“Class is about to start in twenty minutes and you’re still in bed, hmm? Maybe you should… Get ready for school?”
Gisela peered down at me as she adjusted her shadow-lit ivory hair. The sky was hardly beige and the previously yellow bulb was dim. The sun was dim but the only light that flowed into the quiet room was the bathroom’s icy color. The fuzzy covers trapped my body like ocean waves and pulled my psyche towards it like a vortex. Lethargy still struck my body from last night.
Gisela leaned down then shook me gently. “I know it’s comfortable but please get out of bed… If you don’t get up, I’ll be all alone without my little warrior… I’ll be very saddened—“ My yawn cutted her off. “Ok. I’m getting up.” Even with her face laminated by pure and dark sapphire, a smile beamed. My socks insulated me from the oddly cold and hard floor as I began to get ready for school.
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By the time we walked to class, the sun had casted a soft ginger light that only made the hard raspberry shadows more apparent. The silver door slided like it was attached to a new train track. In front of the doors I opened were a bunch of students. A line of intense sunlight hit the middle of class through the square windows. The walls were solid and monotonous gray. The floor minus the part in sunlight was dark gray-blue with a few wrappers and papers that slept there. Some students were seated but most weren’t. That list of students included a panda with a blue hoodie as well.
“Good morning everyone. Today, we will conduct a test to determine your spannung distribution. Really, it will be simple as all you need is a piece of paper and a working hand. That will be the first test. A later test—perhaps tomorrow—will require you to test out your spannung on a target with a weapon of your choice.” The teacher with a monocle and blue tie explained to everyone in class. Ortwin was next to me but he tried to not stare at me for long. Of course I didn't reciprocate.
“We already know who the weaklings are! HAH, our test should be beating the shit out of the other students. Whoever wins gets to stay in class while the deadweights get put into another class. Goofy people class!” A boy with a long pink tongue and moist green skin declared to class. The teacher sighed and said “Ryan Cutaway, please be respectful to the rest of your peers. I, above anyone else, know of your tournament success last year. You are very qualified and talented but that does not give you the right to mock your fellow peers.” Ryan scowled and put his arms on his chest, then leaned back. I expected a creak but the golden seat adjusted its metallic spine and slid back casually.
“Hey Freya! You should summon your hounds! You ALREADY know these kids are gonna cry on their first spirit portal trip. Some always die and others piss and shit themselves. You’d be helping them out to be honest.” A boy with a purple and red coat yelled out. This Freya girl looked similar to that girl who found me at the auditorium yesterday… “Nah, don’t have to. Betcha they won’t even pass tomorrow’s test thing,” she straightened up as she looked at that frog boy. “RYAN! Give me my phone back! RYANNN” Freya smiled as her hands and shoulder reached over to Ryan. The two of them plus some others bantered and giggled for a little while.
The teacher stopped his exposition dump and waited like he was about to get on a bus stop. “Ahem. Silence now. I will begin passing out your papers. There is nothing but blank white space. All you need to do is cast forth a bit of your spannung. Thankfully, even babies are capable of this and it never causes that much damage towards properties or beings. That is to say, try but do not overexert yourself. If you need help, you may raise your hand and I shall come over there at once.”
Gisela sat in front of me, so if I needed to copy off of someone, she was there. No white column like the one at the back of class obstructed my view. I had used a tiny bit of spannung in the past whenever I got bored. The little blush-toned plasma that came from the tip of my index finger kept me from total boredom. But only sometimes. Before I knew it, the teacher handed me a blank piece of white paper. I scouted around the room but without moving my body and smelt a pinch of smoke and boiling water. Breathed in and out. Not sure if that was needed but it just… Felt right.
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As soon as I intuitively casted spannung from my index finger, the paper began to burn. No hole was made but the center was charcoal. I stopped after I looked forward and saw Gisela’s paper soaked in light green fluid. Heard a sound of scissors cutting paper. So I looked next to me and Ortwin’s paper was cut in half. Since the sun was still early, it decided to beam onto Gisela’s body and her paper. I was in the light but not of the radiant daylight.
The teacher stopped at the end of the classroom and explained his instructions or lecture thing. “From the looks of things, that was everyone. As I come around, I will state my observation. Likely, it will be accurate as your spannung type can only be one of three types. If the paper was only wet and warm, then it is hot spannung; which is liquid-like. If the paper burned a little, then it is warm spannung; which acts like electricity or plasma. If the paper was cut in any way, then it is cold spannung; which acts like a warm and solid metal.”
By that explanation, I knew that my friends fell under one of the spannung types: I was a warm spannung type. Ortwin was a cold spannung type. Gisela was a hot as well as physically spannung type. The teacher strolled back to the front of class with his silent and brown shoes. “As you may have inferred, we will not be able to spot parameters this early on. Most of you all start off in the same state—balanced while leaning nowhere in particular. As you get stronger throughout your career and specifically school-life, your individuality will show more,”
He put his blue paws out as he paused. “You should be able to spot your two functions by tomorrow. It will be quite infantile but I may be able to guess your parameters. Now, I shall instruct you all on a simple practice to unlock your innate potential. It will be best if we travel to the gymnasium.”
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For what felt like 10 minutes, we sat down in a meditation pose. Some of the students couldn’t focus and kept looking on their phone for something. As for me, it felt oddly good. Sure, I had intrusive thoughts like I always did. But the psychological assaults were less frequent and I felt… Calm? Is that the sensation when your mind isn’t racing at the speed of sound every second. Even when you tried to fall asleep but looked at the ceiling for 2 hours? Would have been more relaxed if the bright white lights and coolness of the gymnasium wasn’t a constant.
Yet, something kept nagging at me. Tried to mindfully ignore it but it kept invading me. Even then, I kept thinking about my mother. I hate her. I knew it was an awful thing to think and for how much she sacrificed for me. But I hate her and I **hate** myself for that. I knew that I was a spoiled and socially stunted girl like my mother always told me. I knew that mother forced me into being something I was never not—something that belongs to the world—for a good reason. It's just that I didn’t care about the “good” reason. I didn’t know what I cared for but I cared about leaving her.
Even then, I felt so fundamentally alone and deprived of reason to be. To be something was a thing others do. I was always like this. Not really but ever since I reached puberty I stopped smiling. The way I presented bothered me. The long hair was objectively beautiful but felt divorced from my scalp. The dresses I wore felt like they would fit someone else perfectly. The smiles I wore like plastic stickers were cheap yet renewable and “good” for the environment. The way I still was forced to present still bothered me. Whenever someone saw me, it never felt like they saw me. They saw an abstract thing that reflected back what they deemed fit to be.
I wanted to be held and held until sunset. I wanted someone to say “That poor girl… She’s been through so much” yet it sounded so vapid and privileged. I wanted someone who I could spill out my body, heart, and soul to. I wanted someone I could be myself around. Yet, I never knew what the self was. The self was an illusion that never existed, even if I thought I tried protecting it from Mother. There never was a “real me”, since I couldn’t remember when I wasn’t like this. Alone and pathetic. Empty and pathetic. Pointless and pathetic.
Pathetic.
“For the most part, good job class. Be prepared for mediation practices like this as it will help you access your powers more easily. With a clearer mind as a bonus. That is all for today. As I stated earlier, tomorrow you will be given your plasma weapons. You can change them later at a cost but we suggest taking either the official digital quiz or physical quiz. This should be done before you select a your weapon of chocie as the simple quiz will direct you in a good path.” The teacher broke my kaleidoscope of heavy thoughts with his usual info dump. The long and wide room still felt dim. Even though it was objectively bright.
Everyone got up and started talking. A group of students talked to Gisela and she smiled and laughed. People literally said “Gisela!” and orbited around her with a few hugs. Her sweet and outgoing speech was insufferable, as were the people. Her unending happiness was insufferable, as was I. It annoyed me and I wanted to scream at her. Yet I knew that was a pathetic response. I still didn’t even know why she hung out around me and Ortwin.
A fucking liar it seemed like, as she received more love than I ever will. If I fucking heard ONE MORE shitty popular song that someone blasted on their phone. If I fucking saw one more person dancing with their groups of friends… The only people who no one wanted to be around were me and Ortwin. I walked over to Ortwin so no one was physically alone.
“It’s fine. What happened yesterday.”
“You don’t get it. I will never be a hero. I will never save anyone. I will always be like—him.”
“…Who’s him?”
“…”
“…”
“I am… pathetic.”
“…Me too.”
That’s why we got along so well.