Bogdana

I had this idea, and I made it work... somehow. I didn't expect to come back after writer's block with this.

***

It’s always been sometimes. Sometimes me, sometimes a stranger.  

I could only see darkness in my surroundings. And a tranquil feeling of sadness over something I don’t remember losing.

 “Ci… Cindy… Cindy…! Cindy!” I flinch but my eyes quickly adjust to my environment as I meet a familiar face. How much time had passed?

I looked around.

The classroom? Right, I was still at school.

“Hah… Did you not sleep well?” my closest friend, Jian, asked, worriedly inspecting my face for signs of exhaustion. I probably looked like a raccoon right about now.

“What do you think?”

“… Were you reading novels?”

I almost face palmed. “I’m not like you, Jian.” I pulled out my tablet from my backpack, opening my personal art gallery. “I drew this last night but I don’t think I ever finished it—“ upon further inspection of the art in question, I quickly closed my tablet shut. “… Never mind, let’s talk about something else.”

“Huh? Come on, I want to see it!” she continued to nag me as I tried covering myself up again with my hoodie in an attempt to fall asleep. “Please? Please? Please? Plea--”

“…PLEASE?”

“Fine! Just shut up,” I finally gave in, letting her take my tablet and take a look at the drawing I dosed off to; it wasn’t atrocious, to say the least, but the anatomy was certainly lacking in places. And some of the contrasting areas looked a bit awkward, as a result of colouring at night. I could’ve definitely tried fixing it right now.

But it seemed that Jian thought otherwise. She glanced at the scenic landscape, her eyes raking in the whole image. “Wow! This looks so good, Cindy…” by how her usually sharp face suddenly started to soften, she must’ve really liked it. “I like… What if I just commissioned you right now—“

“If you want something, I’ll just draw it for you for free.” I loved drawing Jian’s characters anyways; at times, they even felt like my own.

“Nonsense! You deserve my whole wallet because of this,” she said before pulling an empty chair towards me. “I’ll send you the details of the character today, so please check your phone.”

“… Alright.” I would just have her think she was winning. I’ll find some way to dodge her wallet.

Before she could pester me for more art that I definitely tried hiding from her, I changed the subject. “So what online novel is it this time?”

She blinked in surprise. “How did you know…?”

I gave her the side eye. Those eye bags didn’t do her justice. “You stayed awake for it, that’s why.”

Jian grinned and took out her phone to show me. “The Ritual of the Sapphire Swordsmaster,” she spoke out the familiar book title that I must’ve heard a thousand times already. “I’m rereading it again.” I was unsurprised.

“For what? The 20^th time?” I couldn’t understand her. How could someone like a book that much? “What’s so good about it anyway? It seems like any other overpowered main character adventure story—I even remember you saying you don’t like that genre.”

“Don’t diss it like that!” Jian quickly defended the book, like it was her own child. “You don’t understand… everything about this book is great! And I don’t know what you have against the protagonist anyway, he’s my favourite… and he’s not like any other protagonist either.”

“He literally is.” I paused. “I don’t have anything against him… I just don’t see why you’re obsessed with him—and almost every other character in there.”

I really didn’t get why Jian loved the story so much. Yeah, I haven’t read it myself, but from the short snippets she read out loud and text messages she sent me, it really did seem like a basic novel. I could think of 10 other books with the same plotline if I tried right now.

“Your fault is that you won’t give it a try,” she pointed her finger out at me. “If you read it, you’ll understand why I like it so much.”

Maybe she was right. “… Someday, I’ll read it,” seeing her ginormous grin, I quickly came up with another response. “Only so I could find its obvious faults and prove you wrong.”

“Haha, whatever you say, Cindy,” she patted my head and I turned away with a huff. Why did it look like I was the childish one now?

She opened her mouth, eager to say something else but was soon interrupted by a teacher who unexpectedly showed up to our classroom.

“Good afternoon, class. I apologize for the tardiness. It was our history teacher for some reason, and he looked flustered.

Well, I would’ve been flustered as well since we were in English class right now and the teacher who was supposed to be here had been absent for 20 minutes now. Or more correctly, she’d been away for around a week now.

“Your teacher is on leave at the moment, and we didn’t have time to get you guys a supply teacher,” he let out a sigh, scratching his head in frustration. “I’ll take care of things today, but for now, I don’t have any assigned work for you guys so…” I could see the happy grins on some of my classmates. “You can either stay and work on previous assignments, or go back home. I’m aware that this is last period for most of you.”

He didn’t need to say it twice; before he could even finish his sentence, students were taking off with their books and binders. Jian was one of them, immediately throwing her things carelessly in her backpack without a second thought.

I shook my head in disappointment at the mess in there, showing my displeasure. Jian noticed it and frowned.

“I don’t want a lecture from you!—“ she spun around, already having anticipated my next comment. She threw her backpack on her shoulder in a hurry. “I’ll see you on Monday, Cindy, so please get some sleep,” she smiled and with a short wave, left the classroom in a hurry before I sent my own farewells. I could only laugh at her predictable antics.

Although the classroom had reduced to only a few students, I decided to stay; I had an overdue English assignment that needed my attention, and as insensitive as it sounded, I was glad my teacher was absent.

I opened my binder, searching for my written work. Sighing, I took out the rough draft with all the red markings; my own criticizing edits that showed faults in every sentence. I probably could’ve finished sooner if I wasn’t so hung up over my writing skills.

Maybe if I was good at English I wouldn’t be struggling this hard, I think.

‘Let’s just rewrite this part and get it over with.’ I had no intentions of keeping this paper ungraded. And I wasn’t going to risk failing and having to stay back one more year. Digging into my backpack for my pencil case, I frowned at the shiny object that was hiding in between my tablet and binder.

Taking both of them out, I immediately recognized the pink notebook cover. I groaned at the situation.

‘Damn you, Jian.’ I knew I couldn’t just wait after the weekend to give back her notebook, and there was no way I was commuting 40 minutes to her house. In an instant, I was out of the classroom and running down the hallways.

“Jian!” I yelled out her name, only realizing that she was no longer at school when I spotted her familiar from outside the window with her blonde hair tied back in a high ponytail, her purple backpack slinging side by side. She was now on the sidewalk, presumably heading over to her bus stop. It was a good thing that not many people were in the hallways, making it easier for me to breeze through and reach the exit door.

The wind blew ominously, and I felt a sudden chill, that almost something wasn’t right. But I didn’t have time to think properly as I pushed my dark bangs away from my face, looking for Jian.

It was when I made it to the sidewalk that I noticed why I had such a bad feeling. I could see Jian properly now; she was about to cross the street when she paused to put her headphones in. I immediately yelled to her. “Jian! Wait!”

Luckily, she seemed to hear me because she stopped as soon as the car crossed the intersection at an alarming speed. I let out a relieved sigh, no longer running and adjusting to a proper pace as I approached Jian.

“You forgot your notebook,” I called out to her, but she didn’t respond. Oddly enough, she seemed frozen, almost as if I had interrupted a disturbance. I got worried so I yelled again, drawing closer. “Jian? Your notebook…?”

That seemed to break her out of her temporary trance as she smiled at me. “Ah, thank you, Cindy,” she then flinched, holding her head. “Sorry, for some reason I’m feeling uneasy—“

The next chain of events happened in a flash; I remember opening my mouth to ask her what’s wrong, but my eyes caught onto something from a distance, and it was at that moment I knew something was definitely wrong.

Only one word came out of my mouth as I ran over to Jian, motioning her to get out. The sidewalk wasn’t safe. She was momentarily confused by my actions but she later noticed the danger by the honking of the truck driver who seemed to be for whatever reason, out of control.

I did the one thing I could do at the moment; I pushed Jian out of the way.

I could remember my body being in tremendous pain. And the soft rain that soothingly fell on my face, my name being repeated over and over again in the most comforting voice.