17: ANOTHERSIDES
//
11:54 A.M. // 10 - 23 - 2023 // Arc - Mall
Starring Reyenal Ato
Featuring Serene Goldwin and Cedrance Manamune
//
The noon sun was overbearing as always, but sunscreen and sweating were the least of my worries. I sat on the bench under the shade of a tree. A couple of students, probably juniors who didn’t have a morning period or something, passed by me from the opposite direction of the entrance, deeper into the mall. There in each of their hands, a plastic cup, each a different green and brown with little black blobs on the bottom, ice floating at the top and the recognizable logo of a dog on the side. I recognized them immediately; that was my life blood.
Boba.
To be specific, it was boba from the Shiba place Zen worked at, which was where those guys had come from. I was more than just a regular there. That boba shop was probably where most of my excess points were being funneled to.
Suddenly, I was craving some tea.
I stood up from the bench and was washed in the heat of the sun as I stepped out of the shade to the left, and then back into more shade beneath the extended roofing of the mall buildings hugging the buildings on the right side. Dismissively I walked away from the Royal Blue Bakery, the building which I had been sitting, uh, well, camping, in front of. I could probably make it back in time to meet up with Cedrance.
My stroll sped to a pace, and then a light jog. Stores left and right, an artifact shop, cafés, small but chic clothing brands, none of which were called Shiba Tea Shoppe… until I turned the bend finally gave me sight to the biggest and most crowded part of the mall: Mall Centre.
Because lunch break was only beginning for most of the freshmen, most of the people, which was a lot of people, were my upperclassmen, or however I was supposed to refer to them given I was probably older than them in real life. In the smack-dab center was a huge fountain of water, a large and polished figure of the Arc logo dribbling water down its side into the basin, occasionally spraying out into a thin mist in the area around the fountain. There were lights at the bottom that accentuated all of its already grandiose and water spraying around in a symmetrical pattern, not to mention all of the coins at the bottom of the fountain. But I wasn’t here for the fountain… there it was.
Past the fountain and on the corner next to a charming kebab shop and an adjacent street, the Shiba Tea Shoppe was easily the highlight boba joint in the whole mall. It was kind of impressive to me how Zen had managed to land a job there. There was already a short line by the time I had walked the distance to the shop, short meaning poking out of the shop. On a normal day there were people snaked all the way around the corner, and then back to the front, following the poles and ropes the employees had set up.
I checked my watch for a quick second.
[October 23, Monday, 11:57 A.M.]
Promptly, I turned off the watch.
Better not to look.
However, the customer service also never ceased to surprise me; it only took around a minute or two to make it to the front of the line, in the beautiful air-conditioned interior with that beautiful homemade-boba smell, and by then I made my order, a Strawberry-Citrus Green Tea with grass jelly and 80% sweetness. Literally perfect for a hot day like today.
Another minute later, the girl at the counter called my order’s number and I retrieved the drink. Thanking her habitually, I took my cup, and then began booking it back to the Royal Blue Bakery.
I was most definitely late for a meetup that I had set. Weaving past the growing crowd of students and island residents, I didn’t forget to shake the cold cup, even though my past experience as a barista told me I probably didn’t need to do that. Only until I finally got out of the Mall Center and into the First Street did I stop for a second to cleanly stab the straw into the aluminum cover, straying to the center of the street to drop the paper straw wrapper into a trash can.
—kaLING KLING
It only took me another moment to walk to the Royal Blue Bakery, and as I opened the door the scent of baked goods flooded my nose, the breeze of air conditioning sucking me inside along with the little jingle from a clattering chime. Buttery pastries, freshly baked breads, brunch options, yummy cake pops, even specially made muffins lined the display cases at the front. The door leading to the room where all of the baking magic happened was ajar, and I could see two people walking around, flitting into and out of appearance. However, someone else caught my attention even more.
Usually, the bakery was empty of customers due to the competition and their take-and-leave culture, but today there was someone there, and a notable person at that. Sitting at one of the tables, the one just a table away from the register, a girl turned around to look at me. An absolutely pretty face, her lopsided black shirt hanging off of her shoulder juxtaposing a beige bra strap wrapped on the lower layer, similarly beige and snug arm covers to protect her from sunburns. Even on this horrifically hot day, the girl somehow managed to rock on some light jeans, each color of her clothes added wonders to her stunningly silky and brown-ish hair, a pair of sunglasses resting on her head like a fashionable crown.
“Dude, are you a model?” I muttered beneath my breath.
The girl didn’t respond to me, and just stared at me uncomfortably with a slightly inquisitive look.
I glanced at her table and saw nothing on it. “Hey,” I said, louder this time, “if you want to get something, just ring the bell on the counter. They’re really nice here.”
I couldn’t get the feeling that I should know this person out of my head. Other than that was the feeling of the uncomfortableness of her presence. Because this store was so empty, that was why I wanted to bring Cedrance here for a quick talk. Knowing his popularity, the location of the Royal Blue Bakery, and its culture, this was pretty much the only option I had.
But it wasn’t like I could force her to leave.
The watch told me that Cedrance was a minute late, and I took my time walking over to the counter next to the girl, scrolling through my Insta feed, and then rang the bell.
—CHIII…
—CHI-CHIIII…
From the back a guy yelled, “Be right with you in a moment!”
I abruptly stopped scrolling, and found myself caught in complete shock. All of my muscles tensed up as the ring of a bell from behind signaled someone coming in.
—kaLING KLING
A photo of the girl that was sitting at the table just behind me. In it, a knockout-handsome guy standing beside her, a hint of blue in his neat but stylish hair to accent his captivating ocean eyes, standing taller than her and yet holding her close to him as her head leaned against his toned arms. They both had genuine smiles, a bit of light syrup still on the corner of the girl’s cheek, a paper bag hanging from the guy’s hand, his other hand linked with the girl.
The caption read:
[aren’t these two so cute together?? #Arc #Wholesome #CEDxSERENE #Cedrene #Sereced]
I kept myself strong, so that I wouldn’t turn back. I had a feeling that I had an appointment with the person who had just walked through the door, and as well as an idea on who the girl was and why she was here.
The door to the kitchen was pushed open by a nice-looking guy in a blue apron, “Sorry for the wait, ma’am… Reyenal?” He glanced at the girl behind me, and then the person who had just come in, and his jaw dropped.
Before he could say something to get on my nerve, I politely reminded him, “Please keep yourself professional.”
“Uh-ahh,” the guy said dumbly while still staring at them, and then looked back at me pitifully. “So sorry—”
“Can I get a half-dozen Signature Cookies?” I inputted, keeping my face up. “That would be it for me.”
He nodded his head slowly, and then snapped back into reality in the next second. “Y-yes, Rey—ma’am…—”
He was interrupted by the person who had just come in “And can I get two slices of dulce de leche?”
“Please, make that two separate—”
“Make those separate orders.”
Perplexedly I turned to look at Cedrance, and it quickly became a stare. He was everything like I had seen in the photo, and just a bit more. And… how tall was he? How tall was I, really? From the angle I was at, the most I could see was… his glare?
Oh, God, why was he looking at me like that? Did I kill his mother or something?
I wracked through my brain to find a way to say something, but found myself stumped.
I never thought I was ever going to need to use that again.
========================
Guides(3)//Options:
Answer
Memory
Overtake
Will you use a Guide?
Yes//No
========================
========================
Option 1) “The **** are you looking at? Go. Go sit down with your honey-booboo, I don’t mind entertaining a doomed romance. I may have words for her as well.”
Option 2) “Dip****. Tell her to leave, I only have business with you. And you, Serene, don’t worry. I won’t even try to take him from you.”
Option 3) “Serene. Your boyfriend is giving me such a scandalous look. What do you think?”
Stolen story; please report.
========================
I hesitated for a second. What really was my relationship with this guy?
With no completely safe option, I opted for the third one. I would rather maintain my relationship with him the way it was than risk throwing off whatever story was at play, or at least that was my illogical rationale.
My mouth opened automatically, and I could feel my facial expression shift, as well as the tone of my voice turning a little bit more serious. And hateful. “Serene. Your boyfriend is giving me such a scandalous look. What do you think?”
“No,” Cedrance said back in the same tone, “Reya is just seeing things.”
I caught the emphasis on my name, and the little smirk in the corner of his lips, and figured that there was indeed a correct way to respond to what him. I had just started a little war between him, and I was going to see it through. Whether I won or not was all dependent on the guy in front of me.
Well, actually, winning was only a secondary objective. I just wanted some information on this guy, and if he was in Overtake mode or something, like seriously, back off man, who hurt you?
“You riiiight,” I shrugged my shoulders, completely neutralizing the tense mood as well as returning back to my regular persona. Reyenal was going to be too hard to impersonate. She was too angry, and for what?
As long as I didn’t know, I couldn’t continue on as her.
Cedrance raised his eyebrow, almost suspiciously as I brushed past him and over to the register, giving a little smile to the slightly stunned guy behind the counter.
“Sorry about that, man.” I tapped up my watch, “I’ll pay with points.” I turned back to smile at Cedrance, Serene looking back and forth at us like a tennis match. Her own expression, unlike the one that I was suppressing, was relatively even and still that same face she had made to me earlier.
“Next time, blue boo, take a lesson from your girl and wait in line when someone else is ordering.” I watched his face slightly loosen with an oh-so-hot blush, and stop, my poor emotions, stop! He’s not mine, I am a good person, I am no Miss Steal-Your-Man!
I tried to hide my screaming brain with an amused puff. “Serene, give him a good tug at his arm next time he goes on like this, a’right? We don’t need any… morons who don’t know how a lines work, in… huh?”
The itsy bitsy hairs on my arm stood up seeing both of them turn a cherry tomato red, Serene crossing her arms slowly while tapping her finger rapidly against her elbow, steam rising from her head, while Cedrance pulling his eye contact away from me and towards Serene, never able to land on her as if his eyes couldn’t handle the heat.
This **** was something out of a romance novel.
…
A few moments later, the cookies were in my hand, the slice of cake on the table, and it was just me, Cedrance, and Serene.
“So,” Serene cut through the awkwardness as well as her slice of cake with a fork, “why did you message Cedrance here?” We girls gave each other the look, and she understood as I shook my head. I still couldn’t get over how astutely beautiful she looked, and almost elegant but unruly air as she stuffed her face with the cake. Looks could never define a woman better than the way she ate her cake.
My eyes lingered on her. I definitely knew who she was, pretty high ranked for an unawakened, as well as a never-before-seen gun user. To be honest, she was also a very suspicious person.
Cedrance sneakily swept off a little bit of cream off her lip with his pinky finger and licked it off. He was in his own world, now. Surprisingly, his mood changed so easily: one second giving me a death glare, the next blushing like a plum, the next being cutesy with his girlfriend. But then his eyes strayed over to me as Serene flinched at his touch. He nodded his head, both slightly aware of his overheating darling and more so of the question she had given me.
Now, how was I going to do this?
“Well, it’s more or less… to ask you guys a question.” It was only supposed to be towards Cedrance, but now that Serene was here, it wouldn’t hurt to ask her as well. As long as I phrased it right. “Cedrance, let’s keep it civil. Your girlfriend is watching.”
“... right.” Cedrance glanced over at her, and she, still blushing, nodded her head as if she knew what I was talking about. So she wasn’t clueless.
“What’s the question.” He phrased it more in the way of a demand than a question, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t care because my dignity, pride, and literally my safety were on the line with this question.
But I wasn’t going to beat around the bush. Maybe it would be better to act as Reyenal for this.
“What if I told you guys that people from another world have taken over some peoples’ bodies, and that I was one of them?”
//
3:37 P.M. // 10 - 23 - 2023 // Danken Caves Dungeon
Starring Serene Goldwin
Featuring Jun, Fanny, and Serene Goldwin
//
“I need the light!”
“O-on it!” She was clearly struggling.
—POOHK POOHK POOHK PAHHH POOHK!!
“C’mon, Jun!”
“I-I’m trying—”
—POOOHK PAHH PAHH PAHHH
—EEEEEEE
“I can’t see them!”
—PAHH PAHH
—TKK TKK TKK
“I’m out! Fanny, can you do it?!”
“I-I have Jun!”
“****!”
“****…”
—SCREEEEEEE
—Clack, clack, chhk
—REEEEEEE!!
“W-Watch out!”
In a terrifying moment I sensed a goblin that had gotten way too close to me as I was reloading, and freaked out. I leaped with the agility of a monkey backwards, kicking something with my flailing legs and falling, slamming into Jun and Fanny’s warm bodies.
Their grunts of pain were the last thing I heard before all of my senses suddenly shut off.
…
And then I could see again. It was a void of colors, greens, browns, blues, black, golds, reds, and a horizon of more.
I tried for air, but nothing, and suffocated… but it didn’t hurt. In fact, I couldn’t feel my clothes, or my body, no beating heart which I was so keenly aware of, nor any signs of life.
I couldn’t even count the passing seconds, because I simply wasn’t there…
…
The momentum of my impact sent the three of us tumbling to the ground, Jun crying out in pain as we crashed down.
There was sound all around us. Explosions in the distance, shocking me to my very core. Thunderous noises, screaming, and voices, all somewhere not too far away. Scraping nylon and fabrics against tough fibers and grasses, panting and slamming and buzzing and screeching and dying.
There were also smells. The smell of nickels and pennies, rusting metal and dust and dirt, nature’s blood and human blood and the salty smell of the sea and sweat. Sterilized bandages and decaying bodies and spoiling food, there was a distinct scent of canned peaches.
I quickly pulled myself off of Jun, in utter confusion to the sudden change in stimuli. A large military tent, with dozens of seats around a table, dimly lit with a lantern hanging from the top. There were patches and holes all over, barely holding the tent together. Provisions and boxes were also scattered everywhere, piling up to the top. Fanny, too, reacted violently, but to something else, and she began breathing quickly, her eyes flickering back and forth between me and something else behind us. I turned to see what she was looking at and my heart stopped.
There a woman was, in a camouflage uniform, from a hat down to boots, sitting in a dented and rusty foldable metal chair, dark circles under her eyes. She looked almost drained of all her life and energy, like a hag her arms hung down and her head was barely up, almost a corpse of the beautiful person that she evidently once was. Her hair was hastily cut short, her pretty features dirtied with soot and dried mud as was the rest of her uniform.
She was staring straight at me.
I had no clue how to react. I didn’t know if I should have reacted at all, but then she weakly pulled up a gun from her holster. My surprise was short lived, replaced by fight-or-flight. Beneath me Jun trembled in agony as I shot up to my feet and aimed the gun in my hand at her face.
“Gun down!” I yelled at her. Fanny made a small noise, but I ignored her. The woman’s vacant expression shifted, indicating that she heard me, and she put the gun onto her lap as a sign of peace.
Not knowing what to say or do next, the woman started first. Her voice was so small. “W-we need help. What year?”
Fanny spoke up with a high and terrified voice, “What do you mean, what year?! It was bright all of a sudden, and now we’re here, in some warzone, where are we? Who are you?!”
The woman looked over to Fanny, and then to Jun, scanning them up and down. Her eyes brightened a little, but noticing his injury, her back slumped to the side. She was clearly also in the same, if not a much worse agony than he was.
Her next words were a mumble. “Arc. Dud.”
I squinted. “And what is that supposed to mean? Talk, or I’ll shoot you. Say something!”
She looked so sad, so pitiful and so helpless. The woman gave a little sigh, and then a painful breath, and then heaved. And my eyes widened as she spoke. “Serene of an unknown year, I hereby name you the 1045th. What you experienced was the World’s Convergence. This is my report… do well to remember it: I am the 55th Serene. The year is 2035. Catalyst has taken over more than 80% of the overlands, and dungeons have overflown. The Harbingers are all dead, monsters and demons are everywhere. Arc is on its final stand; an estimated 200 unawakened people are still alive. It’s the apocalypse.”
I didn’t dare to interrupt her, but I fell down onto my bottom, shaking violently. This woman was me. She was Serene Goldwin. There existed more versions of Serene. Jun, too, was at attention, no longer whimpering in pain, rather he gripped onto my finger tightly. What was going on?
Serene coughed harshly, and then gasped for another breath as I held my own. “A-and Ced. He is now the official leader of the Ardency, on the fields right now, fighting back hordes of fallen angels. He doesn’t know that I am about to die. And the Visionaire has finally revealed his true identity, but I won’t mess with your timeline too much. Just… trust him. Don’t even try to prevent the First Scene, lest this be the fate of the world.”
For a moment, everyone was stunned to the floor. Clearly, this woman… the 55th Serene was asking nothing of us and expected nothing from us, even if every evidence earlier had suggested otherwise. Her face was set with determination now.
“Before W-world’s Convergence runs out, I will give you all some advice, as you are all no help right now.”
She faced us with no particular eye on anyone, maybe staring past us. “Fanny. Try your best to stay away from Junseo. It is for your own good.”
I couldn’t catch Fanny’s reaction as the 55th continued slowly, “Junseo. Make your mother’s dreams come true. This way, you might be able to catch the Visionaire’s attention faster.”
Jun flinched violently, and I immediately had questions, but Serene didn’t stop. Her voice was fading more. “Jun, unfortunately, I do not remember their names, but make sure Red and Blue die. You must kill them silently. The apocalypse is partly their fault.”
“And finally, me from my Arc years. I have a lot to say.” I nodded my head, and grasped at her hand like she was about to die. “Tell me.”
She looked down at me, and gave me a grim smile. “Accept your situation. Love Cedrance, and make him stop searching for revenge. And when you find the truth… bury it. Let the murderer live.”
I was so confused and conflicted.
“If you find a girl named Gwen Olynn, ask her for a jacket, and give her a hug. She needs it.” She lifted her finger up to Fanny and Jun. “Maybe you two could help with this, but she is a wary girl. Trust me. She is vital for the world.”
I nodded my head, furiously trying to remember the name that I knew I would eventually forget. “Avil, Avil, Avil…” I knew that name. Cedrance’s best friend. “Encourage him, yes, but never let him search for his feelings. And if I had a say, Gwen isn’t the one for him. Make sure he grows strong.”
“Avoid all the guilds that want you. The same goes for you two, and Ced. Do not trust any guide except The Shepherd of Souls. I still don’t even know her name. And the Bloodhound, Nolan Faust… you know him well… fear that man. And Reya. Let her know she’s on the right track, if she ever asks you. I still remember that day… the other Ato, leave him be.”
I instantly recalled the conversation I had with her just earlier today, but I didn’t interrupt the 55th, who kept going.
“This one is very important. Keep your eyes on a boy named Dean Harvest. He will become the Harbinger of Calamity…” Serene spoke with great difficulty. “Make sure he stays on this path… You will know if you find his grandmother dead…”
I stood up. “Serene? Are you okay?”
“I know, honey… take… the gun…” Serene was completely spaced out, and to my horror, began slumping even more in her chair, but I was locked still in fear as she, with the last of her strength, put the gun into my hand, my own gun clattering to the ground, “the last thing you need to know… pray… you don’t… meet… the 2nd…”
And suddenly, I was taken back to the void. This time, there were no colors.