Rising Shards

“I’m sorry, that was…” I said, feeling warm. “Really embarrassing.”

“It’s not your fault,” Oka said. “I’m just glad I caught you before we ended up here.”

I looked around. A dimly lit hallway made of stone, with ankle deep water running through it.

“We’re in the void, right?” I asked. “How?”

“Well, sometimes after a first trip it is possible that we can ‘blink’ back,” Oka said. “If we’re distressed, or…you were feeling out of it right?”

I nodded.

“I could kinda tell,” Oka said. “You zipped out of class pretty quickly. I thought maybe bathroom emergency, but my gut said otherwise.”

“I don’t know what that was.” I said. “I thought I was going to pass out. Or puke. I just had to get out of there.”

“Maybe it was a panic attack,” Oka said. “Was it from that movie? That opening song was kinda freaky.”

Oka was exactly right, but not for the reasons she thought. I knew what it was from. Jeans. But how could I explain that? I just met Oka like a few weeks ago. We were friends, but how could I just tell her stuff that I couldn’t even tell Stella?

“We should just try to find a way back,” I said. “Which is…how do we do that here?”

Oka pinged through her wristband. “No connection, so we can’t jump back even if we wanted to here. I think we have to find a safe spot for that. At least we have an excuse if they say we cut class!”

“Isn’t there like an emergency thing we can do on our wristbands?” I asked. “Or do those not have connections either?”

“No good.” Oka said. “But we’re not in immediate danger unless you’re allergic to something in here.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s just go.”

Oka held her hand out. “You’re still shaking, so I can help you walk if you need it.”

“I can walk,” I said. “Thanks, though.”

We walked down the hallway. It turned left at the end of it, and the water there poured into a grate. Past that was something completely different, a larger room. Like the old building we went in to go into the void.

“Oh, I see where we are!” Oka said. “I think. This is good!”

“Where is this? Are we back at the main station thing?”

“We’re in our shared temple.” Oka said.

“Shared…?” I asked as I noticed the six doors. Each had a statue above them. “This is that one near the tree?”

“Yep!” Oka said. “These used to be called a Tormentament, but that’s considered crude. Basically, they pulled something from each of our minds when we went into the void and collated it here so we can train to fight specific leveled void monsters.”

Oka’s statue caught my eye first. It looked just like her. Somehow this place captured her personality in stone.

“See there’s Kalei, Laenie, Aira, Lillia, me, and…” Oka trailed off.

Mine was different than the others. I probably should have screamed, but I felt distant again. The statue of me above my door what pale while the others looked like regular statue metals.

My eyes were gaping holes, and the statue was bleeding from them. Statue me stared down with an odd grin. My fangs were bigger, and I was bleeding from the spots I bit on my lip too. I looked like I belonged in whatever a Tormentament was.

“Oh! I got a connection!” Oka said, turning away from my statue and immediately calling Dr. Diast. Staring at the call on her screen was enough to pry my eyes away from the nightmare me above my door. “Dr. Diast! We’re in a bit of a sticky situation here.”

There was a brief moment of static.

“You’re in the void? Why are you in the void?” Diast asked.

“I think we’re in the shared temple,” Oka said. “We’re by some doors with statues of us in a…temple-esque place.”

“Damn it, they weren’t supposed to pull those without telling us…” Diast said.

“Pulling our…minds?” I asked. “Who is?”

Diast sighed.

“The headmaster of Wildfire Hearts oversees this part of void training for all the schools in the area. They must have grabbed your blood samples and mental scans already and didn't tell me. Damn that Cloudy Eye…”

Wildfire Hearts. Another bad thought.

“So what do we do? Can you get us out?” I asked.

“This is level 1, right? So we shouldn’t have any big monsters…?” Oka asked.

“Yes, it’s level 1 where you are, and no. This was supposed to happen in the Jump Fifteen protocol, but it something must have triggered it early for you two.”

I didn’t say anything, and Oka didn’t rat me out.

“If you can clear whatever that blockage is, that’ll make the connection clear enough to…”

Diast’s voice crackled and cut out.

“Dr. Diast?” Oka asked. “We can’t hear…”

“…at least one of the doors should be open. It’s gonna get a little freaky, and it’ll probably suck to go through it, Jump Fifteens are unpredictable and tend to be heavily vision based. “Have you had any like weird visions or anything?”

“No, it’s just been us in here.” I said. “Unless…one of us is a void creation…”

“Not possible, sorry.” Diast said. “I can see both of you on my tracker thing. Just know that nothing in there can hurt you physically. They’re also called ‘Memory Trials,’ and you’ll see why in a second. You just have to go through the door that’s unlocked.”

“Does Oka need to?” I asked, knowing which door it’d be. “Isn’t it safer for her to stay?”

“No, Oka’s perfect for this, she’s been a Cani longer. She’ll be more stable in there. Just try calling me if you run into anything really bad. I’ll tell Kalei what’s going on so she doesn’t worry. And also don’t worry about whatever class you were in.”

“It’s OK, Zeta,” Oka said. “I can handle it.”

I knew she could, but if it was my door, I didn’t know if I could handle her seeing whatever was behind it.

“I’m heading to my void watchy station now,” Diast said. “If there’s an emergency just call, but if the connection goes out just try to muscle through it.”

Diast hung up. I went to try the Kalei, Aira, Laenie, and Lillia doors, but they were all locked. I wasn’t surprised.

“Mine’s locked too,” Oka said.

“Great, so through the fun nightmare me door,” I said, my voice starting to quiver again. I didn’t want to have another freak out in front of Oka. She was a close friend already, but this was a level of vulnerable I was not prepared for.

“I’ll be with you, we’ll get through this.” Oka said.

Oka had a concerned but supportive look on her face. It made me about 13.5% more willing to try whatever it is that laid beyond my door. We stepped over the dripping blood of my statue, and I grabbed the handle of the door.

There were rows of chairs. At the end of them was a stage with a lone spotlight on it. I hated this already.

“The play is now seating.” My voice said from somewhere around us. A ticket taker booth appeared before us, and there was a me in there in a full uniform.

“Wow, you actually make the fake mustache work, Zeta,” Oka said, being way too chill for the circumstances.

“Oka Ohri?” Ticket Taker Zeta said. She had a really crappy fake accent which I recognized because it was the crappy fake accent I would do if I was pretending to be a ticket taker with a fake mustache, which I did do at least once to Stella when she got home from work. “You are seated at 105. Best seat in the house. Please take your seat now.”

Ticket Taker Zeta handed her her ticket, and Oka was shooed away. Ticket Taker Zeta held me so I couldn’t follow.

“Now, we saved a special seat for our guest of honor,” She said. “Please, follow me.”

“I’d rather sit by…” I said. “Oka…”

But I was now far away from her. It was hardly a guest of honor special seat. I was already in my chair, and I couldn’t move. I could see the back of Oka’s head, but that was about it.

Another me walked out on stage. There was an orchestra seated below the stage that began tuning their instruments.

“Welcome all! This is the inaugural performance of The Summers of Zeta Faleur.”

“Oh no,” I whispered. “No no no…”

Oka couldn’t see this. I knew it’d be this, but this felt so much worse actually confirming it.

“Please silence your cell phones and enjoy the show!” 

The full band of me’s took their place in the chamber pit as emcee me bowed. I wanted to run as they tuned their instruments, but I couldn’t get up. I was an audience member of a play I never wanted to see again. 

The stage began to morph and change, and it was like I had time travelled two years back in a dream. I began to feel more dreamlike as well, feeling sleepy as I watched. Maybe Oka would sleep through it too. Maybe it wouldn’t go over everything. Maybe it’d somehow skip all the really bad parts that led to my particularly traumatic summer.