“Jaromir!” Taiga had exclaimed.
Urjohar stood in scrambled silence, stunned, unable to comprehend what just occurred. Cherry giggled with the cluster of mild chaos. Fester sniffled and cried whilst crouching in panicked sickness. Horst trying to comfort him fell flat with his rather dry reassurance.
Ah, this smell… This sweet smell. Urjohar thought.
“Melon,” Cherry mentioned.
“Exactly! Melon… Yo, you got a new hairdo,” smiled the new boy.
“Kyaaa!” Fester screamed. Behind Urjohar, Jaromir had picked fester up by the chest.
“Jaromir, is that really you?” Taiga whispered in the cluster.
Running to the rescue, Urjohar spun a hand onto Jaromir’s shoulder. “Hey, let him go… Hey are you Jaromir? Yes, or no!”
Contemplating, Horst said, “Jaromir, no… He’s not, he looks like him, but it’s not him.”
“Yo, I’m Otie Ayihcah, but you can just call me Oti,” Jaromir announced.
“Ah, forget it…” Horst replied with a shrug. Urjohar spat as Taiga glanced away from the sunlight shining in.
Horst lowered himself to Fester, “Fest, you alright?”
“Ya, I’m fine.”
The seizure stopped… Horst thought.
Whispering to herself, Cherry lipped, “what he said earlier… No, I thought, but maybe not.” He told me not to say anything, but…
By the railings of a common rooftop sat and stood a group of rough adolescents.
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“Ho, that’s the newbie, he looks like Jaromir…” One kid said.
“Hah! He seems worse…” Another replied.
On the other side far off, but close enough to see was a cloudy haired lad, his grip tight on the railed fencing, squeezing till his palms turned white. They haven’t changed a bit… These were the people you trusted so much, Matsya… Jaromir… “Okay, understandable…”
But now, now that I have appeared with your face, someone is bound to try and get close. Then I will be able to find who killed you. It may even be one of them… Jaromir…no, Otie, glanced at the leaving students and the five he had just met, his eyes lingering on them more than any others. Urjohar. Taiga. Fester. Cherry. Horst…hmm, Horst, where did he go?
In the hallway that students had entered time and time again flickered lights that should have been good. On a personal computer too old for their generation, one was typing, noting. On the black screen wrote: Today, a new one arrived, named “Oti… “8”. All according to the plan. Stay monitoring him. Watch his actions. He claims not to be Jaromir, so who is he? What is his connection to…?
Next question… When will the next “Zodiac Palace” take place?
Fester, slightly concerned, returned to the school, running through the halls he quickly heard the steps of someone coming down the central staircase.
“Ah, Horst, finally found ya.”
“Ah… Yo,” Horst said timidly.
“What have ya been up to? Stuck in that computer room again?”
“Ahh, nothing… Nothing much.”
Within the shadows stood a hooded figure clad in white haze and black flame. Its ears perked behind the wall that contained the stairs as they said goodbye to the youth walking away.
The clatter of wood… Five months ago: Waves of white, the cold ocean spray, nothing could be seen in the endless darkness. Jogging along the beach, Urjohar could hear the clamor of battle in the distance. “What fool is out there at this hour, bloody mate, don't even have a lantern, not even a torch.”
In the morning’s news, hearings of a boy lying on the beach’s end came around. Nothing but his imprint was left. Those that had found him initially were gone. Voices clamored, when those who found him moved him, he turned into blood.
“He failed…” “We have no use for him.” “He won’t make it.” “Is he signed up officially?” “What were they thinking…?” “Keep going, we must find the bridge.” “The touch of a pillar is our only hope…”
In the sands his figure was left to the waves to pick up, only the engraving of his swept body within the sands were found and documented. Urjohar stood there as clots of blood soaked sand paved his way to where Jaromir once was.
