VESSELS: Heated Encounter
“So, what now?” Bel asked.
“Now’s my favorite part, superpower showcase!” Alexzander excitedly announced, “It’s time for you to show us what you can do, go on now, any time!”
Bel stood up and awkwardly got into position. He had no idea what he was doing, but for some reason, he didn’t want to embarrass himself by admitting how he had no clue at all on how to activate his abilities.
Why the hell do they think I’d know how any of this works? Bel wondered, and as if Sylvia read his mind, she continued to explain more about abilities. “Viktor hypothesizes that the reason we can use our abilities so easily is because they’re ingrained in our psyche during our time in Limbo. As if we learned our ability there first, causing us to subconsciously be able to use it in the real world. Just look inside yourself and you should intuitively be able to manifest it.”
Manifest it… manifest it… Bel closed in his eyes and focused his energy to his fingertips. He reached his palm out, and in the heat of pure focus, he lets out a grunt, and a ray of blue light appears and launches itself straight ahead of him, nearly penetrating the wall at the end.
An object in the shape of a katana, still in its dark blue scabbard had now wedged itself in the wall placed in front of Bel. Lee let out a whistle as if to compliment Bel’s actions, and Alexzander felt the same way as he burst into laughter. Isaac was simply surprised at Bel’s display of power, but the reaction that Bel was afraid of the most was Sylvia. At first glance, she might just be smiling, but anyone could tell that she was simmering in anger.
Bel pulled the sword out from the wall and began to inspect it further. It was much lighter than he imagined it would be, in fact, it was too light, almost like a feather. The hilt was golden and round, and a blue ribbon was tied around it. The handle was easy to grip and black in colour. Bel swung it around the air a few times to get used to the feeling.
“Go ahead, open it, I wanna see how sharp it is!” Alexzander said, feeling ecstatic.
However, as Bel tried to pull the blade out, he found out that he was unable to. The sword would not budge in the slightest no matter how hard he tried. Isaac and Lee could be seen poorly hiding their laughs, and Alexzander gave Bel an awkward smile due to second-hand embarrassment.
“Well, this is a lot lamer that last time…” Bel accidentally muttered out loud.
“Lamer than last time? What do you mean?” Zander asked. Initially, Bel wanted to hide his mysterious blue double ability, but upon weighing the pros and cons, he could not see any good reason as to why he should hide it from them, especially since he’s still curious regarding the changes that are happening to him.
“When the Fisherman was about to kill me, this weird, blue, translucent copy jumped out of my body and stopped the hook from crushing me. I guess I just thought that was what my ability would be.”
“Maybe that still is your ability.” Isaac responded.
“What do you mean? I mean, I guess I figured everyone would only have one or something.”
“They do only have one, but that doesn’t mean it only does one thing. You just haven’t figured out the rules yet, if I had to guess, your ability could be tied to creation, or something along those lines”.
Bel’s face showed a puzzled expression. Upon noticing it, Isaac pulled out his paintbrush again and drew a lightning bolt symbol on the back of his right hand. The symbol glowed and streaks of blue electricity started to zap around his hand, and he proceeded to show off by displaying a ball of lighting floating on his palm.
“For example, my power ain’t just to be a human torch. I can draw symbols of elements on my body and manifest them. Fire, water, lightning, air, whatever, you get the idea.”
“Make a watermelon, I’m gettin’ hungry over here,” Lee jokingly suggested.
Alexzander, however, took the suggestion as serious and nodded in agreement, “You know what, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea! We should test out Isaac’s theory. Can you try to think of another object and—" Before he could finish his sentence, Sylvia let out a cough to interrupted.
“Please, if you must practice, do so in a more appropriate place. This Antique Room cannot handle any more of your rowdiness,” She exclaimed, with a stern and annoyed tone. Alexzander swiftly apologized and rescinded his suggestion.
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“Well then, shall we get to the main topic at hand?” asked Sylvia, her arms crossed, indicating a more serious attitude. Everyone stopped their chatter and began to listen attentively. “We need to delegate the tasks regarding our ongoing investigations for tonight. Alexzander will deal with a more pressing issue off-campus, the Human Flesh Merchant located at the butcher shop over on Derry Street.”
Alexzander pumped his fist, as if having to deal with a monster named The Human Flesh Merchant was something worth celebrating. Its title alone already sent a chill down Bel’s spine, and he for one, is glad to not have to face something by that name.
“As for you two,” Sylvia turned her head towards Isaac and Lee, “You’ll be investigating the P.W. responsible for the 4th floor of the anthropology building. Oh, and do let Bel shadow you, I believe it would be of great benefit to him if he could learn up close from you two.”
Isaac slammed his fist on the table in anger, “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re leaving up with babysitting duty?!” Bel couldn’t understand why he was getting this treatment from Isaac, but Lee leaned in close to Bel’s ear and whispered, “Don’t mind him, he’s like this to everyone. I’m sure he’s just worried about a newbie like you getting hurt” Her reassurance slightly improved Bel’s opinion of Isaac and caused Bel to picture him as those hard-boiled types who secretly has a soft inside.
“There is nothing to worry about Isaac, the P.W. responsible for the 4th floor anomaly is unlikely to be of much danger. From what we already know, it has the ability to create a pocket dimension in the anthropology building, an alternate 4th floor. As you may know, utility-based abilities like these are unlikely to be too dangerous or possess and offensive prowess. I asked Alexzander to investigate beforehand and set up an entrance to the Antique Room. One of these doors are already connected to it, so there’s no hassle as well in locating it.” Sylvia assured all three of them and praised Alexzander for setting up the entrance, but also gave him a mean side-eye.
Alexzander had a skewed smile on his face, embarrassed of the fact that he had nearly forgotten to set up the entrance prior to the meeting, and only did so at the same time as he took Bel into the meeting room.
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“Hey, who said I was worried about him? I just don’t want him to get in my way okay!” Isaac yelled out, but everyone had already gotten used to his harsh and short-tempered personality and ignored his comment.
“Well, if there are no more questions, I hereby dismiss this meeting. We’ll share all our findings tomorrow; I wish you all the best of luck!” Sylvia shut off the projector and Alexzander helped with tucking away the screen.
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Bel followed the gang as they left the Antique Room, where only Sylvia had stayed behind, and hid herself back into the piles of books and sheets of paper stacked on her desk. The door they went through was different from the one Bel and Alexzander had walked in from, and they ended up being outside one of the toilets located in the outdoor area.
“Ugh, seriously Lee, the women’s bathroom?” Isaac commented, “Now people are gonna think I’m some creep.”
“Okay, A. People already think you’re a creep, and B. This bathroom is unisex”, she retorted. Alexzander let out a laugh from deep within his belly and wiped a single tear from his eye, “Man, you guys are such a riot! If you don’t mind, I’ll be headin’ on first and doing some early scouting for my solo mission tonight. See ya!”
Alexzander dashed away before any of them could say goodbye, now only three of them stood outside the bathroom underneath the soft glow of the afternoon sun.
“Aren’t you gonna get rid of that?” Lee pointed to the katana, which Bel had still been holding on to.
“Oh, nah… I think I’m gonna just, practice with it and stuff ya know?” Bel replied. In reality, he simply did not know how to make it go away but was too embarrassed to admit it.
“I’ll see you two losers later, just don’t be late tonight at the Antique Room, or do, won’t make a difference to me”, Isaac already had his back turned and was walking away with one hand in his pocket, and the other waving his hand.
As Bel turned to Lee to see what she had in store for the afternoon, he found that she had already disappeared without saying goodbye. Katana in hand, Bel proceeded to walk alone back to his dormitory. Usually, he’d value the peace and quiet and seldom felt lonely, but for some strange reason, the walk home alone didn’t quite hit the same way.
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The clock strikes 9 p.m., and Bel Forger was already late for his first ever Occult Club mission. Crap, which damn bathroom was it again? He muttered to himself, already exhausted from running around the outdoors of the campus, searching for the entrance to the Antique Room. Eventually, he finally got lucky and fell face first into his destination upon entering one of the random toilets.
As he lifted his head up, he saw Isaac hovering over him, with his arms crossed, tapping one foot on the ground, giving him one of the meanest scowls he had ever received. Lee could be seen sitting on a cushion in the back, listening to music with wired earbuds and whistling a tune, indirectly telling Bel that he’s on his own. Sylvia was also nowhere to be seen, and Bel was ready to take the full brunt of Isaac’s fury.
To Bel’s surprise, Isaac did not explode on him like he thought he would. He simply rubbed his eyes with his fingers, as if containing the massive pot of brewing anger that had been bubbling up inside him and turned around to walk to one of the doors in the Antique Room.
He opened the door and motioned his hand to indicate that Bel should walk through first. “Wait, why am I going fi—" Bel was about protest but stopped mid-sentence when he saw Lee wide-eyed and shaking her head profusely. Bel took it as a signal to stop asking questions, and simply follow Isaac’s lead.
“You see, we have a plan. A great plan, that we discussed for the full 30 minutes that you weren’t here for. If it weren’t Sylvia who asked for us to babysit you, we would’ve just left, so I don’t want to hear any bitching or yapping or moaning out of you. You are going to listen, and you are going to follow, and that’s that!” shouted Isaac, who progressively got angrier as he spoke.
Bel decided that it was in his best interest to follow along diligently and not get in the way any further. Even though Isaac’s outburst might have been uncalled for, Bel understood that they were taking him in out of the kindness of their hearts, and he did not want to squander that kindness due to his own incompetency.
He walked through the door and found himself back at the hallway where he and Alexzander had previously been before entering the Antique Room for the first time. The air this time however, felt slightly heavier, more ominous than last time. He was unsure whether it was because Alexzander had been next to him the first time, which had given him a sense of security, or because the atmosphere itself had changed.
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Isaac and Lee soon followed afterwards, and they began to navigate the floor. Isaac would mark every turn they made with some chalk, not so much as to know where they could find their way back, but more so to run experiments and develop a thorough understanding of how the 4th floor worked. It was important to know if the dimension they were in could change over time or simply remain the same.
“Hey, I just wanna say I’m sorry for being late and everything. I forgot which bathroom it was, and I didn’t think it through and—” Bel tried to apologize but was cut off by Isaac with an indirect apology of his own, “Just forget it man, we didn’t teach you how to make your own entrance with the pin. Next time, if you want to use your own door, just grip the pin in your hand and recite this password in your head: The fireplace is where all the books go to burn.”
Before Bel could thank Isaac, he remembered something that had been bothering him about the whole situation. He stared at the pin he had on him and realized that he received it on his first day of college. Did they know that I would end up being able to see weird monsters? And during club recruitment day, why did they call out to me? Bel couldn’t stop asking these questions to himself in his head, and he was the type to be impatient for answers, so he decided to casually bring the topic up.
“Hey, speaking of the pin, I got this pin in my welcome envelope on the first day. How’d you guys already know that I was gonna end up joining the club?”
“What? I thought Zander was the one that gave it to you last night. This is the first time I’m hearing of it.” Isaac replied. His words seemed honest, either he was a really good actor, or he truly didn’t know. The idea bothered Bel greatly, and he grew suspicious of the club, but mostly towards Zander and Sylvia. Those two always seemed more composed to him than Isaac and Lee, and it always felt like they were just barely keeping him in the light, a light so faint that it was just barely enough to keep him out of the cold and desolate darkness.
Bel decided to press further, “One more thing, how come you guys only called out to me during that club recruitment thing yesterday?”
“That’s because you could see us, dummy,” Lee giggled. “During club recruitment, we set up this veil with our soul energy. Remember that mind, body, and soul thing that Sylvia was talking about? Well, when your Mind’s Eye opens, it’s like you reach this state of enlightenment. Try to focus with your eyes really hard and look at the both of us.”
Bel did as she asked, and he could see a soft, wavy, pink aura surrounding Lee, and a white one surrounding Isaac. When he looked at his hands, he could see that it was surrounded with a blue one. Lee lifted up her pointer finger, and the aura at the tip turned into a sphere, and then fluctuated into a spiky ball. Afterwards, her aura turned completely invisible.
“Wicked sick right?” Lee continued, “It’s basically the simplest thing that we can all do, just needs a bit of practice. When you hide your aura this way, it’s like hiding your soul. As you can see, I’m still here, but a normal person won’t notice me. It’s like being invisible, but not really, more like… easily ignorable.”
Bel and Lee’s conversation suddenly came to an end as Isaac stopped and signaled them to halt. The path ahead was charred to ashes, and the walls, floor, and ceiling were pitch black. At the end of the hallway, they finally found a window, but outside all they could see was a dark cloud of smoke.
They decided to retrace their steps but couldn’t find any of the marks Isaac had left with chalk. “Ah shit, this doesn’t look good. I always hate these types. Let’s just investigate a bit further, and then we’ll open up a new entrance and head back to the Antique Room,” Isaac suggested. Bel was pleasantly surprised at his decision because he assumed that Isaac was the headstrong type that loves to press on further into danger.
Suddenly, the sound of a mysterious pair of footsteps made everyone turn silent. Out of the corner appeared a person-shaped entity but was covered in black char from head to toe. Its white eyes looked straight at the three intruders, and took a deep breath, inflating its chest, and unleashed a loud BANG! that reverberated through the air as a row of fiery doom shot right out of its mouth.