By Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
“Don’t be
like this.”
The wind
whipped her braids to her face. Whatever he’d just said had lazily reached her
earbuds and evaporated into the trance track booming through her skull.
“Please?”
She sighed
and languidly took an earbud out.
“I’m sorry,”
she stated.
Placing the
earbud back, she watched through drooped lids the way his mouth took on a warping
ellipse, growling, snarling. Then he touched her, and she lost it.
She was
alone on the roof when it happened, she’d say.
But when
what happened?
She was
truly alone on the roof.
…
“These
disappearances have happened more frequently over the past month,” the news
anchor read.
Kira
impatiently flipped strands of her ink black hair over her shoulder, “What are
we supposed to do about these?”
Sabine
shrugged, taking cashews from a bowl on the kitchen counter. “Exactly what the
letter says?”
While her
friend groaned, Sabine wiped her hands free of salt and again reached for the
lavender-scented parchment paper.
You must think like her.
“We know it’s
a she,” Sabine offered hopefully.
“Out of the
thousands of women and girls in Kelsey!” Kira switched off the television. “I’m
dying. This is ridiculous. I’d actually rather do homework.”
“We could
meditate,” Sabine retried, “make a list of the clues the media has shown us.”
“Males have
disappeared,” Kira sighed.
“In and
around the southeast.”
“High school
juniors to college freshmen.”
“Students of
Kelsey High and Kelsey Tech.”
“We don’t
know Kelsey High kids!” Kira whined.
“Kira,”
Sabine wheedled, “yes you do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Can’t we
just end on, ‘Those boys deserved it?’” Kira crossed her arms.
“No one
deserves to disappear.” Sabine paused, frowning, “Disappear…”
Kira’s phone
rang, jolting Sabine from her thoughts. After a few minutes of nodding and
yessing, Kira hung up and gave Sabine a tight smile.
“Guess who
gets to do work experience at Kelsey High for spring break?”
…
Magician’s
Rite Academy’s Work Experience Program was basically a week of torture that
Elite Scholars kids endured by silently counting volunteer hours like crosses
against the soul-sucking remarks of spoiled rich kids, according to Kira. It
didn’t help that Kira and Sabine were among the few that wore impressive,
albeit overly formal uniforms for the occasion of trying to show the world that
Magician’s Rite wasn’t the rough, shady school that the Kelsey High kids so
readily wrinkled their noses at.
Sabine
smiled easily, hoping her dark face would be further obscured by blindingly
white teeth. Kira levelled an even gaze at anyone who dared to size her up.
Meanwhile, their student ambassador giddily showed them around the school
before stopping in front of a door labelled 1A.
“These
students really need your help and I mean really,”
the ambassador hushed.
Sabine
frowned slightly before replying, “Do they get enough support from their
teachers?”
“Of course!”
The girl squealed. “But even they can’t help them. I was going to mention that
you have Mrs. Wilson as a supervisor, if ever you guys need help,” she slyly added.
Suddenly, a
girl bumped past Sabine’s shoulder and reached for the door, knocking past the
student ambassador as well.
“Hey watch
it!”
She ignored
the warning and entered the room, black earbuds embedded in her ears. Sabine’s shoulder
felt hollow where she was touched.
1A sprawled
out like a computer lab with various circular tables scattered around where
students in similar antisocial gear including headphones and bangs concentrated
hard on their notebooks or snickered at their laptops. Once Sabine and Kira
were introduced and started checking up on each student’s work, Sabine
patiently gathered her courage for an opportunity to approach earbud girl.
“Hello, what
are you working on?”
The girl’s
heavily mascaraed lashes never lifted. Sabine had to concentrate hard on her physical
presence, for fear her all-black garb would turn her into an inconsequential
shadow.
“Are you
trying to disappear on me?” she asked.
The girl’s
hand, wielding a felt pen that steadily coloured black streaks against the
margins of her paper, paused then resumed.
“If you ever
need help,” Sabine finally offered, “just ask Kira or me.”
Meanwhile,
Kira made the mistake of sitting next to a blast from the past, literally,
judging by his air blown fro.
“Hey
good-looking,” her ex-creeper-admirer grinned, “you gonna be my teacher for the
week?”
Kira’s smile
froze. “Yeah, call me when you’re actually doing work.”
“Aww, come
on, don’t be like that,” he pouted.
Resisting
the urge to groan, Kira zeroed in on an opportunity. “Know any of the guys who’ve
disappeared?”
The guy’s
smile faded. “No, but I know who’s done it.”
Kira raised
an eyebrow, “Really?”
“Ms. Emo
over there,” he whispered, jerking his head in the direction of a table that
Sabine was leaving.
Kira
narrowed her eyes. “Why do you say that?”
“All the
dudes that disappeared,” he replied, leaning closer, “she was playing them.”
Kira rolled
her eyes, getting up from the table. “Don’t you mean they were stalking her?”
…
At night she
wandered the city. The wind whipped through her braids. Adrenaline pumped a
healthy pink across her sallow cheeks. Again, she visited the roof. Again she
wasn’t alone.
“Hello,” a
shadow detached itself from a chimney wall, dressed in a black skater dress,
boots and fingerless gloves, a mask below the odd cat ears. “My name is
Sceptre.”
Another
shadow crouched in the moonlight, lit by a white jester’s cosplay resonating
with the bells on her three-pronged hat as she grinned beneath a white mask. “Jester
at your service,” the figure bowed.
Again, the
girl lost the words they said, except for a snippet that finally reached her
ears.
“We’ve come
to help you disappear,” Jester announced.
Suddenly,
the girl’s cheeks drained of pink and she shook her head. An earbud fell out
and she tried to put it back in, but this proved unexpectedly hard as the
earbud slipped and slipped again.
“Ms. Emo
needs to go,” Sceptre confirmed, spinning her namesake in one hand. “Played too
many boys to stay.”
Jester
slipped cards from her sleeves. “Time to play our game.”
The girl
lost it.
In a second,
the roof was enveloped in black ink and Sceptre and Jester tumbled in its
darkness.
“Now what?”
Sceptre snapped, unable to glimpse her partner.
“We think
like her,” Jester swept her gaze around the darkness, searching for a way out.
“Help!” A
voice shouted.
“We’re gonna
die,” another whined.
“So this is
where the losers went?” Sceptre frowned. “Is this a pocket dimension or…?”
“Yes,”
Jester nodded. “It’s like she’s been filing them away…”
“Well
obviously she hates the thought of others thinking she played them,” Sceptre
deduced, “but why did she pay attention when you said we’d make her disappear?”
“It’s a
defence mechanism. Naturally she doesn’t want to, and those boys must have
provoked her somehow.”
Sceptre
paused, deep in thought.
Jester
pondered, “Scared her into thinking they’d make her disappear…”
“But how?”
“I’ll kill
you!” A voice shrilled. “I swear!”
“They
touched her,” Sceptre realised.
“Really?”
Jester frowned.
“Trust me, I
know.”
Taking a
deep breath, Sceptre advanced in what she hoped was the direction she last saw
the girl.
“They won’t
go away,” she stated matter-of-factly, then raised her voice, “They will never
go away.”
The darkness
tremored. Jester’s heart fluttered, suddenly wary of shifting ground.
“You haven’t
let go of them you know,” Sceptre continued. “They’re still here, inside of
you, closer than ever. You’ve just pushed them deeper into you.”
Jester
tripped as the ground became a wave that heaved her up and dropped her.
“Let them
go,” Sceptre calmly ordered. “Let yourself go.”
The air
groaned like a beast in a cavern.
“It’s the
only way you’ll grow from this. You need to cut loose, pull out the weeds.”
She reached
forward and wrapped her arms around the space in front of her.
“And for
that you need to rely on someone other than yourself for once.”
Suddenly the
darkness became peppered with shimmering dots until it blended with the Kelsey
skyline. Sceptre withdrew her arms from the girl’s shoulders, allowing her to
dry her tears with her sleeves.
Glancing at
the five boys who either lay prone on the ground or blinked in bewilderment,
Jester gave the signal and the three of them disappeared behind a screen of
smoke.
The next day,
Julie waved Kira over to her table, shyly murmuring for help with Maths. Beneath
the black colouring of the previous day, the words ‘Thank you’ sprawled in
generous cursive.