Ryō poked his head out from the bedroom door to catch a glimpse of the security annex…
Lara, as anticipated, was nowhere to be seen. Every night at 2 am, the woman would go on her *lunch* break…which meant that every night at 2 am, Ryō could count on Lara to desert the security annex and retreat upstairs with her little CCTV iPad. Whether Lara's private dinners in the CGP staff room were a breach of protocol or not was not the boy's concern.
Phew. Ryō let out a long sigh and ducked back inside of his bedroom.
Now, how much time do I have left before she gets back?
He checked his watch...
Fuck.
If the mission didn’t seem impossible before, it did now––the boy had had less than fifteen minutes to Tom Cruise his way to Emery's room without being seen.
Badumd-Badump-Badump. Ryō's body responded to the mounting pressure by whipping his heart into a thick, fluffy cream.
With no one else to turn to, the boy was forced to turn to himself.
Just breathe, Ryō...
Just breathe...
Closing his eyes, Ryō began to tune everything out except for the sensation of oxygen filling his lungs.
Four seconds in…
Four seconds hold…
Four seconds out…
The boy repeated this breathing circuit until his internal chatter quelled to a mild droll.
Four seconds in…
Four seconds hold…
Four seconds out…
Once stillness had been achieved, Ryō ripped open his eyelids.
Here goes nothing!
He set off, stampeding past the security annex before any second thoughts could reach out and tackle him to the ground.
Clop-Clop-Clop-Clop. Ryō hurried through the halls with purpose.
I've got this...
I've got this...
I've got this...
Clop-Clop-Clop-Clop. The boy thrusted his arms like a local 60-year-old speed-walking champ, pumping himself up as he went.
I've got this...
I've got this...
I've got––
Then, Ryō turned the corner and the confidence train came screeching to a halt.
Oh, God...
He found himself in the hallway just outside Emery's dorm, and from that point forward every passing second felt like its own millennium...
Oh God, oh God, oh God...
Clop-Clop-Clop...
I hope she’s not waiting for me…
Shit, shit, shit, shit...
Clop-Clop-Clop...
Oh God...
What am I doing?!
What if she's waiting for me?
The boy's soul curdled and formed a pit in his throat.
God, please don't be waiting for me...
Clop-Clop-Clop-Clop...Clop. Once Ryō approached within five feet of the girl's dorm, he stopped.
Still hovering at a safe distance, the boy strained his neck to catch a cautious glimpse of the world behind the transparent glass portal––
God dammit...
Sure enough, Emery's face was pushed up against the glass, wide-eyed and mouth agape, waiting for him. Ryō couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh or cry as the girl panted her foggy breaths onto the square panel of glass separating them.
“H-hi..." He scratched the shameful itch on the back of his head and muttered.
“Ai.” Emery returned his greeting, to the best of her ability.
Unable to look at her, Ryō cast his eyes to the floor.
Fuck, this is even harder than I thought…
The boy tried to compose himself with a deep breath. It worked for a moment, but the second he looked into Emery's eyes, that composure left his body quicker than a half-digested Taco Bell burrito at a truck stop bathroom.
I swear Emery hasn't blinked once since I got here...
Wow...
Her eyes are so pretty...
No, pretty isn't the right word...
They're gorgeous...
How am I supposed to disappoint someone this beautiful?
Ryō shook the fear out of his mind and tried collecting his courage––
I have to.
I have to tell her.
And so, he tried to tell her.
“I-I’m really sorry, but...uh..."
Just say it...
Come on...
Just say it!
“Uh, yeah––there’s something I need to tell you, and...”
Crinkle. Before Ryō could finish his sentence, something crinkled against his foot.
He glanced down to see that Emery had pushed a piece of paper through the crack under the door. Written on it was a message––a message that rendered Ryō speechless.
Come in. Door only locks on inside.
What. This sudden curveball slapped Ryō upside the head, cracking it wide open. From the wreckage spilled out a barrel of questions––
First, there’s no way they’d leave her door unlocked...
Would they?
The B side of the boy's mixtape inquisition glistened his cheeks a bright red.
This would be my first time in a girl's room...
Wait, why is Emery inviting me into her room?
Oh God...
Do you think she wants to kiss and stuff?
No way, she would––
“Ay,” the girl mewled, kicking the paper further onto Ryō's foot.
The boy gulped. Despite all the heinous shit going on, at this moment in time, Ryō could only think about life in terms of him and her. Simply being in Emery's presence was enough to nullify his horrendous reality and make his existential turmoil fade away like smoke in the wind.
“A-are you sure?” He asked.
Emery stared at him incredulously––she looked pretty damn sure.
Here goes nothing, I guess.
Ryō levitated one shaking hand toward the door knob...
CLK-CRKKK. To his surprise, Emery was right––the door was unlocked.
No fucking way...
On the other side of the frosted glass door was a parallel universe. A parallel universe Ryō never thought he'd set foot in.
Woah...
Beguiled and besieged, the boy gawked at every detail of Emery's unique room. The dorm was far from cramped, albeit having only three objects in the room besides Emery herself certainly emphasized this capaciousness. A bed, a wheelchair, and a chairless padded desk––that was it.
A singular mound of white protective padding comprised most of her floor, although there was an odd circular section in the far left corner where the padding distended above the ground.
I wonder what that is…
Ryō couldn't seem to concentrate for longer than a second, taking in one detail, then the next.
It looks like her entire room is made of the same material...
As observed, the walls were coated in the same voluptuous white padding as the floor. A tall, looming ceiling crowned the majestical overwhelm of the girl's dorm. Despite all of these details, what really gave Emery’s room that exquisite, criminally insane psych ward touch were the hundreds of handwritten quotes scribbled fiendishly on the white canvas of her walls.
What the hell did she write all over the walls?
If nothing else, the psychotic doodles served as a poignant advertisement for the radical effects of self-isolation.
Is it a quote? Or a poem? Or a song, maybe?
Ryō waltzed over to read one particularly bold rendition of the ad nauseam writing.
When you walk
Through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
The boy hovered toward the scripture, spellbound. His eyes traveled the walls until they landed on a smaller, black-penned recitation…
At the end of a storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark
Ryō had been so entranced that he'd almost forgotten Emery was in the room with him. The boy checked over his shoulder to see she was several steps behind him, somehow glaring at him softly.
“What does this mean?” He gestured around at the scribblings, stopping once his index finger aligned with the boldest message of the whole bunch––
You'll Never Walk Alone
Emery maneuvered her mouth to respond but immediately realized the futility of that. Changing course, the girl scurried over to her desk, quickly returning with a handy iPad-sized whiteboard.
Oh, she’s gonna write something?
Ryō observed Emery as she jotted something down. Due to the oversized mittens covering each of Emery's hands, her endeavor was as painful to watch as it was to perform. Given the CGP also forced the girl to wear a thick eye guard when in self-confinement, the boy figured her sight was impeded nearly as much as her fine motor skills.
Jesus, it must be so hard to write with all those things on…
All in all, it took Emery almost a full minute to write the two-word phrase she showcased to Ryō––
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
LONG STORY.
It took her that long to write that?
“Oh, yeah. Stories must be hard when––uh, hard to tell when you––uh… your mouth is…”
The right words were not coming. This was likely because Ryō had found himself abruptly transfixed by Emery’s exposed tongue. With lexicon becoming a more and more unreliable form of communication for the both of them, the boy gestured toward her mouth as a proxy for the point he was failing to get across––
"Like that.”
Emery erased her last entry, scribbling with a little less dexterity and a little more speed––
EXACTLY.
Ryō smiled. Emery spread the creases of her lips a little wider.
Given the force of the girl's unblinking gaze, this cute moment quickly grew uncomfortable for the boy. Her ogling seemed to shake and rattle every cell in his body. Awkward under the spotlight he craved the most, Ryō began to visually roam around the room again, hoping to find something to distract him.
Luckily for him, distractions weren't hard to come by in Emery's lair of insanity––
How did she manage to write all this…
After thirty seconds of mindless reconnaissance, Ryō felt a finger poke against his shoulder blade. The boy startled and reversed to face Emery. Her facial expression was twisted and contorted; whatever the girl was attempting to convey soared right over his head.
Is she okay?
At first, Ryō only processed that Emery was in distress. The girl anxiously strained her neck, grimacing toward the world outside the door’s portal. Once the boy’s eyes shimmied down half-a-foot, he realized she had written something else on her whiteboard.
GET ON THE BED. HURRY WHILE WE STILL HAVE TIME.
What. Cannibalistic butterflies catapulted into Ryō's stomach, feeding on his internal organs like cicadas.
Without hesitation, the boy's involuntary imagination pivoted a sharp left down Lewd Street. He couldn’t help but picture his worst nightmare/best dream hybrid.
What if I'm a bad kisser?
What if Emery doesn't like my, ya know…
Penis?
Or kissing technique...
Or penis.
Ryō swallowed a bowling ball of spit, then let his eyes drift back onto Emery.
Holy shit…even with those goggles on her eyes are fucking beautiful.
A squirm wriggled behind the zipper of the boy's pants.
Oh no...
SMACK! To both of their surprise, Ryō abruptly slapped his cheeks with both hands. Hard.
Shame over his salacious thoughts had festered into the unconscious solution of self-harm. The double-slap worked, though––the boy remembered why he was here.
Emery asked for my help.
She trusts me and here I am thinking about…
Embarrassed to his core, Ryō refused to look up. Emery’s response was to slip him a new markered message:
CORNER OF BED IS ONLY PLACE THEY CAN’T SEE FROM OUTSIDE.
Ryō decompressed with a large exhale.
Thank God––that’s what she meant.
The boy gave the girl an awkward thumbs-up and approached her bed.
How should I sit?
Ryō managed to make a decision, squeezing his butt into the tiny corner where the bed met the wall.
Emery squished up beside him. Nice and close.
Babump-Babump-Babump. Suddenly it seemed like the whole room went up twenty degrees in temperature.
Sweat formed on the boy's brow, creating two lagoons out of his armpits as his heart began having a mosh-pit in his chest. Before Ryō could panic, the girl scribbled down another message for him to read:
I NEED YOU TO TAKE OUT THE TEETH THINGS.
Her penmanship was getting sloppier. It took him some squinting and critical thought to decipher the chicken scratch.
Need…. Teeth… Take out the teeth… things?
Ryō pointed at the buffers between Emery's teeth, “Those?”
Emery nodded in affirmation.
“How?”
She shrugged and scribbled again:
JUST TRY.
Ryō gulped and wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs.
“Look,” he muttered, “I have to tell you something.”
Emery frantically shook her head––No. She erased her last message and replaced it with:
HURRY UP. NOT MUCH TIME.
Ryō wanted nothing more than to hear Emery's voice––her real voice, not her guttural croaking. And thus, the boy's resistance was placated.
I guess the bad news could wait…
Ryō wasn’t too sure where to start. It didn’t help that Emery was inches from his face, staring directly into his soul.
Focus, Ryō. Just fucking focus for five seconds…
The boy assessed the pearly white dental buffers; they were bound to Emery's teeth pretty tightly from the looks of things. Given the girl's arms were restricted via these weird wing-like restraints that prevented her from lifting a hand above chin height, it was obvious she couldn't remove the buffers on her own, by design.
Hmm...
Ryō searched for an extraction point.
If there’s any way to get those damned things off, it probably starts with those wires...
Little wires––also of Paladin white––stuck out about an inch from Emery's mouth, connected to the buffers.
“Okay,” the boy said, “I’m going to try giving these things a pull.”
He pinched the wires between his thumbs and index fingers, then gave them a small tug.
Shit, that’s on there tight.
Ryō pulled his hands away to scratch the back of his head, “Those things are on there pretty tight. I don’t know if I could pull them off without hurting you.”
Emery widened her expression to resemble a smile then wrote a little note for him:
If I BLEED, THAT’S GOOD. THEN I COULD USE MY POWERS :)
Admiration flowed through Ryō. God, she is so badass, he thought to himself.
So, the boy followed his orders and replaced his fingers on the wiring. He took a big, deep breath and readied himself.
“Okay. I’ll count to three; then I'll pull them as hard as I can. Sound good?”
Emery shook her head, yes, and gave Ryō the same thumbs-up he had given her.
Ryō nodded, “Okay cool.”
Another composing sigh prepared him for the countdown...
“One…”
The boy squeezed the wires with more pressure.
“Two…”
He flexed his arms, preparing himself to pull.
“Three!”
CRACK!
“AGHHHH!”
The last thing Ryō heard before his eyesight went black was Emery’s scream. The last thing he saw was the girl's canine teeth fly off, spewing a stream of blood in his direction. All the boy could feel was burning. Burning like his face was being incinerated in a vat of acid.
M-my face…
W-what is happening…
W-why can’t I see...
Ryō panicked, blind. With every passing second, his face melted off a little more. Globs of liquified skin seeped into his hands, scorching them to the bone. It only took a matter of seconds for the boy to realize he was going to die.
The reason he knew he was going to die, besides his face liquifying, was because his life began to flash before his eyes. Memories rolled in like a Spring breeze, delicately lifting him up and out of the excruciating pain of his physical existence. The memories felt warm, wrapping around him like a blanket of sunshine...
Ryō remembered the volcano that he was born inside…
His first A on a Junior Heathens exam…
Seeing Emery for the first time…
The feeling of being hugged…
Vrrrrrr. Suddenly, there was nothing––no pain, no thoughts, no anything––just a faint humming vibration that the boy was slowly becoming a part of.
VRRRRR. The vibrations augmented, growing stronger and stronger until an electric blue glint rifled through the blackness of his existence.
Ryō could see again, but through a different pair of eyes now. He watched his consciousness drift out from his body. The boy floated upwards, observing the bloody scene like a drone camera.
Is that...me?
It was him––the head that was once connected to Ryō's body was now all but completely gone, grotesquely boiled off to a nub on his neck.
Standing over his body in shock was Emery. Tears and blood streamed from her face.
She's crying...
She's crying because of me...
Ryō utilized his last moment of consciousness to stretch a holographic hand toward her.
Emery…
Still floating upwards, the boy's ghostly fingers narrowly missed the hairs on the girl's head. But alas, Ryō would never know what it felt like to tuck a lock of his lover's hair behind her ear.
VRRRRRRRRRR. The vibrating black wormhole pulled the boy's soul deeper and deeper into its torrenting vortex.
Goodbye, Emery…
I’m sorry…
SSSSHHHHH. The gravitational pull of the black hole sucked Ryō in faster…
I’m sorry for dying...
SSSSHHHHH-ZIUUUUU. And just like that, the lights went out.
The world was reduced to a black vortex, and with it, the boy became no more…
Silence.
SSSSHHHHHH. A dark whirlpool engulfed Ryō, time and space rushing by him.
ZHT-ZHT-ZHT. Blue branches of lightning rippled through the blackness.
Where am I? The boy asked the emptiness.
“Can’t believe this little motherfucker forgot the goddamn headphone. Now what the hell am I supposed to fucking do.”
Jeff?!
WOOSH. Like the flick of a switch, Ryō's consciousness plummeted through the million-mile wormhole in a matter of a millisecond, instantaneously transporting him back into his body.
All of his physical senses returned in one fell swoop. Glaring light and nausea welcomed him back, capturing the boy in a blurry daze of overstimulation.
HACK! Ryō projectile vomited between his legs.
“Damn dawg what the fuck! Watch out for my shoes bro, say something before you just fucking puke.”
A splitting headache joined the welcome parade celebrating the boy's return to the living.
Where the fuck am I? What’s going on?
Ryō's pixelated vision finally began to buffer, loading a clear image of––the yearbook room?
Soft Lofi music played in his ear. Jeff sat before him, dressed in familiar red leather. The clock read, 11:30 AM, even though it was 4:00 PM––he was back.
I’m back?!
Back alive?!
Didn’t I just die?
Jeff scooted his chair back, distancing himself from the boy who looked to be in the midst of a psychotic episode. The man's concern continued to build, coming to a climax when Ryō began frantically checking his face, chest––everything––to make sure he was actually there.
I-I can't believe it…
Jeff raised an eyebrow, dumbfounded and disturbed, then scooted his chair even further away.
I’m alive…
The boy crawled his fingers up his face until they found the triumphant smile smeared across his cheeks. There was no more doubt in his mind. Even if it had taken dying to figure out––no. Of course, it had taken dying to figure out––he had figured it out.
Ryō had no fucking clue how or why, but he knew there was an it. For the first time in his entire life, the boy's biggest doubt had become his most cherished certainty:
I. Have. Superpowers.
“Did I just hear you say-think that you died and came back to life?” Jeff’s voice abruptly carved through the silence.
Without hesitation, Ryō slipped the Airpod out of his ear and put on his plasticized professional persona, “So Jeff, what would you say you learned the most from your years as an in-house domestic Heathen at Carlisle?”
“Good question, kid.”
As Jeff answered aloud, the boy plugged his ear with the headphone again––
Sorry, I didn’t sleep last night, I must have dozed off apparently.
Between verbal articulations, Jeff’s face shifted. Ryō's manic grin seemed to elevate the man's growing suspicion.
“Aight, something is up with you and I ain’t got time–”
I am being released, Ryō interrupted the thought of his telekinetic counterpart.
This knocked the wind right out of Jeff’s sails.
“Fuck, you’re kidding me…”
A prolonged silence invited Ryō’s mental DMV to start taking customers again.
What do I tell him? Or ask him? I wonder if Emery remembers…
“I’m sorry kid, but now that I know you’re being released, this whole fucking thing is just… a fucking waste,” Jeff grumbled, stuffing his face into his hands to languish for a moment before shooting to his feet, “I should go.”
Jeff extended an open hand out to Ryō, ordering him. "I need that earpod back."
Wait. The boy had one more thing he needed to ask. Do you know how I could escape?
The man took Ryō off-guard, placing two large, warm hands on his shoulders.
“Unless you have some kinda freaky power I don’t know about, then I can’t say I do, kid. I’m sorry,” Jeff mourned before nimbly plucking the headphone from the boy’s ear and strolling towards the door in one movement.
The man opened the door but didn’t leave. Instead, he lingered there for a second with his back facing Ryō.
“Good luck, kid.” Jeff said aloud, “I’m sorry things didn’t go differently for you.”
Whatever energy Ryō sensed, it was obvious the CGP unicorn could no longer bear to look at the boy––all because of one stupid word that started with an, R.
“Thanks…” Ryō mumbled.
Creak-Clk. The door whimpered shut, locking.
Much like the first round of this scenario, Ryō was left alone to play Monster Trucks with his stampeding thoughts. This time around, however, the boy had a boatload more toys to play with.
I wonder if I’ll ever see Jeff again…
A grin formed from the boy’s twitching lips.
Doesn’t matter––I have superpowers.
Woah… Ryō grabbed the sides of his head, shocked. Fuckkkk…that’s crazy…
He leaned forward in his seat, eyes wide and hands spreading the skin on his forehead.
I have superpowers.
I. HAVE. SUPERPOWERS…
Whattt…
This is crazy, I have to tell––wait, will Emery remember what happened?
She probably won’t…
I wonder if we’ll find a way to escape…
Oh my God I have real, actual superpowers…
I wonder how my powers work…?
A convulsive excitement replaced the convulsive panic from his prior experience with Jeff. Ryō surveyed around the room, squinching his eyes in search of something as if the boy was in a 3-D Where’s Waldo picture.
I should make a list of things in here I could kill myself with…
Ryō went to stand up––
Squish. The boy frowned down at the discolored puddle between his feet.
Oh yeah, I puked. I should probably clean this up before the smell...
On cue, the rancid scent caught up to his nose, gagging him. Ryō went to cover his mouth, but it was too late––
HACK!
