Original Souls (A World Apart #1)

by Kyle Thomas Miller

  "Now I know it sounds strange, but—” she hastily halted her blathering,“wait, you won't tell anyone I've said all this, right?"

  The other lady appeared hurt. "How many times have we swopped stories. I just hope you're not making this one up, 'cause it can come back to you through karma, sweetie. And that's if you're lucky, 'cause if someone did find out, we'd both be on the first train zipping out of here."

  “I know, and that's not even the best part. She indicted Sena. Lilith in the missing uncle thing. She said Lilith had gotten to the guy. All for someone named Sebastian. Now here's where I got a little concerned myself. She said that The Well Read Walker librarian guy is the reason why the boy's in here. Why he's in the hospital. I was coming there to give her the final tests. They were conclusive on food poisoning. That’s what got the little bugger so worked up at the auditorium. But more than likely, he’s fighting a common cold too, so he's probably just feeling weak all together. I’m sure that’s why he passed out yesterday."

  Corinth couldn't believe she was saying all this. Then he thought about the way the fruit that Walker gave him tasted. And the way he stared at it like it was alive or something. He couldn't take any more bad news, but he needed to know now, so listened in even more intently.

  "Before I even got the chance to tell her any of this food poisoning business, she said over the phone that the boy visited the librarian before the assembly. That he ate with him. He ate the only thing he'd eaten all that day."

  "Oh my!" the other woman gasped and covered her mouth. She too knew that this kind of food poisoning was fast acting. He had to have eaten it within hours of his reaction. "Are you sure, Cynthia?" the startled woman asked her eavesdropping coworker.

  Cynthia gave her a telling look as she tucked in the white sheets of the unoccupied bed. "I'm only sure of what the Grand Ministrant said. I don't know if she's right. But if the boy ate with the librarian then—"

  "Then she's right," the woman finished her sentence as they both closed the curtain, coming back into the aisles between the beds.

  To hear them sound so certain put Corinth on edge. He didn't want them to know he was awake and heard everything. But more so, he wanted to be sure what he heard them say was true. At least from their perspectives.

  "What else you hear about the Lilith thing? Why would a girl like her do something like that?"

  Cynthia responded quickly. "How? That's a better question. He's a cop. A Squadron cop. He's no sissy. But he’s a looker so..."

  "Yeah, but so is Lilith. She certainly don't need to go round kidnapping law officers to get a hot date!" The other lady seemed convinced that it was all just trash talk. No matter how the chips fell, there just weren’t any hard facts to support Cynthia’s gossip.

  "I wasn't too sure about that one anyway,” she said dismissively,“but Sena Hendrix sure did seem so!" Cynthia giggled as she and her work friend pulled back Corinth's curtain. When they did—they received a very rude welcoming gift.

  Corinth tapped into the power he'd been desperately trying to ignore these past weeks. The same power that ended the disaster at the Pavilion. He reached deep into himself and found it. What he pulled out from the depths of his soul was more than he could control.

  The blast of energy radiating from his deft perception surfaced all at once. The windows behind each bed in the hospital burst out. The energy that cycled through the room warped its structure. The walls moved like waves of water. The glass shot out quickly, then stopped abruptly and pulled back into the hospital room slowly. Sending a series of broken shards covering the beds and ripping the velvety curtains closing them in. The two women before him dropped to their knees with eyes the same turquoise shade as Corinth's. He was inside their minds probing deep for a solid surface for which these allegations could stand on. He found it—and a lot more.

  Cynthia's mind yielding many more revelations than the other woman's. She was not lying about what she heard. When he watched her, watching Sena. Hendrix from a cracked office door, he felt like he was living the moment out with her. This deep immersion in her thoughts pulled him in, like the ocean’s current. Before he knew it, he'd connected to another mind. His subconscious knew the truest of truths laid with Sena. Hendrix. He didn't want to consume her mind, but it had already happened before he thought to stop himself. And he saw, everything!

  <*>

  From the twelfth floor of the very same building, Hendrix gripped her friend’s hand much tighter than she had been holding it.

  "What's wrong, Silvia?"

  "No, nothing. I'm sorry for that," she paused, eyes darting around. "I don't know exactly what that was. I just felt a sharp surge of awareness." She flagged her hand toward him casually. "It's probably nothing. Just rest yourself, Alastair."

  <*>

  Corinth sat up in his hospital bed with teary, brightly glowing eyes. He looked like a very petite, but absolutely absurd madman. The two nurses lay unconscious on the checkered tiled floors in front of the bed. He was inundated with information that was long kept from him. And from this new knowledge, he mostly felt anger. An intense anger toward his dad and mom. He couldn't believe they'd do such a thing, even if the woman was as vile as Hendrix. She's changed a lot, he thought. Not enough, but she’s his grandmother for heaven's sake. Twelve years is just too long to shut someone so close to you out. He felt her pain over missing his childhood. It was the biggest regret of her life. Her hateful affectations that pushed her own son away to the point that Criston no longer viewed Silvia Hendrix as family.

  Corinth wanted to sit there forever, but he figured someone would have heard the wreckage. He hopped out of the bed and started covering his tracks. He didn't want any of it to be traceable to him. He tried focusing the power this time around. He used it to alter records, so that they reflected him being discharged late last night. He rearranged wording on sheets of paper without tainting the integrity of ink. He lifted letter after letter, number after number from the pages, and they floated through the air to where he preferred them to be on the papers. On some sheets, he erased entire sections of information with the flick of his mind. He wiped the ladies memories of the past few hours up to when the forms now stated his release. He didn't know if he did any of it right, but it was all he had.

  He walked urgently out of the room, utterly forgetting he was in a hospital robe. He ducked back in and looked around for his clothes. They were folded up right next to the bed in a lone chair oddly close to where his head would have been laying all night. His school uniform neatly stacked layer by layer on this black chair with stainless steel legs. He faced the shattered windows while putting them on, and then looked to his right. He noticed a computer behind a Plexiglas window. He’d just walked over there, the entrance being adjacent to the Plexiglas, but he was blinded by his rush. Now that he slowed down, forcing his little feet to slip into his loafers, he could think more clearly.

  He made his way over to the office. Walking out the hospital into the hallway, where the swinging office door was just one door down from the hospital section entrance they placed him in. Corinth figured the glass window was there so the nurses could check on patients without leaving the office. Unless, of course, patients actually needed help of some kind. Then those gossiping hags would be forced to their calloused toes to do their jobs, instead of lollygagging the day away about little mixed boys and their abstractly warped lives.

  An annoyed Corinth noticed several computers instead of one once he passed through the doorway. He knew that's where the information was actually stored. Those papers he erased and altered were just printouts from these computers. He tried focusing his power again, but was tapped out already. Completely overdosed by the initial surge when he read too many minds to count. He pushed anyhow, attempting to rid the school of any record that he was here during this crazy, freak-out event.

  Without warning, the first computer exploded, like fireworks and gunfire at the Pavilion, setting off the sprinkler systems. The alarm sou
nded as the red and white sirens mounted high on the walls lit up. Water poured down from the ceilings. And Corinth could definitely hear people coming now. He couldn't imagine what took them so long, but he was hyper-aware after using all that mental strength, so he knew it wouldn’t matter, because this fire and subsequent drenching of the touch screen computers ought to do the job of erasing things for him.

  He quickly ducked out of the room, running from wall to wall down the hall. His back up against each, as he shimmied his way down the narrow corridor that led farthest away from the hospital sector. The late responding rescue team was now in, and Corinth, far out of the hospital and its nurse’s office.

  He then embarked on the lonely journey back to his dorm. The elevator was empty, because ministrants and students alike had class. It was a good thing though. There was no one around to question why a soaking wet, weeping boy -sat curled up in the corner, looking like he’d been to hell—and never came back.

  Chapter 21:

  What's A Library?

  May 22, 1002 ~ Midday

  Corinth sat on his bed alone for several hours, pondering all that he just learned. He threw Oliveto's green ball across the room and up against the big wooden door. He caught it like a pro every time it bounced back. He'd be a star on the Spheres team, if only he'd go to practice, but Walker was right about it being quite a dull game. He thought and thought some more. While thinking, he donned a grimace so grave that he could feel the muscles in his face growing stiff. They’d be stuck that way if something didn’t give. And just like that, his thinking boy time was prematurely interrupted without proper notice. Anvard and the usual suspects opened the door without knocking, and then shuffled their way inside.

  "So, we just heard that you were discharged -last night. Of course, before all the commotion this morning in the hospital. And yet, you didn't come see any of us?" Anvard smiled brightly and folded his arms across his broad chest like a lecturing father.

  Corinth swiftly got up from his bed and started pacing in front of it. Displacing Claudia and the twins in the process. "I'm not in the mood for jokes!" he said it quickly, like his life depended on them understanding the point straight away.

  Once again, Anvard felt Corinth pushing him away. They hadn't made any progress in their relationship since the day they met. "Cory—"

  "Don't call me that. My mom and dad call me that. I don't like it, but they're my parents. And you're just you. So just stop it already!"

  Anvard was the king of forgiveness. No matter what someone said or did, he always tried to look at it from their perspective. "So, it's that bad?" he said, while slowly sitting down on the edge of Corinth's bed.

  Corinth stopped pacing and looked at him. "Yeah, it kind of is."

  "Good thing you have friends then!" He smiled with genuine delight and Corinth sat down next to him with a sigh of relief steaming through his narrow nostrils.

  "Well, I hope so, because I could use all of your help," Corinth admitted, with his eyes down.

  "With what?" Emmy asked first.

  He thought about it for a second. He didn't know if it was a good idea to get his friends involved in his dangerous plans. He reluctantly started speaking again. "We need to get a book. It's called The Fate Forgery."

  They all exchanged awkward looks. "That doesn't sound that hard really." Anvard patted Corinth on the back, trying to seem supportive. Meanwhile, Emma pulled out her digital tablet.

  "That's not the whole plan," Corinth said with his elbows anchored to his knees. He still felt weak, and didn't feel like re-explaining himself with every phrase.

  "I can't find it anywhere. I looked in the schools database and the Hyperborean public library thingy too. Your book don't exist, sweetie," Emma said with her fingers gently caressing her chin like a sassy sleuth, but more so, an annoying know-it-all.

  "That's because it's old. It's never been scanned into any database," he informed them.

  "Well, how are we going to get it?" Emmy looked perplexed by Corinth's elusive explanations.

  "Better yet, why do we need it?" Anvard threw into the pot.

  "We need to find out about the Shattered Temple and that Creative Window thing too."

  "Whoa!" Claudia exclaimed. "You're headed into some weird territory. Can you please just explain from the beginning?"

  Corinth figured she was right, but he didn't want them knowing everything. He told them about his dreams and what he felt they meant. He told them that Walker may have poisoned him, and could be holding his uncle hostage for some reason. He didn't want them to know about his mental state. They already looked at him with rising suspicion. He didn't want them trying to commit him to an insane asylum, which they probably would do if they knew the whole story.

  "Your dream seems curious,” Claudia massaged her language to keep from sounding dismissive,“but we can't just go snooping that far from school grounds. They said at orientation how dangerous the Angora Mountains are. And all this for a dream," Claudia tried to be the voice of reason.

  "Stop it!" Anvard shouted. "Dreams are visions, you idiot. Any second-grader knows that. They don't always play out the way they do in your head, but they have a lot of meaning."

  "There are no facts to support that!" Claudia countered viscously. "Just fanatics and their crazy renditions of events that they've misinterpreted!" She wanted Andy to know that she knew how to shout too.

  "Both of you stop it!" Emmy yelled. She looked to Corinth seating next to Anvard on the edge of the bed. "Corinth, where's this book?"

  Thank you, Emmy, said the whimpered in Corinth’s lonely heart. The last thing he wanted to do was argue about facts. He was running on a little less than fumes at this point. His stomach was in knots as he tried to explain further. "It's in the library. Walker told me so," he announced without notable emotion.

  "And you trust that it's not a trap?" Anvard questioned boldly. "Maybe he's been leading you there all along," he said protectively.

  "It doesn't matter. Either way, we have to find my uncle, so we need to get the book from the library."

  "Ew!" Emma grimaced at the thought. "I'm not really a book kind of girl." She had a look on her face that said she just smelled a fart. She despised even the thought of knowledge. "And I have pretty bad allergies, so those dusty things might close my throat up something fierce. So...." she was hoping they'd count her out.

  "You're going!" Anvard said quickly, and her face dropped even faster than the words came out of his mouth.

  "Wait, no. I need you to do something else Emma." She perked up at the sound of Corinth’s voice.

  "I don't want to be the odd ball out here," Claudia interrupted, "but can't we just get help from the ministrants. I mean, Sen. Huntzmen, he's an expert on mythology. And he's the Watchers teacher. He's trained in seeing the unseen."

  "She has a point," Anvard admitted to everyone's surprise, except Corinth’s. He'd been snooping around inside of their minds. He didn't like how it felt to be inside someone else's head, but he knew what was really at stake here. He needed to be able to trust them.

  "No," Cory countered defiantly, "we have to do it ourselves. But you're right, Claudia, we do need something that can see what we can't. That's where Emma comes in," he said, pointing his finger directly at her. She was proud to be the center of attention within the group. Just like she always knew she would be.

  <*>

  When they closed the door behind them, Emma started to feel unsure. Standing in the Main hall, just outside Corinth's dorm door, she didn't know what to do. The four of them began walking away, rounding the stone corridor that is the Main hall. One of the torches flickered vigorously as a passing breeze came in from one of the open windows up above.

  She called out to them before they were out of sight. "Hey! You guys are going to leave me. Just like that. No pep talk, or anything." They all came back with slumped shoulders.

  "You did it once. What's the problem now?" Corinth asked, looking fed up with her before the convers
ation even got underway.

  "The difference is," Emma snapped, "last time I was sure he wasn't there. But he's there now. He hasn't left that room in weeks, because of what happened to him at the Pavilion."

  Corinth needed her to go into Sen. Bernard's office, and again steal the digital map of the school and its outer perimeters. That map could tell you not only where everything was, but also what's happening there at that very moment. "Yeah," Cory started encouragingly, "but he's bedridden. His office is up front. Right when you walk through the door. But he'll be in the back. In his bedroom. Probably even asleep. This should be just as easy.”

  "I don't know?" She looked around at the windows up high. One of the mosaic-glass double doors kept flipping back and forth. She watched it like it was telling her what the best option was. "If I get caught, you have to use your magik with Bernard. All the ministrants are nice to you, maybe you can do something, if things get weird." Corinth and Emma pinky-swore to the agreement that he'd help her out if she was caught.