Emotionless: (Prototype: Zero book 1)

by Shaina Anastasi

  “Ok.”

  Was there a reason for him to talk to me? Partially believing he had an ulterior motive in talking to me, I watched him leave and close the door softly behind him without uttering another word. Waiting a few more seconds to know that he wasn’t lingering, I looked back down at my grandfather’s book once more and then drew the rune design to stick, winging it at the moment.

  When I finished with all the components, I went to the bare wall and raised my finger. Sometimes drawing on walls feels a little wet and slippery. As I wiggled, curved, flicked and meshed them all together. Finished, I stood on my bed, the soft cushioned sheets fluffy under feet, and I raised a leg and placed it on the rune. Unlike in the classroom, I will have a soft bed to land on if anything goes wrong. Jumping strangely on the spot for a second, I took a deep breath in, jumped up and planted feet on the rune. It was worse than my other one. My whole body did what Lawliet said, stiffen, however, it wasn’t just my legs, back and abdominals. I felt my throat tighten uncomfortably, and it was getting hard to breathe. Everything was sucking inwards, and the muscles were straining.

  “Di-activ-ate St-st-st-i-stick!”

  The rune stopped glowing, and I landed on the fluffy pillows. My breathing was eradicated, and my heart pounded through my chest. I wouldn’t deny how much it hurt. My veins almost felt as if they were about to burst from underneath the skin. It was draining my power painfully. Not going to go with that idea.

  Leaning to the side of the bed, similar to an army crawl, I opened the bedside table drawer, took out a clear crystal and waved it where the rune was. The glow of the rune sucked up into the crystal and removed it from my wall and inserted it into the crystal. The crystal turned a light brown colour from the dead rune that sucked inside of it. Soon I will have to ask Isilies for another one.

  A loud bang came from outside of my room and then there were the loud annoying voices of Donte and Nixon that were complaining about being in a hall for hours while the teachers talked about discrimination between students. I wanted to tune them out, except, I can never tune them out. Their voices grated ears, so I crawled underneath blankets and wanted sleep.

  They wouldn’t let me have a nap.

  Thus, I ended up on the small couch staring dully at the television screen. Action movie. Some weird planet one with creatures all different shapes, sizes and colours. It was fortunate for them because all three brothers were so absorbed in the screen. Unfortunate for me because every movement I made to escape, three pairs of eyes flickered towards me in a death stare. They were waiting for me to disrupt their assumptions of what a family night was supposed to be. So instead, I sat curled up on the lounge and nibbled on fried chicken that was smothered in burning and hot sticky sauce.

  The movie did give me pointers on how to get Lawliet to come. Create a chain rune. Getting my stone structured knight to drag him along with no free will. Begging doesn’t work, nor was waiting for him to say that he will come because that will never happen. I need to push myself to go. A challenge.

  “I knew this was going to be a fight between these two!” Nixon and Donte said at the same time. Their eyes gleamed with anticipation.

  “I wanted the blue guy to show up,” Isilies mopped.

  I haven’t the slightest of clues what show they were watching compared to me because I understood nothing. There was a ball of destruction morphed into a movie. If this were going to be a weekly occurrence, I wouldn’t mind participating and grab some documentaries and history of runes.

  “Eileen, look! Who are you going for?” Nixon asked cheerfully.

  “Probably the juicehead on the evil team,” Donte snickered.

  Juicehead? Orange juice? I don’t get it.

  “No, I think Eileen likes hot heads on the right team. You know, the jerk that is an actual big softie on the inside,” Nixon grinned wickedly.

  Oh, I see. That remark made it obvious that they want to know who I find in this movie attractive.

  “Neither,” I mumbled, stood and started towards my room. “Good night.”

  “Night sister. It was good talking to you.”

  “Please, stop it,” Isilies groaned.

  “Oh, you’re just sour your guy didn’t make it.”

  Shutting my door, I turned off the light and noticed the moon gleam through opened curtains. Grabbing the silk ends of it, I went to close it when I remembered what happened the first night that I was staying here.

  I haven’t tried the boots since.

  Slipping them on, I tugged the windows, opened them and scrambled on the ledge. In my nightgown, the cold winter air cut through and chilled my skin to the bone. Reaching for the bars, I swung off and this time, made my boots cling to the ladder.

  Up the top, in the tower part, I hugged hands across arms and looked around the darkness. Frosty. Nothing but the orbed moon behind a thin layer of grey clouds gleamed down lightly and caressed its surroundings in soft white beauty. Winter shows the beauty of softness and an edge with the ice that encases the walls. Small translucent flecks of it moved around the edges of the tower, curled around corners and smoothed over ledges with elegance. It could be a bad time to jump. I am not confident that if I land on sleek ice that I will jump back up or slip and scrape skin on bricks.

  It seems like the logical time to find out.

  Dangling legs down off the edge, I shuffled forward, rested fingers lightly on the ledge and puffed cheeks as I pushed off and fell. I shifted feet into the correct position, raised arms and let my stomach lurch. I was thriving on the adrenaline with the fall. Nightgown flapped violently, hair whipped around my face and was making it hard to see, as I looked down at the bright exterior that I was aiming for.

  Seconds before I touched the ground, I felt the magic in the boots light up miraculously, and with luck, I launched back up. Tucking legs up to my chest, I spun strangely and ended up upside down. Flying through the air with little accuracy and an unknown destination, I scanned back at the tower and again, time seemed to have slowed down.

  Liquid golden eyes shy underneath perfect white hair revealed a mage I had met in the same position once before, as he leant up on the wall and watched me. I was drawing further away than anticipated, but I feel his stare, and it cut through the shivering icy wind that was freezing bare skin. A sense of warmth that burnt like summer.

  Back right way up, I noticed that he was the one lying upside down on the tower wall.

  Now that I established it has worked and with an audience, I completely forgot how I was supposed to get down without hurting myself. I recall placing little shield symbols on it. All I have to do is deactivate the jump symbol so the protective layer can work full force and bring me into a soft landing. Doing so, I stepped on the wet grass and gasped, as my legs kicked up and I skidded across my rear end to a thumping stop in the back-oval section where mages play sports. Puffing cheeks, I stood shakily, deactivated the rune and brushed dirt and wet grass that stained the white gown.

  I hadn’t thought about the walk back to my home.

  “Are you ok?” a voice from behind woke me from my surroundings rather than the dilemma I placed myself in and looked back. “That was insane!”

  Lowborn, nice build, dull brown eyes, bland black hair, a shade darker than cream, close to the tanned skin and was coming straight towards me with a soccer ball between hands. He stood a little taller than I did, and while he slipped the ball under one arm, he grabbed me with an ice-cold touch. A worried expression plain as day on his face as he looked at me. Then surprise? His eyes widened a lot, so I am only assuming it was a surprised reaction.

  “Wow, you’re beautiful,” he blurted, and his face immediately turned red.

  The first time I have been called beautiful, other than Hopper or family that say it casually and by the opposite sex happened to be late at night, in the back oval and covered in grass. I looked more like a dirty animal than beautiful. It caught me by surprise, and I averted eyes, cast a look down at the torn grass and
moved soil from my nothing but a perfect landing.

  “Do you need help getting home?” he politely asked after he regained his embarrassing pick of words.

  “No,” I declined.

  “I am heading that way anyway. We can walk together.”

  I knew that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  “My name is Spenc, and yours is Eileen, right?” I nodded, and he smiled. “I never see you around, but that might be because I rarely am indoors. I love my mage sports.”

  “I see,” I murmured.

  Mage sports. Rune Wars are classified as a nondirective sport. I am assuming he plays soccer, the worst mage sport known. The balls of sport hit hard and have no sense of direction when hit. Some sports balls have vengeance on mages and like to hit regions that shouldn’t be hit in the game. What makes it worse is that the mage who hit the ball kicked the ball or moved the ball can channel magic and change direction to where it is going. I believe some mages watch the sports to laugh at the mages that run around and try to catch the ball.

  “Quiet type, huh? I can dig,” he smiled. “You’re in the masters’ class with, uh, the angry one. What’s his name?”

  “Lawliet Clarintine,” I answered.

  “Right. It must be insane, to have a guy who gets angry quickly. He attacked Rokk the other day because a stray baseball smacked him in the face. Guess he thought it was deliberate. I also believe that he was holding something, and he landed on it with his fall. Probably the reason he launched himself at Rokk.”

  It makes sense, of how he walked in with a black eye and squished sandwich that day I was doing the plants. Not really knowing the scenario, I do recall Rokk is the one who enjoys pushing Lawliet’s buttons. The one who instigates the fight and plays the victim card afterwards. Again, I find that the reason he ‘launched himself at Rokk’ is the sandwich he made me. Now it is understandable that Lawliet was – I think – mopping in his own way when he walked through the door.

  “I wouldn’t blame him for hating us either, considering it was a Lowborn mage who killed his parents.”

  It was a pin drop on the thin glass in an empty, silent room.

  I never thought or expected the reason for his anger would be because of the losing of his parents. I felt guilty for saying those words the other day about how I wished my parents were dead. I haven’t heard about it, but that may be because my family refused to acknowledge anything that happens in mage life as much as normal mages do. Now I understand the reason to why Mika is his guardian, but how long had he been his guardian for? If he was his guardian recently, I doubt Lawliet would accept him, but if he were young when the incident happened, he wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. Also, how can this knowledge be spoken so openly? Is this the reason he looks at people with little trust? Betrayed by Lowborn mages because he was born with a different bloodline, a pure bloodline.

  I don’t understand why this was bothering me more than it should. If anything, I expected animosity against Highborn and Lowborn. But when is enough, enough. The answer to that would probably be when we’re all eliminated from the face of the earth. It disturbed me.

  I want to know more, but not from this mage. It would be inconsiderately rude to pry answers from any other but Lawliet.

  We walked in silence, what I enjoy most and I was about to walk up the staircase to my home when he cleared his throat. It was a sign that he wanted to say something to me. I stopped, turned around and let fingers touch the broken brick. A small green light glowed near my head, and let the warmth of magic sink into my pores.

  “Are you doing anything on your day off tomorrow?” Spenc asked.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Oh . . .” he trailed off and looked away.

  “She doesn’t have anything going on, on Sunday,” a voice up the stairs from behind me said.

  Puffing cheeks, I looked up to see Isilies who was staring down with a half-smile and with two familiar heads behind him that were brimming with excitement.

  “Awesome! I am training early in the morning. Would you be available lunchtime? We can go out and grab a bite to eat.”

  Nodding, I looked back up the stairs and started up quickly while I ignored the stupid smile Spenc had on his face and all of my brother's faces as well. I have been talked into going out and socialising with somebody I had only met ten minutes ago, and the only interesting conversation was what happened to Lawliet’s parents.

  Yawning, I opened the door to my bedroom and went to sleep before I dwelled any further.

  “Oh, my Mistress, look at this lovely jewel. Do you like jewels? It is the colour of delicious carrots!” he swooned.

  Hopper pointed to a perfect, smooth round deep orange rock that shined in the window of a jewellery store that had the strange, expensive smell of polish. It made me wrinkle my nose with dissatisfaction as I looked away and scanned the cluster of small shops, to find somewhere else.

  Early morning, it wasn’t Hopper that was waiting for me to be ready. After I had gone into my room, I couldn’t sleep with everything that happened. When I was finished writing the pros and cons of the jump rune, I went onto Speggle to find all sorts of shops with antique old rune books I wouldn’t mind having a look at.

  I happened to walk into Hoppers room and poke his cheek until he roused, yelped and turned into a bunny from fright. I presume it was because I was standing over the top of him, still dark and I can hardly smile. It was amusing to see Hopper as he slept. It was a surprise seeing him in human form. I would have assumed that he slept in his pure form. And his face always looks so soft. Of course, I wanted to poke it.

  When I was little, he used to sleep in my bed in bunny form. I would hold his ear, and if he moved, he would tell me that I would clamp down and refuse for him to leave. Sometimes I miss those times. How my brothers would randomly walk in my room with Hopper and have sleepovers. Only a little bit, though. I miss it a little bit.

  Once he changed and was ready, I went to the door to only have Isilies stumble out and yank on his grey woollen cloak. He had tousled brown hair and blurry silver eyes. He seemed desperate to get out. Not particularly sure if it was because I heard Donte and Nixon whispering to each other last night of making an unyielding potion that makes someone have severe gastro, or . . . Well, there isn’t any particular reason for him to want to escape.

  I saw the evil looks in their eyes as we opened the door to leave. Donte narrowed his eyes and smirked while Nixon swirled a bottle that was a sickly green in there. Frightened for my survival as well, we left before they could get ready and follow.

  Pushing my beanie up with gloved hands, I narrowed into a laneway, glanced at the directions on my phone and went to walk when my white cloak tugged backwards. Twirling, I faced a bunny that was grinning at me. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were demanding me to be patient.

  The bunny is evil.

  “I am going to get a coffee from the café next door. Eileen, want anything?”

  “I will get it, Master!” Hopper straightened up and remembered that he was supposed to be a servant, not a jittery bunny that found something sparkling that resembled a vegetable in the window. “What would you like, my Mistress?” he asked me.

  “Hot sugaur,” I murmured as I tapped the clear crystal glass with a fingernail.

  “My Mistress, you understand sugaur is melted sugar with a little bit of hot water in a cup.” I nodded, and he sighed slowly and looked at Isilies. Hopper was pleading, but he shrugged and looked the other way. “I will be right back, Masters.”

  “You could have manipulated him,” Isilies smiled, placed a hand on the top of my head and patted softly. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t want to,” I admitted. “No point in telling someone to do something they were already going to do.”

  “You are so manipulative,” Wisps of frost lingered out of his mouth as he laughed.

  Manipulative. What does that even mean? I don’t think I am anything but what I por
tray myself to be. However, what I think I am maybe the complete opposite of what others see me as. It is a confusing notion, and it is what gave me the name droid in the first place. Cruelly being misjudged by my personality and status in the mage life. Right now, standing here looking at this jewel caused some Lowborn to stop for a second with dissatisfaction at my little family. If they didn’t know us before, they know me now being in the Rune Wars.

  Averting eyes away from the oval-shaped orange jewel that was nothing more but a beautiful rock, I set my eyes towards the back, at the stray path that leads to the tunnel filled with runes. I wouldn’t mind ending the shopping event there so that I could see those glorious runes. However, I have to play nice and walk the bunny. I guess being cooped up day in and day out in the apartment while I go to class isn’t what he considers fun. He reminds me of an excited puppy who was let off his leash for the first time.

  Hopper handed me my steaming cup of dissolved sugar and water before he gave Isilies his coffee. Standing in an off-shopping street, we decided to leave the main one because it was packed with mages who have the day off and want to get out as well. Also, I think I noticed Charlie with Lollie and Kent and wanted to avoid a conversation, so I pulled out on a small narrow street filled with cute little stores.

  Three shops up on the right are where the small bookstores were located, but one caught my attention, and it was squished between an arcade and crystal music shop. I advanced quickly. Hopper rushed after, and Isilies was already going to the crystals. We walked through separate doors, and mine smelt musky. It was that wafting old book smell, which doesn’t have a distinct smell that I could correctly describe.

  The small bookshop is nothing ordinary. With the shelves that spiralled up along the roof, books stuck in its designated spot and then the shelves spiralled back down and onto the other side. An aisle on either side of a small floor to wall bookshelf that separated and a pad on the edge of the bookshelf, directly in front of me had a list of sections. Scrolling down to R, I tapped on ‘rune books’, and a green light in the corner of the room lit up majestically and was calling me to them.