“This place was already opened but then had to close for refurbishments. I guess that during the closure they added external features to the building; it’s been inaccessible to the public for two whole months,” Liam spoke.
“Two months?!” asked Jaden
“I know, ridiculous isn’t it?” Robbie then replied.
“No, I mean it only took two months to reconstruct…this?” asked Jaden. Liam scoffed.
“Don’t be silly, Jaden – it only took three weeks. It was just closed down for two month to add more shops and gain new investments,” Tammy perkily answered.
“Construction isn’t a problem over here, buddy. Everything’s done and dusted before you could say Noble’s Antilles,” Liam said.
The shopping centre’s interior was tremendously grand. The structure’s ceiling was visible from the bottom floor, but it seemed miles away in height. Expensive lights hung on the walls and chandeliers spiralled down from the utmost ceiling, illuminating the shops of many different brands. Further ahead was some sort of large junction which led you to other different places in this magnificently-designed building.
Instead of elevators there were green sparks that flew in clusters and hovered like flies in front of certain walls. The one piece of machinery I recognised here were the escalators.
“What are those?” I asked, referring to the green sparks, “Jojo?” I then turned to her, expecting her to answer my dazed question.
“They’re Chrono –”
“What’s Chrono?” I asked, interjecting.
“It means time – they’re Chrono Enhanced Transports but more commonly known as C.E.T.s. They work like elevators and you see those hovering numbers made out of green sparks –?” she said, pointing to the ember-like ashes above. I was able to identify that each group of sparks on the bottom floor had a hovering number formed from the green embers.
“What about them?” I asked.
“Well, they indicate which floor it transports you to,” she finished explaining.
Benches were aligned near certain stalls and in the centre of the ground floor was a marble column that stretched all the way to the highest point of the entire structure’s ceiling. Robbie stopped and pointed at a C.E.T.
“Ah, there’s our transport.”
“What the –” I was unable to continue speaking since we were all walking hastily. I wouldn’t want to be left behind here. We waited in front of the C.E.T. nonchalantly with a group of other people. Liam tapped the soles of his shoes out of profound boredom as he looked around. His head landed on a little boy that stood next to him, holding the hand of his mother. The tiny boy held a double-decked ice-cream in his hands as he looked up at Liam with bright, red, round eyes. Liam looked at him ordinarily when the infant suddenly pulled an unpleasant face and stuck his tongue out at Liam. Liam looked around coolly and looked back at the little boy. He stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes to the top of his head so that his bright electric eye-whites showed and vicious blue static coursed through his afro and face. The child instantly began crying, dropping his ice-cream. Liam immediately – as quick as lightning – dropped his eyes, stopped the visible static flowing to his hair and face, stuffed his hands in his pockets and got back to looking around inconspicuously.
Unlike most of the others around me, this C.E.T wasn’t made out of green sparks but red ones.
“Why is it red?” asked Jaden out of curiosity. I was confused, until they suddenly lightened to a stunning green. People burst out of it and continued walking, going about their private business. I guessed that when they glowed red it had to do with them being occupied.
“Okay, come on. We’re stopping on the thirtieth floor,” Robbie ushered.
“To where? I’m honestly confused,” I told him as he dragged us along towards the C.E.T. We and other people walked inside it and suddenly vanished.
Going through a C.E.T. was like going through a Root System except this was more like holding onto a roundabout and being spun mercilessly whilst being steady on your feet. A rush of green spectrums whirled around us circularly with violent winds that sounded like a set of knives being jammed into malicious whirring propellers. Above, I noticed a series of numbers that kept escalating with loud ‘ping’s as the sound of rushing air grew louder and louder. We were on twenty-seven.
“Right, let go, buddies!” Robbie said.
“But we’re not holding on to anything!” I mentioned. The number moved up to twenty-eight.
“Trust me, you are,” he responded. Twenty-nine. I was utterly confused because I honestly felt as if I were glued to the spot with my hands strapped beside me. With a loud ‘ping’ the number changed to a bright green ‘30’. I did whatever Robbie suggested and I sort of turned around, in the hopes that I’d unstrap myself from the C.E.T. It was magnetic; as I turned away forcefully, a force was trying to keep me strapped in.
Suddenly, we were spat out of the Transporter as the colour of the new floor quickly painted itself into being.
“Guys, look up,” Robbie gestured, pointing upwards. I walked towards the railing as did Jaden and Jade. We peered over the restricting railing and strained our necks to look upwards. I gasped and then pulled my head back in. We seemed to be closer to the top floor. The ceiling was made of glass and was a triangular prism projecting outwards.
Eventually, we were pulled along towards a large dimly lit opening with a large television screen hung up – all previews of films being shown tonight were available on it. And there it was. Robbie’s ongoing ramble became a strange, bizarre and childish exclamation of him jumping up and down rabidly, practically screaming “oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” Jaden and I were forced to excuse him as others walked by.
On both sides of the room, there were rows of food stands. We walked to one of them and looked at the glorious food through the glass. I almost drooled at the tacos, popcorn and chips. Behind the counter were grillers which had hot dogs and burgers cooking on them and buns in the glass case next to them. A woman in a plaid blue and black uniform attended to us as I continued to salivate over the luscious food.
“Jade, take the money. If I continue having it, it’ll be wasted on unnecessary things,” Liam joked.
“Hi, what can I get you?” she asked. She tried putting on a fake smile but it was horrible. Just horrible. You could clearly see she hated this job.
Instantly, we began talking spontaneously to Jade but pointing to varieties of food. She kept turning her head to each of us uncountable times and it began to seem certain that we were stressing the poor girl out. Then BAM – she exploded.
“OKAY!” she yelled out. She inhaled and looked at the woman before rambling on: “right, I’ll have fifteen hot dogs, three large fully-salted popcorns, two unsalted; just plain and crispy the way these two like it! –” she exclaimed on Liam and Jaden before continuing, as the woman was quickly scribbling down Jade’s orders in a notepad. It was probably my vivid imagination but this all seemed pulled out of an animation.
“– three sweet popcorns, four tacos for these boys with everything on it – woman I am not kidding do not skimp on the fillings or they’ll be back on you like wolves – seven large cokes, ten packets of skittles, five packets of M&M’s and a large bottle of water.” Jade then gasped for air. I’m sure she had used her telepathy for every piece of that order because we were all fully satisfied.
The woman went to the back of the room and went to the grill to get the hot dogs. A light and almost unnoticeable breeze suddenly flew overhead and appeared as hands made of air. They began typing on the till. It clicked, rang and then suddenly opened to reveal coins which had the usual vertical sword and ‘V’ overlapping it.
The other side of the coins had either a flame, a head that strongly resembled Markmardowal’s, a fox, two crossing hatchets, a large monument or a tree, all with their values written in cursive figures below. Underneath the figures was the word Pasil. The red, blue, green, light blue and purple notes e
ach had a majestic monument printed onto them – one of them I noticed to be the grand marble building behind the Trim Ridge fountain. The word shack was clearly printed on each of the notes with a symbol before the values that seemed to be an ‘S’ with an ‘H’ overlapping it. As the woman turned around, the hands made of air slowly disappeared.
“Okay, that’ll be fifteen Shacks and twelve Pasils.” Suddenly, we looked at Jade, expecting her to provide the money. She reached into her pockets and wasted valuable time swimming her hands around to get a grip of the cash.
“Hang on, jeans are so tight –” After she had finished wasting two precious minutes of ours, she caught the money and took out two blue and green notes. One stated ten shacks and the other five shacks. She then pulled out several Pasils from her pockets; there were two silver small-sized ones and a big bronze one. The coins clinked in Jade’s hands as she handed them over to the cashier. She kindly accepted the money and put it in the electric till. She swayed her hand across the front of the till and a gush of wind brushed across to slam it shut.
“There you go. Enjoy the movie,” said the woman.
“Thank you,” we said unevenly. Jade lifted her hands, waving them over the food we had just purchased as began to levitate into mid-air.
“Liam – could you –?” asked Jade, pointing to the food. Liam clicked his fingers and shields of electricity encircled the food. Jade put her hand down whilst her eyes were still a fierce and bright purple. The food hovered behind Jade as we got in line to give our tickets in. The people preceding us had just finished and entered a long hall ahead. A man in a black and blue outfit stood in front of us, looking extremely tired but attempting to hide it. He was doing a stand up job at disguising it, I must say. If you looked past his dishevelled hair and lifeless eyes, of course.
“Ticket –” he stopped and re-examined how many we were “– tickets please.” Robbie reached into his pockets and quickly – much quicker than Jade did in any case – pulled out seven, small white tickets that stated: BEOWULF 01:00am to 2:45am – November 16th”printed onto it. He accepted it timidly and clenched them in his fist. He opened them and the white cards were now red.
“Thank you, enjoy the movie,” he said, dully painting a pretend smile on his face. We kindly took the tickets and walked past him. There were a set of gleaming red and black swinging doors in front of us which had two large circular holes as windows. We walked closer to them and they swung open by themselves. The food behind Jade was floating gently as we walked hastily.
We were now in a cool, air conditioned hall where the different cinema screens were. We took a right turn and came to an opening with two sets of two black swinging doors on the left and right. In the wall between them was the word Beowulf in fire and an arrow beneath it pointing to the doors on the left. We slowly pushed open the black doors on the gestured side and we were finally in the cinema. The room was extensively large and the ceiling dimmer lights were low. The majority of the audience was now seating themselves and a few were now coming in with us.
“Come, I’m pretty sure there’s still some space up there.” Robbie referred to the highest seats. We walked further into the cinema and walked up the stairs, outlined with a row of dim lights.
“I can’t believe it. These cinemas are just like the ones back home. Only I think I prefer these,” Jaden remarked.
We reached the highest row and took our places. We got a very clear and broad view of the screen. I could tell we had missed all the advertisements because with a loud roar that lit the screen to a blinding white, the movie had begun. Tammy was sitting against the wall. Next to her was Jojo, then Liam, Robbie, me, Jaden and then Jade – who was sitting the closest to the stairs. Jade looked at us then stretched her hand out forward towards the direction Tammy was. A flat purple shield spread itself across, acting as a table. The food hovered above our heads and then landed on the force-field.
“Such awesomeness,” I whispered to myself. I still couldn’t get over the aptitude of our abilities.
“What did you say?” Jaden asked me inquisitively.
“I said shut up and watch the movie,” I quickly retorted in a hiss. The sound of the crunching and munching of popcorn was monotonous. Robbie kept reciting most of the movie, as if he had seen this exact film before and he knew what the actors were going to say, which was putting us on edge. I ate silently and watched. I also deliberately bothered Jaden by stealing his food.
An hour and forty-five minutes (which honestly felt like a century) had passed and this life-draining, mediocre movie was finished. We walked down the cinema corridors languidly, looking like complete train wrecks and zombies, whilst Robbie seemed full of joie-de-vivre.
“Oh, and do you remember the scene where he was like –”
“Robbie, please, for all that is good in this world – shut up!” Liam spoke out of sheer exhaustion.
“Oh, right…yeah – sorry,” his little brother timidly responded. But of us all, Jade was the worst – she was unbearably cranky and impulsive if she got too tired.
“Urgh, Aden, your voice is so annoying!” she groaned, rubbing her forehead as if stressed.
“What – that is so unfair I haven’t even said as much as a word since the movie ended,” I complained undertone.
“Yes, but I can hear you in my head. And your voice sounds like impulsive, needless, childish whining!”
“Hurtful,” I mumbled to myself, half asleep.
“What time is it?” I asked the others, half dead. Jojo pulled up her sleeves and looked at her jewel encrusted watch.
“Two forty-eight,” she said.
“Really?” groaned Jade. Jojo opened her mouth and yawned.
“Yes,” she answered plainly. We walked through the wide and not-as-lively corridor. The liveliness of the place had somewhat diminished. We headed to a C.E.T. and teleported to the bottom floor. We could have just used Jojo, but seeing her as unresponsive and unanimated as she was, her teleporting would be like being driven by someone under the influence of alcohol. We trudged to the main entrance and crossed the bridge.
“Okay. Positions,” spoke Robbie – the only one of us who didn’t understand what it was like to be kept awake against your will at two in the morning.
We stretched our hands inwards, looking completely unaware of our surroundings outside St Balowin’s. Suddenly, the others disappeared leaving fog and mist in the atmosphere and I was the last to vanish again. We reappeared underneath the canopy but fell to the ground due to our lack of steadiness and balance – all of us except Robbie, of course. We stood up slothfully and slouching over to the front door.
“I want to puke out an atomic bomb,” Liam muffled with his head in the grass as his stomach churned.
Robbie looked back at us and saw us all slowly dozing off as we stood. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. He picked up a branch on the floor and stretched it back without snapping it. Out of nowhere, the branch whipped through the air with a whack and slapped all of us on our cheeks. At least we were all awake now.
“What was that for?!” I automatically exclaimed, at which point Robbie had already stretched his hand to cover my mouth.
“Be quiet!” he hissed.
“Sorry,” I timidly responded as he gently lowered his hand.
“Are you guys all awake now?” Robbie asked. Just like that, the floor was open to a series of babyish complaints from all of us.
“Obviously,” Tammy complained.
“My cheek hurts,” Jojo said, rubbing her cheek.
“My tooth tastes funny,” Jaden bizarrely spoke, his tongue looking busy in his mouth as he impossibly tried to taste his tooth.
“I feel like I’m on fire,” I continued.
“I’m not kidding, Aden, your voice is so irritating,” Jade quickly whined. Suddenly, we started bickering amongst ourselves. Even though it was done somewhat quietly, we seemed to be getting on Robbie’s last nerve. He picked up the branch again and whacked us twice on one cheek an
d then the other. Our hands instantly rose to our cheeks, trying to numb the pain.
“Are you all done complaining now?” Liam grabbed the branch sharply before it touched him and snapped it murderously, his eyes in raging slits with vicious electric static in them. He subsequently smacked his brother’s head.
“Calm yourself, Robin,” he grumbled.
After our momentary jesting, we headed inside. Robbie flinched as he slammed into the coat rack stand, falling to the floor which I’m sure would send an echoing ‘clank’ throughout the house and therefore wake mum and Anne up, bringing about interrogation, releasing world war Anne-gelina and subjecting us to house imprisonment once they found out we snuck out – you get the idea. Luckily enough, Jade’s telekinesis reflexively acted and the rack hovered in mid-air before floating back to its erect position. We crept silently through the still darkness. As soon as we arrived upstairs, we separated into our individual rooms. We changed out of our casual clothes and as soon as we were done, collapsed onto our beds. No matter how sticky I would feel without taking a shower or no matter how uncomfortable the texture of my mouth would feel without brushing my teeth, I just couldn’t be bothered to drag myself to do all of those things.
And with that, we fused with our duvets, sprawled across our beds, so defeated and unable to utter a word. Liam pointed at the air conditioner and it beeped, turning itself on. I raised my weary head with my eyes shut.
“Liam,” I muttered.
“On three,” his muffled voice replied from his head deeply sunk into his pillow.
Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) Page 30