4: Sapphire Second
They arrived in the common room for the second years. It was an open classroom filled with cushioned chairs. The corners of the room were decorated with a selection of well-tendered plants, while the walls were covered in a variety of works produced by the students. Many of them were there, huddled together in small groups, and a few noticed the arrival of the newcomer. So many different people, with different stories and experiences to share – she wanted to be everyone’s friend, and to learn everything she could about them. A daunting task lay ahead of her!
As she was about to start cross-referencing the people around her with the notes in Lysander and Angelo’s book, Joel came charging into the room. He kept pulling the hair out of his face with twitching fingers, and his eyes were flickering around the room.
“Where’s Kaori?” he said, clutching his side and gasping for breath, “Has anyone seen her? She’s vanished!”
The room went silent for a moment as people looked around for the dark-haired girl.
“Maybe she’s done the decent thing and killed herself,” said a well-dressed girl. Phantasia recognised her as Astrid, the girl who had been giving her evil looks in class. The girl’s friends snickered among themselves and, had John not been there to hold him back, Joel may very well have lashed out at them. The confrontation was halted by a shout from down the corridor.
“Kaori Shimomura’s on the roof!”
Astrid crossed her arms and grinned. “See? She’ll be dead before you get there, heretic.”
Phantasia winced at the stab of malice directed at Joel, whose own aura was begin to crack enough as it was. Without any kind of acknowledgement, the ginger-haired boy bounded out of the room, followed by several other students. Phantasia decided to follow them. She wanted to let herself go – to stop pretending to be human and fly down to corridors to the odious nebula she was beginning to sense in the distance – but she had no choice other than to keep pace with the flailing Joel. By the time they had reached the entrance, a crowd was gathering at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the canopy overhead.
Phantasia felt Joel’s fear like a sudden gust of cold wind. Like everyone else, he was looking up at the canopy, where a shadowed figure in a fluttering silk and lace dress stood against the bright morning sky. A short distance away, a teacher was trying to coerce her away, but his voice wasn’t even denting the blackened shell that protected her.
“Kaori, what’re you doing?” Joel shouted. She stood there teetering on the edge, her expression like that of someone locked in a terrible dream.
“I’m not perfect enough for you, am I?”
Phantasia could feel it, even without trying. When she looked up, she could see darkness flowing around Kaori, an aura of despair and self destruction. Before she could do anything about it, the young girl stepped forward to embrace the murderous lust of gravity.
~ What could drive Kaori to such action? ~
~ Next: A dark shadow appears! ~
