene out thoroughly in my mind; from yanking it out of his arms to DJ-ing the blade around until it met its true target. A simple and graceful finish. An elegant cadence, or better yet, a rondo; with blood oozing out of his chest, and a swift finale to my fury. The only flaw in my plan lay in his lackeys: They may or may not kill me before and/or after I get the job done. Oh yeah, and without decent knowledge on weaponry, the chances of someone like me pulling off an ideal stunt like that , were slim.

Nevertheless, the longer I was stuck in his clutches, being tilted from left to right as he tried to figure out if I was worth violating, the more I considered this potential death over another.

But mere seconds before I could make the biggest mistake of my life, a boy walked into the drama from the washroom’s turn-in hallway. He wore an opened light jacket that was short sleeved and black. Inside this was a striped red and black t-shirt that matched the wrist-warmers at both sides. His hair was a messy clump of unholy black tufts, padded down by a pair of vibrant-coloured headphones – which clearly took away all his perceptions of danger.

How did he manage to walk in here so casually? So devoid of worry? What kind of music could distract a person enough not to notice a terrorist demonstration? [author’s response: the best kind]

Slowly, in the utmost awkward silence, everyone’s gaze was being drawn in by his miraculous ignorance while he strolled on blindly towards the main villain, towards everyone’s biggest threat, and towards me. Eyes locked to the cinematic screen in his palm, thumb scrolling down his playlist of doom.

I narrowed my eyes at him and briefly wondered who here was the bigger idiot, this oblivious teenage kid, or the foe in front of me, who now lost interest in my cheeks.

“Hey!” shouted the terrorist. He swung his blade through my hair and back to his shoulder and met the boy halfway.

Using some sixth sense headphone-users always seemed to have, the boy started making a detour around the deadly road block without so much as a glance ahead. The terrorist’s blade swung down with rapid precision and cut off the kid’s line of sight to his phone. With this he glanced up, looking sleepy and uncaring – and like an even stupider pedestrian than I thought, if I might add.

“Sorry kid, but doesn’t seem like today’s your lucky day, you just walked straight into a hijacking. Now if you were smart, you would’ve stayed in that washroom and pissed your pants where it was socially acceptable.”

It didn’t seem like our predator fully understood how headphones worked, but our little comic relief, phone-possessed, fool depicted a clear description by tilting his head in confusion. By the looks of it, he must not have heard a single word of the ridicule-filled threat. Without realizing it, this boy just provoked an armed terrorist. Within me, grew a fear for his life stronger than my own.

The predator before him closed his eyes and gave a tight, pissed smile.

The boy raised a headphone off his bushy hair, unaffected by the shiny silver death-threat pointed his way, then waited for God knows what. A peaceful explanation? I don’t know, maybe the side of his brain carrying common sense was still lost somewhere in the music world.

It took five seconds. The pissed smile on the terrorist’s face remained stagnant, but only while his sword flew up. On its instant strike down, his expression changed to a cold scowl. Clothes, skin, and blood was ripped away from the boy’s body along with his consciousness. The impact dragged him backwards, down, down, down, and thud! Five seconds done. Time streamed on like normal after the first life was lost.

Screams of horror rang emptily through my eardrums, not nearly as deafening as the thud of his body hitting the floor, or the thud of my heart against my chest, or the echoes of the two. If I thought the mob was hysterical before, they were a psychotic mess now. The noises they made circled just outside the sound cloud of death, swerving my limbs into motion. I stood up with the grace of a zombie. My eyes were shaking as if trying to focus on something that wasn’t there. I wasn’t too sure, but I think some arrowheads were pointed at me by a few of the archers in the room. That would explain the red laser dots along my arms and upper body.

“This/ This/ This is what happens/happens, when people/when people upse-/upset/ upset me/ me/ me.”

That’s how I heard the murderer’s voice now; a broken recording of a faraway echo, or as if the needle of a phonograph could only find the shattered shards of his voice. This was also the condition of my better judgement now; broken and faraway.

“Your/ your/ your distraught / rot / rot / is only a frag- / frag- / fragment / -ment / -ment / of what we / we / felt / felt / felt for our f- / fren / friends / false / false / false / convictions / -tions”

What did that boy have to do with any of this? What was the meaning of his death? Why did he have to die for their dumb cause? Why a bystander? Why kill him? Why death. Why him?

Still infatuated by his own broken speech, the terrorist was getting closer to me again. No, wait, I think . . . I was the one approaching him this time. “Your / your gov- / government / -ment / is messed up / up / up / No / no / your society-”

Our society doesn’t need the likes of you. I thought. My hand raised, drifting closer to the view I had on his face. An arrow shot past my eyes from the side. He glanced in my direction now, smirking, and still speeching. I continued my trudge towards him. Another arrow zoomed by, this time grazing my arm. I froze. Something like fear tickled my numb limbs. He chuckled from a misunderstanding: “Afraid of a little pain, are we?” It wasn’t the pain of the arrow that caused my freeze up. I couldn’t care less about that. It was… it was-

“AAAAAAGGGGGHHH” the chuckle quickly broke into a bloodcurdling cry of pain as a sword pierced through his side. The murderer stumbled away… but, could he . . . still be considered a murderer anymore? The boy he supposedly killed was the same one who stabbed him through the waist. What was going on? How was he alive?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I watched him die. No one could’ve survived that unless there was a hospital standing two feet over.

As the terrorist stumbled away, I was given a clear view of the messy haired boy. His previously deadened gaze now filled with life and determination, swirling with the same colours printed on his headphones. His striped shirt was ripped diagonally as he was cut, but the blood that was once spraying from his wound was gone, not a scar remained.

The cellphone, once in his hand, was replaced with a hilt to a long single-edged blade. The item itself seemed alive, glowing in sequence with all the colours in his eyes and headphone rims; red, then purple, then blue on a sleek black. The red cord, once plugged into his cell, was now a tail for his sword.

He was… a sell-soul!?

I’ve only heard rumors about them; crazy psychopaths who sold half their souls for inhuman capabilities. I wrote them off as myths; publicity stunts staged by the media, but there was no better explanation for this boy’s abilities. How else would one explain the glow in his eyes, the conversion of his weapon, or the full death-to-life self-revival? Normal people didn’t get up after being slashed across the chest with a sharp and deadly stabbing tool. Normal people didn’t unblinkingly face a team of terrorists on a moment’s notice.

I watched the bloody scene in a stunned daze. Unable to retreat back down to the crowd, I remained stagnant and standing as a simple target.

Without connecting his gaze with my own, I suppose he figured out I needed protecting because he positioned himself in front of me and the man he just stabbed. His stripped shirt remained ripped and painted in fresh blood. Yet his wound was missing and his weapon stood ready.

Although I’ve seen this boy come back to life once already, I didn’t want to see him die again, especially not after saving my life.

“You’ll pay for that, boy.” The man’s threat was strained by his own pain and weightened by a newly discovered rage. His intimidation-level spiked. Now, there was no telling what he’d do, and that made him a bigger hazard to every one of us. The sword he kept slinging over his shoulder came across as much more terrorizing being dragged against the floor with blood from his own wound streaking down its gleam. All the marksmen in the room steadied their arrows on the headphone user. The rebel leader held up a sword-held stop-hand for his fellow lackeys. This clearly gestured for a halt, but I flinched in anticipation for the various arrowheads I expected to see throughout our flesh.

Even hunched over in pain, this man was still larger in size than the headphone-user. However, the boy in front stood unwavering.

Was he truly unafraid? Or did he simply not hear the threat again? Regardless, his lack of fear or response was taken as a taunt by the ponytailed man and he dashed towards us for a fury-induced attack. The boy easily redirected the assault and made for an attack of his own.

He took a deeper stance downwards and yanked his blade back, causing the red wire to ripple in suit. It was close enough that I could touch it if I really wanted to. Of course, I had no intention of doing so. I watched his thumb swipe upwards along the fabric of the hilt. Beneath the surface, a faint glow of a screen lit up and a triangular bar rose from green to yellow, to orange, and an instant later, his weapon drove horizontally across our enemy’s chest. Not long after, it swooped back on a diagonal upwards slant, then again twice more at different angles, creating an asterisk of wounds on the man’s torso.

Stronger screams sounded from the crowd and then I noticed a bit too late of the arrows shot out from every direction towards us as the terrorist stumbled a safer distance away. The boy shot his gaze at me with a speed as deadlier than the arrows and next thing I knew, I was being tripped by him – the back of his ankle against my own. As I fell I watched him toss the blade with his right hand, catch the cord with his left, and grasp tightly at one of the huge earbuds on the side of his head. Wielding the sword like a long mace he swung towards the arrows and let out a gentle yell. My head hit the floor and I shut my eyes and hugged my head in pain, turning to the side and curling up into a ball. I heard clatters of fallen arrows around me and then rumbling of many feet.

The fall gave me an instant headache. The sounds of screams and footsteps and ringing brain damage, as well as metal against floor, Did. Not. Help. Despite this, I fought to open my eyes. I wish I didn’t.

At first, I only saw blurs of people’s feet running in every which direction. Then I noticed a broken arrow, and another, and another, and another. I tried grabbing one to verify if they were all real. Someone stepped on my hair. I grabbed that instead and tried to get up so I’d have less resemblance to that of a carpet to these idiots.

A cough directed my attention to the one right in front of me. The one I opened my eyes for. He was on all fours, breathing heavily. Blood was on the floor in front of him and… and…

“Can you…pull these out for me? …please.” He looked up at me, the swirl in his eyes were no more and they shook as if trying to find something to focus on, like my face for example. Blood dripped from his mouth to the splat on the floor. The sell-soul sword on the floor reverted back to being a phone before my very eyes.

“I can’t… heal- myself- if it’s still… inside.”

My jaw shook. I gawked at the three arrows sticking out of his back with complete, forever scarring fright. It was common knowledge never to remove an arrowhead from a wound without proper medical treatment, but it would probably go against common sense to question a guy could come back to life. I wasn’t about to disobey him, he saved my life without a second thought mere seconds ago – or minutes perhaps, not too sure what concussions did to your sense of time. I swallowed my fear and put a supportive hand around his chest then a trembling hand around one of the arrows jutting from his back.

“I’m sorry.” My voice cracked as I looked away and pulled one out as hard as I could. Unsuccessfully ignoring his cries, I tossed the arrow away and quickly fumbled to find the next one, still refusing to look. The second came out, and his cry was laced with far more pain than the last. My hand reached the final one, but I had to stop, he wasn’t even holding himself up anymore. One of his hands was weakly clinging onto my arm. The slightest squeeze from his fingers felt like a desperate plea for me to stop.

I couldn’t do this. “I-” I can’t do this. I was going to cry and tell him this, but a bluish light guided my eyes to the gruesome sight of his pierced back. The first arrow wound – I helped cause – was…glowing? There was a blue, now purple, light-flower twirling over the wound. The thinnest petals I’ve ever seen were weaving in and out of his skin and back into the flower formation, slowly but surely closing up the gash. A second flower began to bud out of the next wound. Seeing this gave me courage.

“H-hang in there okay!?” I cried. He didn’t respond, just kept trying relentlessly to continue breathing. “I-it’s just one more okay?!”

He nodded. I took a deep breath, then tugged the last one. He yelled louder than his voice allowed and it broke as a result.

“You’ll pay for this… little boy.”

My eyes widened as I looked up, abruptly forced back into the world I had forgotten still moved around us. To my great horror, I was greeted by the face of the man with a long blondish braid. Blood was draining from the star-shaped wound on his chest and tummy, flaking into the shreds of clothing hanging loose. He, too, was struggling to breath and an angry cold sweat dotted his face. Shrieks of his ruined plan zigzagged around his bubble of rage and I was all too aware of the death-threat dragging across the floor in his hand.

“You’ll regret interfering.”

His arm rose up high above his head with drunken struggle; if only it were just his arm unaccompanied by a tool for death. The boy in my arms couldn’t fight in his condition, this much was clear. The question was could I fight, holding a bloodied arrow and a self-reviving stranger.

The would-be murderer raised his other arm to the hilt of his sword, giving us a look of hatred people only give to the likes of vermin. I clenched the arrow and threw it at his head. It would have hit at least his cheek, had he not moved slightly to the right.

From the corner of my eye I saw the headphone-user reach for his music player-sword. The terrorist only smirked. The boy would be too late…

I blinked. They were both too late.

Before either could complete their move, two sharpened steel boomerangs criss-crossed in front of the hair-dyed man. Both boomerangs carried a chain and a familiar, much hated, insignia. The weapons reeled back and the moment the x-shaped chains hit his chest, the man yelled gurgling cry of agony. Bluish white jagged lines of light danced excitedly around his chest where the chains had bound him.

The electricity wasn’t necessary, and I’m sure they could have turned the voltage down by many notches if they truly wanted to, but that was just the kind of police force that controlled Ezveria. After a while, the lightning sparks died down and all that was left was an unconscious terrorist being dragged back towards the policemen at the end of each chain.

I glared at them for their display of brutality, trying to show just how much I disapproved through intense eye-contact. They may have saved my life, and this strange boy in my arms, but they needlessly harmed the culprit they already had trapped. It was like watching a bully being taken down by more bullies…or in this case more psychotic terrorists ganging up on one.

One, specific officer, wasn’t too fond of my gaze. He approached me and flicked an uncaring eye at the casualty in my arm.

“Is that the kind of look you give to the people who saved your life? …Or perhaps you’re one of those radicals?”

I only narrowed my eyes further and felt my lip curl up to a snarl. I tightened my hold on the Sell-soul boy, not out of a random urge to protect, but because I was pissed off, and he just happened to be in my arms. He squirmed a bit in his exhaustion and in my peripheral I caught the faintest glimmer of the radiance I saw in his eyes while he was fighting earlier.

Both of our stares must have been too much for him.

“Tch.” The man unclipped the boomerang at his utility belt, raising it high above his head. “I’m telling you to show some respect!” Then without a second thought, he slammed one end of his weapon against my temple. I felt the blow rattle my vision before I felt the world shut off.

My eyes creaked open. There was a window…? I was on a bed. There were voices too. I blinked a few times before I tried getting up. “mmmm” I groaned. Getting up was a mistake. It only aroused the slumbering headache within. I grabbed my head with both my arms and attempted to squish the pain away.

“It seems one of the survivors from yesterday’s radical attack has awoken to tell her story.”

Getting up didn’t only arouse my headache. I peeked up through my hands and was quickly bombarded with an infinite amount of flashing lights. The clicking and blinking and snapping and shouting were migraine-inducing. I groaned some more.

“We’re here; live, with one of our waking survivors of the Klover Community Centre Radical incident.”

“It is an absolute miracle for so many of yesterday’s Klover hostages to come out alive that dreadful afternoon. We at ENN have live access to a waking-”

“A grateful day it’s been today for families to be reunited with their respective victims, here is one young lady who has yet to-”

Multiple news reporters were facing their individual cameras, speaking to their respective channels about how shocking it was that I was alive. It was absolutely horrifying. I looked down at my clothes which were even more horrifying. Some evil nurse or devilish machinery had taken full advantage of my unconscious docile nature, to unforgiveable extremes by forcing me into these polka-dotted hospital duds from hell. I normally never cared whatever the heck I was wearing; my usual attire consisted of a pullover hoodie and a sacred scarf wrapped around my shoulders after all, but I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious with all the heavy-duty video cameras and foam covered microphones pointing down at me from every angle.

Why were they allowed in here?

… Oh… that’s right, you needed parental dissent or objection from a relative in order to disallow media access. Probably while everyone else had their relatives signing repelling forms, the news channel gangs were all forced to pool together at the only opening room left for gossipy intel. No relative of mine would be fending off their legal rights to pillage my privacy. Not for this incident or any I could find myself involved in. No matter how life-threatening. Not now… nor ever…

I heaved out an exhale that seemed to take away my spirit for an intense number of seconds… until I found myself a powerful distraction: the hospital workers had changed me during my unconsciousness, we’ve established this, but where did they put my clothes? Specifically my scarf?

Panic much deeper than mere embarrassment started infecting all corners of my mind. I looked around the bed, avoiding the curious gaze of the many onlookers, I looked around a desk, over the TV (with the lagged image of my waking face on it – a sight I had to rip my gaze from), then under the sheets, and around the room towards the door when-

My panic subsided. On a chair, near the door, lay a pile of my folded clothes, my scarf rested with care, on top.

I hadn’t noticed, until I located my belongings, but the news staff were all questioning me about the events that occurred in that building.

“So Miss, what was it like to be a hostage in yesterday’s attack? What was it like knowing your life could end at any second?”

“I… um-” I stuttered.

“Miss” -click click- “Miss” “Miss”-click- “Miss”,

“Miss, can you describe to us how the threats were started?”

“Miss, were you traveling with anyone that day, did you know anyone else in the crowd who was in any immediate danger? Did you have to witness anyone else getting harmed like yourself?”

I tried not to look at them like they were all insane, keeping in mind of the fact that my face was gawking at multiple different channels at once. By the speed and rate of their questions you’d think I were a celebrity.

“Miss! I’d imagine you’re overwhelmed by the traumas you’ve faced yesterday, but please tell us exactly how it feels to be a living miracle?”

“Miracle?” I scoffed. “It wasn’t a miracle, I was saved by that-”

“So you’re saying a police officer is responsible for this miracle? What would you like to say to the police force for saving your life?”

“What? No. It wasn’t the police force; it was that kid with the headphones. Where is he? You should be asking him the questions, not me.” A little twang of guilt struck me for wanting to push these reporter hawks on the guy who saved my life, but at the same time I felt like I’d do anything to get them out.

“So there you have it Jim, just like the other victims we’ve interviewed, it seems the trauma has affected her memories.” Many of the reporters were saying similar schemes of my trauma being the reasoning for the lies spewing from my mouth.

What interview? You idiots just interrogated me and forced the info you wanted to hear down my throat. I clenched my teeth and looked out the window to calm my spirits. Gazing for anything at all that might help my racing heartbeat. The sky didn’t work, I always felt like it was a fraud; projected there as a holographic mirror of this utopian city.

I looked down to the distant mountainous land I’d never reach nor get past, just another blockade to keep me from freedom, down further, my eyes sunk, now to the trees along the streets. They didn’t strike me as a natural stimulant either, just the perfectly planted pieces of plastic aligned the way the developers had planned, real or not, from up here they were only models posing as eye candy. Down again, losing hope as I looked into the streets. The reporter’s voices were filtering back into my mind. Rushing people, busy movements, fast paced transportations causing a ruckus like the news people noise streaming straight through my skull.

Then I saw it- the- g- that- that- Him! Out there, many floors down, in the middle of a four-way cross-walk, I thought I caught someone staring at me. Someone who had to be him! The guy who saved me! My eyes widened as I scurried closer to the window. A crowd of people crossing the street sucked up the person I was preoccupied by, and I lost them. Was that really him?

“As you can see, this poor young miss behind me is dazed from the traumatic events. It is only thanks to the brave police forces of Ezveria that she is alive but she is delusioned into thinking she was saved by one of the radicals themselves.”

Desperate fools dying to hear a story they want to write. I smiled an irritated smile and turned to them. Unbelievable. Completely unbelievable. I knew these people were scumbags, but I never would have imagined it to be this bad.

“Fine...” I breathed. “Fine! You’re right! I’m crazy!” I got up to a knee and reached for a pillow behind my back. “I’m delusional!” I screamed and threw the pillow straight to the reporter’s head. I threw it so hard that it squirted out puffs of coloured feathers all over the room. I quickly reached for the other pillow and stood up on the bed. Behind my back I edged towards the help button and discreetly poked it repeatedly.

“-Much too sick in the head to answer all your stupid, self-answering questions!” I chucked another pillow across the room to a video camera this time. More coloured feathers exploded across the room, then a number of nurses piled in. I sprang off the bed and dashed towards my clothes near the door. One nurse tried grabbing me, but I was too quick. Hugging my stuff to my chest I skidded out the room, a flurry of feathers followed me out. Then I sprinted down the hall, pulling a lot of attention and chasers with me.

“Out of the way, delusional maniac coming through!” I’d leave the bill with all those reporters that caused this. If they can afford to barge into people’s rooms with their fancy tuxedos and tuxettas, and gadgets and hairdos, then they can afford my medical treatment.

At the end of the hall I saw a sign that pointed left for elevators and right for stairs. I’m sure my pursuers didn’t want to take the stairs, so I turned left out of consideration for them.

Once I turned and was out of their sight, I entered a random room and hid behind a curtain away from the door. There, I wrenched on my jeans. Some kid eating a lollipop was in the bed gawking up at me while the charging mob of cameras and nurses ran past. I gave the child a quick smile and ran out the room in the opposite direction towards the stairs.

I shoved the door out of my way and slid down railing after railing, all the while tugging off the hospital sheets, throwing it to the side, and diving into my hoodie. By the time I reached the last step, my hood was on and I was flinging my scarf over my shoulder and strolling out of the stairwell like a normal person – which I was by the way; normal.

I made my exit out of the hospital and rush-walked to that street I glimpsed before where I thought I saw that kid. I wouldn’t live my rescued life in peace if I never thanked him for it. Therefore I’d find him no matter what. I was determined.

I couldn’t find him. Many hours had passed since I first started looking in the morning. It was almost night time now and the sky had turned a purple-y shade, clearly unsure whether or not it wanted to give me more pity points via daytime safety. To make matters worse, at some point during my search… I forgot to search! My thoughts liked to do this thing where they drift so far off the stratosphere that they enter some other dimension (inside my head). I often journey to that world when I get bored or distracted by food, hunger, and/or starvation. So now I was on some unknown street on the outskirts of urban-land without food or shelter or a sense of direction. Why did I think I could find one blend-in-type-of-guy in a city setting, with zero leads on his whereabouts?

I did have my sync card with me, so it’s not like there was no hope – advantages of carrying around a pocket instead of a purse. The only problem was that I haven’t seen a shop or convenience store in the past hour. I now deeply regretted dining at a vending machine as soon as I left the hospital, as opposed to all the little cafés and fast food joints in the area. I thought I turned back to all the civilization decades ago, but I felt like I just got further away.

What time is it anyway? I dug my phone out of my sweater. Oh yeah… its dead-phone-o-clock. I forgot. If it wasn’t dead-phone-o-clock then I would’ve had a GPS running right now.

With perfect timing, my stomach grumbled. It must have been half past global sadism hour. I groaned. I should ask someone how to get out of this place before it gets fully dark. I also felt kind of faintish, like if someone were to push me over I might not get back up, it was only a minor feeling though. Still, I was starting to wonder if it was a good idea to prison-break my way out of a hospital without having an understanding of my body’s condition.

I began to look around for any sign of a potential helpful human. In my search, I discovered a sketchy gas station, a sketchy convenience store, a sketchy drug store, and then an out of place music shop named [I need a name], with an appreciated ‘open’ sign over its door. To be honest, its sketchiness level was only slightly below the rest of my options, but I needed to convince myself that this was a good idea. Therefore, it wasn’t sketchy at all.

I strolled in and a little melody broke out above me, in the form of a chime. If that didn’t already calm my nerves then gazing at everything they were selling did. There were spacious rows of vintage cassettes, classic CD’s, and digital, make-it-yourself, playlists. Along the front of the store were actual ancient phonographs. Seeing them made me feel as though I stepped into a museum accidently. Even the lighting rained down from spotlights, as one might find at a theatre of some sort.

There was a straight open path to the cashier desk, but no one was there. I allowed myself to be distracted for a while longer. In one whole corner was a small, but impressive selection of dazzling musical instruments. Guitars, keyboards, multi-coloured microphones dangling from evenly spaced wires, and a massive harp! – that I somehow missed. A shallow ramp had to be taken to get to that section of the store and extending out from the railing were folders of music scores. The glossiness of every item in that corner drew me in, inching my feet forward.

“Hi there.” I jumped out of my trance, almost screaming in the process. A tall woman holding a few boxes that blocked her face emerged from behind a counter.

“Um…h-hi.” I hesitated, though I doubt she heard me. I made my way over.

She made a little noise of exertion as she plopped the boxes down on the counter and stuck her hands on her hips. Then she peeked out at me. “Oh! Hi there. Welcome to [I REALLY NEED A NAME] it’s been a while since we’ve had new customers.”

The woman was beautiful. She had long wavy black hair that flew down to her back, two would-be side bangs looped down and around into the flow of her hair. On her left arm was a full scale tattoo of everything music related you could think of. An entire treble clef spiralled from her shoulder to her wrist, and all throughout the score were instruments and band logos and discs.

“Oh, I’m not-…” I didn’t want to be rude by staring at her tattoo forever, so I looked away, but then my eye caught sight of a wall of headphones. “…not a…uh . . . customer.”

“Really? You look like a customer to me.” She rested an elbow on the counter and sat her chin in her palm while smirking in my direction. “What can I help you with?”

I tore my vision away from the wall and mentally smacked myself. “I just need directions back to the main roads. I’m kind of lost.”

“Is that all? That’s no fun.” She checked her inner wrist watch and flicked an eye outside before continuing, “Hang on, I’ll draw you a map.” She must be closing shop soon.

She reached down for some paper and pulled a pen from her pants pocket. While she was busy, I snuck one last peek at the wall of headphones.

To be honest, until I saw that wall, I had forgotten about the guy with the headphones, AKA the guy who saved my life, and the reason I wound up here in the first place. I wonder if he shops here… I wasn’t going to ask, but I didn’t want to regret not asking. I tapped my toes indecisively on the inside of my sneakers.

All of a sudden my mouth started blurting all the things I was trying to supress. “um, do you, by any chance, have a customer with messy black hair and, lively coloured headphones with a long red cord, who wears striped wrist-warmers, and an open short-sleeved jacket, and has bags under his eyes – very dark eyes – and pretty much looks like a (slightly attractive) cyberpunk who you shouldn’t mess with…” this wasn’t a creepy observation, so I don’t know why you’d think that.

The shop owner was shocked at first by my sudden outburst – so was I – but mid-way through my rant she went back to resting her chin in her hand and gave me a little smile.

“Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to disclose any information to you about my other customers, not even if they exist or not.” She folded the map and held it between her two fingers at me.

“Right… sorry, forget I said anything.” I reached for the paper. She moved it away.

“-But maybe… if you keep visiting my store, as a customer, you may find whoever you’re looking for. Although I made this map for you to find your way out of here, it’s also a map to bring you back, so promise me you’ll return, and you can have it.”

Wow, she’s good. I just witnessed the act of a true saleswoman. She actually blackmailed me in a way that made me want to return.

“Haha, fine, fine, I’ll come back, I promise. This place is super cool anyway so I was bound to find my way here again eventually.”

She shifted the paper back towards me and let me take it this time. We grinned at each other. I feel like I could easily get along with this lady, even though she kind of intimidated me.

Just then, the cool door jingle played its tune from behind.

“Axel~ you’re back so soon?”

“What do you mean? It’s always the same time on Fridays.”

I spun to see who she was talking t-“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I screamed and pointed at the face of the boy who walked in. He flinched, nearly dropping the plastic bag in his grasp. Headphones, hair, bags, a punkish fashion sense; all the same. The only difference was the way he looked at me – like I was a psychopath.

But I wasn’t… one of those...

...just so you know.

#TaintedTracks

“You’re that-… you’re the-… the one who-” I stumbled over my words as recognition crossed his face too. He opened his mouth then gritted his teeth with slight fear. He marched over to me, snatched my wrist, and threw the bag he held on the counter. The smell of deep-fried foods briefly touched my nostrils.

“Come with me for a sec.” he commanded.

“Huh? Wha?” I looked confusedly from his hand on my wrist to the woman at the front desk who did nothing as he led me away. But instead of leading me out of the store, he went behind the counter. The woman had her eyes closed in an unreadable manor as she waved and smiled her goodbyes. I gawked at her while being yanked through a door. Before anything made sense, I was pulled down a hall and soon into a room…a bedroom to be specific. He let go of me.

“Sit.”

I wasn’t about to disobey him, knowing what he could do given the right reasons. I sat on the floor on top of my legs with my hands on my lap and a very shut mouth. He lifted one muff off his ear and pushed it back just behind his lobe. Then he closed the door and turned to me. They were dark eyes indeed.

He sighed and shut them. One hand rose and streamed back and forth through his already scattered hair. The next moment he was walking over to the bedside and grabbing another phone. He pulled out the one from his sweater pocket, unplugged the red wire from its head, and tossed it on the bed before plugging the cord into the new device. I had shimmied counter-clockwise on the spot to watch him. He re-approached me and flopped down, cross-legged on the floor across from me.

“Listen,”

Listening.

“You can’t just-… ” – he sighed and ruffled his hair some more – “okay, I don’t know what you were going to say out there in front of my mom, but I can’t have you talking about that incident when she’s around. As far as she knows, I wasn’t there, or fighting, or injured…This is a taboo topic. Got it?”

My mouth fell wider than wide open as I looked at him and pointed towards the door. “muh-…muh-…muh-”

Mother! I was trying to say Mother! That woman!? His mother? So did she know I was talking about her son this whole time? Even when I….called him….slightly attractive. My face went red. Redder than red. I did say those words, didn’t I? I’m really stupid enough to say those words, aren’t I?

“Got it?” he repeated, turning his intimidation meter up several notches. I nodded, still dazed. That meant this music store was his house, didn’t it? Which meant this punk-style room was his room. My head was spinning now.

“Wait but, does that mean you do all that slashing/stabbing, soul-sword-stuff without your mothers consent?! Does she not know about it at all?!”

“SSSSSSHHHHH. Shut up! You don’t know anything so shut up. Of course she knows I’m a sell-soul. It’s just that…she… she worries so…” his voice died down. “aagghh!” then shot back up, “why am I telling you this?! I don’t even know you! What are you doing here? How’d you find me?”

That’s true, what am I lecturing him for? Why did I come?

“You’re right, I’m sorry, I came here to thank you, but here I am stressing you out… I’m sorry. And also thank you, for saving my life.”

He began to get all flustered when he saw me bowing. “I-…I didn’t do it for you, I just, beat up a guy that was pissing me off. So you don’t have to-… I should be thanking you, I underestimated them. They might’ve killed me if you didn’t help.” His voice dipped down to a whisper this time. It gave me chills, because I also might’ve been killed if it weren’t for him.

“Thank you” we said together, gawked at each other in shock, and immediately turned away in search of a distraction. He scrolled hurriedly through his playlist on his phone and I looked around his room. It worked; his room was filled to the brim with distractions; band posters, music-making tech, and instruments. It was insane. There were a series of guitars cliqued together in a corner near his bed, a double keyboard in a spot suitable for a desk, and massive rack of old CD mix tapes. His room was practically the mini version of the shop outside.

Like me, Axel also managed to distract himself with the melodies on his phone. You brought me in here, take responsibility, I thought.

“So… what type of music do you listen to?” I may have recognized a few logos and stuff in his room, but I still had no idea what kind of music it was. I was guessing rock, but I could have been wrong.

He seemed stunned by my question. “…a bit of everything.” He finally said, then looked away.

“How about right now?”

“???”

“What are you listening to right now?”

“…it’s a new band that no one really knows called Unpainted Sky…” he seemed to be holding himself back from answering my questions, but he was clearly passionate about this stuff. I wanted to hear about the music he sold half his soul to.

“Can I listen?”

Again he went speechless and gawked at me. After a long awkward moment (on my part), I witnessed the birth of the most adorable, sparkly-eyed, joyous smile I’d ever seen on any human being in my entire life. He looked like a child on his way to an amusement park for the first time; a cartoon version of that. To see such a strong-willed and determined person, show such childlike happiness; the sight made me blush. I made sure to pocket that image. He wasn’t just slightly attractive anymore.

“S-sure! Okay, you can listen, if you want. Are you sure you want to hear this one? Or should I show you an even better one? Oh, I feel like you might like this one…Wait, this one!”

I couldn’t help myself, I let out a giggle. “You’re a lot more…childish than I thought.” He looked up then, and glared at me. After seeing how happy he was capable of being, this expression came across as more of a pout than anything else. I doubted I would have thought this moments ago.

He opened his mouth to say something-

A click and a whoosh later, and I heard the tattooed woman’s voice emerge from behind me. “I know riiighht?!? Isn’t he the cutest thing? You’d never expect it though, would ya?” I spun to see a similar expression of pure happiness on the face of the woman I spoke to before…

“Mom! Get out! How long have you been there?” Axel exploded.

“Not long, not long, don’t worry, I have better things to do than eavesdrop on my son. Need I remind you I have a store to run~” she sang that last part, tilting her head back like a pretend rock star while Axel shoved on her back. Many strands of her hair blanketed his face. I couldn’t help but think she could be a real rock star with her looks.

“Then go run it!” he complained.

Seeing them like this, it was hard not to notice the resemblance, but it was much harder referring to her as his mother. If anything she came across as the older sister type.

“It’s closing time.” She answered. “Plus I just wanted to know if my widdle son and his widdle fwiend wanted some dinnaaa. Which I have right here-aaah” In one quick motion she twirled and put a hand heavily on Axel’s head and pushed him down, around her, and out the door. As he stumbled away she reached to the side and picked up some plates of food resting on something I could not see, so it seemed like an act of magic.

Next, she strolled in casually and put two plates by my side. She gave me a pleasant little smile that made me feel nervous and frantic. Since I came into this building as a store, I forgot to have the required manners for entering someone’s household.

“Ah! This must have been your share; you don’t have to do that for me, really. I could just eat when I get home.” In actuality, I was far past starving; my stomach was silently dying in its final hours. I hadn’t eaten since…since…? When was the last time I ate food? I mean like real food, not the potato chips I had a few hours ago. It would’ve been before the terrorist attack yesterday… so like, 24+ hours ago.

“My share? Hahaha, you couldn’t take food from me if you fought me for it. We always buy extras, don’t worry. Besides, I’m not letting you walk home at this hour. It’s too dark out. You’re my hostage now.” She winked at me.

That word choice was too frighteningly coincidental for my liking. I tried to laugh.

“I still wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You don’t have a choice~” she sang. She was already on her way out of the room so I couldn’t dispute.

“Uh, well then, thank you for your hospitality.”

On her way out the door she turned back and smiled again. It was the smile I was beginning to fear, in the short time I’ve made acquaintance. The smile with her eyes closed and a strong sense of subtle, all-knowing power. I watched Axel glare at her the whole way out. When she was gone, he re-entered his room and shut the door. Then he stood there, facing the door.

“um-”

He held out an arm with a ‘one second’- finger on display. Moments later, there was a knock. He opened the door just enough for his mother’s hand to snake in, holding a home phone that kind of resembled a mic. “In case you need to call your parents or guardians and tell them a nice music store lady has taken you captive.”

Axel took the phone and proceeded to slam the door as his mother snakily dodged the brutal threat of a closing door. From behind the door I heard her laugh “you’re a thousand years too young to nail me Axel. Aha ha ha!”

He grumbled and tossed me the phone on his way back to his spot. I fumbled in catching it and laid it down beside me to play it cool. I really wish, she didn’t have to think about my parents. I eyed the home phone, letting all the anxiety it caused me, to build. Should I pretend to call them? Or maybe call a friend and pretend they’re my parents? Wait, what friend? Who do I think I am? I lost my last friend weeks ago. I mentally gave myself an uppercut. Then at the corner of my eye I noticed Axel staring me down.

I felt myself blush before I even peeked at him. He looked up, pretending he didn’t notice anything, and picked up his plate and chopsticks.

“Since my mom brought the food I guess we have no choice but to eat first. I’ll still show you the songs though.”

I watched him with a stunned expression. He was indirectly telling me I didn’t have to explain. I picked up my plate and started eating as well. Oh yeah, that’s right, I’m starving.

“Hey, you know my name already, but what’s yours?”

I covered my mouth and force-gulped some un-chewed food. “I’m Reiz-…… you can call me Rei”

“mmm.” He ate some more. “So, how did you find yourself in a hijacking?” his voice was lowered so I did the same – even though my answer was probably safe enough not to.

“I was looking for a job at that crappy community center, believe it or not. The one time I go there, it gets hijacked.”

“Pfft, how unlucky can you get, haha” His eyes were closed when he laughed so I was free to revel at his beauty as much as I wanted. It was an immensely attractive smile.

His adorability level was up there with puppies and penguins.

‘So how did someone so childlike end up as a sell-soul?’ In my opinion, this was a far more interesting topic, but I didn’t ask the question. Somehow, it seemed like the kind of question you weren’t supposed to ask. Instead, I continued ranting about my crumby luck. It kept him laughing anyway.

#TaintedTracks

Axel finished eating and was impatiently waiting for me to end so he could show me all his music. I was excited too, but I really couldn’t compete. I wolfed it down for him as he started telling me about some of the bands he listened to. When I was done he surprised me; he took a deep breath and leaned in close to me, placing his headphones snuggly over my head. I thought he would just unplug the cord and let it play by speaker so I was very surprised and tense when he made that move. As if I weren’t red enough. Why’d he go and do that. I soon learned why.

“Daa~” The first sung note struck through me like a lightning bolt. I instantly forgot all my prior worries, the thoughts died away from unimportance in comparison to the sound that punched my ears. Daa daa daa-ah, da.” The voice ascended ever so slowly, then drooped. Lyrics came; real and authentic, meaningful lyrics. Lyrics you’d never hear on the radio; a song that wasn’t about love, or money, or drugs, or girls. The song didn’t consist of one repeated phrase sung in different techno waves. It wasn’t a song made for fame or fortune, you could tell, the tune wasn’t meant to be played at some bar where the listeners were all too drunk to care for music quality. This was poetry in the form of a melody. A song the singer’s soul was steeped into.

“[insert symbolic, life-changing, world-building lyrics about the sky]” was a line/verse that stuck out to me. The lyrics came from my left side and the ascending daa’s rose and fell on my right. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision on the maker’s part, to feed me the lyrics through the side closest to my heart, but it worked. The words reached my heart stronger than any song I had ever heard before. I didn’t know headphones could be so powerful, now that I think of it… this was the first time I was listening to music through headphones.

“That was beautiful.” I whispered. I was so lost in a music-brimmed world for the entire duration of the song that I forgot where I was and who was there to listen. When I opened my eyes, I saw Axel giving me another wide-eyed grin.

“I know right? Here try this one.” He scrolled down with many sped-up thumb swipes and tapped his screen for a new song. I think I was developing a new found joy for seeing his amusement. While the headphones began conjuring some more magic into my ears I managed to sustain eye-contact with him as he fanboyed to me about the amazingness of this masterpiece. It was hard to connect this boy before me to the same one who sword-fought a terrorist, “Did you hear the guitarist there? It sounds like there’s another but he’s just using a two-neck guitar flawlessly. That reminds me, there’s this one song where the guitar sounds like a saxophone! He switches over from generic electric guitar sounds to the saxophone one throughout the song, but wait before I show you that one-” somewhere along the line I stopped listening to his voice and kept watching his changing expressions until more music was thrown back on.

The first song he showed me was purely soul music, and the rest were all interesting combinations of different genres; rock tied to classical, festive music slid into blues, some type of a sparkly-sounding jazz, and ‘modern punk with an orchestral accompaniment’ as Axel put it - that one sounded like it belonged in a dramatic, flying car movie. They were all so new, so exotic, and strange to me, but I couldn’t express to anybody how much I loved them. Every bar, every beat, every unforgettable moment.

“And this one is gentle metal, you’d probably really like the melody in the background, since you liked...”

“Whoaa, you’re right!!! I especially loved the…”

“Yeah, not many people notice that, I’m surprised, in that case you’d appreciate this one.”

“Oh my gawd, how did she do that with her voice? It was so soothing.”

We kept a consistent smiling spree going while sharing our views on song after song. For each tune, he’d quiet down as I listened and perk back up the moment I finished. This repeated for a few more songs and after a while we were both fandom-ing about how great the music was. I got so caught up in things that I didn’t notice when he started getting sleepy.

“The violin in that one was so nice; I never expected rock to have instrumentals like that. It made me want to learn violin or piano even!” When I looked up at him, expecting an excited response and another recommendation, I saw his head bowed, and his hand unraveled loosely around his phone. His breathing was slowed and there was a calm air around him.

He fell asleep? How can anyone fall asleep in that position? And so fast?! This song was only around two minutes long and he was definitely awake when he chose it for me. I tilted my head to analyze some of his sleeping beauty, yet something about the sight was unsettling to me. Perhaps it was the trauma of having to yank bloody arrows from his back, or watching him die sometime before that, either way I didn’t want him to stay in this state.

“Um, Axel?” I hesitated.

No response, so I tried again, reaching a hand for his shoulder. I felt bad in waking him up, maybe he was just really tired, but if this sudden exhaustion was thanks to yesterday’s injury, I’d prefer if he were in bed resting than trying to entertain me.

“Axel?” I shook his shoulder a second time, adding a little more vigor. This time he gritted his teeth and took a jittery breath that sounded hoarse like he was breathing through a cloudy mesh. He remained unconscious. My worries skyrocketed. “Axel!?!”

He slumped forward and I quickly held him up. “AXEL!!!” At that moment, the door opened from behind me and as I looked back to see who, the headphones were pulled from my ears. Confused and scared, I watched his mother breeze over to his side and place his headphones back over his ears, and twist the swirly coloured cup over his left ear as she held him upright. This action must have raised the volume because I heard a low buzz of the last melody I listened to.

His mother’s expression was blank and void of emotion. This was such a huge contrast to how I was used to seeing her that it sent chills down my back.

In roughly three seconds after receiving back his headphones, Axel’s eyes fluttered open – just barely open. He immediately re-clenched his grip on his device and started scrolling in slow-motion through his playlist as if he never lost consciousness.

“Axel.” his mother called.

He flinched and slowly brought his squinted gaze up to hers. I don’t think he realized his mother was there in the room until that moment. There was a cold sweat sticking to his temples, his face was pale, and I could visibly see the strain he had in the simple task of breathing.

“You know you shouldn’t have given it away for that long. Four or five songs should have been your limit.”

He looked exhausted, but he still put up a fight for his mom and scowled, “I can still show her one more.” He looked back down to his phone and continued searching for songs.

“I wonder how many ’one more’s it would take for you to consider the danger you placed on your life.”

This conversation was scaring me. What were they talking about? What did she mean?

“Come. It’s time you rest up.” She stooped to a knee and wrapped his arm around her neck, then heaved him up. It looked like he knocked out the moment they were standing. She trudged him over to the bed and peeled the music player from his hand; on it, she played with some settings and rested it on his bedside. The outer design of his muffs swirled into a blue-purple whirlpool (eliminating the red that used to be there). Then she pulled a blanket over to his Adam’s apple and patted his hair. I watched with slight terror.

Did I cause that? Was he struggling to breathe because of something I did? Or didn’t do? Why didn’t I notice sooner? Was he really still injured from that day with the arrows? Maybe that magic I saw back then had only healed the outside of his wound and not the inside. Does that mean he was suffering all this time? And did his mother know about his injury? What did his music have to do with any of this? I didn’t really know anything about Sell-souls. What should I do? What if...

My hands were shaking violently under eachother. Flashes of his bloodied body shot over my vision like the AMVs on the internet that were made to evoke tears.

What if-

“Come with me for a sec,” His mother interrupted my freak out, “…Um, what was it again?”

“Wh- huh?”

“Your name?”

#TaintedTracks

“R-Rei.” I tripped over my own simple name as well as over my own two feet when I got up to follow her.

She shut the lights in his room then led me down to the end of the hall into a kitchen area. It was a neat little clearing where the dark wooden floorboards transformed into slick white tiles. There was a blackboard as the entire backsplash wall, and pleasant blocks of white kitchen cabinets, as well as a black laminate counter cap like a piano key you could eat on from on top two revolving high chairs. Thinking, this alone sufficiently provided for their family of two; I was surprised to see an entire circular dining table for five, revealed to me after rounding the corner.

“You don’t have to be alarmed, take a seat wherever you’d like.” I almost plopped down on the floor like I’d done in Axel’s room, but then figured she probably meant for me to sit in an actual chair.

I picked the high chair, sitting down so rigidly that it didn’t get more than a nano-second to revolve into place. She smiled at me from around the counter, this time her smile wasn’t the type to add to my anxiety, rather it relaxed me, however slightly.

“Would you like some hot Cocoa? My little special customer.”

“Um, s-sure, yes please.”

She used an insta-kettle so we didn’t wait long for the appliance to start screaming out its steam, but in every interval of free time I received, I turned to look back down the dark hallway. I managed to watch, in parts, as she poured the ingredients with a barista’s grace into a glass mug. The water, the milk, the chocolate mix, the cinnamon stick, the shot of Nutella in a spoon, and two plops of giant marshmallows in each mug. She slid my share over to me without a spill.

“Sorry, we don’t have whipped cream at the moment. It goes by fast here.”

I don’t know how she found something to apologize for after giving me this masterpiece. After seeing the perfection, smelling the perfection and, finally tasting the hot, creamy perfection, I melted over the counter and stared at the contents in hypnotic awe.

It seemed like she waited for the moment I let my guard down to make conversation. “So it seems like you’ve bonded with my son rather quickly.” I sprang upright, bringing the cocoa with me. I couldn’t help but feel like she planned that too; our entire bonding session.

“…yeah…” I clinked my mug back down to the counter and brought my gaze with it, thinking of what had just transpired moments ago. “Did I- … um, hurt him in some way?”

“No, no, of course not, is that what you were thinking all this time? Don’t worry, his condition right now is his own doing.”

She had said something about his limit being five or six songs… I was trying to wrap my head around this. I listened to around double those numbers. I didn’t know enough about sell-souls to understand what this meant, but I took it to mean that if I had simply returned his headphones after a few uses, he wouldn’t be unconscious right now.

“I’m sure you knew before you came here that Axel is a Sell-soul.”

How did she know that I knew that?

“He’s a major background character until he brings that weapon of his out, isn’t he?” She was reading minds now? How overpowered can a mother get?

“Well he didn’t become a Sell-soul the way normal people do.” Normal people weren’t Sell-souls to begin with. I didn’t say this. But I really wanted to.

“Normally, you’d be presented with the choice. It’s like an invitation of sorts, by something or someone who already has Sell-soul abilities, which in itself is a rare opportunity, but… Axel never got that choice.” The constant chiming of her spoon swirling around her cocoa stopped suddenly. Then she took a sip.

What was she telling me right now? This topic seemed too heavy a thing to be sharing with a stranger.

“When he was very young, my choice was either to let him die or sell half his soul for strength in his heart that he didn’t have; strength to live longer in a world he wouldn’t have. Essentially he can’t live without those headphones. Well not for long anyway.”

Without meaning to, I was gawking at her. Seriously, how could she be telling me this? Wasn’t this, like, serious plot?

“I could tell you more, but at this rate, I’ve already gained a few thousand hatred points from my son, so I should preserve what’s left of his trust in me while it still exists.”

This was already too much to take in. Like, he wore those headphones his whole life! I was wearing the headphones that followed him around his whole life!!! Did that mean he has to sleep on his back all the time? What about school? How did he survive school? What about when he had to shower!? Or go to the pool?

“Your chocolate will get cold.” She warned.

“Sorry!” I flinched into drinking some more sweet goodness. Then I lowered the cup. “I’m really sorry.”

She smiled. “You have no need to apologize.” But I felt the need. I had to express my condolences somehow…

“You’re a nice person, aren’t you, Rei?” She smiled behind her cup of cocoa. “I think my son needs more people like you in his life.”

Compliments like being called nice, were hard to come by when you had a personality like mine. I was more accustomed to hearing praises like ‘she’s too aggressive/too wild/too unpredictable/too weird/too psychopathic’. I’ve learned to buckle down my rage and accept words like that with a menacing smile.

After finishing my – now cold – hot chocolate, Axel’s mom led me to her room and then to her closet of pajamas. Her room was simpler than Axel’s, less busy with posters and instruments and whatnot, but I did spot hints of her love for music with how everything was designed. The bed was white and simple with long black pillows, the headpiece of the bed was curved like the hood of a piano and at its center was engraved the word Meloda™ – the brand name you’d find on any generic piano. In the corner, stood a music stand holding a scattered array of sheet music, and framed on the far wall were wide-sized photographs of signature band pics that even I was familiar with.

Her closet was a walk-in and had rock-style clothes that all completely suited her. When she showed me the pajama collection, they were almost all lacey and far too fancy for a body like mine. It would be rude of me to point this out so my plan was to let her pick something for me, but she must have sensed my unease.

“Hmm, none of these really seem like they’d suit your style, do they? … Oh that’s right; I have something in the laundry that might be better. Hold on.” She whizzed away, leaving me alone in her room for around ten seconds. “Tadaaa~ isn’t this better.” She held up a dark blue polyester pajama set with little clusters of cartoon singing people here and there. “I usually only use this during holidays, or whenever I feel like being extra cozy. It even has a matching hat. Not sure where that ran off to, though.”

Embarrassingly enough, this was the kind of thing I’d be wearing back at home. “It’s perfectly fine without the hat, thank you.” We exchanged smiles and she gave me a spare toothbrush, a teddy wolf named Kiba, and then showed me to the spare room, which was greatly used as storage space.

“No peaking in those boxes, okay? Some of those albums are only scheduled to be released next week. If they look like they’re already open that’s just your imagination. Axel and I would never do such a thing.” She spoke her way out of the room before I could say anything to that. “Good night. Don’t kill us in our sleep now.” she called from the hallway. I failed to stifle a laugh.

This was probably the warmest, kindest, most beautiful, down-to-earth home I’ve ever been in. It had only been maybe four or five hours since I got here, but I already knew I’d miss it when I leave.

#TaintedTracks

The next morning I woke up scared and confused.

Scared: because of a nightmare. Well, a terrible set of nightmares; one involving my family, the next was a repeat of recent terrorism, and the last was of Axel… an Axel who wouldn’t wake up no matter how much I tugged.

Confused: because I woke up holding a stuffed wolf plushy, staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room at an angle that slanted everything in a way that suggested I was halfway away from the floor. Then full-way on the floor.

“Aah-h-h-ooww” I groaned. Then rolled over. One more time. I rolled until I was back on my back to groan some more. I pulled myself up, rolling my aching neck around, and yawning, then stretching, and blinking my confusion away.

It took a while, but I convinced my legs to work. I couldn’t laze around in another person’s house the way I did in my own. I needed to change and get out as soon as I could and thank them both for letting me stay the night. After returning Kiba to the bed, I trudged to the bathroom across the hall. If there were any foreshadow-y sounds of preparation for what was to come of this morning, my drowsiness didn’t allow me awareness of it. I reached the bathroom and brushed my teeth in a falsified, civil, chaos-free state. Then, I tended to the impressive display of modern art that had formed on my scalp; ‘bedhead’ brought to you by the demons of the Underworld.

I exorcised the dark arts that defied the laws of gravity in my hair, and built up the courage needed to speak to Axel’s mother about leaving - using the mirror’s help.

...I should have brought my clothes in here to change, I telepathically told my bag-eyed reflection. We glared at each other for a moment out of mutual discontent. I decided to be the bigger person here, and left to get my clothes with a heavy sigh. Before I could reach the guest room, my eye caught the slightly opened door to Axel’s room. A flash of his KO’d face swept through my conscience. This made me freeze up and clench the fabric at my tummy.

I peered up and down the hall, one side was the presumably empty store, the other was the bright glow of their kitchen. I pinched my lips together. I just wanted to make sure he was safe and sound. It would only be a little peek, nothing more. My hand pressed gingerly against his door, thankful for its lack of creaking, not that he’d hear it anyway with his forever-radio . . . I shouldn’t joke about that… not even telepathically.

When I looked to the bed and didn’t see him, distress and relief smacked me both ways across the face. If he wasn’t in bed that meant he was well enough to be up and about, but at the same time, if he wasn’t in bed, it could mean he wasn’t well enough to stay home. What if he was sent to the hospital? What if the events of that incident affected the way he tolerated survival without his headphones? Was that a thing? Could that happen? I wish I understood sell-soul bodies.

I widened the door a bit more, hoping to see him next to the piano-desk area, where he was not. Relief was out of the picture now, there was only anxiety. I retreated from his door and looked to the kitchen. My side quest, of changing back into my own clothes and looking presentable, was abandoned. I’d grown blind with the dire need to see him okay.

He’d be in the kitchen for sure. It was natural for home-inhabitants to venture to their kitchens in the morning, right? He was just hungry for breakfast and therefore in the kitchen eating breakfast, it made sense…

…So why were my steps so slow? Why was I so afraid to walk through that doorway? To round that corner and see or not see the kindest people I’ve ever met, why was that so hard?

“Good morning.” A voice zipped past me. I blinked many times before I managed to follow the voice and see Axel’s mom. She was wearing a plain loose black tank top that showed off her melodic tattoos in full galore, as well as a white apron tied around her waist. I blinked. “Hope you like pancakes~” I was too stunned to respond. It was like someone left the dream world entrance in my brain ajar and all those bizarre nonsensical thoughts were floating around distracting me from reality.

Atop the high chairs, to my right, sat Axel with his back towards me and his legs arched up to the chair in front of him. Both headphone muffs were covering his ears; he wouldn’t hear my ‘good morning’ unless I waltzed over there and tapped him to his senses myself.

I let my shoulders relax. I was just glad to see him alright.

“I’ll ship the pancakes off to dreamland for you.”

“Oh, ah- sorry, good morning! Y-yes, pancakes are fine. Thank y-… GAH! Wait no-”

“You don’t like pancakes?” She practically dropped her spatula to the frying pan in defeat.

“No! Yes! I like- That’s not what I- pancakes are great! I like pancakes very much!”

“Then there’s no problem if I make you some.” She continued her cooking as if nothing happened. Likewise, Axel was scrolling through his phone as if nothing had happened since I entered in the room.

“But- but I don’t want to intrude any more than I have already. I’ll just change and make my way back to my place. I really appreciate the offer, though.”

“Who’re you, Miss!?” a little voice from behind me made me jump forward and fling my arms up in surprise. Under my flailed arms, I saw a little boy child staring up at me with curious and mystical little eyes. My eyes were snared in the wondrous look that flooded his gaze. Who? What? When? How? …Who?

“Oh Keita, you’re here early.” He dashed past me towards the kitchen. I dodged out of his way and leaned my arms to the other side. “Aunt Kaiaaa!!! You’re making pancakes?!” He jumped up and down beside her. His tiny auburn coloured head of hair was bobbing up above the island.

“PANCAKES!!!” yelled someone else. I made another leap out of the door frame, making way for the boulder of a man who manifested there.

As retro as it was, the moment I saw him, I thought: Hulk. This would be an accurate statement if The Hulk were human sized, brown-skinned, young, and beautiful. Oh and if the Hulk wore actual fitted clothing, like this casual loose, open-button grey linen shirt - fit for a model - hanging in front of me.

Behind his head I barely caught glimpse of the coloured hair band that loosely held a short ponytail together. He stopped just in front of me and looked down at my miniscule figure. “Hi.” He blinked. I blinked back. I forgot how to English. As well as how to bring my arms back down to my sides where they belonged.

“Who’s this?” He looked over me to Axel’s mom, to pose the question. If I could, I’d evaporate where I stood. It would be what I’d sell half my soul to do. The man in front of me was sooooooooo intimidating, like he popped straight out of a classic Bollywood movie about body-building. I pictured him stepping out of a multi-million dollar car as the camera rolled up to his face, and then he’d rip off his sunglasses, and chuck his keys to some off screen nobody like me.

Something the mother said or did behind my back made him grin and raise his pinky in a mischievous sort of way. He then proceeded to lower a hand down to me; a friendly gesture I was meant to return. Though, it took my brain a while to understand how to perform the simple handshake.

“I’m Sunal nice to meet you.” His mighty fists completely wrapped around my single puny hand. “She’s cute, Kaia, where’d you find her?”

Cute?! I added this to the list of words I’ve never been called before entering this house/shop/place-thing.

“As shocking as it may be, I had nothing to do with it this time. Axel’s the one who guided her here.”

“Axel did?” There was a pause as everyone in the room, even the kid, peeping over the table, stared at Axel’s unaware figure. “Even though he’s like that?”

“Yeeeppp~”

What was this motherly betrayal happening behind me. I’d been stuck in my handshaking position even though the muscly-man had moved away from me long ago. It was not until she started discussing yesterday evening that my senses were snapped back into place. ” Rei-chan came looking for him all thanks to his quote on quote – ahem – ’slightly attract-”

“PANCAKES SUDDENLY SOUND GREAT! I would love to have your pancakes Axel’s mom! Thank you.” I shredded the words through my teeth.

“Great! This one’s yours; there are strawberry bits inside, because the world can use more strawberries~ Oh, and please… call me Kaia.”

“Aunt Kaia! Aunt Kaia!” said the little jumping head behind the counter.

“Or Aunt Kaia if you really want.” She placed the boy’s strawberry pancake on the counter and lifted him to sit next to it. From that angle Axel should have been able to see the kid, but he stayed invested in the virtual world in his palm.

“Did the rest of the boxes arrive, Kaia?” said the Bollywood star.

“Oh yes, I left all the heavy one’s for you. Thanks.”

He almost looked excited hearing that. As he breezed by Axel towards the back door, he ruffled, roughly into Axel’s hair. His head was pushed down from the weight and the bridge of his headphones leaned down in front of his face. He looked up ahead in annoyance, but nowhere else.

He started to fix back his headphones without aware-ing himself of everyone else in the room, but I wanted to get his attention, because he was currently the only one here who I wasn’t fearful of. I took a few steps towards him and hesitated. I regret hesitating.

The moment I retracted my hand away from his shoulder, this sudden, random kitchen party grew a member. Some rude chick shoved her way pass me and grabbed Axel’s arm, leaning her… chest area against him.

“Good morning Axelle. How’re you today?” He barely reacted to her leeching onto his arm like that, and he definitely didn’t notice when she shoved me to the side. I was still pretty sure he didn’t know I was there.

“Excuse me.” I directed this at the random girl who so rudely interrupted what was going to be a refreshing conversation. She cocked her head to the side, angling her chin up to Axel’s shoulder and lowering a dark fuchsia coloured contact lens on me. She had long beige hair, hung in two high pigtails that reached to her back. Peeping above the bundles of hair were two golden hairpins with hoop shapes on top.

Her clothing was black, pink, and neon pink, with silver bangles that covered her neck, ears, wrists and waist. Beneath her skirt, she wore diamond-shaped, pink on black lace stockings that filed into long high heel boots. She wore a sleeveless open jacket with a ripped black undershirt that had one long sleeve still barely attached. On the hand without the bits of a sleeve, she wore a black glove that stopped being a glove where her fingers began. Overall, she was the kind of girl I could never get along with.

Lo and behold, the first thing she said to me was proof that I was right; “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something, it didn’t look like Axel was paying you much attention, so I assumed you were just some wandering stalker maybe.” she threw a daggered side eye my way.

“Excuse me!?” I repeated. I shouldn’t have taken offense to her comments since they were true; I was practically a stalker… by accident, but was this the kind of thing you say to someone you’ve never met?

“Oh, you’re excused. The exit is that way.” She pointed an impressively manicured finger in the direction of the front of the store, behind me. I twitched.

“You’re playing a dangerous game little girl.” I stalked up to her crossing my arms and craning my head down in an emphasized manner, though she wasn’t that much smaller than me thanks to those heels. She moved from Axel and put her hands on her hips twisting her neck up high to lean threateningly close to my face. If nothing else caught Axel’s attention, this did. He was facing us with one of his ear-cushions shifted off his ear.

“Little girl? Don’t you need your eyes checked? I’m way more of a woman than you’ll ever be.” She was referring to her curves. In that sense, she hit the nail.

“Oooh~ this looks fun.” The Bollywood star reentered with boxes in his arms.

“I’m not very good at pulling my punches so if I were you I’d just apologize to the woman standing above you. The woman you don’t even know and are foolishly picking a fight with.”

Her eyes tightened for a moment, then an eyebrow rose. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Aren’t those my pajamas?” Axel interrupted, adding to the raised eyebrows sniping in on me.

“Your pajamas?!” I exclaimed.

I looked to my right where Kaia the culprit was supposed to be, with the kitchen and the pancakes and whatnot, but all that stared back at me was the counter-seated child holding a strawberry pancake between his two hands and mouth.

“Fine! You’re right! I’m crazy!”

That was… a familiar voice.

“I’m delusional!” the voice continued.

In a cringing fashion, I began to turn my head to the left, peeking around to the dining table where Kaia sat with folded legs, smiling down at a tablet in her hand. A tablet that needed to shut up,

“-Much too sick in the head to answer all your stupid, self-answering questions!”

That familiar voice was my voice, the me that was ambushed by media parrots in a hospital, during a morning migraine. I peeked at Axel who was staring wide eyed at the backwards, holographic image of me throwing a pillow at the camera.

“Oho” laughed the Bollywood star. “This ones got spirit.”

“You’re the gif-girl!” said the child. His excitement made his words swing in that innocent way children voices did. Axel and the pig-tailed rude one were stone-cold frozen in shock.

“Wait, wait, the full version is better.” Added Kaia as she rewound the video: “As much as the news tries to censor great material like this, the internet always has your back. You’ve gone viral Rei-chan.”

“What would you like to say to the police force for saving your life?”

“What? No. It wasn’t the police force; it was that kid with the headphones.” Almost everyone’s stare went to Axel who had his face in his palm at this point. The video continued; “Where is he? You should be asking him the questions, not me.”

“Axel you were there?!” yelled the rude girl. “At that crazy event!?”

“How could you have gone without telling us? That was dangerous!” Added Sunal. “Kaia aren’t you upset about this!?”

Kaia shrugged. “Any anger or concern I may have felt while hearing this yesterday died off when I realized Axel made a friend from this experience.”

“Pfft what friend? It’s just some stranger that he sav- Wait! You saved this girl? But then-” she shut herself up while rudely eying me from head to toe.

“Does this mean Gif-girl knows we’re all Sell-souls?!”

I – including everyone in the room – turned to the child on the counter in blatant bewilderment. Then there was the distinct sound of someone slapping their palm against their face.

#TaintedTracks

“Unbelievable.” The pig-tailed diva threw up her arms in astonishment and marched out of the room.

“Sheria, where are you going?”

“To touch-up my make-up, you deal with this Sunal. -can’t take this kind of stress right now. ”

He clicked his tongue and put his mighty arms on his hips. “That girl.”

Once that child blurted out a clearly kept secret, it’s like I was shoved to the edge of a plank, forced to hope upon hope that this wasn’t one of those we-can’t-let-you-leave-here-alive-now-that-you-know-the-truth moments. The concern shifted once Kaia began to chuckle and the rude girl left the room, which meant my main threat became-

I peeked up and over my shoulder at the macho one, while trying to make myself look as much like a frail, crippled, old hunchback, as possible - because no sane person would try to hurt the elderly. He had been closer than I would have liked, but the look he gave me was gentler than I expected from a man of these muscles. Instead of being angry, he was scratching the back of his shaggy hair in a what-should-we-do-now sort of way. Meanwhile, Axel was holding his temples with his head bowed away from everyone. I’ve never felt so guilty in my entire life.

It was Kaia who broke the ice. She was sipping tea now, “You haven’t touched your pancakes, Rei-chan.”

I gave her a pained look, but tried to play it off in a way that held a bit of dignity and a bunch of politeness. “Y’know, I-I think I’ll just take them with me… like in a napkin or something. Thank you Kaia.” I approached the table holding my pancake on a plate and scooped up the pinkish bundle of batter and strawberries, with the napkin.

A mighty sigh and a mighty hand rained down on my shoulder from behind. This hand belonged to The Bollywood Hulk. Turning to face him wasn’t necessary; it was merely a reflexive action.

“I-I-I-I-I didn’t real-really need the napkin.”

“Little Rei,” he began, “you do realize-”

“-that life is a precious little package.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “-that you cannot tell anyone about us.”

“That too! Yes. Of course… not. I mean, I would never. I wouldn’t have anyone to tell anyway.” An awkward laugh had crept its way into that last part. I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth and stretched out a painful cringe out of self-repulsion. What am I saying?

“It’s okay Sunal” Kaia spoke up to save the day from my awkward parade. “I trust Rei-chan, she came all this way to thank my son for saving her life, she didn’t kill us in our sleep, and she likes hot cocoa and pancakes. She couldn’t be a bad person, she wouldn’t tell anyone.” I bowed with eternal gratitude to Kaia, then stared back and forth between the two of them. “I-I’ll be going then.” I tried moving from the Hulk’s strong hold and was greatly surprised when he let me go without a struggle. I made a little bow to him then rushed towards my freedom. I paused then looked back at Axel. He was leaned back against the counter, looking up at the celling and shaking his head slightly.

It seemed like I caused him an incoming lecture... I caused him all sorts of troubles didn’t I? I made a little bow to him too - this one was heavy with regrets and unspoken apologies – then left shortly after at a brisk march.

On my way out, there was a faint pitter-pattering of feet that followed me to the front of the store. “Gif-girl, are you taking Axel’s pajamas too?”

I looked down and screamed.

***

“…Do you really trust her Kaia?” Sunal asked after hearing Rei’s screams down the hall.

“Hmmm” Kaia had a spoonful of a whipped cream-capped strawberry in her mouth. She made sure to enjoy it before replying. “Who knows… but I do know guilt can work better than aggression… in some cases.” Another spoonful plopped into her mouth.

“Whooa ho ho ho, what a scary woman.”

Kaia smiled that slit-eyed smile of hers. “I wish my son shared your fear of me, Sunal” Kaia was now aiming her spoon at Axel’s head while he made a brave attempt to escape out the backdoor.

Axel looked back scowling with that deathly side-eye of his; a sarcastic smile dazzled his face for a brief second.

“If he won’t fear you, Kaia, he’s going to fear me in a few seconds.” Sunal stepped forward with an exaggerated fist in the air. “Keita!” he called. “Get the cat!”

The blood from Axel’s face drained.

#TaintedTracks

The ceiling above my head is the only thing in my entire life that isn’t an embarrassment at this moment in time. I lay in my bed thinking this the following morning. I was a fool to believe sleep could heal me of the curse of embarrassment. I flung a pillow over my face and expressed this with a muffled, but high, volume. The memory wasn’t affected by this.

The fact remained: I almost walked out of my life-savior’s house wearing his pajamas. And my reacting scream was loud enough for them all to hear down the hall. Then there was the part where I picked a fight with his friend… was she a friend? Comrade? Fellow sell-soul? . . . I made a whimpering sound. Who was I kidding? she was wrapped around him like a lover! I was in his pajamas picking a fight with his lover!!!

“AAAAAGGGHHHH” I rolled off my bed in a violent display of memory erasing. Blankets and sheets fell over me in a massive bundle. From the floor, I reached up to my bedside dresser and snatched the little spherical alarm from its cute little, trapezoid pedestal thingy.

1:12pm. That’s a decent time to start my daily job-hunting grind right? I sighed. Breakfast; that’s what I need. I got up to find my washroom through the sand crisps that clustered my gaze. Then I brushed my teeth while avoiding the mirror like it would kill on contact.

My breakfast was a fancy assortment of leftover cereal bits from a variety of unfinished boxes, with a side of 3.25% milk, which was precisely one quarter cup under the perfect milk-to-cereal ratio. As I chomped on the final tidbits of my half-dried, half-soggy cereal flakes, I checked my phone:

2:00PM

What the heck did I even do to waste all that time? It’s still a decent time to go job hunting right? By the time I change it’ll be like 2:10-ish, then to find a street train; that could take an eternity. Maybe I should just hit the library and apply to a thousand places online. I would do that here… if I had a laptop, but I don’t. I would buy one, if I could afford one, but I can’t…

SMACK! My cheeks buzzed from the impact of my own hands clapping against it. I told myself I wouldn’t do this: complain.

That’s it! Screw the time! If I’ve got time to think about it, then I have time to go. I’ll visit the library and go to at least one plaza with my rezu-chip. I chucked my plate in the, what I like to call, procrastination-dish-storage-system 9000 AKA the sink. Then I made a flash dash for my business-y-but-not-really clothes, ran a comb through my hair once, and made for the door. I backtracked a few steps and analyzed that reflection I avoided before through a nearby on-your-way-out mirror. Hair: okay. Face: could be worse. Clothes: a semi-formal, yet extremely comfortable hoodie disguised as a blouse, but I could still stick my hands in distant pockets so it was perfectly fine. I then took this opportunity to sacrifice some of my precious time by making joke-poses like a model who was her own photographer with a high-end, finger-framed camera.

Stupidity put to pause, mad dash resumed. I ripped my keys from its hook with practiced precision, the cat-shaped key-holder spun around its axis as I did. I wedged my foot into an ankle-high boot and hopped over to the door along with my other boot.

Outside at 2:21pm, according to a wandering news blimp. I smirked, see that wasn’t so bad, I can do things if I really try. I marched off.

. . .

And marched right back. Phone. I kinda need that. I flipped open the case revealing the new time of 2:24pm on the screen. “Why do you hate me?” I shook the device with abusive intentions. A paper slid out the back. I managed to catch it before it could reach the ground. My pace slowed as I scanned the piece of paper.

This was the map Kaia drew for me… “AAAGGGHHH!” my hands sprang up and thrashed through my hair in another violent attempt to rid my mind of embarrassment. A pedestrian may have passed by while I was displaying this divine savagery, but I’d rather not turn around to make sure.

Half face-palming and half staring at the map, I wondered if I could ever show my face back there. Kaia wanted me to, though. She made that clear…

“Any anger or concern I may have felt while hearing this yesterday died off when I realized Axel made a friend from this experience.” I was the friend. I remembered everything from her tone to her content expression. ‘How could I not go back after hearing her say that?!’ I heard a curious echo of my own thoughts. Shoot. Did I say that out loud? The person sitting beside me on the street train had a face that answered my question. I shook my hand to brush her attention away.

And then there was his lover. I can’t be his friend when his lover already hated me… she was a rude lover though. I subconsciously started slamming the library’s keyboard much harder than I intended, from the memory of her shoving pass me. I’m a person, how can she treat me like that?

“SHHHHhhh!”

“Ah, sorry!” My hand reached the back of my head as I smiled apologetically to the gothic-dressed librarian man who shushed me. He was holding a book along his shoulder in a way that suggested he was about to beat me with it. His eyes had the condescending vibe to go with it, but he merely walked by.

Plus there was that Bollywood star; the scary one. He could rip me to shreds if he wanted to, and based on that one threatening shoulder grab, I’d say he doesn’t like me all that much. I think. And that evil kid went and gave him reason to rip me to shreds! If I got hold of that little loud mouth and his little shoulders I’d wring him senseless till he understands the delicate nature of human life!

“I’m a single-soul species! I can’t afford to be expendable with it.”

“What?”

Shiz! I said that out loud!

“Oh, I mean. I really need this job… for my soul to… be happy. Aha”

The teenager behind the counter tilted his head away in slight recoil, making the mascot ears on his cap flop over. “… riiighht… well, uh, I’ll be sure to let our boss know... when she steps in.”

I sprawled my body across the lounge chair once I reached it. Ugh, I’m exhausted! I flung my head back and ripped through my Ferret King Fajita.

I really don’t belong there. Their business seemed like serious business, if they were all sell-souls I wonder if that meant they could all fight like Axel. Could they self-heal their wounds too? Were they constantly doing the kind of things that would give them injuries to heal? What if they were all murderers or something? I tried picturing the body-builder and the pig tailed girl with twisted, diabolical smiles on their faces as they held a bloodied weapon… it wasn’t hard to imagine, but I wish I didn’t imagine it.

*click* I blinked at the upside down view of a phone camera lens staring at me. Did someone just … take my picture? While I had a half-eaten fajita in my mouth?

I rose my head off the back of the lounge chair and turned around, still blinking in a daze at the lens and the stranger holding it.

“…?” I gawked.

“Your that girl on the internet. The one that started a pillow fight with the news reporters.” At the mention of the word internet, a few fellow Ferret-king eavesdroppers started peering in on this one sided conversation. Seeing that I was still trying to process the photography session, the boy tapped around on his phone before spinning it around and showing me. “See, you’re a meme.”

To my horror, the image on his device was a picture of my wild angered face, with bulging eyes and coloured feathers in my hair and in the air. The caption underneath said – in a bold, capitalized font, “SPIDDLES: TASTE THE [censored] RAINBOW!!!”

I evolved from a gif to a meme. Game over. The life of Rei Zykophona ends here. Now I’ll forever be a cyberspace tourist attraction.

A sudden shift of phone-shuffling movements spread all around us as people began to verify my identity from their phones. Eyes were flicking from me to their screens like strobe lights. As if realizing I was standing in a pit of hungry hyenas, I reached for my soft drink as slowly as I could. Somebody’s chair scraped away from their table and I treated it like a track and field bullet sound. I was outta there. I felt the video cameras on me like sniper lasers. I didn’t look back as I burst out of the shop.

Before I knew it I was skidding and panting into a monorail surrounded by people pretending not to notice me. I don’t know if anyone tried chasing me this far out, but either way, I didn’t want to stick around long enough for someone to create another meme.

I made a final obnoxious sigh. I don’t think Axel would want a psycho like me for a friend. I should keep my distance, I mentally told the map in my hand. Sorry Kaia…

#TaintedTracks

I had these thoughts no longer than 20 minutes ago… five minutes before I got off the monorail, eight minutes before I stepped in those little pods that sent you down to ground level, and 15 minutes before I found Kugo’s street. So then why… somebody please tell me why!? Why, oh why, on earth, was I standing in front of their music store [I still need a name] You’re weak Rei! So weak! What happened to all that self-control you displayed this morning!!! I heard the little – ding dururu-ring – jingle that played whenever their front door opened.

Oh. That was me.

“Ah! Rei-chan~ Glad to have you back so soon, how was your day?” A hand caught the back of my head while a nervous smile smacked my face. Why do I do this to myself?

“Oh, Y’know, same old, same old” I roamed closer to the counter – trying my best not to get distracted by the music equipment all around. Kaia laid down the pen and paper she was holding. On closer inspection I noticed she’d been playing Sudoku.

“Hmmm,” she analyzed me with that unreadable smile of hers and nodded. “Are you here to play with my son again, or perhaps to buy something?” I tried to avoid addressing the ‘play with my son’ part.

“Aha, to be honest I was out looking for a job today, so I should probably land one before I buy anything here.”

“Oh you’re looking for a job? You can work here if you’d like.”

“Yea, my full day was spent searching for one. Nowadays, I’m just applying every-… “ I felt my eyebrows scrunch together. “ every-… evuh-…” I couldn’t finish this sentence. I felt like I misheard something and I couldn’t confirm this theory because she immediately started writing on a sticky note after she said what I misheard. “huh? Sorry, what?” I blinked.

“You can work here if you’d like.” She repeated my hallucination and stuck her sticky to the front of the desk. It read, while she said: “‘We’re hiring’… Can’t promise you minimum wage though with all the hungry mouths I feed, but maybe somewhere under that.”

My jaw might dislocate from the shock she was giving me. I couldn’t do anything other than stare at her. I’ve never been offered a job before. The casual tone didn’t help; it made me feel as though my mind was just creating the dubs I wanted to hear over the foreign words she was really saying. But she repeated it, so the only comprehensible reason I heard this a second time was that the Kaia in front of me was a robot and the store I walked into was a simulation.

“You seem to be having trouble swallowing this.” She noticed. “If it helps you sleep at night you can hand in your rezu-chip, but let’s be honest here, I’m probably not gonna read it. As for an interview, you mainly won me over yesterday, but I guess I’ll still need to figure out your strengths and stuff… ”

My left eye may or may not have been twitching at this stage of disbelief. “Wait, wait… wait you can’t just- just hire me like that!”

She gave me a frown of disappointment, “Huh? Why not?”

“Well, be-because, you don’t really- fully- know me!”

“Oh, that’s all? You’re still hung up on that?” Her calculating smile returned to nestle against intertwined fingers, “I let you sleep in my household without ‘fully’ knowing you. I also fed you pancakes without ‘fully’ knowing you, and entrusted you with the super, ultra-important, and rather successful, mission of coming back here – without fully knowing you. I don’t need to know you in order to force my trust on- put my trust in you.” I must have misheard something there.

“Besides, I don’t think you realize how rare it is for people to get along with my son. There’s an age old saying: if you can befriend a sell-soul then you’ve got one hell of a soul… or was it swell soul?”

“So this is real?”

“As real as you want it to be, yeah.” The front door jingle buzzed me out of my daze. I turned around to see some guy, and possibly his son, walk in. “Reginald! It’s been a while!” Exclaimed Kaia, she looked back to me quickly. “Rei-chan, why don’t you go out back and ask Axel for an interview. Just follow the path.”

The next moment she was back to addressing her customers. “And this must be Reginald junior.” I made my escape to the hallway past her desk. The idea of being introduced by Kaia to a customer scared me somehow.

In the distance, I thought I heard the man say: “Kaia how many times do I have to tell you my name isn’t Reginald.” But that couldn’t be right; I must have misheard that too.

I continued down the hall. The lively memory of Kaia’s household made the current house seem dead. She said he was out back – as in outside – but why would he be outside? I did what I was told and went through the back sliding door, passing that living space where terribly embarrassing memories lurked, and gladly shutting the door behind me without dwelling upon any of it.

A deep breath later and I hopped down the little step on to cute panda-shaped stone islands embedded in an actual yard of grass, then-

I gawked upward. Trees. I stood in place and admired a mini forest of real, authentic tall oak trees. It was like stepping into a painting, red and orange star-shaped crinkle bits swayed both above me and along the ground. The scene made me realize it was fall. Living in the heart of the city of Ezveria made you forget those in-between seasons where buildings weren’t frosting and snowcapped or shining and sweating.

I hesitated further into the VR painting. The panda stones turned into a narrow peach-coloured road. Without looking at the path much, I journeyed down it, weaving and crunching through scattered leaves, brushing my fingers along the barks of trees, all while watching the sky and tripping over whatever was (or wasn’t) on the ground. I think the only thing that kept me on the right track was the occasional collision I made with an off-track branch or hedge. I didn’t mind walking into them, the bark smelled of forgotten nature and the bushes sometimes held pretty flowers. I’m sure Mother Nature minded though.

When I emerged from the forest, I thought for sure I’d gotten lost, but the first person I found myself staring at was a certain familiar kid eating a lollipop. He was sitting in the grass at a slight incline. I kept blinking at him, whereas he didn’t look too surprised to see me. He opened and closed his fist at me. Was that supposed to be a wave? I narrowed my eyes. “…hhhhhhhhiii…?” my greeting was stretched by confusion and left unfinished by awkwardness.

It’s not that I didn’t like children, I was just, extremely wary of them, especially this one. There was a time in my past when I had worked with kids. I was fired shortly after for trying to force a child to accept their rightful punishment for eating everyone’s dessert cookies. There were several similar occurrences, but for this particular instance, the child’s parents were present; I thought it’d be a good idea to display how they should be correcting their child. This was a mistake, I know this now.

This kid was a bit different from the children I remember. Actually, a lot different, were his eyes always that bright? He looked away from me and back to a bird he was playing with who hopped around in front of him.

“Axel is over there.” He pointed without looking. I felt like this kid posed a bigger threat than most children. I frowned and followed his finger.

“AAHH!!” I yelled.

In the closest clearing, I saw that Hulk-man completing a full-swing jump attack towards Axel. In his bulky hands were two swords that looked something like mini claymores, one had multiple prongs that jutted out of the slashing side and curved towards the tip, the other was a bit wider with a jagged saber edge. Axel rolled out of the way at the last second and clumps of dirt flew up behind him. Axel had his usual sell-soul sword phone in hand, but other than that he was defenseless. There was no arrow-proof vest equipped, no plate of armor, no helmet, no magical soul-y barrier thingy; no nothing. He was dancing around with these short claymores in the hands of a suddenly psychopathic Bollywood star. He was giving Axel such a hard time that he barely had time to block or dodge.

This disaster was occurring right in front of this kid’s bright hazel eyes and all he decided to do was lick a lollipop and tease some bird. Meanwhile, here I was, torn between nervously flinching at every near miss from Axel’s circle of combat, and fighting the desperate urge to search for help. I wanted to help, I wanted to scream for help, but I didn’t want to distract him. The last time I was involved in Axel’s fight, he got injured, and it was quite possibly a needless injury, thanks to me.

#TaintedTracks