Dark Clouds
A chilling breeze leaked through the broken walls of the hostel. The sun's appearance grew shorter and shorter with each passing day, and the building was packed to the brim with fresh arrivals. Many hid from the coming winter, but Delta embraced the cold, especially due to her newfound work at the stay-house. Every day, her skin would glitter with sweat, her muscles were tired and torn from carrying loads and her feet pained from the countless hours of being on them. Fortunately, Anobus often re-gifted his cakes and sweets from home to her, none of which went to her thighs. Delta held contempt at her position as custodian of the house at first and battled with her cousin about the hefty work. However, the agreement for any to stay in the place was to make it functional and ensure cooperation.
She slid her sleeve up to her blank wrist phone. No new messages from her parents or Mage Goru. It was as if she was forgotten the moment she stepped out of their lives. However, she debated her feelings on the decision. She stared at the frayed bristles of the brush lying on the floorboards with a bucket of hot foamy water in the corner of the hall. This was her new home; this was her life, with an old, dying lantern hovering above, barely illuminating the filthy indented floor from the millions of feet that had walked across it, for now. She picked up the brush and continued to scrub. A'gesh flew over and landed on the edge of the bucket, readying herself to bathe in the dangerous liquid solution.
“Get out of that!” Delta cried as she waved her arm at the bird. With a defiant and angered squawk, A'gesh beat her powerful wings and took flight before the bucket toppled to its side, spilling the water across the panels.
“Now, look what you did,” Delta said as A'gesh continued her ascent to the high ceiling. With water spreading across the floor and a heavy sigh, Delta picked herself up from the hardwood and reached over for the nigh-empty container. A deep rumble vibrated through the ground, the chipped walls quivered, and the lantern's light died. The quake had ceased as quickly as it came; she was left alone in the dark hallway with water all around her. Delta stared up at the black ceiling and groaned at her misfortune as she rubbed her damp fingers through her hair.
“You well?” Anobus called from behind. She spun around to see his shadowed figure stepping from one of the many doorways in the room.
“Don't walk here-,” before she could halt his advance, she could partially see his lit eyes widen as his body dropped to the ground.
“I told you not to walk here,” she said reaching for what she hoped was his arms.
“Are you making this place into your personal bathhouse?” he said feeling for her hands and pulling himself up.
“A'gesh's decision,” she said as she tried eyeing on the flutter of wings above them, “go and eat some mice outside!”
“There are enough for her in here alone,” Anobus said as he brushed off his wet trousers before pulling out a glass sphere from his baggy pockets, “take this one.”
Delta plucked the orb from his fingers and gently tapped it. In an instant, the lantern shone bright amber; she almost had to shield her eyes from the sudden luminosity, before releasing it from her grasp to let it float in the air.
“They're getting worse and more frequent. I’ve never felt it around my area or at-,” Delta caught herself from mentioning the Magi Tower “anywhere else of relevance.”
He shrugged. “That's what happens around poorer areas all the time. Power gets siphoned from here because they're less relevant, as you so delicately put.”
“I didn't mean to sound so crass, just an observation,” she said crossing her arms.
“'S that?” said an old woman poking her head out of a doorway. Her round ashy white face was plump enough to hide her wrinkles, and almost transparent blue eyes peered at them through her thick lids.
“Power outage, nothing more,” Anobus said waving his arm with assurance before carefully stepping back through the same entrance he'd come, “I'll get some 'sorbent stones to get rid of the water.”
A'gesh squawked as her aerial circling became more erratic. The old woman's eyes circled as she stared at her before she landed on Delta's shoulder. “Bird's that?”
“A species not of this planet,” she said as she caressed bird’s feathers that just landed, trying to calm her friend's sudden distress. Delta sensed a psychic push against her mind, but its effects reached little more than a touch.
The old woman growled as she pulled her head from her bedchamber and slammed the door shut. Slightly disorientated at her behaviour, Delta wondered if the woman was all there. She was relieved that she couldn't enter a disturbed individual's mind.
“Here,” Anobus called with a small armful of coal stones pressed against his belly before tossing them on the heaviest areas of the foamy puddle, “you alright, Del?”
Delta smiled and shook her head. “That woman who came to that doorway was odd.”
“Ah Basra, she prefers her own company and tries to find trouble wherever she goes. Always ends up here because no one else wants to deal with her,” he said as he watched the stones amplify in size.
A small shiver went down her back at the thought that she was looking into her future. “What's her story?”
Anobus shrugged as he rested his hands on his hips. “She's a hundred and sixty, been here for decades on and off, rarely talks with anyone. Though some hear she has very intense discussions in her room.”
“With whom?” Delta said as A'gesh hopped on her head.
“Universe knows. Just stay away from her, is my advice,” he said.
“Oh, are you scared to ask her to do her bit of house chores?” she teased, but Anobus bit his reply as he rolled his eyes.
When the floor had dried, and the stones had grown to dark brown sponges, they carefully dumped them into the bucket and carried it to the outside. The mists made their appearance around the city park and bay. Delta took a moment to enjoy the pleasant weather, Anobus had to remind her that the floors still needed her attention. Reluctant to begin her routine, she took a closed bottle and refilled it with the same solution from the alfresco. She slid the rotting doors aside to the main hall, there were several people lounging around in the small entertainment area. Like most days, she hadn't bothered to greet or announce her presence, but a familiar face appeared as a hologram from her wrist phone.
Her heart felt like it had been shredded when she realised the amber light bust was her father's. It didn't appear he was directly talking to the stranger on the floor cushion, more like making an announcement across the board. She dropped the bottle and ran to the alfresco before pulling away her sleeve to find recent news on her bracelet. His photo appeared on the black screen; her finger hovered over it for a moment before tapping. Immediately, the device hummed and his yellow and orange bust appeared barely a foot high before her.
“These advancements will definitely upgrade our human civilisation and ensure protection for all its citizens once we install these devices into every city across the globe. Our labs have received some backlash for the amount of power this technology uses, especially in a time where energy generation is reaching max capacity, but we are confident that once the new pylons in Alkhem are active, these devices would be of massive benefit.”
His hologram showed wrinkles that weren't there before. Most of the hairs on his crown had fallen off, his face looked more tired and almost stone-like when he spoke, as if most of the muscles in his cheeks had given up. Delta lifted her hand around the sides of his jaw, her fingers slipping through the light of his head, she had never experienced a desire so great as the one to see her father again. Even through a glitching light-sculpture, Durun appeared to be dying, too soon for a man his age. However, a sense of anger rose in her mind, neither of her parents sought her since her departure. No communications of where she is or whether she sleeps rough, what goals she is working towards, or even a simple question of how she is.
Delta pressed her finger at the base of the hologram, cutting Durun's words midsentence as his amber bust dissolved into air. Staring out into the crumbling sandstone piers and waves breaking against the man-made bricked edges of the bay, she pulled the door aside and slipped through the narrow opening. The bottle lay on its side on the sand and dirt mixed floor, the foamy water still knocked itself back and forth from its closed edges. Her hand reached out, gripping around its neck before a cracked brown foot slapped against it.
With a shock, Delta recoiled her hand from the foot's sudden appearance and grotesque form of the long yellow toenails curled in unnatural poses. The crusty black soles wrapped themselves around the bottle. Her eyes lifted to the one this ugly limb belonged to; the old woman's face beamed down at her with wild, twinkling eyes and a deranged smile stretched on her cheeks. Her faded black robe had dried filth along its hem, torn cloth hung around the loose sleeves and collar.
“What are you doing?” Delta said as her eyes narrowed at the hag.
Her grin grew wider revealing black and green teeth barely clinging onto her red gums. “What are you doing?” Basra mocked.
Before Delta's mouth opened, a shrill squawk pierced across the hall, A'gesh swooped in and hopped on the course grey kitchen benches. She stood with her feathers puffed and wings open in a threatening pose; her teal eyes locked on to the old woman. The hag's dead eyes turned to A'gesh's presence; her jowls twitched before they spun back to Delta.
“'Sat bird's loud. Keeps me from sleep,” she growled.
Delta lifted to her feet so she could meet the woman's eyes, to her relief she was almost a whole head taller. “She only makes noise when something or someone is bothering her. She gets upset when I'm in trouble.”
“Watch her, don't wanna find her lil' neck snapped,” the hag kicked the bottle to Delta's boots before making a mad dash out of the kitchen and vanishing from sight.
Rage flooded her blood at the thought of some worthless hag threatening the life of her only friend, yet she forced herself to keep from chasing after the woman and beating the remaining teeth from her head. There was no other stay-house that would accept her. She snatched the bottle from her feet and sped off to the hall with A'gesh flying a little closer at her back. Returning to the partially damp ground, the brush appeared to have been kicked across to the other end. The hag's door was closed as she passed it and a disturbed voice began murmuring behind the cracked wood. The woman began her insane ritual as Anobus predicted, but to Delta's detriment, curiosity had taken over her mind.
“Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no,” Basra's hushed voice came from inside. To Delta's disappointment, that seemed to be the only two words she had in her vocabulary. She rolled her eyes as she plucked the brush from the ground and dripped the solution from the bottle across the wooden panels. Her ears were trying to ignore the ramblings of a mad mind.
“It's her. I know it is,” the hag whispered. Delta's eyes shot to the door; her blood ran cold at the thought of the woman speaking about her. Her imagination ran into the darkness with the thought that maybe this random person was employee of Magi Order. She leaned in a little closer, making sure she appeared to be continuing to scrub the floor as she devoted every fraction of energy to hearing the hag's voice.
“No, no, no. You're right. It can't be. I can't see her fruiting tomatoes at this time. I know, I know, the vines are dead. If she could make those tomatoes, they would be the juiciest to crush. Just like that little bird.” she said.
Delta's heart felt like it had cracked a rib. She slowly backed from the door, undecided whether she wanted to run or bash through the wood and make the hag swallow her teeth. Whether she was affiliated with the magi or a severely disturbed and potentially dangerous person, Basra was a threat. She slowly rose from the floor, debating whether anyone would miss the old woman if she were to have an untimely death in the ruined temple. Don't be stupid, her thoughts reasoned, she hasn't done anything to you. Yet. The uncertainty made Delta's mind wild.
“Del?” Anobus' voice was like a spear to her ears. She almost leapt to the ceiling at his sudden arrival. She spun around to see his figure in the hall, a slight look of amusement on his face.
“You scared me,” she hissed as the adrenaline slowed.
“Clearly, you looked like you were a cat, just about ready to jump. What's on your mind?” he said slowly walking towards her.
She looked towards the hag's door. “Just had an encounter with her.”
“Ah, she might have her sights on you,” Anobus said as he awkwardly started shuffling his feet, “in the sense that you're her target now.”
Delta rolled her eyes. “I've had worse than her.”
“You can talk to me about anything, Del. What's troubling you, seriously?” he said patting her arm.
She sighed and looked to A'gesh in the high rafters of the hall. “Promise me that this conversation remains between us. Not with anyone here or at home, especially my parents.”
Anobus nodded, he gripped her elbow and gently tugged her to an empty corner.
“What are your thoughts on magi?” she whispered as her chest tightened.
“They've done a lot of good in recent times, put a lot of their energy in helping unfortunates. Can't say that much about them,” he said.
Delta bit her lip as she carefully selected her next words. “I struggled being a mundane my whole life, had many come in and out trying to awaken my psionics, but every teacher had failed. All except the magi, who helped me to finally sense what it feels like to be one of you.”
His eyes widened in excitement and delight. “You had a mage tutor?”
“Not just a tutor, I was a Mage Disciple. For the past year, I've been training alongside them – I wasn't at Pitach-rhok like everyone believes,” she said, trying to ease herself into the truth.
“That's incredible! Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” he said as his mouth hung open.
“No, I wasn't lucky at all, it was very deliberate…” she said trying to pull him away from his excitement.
“Course it is, the magi tend to be picky about their associates,” he said as his smile died down, “for such high honours, why did you leave?”
Delta took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to her temples. “They promised to help me become psychic, but all that resulted was the death of an innocent and unimaginable pain. They've butchered my friend, kept secrets about my family and have essentially stalked me my entire life.”
“Magi aren't exactly the most understood, but everything they have done, no matter how cruel and inconsiderate it seems right now, has always been for the benefit of this country and this planet. You know them better than most,” he said.
“That's right. They've shown me what they really are,” her brow furrowed at her cousin, his face seemed untouched by her words as if he hadn't heard them.
“Please take no offence, but would you consider that your senses maybe limited you on getting the full perspective?” he said with his thumb to his bottom lip.
“What in this sector is that supposed to mean?” she growled as her foot took a step back.
“I didn't mean it in a negative way, Del, I meant that your abilities aren't-,” he said.
A breathy chuckle escaped her lips. “Of course, why would anyone trust the judgements of a mundane over someone as exalted as a mage!”
“Del-,” Anobus shook his head, his face showing the mad scramble for words to ease the situation, but it was too late.
“I'll take a little rest,” she looked over the floor and smirked, half of the wooden panels had their rich walnut colour return from the once dull grey, “it took a mundane an hour to clean this, I think you'll be able to complete it in mere moments.”
Anobus looked saddened as he shook his head. Delta summoned A'gesh to her shoulder. Before striding out of the hall as if the universe had taken her side for once, the bird expelled a sizeable slimy white and green dropping.
~
The hologram’s light stung her eyes, she had been staring at the writing long enough to realise she hadn’t blinked in hours. Moonlight leaked in from the tiny window at the head of her mattress, the once ashy walls of her cell were decorated with some tapestries that she had taken from other finer establishments, and her clothes hung from bent nails to keep them above the floor. Delta pondered over the life she once had as she stared at all the belongings she had in the world, most of which she had stolen from other places. Perhaps that’s all she could live up to, being mundane. All expected the lowest of actions from the lowest of people.
Memories of the day the Academy board came to Pitach-rhok flooded back. She pondered where her life could have gone if she accepted their offer, would she still have a place at her family mansion? Would she have with further discrimination in the institute come out above it all? She could have been a beacon to other mundanes that anything was possible, or a less grandiose thought, she could have shown the Atlantean peoples that mundanes are so much more. However, her ego proved to be too great even for her to overcome in that moment, casting her down to be expelled from Yunn's school and ultimately fall in with the magi. Or perhaps, she was always destined to encounter Goru. Her mind was too sore to spin on the what-ifs of a life full of regrets.
Tears leaked in her eyes when they found A’gesh, perched on a crooked branch rammed through an old peephole in the wall. Her silky wings were folded over her head. With enough focus, Delta could hear faint whistling from her beak. With a tired smile, Delta glanced back to her wrist phone. Hundreds of tiny letterings dotted over it, her eyes glazed over the extensive magi files, too sore to continue the read. Her lids slowly drooped over her golden orbs. Just a rest from the screen for a moment before continuing to read she thought. She had to continue reading to distract herself from the conversation with Anobus, but she decided to rest for just a moment.
If she focused, she could do it; if she focused, she could do anything. Astral travellers often told their power was greatest when their bodies were exhausted; their consciousness separates from their brains into their energy forms. She had practised it many times at the Magi Tower, but her mind was too eager, maybe her astral form was doomed to stay locked inside her skull – never to know the stars. Tonight, she was too tired to dwell on her condition, her temporary condition. Her thoughts on the magi slipped away, and her memory of Anobus faded as the muscles in her neck unlocked, letting her head rest into the pillow.
Delta felt her body vibrate, but her nerves told her that she was still. Her mind continued to quiver as if it were above an earthquake, yet it wasn't distressful, almost as if she was back in her rocking crib. Too tired to resist the sensation, Delta let herself go. In her mind's eye, she could see a dark haze lifting away to reveal the sparkling stars in the navy sky. She felt her mind rise, inching higher and higher towards the stellar river above, but something tugged at her belly. She looked down to see her body rolling to its side on the bed. Confusion struck her as she wondered how she could see herself, but her back tapped against the ceiling of her room. It hit her: she was astral travelling, for the first time in her life. A thrill coursed through her translucent body, even her physical lips curled into a sleepy smile, but she remembered to keep her excitement ordered to avoid being pulled back.
Unknowing what to do or how long this would last, Delta called out to the universe to take her somewhere – anywhere. Vibrations started through her once again as she was pulled across the land. She appeared at Pitach-rhok College. The campus was silenced by the night; and was not disturbed by her hovering above the still water fountain. As she passed through it her astral body started pulling her down through the earth’s crust.
Standing by the side of a great, black hole in the earth was the most terrifying thing she had ever experienced. Looking into an abyss gnawed at her consciousness, her eyes were desperate to find something to gaze into, but she only found more void. It said nothing at first. The air was still until the hole whispered to her, and she obeyed. Falling, down, down into a cold place, where the light from above was swallowed by the shadow. The darkness suffocated her, there was nothing to hold on to as her body fell, there was no choice but to die.
Her flailing feet found warmth, desperate to find something in the void. Delta looked down to see a glow of a fire at the base. The scarlet and amber light danced on neatly cut walls; the hot stone floors were carved by ancient hands. The tight doors and latches were made to protect secrets hidden beneath. The metal seal stood at the centre of the lit walls, her hand reached out to touch the round wheel, but it did not offer resistance under her fingers, neither did the door she tried to push. There was no need cry about being locked outside the doors, her body could slip through as if it were walking through water. Her eyes darted around a multi-levelled facility with metal railings around the empty centre. People in white suits beyond count wandered through this bizarre subterranean chamber. Various machines twice a man's height and many times his weight lined the edges of this odd place. These were the forbidden caverns.
Flying through the facility, a familiar face turned to her direction, yet he didn't see her. Headmaster Yunn pulled a tight hood from his head as his fingers rustled through his frizzy hair. He sighed as he came to a waist-high hovering panel and tapped at the glass. Daring to see what his business was in this supposed dangerous place, Delta drifted over his shoulder to see what he had been typing. The top right of the panel shone silver words Phase Bay 52; his fingers traced along white lines from what appeared to be small symbols of power stations across the map of Atlantia to the symbol of this facility.
“Begin tests,” Yunn called out. Delta glanced around to see the other workers readying themselves at their stations.
Tubes the size of torsos ran up and around the internal structure electrified as the lights transfixed into the stone and metal walls flickered violently. Her body felt like it burned as white and violet energy beamed through the hollow centre. The chamber around her trembled as a transparent shield wrapped around the entire facility. If her astral body had organs, they would have been obliterated by the intense heat. She tried screaming but had no voice in the material plane. As quickly as the surge came, it stopped. The lights had returned to normal as did the tubes, the energy field had evaporated, and the pain had disappeared.
“We blanketed the entire island, even if it was only for a little bit,” Yunn said as he wiped his sweaty forehead.
“There's an astral interference,” said a deep voice. One of men in a white suit spun around and tossed back his hood, revealing a deep brown shaven head and sparkling blue eyes, “we aren't alone,”
Delta shivered as she stared at the face of Mage Goru, his eyes carefully scanning the chamber around him until they found hers. His eyes dropped their shine as they narrowed, his lips twitching as they opened. “Is this your first time travelling, Delta?”
She fought against the air, desperately trying to claw away from the chamber. Run, fly, run or fly, commanding her form to return to the stay-house. The vision of the facility faded as her physical eyes shot open, her itchy quilt wrapped around her moist arms and legs. Her wrist phone was pulled all the way up her forearm, it painfully pressed against her muscles as she tried to readjust herself on the bed. Panting as sweat dripped around her ribs and back, she sighed in relief at finding her way to the tiny bedroom. A'gesh hadn't moved from her perch, and the moon remained ever high in the sky, Delta peeled back her covers as she lazily patted for a water pouch in her open bag. She wriggled the grey and black stripped pouch but heard no water shaking within.
With another frustrated sigh, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. A'gesh chirped as her feathers puffed, seemingly frustrated at the sudden movement. “It's fine, just go back to sleep,” Delta said, but the bird continued to widen her teal orbs.
Her hand gripped on the nook of her door. She trembled when it finally sunk in. She had astral travelled for the first time, yet her heart prayed that it wasn't a dream. She remained hopeful. Her thoughts wandered to what she had seen in the facility, she could still feel the phantom prickling throughout her insides and the mad face of Goru when he recognised her. Delta closed her eyes as she took a deep breath, trying to push out his face from her mind's eye. She slid open the door and peeked across the dark hallway, the floating lantern’s light barely reached the floor.
Her bare feet stepped on the wooden boards that made less noise as she made way to the staircase. Flapping in the air almost made her lose grip of the water pouch when she realised that A'gesh had followed her to the wooden railings. Her brain wasn't entirely awake. Her feet slid to the edge of the staircase, her weight almost shifting to step down until heavy feet creaked behind her. Delta spun around to see a short figure in the shadows. Her eyes searched for the face, taking a second to adjust before realising it was Basra.
“Don't move,” the old woman said in a clear voice.
A'gesh squawked as her feathers ruffled, trying to appear larger as Delta straightened her back and eased her shoulders. “What do you think you're doing, hag?”
Basra lifted her hands up as an aquamarine light sparked from them. “Come back to my room, and there won't be trouble.”
Delta pushed out a chuckle as fear dripped into her blood. “You're mad. Go back to bed, and there won't be trouble.”
“Drop the act, girl. Mage Goru wouldn't be thrilled if he sees that your pretty eyes have been melted,” she said as a bent grin crawled up her wrinkled cheeks.
Her heart thumped so viciously she thought that it might crack a rib. Delta glanced at Basra's hands, a fierce light focusing into a tight ball that seemed to heat the air.
“My mother didn't return, nor will I,” Delta said as she stepped away from the edge of the stairs in front of A'gesh, her mind racing on how to fend off an energy bender.
“Your mother's strong enough to keep us away, but you're not. Come to my room and wait for the mage.” the hag said as she stepped forward.
“You'll just have to melt my eyes out, Basra,” she said before throwing the water pouch with all her might, striking directly into the woman's face.
A flash of aqua light burst from her palms, but only singeing the floor. Delta threw herself into Basra's waist, sending the pair into the wall before toppling to the ground. The old woman screeched as Delta gripped her fists and pinned them to the ground, tightening her grip as she hoped to break her tender bones. Basra's eyes shone, channelling her energy through them before Delta could push back, yet A'gesh had a different plan. Her razor talons came swooping in, their scythe curves shone like blades in the dim light as she slashed across the hag's face.
Basra screamed, as her hands were instinctively trying to shield her face from A'gesh's relenting attack. Delta sprang to her feet as she could hear voices coming from the other rooms. “Come, A'gesh!”
The bird needed no prompting as she took flight and soared down the stairs. Basra jumped to her feet; her face leaked red blood. One of her hands was reaching out, charging up for another beam towards Delta. Without a thought or an ounce of fear, Delta grabbed the woman's hand and pulled her close, while her other hand found the hag's throat before tossing her over the stairs. Her brown robes wrapped around her form as her body thudded against every step all the way to the bottom. Delta waited for a moment; uncertain whether the dark mass at the base moved, but Basra remained still since the second she fell.
With no time to waste and approaching loud footsteps coming from the halls Delta slid down the railing and hopped over the Basra's body before breaking into a sprint out of the stay-house through a slightly opened backdoor. With a heavy heart, she left her whole life behind and a budding friendship with Anobus. What will he think of her when he realises, she's gone, and Basra found possibly dead, she thought as breath dried her throat from running across the park. She glanced up to see A'gesh soaring above her head. At least there was one important thing she didn't leave behind and never will leave her.
Icy drops of water dripped onto her skin; the stars hid behind a blanket of black clouds. Delta's run reduced to a jog as she slipped under a collection of tall oaks and willow. A'gesh swooped around and landed in one of the branches feet from her head. Chilling winds blew against Delta's skin, turning into rough bumps, but the heat in her blood kept her from feeling winter's touch. With nothing but a linen nightgown and her wrist phone still tight around her arm, Delta ran through a list of people she knew. Too afraid to use a teleporter at a public place, no other hotels or stay-houses would take her in and her family mansion too far to travel by foot before eventually succumbing to the elements, there was only one person in the universe that could help her, even if it would cost her life.
Delta flicked the bracelet on, it's amber symbols sparking to life before whispering into the device. “Search for Mayen.”