5: Kaori Shimomura
It didn’t occur to her at first, but the painful rhythmic noise pounding against her senses was music. It was nothing like the fair, gentle music of wind faeries, but a harsh, cruel sound. Her uneasiness wasn’t helped by a feeling of heavy negativity that surrounded every corner of the room, as if it were a tomb of the land’s despair. Though uncomfortable, she resolved to follow her new friends as they emerged into a large room, filled with young people jumping around like animals as multicoloured lights blazed across them.
“So, Phantasia, whaddya drink?” asked Doyle as he removed his coat from her shoulders and handed it to Joel.
“Oh, anything really,” said Phantasia, knowing it didn’t matter to her.
Doyle slipped off to a long counter. There people collected drinks of various sizes and colours, and stood around obscured by a thick cloud of despair that mingled with smoke wafted from the mouths of nonchalant teenagers. Phantasia tried to focus on the bar, but the poisoned streams of mana stung her.
“You ever been to a place like this before?” asked Byron as he sucked on a smoking grey stick in his hand.
“No, never,” she said, “It’s, well, it’s horrible…”
Byron laughed and thrust the stick in front of her. “This’ll make you relax a bit more, if you’d like to try it,” then, upon noticing her confusion, added “It’s just herbs. Perfectly natural, loads of people use them round here. It helps take away those lingering doubts about whether it’s all really worth it any more,”
She took it in one hand and studied it. It was difficult to concentrate in the club’s atmosphere, so all she could fathom was that it was some kind of drug that people used to alter their behaviour and perceptions. Faye would know the exact name for it, no doubt, and its various effects. It wouldn’t do anything for a faerie, of course, but its effect on humans would be the same as a faerie being poisoned by tainted mana.
“I think I’ll be okay,” she said, handing it back to Byron with a smile. It took him a moment to respond.
“Hey, are you okay? You didn’t burn yourself?”
“I-” she winced. She’d forgotten one end was burning as she poked it around the palm of her hand. “I guess I’m lucky?”
Byron stepped away, his eyes twitching as he looked at her. “Okay, you probably don’t need this shit after all. You just be careful, okay?”
It didn’t take her enhanced senses to realise she’d made a bad impression as Byron slipped away through the crowd. She shrugged, and then tried to find the rest of her new friends in the murky depths. Doyle was still standing at the bar, but the others had vanished, so she began searching the room for signs of suspicious activity. Given the atmosphere, she was sure the source of Kaori’s sudden bout of despair was somewhere nearby.
