Kailus
Third Week of January
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“And that’s what happened,” I told them.
“That’s it? Come on, please tell us more!” Kemia exclaimed as she beamed interested eyes at me.
“The entity disappeared after I freaked out on the morning of the third day. We stayed in the sleeping quarters for the rest of the week, but it didn’t reappear,” I said.
“Poor floating spirit.” Kemia frowned. “It probably wanted to play, but was denied that opportunity.”
Lyviria, centered between the two girls, turned to console her. “I’m sure the spirit is doing well. It most likely showed itself to Kai because of his loving nature, otherwise it wouldn’t cry in front of him or in his dream.”
“How did it look like?” Notemi asked, unmoving since the story ended.
“Looked like a translucent, human man. It had a faint coloration on their skin and clothes while their edges dimly glowed. Nothing unordinary besides its ability to float, go through walls, and disappear.”
Notemi let out a forceful sigh that briefly lifted her bangs. “Just a typical ghost from ghost stories, huh?”
“I thought the supernatural entity was going to be more unbelievable,” Laizen said beside me, a voice cold and cutting. “But then you started shouting the names of people—what was that about?”
“Like I said, the painful emotions of the prisoners seemed to etch themselves in the air and made it incredibly dense. Seamus and I felt it, and I’m sure everyone else here would notice the change in atmosphere. It’s like walking into the sun’s rays after taking a cold bath—you can’t miss it," I firmly told them. “As for the names of the people, I don’t know what happened. I stopped restraining myself from feeling the atmosphere and thoughts came flooding into me. I shouted whatever came to my mind without a second thought.”
“You think it has something to do with the supernatural?” Laizen asked.
“In my village, we talked about our ancestors watching over us,” Olma interjected with his drumming voice beside me. “The air of care and love always surrounded my family. I think Kai is experiencing the opposite. As a child, I heard stories where pain is recorded by the trees, rocks, and earth, and it sounds like Kai’s story.”
“It also relates to my training,” Lyviria added. “I became vulnerable to people’s pain during a healing process and adopted their thoughts and emotions, but Doctor Amy wants me to stop doing that because it causes unnecessary distraction.”
“I don’t know how emotions of the dead linger in the air, Kailus," Laizen said, circling fingers on his temples. "With living people, sure, you can feel their emotions in their vicinity. With dead people, you lost me there.”
“Laizen, I don’t know about you, but whenever I enter a hospital, a restaurant, or any building, I can sense that they are all different atmospheres,” Lyviria said, turning to face him. “Maybe to your mind, it would make more sense to see it as ‘reading the room’ or knowing whether it is the right place to do the right thing. Sometimes you feel that you can’t do certain things otherwise it would disturb the environment.”
Notemi chuckled, while I laughed, filling the vacant restaurant with deserved life. “You’re telling him he’s not right in the head!” I hollered.
“You might be adopting Laizen’s logic a bit too much,” Notemi added.
Lyviria smiled; keeping her tranquility and poise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it in that context; it was more of an explanation for him.”
“I get the point, and I wasn’t hurt until Notemi and Kailus twisted it to make it seem like a bad explanation,” Laizen said with an annoyed smirk.
“I don’t think the thoughts and emotions of others are bad,” Kemia said. “It’s how you make them out to be. Maybe Kai received some benefits from it.”
Her statement led everyone to look at me for a response. “Learning something from that experience? Uh… what did I learn? I don’t think I learned anything,” I told them. “At least nothing significant comes to mind besides experiencing the pre-integration emotion called loneliness.”
“Wait! Pre-integration emotion?” Laizen perked up. “You experienced mental illness?”
“Yes?” I answered him in confusion.
He returned a contemplative glare, searching for an answer in his forehead, then went back into his own intellectual bubble detached from reality. With that, the arrival of our lunch filled the table—its spices, warmth, and colors inviting my mouth to water.
I assumed Olma would be the most lively one during the meal because of his size, but Kemia’s ravenous and non-stop mouth finished her large plate in mere minutes. All of us halted our next mouthful and looked at her active chewing with bloated cheeks and listened to the sounds of her silverware clashing without care for our ears. Her oscillating yellow ponytail rhythmically followed her dipping head as she placed her lips on the edge of her plate, consuming every speck of nutrition and leaving the plate crystal clean. The fringes of her ponytail brushed Lyviria’s silver hair and triggered her giggles as she experienced the chaos first-hand.
When Kemia finished, she slouched back on the bench, but quickly realized there was no backrest, and flailed her arms to grip something for stability until Lyviria caught her back in reality. Kemia held her stomach and calmed. Probably realized how engorged she was for stuffing soup and a large meal of vegetables without a shred of care for the consequences. We all shared a laugh and took our time to finish our meals while she rested.
After expressing our gratitude to the restaurant staff, we walked together along the dirt path and cobbled pavement back to our homes. Olma and I took our shoes off and walked inside to see Seamus sitting on the floor of the living room, playing with the hologram projected from the metal bar that was hidden underneath the couch.
“We’re going back to prison,” Seamus told me.
“Same one?” I asked.
“Yep. Need to finish business with that one before moving onto the next stage.”
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Fourth Week of January
The next day, Seamus flew us back in his car lined with soft, white beams of light, landing on the same hill overlooking the gray-blocked prison. He shouldered our sleeping bags along the fenced perimeter and past the abandoned gate, reaching the cold, stone face of our entrance that matched the weather. Walking through the front door, the same slimy air of pain seeped like sludge into the slits and slots of my sleeves and pants.
Prior experience wasn't enough to stop the burdensome air stabbing and pricking my heart—it was the same haze that lingered around; the difference now being my ability to distinguish between atmosphere and self.
With smiles and banter, we ate on the first day in the same spacious cafeteria. When evening came, we slept, then woke undisturbed and continued our wait. And only until our second night did the same dream present itself once again.
Sobs of what I presumed came from the entity was more distant than my previous experience. Opening my eyes to leave the disorienting and saturated dream state, it took some time to adjust back to a bleak and dark reality. Slowly lifting my torso from my sleeping bag, the translucent, glowing figure huddled in the corner of the room, weeping as I had during my time here.
I carefully equipped my glasses, carefully pulled my legs out the cushion of the bag, and carefully crawled towards the crouching ghostly figure in the corner, which twitched at my approach. It quivered and wept as it turned its head and laid its sorrowful eyes upon me—the same human eyes Seamus and the rest of us Explorers had.
My curiosity questioned the origins of its sniffs and tears, since it had no physical body to maintain; but the closer I looked and listened, the more it seemed like it wasn't shedding any tears. I crawled closer. As if controlled by a large, invisible puppeteer, the entity jerked and stood up. I recoiled; keeping my wariness on its arms and legs and expressionless face.
At my sudden rustle, Seamus awoke and sat up. There was a brief pause to register the situation. The entity seemed to have restarted its emotional state after it noticed my prying into its crying.
“Easy now, Kailus,” Seamus said in a steady voice. I nodded as he stood and gently stepped towards the entity. The head of the ghost snapped to Seamus and both of them froze.
The entity's stoic gaze coupled with its statuesque, still form could've exorcised me; but despite his old age and frail body, Seamus smiled. The bald, ghostly head spread its own unnaturally wide smile with some missing ghostly teeth.
The abrupt and robotic stiffness the entity held melted away as it started punching the air in rapid succession; its mouth wide open creating a sound of an excited outcry. Seamus laughed along and I remained on all fours, hiding my confusion with a lopsided smile.
At first, I thought it was another dream, but the floor of the sleeping quarters felt cold and solid. I also had a sense of direction and nothing seemed disorienting. But when I looked at the apparition and the old man whose white skin shone in the dark room, sense-making their friendly interaction induced light-headedness.
There I saw a toned, ghostly male figure punching the air and shouting like a child, while Seamus just happened to wake up nonchalantly. “You gotta tell me what’s happening,” I said in the midst of their noise. “Why did it pretend to cry and be scared of me when it could pin both of us with its size?”
“It’s our reunion!” Seamus exclaimed. “And it cried because it wanted to draw you in without making you scared."
“And you know this even when it doesn't speak?” I asked, remaining still on my hands and knees.
“Forgot about my supernatural experience? A general rule they follow is—they never intend any harm towards anything. At its essence, supernatural entities like this one are drawn to curious people like yourself, and curious people are drawn to it. It's a mutual experience.”
The entity remained standing beside Seamus—its form less stiff and more loose and human-like. Its full, closed-lip smile showed care, and its eyes looked upon me with a loving acceptance that did not feel like it originated from the prison, inviting me to relax. I looked back at Seamus, now with questions bubbling to the forefront of my mind. “Can it not speak? What are its motivations for being here?”
“They cannot speak except through their actions,” Seamus replied. “As for its motivations, we’ll have to find out because they only show themselves to a select few people. You also need to remember that these entities were once human. Since it no longer has a body, they sort of go on autopilot and do their own thing—sometimes confined to places like these and other times they travel across the globe, not knowing who or what they are. And whatever they could not accomplish in their lifetime, they do so as an apparition, albeit very slowly.”
“I assume that’s where we come in? To speed up their process?”
“Yes.”
Picking myself up from my knees, I stood and faced Seamus. I guess the entity is also an old man considering the time period in which it came from. “What now?” I asked.
Seamus looked at the ghostly man as it lifted its legs from the ground and floated towards me, stopping before placing its palm on the center of its chest and bowed. Then it floated out through the door of the sleeping quarters and I looked at Seamus, who nodded and started following its direction.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
We followed it up a set of stairs directly next to the small apartment we slept in, walked onto the right side of a catwalk, and then into one of the many cells lining the second floor of the block containing a bunk bed. The ghostly man turned around to face us at the cell entrance, then nodded to Seamus.
“This was where it brought me last time. I don’t know what it wanted, but then it indicated it wanted to play. So we played tag and all sorts of things. It even tried to scare me or convince me to jump from tall heights. I came back every week and it was the same acrobatics this thing wanted me to do!” Seamus informed me.
The ghostly man nodded again and looked at me, gesturing me to stand inside the cell. I moved there with reluctance in my body, walking with weak legs like I was on an unstable platform and didn’t have the courage to disturb its balance. An upsurge of goosebumps was felt along my spine and I shivered at the thought of being next to an apparition. It moved to my position by the entrance of the cell and turned to face me, giving another nod.
I gazed with a puzzled tilt to my head, not understanding what it was implying and looked to Seamus for answers. He shrugged with a contorted face, signifying his confusion. Then the ghostly man floated out of the cell and we followed it down the stairs back to the ground floor, through the cell block entrance, and through the left hall by the front door.
We arrived at the cafeteria and it sat on one of the tables, then started to count its five fingers—each finger unfurling as the count increased. Once the index finger pointed to the pinky, it clenched its hands back into a fist and started counting again from the thumb, unfurling each finger in a clockwise fashion.
“What’s it counting for?” I asked, turning my head to Seamus’ contemplative gaze. He grasped his chin as he looked down at the seated apparition; repeating the same action of counting its fingers.
“Maybe it’s something we did?”
The ghostly man turned to Seamus and nodded, then pointed to me, prompting Seamus to turn. “Something Kailus did?” The ghostly man nodded again, and I attempted to recall what I did while its counting fingers continued its precise movements. What did I count?
“Oh! When we were sitting at this same table—he’s sitting in my chair and I was crying!” I hollered, my voice echoing in the emptiness of the cafeteria. “But I didn’t count anything?”
“You did, you forgetful child!” Seamus remarked, adding to the reverberations of the room. “Names! You were shouting names!”
The apparition nodded again and floated back into the hall where we came from. We followed it back through the ground floor cells and back up the stairs to the cell it initially showed us. The ghostly man greeted us at the cell’s entrance and nodded towards me again, pointing to the same spot where I stood.
When I got into position and turned to face both old men at the entrance, I gazed with the same feeling of confusion I had the first time. “What do I do?”
“Counting or names! It probably wants you to identify a name!” Seamus asserted.
“Wait, but that means I need to feel the loneliness again!” I yelled, feeling my body tense and prick.
The ghostly man looked to me with an expressionless face, then answered with a delayed nod. Seamus let out a sigh with hands around his black-robed waist and then scratched his frizzled white hair. “Gotta do what you gotta do; or we won’t find out its motivations. I know you’re more than capable of handling this.”
I still felt the haze, which wanted to find its grasp around my heart, and only prevented from doing so because of my unwillingness to succumb to it. I’m reminded of the tears I shed in the cafeteria and when I first stepped into this building, thinking it was going to be a one-time experience. Now I’m helping an apparition find a name? What’s the point when it can't even speak?
I looked up at the bald and toned ghostly man in simple clothes, but it returned unblinking eyes, patiently waiting for my tears of pain to resurface. I let out a full exhale and looked up at the ceiling of the cell. Since the ghostly man was friendly the whole time, I guess why not?
I inhaled and exhaled deeply, emptying myself of thoughts and assumptions about what was going to happen. The pricking of the haze around my heart was felt much more deeply. Every moment I paid attention to the icy cold pain, I braced myself reflexively, tensing my muscles. I needed to stop that. I had to be willing to let the emotion in without a hint of unwillingness. This was going to be painful.
I continued to breathe deeply to prepare myself on a comfortable baseline of where I wanted to start. With an inkling of resistance left, feelings of yearning began to trickle in. I want someone.
Resistances faded one by one, and I felt the power of a burning cold heart spread from the center of my chest. Blood pumped to my ears and my heartbeat let me know its pain. When the last of the resistances disappeared... my heart palpitated. The vigor of my beating heart in my ears reminded me of one thing.
I was alone.
Tears started flowing as I closed my eyes and I used both hands to grasp my chest in an effort to quell its pain. It was so painful.
Tears welled up quickly as my whole body lusted for someone’s presence. I wanted to be loved and be in someone’s loving vicinity. Why must I be alone?
All the hairs of my body spiked outward as my mind reached to find an answer to my voided heart. I feel so empty. It hurts. My head, it hurts.
My heart palpitated and beat loudly in my ears and in my head. Sniffs and whimpers began to take shape, and I convulsed. “He— hel…elp. Heelp…elp!”
Bent forward, hands crossed over chest, glasses down, I wailed. “P-p-pain. So much pain. It hurts. Please… help!”
“Why am I alone? I want someone. I need someone. I don’t deserve to be alone. Give me someone! Anyone! Male, female, parent, family, brother, or sister. Anyone! Someone give me the love that I need. I’m lost. I’m sorry. I don’t want to die alone. I’m sorry for hurting you. Don’t leave me. I’m doing my best. Why aren’t you here for me? I want to be in your presence. My heart hurts. Please. I don’t want it to hurt. Just the presence of people. Loving people. I don’t want this pain. Why are you so far away? I feel so empty. It’s so cold. The pain of being alone. It’s cold. It burns. It hurts.
“Dad! I’m here, dad. Don’t worry. I will come find you, because you will always be in my heart. I always love you, dad.
“Honey! Where are you? I’ve been looking for you. I’ll also be waiting for you. Your daughter and I will be waiting, Adam.”
I coughed dry. My heart beat against my ribs. It felt like exploding. It wanted to escape. I felt sweat soak my whole body. It was dark. I opened my eyes. It was difficult. It was blurry. Lots of tears and sweat dropped from forehead, nose, and chin.
A cold washed over my body. I coughed. I gasped. I inhaled through my mouth. I was in a prison. I was in a cell. I looked up. Seamus. Adam.
I picked up my fallen glasses. Tears continued to flow and drop from my chin as I began recuperating from the weight on my heart. I lifted my head up and saw the ghostly man, now Adam, crying ethereal tears that dissipated before it touched the ground.
Putting on my glasses and feeling the lingering pain of the thing I just did, I saw Seamus who also teared down his thin cheeks. I nodded to both of them and the three of us walked out the cell onto the catwalk where we saw two more apparitions fade into existence on the ground level. It was a woman and a female child holding hands and looking up at us. Adam lowered himself through the catwalk and towards both of them, giving each other a ghostly hug.
Seamus and I ran back to the stairs, down the steps, and towards the three apparitions walking towards the front door of the prison. When we caught up, Adam extended his arm down to hold the girl’s hand, and they smiled at each other.
The little girl turned to us and spread her bright smile with lively eyes and waved her hand as to greet us, making her brown pigtails sway side to side. She had a small red dress patterned with tiny white polka dots and bare feet, just like Adam. She turned back to Adam, who I presumed was her dad, and kept the same bright smile.
Now, Adam stood straight and turned to us with palms together in front of him and bowed to his waist. He turned to face the prison’s front door with his daughter and wife and walked through it, and I ran to the door to see where they had gone.
They continued to walk across the yard of weeds to the front gate and all of them turned to us in unison and waved. Their bare feet started to dissipate up their ethereal bodies while Seamus and I waved back just outside the entrance of the building. When only their heads and waving hand remained, the girl started jumping as if she wanted to stay longer, and the wife gave an impression of giggling when she covered her mouth with squinted eyes.
By the time the dissipation was at their chin, Adam mouthed a ‘Thank You’ before the last translucent piece of his ethereal body vanished in the morning sun.
Seamus and I looked at each other, tears welling up in our eyes as we turned back to gather our stuff in the sleeping quarters. As both of us rolled up our sleeping bags, I felt something off. “Hey Seamus, I don’t feel the haze around my heart anymore. Do you?” I asked.
Seamus tied his coiled up bed with grunts. “Huh, and neither do I. Seems like Adam disappearing eased the whole prison.”
“Maybe he was trying to get you to do what I did by getting you excited by playing games,” I said. “He was trying to train you, old man, like you were training us.”
“Guess I’m too old to be trained,” Seamus responded, clicking his tongue and shrugging.
I snorted. “That’s a terrible excuse, otherwise he wouldn’t have tried his luck teaching you anything.”
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When we returned to the island, we didn’t go straight home, but to another settlement near the outskirts where the Integrator was—connected to the same path he departed on when we first arrived with the bus. We approached a single-floored stone and wood building Seamus said was an office, and we stepped inside.
Seamus asked him to greenlight the demolition of the prison and to send workers to its location. He also detailed my efforts in dealing with a pre-integration illness and commended me for being able to follow through despite the challenges. In response, the Integrator just smiled and dismissed us. “He has nothing to say?” I asked as we walked out of the building.
“That’s his usual self—a man of few words; don’t mind it. Let’s go back home and rest and we can talk about whether you want to see the restoration process of the training site back to its natural ambiance,” Seamus said.
“I think I’ll skip out on that. Feel like resting for the remainder of the week,” I told him.
“Understandable. Feel free to join anyone else in their training and I’ll give your next stage of training after the Explorers’ next class.”
He flew me back to the single-floored brown villa when the sun reached its apex in the sky, and I welcomed myself home after living in a place where even the air disliked my existence. When I walked down the hall, Olma sat in the living room with his lunch, which reminded me of my fatigue.
“Kai! Done with training?” he asked while chewing with a full mouth, and I nodded. “Saw the supernatural entity? How was that?”
“Painful. Don’t know if I want to see another one after what I experienced.” I sat down across the glass coffee table from Olma and dug the ladle into the pot for my serving. “I guess my training might even be more challenging than yours.”
While facing down at my filled plate of greens, I looked up over my glasses to see Olma raising an eyebrow while chewing with contorted lips, making me chuckle. It was an unnatural facial expression given his simple band of emotions paired with his rugged stature.
“I don’t know about that!” he said, taking his next spoonful of veggies. “How about you come swimming with me after we eat?”
“Nope! Don’t know how to swim.”
“Then I’ll teach you!” Olma shouted with a full mouth as his body perked up, animated with passion. I don’t know if that would be a good idea, but it sounds fun because he could carry me on his back at high speeds across the pool.
“It will be in the pool underneath the gym. We’ll have to wait an hour for our meal to digest so we don’t throw up in the water.”
“O-okay…” Then I guess I’ll go with the flow!
After the meal, we went to the wood-beamed and stone-walled classroom building and down a flight of stairs in the gymnasium, which opened to a large, azure pool that had still waters capturing the bright ceiling lights. A lifeguard post sat at either ends of its length, and red and black markers for depth and distance were outlined on the perimeter of the white-tiled floor. On the shallow end, it was easy to see the floor reflecting the light, but light barely penetrated the dark hue of water at the deep end.
“What goggles, shorts, and cap do you want?” Olma asked, pointing to a bin with assorted swimming gear along the wall. There were different designs and sizes for the goggles. One was transparent where the wearer’s eyes could be seen, while the other had an opaque surface that reflected light in a silvery or a rainbow-y manner. I chose the rainbow one ‘cause it’s cool!
For swimming shorts, I chose a white one patterned with orange and pink fishes, which paired with a matching white cap. We both changed into our shorts at the nearby shower room and walked into the shallow end of the pool. The initial cold sent shivers through my body and only then did I recall an important question.
“How do I swim if I can’t see far without my glasses?”
“Don’t worry, Kai! We’ll be on the shallow end, and you will swim around the edge of the pool.”
Following Olma’s example, I put on my white cap first, while he put on his burgundy one that closely matched his auburn hair. We looked at each other and I burst into laughter seeing him with a squished head—his spiky hair now hidden and pressed against the contour of his scalp.
I adjusted the strap of my goggles until they were taut against my head, then pressed it on my eyes for suction. I thought it would be difficult to see because of its opaque lens, but there was sufficient brightness to make out objects around the underground pool. When I turned to Olma, he looked like someone ready to dive in with his sharp red-and-black goggles.
“Breathing!” Olma shouted with his deep voice, and he dipped his head underwater, turned his face to the side, and breathed with his mouth that barely broke the surface of the water. I followed what he did. “No! You breathe in with your mouth and out with your nose, always!”
I adjusted my technique and it made sense because I certainly didn’t want water going into my lungs by breathing with my nose. I turned my face to the side to inhale with my mouth, then held my breath as I submerged my whole face. Through my goggles, the water was a pristine blue against a white floor, and I could see many tiny bubbles floating to the surface on every submergence of my head. Before returning above the surface, I exhaled through my nose, feeling a pressure around my nostrils as I created many more bubbles.
With hands on his waist, Olma bellowed with laughter. “I must be a good teacher since you learn fast!”
I smiled. “Or I learn fast and you teach bad.”
Olma’s booming voice became more pointed. “You can’t learn fast if I don’t teach!”
I felt the pressure of the bass on my ears and skin, causing goosebumps. “Okay, you win.”
“If no one shows you how it is done, you will be slow!” Olma continued, splashing water towards me.
I held my arms up to block water from getting into my nose. “Dude! I get it, you’re a good teacher! You’re a good teacher!”
After simple breathing exercises were done, Olma taught me how to float and be comfortable with floating while remaining in the shallow area. The last lesson was on how to kick and propel myself on the surface with a kickboard, which exhausted me despite going for two laps along the width, making Olma shake his head. So I learned the hard way, that for physical feats, Olma was definitely a good teacher.