I wake up, back in reality. I’m still sitting in the chair,
but Will isn’t. I look up, into a worried Lily’s face. She’s holding a teacup
full of a golden color, which she hands to me.
“Are
you alright? Will can be quite reckless with his power sometimes.
Unfortunately, you aren’t the first one to pass out. Did he show you something
that was too much for you to bear? It must have been quite a shock, because you
were out for hours.”
She
sees my troubled, scared face, and smiles softly. “Would you like to talk about
it? I may not be a great sister to Will, but I know a bit about how to comfort
someone.”
I
stare. “Will has a sister?”
She smiles sadly. “Had.
She died at age seven though. I’m the closest you get to a replacement of her.”
Oh.
That might explain why he doesn’t smile that often. I look down at the floor,
not sure what to say. I look up, finding a comfortable question to ask Lily.
“Why
did you tell me your name as soon as I met you? Rand did the same thing. Aren’t
you supposed to not tell anyone but yourself your name?”
She
smiled thinly. “We don’t exactly care what anyone tells us to do. You know,
there was a time when everyone told each other their names as soon as they met
them. It was a much better time back then, unlike now. People smiled daily, and
had fun with friends.”
Friends. I had never heard such a
peculiar word before. “What’s a friend?”
Lily
stared at me like she’d seen a ghost. “You have a completely clear mind, but
you don’t know what a friend is?” She
shook her head. “A friend is someone close to you. You know, someone who makes
you laugh and smile lots and you care about.”
I’m
really interested now. “What if only one person cares? Or if you don’t realize
that person cares? Can anyone be a friend? What’s the difference between a
friend and a comrade?”
She
smiles, happy that I’m showing interest. “If only one person cares, then it’s
not friendship. Both of you have to care for each other. If one of you doesn’t realize that the other
cares, then they need to show it better. Anyone who is willing and understands
you enough to care about you can be a friend. A friend you have fun with. A
comrade is someone who works around you.”
I’m
starting to understand. But I still have more questions. “Why don’t I know this
word? Are there other words I don’t know of? If everything is a word, then what
do things like J’s and O’s stand for?”
She
laughs. Not cruelly, like I was stupid, but softly, like she was happy. “You
sure are a curious girl. You don’t know this word because the Paranas don’t
want you to. There are plenty of words you haven’t heard yet, of course.
Probably no one knows all the words.
The J stands for jock. It means a
really hard working person devoted to sports. An O stands for Otaku, which
means Japanese nerd. That means it’s someone who is really interested in the
culture of Japan. “
I. Am.
Fascinated. I have never heard of such amazing words before. “Why do the
Paranas hide such beautiful words?”
Lily
half shrugs. “These beautiful words inspire imagination. Which, in case you
haven’t realized, is illegal here. Paranas maintain indifference, and
imagination kind of eats indifference
for breakfast. So, the Paranas somehow decided to just get rid of the problem. Normally, that sort of thing doesn’t work out.
But since they’re so powerful, and it’s been going on for so long, it wasn’t as
big of a problem as it should’ve been.”
Will
walked back into the room. “They’re gonna start doing dorm checks today, so
they can create some basic idea of everyone’s sleeping patterns. Don’t want
them to get the wrong idea, dragon girl. So hurry up and go back to your dorm.”
He takes a few steps away and then says, “If
you have any more questions, come again a little earlier. I don’t care if you
burden me, just don’t burden Lily. One person asking questions is a big
nuisance, let alone two.”
I nod,
and take a few steps towards the door. As he turns his back on me, I ask one
last parting question.
“Your
sister. What was her name?”
He turns to face me, his face completely masked. “Madeleine.
But we called her Linny for short.”
Just
when I thought I might have seen the slightest sad smile appear on Will’s face,
he turns his back and walks away, giving me the impression that the
conversation was over.
I walked back to my dorm, and sure
enough, twenty minutes later, I get a knock on my door. The dorm director asks
lots of questions, and then practically dragged me by force back to his office.
Apparently he put up sensors outside everyone’s room, and mine just recently
went off. I think of all the swear words I know in my head, wondering if there
are any I don’t know. I completely zoned out for at least a half an hour. Then,
when he realizes I’m not listening, he grabs me by the arm and pulls me to a
room I’ve never seen before. He throws me into it, and the doors shut behind
him. I process what just happened, and then ran up to the door and tried
opening it. Locked. Typical. I scream, kick, and pound my fists on the door. I
fall on my knees, my fists bleeding. Since I have nothing else to do, I look
around the room. It’s completely white and EMPTY. It was only a little bigger
than a large closet, and there was only me inside it. No furniture, no food,
nothing. Once again, I was alone. After a couple hours, I felt my lungs burning
in my throat. I had screamed too much, and had no water. This was just like
when I was little, when I purposefully dehydrated myself and screamed for
hours, hoping I wouldn’t survive. But I don’t want to die now. I still have so
much to learn. The world around me fades into black nothingness as I sink into
unconsciousness.
