by Cora Choi
Chapter 6: The Letter
Drev did not speak as he reached into the pocket of a coat he’d hung up on a bedpost. He pulled out a crumpled yellow envelope, reached into its opened flap, and revealed a folded sheet of paper. A thick silence fell over everyone, but there was still a current of excitement that electrified the quiet room.
Drev smirked as he glanced at the eyes of his anxious roommates. I subconsciously smirked along with him but stopped immediately as soon as I realized that I was blindly imitating him. I shook my head and made an effort to be as stoic as possible. I wondered why I was so easily drawn to him.
“Well, let’s see what’s so threatening about this letter,” chuckled Max, taking it from Drev’s hand.
“Read it out loud, Max,” said Irving.
Max scanned the letter. He raised an eyebrow and looked up at Drev.
“Is it okay if I read this to them?”
“Go for it,” said Drev.
When all the wisdom of the world was burned, a dark curse came to take its place. Over time, it poisoned our minds and numbed our hearts until we could no longer hear the song we were all meant to sing. With only a dirge to keep our rhythm, we marched to our graves before we had even died.
Then you returned from the threshold of death, walking the winding copper streets of Stauros. The fog lay at your feet like a snake. Your eyes revealed the shreds of your torn soul and the vengeance seared in your heart. Even the Saboteurs feared you.
When you returned, the demons came back and took their rightful place. The angels removed their masks and revealed to the world who they truly were. And we remembered our song, still in the memory of our soul. We sang like the birds sing, not fearing who listened to us or what they thought.
I stood there, stunned. I had written those exact words in my book. Though I was not the one who had written the letter. It was clear that whoever had written it must have read my book.
“Damn, who the hell wrote that to you?” J.P. asked. I waited for the answer while I watched Drev climb onto his bed above J.P. He pulled off his shoes and threw them on the ground before finally responding.
“I have no clue.”
I would’ve given both arms to jump in and tell them who I believed had sent it. I was sure that the sender was a supporter of the Order of the Crane and a believer of myths and legends, and I suspected that he or she was also searching for the Slayer. Did the sender think that Drev was the Slayer? I observed Drev in more detail from where I stood. There was nothing outwardly unique about him. If he were the Slayer, I would know. There would be a clear sign. There was absolute silence in the room for about a minute, and then Max spoke.
“You got in trouble just because someone sent you this letter? That doesn’t make sense. They could’ve sent it to anyone.”
“It was addressed to me,” said Drev, as he looked down at his roommates from his perch, the palms of his hands resting on his knees. “And it doesn’t make sense that any of us should be punished for what we did. It just shows how messed up this place is.”
“Did the chancellor catch you reading it?” asked Irving.
“No, it was Horace,” said Drev. “I wasn’t aware that he was standing behind me while I read. He asked for the letter, and I handed it over to him. He read it, shoved it in his back pocket, and then got angry with me, asking who sent it, why they sent it, and so on. When I told him I didn’t know. He took me to the chancellor’s. By the time we got there, I had taken the envelope from his back pocket without him knowing. He searched for it in front of the chancellor but couldn’t find it. Somehow the chancellor knew I had it . . .” He paused as his gaze darkened at the memory of the incident. “I don’t know how he knew, but he kept asking me for it. When I didn’t hand it over, he told Horace to ‘get rid of’ me. And that’s how I came here.”
“Why didn’t you just hand it over?” asked Irving.
“Yeah, what’s so important about this goddamn letter, anyway?” asked J.P.
“Don’t you get it? It’s a clue to what this place really is . . .” Drev began, but stopped as he saw the blank expressions around him. “What I mean is, this place is cursed, and I think the letter is someone’s cry for help.”
“What do you mean ‘cursed’?” asked Irving, scrunching his nose up around his glasses. “Like the Demon of Stauros . . .”
“No!” retorted Drev. The others jumped at his sharp rise in tone. He let out a long sigh of exasperation. “Forget the Demon of Stauros—that Demon of Stauros story is probably something they made up. For all we know the faculty could’ve been making human sacrifices with students during the years when some of them went missing. I mean, think about it, students were disappearing on an island, with no trace of their whereabouts. They blame it on a demon, then tell the public that they performed a ritual that has cleansed the island of this demon and now the school is safe. What kind of idiot believes that?”
“But everyone bought it,” said Max.
“Yeah, everyone bought that story because everyone has been brainwashed,” said Drev. “And while everyone is praising the glory of this school and how great it is, I get this letter yesterday—my first day here—that says this place is as close to hell as it gets and I figure this person is telling me the truth, and the truth is worth everything.”
“Even worth getting kicked out?” asked Irving.
“Yes, Irving, it’s worth getting kicked out and more,” said Drev. He looked at the other two and they looked back at him nonplussed. J.P. took off his sunglasses and pinched the inner corners of his eyes with his thumb and index finger.
“Didn’t you want to attend Stauros, Drev?” asked Irving.
His question hung in the air for several seconds; the words suspended at first yet falling slowly like the dust that hung perpetually in the air.
“I got paid to come here,” said Drev. “If it weren’t for the scholarship money I wouldn’t be here. I’d be working at my old job and making sure my mom and sister had a warm, dry place to sleep, and food on the table.”
I saw his jaw muscles tighten and his knuckles turn white as he curled his fingers in deeper. He was now glaring at everyone around him, as though they had become his enemies when he had spoken those words. When no joke or insult was hurled at him, his shoulders eased down and his jaw loosened as he swallowed to clear his throat.
“This school is an easy ticket to respect. Everyone who graduates from here is automatically initiated into the Order of the Shrike. And everyone knows that anyone who’s worth mentioning, or who’s got power, is a Shrike. And I intend . . . to have power . . .” He stopped and his eyes narrowed, as he looked toward a dusty corner, away from his roommates.
“If you’re not one of them, you’re nothing and they treat you like garbage, throw you aside after they’ve used you. It’s a shit world out there because they control everything. But I’m going to change that. I’m going to destroy them, destroy everything.” He paused and looked at the letter in his hand. “And I’m going to use every clue to help me do it.”
“What do you mean destroy everything?” asked Max, his eyes widening every time Drev inhaled to speak.
Drev was now staring blankly at the floor. The words flowed out of him in a low, stale rhythm—robotic.
“The banks, the government, the corporations, the organizations—the freak show that they’ve put us in and that we call, ‘life.’ We’re not living, we’re slaving—and I know what I’m talking about. I’ve worked a dead end job with a pathetic wage just to keep it together for my family. I could’ve made the decision to stay in that job and just tough it out—suffer in silence and all that crap—but I didn’t want to end up like my dad . . .”
His last word echoed as his roommates continued to stare at him silently.
“Don’t get chained,” he said coolly, looking each one in the eye. “Fight it with all the blood that you’re worth. If you ever surrender to their fakeness and buy into that shit, it’s all over. My dad did,
and he died.” Drev’s gaze fell to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” murmured Irving.
Drev cocked his head back and pressed his lips. No one dared break the silence. Drev held the floor.
“Let’s call it a night,” Drev said. He was blunt.
“Yeah, good idea. Good night,” said Max, rushing the words together. He flung his hand behind him and turned down the lantern.
“Night,” said J.P.
The room went black. A few minutes passed, deep breathing ensued, and then the snores came. I was relieved that they were asleep. I had started getting concerned about how I would keep out of sight, and despite enjoying their animated company, I was relieved to have the room silent and calm once again. A lot had happened today.
I gingerly stepped out of my hiding place but didn’t get far. Just at that moment, Drev’s bed creaked and I could make out the faint outline of his head in the dark. He was staring at me. I could feel that intense gaze cutting into me. Too stunned to move, I just stood there.
His sheets rustled and then his feet hit the ground. He groped his way over to Max’s bed and lit the lantern. The flame flared. But instead of the usual amber glow, a scarlet light flowed out from Drev’s lantern, and the eerie luminescence encompassed him. At that moment, he looked more fierce and frightening than any ghost or ghoul I had ever encountered. I squeaked as I choked back my horror.
He walked up to me and I moved backward until I was against the wall. He held the letter in his hand, his dark eyes looking straight at me.
There was a pause between us. I didn’t dare speak. I couldn’t find my voice. He leaned in closer and in a hushed, mysterious tone, he whispered, “You’re the one they call the Demon of Stauros, aren’t you?”
I stared back at him, silent.
“Aren’t you?”
There was so much I wanted to say—how it had all been a mistake, years of false rumors, or, perhaps, my own madness—but nothing came forth.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile and he snorted, “I get it. There is a demon—a real monster, but it’s not you.”
I gave a slight nod, my eyes never leaving his face. A wave of relief washed over me as he said those words. For decades, I had longed to hear someone tell me that I wasn’t the Demon of Stauros.
Drev stared at me in silence for a few more moments, glanced behind him at his roommates who were still asleep, then turned to me once again and spoke.
“Follow me.”
Part II
Chapter 7: Reentering the World
