NOVEL NEXT Chapter 6 – Pierce the Heavens (with a jump from the drill)
I was exhausted at the end of the day. The combination of dealing with Horton in school, meeting Clara, seeing the fight, having the talk, it had all coalesced into me feeling so tired, I passed out the moment my head hit the pillow. Which of course meant I was met with a dream. An attempt at a nightmare. “Put on your uniform, soldier,” Dad’s distorted voice said behind me, and I turned to face him. He was standing next to an open closet, on whose door hung a suit.
“Are you here for a second serving of lead? Or do you want me to be more creative with how I take you out?”
“I said put on your uniform, soldier, that is an order!” he said, louder this time, and I shook my head. There was a familiar heft in my hand. The Magic Wand, my transformation catalyst.
“I think we’ve thoroughly established I’m never going to be what you want me to be, Dad, so fuck right off.” I swung, and the tip of the crescent moon went smoothly through his throat. Thick, deep crimson blood oozed from the wound, bubbling from his attempts to breathe. He stumbled back, desperately clutching at his throat, and I manifested a door right behind him. A door leading to a clear blue sky. He tripped on the threshold of it and fell backwards, and I closed and disappeared the door behind him. Sighing, I walked right up to the suit. “You’re really not being subtle this week, brain. I was in a dress yesterday, now you’re having me destroy a symbol of masculinity, of expectations, of what I’m supposed to achieve in life according to society?” I went to town on it, shredding it to pieces using the sharp crescent moon on the wand. “There, fine, I admit, I’m NOT supposed to be a guy. I will reserve my feelings towards being a girl for the weekend, though. I have too much confidence in dreams to really test stuff. I should stop talking to myself out loud, though.”
“I mean, even though you’re technically talking out loud, it’s still an internal monologue.”
“Oh, Rationality, you haven’t manifested in my dreams in a while.” I turned to the source of the voice. Rationality was a recurring character in my dreams, generally there as a way to externalise discussions with somebody so I could work through stuff. Rationality generally looked like, well, Truth from Fullmetal Alchemist. A weird mist producing an outline of a person instead of an actual person. Rationality wasn’t looking like that tonight though. Rationality’s form was distinctly more feminine. And solid, looking like a greyscale-tinted girl in an outfit you’d wear to court as a young teen girl: Poofy skirt and blouse. Rationality still had the whole no eyes and no mouth thing from Rationality’s earlier form.
“You haven’t been as conflicted about stuff as you currently are in a while, so I had no reason to manifest.” Rationality sat down on the floor, one leg bent so Rationality’s knee was up for Rationality to rest Rationality’s head on.
“Should I start using she/her pronouns for you now or a different name?” I asked. It was only polite.
“Yes to the pronouns, no to the name. Come on, sit down, let us talk. It’s gender troubles you’re tackling here, so we only have what you know for this discussion.” She patted the ground next to her, and so I sat down, holding my knees to my chest.
“Where do we even begin tackling this…” I began, and spent the rest of my dream in a quiet debate. Most of the topics were how I differed from traditional masculinity, or even feminine masculinity that is present in butch women.
When I awoke the next morning, two things were clear in my mind: I didn’t have to be a guy, and I would take Mom on her offer to try being a girl. Laying on my side, I opened my eyes to see Potato Bun watching me. I bopped the top of her head like the snooze button on an alarm, and turned around. “E-ever heard of personal spa-space?” I drowsily asked while making my way out of bed. My phone’s notification light was on, so I quickly glanced at what it was. A text from Emily.
It read “Mom failed at cooking. Proud of her for trying, but now I have food poisoning and won’t be at school today. Good luck.”
That increased the amount of stressors I would have to endure today. Not only would I have to deal with the active shooter drill, I also wouldn’t have Emily to communicate for me if I went nonverbal, which meant the Text To Speech app. Mom knocked on the door and came in right as I put my phone down, with her gaze falling on Potato Bun. “I’m going to build a box to lock you in for nights so you don’t scare David in the morning like that, I swear.” She sighed and turned to me. “How’re you doing, hun?”
“Emily’s s-sick, can’t make it to, to school today,” I replied while getting dressed. Mom and I checked my bag as usual to make sure everything was in it, and with breakfast out of the day we were off.
The drill usually happened after lunch break, so I had time to mentally prepare myself during the morning classes. What I hadn’t had time to prepare myself for was Horton intercepting me. Grabbing me by the collar, he held me up against a wall, a hand on it right next to my head. “Where’s your Hope, Cloudton? Did your boyfriend leave you for a girl with tits?”
“L-leave me a-a-alone, Horton!” I cried out, but he grinned.
“No. See, you’ve been pissing me off since day one. Your entitlement. You think just because you have that fucking annoying stutter and are a pussy that EVERYONE has to be nice to you, to not hurt your feelings. Well, I get to finally put a stop to that today. Give you a taste of everyone’s mind.” He clenched his fist on his free hand, and pulled it back, ready to deck me square in the face. But it was then that a cough echoed through the near empty hall. Both of us turned to look at the source, to find a five foot tall chubby Asian girl holding up a smartphone. Horton sneered. “What, you fat bitch? You recording this or something? You can be next if you’re so eager.”
She smiled a predatory smile. “Livestreaming, actually. You’re fine to smash my phone if it gets you hard. Destruction of property will go nicely with assault.”
Horton growled and let go of me, his intention clear from his glare. He only took two steps forward though, as the moment his foot touched the ground, a shape appeared before him. Tall, ominous, silent, with no clear source of origin. After the shock of her sudden appearance, it became clear it was just a human girl. Although ‘just’ didn’t do her justice. The glare she was giving Horton was ominous, as if, were you to look into her eyes, you’d see your destined death. She was a head taller than him, and the tanktop she was wearing showed off her toned arms, not like those of a bodybuilder, but closer to that of a rower or similar. She snorted at Horton, like an angry horse that was ready to kick you, and he turned to leave. “Stop being such a pussy-ass queer fag, Cloudton, and hang out with dudes instead of dykes! Maybe then you’d grow a pair!” he called while walking away, and once out of sight the shorter of the two girls put away her phone.
“How uncreative of him. Then again, he’s planning to ride out college on a sports scholarship.” The shorter one approached me, her hand extended. “Aleah Young. My quiet imposing girlfriend here is Ellie Metsänpeito. Let’s say we’re in the same club as you, the one Clara is president of. She sent a group text about a new member.”
I nervously shook Aleah’s hand, while looking down. “D-David Cloudton. Thank you.”
“No need to mention it. Now how about we go and sit together for lunch? I do have some questions,” Aleah offered, and I slowly nodded, following after her as she set off for the cafeteria. The table she picked was far away from everyone, but in a perfect spot to observe the entirety of the cafeteria. The moment Aleah sat down, she quickly scanned the cafeteria, and pointed at a couple spots. “Breakup over cheating, breakup over pets, breakup over questioned sexuality, those two will end up married once the boy realise she’s a girl and the girl realises she’s a lesbian.” I just gave Aleah the most confused look I could give her.
“A-are you just speculating here, o-or?” I asked, which she gave a soft chuckle at.
“No, I never speculate. I don’t have to. I have a network of data-collecting bots that give me all the information they can find on a person online, every account they have; I can track all that to build a profile. And I can do that with every single person at school.” She pointed at me. “Except for you. You, somehow, have no traceable online presence. No social media accounts, no common usernames, no links shared between accounts pointing to the same place. And so you have been an enigma ever since Clara asked me to keep an eye on you.”
I gulped. Aleah sounded terrifying. She had more power than the Buns! She could dox you with but one click of a button. “Y-yeah, I’m, I don’t w-want to be bullied online so I don’t have a-accounts there.” And luckily the account I used to comment on transformation stories had no connection to me. AnxiousMoonRabbit was safe and sound as a username and kept only between me and Emily.
“Well, I suppose that’s more than understandable--” Aleah began, but stopped suddenly, her gaze falling on the doors to the cafeteria. I saw my backpack was shaking, and so I opened it to look in. Potato Bun was chittering inside. “Followed you to school, did she? You need to house train Buns.”
“A Nightmare is manifesting!” Potato Bun quietly cried out, and I turned to look at the door. A thick fog was visible through the glass, but nothing past that. Then the gunshots sounded.
“Somebody lost their shit about the shooter drill. No surprise, truth be told. Okay, newbie, follow Ellie, she knows how to move around unseen.” Aleah got up, and pulled up a twenty sided die from a pocket. It was a partially see-through one. A clear magenta top with a purple blotch inside it, rising from a solid base of blue.
“I, um, I can’t, I can’t fight. S-sorry,” I admitted, holding my wrist. Aleah confidently smirked.
“Then let your senpais take care of this.” Aleah’s goof was met with Ellie finger flicking her right in the temple. “Yeah, yeah, shush dear, we have a Nightmare to face.”
Ellie led us out of the cafeteria through a side door, and into an empty bathroom. “I-I probably sh-shouldn’t be here,” I said right as she closed the door behind us, and Aleah shrugged.
“Hell, based on what Clara told us you might end up in here in the future, get used to it.”
“That, that’s something I-I’m still figuring ou-out. No clear c-conclusion yet.” I leaned against the wall, and pulled the wand out of my back, looking at it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aleah gently slapping Ellie’s arm, before she pointed at my wand. Ellie rolled her eyes, and pulled a ten dollar bill out of her pocket, which she passed to Aleah. What was that supposed to be about?