Honnsworth Academy

Honnsworth Academy

Chapter 1.
Awe.
The sun hit the harvest-gold leaves at the perfect angle, and Fayrn could not help but stop and admire. The beauty that she consumed, the beauty of the white light hitting the sunset-orange, harvest-gold, wine-red leaves, left her numb, weak, and serene.
A cold breeze whistled past her, snapping her back into reality and she shivered, pulling her cardigan tighter around her and snuggling her thick notebook to her chest.
Fayrn continued to stroll.
Stroll shouldn’t have been an accurate description of her walk, considering she was nine minutes and thirty one seconds late to her first class of the year. On any other day, she would have panicked and ran to class, glancing only briefly at the lovely colors of autumn, but not today. Today, the sun hit the harvest-gold leaves at the perfect angle, and it was not a sight she was going to miss.

Fayrn's fur-lined boots brushed over fallen leaves, colors already fading yet alluring in their own way. She tiptoed to brush her fingers over the branches and leaves of the shorter trees, feeling the dry chlorophyll crackle between her smooth skin. She skipped down brick steps, pushed her way into a glass, three-story building, and entered the second room to her right where she was confronted with thirty pairs of unblinking eyes.

Professor Dellum raised one of his eyebrows and folded his arms over his chest.
"And I assume you are Ms. Fayrn King, the only one who didn't respond to my roll call?"
Fayrn returned a fake smile — the kind where the eyes didn’t crinkle and the cheeks didn’t raise.
She slipped into an empty seat in the back row and felt heat in her cheeks. She placed her oak-brown notebook on the table in front of her, opened it, and took a deep breath.






Ioskiea, Fayrn's world, was the only planet that could sustain life. Explorers had tried to send shuttles and ships to Cespaturn and Iynus, the two planets closest to Ioskiea, but the missions had either gone terribly wrong or found little evidence to support human life. But to many Ioskieans, it didn't matter. Centuries ago, a young man discovered that another universe with eight planets existed. With decades of research, experiment, and knowledge, Ioskieans eventually learned about one of the planets that sustained human life: Earth.

When the young man later revealed that Ioskieans had the ability to write the lives of humans on Earth, Ioskiea was altered. In a radical revolution, Ioskiea began to revolve around writing the lives of humans on Earth, and for centuries and decades, it has been the sole purpose of the humans on Ioskiea. From grade one to grade eight, Ioskieans are put in Junior Academies and taught the core subjects of math, language arts, science, and social studies. Then, in grade nine to grade thirteen, they are put in Advanced Academy where the classes focused on writing. Not classical literature writing or essay writing, the art of writing lives: The semantics of human state of minds and emotions; of how to express love, pain, sadness, happiness, anger, regret, guilt; of how to integrate personalities and interactions with certain required events. In grade fourteen, students graduate to specific writing companies, called Branches, where they begin to record and write the life of assigned Earthlings.

Fayrn was in thirteenth grade, the last step before she moved out of Advanced Academy and took on a whole Earthling to herself. She slumped against the back of the chair, attempting to avoid lingering glances.
"Welcome to thirteenth grade. As I was explaining before our wonderful interruption," Dellum shot a glance at Fayrn in the back corner, "I take attendance very seriously. Missing class means missing information, and any poor performance on the final exam is a reflection of my teaching. I intend to pass you all to the greatest Branches next year," he paused and cleared his throat. "When you get into Afloria or Heliv, just remember to tell them all that Mike Dellum taught you."
Chuckles scattered throughout the class. Afloria and Heliv were dreams, Branches that were nearly impossible to get into.

"Those of you who have been with Honnsworth the past five years will know that our teaching is stringent and allows little room for random thought. Any deviation from the course could create chaos in what the humans on Earth know as their norm and we cannot defy the order that nature has created for us."
"So like, make sure our Earthling doesn't feel happy after their mom dies?" A voice sounded from the crowd and giggles followed.
Mr. Dellum glared at the right side of the room. "Jackson Dawe, isn't it? We need none of your witty remarks on the first day of class," he hesitated, "but yes, that is generally one broad example of a violation of the emotional connections that you all have been taught the past four years."
But if their mom was a crazy psychopath who tortured them, those emotions could be different than the norm, Fayrn thought to herself, eyes wandering to the side as she pondered. It's not so black and white, Mr. Jackson Dawe.
Professor Dellum picked up a marker and wrote on the board at the front of class. Fayrn sat up and skimmed the words quickly.
"Our warm up exercise," Dellum said, striding to the side. "In your notebooks, quickly now."
The prompt asked the students to write the mantra of life.
Fayrn flipped through the pages of her oak-brown leather notebook, years of notes scribbled inside. Different scenarios and how to react to them, certain rules that couldn't be broken, emotions and their applications, events that were required periodically, all the different occupations, religions, cultures, crimes, diseases... her fingers leafed through the parchments as she deliberated the prompt. Mantra of life?
At first Fayrn considered that perhaps Professor Dellum had discussed it in the nine minutes that she had missed class, but she noticed that several other students also seemed nervous as they looked past their years of notes to find a written answer.
Maybe the mantra of life is to revolve life around emotions? We're always taught that state of minds and emotions are the heart of life. Everything we do makes us feel something, it's what makes us alive. We do everything in order to feel something. Work to be successful to get money to be happy. Go to funerals to give into our grief and give our respect. Yes. That has to be the mantra of life.
Dellum narrowed his eyes and scanned the classroom.
"Anyone want to give it a shot?" he asked, a hint of triumph in his voice.
Jackson Dawe's hand shot up and he stood when Dellum called on him.
"Sir, I believe this is a question that refers to our mission when writing and authoring the life of another human being; what our drive is, and what we believe the overarching mantra of life is." He picked up his notebook and frowned. "I believe that each person's mantra of life is different, and that is something that we as authors have liberation to decide... some may believe that it is 'power, wealth, and money,’ while others may believe it is 'life for the service of others.’ I think it is this liberation that allows us to have several million different types of people living on Earth." He sat with an air of confidence and Fayrn chewed on his words.
Accurate, but I don't think that's exactly right, Fayrn concluded. The Ocrorix would definitely create some baseline for evaluation in final exams and writing lives.
Professor Dellum dipped his head respectfully, "That's a very good analysis, Dawe. Anybody else?"
Silence was palpable in the room.
Dellum sighed, "Pencils on paper, people." He proceeded to write on the board.

"Balance."
Of course, you idiot, Fayrn cursed at herself. She wrote down the word and underlined it twice, frustrated she had not seen the answer.
Dellum continued, "Although this was never explicitly lectured in your past years at Honnsworth, all the lessons should have led up to this answer. Balance. With every life there is a series of events, outcomes, and emotions all associated with each other. We, as authors, create the balance. The balance of emotions and events. It is a cycle that keeps life going."
A different hand shot up.
"We learned in eleventh that life is unfair, Professor Dellum. Some have better fortune than others, for they are all in different situations. If balance was truly the answer, then wouldn't everyone have a fair share of bad and good?"
Dellum nodded with approval, "Very good question, but I think you misunderstand. The mantra is balance, but that does not necessarily mean that every human’s life contains a balance of good and bad. As authors, we control the balance. We control when the scale is tipped to the right and when it’s tipped to the left. Controlling the balance affects the distinction in each human’s life — the unfairness, jealousy, happiness, sadness, and all the emotions and states of mind that comes with it."
So the mantra is more like the lack of balance, or the control of balance. Fayrn clarified for herself as she scribbled.
“Now, with someone next to you, I want you to review the main rules of our work. They are imperative and you should know them to heart."
Noise erupted from the classroom as students turned to discuss the rules. Faryn peered to her right and found herself staring at an empty chair. Shrugging, she flipped her brown book to the pages of basic rules that she had memorized for last year's final exam.

Natural vs. Motivated Character: In lives, there are what are natural behaviors and there are motivated behaviors. Natural characters are those that people are born with: a developmental disorder, mental illness, etc. Motivated characters are actions that humans choose to take with a certain purpose. If a person kills, he kills with motivated character (create a reason for him to kill) or natural character (a psychological illness he is born with). You cannot choose to create a natural character randomly in the middle of life unless it is allowed, and natural characters are calculated and dispersed by Head of the Branch.




Fayrn grimaced at the murder example she had written in her notes, perhaps the one she knew would stick with her. She continued reading down the page.

Attachment to human: Do not grow an attachment to your human. You will be forced to write parts of their lives no human would want for another, but it is part of our job.

Fayrn sighed. This one would probably give her an issue. She knew she would most likely get attached to her Earthling, see him or her as a best friend that she could reflect within. Fayrn hesitated and reminded herself of the third rule.

Self-integration of own life: Do not integrate the events of your life into theirs; it creates a parallel connection that is dangerous.
Logic: The tie of events and emotions must follow a logical progression; if there is not a logical connection of events and emotions, there must be motivation or natural character as to why there is a gap between the link.

Law of emotions: Like energy, emotions cannot be created or destroyed. They are all different forms of the same type of energy, and all have some underlying foundational cause and effect.

The pages went on and on with specific examples and rules. Characterization first: personality, culture, religion, values, morals; a climate or environment had to be established; the rights and wrongs of each society and culture and how sometimes humans broke them; the periodic population-limiting events such as war or disease.
Fayrn jerked up as a shadow fell over her notebook. Professor Dellum stood with crossed arms, his glasses angled slightly downward and eyes betraying judgement.
"Ms. King, what part of 'someone next to you' do you not understand?"
Fayrn paused, "Professor, I fully understand the meaning, but as you can see, nobody is next to me."
She bit her tongue. Why do you have to be so rebellious on the first dayof class? You know you'll need a good recommendation for the Branches.
"I mean, I was going to turn to someone after I had reviewed the rules myself..." She trailed off and smiled faintly.
Mr. Dellum chuckled, "I certainly hope that is the case." He turned and walked back down to the front of the class and Fayrn sighed with exasperation. She looked to the side, past the empty chair, and saw a boy and girl discussing fervently. She spun out of her chair, aware that Dellum was watching her from the front of class, and walked casually over to the two students with her brown notebook in hand.
"I know, I honestly hate that one, like, it's going to be so hard."
Fayrn let the girl finish her rant and then pulled up a chair to sit beside both of them.
"Dellum wants me to join in the discussion," Fayrn said, almost apologetically. "I'm Fayrn."
"Skye, Skye Giometti."
She immediately disliked the girl — although her first impressions had proved wrong sometimes, something churned in her gut when she laid eyes on the green-hazel eyed, blonde-haired girl.
All sixteen of her freckles. That's what I don't like, Fayrn observed to herself, immediately attempting to make a backstory so she could justify her dislike of this girl. Maybe she was born with a rich family. Probably is, look at her jewelry, light pink nail polish, heavy make-up, definitely rich family. Rich dad, probably writes the Queen of England or something. Mom pampers her. Has a housemaid who works part time to clean her messes. Expected to make it into Afloria, but probably too dumb to make it. Had three boyfriends—no, two and one that's in the complicated stage. Conclusion: spoiled, arrogant, flirty. Friends? Not likely.
Fayrn smiled her superficial smile.
"Nice to meet you Fayrn, I'm Ethen."
She glanced at him. Her eyes swept from side to side, meeting his regular, dark brown eyes. No judgement.
"We just went through the basic rules and I was just saying how it's going to be impossible for me not to get attached to my human, I mean, how could you not? It's like owning a pet or a doll," Skye rambled.
Fayrn cocked her head and pursed her lips. "Well, I've never really thought about our Earthlings as pets. They are still humans, after all."
"Yes, but we'll be able to write their lives. That's such power don't you think? We could literally make them crazy weirdos and do random stuff and nobody would ever know!"
And it's because people like Skye exist that rules are made and humans come in all personalities. I guess it's somewhat good we have idiots like her who think humans are playthings, for diversity’s sake.
Ethen gave Skye a sideways glance, and Fayrn hoped he was thinking along the same lines as her.
"Anyways, what do you think of the dorm we're in, Cespaturn? I wonder which other classes we share with."
Fayrn perked up. She had almost forgot about one of the best parts of Honnsworth, actually living in the Academy. They received different roommates each year, and Fayrn felt a pang remembering her previous roommate and best friend for five years, Izzy. She wondered which class Izzy was in, whether her class had more familiar faces from their old shared classes. She suddenly felt happier remembering there was a chance Izzy's class was assigned to the same dorm that her class was.
"I just hope my roommate isn't someone like that guy," Ethen commented, gesturing toward Jackson Dawe.
"Let's hope it's not," Fayrn murmured grimly, nodding. "I've had Jackson in my class since ninth and he's quite a pain," she paused, "he's done quite well in class though, I must admit."
Fayrn eyed Jackson with distaste. He had always been the extrovert in class, his arrogance a display of his ego and his confidence a display of his privilege. It was nice to know that most teachers that they had shared did not appreciate Jackson's challenges and remarks in class, but Fayrn knew that he was determined to be the best — often, he outscored or matched Fayrn in exams and papers. Her eye twitched at the idea that he would attend a better Branch than she.
I intend to write for the best. And I intend to do it without Jackson Dawe as my competition, she decided the fact determinedly. In fact, Fayrn continued to think, glancing around at all the people in her class, I'm going to be the best in our graduating class.






Chapter 2.

Heart pumping, Fayrn retraced her steps from the morning, eager to meet her new roommate. The first class did not go as smoothly as she hoped, but she was determined to start fresh. Her love for writing had bloomed from an early age, and she only wondered at the drudge that others must have felt when they discovered they all had to grow up to be authors. Fayrn loved writing about nature and landscapes, her poetry always describing the colors of the leaves, the rush of the river, the breeze of the wind, parts of the world that made her feel alive. When she was introduced to the art of writing lives at Honnsworth, however, it was a different feeling. The amalgamation of fear and excitement twisted with hesitancy and passion. She never fully understood how the Ocrorix discovered that they had written control over the lives of Earthlings, but she never questioned, for she knew it must be Ioskieans' destiny to write lives. The Ocrorix, the eleven-member governing board of Ioskiea, created the laws, punishments, rules, and standards for life and for writing lives. They were made up of members who came from the bloodline of the original discoverer of the connection between Earth and Ioskiea: The Discoverer, he was dubbed. Fayrn herself never wanted to get involved with the Ocrorix. She knew that although being a Teacher, Doctor, or Soldier was something many considered, the only other job options other than being a writer, they were strongly affiliated with the Ocrorix and had monthly updates and meetings with them; much too much pressure for a free spirit who loved writing.

Fayrn rounded the corner and stood face to face with a circular quad of ten towering buildings, made of stones of varying colors. Each tower was connected to the other with a bridge halfway between the bottom and the top of the towers, and each tower had its name engraved at the very top.
Cespaturn. Iynus. Aplinda. The buildings were named after the planets in their universe. Suddenly, a flash of movement caught her eye.
Fayrn felt like a truck rammed into her, slamming her into a raging fire. The warmth of the coming embrace caught her by surprise and she barely stayed on her feet as a squeal filled her ears.
"Fayrn!"
She recognized the voice immediately and happiness rung from her heart.
"Izzy!" Squeezing back, Fayrn suddenly felt at home. Izzy and Fayrn had been best friends for the past five years and roommates last year; they shared class and always complained about the assignments, the exams, and Jackson Dawe together. Fayrn had been the one Izzy turned to when she missed class, had boy troubles, or when her grades were falling.
The friends broke their embrace, only to take a breath.
"Please tell me you're in Aplinda,” Izzy gasped.
Fayrn's face fell. "Cespaturn."
Izzy let out a groan of exasperation. "Well, at least they're right next to each other. I honestly don't understand why Honnsworth won't let us choose our roommates!" She narrowed her eyes. "If I ever work for an Academy, I'll take them down and set new rules."
Fayrn chuckled, remembering how active Izzy was and determined to have everything her way. "We've already discussed that we're becoming authors, remember? We're staying as far away from Ocrorix as possible."
"Oh dear," Izzy shivered. "Good point. I wouldn't want to meet those fifty-century-year-old people." Her eyes twinkled with a devilish play. "Come on, let's go visit other people!" She grabbed Fayrn by the arm and dragged her along the stone-laid path on the ground, through the grass and toward Cespaturn.
"By the way," Izzy muttered as she yanked Fayrn around other students moving around the quad. "I think I won't survive the year. My roommate is literally a caveman. She refuses to go out and socialize and I bet she’ll just study her notes all day in bed. In the dark!"
Fayrn smiled slightly, "Oh Izzy, you'll be fine. Just come visit me everyday!"
"I'm going to run, Fay," Izzy said suddenly, checking her watch, "I've got a dorm meeting soon and I ought to go meet some others in Aplinda if I want to survive. I'll catch you at dinner!"
With that, her friend raced off.
Fayrn stood in front of Cespaturn and there, without Izzy’s comforting presence, anxiety hit her. This was her final year in Academy.
Strength and dignity, she thought as she pushed open the revolving doors and stepped inside.
Her shoes hit carpet, a deep, blue carpet. Couches and tables were spread across the entire lobby area and students were already mingling, exchanging life stories and making acquaintances.
Fayrn fished out a key from her pocket, which was mailed to her several days ago and floated her way through the room, attempting to avoid eye contact as she climbed the stairs, shuffled down the hallway, and unlocked the door to room 230.
The mess. Fayrn gawked at the mess. Clothes thrown everywhere, bags and bags of notebooks, hair products, make-up, and random items — hooks for the walls, pictures, paintings, organizers, eye-drops, and Fayrn swore that she saw two marble balls roll out from an open container.
Then she saw the girl.
Burgundy, red-haired with streaks of syrup-brown highlights, pale skin, and mulberry-framed glasses with silver dots lining the sides. And a face of distress.
Fayrn blinked and stared at the girl, watching her continue to throw scarves, socks, and other items out of her luggage.
Then, she let out a squeal.
"Oh thank goodness!" She slid a single box from the bottom of the luggage and squeezed it to her chest. "Bless the heavens I found you!" She did a small twirl but stopped in her tracks when she saw Fayrn, her eyes growing round with horror. She looked from Fayrn to the mess on the ground, and then back to Fayrn.
"I-I-I can explain," she stuttered immediately, falling to the ground and immediately beginning to gather the clothes and stuff them back into her luggage.
Fayrn couldn't help but laugh at the clumsy girl. She walked over to her and pulled her up.
"Hey, don't worry about it. All your stuff is on the ground anyways; might just take this time to organize it all." She smiled warmly.
This is the right way to start off the year, Fayrn thought, internally feeling a light of hope. No judgements.
The worry in the girl's eyes began to fade and was replaced by gratitude.
"Thank you thank you thank you..." she faded off and squinted her eyes. "Wait, you're the girl who was late to class today, aren't you?"
Fayrn let out a sigh of exasperation. "I certainly hope I won't be known everywhere as that girl. Fayrn. Fayrn King, your roommate," she stuck out a hand, "I will seriously pay you to forget that."
A giggle escaped the girl and she took Fayrn's hand. "Aurelia. Aurelia Laliv," she paused, and then squealed, pulling in Fayrn by surprise for a tight hug. "We're going to have the best year together!"
Fayrn closed the door and went to her luggage, brought up earlier by Academy Soldiers. She put down her brown notebook and slowly began to unpack.
"What was so important that you were missing?" she asked, awkwardly attempting to make conversation.
Aurelia looked embarrassed as she continued to organize her possessions on the floor. "Oh, it's nothing really, just a special box with some important memoirs of mine."
Sadness.
Aurelia remained smiling, but Fayrn could hear the sadness in the latter part of the sentence — one of many emotions they had been taught throughout the past years to recognize, understand, and replicate authentically in words. It was one of the hardest emotions to master, and even Fayrn herself was still working on it.
I'll have to revisit that later, Fayrn made a mental note. She heard Aurelia stifle a laugh and she turned, raising her eyebrow.
"Sorry, I just," Aurelia slowly tiptoed over to Fayrn, reached into her luggage, and pulled something out.
Fayrn smiled. In eighth or ninth she would have been embarrassed, but she only felt pride and happiness as she took the stuffed animal from Aurelia.
"This is Annabelle." Fayrn turned the plush horse over in her arms and nuzzled the horse, nose to nose. "She has been my companion for many years now. Judge me for all you care, but if you accept me, you must accept Annabelle."
Aurelia giggled while shaking her head. "She honestly is so ridiculous! I mean look at the way her legs are disproportionate to her head," Aurelia frowned and poked the horses' legs. "such floppy legs, too." Shrugging, she turned away, "Don't worry, I'm not judging you. You ought to be glad she has some white patches on her, though, otherwise I might start calling her poop."
Fayrn frowned, looking at Annabelle's brown coat, white star, and three white patches. Shrugging, Fayrn placed Annabelle on the edge of her bed.
She has been my companion for many years now, Fayrn repeated to herself. Many more adventures to go, huh, my dearest horse?


Chapter 3.
"Today I will introduce your ongoing project for the year." Professor Dellum strode in the front of the class and nodded to the slide on the board. It read 'Pathway to the Branches'.
Fayrn sat in the back, again, chin resting on her folded arms on the desk as she contemplated the events of the first day. Aurelia seemed like a nice enough roommate; she was sweet, girly, and pretty quiet, but Fayrn could tell she was incredibly talented and tenacious behind the soft face of hers. The two had gone straight to bed after dinner and unpacking, exhausted from the day of class, but Fayrn oddly felt she wanted to get to know Aurelia. There was something different about her.
"This ongoing project will span the rest of the year and is," Dellum paused, "what will truly test if you are ready for life in the Branches as an author."
Grim.
Fayrn tilted her head, sensing the tone from Dellum. She sat up, dismissing her thoughts and listening intently.
"The years at Honnsworth have taught you how to write a life: what emotions are, when and how to channel them and describe them to perfection, and what the life of a basic human is supposed to be; however, when you are in the real world, writing the life of a human where your words cannot be taken back once they are on the page, how is it possible to write the life of one human without affecting another? You all have not yet been taught the art of cross-writing and how to apply the life of one Earthling to another."
Fayrn saw Ethen's hand shoot up. "Do you mean, Professor Dellum, that we're going to learn how to criss-cross the lives of our Earthlings together so that what we write matches what others write?"
Dellum nodded, "Exactly, Mr. Schrifin. Every human interacts with a plethora of others, but there is always a usual group they interact with on a daily basis: family, friends, co-workers… these people are called the Core."
Fayrn opened her notebook and immediately began taking notes, noticing that other students automatically did the same.
"When you all get settled into your Branches, a group of people in your shared Branch will most likely be the writers of other humans that are in the Core of yours."
Dellum's words were met with confused faces.
"Let me give an example. Mary Sue wants to go out on a date with Bob Joe, her friend from childhood. In order for this interaction to take place, the author of Mary Sue, say, Ethen, would talk extensively with the writer of Bob Joe, say Jackson, to agree on the time, place, and arrangements of the date. Both Ethen and Jackson would technically be in the same Branch, and are considered part of the same Core since Mary Sue is in Bob Joe's Core, and Bob Joe in Mary's. Then, when they write their respective pages, the interaction will come to life and merge beautifully."
"Isn't that a ton of work though? We have to go talk and plan with everybody in the Core of our human? What if our human is super popular and has fifteen people in their Core? What if they move suddenly and we need to go to another Branch to introduce more people to the Core?"
"Mr. Schifrin, very good questions, and you are very right. We have the rest of the year to discover and answer those questions," he paused for effect, and scanned the classroom. "Our job is not easy, I remind you. This isn't some writing assignment that you all can blow off. This is your job, the means for the rest of your life. The interaction, communication, between people, that is the integral part of writing lives. Going back to the example — what if Ethen and Jackson planned the perfect date for Mary Sue and Bob Joe, but they decided to switch it up, add a little bit of conflict? Ethen must therefore write what he and Jackson had originally planned for the date, but Jackson then alters what he writes and his human Bob Joe ends up standing up Mary Sue. This is where the emotions you learned about so carefully play out: the reactions that Mr. Schifrin must now channel into his human, the motivations behind Bob Joe’s decision to stand up Mary and the choices Jackson now can make about how to deal with it. This creates the rhythm, the cycle, the heartbeat of life."
Passion.
Fayrn could sense it entering Dellum's words and she felt it growing within herself.
"So you're saying that we can choose to disregard what we plan with others?" Jackson raised his voice.
Great. Of course he would ask that. Fayrn rolled her eyes in annoyance.

Dellum smiled slightly. "No, Jackson, your job isn't to cause ruckus in your Core. Everything, whether it’s conflict with your humans, disagreements, or agreements, must be clearly communicated with your Core. You learned it yourself from yesterday: balance. It is about how to create a life with things, events, emotions, that you have been taught to include, with whatever choices that your mind and the rules allow you to take."
Fayrn leaned back. This authoring thing might be harder than I thought.
Mr. Dellum continued, "Sure, the semantics of what to include, of patterns to be aware of are important — that humans usually cry after a death, that they experience heartbreak, that birthdays are usually celebrated, that most humans usually get married, that they start a family... but if authors didn't need to communicate with the Core others and align the stories, we would all wallow in our homes and be cavemen writing for our individual human."
Fayrn nodded slowly. It makes so much sense. That's why we have Branches. Her brain started to throb as she began to contemplate the amount of conversation she would have to have in order to maintain one human life. Sure, there were usually the family and few friends that most humans had, but at school, with all the people they met and eventually in the future when jobs changed and they moved... but those are all things that we can control, more or less. Fayrn argued with herself. Minus the override decision of the Head of Branch, we can decide how many friends they want to keep in their Core, we can decide if they want to move; we decide their lives. She could easily foresee many students attempting to cop out of work by limiting human interaction, but she knew that the rules of writing lives had been drilled into their heads from the years of learning.
"And it's also why, pencils on paper everyone, pencils on paper, it's also why the days that we write for our human in our books are set a year in advance of real time. While you write the day July 13th, 2020, they are living the day July 13th, 2019. It is enough of a time gap to allow us quality time to plan their lives and write with the utmost quality."
A thought struck Fayrn. They wrote a year in advance.

Fayrn raised her hand slowly.
Mr. Dellum looked toward the back. "Ms. King?"
She paused, "What if we accidentally skip a day?"
Silence filled the room.
Fayrn saw the color fade from Mr. Dellum's face.
She felt like hours passed before he responded, "Ms. King, we are authors of lives. We do not skip a day." His face was straight and rigid.
Hesitancy.
Fayrn could hear it within his voice. Dellum was choosing his words carefully. She suddenly felt an ice-cold fear creep on her spine.
"Now!" Dellum snapped out of his trance and turned to the rest of the class. "This is what we will be practicing for the remainder of the year in addition to all the lessons. All of you will receive another brown notebook. You will be placed into groups of five which will be the Core that you share. The backgrounds of a human and their Core members will be presented to you and for the remainder of the year, you will practice writing out their lives." Dellum narrowed his eyes. "Be warned, I am aware that all of you have practiced writing the life of one single, regular human in class years before. This is different. This is the art of collaboration, of webbing together lives of several different humans who have chosen to keep others in their lives. If you deviate from what you plan with your Core, there must be reason why, there must be a delicate and planned reaction. You and your teammates are storytellers. Make the stories raw, make them real. This is heavily weighted in your final grade for the class, which, I remind you, the Branches will be looking at."
Pressure.
Dellum smiled, "And I will be sure to include twists and requirements later. For now, though, the task remains arduous enough. Come up and receive your books and team assignments."
Fayrn stretched back in her chair as the crowd of students clamored to the front eagerly.
I swear if he puts me with Jackson Dawe I will quit Academy and leave Ioskiea, she thought to herself.
When the crowd dispersed, Fayrn picked up her feet and her book-bag and floated to the front of the class, picking up one of the smooth brown notebooks on the table. She flipped through the pages of blank parchment staring at her. Running her fingertips over the spine and the paper, a flicker of excitement flared within her. Then, she walked over to the sheet of Core assignments and scanned the page for her name.
Irritation.
What is luck.
She spun and eyed the room, looking for where her group had congregated. Gripping her brown book to her chest, she walked over to the left side of the room.
"Well, well, well, look who we have here," Jackson Dawe rubbed his hands together, smirking. Irritation tugged at Fayrn as she held back a glare.
"Oh! It's Faydren right?" Skye's high pitched and crisp voice cut the air.
"Fayrn, actually, if I'm correct." Ethen Schifrin looked up at Fayrn and smiled.
Fayrn turned to nod at Ethen, and saw Aurelia making her way over to the group from the corner of her eyes.
Jackson, Skye, Ethen, and Aurelia. Well, at least I have Aurelia and Ethen to keep me from ripping the other two's heads.
Dellum looked satisfactorily at the students as they grouped themselves together.
"Now, your assignment for tonight is to thoroughly read through the page about your human and their background as well as the sections on the other humans in your Core. Also, come into class with some of the initial steps for writing lives — you all should know those by heart."
Characterization: values, morals, religion, occupation, environment; ideas for the next events in their lives; the next emotion they should feel and the event that will lead them to that emotion, Fayrn automatically responded in her head.
“Be sure that these ideas revolve not only around your human but also the other humans in your Core," Dellum reminded, "and feel free to meet with your group outside of class to discuss any ideas. Tomorrow, I expect to be impressed with the initial stages of your storytelling."
Instantly, conversation burst across the classroom as students eagerly opened their books and skimmed over their human or proceeded to leave the classroom.
Curious. Fayrn grabbed one of the papers that Jackson held fanned out to the group.
"Whoo!" Jackson burst out, clapping his hands together. "This is going to be great. Listen up, Team Dawe, listen up. I'm the father of the family, so ya'll better get used to my rule of thumb in the household! It says here that Connell Hathor is the father of the family of three, has a steady job in law, and loves sports. The family was originally from Virginia but moved to Boston after Connell got promoted to the Boston office!" Jackson pushed his lower lip outward and raised his eyebrows, nodding impressively.
Fayrn looked up, finally showing her annoyance. "We are not Team Dawe, thanks," she retorted, "we'll be Team Hathor. It's the last name of the family."
Saffron Hathor, nice to meet you, Fayrn skimmed over her human.

"I'm Saffron," she read aloud, "daughter to Connell and Jackie Hathor. She is in grade ten of high school, participates on the tennis team, and wants to be a research scientist when she grows up."
Ethen peered over at Fayrn's paper. "Well, I suppose I'm Saffron's best friend, Mariette Stefcia, also in grade ten, and wants to be a singer when she grows up." Ethen nodded with approval before continuing. "Mother and father abandoned her at a young age for unknown reasons and she was taken in by her current foster father, Stephan."
Fayrn turned toward Aurelia and Skye, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
"I'm Jackie Hathor," Skye squinted her eyes as she read. She looked up. "Does that mean my human is married to yours, Jackson?" She batted her eyelashes flirtatiously.
"Oh for heaven's sake don't make me puke," muttered Fayrn under her breath, thinking it was soft enough for only herself to hear, but seeing the corner of Ethen's mouth twitch in amusement.
"Aurelia? You must be Stephan then, to make the Core full circle," Ethen said, looking over at the reserved girl.
Aurelia shook her head, looking up. "I'm Silas Leandro, Mr. Connell Hathor's boss in the Boston office."
Satisfaction.
Fayrn only felt it creep up on her slightly, but she felt the emotion well within herself. She tried to contain her smirk as she looked over at Jackson's face, which was visibly irritated. He clearly thought his human would have the highest position of power within the group.
"Now we can keep him contained," muttered Ethen under his breath, softly, but well aware that Fayrn could hear him. She smiled.


The five students left class with little to no plan, but vowed to do their assignment to think of the next stage of their Core’s lives for the next day. Fayrn, exhausted yet eager to begin her trial of writing a human life, rushed over to Izzy's in Aplinda to tell her the events of the day.
“Jackson is such an arrogant pain in the butt I can’t believe you got put in the same group as him,” Izzy responded breathlessly when Fayrn finished explaining to her the year long project.
“I know, and Skye is such a flirt I honestly don’t even know how to keep myself from making snarky remarks.” Fayrn rolled her eyes.
“But Aurelia, and Ethen, they’re okay you think?”
Fayrn sighed, “Nobody can replace you Izzy, I miss you.”
Izzy giggled, “Remember that time in fifth that we totally called out Rob for checking out Suzen?”
Fayrn felt bubbles rising in her throat, an uncontrollable giggle. “He was so embarrassed I thought he might pee his pants!”
“Fayrn,” Izzy turned, serious faced, and Fayrn’s blood suddenly went cold with alarm. “He did pee his pants.”
Within a heartbeat, the girls were bent over, reminiscing on old times and laughing so hard that they couldn’t breathe.
“Okay it’s past dinner I should go back.” Fayrn gave Izzy a hug and got up. “But please visit soon?”
Izzy nodded fervishly, “I’ll definitely need updates on Jackson and I’ll be sure to tell you everything!”


Fayrn returned to Cespaturn. She wanted to warn Aurelia about Jackson and inform her that there was a high probability they would need her human in order to keep Jackson in check.
"But that's terrible!" Aurelia stared at Fayrn with her round, chocolate-brown eyes once Fayrn finished explaining. "Why would we do such a thing to Jackson?" She sat on her bed in a pink, fleece onesie, squeezing her pillow to her stomach.

"Aurelia, for the last time, we're not doing anything to Jackson unless he does something to us! Your human is the only one with any possible justification to do something bad to Jackson's human!"
Aurelia eyed Fayrn. "What do you mean does something? Anything that he possibly does to you is most likely within the rules and for the balance of your human's life!"
Fayrn fought to keep herself from throwing her pillow at Aurelia. "Aurelia," she explained patiently, "I've had class with Jackson since ninth, and I know him. He'll do everything to make his human the best and he'll make sure that we and our humans are struggling. He enjoys troublemaking and doing whatever it takes to be the best writer in class. Since your human is the only one that he can't touch, we just want to be able to use Silas as leverage in case Jackson toys around too much."
She seemed to have started snapping at the end, because Aurelia was shrinking into the corner of her bed, eyes growing wider with fear.
"A-Alright, alright, I get it now."
Great. Now I'm the bad guy. Fayrn sighed.
"I'm sorry, Aurelia. I didn't mean to be so forceful. I just know that Jackson might screw this up for all of us."
Aurelia didn't meet her gaze, and simply nodded, sliding into her blankets

Regret.
It was one of the few times that Fayrn actually regretted doing something, the other times dating back to the time she had lived with her family. She bit her lip as faint memories flashed in the back of her mind, and when blood finally drew on her lips, the memories faded, replaced with pain.
Fayrn slid under her blankets too, wrapped in the warmth of her fleece throw. She grabbed Annabelle and placed the horse on her chest, so that the two were face to face.
I've got to make it up to her, don't I? She asked Annabelle silently. The horse stared back at her with her beady eyes. In Annabelle's eyes, the dim light allowed Fayrn to see her reflection. Her tan skin, caramel-brown eyes, ordinary, honey-brown straight hair.
Inadequate.
She pushed the thought away immediately.
"Aurelia?" Fayrn propped her head up, calling her roommate tentatively. She saw Aurelia turn toward her slightly, a faint bulge in the corner. "Do you ever sometimes automatically and instinctively come up with emotions that match the situation that you're in? Just because of all the training and classes that we've had mastering emotions."
Aurelia smiled, turning fully so that she faced Fayrn. "No, I don't think I've ever instinctively labeled situations with emotions, but it sounds fun! Ethen does this thing where he pretends he’s writing stories on the people around him, inserting emotions, motivations, and mental commentary, it’s pretty funny,” Aurelia giggled.
Fayrn frowned. "Ethen? You knew him before?"
Aurelia sat up and nodded vigorously. "Ethen's one of my best friends. He and I have shared class since tenth," she trailed off and looked away, "I was actually going to ask you if he could come over now and then to our room so that he and I could work together on our assignments, but well, you sort of got to asking me about Jackson first."
Awkward.
Awkward wasn't really an emotion, but it was the first word that came to Fayrn's mind and frankly, she didn't really care at the moment that it wasn't exactly an emotion.
Fayrn didn’t wait to respond, "Of course Ethen can come over, just like I hope you're okay with my friend Izzy coming over. Also, just so you know, it was actually Ethen's idea that we use Silas to keep Jackson in check."
Aurelia narrowed her eyes. "That doesn't sound like Ethen, not at all. And I doubt he knows Jackson well enough to actually have anything against him," she shook her head, "he must have been joking."
Fayrn barely believed that Ethen had been joking, but she bit her tongue from arguing with Aurelia any further.
Let's give it time. Soon even sweet Aurelia won't be able to stand Jackson Dawe.
Fayrn slid back into her bed and started to stroke Annabelle.

"Do you ever wonder how it's possible that we write the lives of the Earthlings?" This time, it was Aurelia who broke the silence.
Fayrn stopped stroking Annabelle halfway and paused.
"What do you mean?" she asked carefully.
Aurelia shrugged, "I just think it's really odd that we can scribble a few words into some special book that we're given and then the words magically come off the page and into real life in another universe."
"It's a property that we don't understand because we're not part of the Ocrorix. I'm sure it's some valuable secret that we're not supposed to know or we're not smart enough to understand —some physical interruption of space and time."
Fayrn found herself replying in a similar manner that Dellum had answered her question earlier in class. She tugged Annabelle's mane. "If I'm going to be terribly honest Aurelia, I'm not sure I want to understand how it works. I just assume that if we’ve been granted the gift, then it’s our destiny to write and guide the Earthlings. Otherwise, why would such a gift exist?"
But is it a gift?
Fayrn's eyebrows furrowed and her stream of thoughts continued. Guns exist in this world, but does that mean we have to use them? Sure, they were made for the Soldiers, but in the wrong hand, are they gifts?
Uneasy.




Chapter 4.

Fayrn barely listened to Aurelia as they walked to class, entranced by the beauty of the nepeta-green field of flowers. She never truly understood how others couldn't stop and relish in the delicacy of nature: the whisper of the wind as it pressed against the trees, wrapping them in warm embraces or soft, playful pinches.
The two girls entered the building and saw Jackson and Skye standing together by the door.
Suspicion.
"I sure hope they aren't plotting anything," Fayrn mumbled and Aurelia smiled, grabbing her arm and shaking it playfully.
"Don't think the worst of everybody you meet Fayrn. They're probably just exchanging ideas to impress Professor Dellum when he asks us our ideas."
Fayrn snorted, but didn't argue with Aurelia's request.
"Hey ladies, are we plotting against Jackson or not?"
Fayrn spun and couldn’t help but grin.
Aurelia punched Ethen softly in the arm. "Ethen, we're a team. We're not going to be the cause of a division. Besides, Professor Dellum most likely will include some form of peer evaluation at the end of the project, and we don't want him reading some negative comments about us playing nasty."
"Then we'll just have to be extra sneaky so Jackson has no evidence to pin us on," Ethen smirked and the girls laughed. "But on a more serious note, what ideas did you two come up with for our Core?"
Fayrn automatically noticed a slight flinch from Aurelia, a retraction. Discomfort— just slightly, but light enough for Fayrn to identify.
She must just be unsure about her ideas, but I'm sure they're great.
"Saffron and Mariette are in tenth grade," Fayrn quickly responded, and again she didn't miss the sigh of relief from Aurelia, "so it would make sense that they either had friend or boy troubles."
Ethen gave a deadpan expression, eyes blinking without emotion.
"You have to be that boring? Seriously? No creativity?"
Fayrn gaped, feeling embarrassed and hot. "I'm sorry that it was the most logical thing to do; not everyone's lives are so exciting all the time, you know. And they're boring because they’re what the majority of the population goes through; two integral events in the rules that we learned — aka, I get the A and you get the C plus."
"Make that a C plus plus for creativity and imagination, Fayrn," Ethen responded. Although he was joking, she could tell his eyes glistened seriously. "Following the rules might get you into Afloria, but it's bending the rules that'll create lives on Earth that are unique and different."
Fayrn opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out. The words stunned her. She huffed a breath and walked into the classroom, sitting and crossing her arms.
Who does he think he is, telling me how to write. You can follow the rules and still make a unique and different human, he just isn't smart enough to find out how.
She immediately bit her tongue, wishing she could take the thought back. Day one and already falling out with team. Must do better. She made the mental note to herself.
Ethen and Aurelia came and sat next to her, the three of them silent. Fayrn spun to face Ethen.
"Sorry about that Ethen. You're right that creativity is really important, and I'm glad you reminded me so I don't get lost in the rules. I really look forward to coming up with some great ideas with you." From the corner of her eyes, she saw Aurelia beam. She assumed Aurelia didn't appreciate conflict between teammates: roommate and best friend.
Ethen grinned in return, "And I'm sorry for harping on you. It's awesome that you have everything down and memorized, I'm sure you'll graduate to an amazing Branch."
Fayrn smiled, but it waned. Graduating to Afloria had been her goal, her dream, for as long as she could remember. Ethen's words continued to echo in her mind.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Fayrn opened her notebook to the page of ideas she had written for their Core. Jackson and Skye walked in, and Fayrn could tell Skye was attempting to hold back her giggles. Irritation grew rapidly.
Let it go, for the sake of the team.
Professor Dellum stood at the front of the class, clearing his throat as the noise simmered to eventual silence.
"I'm sure many of you are very excited to begin discussing your Core ideas with your team members, but we will first start with a lesson."

Groans flashed throughout the room, but Dellum pretended not to hear them. He pulled up a slide on the board.
"Three bodies of mind: conscious, subconscious, unconscious."
Fayrn was suddenly awake with newfound energy. This was a completely new concept that had never been taught in her years at Honnsworth, and the idea instantly captured her attention. She scrambled to pull out a pen.
Professor Dellum looked around. "Anyone have initial thoughts?"
Fayrn raised her hand.
"Ms. King?"
A stream of thoughts poured into Fayrn's head and she waited to collect her thoughts before speaking.
"The unconscious is the part of our brain that we cannot control but that have an effect on our behaviors and emotions. Some argue that our unconscious is a display of our true selves; that an unfiltered, uncontrolled mind or body reveals who we naturally are. Others voice that what we choose to filter or reveal through our conscious and how we act truly define who we are."
Dellum nodded with approval, "Nice conclusions, Ms. King. Any comment on that? Yes, Mr. Schifrin?"
Ethen had a thoughtful look on his face. "The unconscious is a part that we cannot control, and who we identify as and who we are defined to be should be a reflection of our conscious choices, our emotions, our actions, our words, not simply the scientific part of our bodies and brains that we cannot control. What’s also interesting to me is the idea of exploring the unconscious as perhaps warnings for the future, or messengers of gut feelings."
Dellum smiled and wrote a simple word on the board.
Dreams? Fayrn frowned.
"Ethen brings up a good point, which leads me to the first part of the subconscious—dreams. When we dream, our subconscious and unconscious take over our body, attempting to convince what remains in our conscious that the world the unconscious creates is real."
Dellum paused as students quickly took notes. "Now, you all are probably wondering what this has to do with our work as authors. As authors, we cannot control the unconscious of our humans."
What? Shock immediately spread across Fayrn's face.
Dellum chuckled as he caught her expression. "Yes, when the human enters the unconscious, nothing we write on the page will affect them. Now, many of you are probably wondering what the implications of this are. We are the authors of the conscious parts of our humans—in essence, we are their conscious. However, any decision or thought they make when they are unconscious is not something we can control. Perhaps when they dream they may think of worlds and ideas completely outside of anything that they will ever live. However, since they are asleep or immobile when they enter the subconscious, whether daydreams or nightmares, they do not have the physical capability to act upon it, therefore keeping the order of the conscious, and our rule over them, stable."
Fayrn began to shake her head. There were too many problems that arose with this concept. Questions sprouted from her mind, but she remained silent and continued to take notes.
"This is also connected to the human brain. There is a grey area between the unconscious and the conscious in the subconscious that we capitalize on. It would be difficult to write every single detail of our humans—going to the bathroom, eating, watching television— so, we as authors write the main events in their lives, and then the subconscious of the human automatically fills in the rest for us; when the human is hungry, he goes to the kitchen to seek food. When his bladder is full, he seeks a bathroom. Now, as authors, we can omit the boring, repetitive parts of their lives and focus on the main events, similar to how many authors on Earth pen regular novels. I’m sure most if not all of you students have already been capitalizing on this in your writing, you have just never been aware.”
"Can you give us an example, Professor?"
For once, Fayrn agreed with Jackson. She had pretty much mastered memorizing the events and stages in life, and the corresponding emotions that humans felt, how to notice them and describe them, but this talk of the unconscious and of the lack of control of parts of the subconscious in human lives made Fayrn uneasy.
"Of course," Dellum said, nodding curtly. "Let's take one of the suggested events in life that commonly occurs with humans—someone shout one out."
"Death of a pet!" A cry came from the back of the room. Dellum acknowledged the suggestion with a wave, wrote it on the board, and circled it.
"Death of a pet, the event that we have control of. Now, the main two emotions associated with this?"
"Anger and grief," Jackson immediately called out. Dellum wrote the responses underneath 'Death of a pet.'
"Now, I’m going to present a crude paragraph that one might write about this – this is no final product, but I just want you all to get a general idea.” Dellum cleared his throat.
“Lily stared at his flat fur, unruffled and void of vibrant color. The sun was kissing the mountains as they lowered him into the ground, his legs limp and hanging over the board. Unable to feel the nerves in her arms, her feet, her mouth, Lily was numb. Pain, anger, grief all consumed her in waves, but now, simply numb. As she trudged home, shoes skimming the grey cement, she thought about her history exam tomorrow and wondered if the death of her dog was enough to excuse her. Once home, she climbed into bed, the feeling of her fleecy pajamas a cruel reminder of his furry head once snuggled against hers. Sleep encasing her, she suddenly felt an emptiness she never imagined she could feel.”
Fayrn raised her eyebrows, impressed.
Dellum grimaced. "It's a specific example to the multitude of scenarios, but the basic idea is that our Earthlings are not simply puppets—they have a mind of their own, but their subconscious merges with the control we have over their conscious. We didn’t have to write the fact that once Lily got home, she took out her key and opened the door and took off her shoes and walked up the stairs and opened her bedroom door, and changed her clothes and maybe conversed simply with her mother about how tired she was and on and on and on… her subconscious and free will simply and logically connect the dots of what we write. Jackson, does that make a little more sense?"
Fayrn scratched her head, a new thought popping up. She pushed it away relatively quickly, not daring to think of that possibility.
Dellum nodded with satisfaction. "Now, we'll practice more with all of this in class since I understand it's very difficult to piece together. For now, though, I want you all to regroup and discuss with your Core the ideas that you all came up with for today. I want a chapter written by tomorrow, due in class. Dismissed."
Papers shuffled, feet shifted, and students were soon chattering with their new collective groups.
Fayrn turned toward her group, but her mind still lingered on the lesson.
"Alright," Jackson immediately took charge, "so Skye and I have been talking and we've come up with some pretty great ideas for the family. Fayrn are you listening?"
Fayrn blinked quickly and looked up. "Sorry—yes, of course. Ideas, got them."
From the corner of her eye, she saw Ethen's eyes narrow with concern, but she acted as if she didn't see him.
"Right," Jackson continued, dismissing Fayrn. "I was doing some character work for Connell and was thinking that he could be the extremely strict father, while Jackie could be the extremely sweet mother. My big idea to start," Jackson panned his hands outward and looked upward at the light, "is that his daughter Saffron wants to attend a huge party with Mariette, but Connell refuses to let her, so she finds a way to sneak out. She gets drunk at the party and asks some random guy to drive her home, but the random guy ends up kidnapping her and holding her ransom."
Silence.
Skye was nodding eagerly, eyes glimmering with admiration.
Fayrn wasn't sure if she liked the idea of a kidnapping. Although it was in their notes as a possible event, she had been thinking something more casual and lighthearted to start off.
She opened her mouth to object, "I did my own character work with Saffron, and I didn't make her a rebellious teenage daughter."
Jackson shrugged, "Fine, let's make Mariette the free and crazy teenage daughter then—one dad, she's bound to have all the freedom she wants. And, since she's Saffron's best friend, there could be a lot of influence there. Ethen?"
Fayrn was surprised when Jackson actually turned toward Ethen, waiting for his thoughts on the idea.
Ethen frowned thoughtfully. "That's not a bad idea."
Fayrn paused, "What about Aurelia's character?"
Aurelia smiled shyly to the side.
Come on Aurelia, you have to speak up.
Jackson shrugged, "We can bring him in later, he's not too important. Right now Aurelia can just practice writing his individual life."
Oh, that's just because you want to have control in the story. Fayrn pursed her lips.
"We're going to include her, it's the whole point of the assignment," Fayrn glanced to the left to think. "Got it. Since Saffron goes missing, the family goes frantic attempting to look for her and get the police involved. But let's say that Aurelia's character, Mr. Leandro, starts pressuring Connell as the new-guy at the Boston office to finish his cases and get them in by the deadline faster. Being the hard-working man he is, Connell focuses all his time on work, but Jackie argues that Connell shouldn't put work ahead of finding their daughter. That creates a lot of character conflict between Leandro, Connell, and Jackie."
Jackson narrowed his eyes in distaste.
"Well thought out, Ms. King."
The voice surprised all of them. The five team members spun around; they had been so engrossed in their discussion they didn't notice Professor Dellum standing behind them.
Pleasure.
It flashed in Fayrn's eyes.
"Very well then, since we've agreed on all our roles," Ethen stepped in as Dellum walked away, "I'll discuss the details with Fayrn on what to write for Mariette and Saffron, Jackson you talk with Skye and Fayrn about how to handle the argument about agreeing to go out and then talk with Aurelia about how to handle the Leandro-Connell interaction."
The team members nodded and Fayrn felt a sigh of relief. The day had gone by without Jackson and her beating each other up. As she began to pack up and the class emptied slowly, a sudden thought occurred to her. Jackson had suggested that Saffron become drunk at the party.
Ethen and Aurelia were the last to leave the classroom, leaving Fayrn and Mr. Dellum, who was shuffling notebooks at the front of the class. She walked up slowly to him and cleared his throat. Dellum looked up in surprise and pushed up his glasses.
"Ah, Ms. King?"
"Professor Dellum, I was thinking about our lesson earlier, with the three bodies of mind. What if our human becomes drunk, one of the actions that we learned years ago as part of the suggested and frequent actions that teenagers undergo? When humans become drunk, part of the subconscious and unconscious take over, but they aren't asleep. By the time they wake up and come out of their hangover, they most likely will have forgotten anything they did."
Fayrn finished, but another thought immediately blossomed.
"Or say they start to sleep-walk; the unconscious controls the mind, and they are active. If we can't control their unconscious and they choose to take an action, it could differ from what we wrote them. What if they decided to do something that ultimately alters their life significantly and when they regain consciousness they have to react accordingly? We'd have written everything a year in advance, and we wouldn't be able to change anything."
Dellum looked intently at Fayrn.
"Ms. King, let's talk in my office, shall we?"
Fayrn eagerly trailed Professor Dellum as they exited the classroom and walked through the hallway, finally entering a large office. Fayrn sat in one of the large armchairs next to the fireplace.
She peered casually at the photos framed on Dellum's desk. There was a young boy in a majority of the photos; he had round cheeks and a goofy smile on his face, and more often than not he wasn't looking at the camera.
That can't be Dellum.
Her thoughts were confirmed when she saw a frame of Dellum with the young boy, standing barefoot on the beach with t-shirts and swimming trunks on.
Dellum has a son?
"Now, let's address some of these questions that you have."
Dellum put down his notebooks and sat behind his desk while folding his hands together.
"Jackson suggested that my character get drunk at a party," Fayrn explained, "and I was just thinking about the connection of people who get drunk and their subconscious taking over, especially when they become blackout drunk and the human becomes unconscious."
Dellum nodded slowly, "Your thoughts are in the right direction of a fine author, Ms. King. Alcohol intoxication is a very interesting subject that the Ocrorix and Ioskieans have explored for several years. We have discovered that in regular teenage intoxication, the conscious and the subconscious mix together, and therefore we still have command of the human in those stages since it is not the full unconscious. When your human drinks to the point where they "black out" and become unconscious, they simply will not have any memory of what happened to them when they wake; they themselves are incapable of taking actions.”
Dellum narrowed his eyes as he continued.
"Sleepwalking is a much more difficult concept to master. It is true that the unconscious takes over and what we write has no influence on the actions when they are sleepwalking. However, the majority of cases have shown that the things humans do when they sleepwalk aren't significant: walking, talking, or at worst, bothering their family. Since they don't remember anything they did when they woke up, it probably won't be enough to alter what we wrote them."
Fayrn pressed on, "But surely there have been cases where something more drastic happened, like if someone accidentally fell down the stairs and injured themselves terribly, right?"
"I'm not sure about those cases, but if you truly want to know, I can probably ask the Ocrorix how they handle those situations."
"The Ocrorix have access to Earth don't they," Fayrn stated, rather than asked. "Either that or they can see Earthlings, because they have to have some form of observing the humans and watching their interactions and their reactions to what we write, or what happens when humans do something life-changing in their sleepwalks."
Professor Dellum's eyes darkened. "Ms. King, your questions and conclusions demonstrate your intellectual and critical way of thinking. I will not curb your curiosity, but I must advise you not to go searching for answers that don't exist. Stick to what you know and you will be writing for an excellent Branch."
Was that a threat?
Fayrn nodded quickly. "Of course Professor. Thank you." She clutched her book-bag to her chest, feeling the heat of Dellum's eyes fixed on her, and fled the office.

Empty.
It was an emotion, but Fayrn used it to describe the blank page staring before her, as if laughing. She tapped the end of her pen against her knee, words and phrases swirling through her mind.
Aurelia and Ethen sat across her on Aurelia's bed, the sound of pencil scratching parchment as they both silently wrote in their notebooks.
After her experience in Dellum's office, Fayrn met up with her team in the dining hall for dinner. She barely had an appetite and ate little to nothing, but felt a bit more energized when the team began discussing the details of how to write their stories. Aurelia contributed the least, even though Fayrn was sure that her ideas were simply hidden inside her thoughts. After finalizing the initial chapter, the five parted. Ethen had come with the two girls; Aurelia pressured him into giving her company while she wrote.

Aurelia paused from writing, and glanced at Fayrn.
"Fayrn, you've got to start writing at some point."
Fayrn looked up at Aurelia and sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead.
"Jackson and I discussed that we would start with how Saffron would bring up the party to her father, but I just can't find the words to fit it."
Ethen stopped writing and looked up. "Well, how do you usually start your pieces when writing for an individual human? This may be an assignment to get us to converse with others, but the writing process still allows a lot of individual thought. Be free." Ethen nodded firmly to Fayrn, and then continued scribbling in his notebook.
Fayrn frowned. How did she usually start her pieces?
Nature.
The answer came immediately to her, and she wondered why she even asked herself in the first place. Nature was always the safe place to go back to, something that didn't affect any human, but allowed her to connect to something concrete in the world. The team had decided that the environment would be a sunny day in Boston... she put her pen on the parchment, and watched the ink spill.

The sun exploded in the sky, rays of amber light blending with the arctic blue expanse. Saffron perched at her window, elbows propped up against the windowsill and chin resting against her palms. Her pale green eyes sparkled against the reflection of the light, and she felt a breeze wash over her. Just a few hours ago, Mariette had called to tell her about the party that the seniors at their school were throwing that night, and Mariette had somehow convinced Saffron to ask her father to attend. Mariette had told her to relate that it was simply a relaxing pool party, and there would be no alcohol or beer at all. Saffron was a girl of discipline, mainly because of the years under her dad's strict rule. She had a sweet disposition and usually would not let Mariette convince her to attend such a party, but Mariette had mentioned that Henri might be at the party, and Saffron would not let her stringent dad prevent her from meeting boys. Saffron swallowed to try and find courage. Downstairs, her father Connell was busy shuffling papers from work while her mother read quietly on the living room couch.
Saffron slid her way in front of her father and waited till he finished reading the page he was on.
He looked up.
"Yes, Saffron?"

It's crazy how we planned every single conversation so that we could write to the most accurate degree we could. No wonder mom and dad always worked at the Branches so late, planning for every day of their human's life must have been exhausting.
Fayrn continued to write.

Saffron shifted her feet, casting her eyes downward to avoid her father's direct gaze.
"Well father, there's sort of a meeting tonight that I have to, er, want to go to, er yea meeting with friends." Saffron searched for words desperately.
Mr. Hathor raised his eyebrows and put down his paper. "A meeting with friends? Do you mean a party?"
Saffron's eyes widened with panic. "It's not exactly a party, really, I mean, it's just a fun pool celebration. There won't be any alcohol at all."
"Alcohol? That's barely one of the many dangers of high school parties. You're not going."
Saffron didn't expect anything else from her father; it had been the same response for years. With emptiness in her heart and a blank mind, she turned around and walked back to her room. As she left the room, she could hear her mother fighting for her, like Mrs. Hathor had been doing for some time now. She texted Mariette the bad news. The reply came relatively quickly.
Saffron, you can't let your dad control your life till you move out. Tonight, you're sneaking out. I'll have Dex drive us both to the party. I'll come get you at ten— be ready, okay?
Anxiety flared in Saffron. She had never disobeyed her father, and she dared not imagine the consequence if she ever did.
Yet beside the anxiety, she felt excitement growing. Mariette was right; why should her father be so strict? She would be the only girl by the end of high school who hadn't attended one party or had any decent fun. She gripped her fist with determination and began to plan an escape.



"What's a good emotion that depicts the fact that Silas is under pressure to get his lawyers to finish their cases soon?"
Fayrn looked up, Aurelia's voice interrupting her train of thought.
Frustrated. Tense. Tight. Strained. Stressed. Irked. Embittered. Impatient. One after the other, the emotions popped in Fayrn's head instinctively.
"How about stressed or irked?" Ethen offered, and Fayrn nodded with approval.
Aurelia's face brightened and she bent over, scribbling away.
"Fayrn, I'm up to the part where Saffron is in the car and Mariette returned to the party. We decided to cut off there, right?"
Fayrn gaped. "How are you already so far? You must write 80 words per minute, at least."
Ethen shrugged. "I don't spend time perfecting every word like you do."
Fayrn raised an eyebrow, but didn't respond. She skimmed over the parts she had already written, and frowned in distaste at some of the phrases. The clock read midnight, and she groaned. She had to finish quickly.

The night came faster than Saffron had anticipated. Peering at herself in the mirror, she cringed and pulled down her barely thigh-high skirt. A draft from the window brushed over her and she slapped her hand down to keep the skirt from lifting. If her father found out she even owned the skirt, who knew what he would do to her. Nonetheless, she desired to impress the other students at school. She clutched her purse to her side and pressed her ear to the door, listening for any sounds of her father or mother downstairs. Silence.
Saffron grabbed the doorknob and twisted it as quietly as possible, sliding the door open just enough for her to slip through. Her bare feet pressed against the cold tile and she tiptoed down the stairs, eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Her heart was beating, pounding against her chest as she began to feel a restlessness grow on her. Mariette and her friend Dex were parked outside, waiting. Saffron finally reached the bottom step and spun, making sure there were no signs of her parents. She took a deep gasp of air, for she had been holding her breath the entire time. She slipped her feet into her sandals and unlocked the door. The click of the lock echoed against the floor and rang into the living room. Saffron froze, muscles tense. No sound. Sliding the door open, she fled, not taking the chance of looking back.
Saffron squeezed into the back with Mariette and let out a breath of excitement escape. Mariette was laughing her head off.
"I almost thought you wouldn't make it!"
"Neither did I! I was honestly thinking about heading back," Saffron admitted. The thrill of the escape and her success burned within.
Dex started driving, and as Saffron looked back at her house, she suddenly felt her confidence wavering and a fear rising.

The party raged into the night; sweaty bodies and the smell of alcohol filled the air. Time unraveled into strands of yarn lost in tangled knots. Energy spiked through Saffron, hiding the fatigue that slept under the alcohol.
Mariette pushed another cup into Saffron's hand, giggling uncontrollably.
"One more! One more!" she belted into Saffron's face, wobbling from side to side with little control over her physical movements.
Saffron felt dizzy. The world spun around her but she took the cup from Mariette and finished it in one gulp. She groaned and turned to Mariette.
"Mari, I don't feel so well." She felt her own body lurch and had to use the wall to prop herself up. "Can you take me home?"
Mariette squinted her eyes and looked through the crowd. "Oh!" She yelled in Fayrn's ear, the roar of the music and the dance overwhelming their senses. "I think Dex left!"
Within the blur of emotions, Saffron felt a flare of panic ignite.
"But neither of us can drive!" she yelled back.
Mariette showed no sign of worry. She took Saffron's hand.
"Come on, I'm sure there are some people outside who can drive us!" She dragged her outside the house and into the dark. Saffron felt something churn within her stomach and her vision blurred.
"Mariette, can I call my parents and ask them to pick me up?" she asked groggily. The feeling of the thrill faded with every passing second.
"Saffron! If your father finds out you've been at a party, you'll never go to a high school event for the rest of your life. It's only one in the morning, I'm sure you can sneak back and by the morning, nobody will have known that you went!"
One in the morning? Saffron let the words register.
"Excuse me! Sir! Can you help drive my friend home?"
Saffron felt a rush of alarm. "You're not," she paused to clear her thoughts, "coming with me?"
She saw a twinkle in Mariette's eyes. "You go on ahead home sweetie. I think I'm going to stay till a bit later! Tata!" She skipped away, barely tripping, and screamed into the night with excitement.
Saffron was left face to face with a tall man with a scruffy beard and black beanie.
"Hi, my name is Pat. Why don't you tell me your address and I'll get you home." His voice was strangely monotonic, but Saffon's mind was too much of a blur to tell.
Still, her instincts did not leave her.
"Are you a student?" she groaned as her stomach convulsed and she hurled forward, feeling vomit dance on the edge of her throat. She would have hit the pavement, but instead she fell into Pat's arms.
"Sorry," she managed to gasp, "I just need to get home. 273 West Grove Ave."
Pat helped her into the back seat of the car and hopped into the driver's seat. He turned back to look at her and she stared back at him through her blurred vision. He began driving down the lane, and Saffron suddenly began to feel adrenaline kick in. She forced herself to remain calm, but the dizziness caused by the intoxication confused her senses. She shut her eyes and hoped that by the time she opened them, she would be staring into her father's angry face.

Fayrn shut her book and let out a sigh. Ethen met her gaze and smirked.
"Still thinking about being an author?"
Fayrn looked at him indignantly. "I love writing. It's just exhausting attempting to recall everything we discussed. But I think I’m beginning to understand what Dellum meant about letting the humans’ subconscious connect the dots. We didn’t have to write a conversation that Dex, Mariette, and Saffron had in the car but most likely they would have an insignificant one. "
She looked over to Aurelia, who seemed to still be writing.
She started eons before I did. Fayrn observed. Maybe we have ourselves another perfectionist.
Aurelia climbed out of her bed. "I'm going to grab some water, I'll be back." She rushed out of the room in a hurry.
Fayrn frowned in concern. "Is she okay?"
Ethen sighed, "She's just anxious because we both finished our chapters and she's only little over halfway done."
"There's no shame in being a slow writer."
Ethen grimaced, "It's not so much being a slow writer. Aurelia has never really clicked with writing," he shrugged, "I keep telling her not a lot of people click with writing either, but she's tried awfully hard for the past few years with no avail. She's scared she'll end up in one of the lower Branches and work with lazy people and terrible writers for the rest of her life."
Fayrn frowned. "That's an awfully pessimistic view on life. Not everyone is cut out to be an author, but it's the way that Ioskiea turned out to be. She'll be fine if she studies hard and does decently on the exam— "
"Fayrn, she's thinking about becoming a Soldier."
Ethen's interruption stunned Fayrn.
She sat on her bed, looking stupid as the words processed.
Ioskieans worked as authors, but what some didn't realize was that there were three other job options that one could apply for on the final exam; Teacher, Soldier, or Doctor.
Soldiers kept the order. The protected Ioskiea and served the Ocrorix, gathering and delivering food to the people, managing the distribution of income, attending to services that any Ioskiean might have. Teachers were responsible for working in the Academies, instructing the next generation on how to write lives. Doctors worked to keep the sick healthy. If an Ioskiean was terribly ill, he would fall behind on his duty as an author and the Doctors would be blamed. The work was arduous, for they had to learn to become Doctors in a short period of time due to wasted years of studying as an author, and they also had to research tirelessly to try and discover cures to diseases.
While these jobs were options, the Ocrorix decided selectively, keeping the pool small in order to ensure that there were enough people to write for each human alive on Earth. Especially with the expanding population on Earth, the Ocrorix attempted to keep as many people authors as possible.
A Soldier? Working right alongside the Ocrorix? Fayrn looked down. Could sweet, timid Aurelia really be a Soldier?
"Is she certain? Could she maybe just be a Teacher?"
Ethen shook his head. "She's very uncertain but she's ruled out being a Doctor, for obvious reasons, and a Teacher. Because she's not good at writing, she fears she won't be able to teach the art well to others. I worry for her. Academy has proven to be a real struggle for her, and I don't want her realizing that she would rather be a Soldier than a Writer while she's halfway in the Branch or vise versa."
"She has the rest of this year to decide," Fayrn said, with a light of hope in her voice.
The door opened and Aurelia popped back inside. From her bloodshot eyes and flushed face, Fayrn could tell that Aurelia had not just been getting a drink of water.
Fayrn's heart sunk. She met Ethen's gaze and she felt her cloud of sorrow reflected in his eyes. Aurelia laughed nervously and climbed back into bed, pulling her notebook open and returning to write.
Tense.
Fayrn could see how tense Aurelia was, eyes frantically flickering back and forth along the page.
"Aurelia, do you need any help?"
Ethen shot her a look of disapproval, but she strained her neck, bulged her eyes, and looked toward Aurelia and then back at Ethen.
Just look at the poor girl. She needs help but she won't ask for it, and you're just going to let her struggle on her own? Pride is nothing when it comes to your friends!
A look of relief spread across Aurelia's face and Ethen narrowed his eyes.
"I'm trying to write Mr. Leandro's email to one of his workers regarding a strict deadline approaching that his worker seems to be falling behind on," she frowned and rubbed her temples, "I just can't get the right words across. Right now I have, 'Dear Mr. Willow, I was looking through the updates of progress for all our projects and noticed that the next benchmark assessment is in a week,'" Aurelia paused, "I don't know how to transition into telling him to get to working on it."
Fayrn nodded encouragingly, "That's really good Aurelia, it sounds professional, which is what Mr. Leandro should be. Now, let's think of Mr. Leandro's character, right? Strict, work-driven, dedicated, passionate, and unforgiving. So what are some emotions that you should channel into the next sentence?"
Aurelia looked thoughtful. "Rude?" She looked up at Fayrn.
"Exactly! Snappy, commanding, insensitive, surly, crude, right? So maybe his sentence could be something like: Leandro and Jacobry Law Firm does not tolerate late projects or projects with a quality that will undermine the reputation of the company. I expect that your team be in the office ready to produce work with a high standard of quality by the benchmark, otherwise the future of your placement here will be put into question."
Ethen wolf-whistled and Aurelia burst out laughing.
"Fayrn, it's perfect! How did you come up with that off the top of your head?" Aurelia quickly began to transcribe the sentence.
Well, it's far from perfect—how could you think that it was perfect? But Fayrn bit her tongue from saying anything.
"I'll head back to my room." Ethen announced, yawning and climbing off the bed. "Aurelia, you have Fayrn to help you, so do make sure to get rest tonight."
As he exited the room, he turned back to Fayrn, who had gotten up to close the door after him.
"That was nice of you," he whispered, so that Aurelia couldn't hear him. “But Aurelia can’t rely on us forever.”

Fayrn shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we let her suffer.”
Warm.
"I feel for those who feel forced to be authors. Besides, Aurelia is a sweet girl, my roommate, and our teammate, we should help in any way."
She waved goodbye and shut the door. The warmth surrounded her and stayed with her for the rest of the night.
Chapter 5.
Rain drops clung to the edges of the branches. The slight breeze detached carob-crusted maple leaves from the branches and they floated to the ground, transforming into birds as the wind carried them back into the sky: up, down, up, down.

Ducking to avoid the remaining droplets of water plopping on the sidewalk, Fayrn clung to her notebook and dodged into the building, shaking off rain that dangled on her coat.

“Oh, hey Fayrn!”

As she was making her way to where Ethen and Aurelia were sitting,a cheerful greeting caught her by surprise. She turned to catch Jackson next to her, smiling broadly.

“I hope you have a great first chapter to present to Dellum. By the way, I just changed a couple of things in the chapter from what we discussed yesterday and thought you ought to know.” Jackson shoved a piece of paper in Fayrn’s face.

Shocked, Fayrn smoothed out the sheet and skimmed it.

“Jackson, this is covered from top to bottom with changes in conversations and actions. We didn’t plan for Mr. Hathor to be in the living room when Saffron was sneaking out.”

Jackson shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, I decided that there wasn’t enough drama involved. Hathor is in the living room reading his cases and Saffron has to sneak her way out the door when he’s not watching, you have to make sure that it matches.”

Heated anger gnawed within her.

“Jackson, you can’t just hand me a list of changes the day that the chapter is due,” she hissed, “what am I supposed to do, fix it in class?”

“Not my problem, you better make sure that it matches though, I wouldn’t want Dellum to be disappointed that you failed the very first chapter.” He shrugged and sauntered off to where Skye was sitting.

Trying to keep calm, Fayrn slammed her notebook down on the table and began to quickly skim over her chapter in order to edit.

“Fayrn? Still perfecting the chapter last minute?” Aurelia curiously glanced over.

“No, Jackson decided to give Saffron and Hathor’s interaction a huge make-over, that’s all.”

Dellum began to teach the day’s lesson, Expectation versus Reality, and Fayrn struggled to take notes while fixing her story, alternating between the two and checking the clock anxiously to see how much time she had left before Dellum collected their stories.

“Part of the mantra of balance that we must incorporate into an Earthling’s life is the idea of Expectation versus Reality. Many emotions are bred through the expectation of one thing, which ties in with hope, and the reality of the situation.” Dellum nodded toward the white board. “It is from this idea that three categories of Expectation are bred: optimism, realism, and pessimism. Yes, I realize all of you have touched on this idea in grade ten, but now we will analyze the connections these states of mind have with not only an individual Earthling’s life, but the lives of the humans around him. Ideas? Thoughts?”

“In grade ten we simply learned about the three categories, Professor, and that they can be overlapping. Depending on the situation what the human is dominant and subdominant in, it shapes their decisions and their actions.” A boy in the back spoke up.

Dellum wrote key words on the board. “Nicely put. It is only logical that a human with a dominant expectation of optimism might work a little harder and create a Reality of what he expects. Similarly, one with pessimism might give up and then therefore it reflects in his Reality. How about a realist? How can one have an Expectation of a realist and have that differ in the Reality?”

Ethen spoke up. “Maybe one who has the Expectation of a realist attempts not to shape his Reality but his reaction to the Reality; he tries to limit any emotional reaction he could have while staying motivated enough to not give up in the situation.”

“Precisely, Mr. Schifrin.” Dellum scanned the classroom. “As authors, we exploit the Expectations that we give our humans, and then throw Reality at them in a corresponding way that can shape the emotions we want them to feel. For example, imagine an Earthling who is working toward a piano competition. We breed an Expectation mindset of optimism since she works hard every single day and during her performance she only makes a few mistakes. However, during the waiting period we want to keep her calm, we want her to maintain her personality of humbleness. Therefore, we make optimism the subdominant, and we make realism her dominant; keep her reserved, keep her quiet. Finally, we throw the Reality at them. We can either affirm their emotions and allow them to express their happiness by granting them the Reality they expected, or we can create a rift of grief and disappointment by shifting their Expectation away from their Reality. From this, we can alter the balance of their life in any way we want. Questions? Comments?”

Fayrn looked up, startled. What did I miss? She looked down at her notes, the last thing written were the three categories of Expectation. Shifting her eyes, she noticed other students scratching furiously in their books. Alarm rushing through her, she turned back to her story and the sheet of changes Jackson made. Sloppy, but she had made all the changes.

“Now, I hope to see the Expectation vs. Reality train of thought throughout all of your stories, and I want you all to label where you think you incorporate it. Please pass your stories to the front for collection and check-ups.”

Fayrn exhaled, holding back a glare at a grinning Jackson. She knew this would not be the last time he would pull this move on her.

Class dismissed, Fayrn crossed the field to head to the dining hall, where Izzy planned to meet her daily. As the two munched on snacks, Fayrn related the day’s events to her.

“You’ve got to report Jackson to Mr. Dellum. He’s obviously taking charge of what’s going on in the Core and not playing fair.”

“I’m not going to complain to Dellum; if anything, he’d just tell me that this is what it’s like working in the Branches. I’ll confront Jackson later if it becomes serious but right now I think I can balance fixing everything in class.” Fayrn nodded to herself. She shifted her eyes away from Izzy and to the side, where several students sat eating on their own. “Okay, here’s a question,” she and Izzy constantly liked to ask random questions that came in their mind, “is it offensive to go up to someone eating by themselves and ask them to join you?”

“Not offensive, but it can be embarrassing.” Izzy squinted her eyes in thought. “Definitely gives off that vibe that you think they need rescuing or you think they’re lonely, which for some can be offensive, but it’s really respectable and kind to do so. I think it’s simply a tad embarrassing for someone to take pity like that, though.”

“It is pity, in a way, isn’t it?” Fayrn responded in agreement. “I wish that there wasn’t any pity, but there’s already such a negative association with physical loneliness.”

Izzy’s eyes rounded with wonder. “I wish we could know who’s actually physically lonely and who just didn’t plan dinner with their fifty friends. There’s not much of a difference in how they look in such social settings.”

Pensive.

Those physically lonely could perhaps, in reality, be less mentally lonely than those who weren’t physically alone.




Fayrn looked out the window, the streaks of rain swimming down the glass like tears. In her right ear, she could hear Jackson commanding the others on what should be the next course of action in their Core. The past few days, she had focused on Saffron's survival in the room that she was being kept in. The emotions that she had to channel within Saffron: terror, panic, grief, made Fayrn herself exhausted with the energy it took to imagine how Saffron had to be feeling. Luckily, Jackson had stopped bringing Fayrn sheets with changes to their Core plans, since Hathor’s interaction now was centered around Hrs. Hathor and Mr. Leandro and Saffron was being held hostage.
Fayrn continued to assist Aurelia in her writing, for Leandro's part was key to pressuring Connell to choose work over family. On the other hand, she had no clue how Skye wrote, or how well Skye portrayed the conflict with Mrs. Hathor and Mr. Hathor.
"Jackie and Connell should divorce," suggested Ethen one day, "after Saffron escapes and finds her way home." He turned toward Fayrn. "And when Saffron comes back to school, she confronts Mariette about abandoning her and not being a very good friend."
Jackson nodded. "It's a good plan and brews lots of conflict. Let's meet later tonight to fish out the details for the next chapter, which should be Saffron's escape, and then the day after, which is her confrontation with Mariette. I'll work with Skye to draw out the hostile feelings between the Hathors which will inevitably lead to their divorce."
"In the meantime, Leandro will continue pressuring Connell to get in his papers and to work on the case that he's taken," Ethen finalized, turning to Aurelia and giving her a firm nod.
Fayrn noticed that Mr. Dellum walking over to their group and sat up a bit straighter.
"Sounds like the planning and writing is going very well for all of you. I read what you all have written so far and the integration has been done very well." He seemed to be looking at Fayrn and she shifted slightly in her seat. Jackson must also have noticed that Dellum's praise was directed toward her, because his eyes narrowed in distaste.
Dellum continued. "For the next several check-ups in the following months, there will be a slight twist involved."
Fayrn perked up.
"Within your humans' lives, you must integrate what we call Abstract Concepts. There are an abundance of them, and we will steadily explore and learn each of them in class in the subsequent months."
Abstract Concepts? The words echoed familiarly and Fayrn cocked her head to the side in curiosity.
"The first Abstract Concept you must integrate is On Loneliness and Bosom Friends. We will discuss more in class next week, but put some initial thought into it while you plan for your Core."
Dellum nodded and moved to the next group, presumably to inform them of the same knowledge.
The group of five exchanged confused glances.
"Bosom?" Skye asked, wrinkling her nose, "What does that even mean?"
"Intimate, inseparable," Jackson replied immediately and flatly. He didn’t take his eyes off Fayrn. "Looks like we have ourselves a favorite."
Fayrn raised her eyebrows. "He didn't say anything Jackson, you don't know what you're talking about."
Jackson snorted and stood. "Yeah right, we all know he was only looking at you when he was praising us."
Fayrn looked to Aurelia and Ethen, but they said nothing.
"I'm sorry Jackson," Fayrn was beginning to snap, "I'm sorry that I'm just writing to the best of my ability." She stood to face him, grabbed her bag, and trudged out of the classroom.
On Loneliness and Bosom Friends. Fayrn squinted her eyes as she considered the topic. Saffron can easily experience loneliness when her parents get divorced and when she confronts Mariette about being a bad friend.
Fayrn decided to cross over from Cespaturn to Aplinda to visit Izzy. She opened the door to Aplinda and skimmed the Aplinda common room, searching for Izzy's familiar bright face.
Her heart sunk.
Izzy sat on the couch, surrounded by three other girls, consumed with laughter.
Jealousy.
Fayrn felt like an idiot —what did she think, that Izzy would be sitting in her room and waiting for Fayrn to visit her? Of course Izzy had made other friends.
Izzy suddenly caught sight of Fayrn and gasped.
"Fayrn! I'm so glad you've come to visit." She rushed over to Fayrn and dragged her over to the couches. "Meet my friends from class. We were just thinking about going to the downtown club tonight, want to come?"
Fayrn instantly felt lighter.

"I'd love to come," she responded.
A huge grin spread across Izzy's face. "Then Samira, Iliana, and Joasia will wait for you outside Aplinda tonight at seven!"
Dread.
For some reason, Fayrn felt it turn over inside her.



Fayrn pulled on a loose blouse and frowned as she looked in the mirror. She turned left, turned right, tried to smile. Hair in the front, hair in the back.

"Is this what you wear to a club, Annabelle?" She turned to look at the horse who perched on the edge of her bed, beady eyes staring at her.

Aurelia was out at dinner, and it was only when she was alone that Fayrn felt safe talking aloud to her stuffed animal.

She paused, and then nodded as if the horse had replied to her.

"I suppose you're right. It shouldn't matter what I wear. Well, wish me luck."

She kissed Annabelle on her forehead and rushed out of the room.

Izzy and her friends were waiting outside Aplinda, dressed in short skirts, high heels, and tank tops.

Inadequate.

She shoved the thought away, but could still feel the emotion lingering in her heart.

"Hey girls," Fayrn's voice was barely more than a whisper, and her greeting was lost in the loud gossip of the girls.

Pull yourself together. Fayrn angrily told herself.

"Hey Fayrn!" Izzy finally saw her and relief washed over Fayrn. She didn't need to win the approval of Samira, Iliana, or Joasia; this night was for her and Izzy to spend time together.

Fayrn stayed silent through the car ride. Sitting in the front seat, she heard the sound of giggles flow from behind her. Talk of cute boys, annoying roommates, and plans for the club filled her ears.

"Fayrn! Fayrn!" Izzy called from the back and Fayrn turned, forcing a smile. "Have you set eyes on a cute boy yet? Do tell us!"

"No Izzy, I haven't," Fayrn laughed, remember old times when Izzy would tell Fayrn all her infatuations.

Izzy dove into an old story, explaining to Samira, Iliana, and Joasia how last year she almost admitted to a boy that she thought he was attractive.

He asked you what you thought of his outfit for the project, and you almost blurted out 'you look hot in everything'. I remember the story Izzy, how could I forget?

The car pulled up to the club. Through the darkness, the light inside exploded and Fayrn could hear the blasting music. The girls piled out of the car and ran in. Fayrn walked steadily behind them, every attempt to get next to Izzy foiled.

"Let's dance girls!" Izzy squealed and the four of them piled onto the dance floor.

Fayrn picked a small table on the edge of the dance floor and sat, watching the girls go crazy.

Disheartened.

Fayrn began to think that coming was a mistake.

The night ticked away. An hour into their arrival, Fayrn watched as Izzy pulled out of the dance and stumbled over to Fayrn's table, eyes wild.

"Isn't this so much fun Fayrn? I'm so glad you decided to come with us. Come dance with us!" She tugged at Fayrn's wrist. When Fayrn didn't budge, Izzy paused, her heavy breathing suddenly slowing. "Fay? Is something wrong?" She knelt by Fayrn's side and looked into her eyes. "You can tell me."

Fayrn opened her mouth to speak, suddenly feeling a surge of hope.

"I-"

"Izzy come back! Our favorite song is on!"

Both Izzy and Fayrn turned to the yells of Samira, Iliana, and Joasia.

Izzy squealed and jumped to her feet.

"Come on Fayrn!" She let go of Fayrn's wrist and pranced to the center of the dance floor, giggling with her friends.

Fayrn looked on into the flashing lights of the disco ball hanging above Izzy.

She set her jaw with determination. Izzy was her best friend, she was not losing her without a fight.

Fayrn strode to the center of the dance floor and felt like a warrior going out to battle. She let herself go and enjoy the music that was pounding in her ear drums. The girls went deeper into the crowd and Fayrn realized she was surrounded by a crowd of Academy students drenched in alcohol and sweat.

Suddenly, Izzy squealed and dragged Samira with her, weaving through the crowd to escape. Fayrn tiptoed to try and track them, but forced herself to keep smiling and moving with Iliana and Joasia.

"Ili! Joasia!" Samira called the two other girls to them and they scampered toward her, bumping and slamming into other people.

Fayrn stopped dancing, catching a glimpse of the group as they huddled and pointed secretively toward a group of boys sitting near the bar. Then, within seconds, they scampered off.

Someone bumped into Fayrn and she moved to the side, apologizing and rubbing her arm in pain. She struggled to fight her way through the crowd and finally gasped for air as she escaped the muddle of bodies.

Her eyes hit darkness and she squinted to make out figures and faces. Walking back to a table, Fayrn sat, watching Izzy flirt with the boys in the corner. Her mind narrowed, sharpened, felt the too-large space around her, the glimmering empty chairs. Fleeting glances became dark, trained stares, judgemental daggers passing through her. Fayrn cast her eyes down, suddenly feeling cold in the heat. Moments of almost silence consumed her. Then, she stood, glided toward the door, and began the long trek back to Honnsworth.

The soles of her feet ached as she finally crawled back to her room. Aurelia’s peaceful breathing confirmed Fayrn’s conjecture that sleep consumed her roommate. Throwing her purse on her desk, Fayrn grabbed Annabelle and squeezed the stuffed animal to her chest while slipping under her blankets and curling her knees up to her stomach. She shut her eyes, but sleep did not take her till long after.



Fayrn woke to the rays of the sun shining through the window. Aurelia's bed was empty, and Fayrn presumed she had gone to breakfast. Looking down, she realized she still had on her clothes from last night. It was the weekend, finally, and Fayrn planned to stay in her room the whole day.

Fayrn sighed. She had hoped that her silent leave of absence from the club last night would have drawn out the slightest of concern from Izzy, but there was no sign of any attempt to contact her. She considered going to breakfast, but had no nerve to go to Aplinda and ask Izzy to come with her, and Aurelia was already gone—the two people she usually ate with.

That's alright, I'll skip breakfast today and eat a big dinner. She nodded with satisfaction and went to change into sweatpants and a warm fleece hoodie. She opened her writing notebook and skimmed where she left off with Saffron. On Loneliness and Bosom Friends was the Concept that she had to include.

"What's a bosom friend, Annabelle?" She turned toward the horse, whom she often talked with to organize her thoughts. "What's the difference between a bosom friend, a best friend, and a friend?"

She paused and cocked her head. "What even is a friend?"

The thoughts pushed against her head. She knew she had to find some answers to these questions in order to even partially understand the Abstract Concept and channel it into her writing, however. If Dellum was teaching them this, it would presumably be important on the final exam.

"Bosom friends are better than best friends, who are better than friends," Fayrn started with the basics. "The definition and differences of each of these three tiers can be given to each person to define. The way I define best friend is different than how Aurelia defines best friend." She nodded and began to record her thoughts on paper. "But there is generally a universal definition for a friend—someone who you have a bond of mutual affection. Bad friends exist though, those who don't understand what being a friend means: mutual respect, trust, and loyalty.

Fayrn paused.

"Best friends surpass the line of friendship that one becomes associated with through experience. Best friends go beyond the general experiences that friends go through, they surpass any level of uncomfort or superficial actions. Then what is a bosom friend?"

Fayrn stopped talking just as the door unlocked and Aurelia and Ethen walked in.

"Morning Fayrn!" Aurelia beamed at her. "Hope you don't mind Ethen coming to hang out. We're going to play some board games, want to play with us?"

Fayrn was tempted.

"Thanks Aurelia, but maybe I'll join later. I'm currently thinking about the Abstract Concept that we were assigned."

Ethen smiled. "On Loneliness and Bosom Friends."

"I'm struggling to understand it," Fayrn admitted.

"You'll never fully understand it, that's why it's an Abstract Concept. You can definitely come to a higher understanding of it, though, which is what Dellum wants us to do." Ethen sat across from Aurelia as she pulled out a game of chess.

"I think I have loneliness down, but bosom friends are really pretty confusing."

Ethen raised his eyebrows. "You got loneliness down that quick?"

Fayrn cocked her head. "It's one of the main emotions that we learned in tenth."

Ethen pushed a pawn forward and turned back to Fayrn, looking thoughtful.

"Feeling lonely is definitely an emotion, but I think the loneliness that Dellum is referring to here isn't the emotion, but the state of mind."

The state of mind? Of course. Fayrn's teacher last year had briefly mentioned the difference between emotions and states of mind.

"What's the difference between those two again?" Aurelia looked up at Ethen.

"It's pretty hard," Ethen said, mediating Aurelia's nervous glance. "I believe the loneliness that you feel physically when you're alone is the emotion and the one mentally is the state of mind. But there's a crossover between the two somewhere."

"Maybe the state of mind is when loneliness starts to dominate your life?" Aurelia offered and Ethen contemplated the idea.

"Is loneliness a choice? Or is it unavoidable no matter how hard we try not to be lonely?"

Fayrn responded to these questions, "Perhaps emotional loneliness is more of a choice but as a state of mind it's unable to be controlled."

"But if it's controllable as an emotion, why would anybody choose to feel it?" Aurelia looked confused.

"I meant it's more of a choice as in they can try and escape their emotional loneliness. But loneliness as a state of mind..." Fayrn trailed off, "It becomes a way of living."

Aurelia shivered as she took her queen to Ethen's pawn. "Can you imagine someone living like that?"

Aurelia's question stood. Even though the students had studied loneliness as an emotion, Fayrn had never really contemplated loneliness as a state of mind.

Fayrn's thoughts were interrupted by a huge growl of discontent from her stomach, and she pressed her hand to her belly in embarrassment.

Ethen raised his eyebrow and Aurelia gave Fayrn a look of horror. Then, the two of them burst out laughing.

"Looks like someone's hungry!" Aurelia teased.

Fayrn looked down. "I might be hungry but I don't have much of an appetite. I'll eat later."

Ethen and Aurelia resumed their game and Fayrn stood.

Let's go for a walk. She knew little of the connection of exercise, nature, and stress, but she always knew that taking a walk made her feel lighter. Without a word to Ethen or Aurelia, she slipped out the door.




Ruffling leaves decorated the giant oak trees that towered over the buildings. Fayrn felt a spike of energy through her as the sun hit her and she quickened her pace, trotting down the rocky pavement and breaking out into an all-out sprint. She pelted toward the small forest at the edge of campus, mind was consumed by the run— the race against time, against sorrow. Fayrn entered the forest and slowed to a walk, entranced by the beauty of the nature before her. Blackened vines curled around the tree trunks, pulling branches to the ground, ivy climbed the trees, not in a parasitic way, but with mutual affection—even the ugliest parts of nature had their certain beauty. Fayrn felt her shoes sink in wet grass and she sat, the prickles of the plant tickling her skin.

"Saffron opened her eyes," Fayrn paused as she spoke aloud, then shook her head. "Saffron's eyes shot open, and the emotions came rushing back like," Fayrn looked up at the sky, "Saffron's eyes shot open, and the emotions came rushing back like woodland animals fleeing from the heat of a forest fire. Then, she felt it: the warmth of the fleece throw she was wound in, and the softness of the mattress underneath her."

A chilly wind passed and Fayrn stood and spread her arms out, breathing in the freshness of untainted air. She continued to walk, skimming her hand on the trunks of trees and petals of flowers below her.

"Saffron sat up, and felt a dull ache at her side—the bruise there would live for several more weeks before it would heal. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother walk in. 'Morning sweetie, welcome home. Hope you're feeling alright.' Concern glittered her mother's eyes and Saffron felt a spur of gratitude. 'I'm alright mom, thanks, just a bit traumatized, that's all.' Her mother nodded in understanding and stood to leave. 'By the way,' Jackie added, before leaving the room. 'Mariette called earlier and told me to tell you that she hopes you're feeling okay and that she wants to meet up. I offered for her to come to our house later in the afternoon.' Saffron's eyebrows busheled into a frown. Typically, she would have jumped without question at the thought of Mariette coming, but she could not forget the fact that her friend had let her get into the car of a stranger without question. With almost a flare of panic, Saffron wondered how her father would punish her and dread filled her stomach."

Fayrn stopped talking, for she realized she had reached the edge of the forest and was now facing a thin, grey road with faded yellow dashes and a measly traffic light held by a single wire.

I'll have to talk to Skye about that mother part, but the rest I should write. That was a good draft.

Fayrn quickly stored what she had composed to her mental notes and continued walking. There was a small stone wall that separated the Academy from the road, and Fayrn decided to sit on the wall facing the street. In the distance, a tiny, cadmium-yellow sedan was arriving, soon speeding past her and leaving her once again in silence.

"Mariette arrived at two in the afternoon, and Saffron forced herself to put on a smile when Mariette walked in. Mariette embraced her with a hug, but Saffron felt the lack of want to return the warmth. 'How are you?' Mariette asked. Saffron looked sideways at Mariette. How easy did she rest when Saffron was gone? How much did she really care? Or, was she busy flirting with boys at more parties? Saffron bit her lip, angry at herself for making assumptions and thinking the worst of her friend. 'I'm okay,' she replied, giving a vague answer that circumvented her real feelings. 'What have I missed?' Excitement gleamed in Mariette's eyes, as if this was the question she had been waiting to hear. 'After you left and I went back to the party, Henri started talking to me and we ended up in a room alone to ourselves and he told me that I was super pretty and that he wanted to go out with me! We went on our first date last night and it was so amazing, he is literally my future husband.'

The fact that Henri, the boy who Saffron liked, was the boy that Mariette was going out with, made no difference to Saffron—she dismissed the name as if Mariette had said any other. It was the fact that Mariette had even gone on a date, with Saffron missing, that created a hole in Saffron's heart—a hole filled with hard stones and fire."




Fayrn lifted her pencil from the page and looked up, acting as if she was paying attention to Dellum's lecture On Loneliness and Bosom Friends. Instead of Jackson who had given her a list of changes, it was Skye who approached her, but Fayrn didn’t miss Jackson’s mischievous grin to the side and knew he had plotted the ideas with Skye. Vexation prickled under her skin; she had to put an end to this or she would never be able to fully pay attention in class or write to the best of her ability.

"So loneliness as a state of mind can be an Abstract Concept, an option, that we give to our character?" Ethen's question snapped Fayrn back into reality and she closed her book slightly as Dellum moved to their side of the room.

"Quite right, Ethen. Many times, people often confuse someone being alone as someone who is lonely, but misunderstand that being alone isn't a weakness, it can in fact be a strength if that is something you want and choose for your Earthling. Now loneliness as a state of mind is oftentimes not chosen by the human, but pushed to such a state from the activities and events that surround their lives. Now, from this can stem the willingness to make an inanimate bosom friend.”

Dellum gestured toward the board where several fantasy characters were written.

“Oftentimes an Earthling will turn to an inanimate or unreal bosom friend in order to help them deal with reality, especially if the reality is too pressing for them to handle alone. This usually happens in the younger stages in life, as children seek something to find comfort in, a companion, but it can easily happen in adults too. Many times adults going through different stages in life seek such imaginary bosom friends because they are lasting, permanent, and not temporary like many real human relationships.”

“Imaginary friends, a normal and frequent occurance in a child’s life.”

“Precisely, Mr. Schifrin, but don’t get caught in the mindset that such imaginary friends are simply for the young or for the lonely—there are enough cases where any aged human will simply have a imaginary friend for company, fun, and attachment or for coping mechanisms, and there are a bounty of scenarios where the situations is often a blur between the two.”

Fayrn thought of Annabelle. She had owned the plush horse since she was very young, and constantly played with her and imagined she was real even though deep in the subconscious she knew the horse was inanimate. Perhaps Dellum was right—even in times when she wasn’t coping with her mother or the absence of her father, in times when she felt happiness and peace with her friends, she still loved Annabelle as a fun companion. And there were definitely other emotional times where she relied on the horse for introspection and comfort. Annabelle was simply one of many outlets; each person had their own.

Dellum nodded approvingly at the class.“For the next week, try and incorporate this Abstract Concept into your novels.”

Fayrn frowned while thoughts sprung into her head. She stood to begin to pack, but stopped when she saw Professor Dellum eyeing her.

"And Ms. King, I'll see you in my office now please."

Fayrn tried to hold back a sigh. Aurelia raised her eyebrows at her, but Fayrn shrugged dismissively, ducking into the hallway to follow Dellum to his office.

Dellum removed his glasses once inside and sat in his armchair—Fayrn remained standing.

"Sir?" She asked curtly.

"Ms. King, the next time you want to disregard the lesson of the day, I suggest you sit in the back and make it less obvious." Professor Dellum looked up at her and smiled.

Embarrassment.

You idiot! Fayrn swallowed the lump in her throat and attempted to concoct a response. Don’t mention Jackson, Dellum won’t be looking for excuses.

"Sir, I was paying attention, but I was also writing at the same time."

"Then it truly was not the full of your attention. Now Ms. King," Dellum leaned forward and motioned for her to sit down. "This is Advanced Academy and I am in no place to punish you for choosing not to listen in class. However, I must remind you that no matter how good a writer you think you are, there are still several lessons to learn before you graduate to the Branches."

Fayrn blushed furiously. "Professor, I by all means did not mean to imply that your lessons were not important or that I was an accomplished author by writing during class today. I promise it will not happen again."

Dellum nodded. "Very good. You have been excelling in your writing and I would hope that it becomes better."

Fayrn was taken aback by the praise and she found herself wearing a goofy smile.

"Wipe that smile off, Ms. King, my praise is not meant to encourage your behavior." Dellum raised his eyes in warning, but his eyes had just the slightest hint of a twinkle.

Fayrn nodded and quickly changed her expression into a frown.

"Professor, bosom friends, do they exist?" The question was spontaneous, but Fayrn's curiosity got the best of her.

Dellum smiled. "That's up to the author to decide for their human. If you want your human to believe that bosom friends exist, then you may write so. Personally, I believe anything is possible in the world of friendship, you just have to work hard enough to get there. Bosom friends don't just come along and happen."

Both people must fight for the friendship they want to keep, right?




Fayrn knocked quietly on Izzy’s door, standing back and holding her breath. After a minute, the door opened and instead of Izzy’s familiar face it was Izzy’s sullen roommate.

“Hi, I’m looking for Izzy, is she around?”

Izzy’s roommate shrugged. “She went to dinner a while ago with some other girls and I think she mentioned going to the mall.”

Right. “Thanks so much,” Fayrn turned away and headed down to the dining hall. Well that’s all right, I have a lot of writing I need to do anyways.

Fayrn entered the dining hall and held her bag close to her as she sat and pulled out her leather notebook, perusing the notes she had written earlier. She kept her head down, in case she looked up and saw someone she knew from class and had to deal with the humiliation of seeming alone.

There’s that unneeded pity again. Fayrn took a bite of mac and cheese, chewing slowly as she began to pen the next part of Saffron’s adventure. What would it be like to master loneliness? To be able to be physically lonely and mentally lonely and to have control over it so it doesn’t affect one—to embrace it? Fayrn raised her eyebrows, challenging herself. Perhaps she could learn to master loneliness.




Chapter 6.




Daylight was coral, an almost sherbet, orange. Birds danced in the sky as Fayrn made her way to class, her step a light bounce with the promise of a new day. She entered class, bracing for Jackson to step up and bring her a list of latest changes, but he was nowhere in sight. It had been almost a week since neither he nor Skye had brought her a new list, and she assumed that Skye most likely did not have the bravery to keep sabotaging Fayrn. Crossing the room quickly just in case Jackson decided to change his mind, she sat next to Aurelia and Ethen.

“Good morning class,” Dellum came in from the back, carrying the stack of student’s notebooks they had submitted for checks just days before. “I’ve read through most of the new additions and it looks like the Abstract Concept inclusion is going quite well for a majority of you.” As he began to pass out the notebooks, he continued talking. “In tenth, you all learned that the humans on Earth have access to something called technology. Can someone quickly summarize what technology is?”

A raven-haired girl spoke up, “Applying science and engineering to improve and ease practical problems, particularly in the form of devices or electronics.”

“Thank you, Ms. Li. Now,” Dellum returned to the front of the classroom and began marking on the board. “Ioskiea itself has not invented such devices: phones, internet, television, whatever else you all have learned. Someone tell me a good thing about this.”

Fayrn was still confused on how Ioskieans even knew that Earth had all these devices, but she kept her mouth shut, placing her trust in the Ocrorix.

“We won’t get taken over by robots in the future.”

The class laughed at the witty remark and Dellum shrugged, “Possibly an outcome for Earth, if we wish it so. Anybody else?”

“Our lives are plastered on social media and out in public.”

“Excellent, Mr. Schifrin.” Dellum began to write down the sentence and Fayrn copied him, trying to understand where he was going. Dellum turned back to the class. “Now, some negative aspects of not having technology?”

“No movies!” shouted a boy from the back and murmurs of agreement spread through the classroom.

“No internet to look up whatever we want!”

“No way to call others or keep in touch!”

“We have to keep all our work and papers physically with us and can’t store it on documents online!”

“We don’t know what’s going on in Ioskiea!”

The cries came pouring in.

Fayrn stayed silent. She had thought of this before, especially when trying to fathom exactly how the devices worked when she learned about them. To her, a mobile device to communicate across long distances seemed practical, but using the device for games simply seemed ridiculous to her. Of course, having what they called a laptop where she could record her stories would be extremely helpful, but on the other hand, why would Earthlings need a place to publicly post pictures? She almost snorted to herself—of course, doing so was a way of asking for social acceptance, a desire to feel accepted, a fuel to show-off. The emotion lived inside everybody. She cocked her head, thinking about the other side. If friends were miles apart and wanted to know what each other was doing, those social media outlets would help keep them connected and share adventures with each other. It was a dangerous grey line.

“Ms. King? You look rather pensive. Any thoughts?”

Dellum called Fayrn out of her thoughts and she sat up straighter, barely missing his question.

“Well, I,” she stammered slowly, “I was just thinking about how technology is really a double edged sword, I mean, everybody understands that while it brings a lot of good: knowledge, communication, efficiency, it also brings many unintended side effects that could even back-fire on its original purpose.”

Silence rebounded on the walls, so Fayrn continued.

“I mean, thinking about some emotions that humans feel with the advent of technology, more specifically social media, these social sites could just be a platform to ostracize a certain group of people, people who don’t engage in such activities, or feel like they’re pretty enough to post pictures of themselves online. There could become this desire to feel accepted with society, a need to feel popular. I think because of this sometimes people get caught up in taking and posting pictures, and not living in and enjoying a certain moment. There’s this balance between preserving memories and experiencing the moment that’s really hard. Moreover, this technology opens up just another route for social judgements and cyberbullying, which we did discuss in tenth as well. With increased communication and connection through these devices, there becomes a real lack of real human-to-human interaction, especially in situations where usually people would be forced to interact. They just hide behind their phones, or laptops, and create a new face for themselves.”

“That’s just the social media part, though,” Jackson argued, interrupting. “One just has to choose not to engage in the negative aspects of social media. Otherwise, technology overall is a boon to society. It creates efficiency in so many jobs and life in general for the Earthlings, giving them the ability to learn so much through their network database.”

“Maybe, but there is also more bane than just social media. There becomes an increase reliance on these devices, and humans lose the natural instinct for survival with it.” This time, it was Ethen who faced Jackson. “Think about the dependence that’s already been created for the humans on robots. Artificial intelligence is greatly efficient, but it could be costly.”

“This is not meant to be a debate,” Dellum bumped in before Jackson could shoot back a comment. “But excellent discussion— this is why On Technology and Social Media is one of our Abstract Concepts. Think through it these next few weeks, try and imagine what life here in Ioskiea would be like with technology, and imagine how you function without it. Think about both the benefits and the downfalls, for you all are the authors who will be deciding where you want to influence Earth in the future in regards to this growing phenomenon that’s spreading quickly in the Branches. From this Concept we will move into On Vulnerability and its Conditions, so you can begin to think about that connection. Ms. King had a good start to its connection.”

Fayrn looked up, blinking with surprise. Her Core moved in around the table and Ethen began to speak.

“Well, it’ll be easy for Mariette and Saffron to tie in On Technology and Social Media and On Loneliness and Bosom Friends; social media is really just either a confirmation of internal loneliness, an exploration of what true friends and bosom friends are rather than just online friends.”

Fayrn nodded in agreement. “It’ll definitely be harder for the adults.”

“We’ll figure it out individually, we should just plan what happens next now with the family.”

The group discussed the routes their individual characters would take and Fayrn left the classroom feeling pleased with herself and excited to begin Saffron’s exploration with technology and her inner emotions. As she turned to head down the road back to Cespaturn, she paused, suddenly remembering Izzy and how they planned to meet at the dining hall every day after class. Her blood turned cold as she recalled that it had been weeks since she had went during their normal time. Hesitating, Fayrn decided to cross the quad and head to the dining hall, whatever hope residing now burning its final flames.

Of course, Izzy was not in the dining hall. Fayrn thought about getting food and returning to eat in her dorm, but she bit her tongue and clenched her fists, remembering that she was on a mission to master loneliness. She sat at an open table and took out her notebook and pen, keeping her head down and somehow channeling out the overwhelming laughter from the adjacent table and the empty voids beside her.




Aurelia's head rested against the desk. When Fayrn walked in, she instantly knew that Aurelia was attempting to write: attempting, but struggling.

Fayrn sat on her bed, reaching over to take Annabelle and scratching her behind her ears.

"Hey Aurelia, how's it going?"

Aurelia jerked up and shook her head from side to side. "I'm good, we're good, it's all going to be okay." She bit her lip. “Actually, I just met up with Jackson to plan what to write with Mr. Leandro and Mr. Hathor, and it went pretty bad. I mean, Jackson gave me a bunch of orders and told me what to write, but I’m not sure if I like his ideas. He says he wants to make Mr. Hathor take over the branch of the firm and relocate Leandro.”

Furor.

Mess with me Jackson, fine. How dare you take advantage of her.

“That’s ridiculous and you’re not writing that.” Fayrn remained calm as she sat. “Why don’t we come up with some ideas for Leandro and Hathor and you can approach Jackson with them tomorrow?”

Aurelia smiled in relief. “Thanks Fayrn. Writing individually was a headache of its own, but this whole Core thing is really making me second guess being an author.”

Fayrn frowned in concern. "Aurelia, I know that you don't like writing, but a ton of people don't. Why don't you talk to Dellum about it, or at least your parents?"

"Maybe I'll talk to Dellum."

Angry.

No, not angry; Fayrn took back the word that popped up in her mind. Aurelia's reply was simply curt, reserved. Did she sense a hint of bitterness?

What about your parents, Aurelia? Are you at war with them?

Fayrn turned to her desk, pulling out her notebook and pen. Time to ponder more about the Abstract Concepts that Dellum had introduced to them.




Saffron began to isolate Mariette from her life— no, she began to isolate everybody from her life. She now wondered how the students at school lived in such bubbles, ignorant of everything in the world that was happening around them. And Mariette of all people had began to leave her, after all that had happened, for her new boyfriend Henri. Saffron found herself checking her phone and social media sites less and less, becoming habituated to the fact that nobody would contact her. Everyday became a repeated pattern: school, home, sleep.




Fayrn lifted her pen from the page. This is the physical loneliness that Saffron begins to feel. Let us now introduce loneliness as a state of mind.




Saffron then began to notice something different—even if she still hung around some of the girls at school, there was a feeling of mental loneliness that she had—there was nobody to turn to, nobody to go to when she wept because of the nightmares she still had. She would laugh and smile along with the class when their teacher made a terrible joke, but she carried a heavy pellet in her heart.




"Do you think people can choose to want loneliness as a state of mind?" Fayrn asked absently, to no-one in particular. A few days had passed since their discussion on the connection of Technology to human emotions.

Aurelia looked up. "Why would anybody choose to be mentally lonely? Physically lonely sure I understand life is complicated sometimes and we all need some space, but as a state of mind? Could anybody actually enjoy that?"

Fayrn didn't respond; she didn't know the answer.

"Well, we control the emotions of the humans," Fayrn reasoned. "Technically, if we wanted our human to feel happy about being mentally lonely, we could."

"But it doesn't make any logical sense with the flow of the emotions, and remember that's one of the first rules we learned."

Fayrn bit her lip—Aurelia had a point. She looked down at her book. It would take time to explore loneliness as a state of mind, something she would work out for the next several weeks.

"What do you suppose Dellum means by vulnerability?" Aurelia spoke what Fayrn had been thinking. "Vulnerability as an emotion is something we already learned."

Fayrn nodded, "It's categorized as one of the negatively charged emotions; when you are your most vulnerable, you expose yourself to getting hurt," Fayrn paused, "but what about vulnerability as a strength?"

Her question was interrupted by a knock on the door. Aurelia frowned, standing to open the door.

“Ethen?”

Sliding in, Ethen passed a sheet of paper to Aurelia as Fayrn shut the door behind him.

"Went to see Dellum earlier to ask him a question about the writing assignment. He went to the restroom and told me that I could peruse the books on his bookshelf that all described the art of writing. I ended up peering around the bookshelf as well, including some on the floor and found one thrown to the side with this paper sticking out of it." Ethen gestured toward the paper that Aurelia was analyzing “Didn’t come till now because I didn’t want just anybody hearing our conversation if this really is something.”

Fayrn raised her eyebrows, "And you took this paper with you? You stole from Dellum?"

Ethen shrugged his shoulders, "More like borrow. Besides, when I gave it a brief glance, I knew there was more to it than meets the eye."

Fayrn impatiently glanced at Aurelia, attempting to read the words over her shoulder.

She frowned, "Why is it crumpled?"

Ethen nodded, "Exactly. Someone obviously either got frustrated while writing and started over, or wanted to completely trash the paper."

Aurelia looked up, eyes widening. "This is life-writing."

"What?" Fayrn snatched the paper and skimmed the paper, wrinkling her nose. "This writing is terrible."

She saw Aurelia flinch from the corner of her eye, but had no time to register feelings. "And the handwriting, why is it so scraggly and shaky? This definitely isn't Dellum's handwriting."

"Right, which is why I took it."

"Ethen, Dellum's a teacher, this is probably just one of his student's work and you're over-reacting." Aurelia turned away.

Fayrn paused, "Aurelia's right, Ethen. This is nothing important. Return it to Dellum tomorrow and you'll just be lucky if he hasn't noticed that it's gone."

Ethen groaned in frustration. "I'm telling you it's more than that. If it was a student paper, why would Dellum keep it hidden in another book? Why would it be crumpled?"

"What was the book that you found it in?"

Ethen shrugged. "I didn't see."

Fayrn looked thoughtful. "Return it tomorrow to the book, and if you really want to convince yourself it's more than just an old student's paper, you might as well skim some of the words in the book that it came from." She stood to open the door for Ethen.

A figure flashed in front of her and she jumped, panic seizing her.

"Pardon me, just getting some water," Jackson said, stepping to the right as Ethen walked out. Fayrn narrowed her eyes. Late at night and Jackson near their room? She ignored the suspicion that tugged her mind and closed the door.

There was an awkward silence that lingered, and Fayrn felt Aurelia's discomfort.

"Fayrn, when you said the writing sucked," Aurelia's voice was almost a whisper and her eyes were fixed upon the ground, "Is that how you think of my writing?"

Sympathy.

Fayrn's eyebrows crinkled in sorrow. "No, not at all Aurelia. I was only trying to analyze the writing — see maybe what age the student was who wrote it, what type of language they were using. It's not how I think of your writing at all, and I never want you to think that."

Aurelia nodded, but Fayrn could feel woe emanating from her.

Fayrn jumped back on her bed and picked up her book again, returning to the idea of vulnerability. Being vulnerable usually meant showing weakness, in any form that made one feel exposed. Often, people closed themselves off to strangers, not wanting to open up and give them information that could be used as leverage against them. Somehow, it made humans feel uncomfortable that someone else knew something personal about them, and that was what it meant to be emotionally vulnerable.

Fayrn turned to Aurelia.

"Aurelia, I'm sorry I ever said anything about the writing. I didn't mean anything personal against you, I hope you know that."

Aurelia turned from her desk and smiled sweetly. "Thanks, Fayrn, but I know I'm not that good at writing, so it's alright. It's not just about not liking writing —I love writing! I think it's such an amazing art. I just can't mentally do it. No matter how hard I try, I can't form words the way that you or Ethen do so beautifully. I've been barely skimming by Academy and I don't think I'm cut out for the Branches."

Fayrn shook her head. "Aurelia, if you like writing and want to get better, talk to Dellum. Maybe extra lessons or something can help, and you don't need to be the best writer to get into the Branches. There are plenty of average writers out there."

Aurelia buried her head in her arms. Thick air filled the space between them.

"You know, I probably got my genes from my mom."

Fayrn looked sideways, curiosity seeping into her.

She will be vulnerable when she is ready. People fear vulnerability because whatever people do with that knowledge, whether it's indifference or for their own advantage, it's usually always hurtful.

Fayrn turned toward Aurelia. "I'm listening," she whispered quietly, showing her that she cared and intended on listening. The internal clock inside of her ticked, hands moving slowly yet with an uncontrollable speed.

Aurelia stood up and climbed into her bed, pulling the blankets over her.

"My mom worked in a Branch and happily married my father when she was quite young. They had me years after their marriage, and raised me as they worked on their humans." Aurelia closed her eyes. "What my mother never told anybody, though, was that she was struggling. She was struggling internally and externally with her writing. Even though she passed Academy, writing the life of a human just wasn't fit for her."

Fayrn tilted her head slightly to the side, opening her mouth to ask a question, but closing it and remaining quiet.

"My mother didn't even tell my father that she was having issues writing, but her Head of Branch knew that she was often falling behind on deadlines and asking her to rewrite chapters and chapters of her story. She would stay up in the hours of the night crying— I could hear stifled sobs from the room next door, and my heart would break every time."

Why didn't you say something to your father? The question danced on the tip of Fayrn's tongue.

Almost as if she heard Fayrn's thoughts, Aurelia answered. "I wanted so bad to go to her and ask her why she was crying, for I didn't know at the time why, or tell my father that she was crying, but I didn't want it to seem like I was betraying something she obviously wanted to keep secret."

Aurelia slipped her hand inside her bag and pulled out a small box, the same box she had been searching for on the first day. Fayrn observed it closely for the first time. It was wooden, but the wood showed sign of wear and tear, cracks ornamenting the edge of the box.

"My mother ended her own life twelve years ago. And a month following that, my dad took his."

Her words were clear. Crystal, as if not even the slightest sadness dared come near them. Her eyes glazed with a translucent, distant cloud, but her words seemed almost mechanical, as if she had rehearsed them for many years. They punctured Fayrn, like the tip of a needle piercing smooth, tight skin and sinking into veins that ran constantly, assuredly with blood.

Aurelia opened the wooden box and slowly, delicately pulled out a small pearl. Fayrn squinted her eyes, wondering if it was real or not, but the dull aura that surrounded it told her that it was, despite probable years of tossing and turning within different cupboards and casings.

"This is the only thing I have left of her, of them. My foster family stripped me of everything else; put me into Academy and left me to fend for my own."

Aurelia looked down, and Fayrn could hear her voice break and trail away. Aurelia was trembling, fighting to keep her emotions contained.

After moments of silence, Aurelia looked up, smiling sadly. "So you see, maybe it's simply my mother's genes that are passed down onto me. And maybe this time, instead of suffering in the Branches, I might as well become something different so that I may be happier."

Heartbreak.

Fayrn looked sideways, sighing silently within herself.

"You are very brave, Aurelia," she replied, picking her words as carefully, "and if you want to try for something other than a writer, I fully support your ambitions.”

The pearl went back into the box and Aurelia placed it on her desk. "Thank you, Fayrn. That means more than you really know."

Aurelia slipped further down in her covers and turned so that she wasn't facing Fayrn. Although the movement of her body mimicked that of one sleeping, Fayrn knew that she was wide awake.

Thank you for being vulnerable, Aurelia. I won't forget it.

Fayrn turned out her light, squeezed Annabelle to her chest, and thought to herself quietly.

I would have told her my family story, but I didn't want it to seem like I only listened to her so that she would listen to me. We shouldn't listen to respond.

She stroked Annabelle's off-white mane.

Aurelia had been through so much. To lose both parents at such young age, without any siblings to grieve with, to be pushed into a terrible foster home and left to fend for herself, to struggle through Academy, and still to remain a sweet, lovely girl. Faryn bit her lip in anger, anger at herself for thinking that she had misfortunes, that she had reason to think her life was terrible.

Everybody has their own demons, right? Their own hardships that create their own balance in life.

Inadequate.

Her irises met darkness, the shimmer of grey allowing her to make out the figure of her horse in the night. On any other night, Fayrn would have pushed away the thought and buried it deep within her, storing it there till it resurfaced again, impossible to remove like blood stained on a chamber key, but on this night, Fayrn let the emotion ring within her and she clenched her fists, digging her sharp nails deep into her coarse skin.

I will conquer this.




Chapter 7.

The longer hand of the clock had ticked for far too long. Fayrn glanced up nervously at the black and white master of time and silently calculated the time that Ethen had been gone. Luckily, class did not end for another hour or so, giving them some leeway before Dellum would return to his office and find the stolen paper back where it was.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ethen return to his seat and she raised her eyebrows in confirmation that it had been returned safely. He shook his head slightly and she groaned internally. To their side, a look of panic spread across Aurelia's face.

As soon as Dellum dismissed the class for Core discussion, Fayrn whipped her head around at Ethen.

"The paper?"

Ethen looked grim. "I couldn't find the book that it belonged to again. It was missing."

A chill went down Fayrn's spine. "We're done. If Dellum picked it up and realized the paper was missing, he'll know it's us."

Ethen shrugged, "You two didn't do anything, I was the only one who took the paper and then dragged you into it."

"What are we discussing here?"

Jackson's commanding voice broke the plain and Fayrn snapped upwards, noticing a dangerous glint that danced in his eyes. He cocked his head to the side, not waiting for her to reply.

"Skye and I have discussed further plans for the Core. I'm going to incorporate loneliness into Connell's life after his divorce with Jackie, which will also make it easy for you Fayrn, to incorporate that, especially with her break with Mariette."

There might be a correlation between emotional loneliness and loneliness as a state of mind, but there is no causation, Fayrn reflected.

"I think we should discuss exactly how to incorporate vulnerability into our Core as well," She piped up, eager to explore the other Abstract Concept.

"We should focus on getting through loneliness and bosom friends first," Jackson said, narrowing his eyes, "Then we can move to the second Abstract Concept."

Fayrn squinted her eyes in disbelief. "Jackson, this is a life that we're writing. You of all people should know that different emotions are never individual— several span over one time period. I think the same goes for Abstract Concepts. One can be vulnerable and lonely at the same time, and I think that's even what Dellum wants us to try and go for."

"She's exactly right."

Fayrn jumped and turned, huffing her breath. Why did Dellum always sneak up on them like that?

"Jackson is correct in assuming that my goal in assigning you these Abstract Concepts is for you to individually assess them and attempt to understand them, but Ms. King also validates my secondary intention— for you to explore the intersections between them. It's quite difficult, though, so I understand if you all do not wish to tackle more than one at a time."

Jackson raised his eyebrows, as if personally challenged.

"Also— I want to see Mr. Schifrin and Ms. King in my office after your discussion."

The professor abruptly turned away and Fayrn closed her eyes with a grimace, shaking her head with a sigh. Why her?

Ethen nodded to the rest of the group. "We'll catch you all later to get filled in on the details. C'mon Fayrn."

She trudged alongside Ethen as they made their way to Dellum's office, Fayrn making sure to show her irritation. Ethen bumped her with his elbow.

"It's Dellum, what's the worst he could do?"

Fire ignited in her voice. "Report us for stealing to the Ocrorix and have us kicked out of Academy. Write us terrible recommendations for the Branches."

Ethen sighed, "Honestly, Fayrn, what did I say about making the Branches your only goal in life?"

The anger in Fayrn died and was replaced with curiosity. "What do you mean, the only goal in life? It’s our life, besides being a Teacher, Soldier, or a Doctor: to make the best Branch we can and write lives of humans. You know that the better Branch you make the better your life will be."

"Oh? Is that so." Ethen looked straight and Fayrn frowned.

Don't tell me he wants to boycott being an author. The idea sprung immediately into Fayrn's head but as they rounded the corner into Dellum's office, she set aside the question for later. Why should I care what he wants to do? Fayrn questioned her own curiosity. Who cares if he wants to go hike the depths of Ioskiea and become a hippie? I have to focus.

Dellum stood behind his desk, shuffling papers. When the two students came in, he gestured for them to shut the door and sit.

"Mr. Schifrin, Ms. King," Dellum poured a cup of coffee and seated himself in his large armchair. "It has come to my attention that the two of you have something that is of my property."

Ethen didn't hesitate; he pulled out the sheet of paper and handed it to Dellum.

"I would apologize, but I'm sure my apology would not mean much," Ethen said directly and without waver. "Fayrn had nothing to do with this."

Dellum pushed his spectacles up and looked intently at Ethen.

"Mr. Schifrin, why did you take this paper?"

The question took Ethen aback. He hesitated slightly when replying. "Sir, you told me I could look at the books on your shelf about writing and well, I thought some of the books piled on the ground might be related. When I saw this paper, sticking out of a book under several others on the ground, I thought, well, that it might be interesting, or have some deeper meaning." He trailed off as he fabricated words, attempting not to sound like he was accusing his Professor of anything suspicious. Fayrn groaned silently, but Dellum simply chuckled.

Abruptly, his chuckle turned into a deep frown, his eyes blazing with anger. "I will not question the integrity of either of you," his gaze shifted to Fayrn, “but I must warn you that stealing is one of the worst offenses a student may commit, especially upon a teacher. It would do you both good to stay on the right path."

Icy cold chills swept across Fayrn. Ethen looked at her, and they both nodded to Dellum in silence, standing to leave as quickly as they could.

Before she stepped out of the room, Fayrn paused and turned.

"Professor, how did you find out?"

Dellum was skimming the paper that Ethen had returned, and didn't bother to look up at Fayrn. "Mr. Dawe, unlike the both of you, knows where the right path lies."

Jackson.

She clenched her fists to keep from yelling terrible things about him. She nodded and ducked out of the room, failing to notice the single tear that fell from Dellum's left eye.




Saffron felt a pellet full of metal, perhaps tungsten or gold, cling to the bottom of her heart. Perhaps it was not gold, since gold was too shiny a metal, one that betrayed emotions of happiness or joy, neither of which she had currently. Perhaps osmium. Osmium was grey— to some it would seem silver— but to Saffron, today, it was grey. She never knew that the human body had the capability to physically feel the effects of certain emotions, but today she felt that pellet of metal as a dead weight against her heart. Cowering in the corner of her room, Saffron could hear the echos of argument through the house; her mother and father were planning a divorce, and they could not agree on any one thing. Saffron herself was even treated as an object as the parents fought over who should have her and when. Worse, Saffron had nobody to tell. She bottled up the emotions of depression within her, and screwed on the cap tightly, ignoring periodic leaks. She considered telling Mariette, or any friend, but fear of opening up to them and getting hurt or ignored consumed her.

Saffron was not even sure what a friend even meant anymore. Originally, she had considered a great deal of classmates her friends, those she would joke around with, text, and tell her stories to, but within a reflection during her time as a hostage and even now, with the shadow of divorce over her, she had received a great deal of time to think about the idea of friendship. Fake friends, what she discovered a majority of the people in her school were to her, simply acted as if they enjoyed her company: a wave in the hall but a snicker behind her back, or a knock when they needed her and a closed door when she visited them. Then there was the average friend, which is what she now considered Mariette. Mariette called upon her often, asking to hang out or trying to get answers to homework problems, but it was nothing more. In the past, when Saffron broke down about the cruelty of her father, Mariette had been there for her, comforting her in a way that Saffron thought only a best friend would do. It seemed that Saffron would forever be in debt to Mariette, for helping her through that terrible phase in her life. However, Saffron believed that if friendship was truly authentic, then there would never exist an emotional or mental debt. Still, the fact that Mariette had abandoned Saffron during the night of the party was something Saffron found hard to forgive, supported by the fact that Mariette's reaction to her return was poor and unconcerned. How people changed.

Then there was the best friend, a title that Saffron used to give to Mariette. Best friends were unyielding in loyalty, support, honesty, and love, and best friends were the first people one went to when either something positive or negative happened. They were the family that people chose for themselves. More recently, however, Saffron began to contemplate on the idea of a bosom friend. A bosom friend was more than a best friend, was more than family. Was there anything more than family? Bosom friends were best friends people made forever, bonded by more than time or space: an altruistic, self-less, mutual support that lasted as long as the sun and moon rose in the sky.

Would one know when to label a friend as a bosom friend? Saffron believed this was impossible until the later years in life; either that or once friends fell out. It was a complex train of thought that she herself had not mastered yet, but hoped to find some closure in.

The rings of shouting resurfaced in her ear and she snapped out of her train of thought. She folded her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, squeezing her eyes shut so hard she felt a burning sensation. How she needed her old Mariette, but how the old Mariette was just a figment of her old lifetime, someone who was now long gone and replaced by someone she barely, barely knew.





Satisfaction.

Fayrn stretched back and looked at the page she wrote, pleased with her discussion and conclusion of bosom friends and her entrance into loneliness and vulnerability tied together. Hopefully, that would impress Dellum enough for him to forget about the whole scenario with the paper. She knew that Jackson purposely left out Aurelia because he had no quarrel with her— Fayrn and Ethen were the better writers, his competition. Fayrn bit her lip in frustration at the thought of Jackson eavesdropping in on their conversation. She considered going to Aplinda and relating to Izzy what Jackson had done to them, but the idea flashed by without a serious thought.

"Izzy wouldn't want me there, right Annabelle?" she turned to her horse, who was perched over the side of her bed and watching her intently. "Izzy doesn't need us, Izzy has better friends now." She picked up Annabelle in her arms and hugged her tightly, the embrace a feeling that made her feel a bit warmer inside, despite the lack of real human contact. "If Izzy is happy where she is, we're going to be happy for her." Fayrn nodded at the horse, perhaps too intently in order to convince herself of something that she wasn't sure she could truly feel.

The sound of keys jingling in the hallway told Fayrn Aurelia was coming back. She threw Annabelle on the bed, grabbed her notebook back on her lap, picked up her pen, and put on a thoughtful face just as the door swung open and Aurelia walked in.

"I’m going to dinner with some old classmates. Did you already eat?" Aurelia asked as she took off her scarf and purse, setting them down and changing her shoes. Fayrn shook her head fervently.

"I'm not very hungry tonight, so I think I'll just stay in."

You're famished.

She pushed away the instinctive reply and smiled at Aurelia, who simply looked at her curiously.

"You know, all I see you do is go to class, write, and sleep." She shrugged. "You're such a hard worker, I bet you'll make Afloria."

Defeat.

The compliment did not reflect within Fayrn's reaction. She realized that Ethen's words earlier were ringing in the back of her mind.

I wouldn't only go to class, write, and sleep; if I had the choice, I would also eat.

Fayrn smiled to herself, amused at her internal reply. She revised the sentence.

I wouldn't only go to class, write, and sleep; if I had the choice, I would have friends.

It hurt more than it should have.

“Oh! Before I forget, I picked up our letters today, and you had two.” Aurelia passed the slim envelopes to Fayrn and she peered curiously at them.

Letter from the Academy and—

Fayrn stopped breathing, eyes fixated on the second letter. Tearing open the envelope, she scoured the letter and then set the paper down, quietly. A throb began to build up inside her, and she squeezed the palms of her hands against her brain harder, and harder, and harder, until she felt pain pulse against her temples. She wanted to scream.

She closed her notebook, threw it on the floor, and wrapped herself up in her blankets, feeling cold even within the warmth of the bed.




The morning was not inviting. Although the rays of light blazed through the window with open arms, Fayrn barely noticed them; any other day she would have opened the blinds and basked in the breeze, but today she grabbed her purse while disregarding her notebook, and left the room without saying anything to Aurelia.

"North Crowe Hospital, please," she told the Soldier driver, and the car spun off into the streets, leaving Honnsworth behind in the dust.

Fayrn's heart drummed with a strange anxiety as the car pummeled on steadily; she dug her nails into her palms to remain calm, even though she didn't understand why her body was reacting in such a way. She didn't care— she shouldn't care.

The taxi dropped her off about thirty minutes later in front of a small, off-white building. Although the wall looked relatively jagged with a texture that was neither brick nor stone, the architecture of the hospital; sloping rooftop and dainty windows, was a sign of the relative novelty of the building. Fayrn strode in and walked up to the front desk, pulling out her identification card and slapping it on the platform.

"I'm here to see Mrs. Karenza please."

The attendant looked up, startled, and nodded immediately, taking her card.

"Follow me."

Fayrn was led around the corner and down the hallway; her ragged boots clicked along the white tiles of the floor and a slight stench of sickness hit her, coupled with the images of stretchers, dimly lit rooms, IV stands with saline bags drenched across them, and nurses running around in their colorful scrubs.

The young attendant gestured toward the last room on the right and Fayrn nodded in thanks to her as she proceeded, her steps precipitating with a caution she did not intentionally add.

She peeked into the room, craning her head around the corner just enough to see a lumped figure on the bed. Fayrn walked in quietly, as quietly as her shoes would allow her, and sat in the guest chair to the side, looking at the figure with a despair she wish she did not feel.

Sympathy.

Suddenly, the figure stirred and Fayrn saw the head pop up from the pillow. The figure had wispy hair thinned to the scalp, saggy skin that looked like layers of clay folded back and cloudy eyes —grey eyes. She peered at Fayrn, almost with alarm, and then paused, narrowing her eyes slowly.

“You aren’t my nurse, are you?” she hoarsely coughed out.

“Mother, it's me."

A deathly silence filled the air, even with the sound of the IV monitor beeping periodically.

"Laila? Is that really you?”

Fayrn paused, her heart breaking. No, it’s not Laila.

"Yes, it's Laila."

Her mother must be extremely ill if the disease had already taken the memory of her daughters’ appearances..

“Thank goodness I was right, I thought for a second it was Fayrn."

Relief.

Fayrn caught it without hesitation in her mother's voice, and a slight stab of pain struck her. She didn't understand why she felt these emotions, for she had dealt with them for several years in her life.

Fayrn leaned forward. "Mother, how are you?”

Her mother sighed. "I think soon I'll have to pass my Earthling to someone else. But it’s been a good life, hasn’t it? Raised you, that’s got to be something any mother would be proud of."

The words stung Fayrn. She swallowed and nodded, moving closer to her mother and grabbing her hand. She felt the bones under her skin and the cold, cold, air of the hospital aerating through her.

"I'm so glad you've come to see me, Laila. Now I can have some company and talk to my favorite daughter! I knew Fayrn was too consumed in Academy to visit her mother— I always knew that she was a no-good child. You were always the better one, Laila, and so pretty! Fayrn is quite dull in comparison, I never knew where she got her looks— I guess from her father." Her mother laughed out loud, wheezing as she fought to breathe.

Inadequate.

Fayrn felt the core of her heart hurt: a sharp, icy cold chill that ran up the veins. But her eyes remained dull and cast downward, and not a muscle twitched. She heard it often enough.

"How is life in the Branches, Laila? Do tell." Her mother turned to her as if she could see through her and Fayrn flinched instinctively.

"Everything’s fine, mother, just as you would imagine," she replied as vaguely as she could.

"Hmm, yes, I do believe I remember those days, writing and writing and writing endlessly. I can't believe why Fayrn would ever want to write for Afloria, with all those high-ended writers and expectant head of branches."

Fayrn bit her tongue to keep from arguing back, images and memories of fighting from her past springing into her mind. She pushed them away.

"I'm sure she just wants to make sure she does her job well."

"Yes, I'm sure that stupid girl can do whatever she wants and mind nobody else. I'm glad I don't have to see her before I die, you know," her mother snorted, "she never apologized from our last argument before she left the house for good for Honnsworth."

I did apologize. I baked you fresh strawberry-nut cookies as a peace offering, and you threw all of them out.

The words rang in her mind loud and clear, but Faryn kept her eyes down. I did apologize, even though I still believed you were wrong and hurtful, and yet you still pushed me away. Why were, are, you so intent on hating me?

Fayrn suddenly noticed herself squeezing her mother's hand harder and harder as her thoughts progressed, and forced herself to calm down. The day was growing thin and Fayrn wanted to go back to catch as much of class as she could. The Doctors only allowed specific visiting hours; to Fayrn’s irritation, they landed right during class.

"I should return to— the Branch now,” she said, catching herself quickly.

Her mother sighed and her eyes betrayed grief. "Very well, Laila. But please visit me more often now that you can. I grow awfully lonely in here."

Fayrn kissed her mother on the cheek, her heart growing heavy as she backtracked her steps and made her way back to Academy.

The letter she received last night revealed that her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease four years ago. With Faryn living year-to-year in Advanced Academy since ninth and staying in-between years with Laila in her apartment near her Branch, the two had not been home to see their mom, and although they were aware of their mother’s increasing age, they had no suspicions or worries that she would turn ill. The Doctors had kept the news from them hoping that when they had finished their surgical procedures and treatment with her, that she would be healed to a great extent and be back home. Now that it was clear that she could not be saved, however, they duly noted the daughters of the situation. The letter notified Fayrn that Laila refused to visit; they both disliked their mother to a varying degree based on past events, and since Laila was in a Branch far off, she had a viable excuse not to visit. Fayrn, on the other hand, was soft-hearted, and despite her quarrels with her mother in the past, intended on seeing her before she passed.

Fayrn grabbed her leather notebook and bag and ran to class, clearing her mind and attempting to enjoy the fragments of nature that she glimpsed as she ducked under trees and skipped over nooks to reach Dellum's classroom. When she entered, she slid into a seat in the back, reminiscent of her first day of class, and read what Professor Dellum had put up on the wall—more about vulnerability.

"We discussed yesterday the effects of feeling vulnerable as an emotion. But the Abstract Concept pushes the word to more than an emotion: to a state of a mind, just like we did with loneliness."

Dellum switched slides.

To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable, to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.

A quote by Criss Jami was written on the slide and Fayrn skimmed it, thoughts popping into her mind.

"Anybody have any thoughts?" Dellum scanned the classroom, and when he saw Fayrn sitting in the back, he cocked his head sideways but made no comment. "Any possible connections to the stories that all of you are currently writing?"

On any usual day, Fayrn would be tempted to raise her hand and speak, but at this moment, when confronted with her mother having Alzheimer’s, not remembering her own daughters, and hit with the fact that she would have to visit as her sister in order to please her mother, when pressured with the notion that she was not who she wanted to be, and perhaps didn't know what she wanted out of life as she had originally thought, Fayrn sat quietly, cast her eyes down, and felt nothing but emptiness inside.

"Vulnerability is the feeling of exposure, of uncertainty," Jackson stated the obvious out loud and Mr. Dellum nodded as he continued, "but I think it also helps craft some of the raw human emotions that we wouldn't feel otherwise. For example if we never were vulnerable to our friends and opened up, how could we feel empathy, sympathy, and forge bonds that allow us to live?"

Dumbstruck.

Fayrn wasn't dumbstruck by what Jackson had said—she had been thinking that all along during her daily contemplations on the Abstract Concept. She was simply dumbstruck that Jackson had even considered it. She knew he was smart, but she was incapable of imagining that he could even think about "raw human emotions," especially since she believed he didn't feel any.

Dellum smiled warmly and Fayrn felt irritated despite her current state.

"That is a very good observation, Mr. Dawe, and a very powerful connection that I don't expect many of you to make or understand till we practice with it. Over the last few classes, we've discussed and reviewed vulnerability as an emotion, and even a bit on how it's a state of mind. When you go through life imagining everything as a function of vulnerability, as a relation to vulnerability, it can truly change your whole life and your human's life. I challenge you all to attempt to live a day with a vulnerable mindset and even in the other Abstract Concept mindsets. Try to live a day with a lonely state of mind, or a day in the mindsets of the next Abstract Concepts that we will discuss: On Grief and Suicide, On Intelligence, Natural Talent, and Luck, and On Religion and Fate."

Fayrn considered Dellum's challenge. Aurelia had already partially taken on his challenge of vulnerability, she assumed, without even knowing it, by telling Fayrn about her parents, opening up so simply to her, seeking to be a better writer even when she knew she wasn’t the best. Should she perhaps try it for a day?

"Fayrn?"

Aurelia's sweet voice made her snap out of her trance. Aurelia’s head was cocked with confusion. "I had assumed that you came to class when I didn't see you this morning or at breakfast," Aurelia started.

"I'll explain later," Fayrn murmured quickly as she saw Ethen, Skye, and Jackson making their way over.

But what will you tell her? An empty feeling in Fayrn's stomach began to build. If Aurelia had trusted her with her family problems, couldn't Fayrn trust her with hers?

"Finally Fayrn shows up," Jackson snorted, "I was beginning to think that you thought you were too good for class. Where were you—stealing more things from Dellum?"

“At least I don’t have to tattle on people to make up favor for my terrible writing.”

"How are all our stories coming along?" Ethen asked loudly, avoiding a scuffle between Jackson and Faryn. "I think I've done a decent job with integrating loneliness into Mariette's life; I talked about external loneliness versus internal loneliness."

Fayrn nodded with approval. "Saffron is dealing with both external and internal loneliness right now in relation to Technology and her parents, so it's a lot to handle but I think I can take it on with vulnerability."

"How are you incorporating vulnerability, anyways?" This time, it was Skye who piped up.

Fayrn shrugged. "The most obvious way of adding it is in the form of trusting others, of opening up, but I'm trying to search for other ways, other forms of vulnerability that are more unique than that."

"Is the fear of failure a lack of vulnerability?"

All four team members spun in surprise. Usually, Aurelia sat at the edge of the group quietly, eyes moving from one member to the other as they discussed their Core and decided activities. Fayrn was impressed that Aurelia had spoken out —even better, asked a legitimate and pensive question.

Fayrn nodded slightly. "That's a really good question Aurelia, and I think you're right. When we fear failure, we restrain ourselves from going out and taking risks, of trying new things even if we might be horrible at them, which closes off opportunities of growth and a lot of the important emotions: grief, happiness, anger. Were you thinking about doing that for Mr. Leandro?"

Aurelia nodded quietly, and Fayrn could see droplets of hesitation in her eyes, her own fear of disappointing her teammates.

That's another vulnerability. Wow, Dellum was right. It's really everywhere.

"I think it's a great idea Aurelia," Ethen pitched in for support and Fayrn nodded quickly. Jackson simply rolled his eyes.

"Well there is no failure in Hathor's life. With this divorce that's taking over, I really just need to get over this phase of loneliness and then I can think about the next thing."

Frustrated.

Fayrn barely heard Jackson’s words, hidden behind the frustration that mounted within herself. She was irritated that she had simply took the easy way out in her incorporation of vulnerability into Saffron's life, and she knew she had to step up her game if she was to impress Dellum. Besides, if vulnerability was really everywhere in their life, there should be no problem for her thinking of another way that Saffron could be vulnerable.

"Where do we want to take the story after their divorce?" Ethen thought out loud.

"Since Mr. and Mrs. Hathor's life will be hinged on Saffron, I say that Mrs. Hathor struggles to find a new job while balancing taking care of the bills of her new apartment and taking care of Saffron. I think Mr. Hathor should be more than okay, striving in his new single life, but I think he eventually feels the absence of his wife. That'll be a lot of internal exploring to do."

Fayrn gritted her teeth—she couldn't argue with Jackson even if she wanted to— his ideas weren't bad.

"Saffron will try and alternate between her parents and conclude that she was not the reason for the divorce," she jumped in instead of arguing, "and I think at this stage we should all be thinking about how to incorporate vulnerability. I think Fayrn should try and be vulnerable and break down the barrier she had formed with her dad from the past, but he refuses to let her in. Every time he rejects her attempts to go get coffee or come to school events, she hurts each time, but I think that's where the power of mastering her own vulnerability comes."

Fayrn looked toward Aurelia and Ethen. "In the meantime, I think Mariette should have an identity crisis, or soon, upon breaking up with Henri, and maybe she closes off from being vulnerable to people, I don't know Ethen, you can decide that part. And I think Mr. Leandro should definitely look into himself with his fear of failure for his firm, but taking certain financial risks and being vulnerable in taking those risks even though he fails. Maybe, he takes a giant leap for the company that ends up not working and it ultimately affects Mr. Hathor's state of wealth."

"I like it, I never really appreciated playing the flirty girly girl," Ethen affirmed with a smile.

As the team members dispersed, the thoughts of her mother came back, and Fayrn sighed, pressing her head against her arm.

"Fayrn? You okay?" Ethen looked sideways at her.

Startled, she looked up at him. "Oh yeah, I'm good, sorry, just lost in thought."

She grabbed her backpack and spun, her smile fading as soon as she was outside his line of sight.

Dissension.

Very vulnerable, Faryn, she told herself sarcastically.

It's not my fault, she snapped back at herself as she walked away. Even if I told him or Aurelia what was going on, they would just go on living their lives like usual and forget it the week after, that's what Izzy did to me and what all temporary friends do anyways.

When Faryn was three, her father was called away from his Branch and never returned. Fayrn grew with simply an image of who he was—bits and pieces thrown together by periodic stories that her mother would tell them and descriptions she would pick up on. Her mother was tasked with writing in her Branch and caring for both Fayrn and Laila, but failed on the latter and expected the girls not only to survive on their own but care for her as well. Dinner on the table every night, breakfast in the morning, dishes tidy, rooms cleaned every weekend, mail retrieved; the list of expectations went on even with Academy. In her younger years, Fayrn dutifully and silently complied with all her mother’s wishes, never hesitating when her mother commanded her to put away her schoolbooks and instead wash the clothes. She stayed up into the dark hours of the night, struggling to finish her assignments before rising early in the morning to preparing her mother’s breakfast and lunch. No matter how hard she tried, however, her mother always found fault: undercooked eggs, wrongly organized papers, too much time on Academy work. And so when Fayrn grew into an older, independent, strong-hearted girl, they argued. Weekly, if not daily, her mother championed Laila for her beauty, success in Academy, and devotion to the family, and always said that no matter how hard Fayrn tried, she would always be inadequate.

Inadequate.

Fayrn thought she had trained herself well enough by this time that whenever the feeling arose within her, she could cast it aside and confront it later. There was a part of her that yearned to turn back to Ethen and Aurelia and just tell them everything that was happening and to take in their pitying glances and words of emptiness, but she stopped herself and reminded herself of what Izzy had done to her, and what she never wanted to feel again. Not that she didn't want to feel vulnerable, exactly, but that she didn't want to feel hurt. And there seemed to be a direct correlation between the two.




Her heels clicked against the pale white tile and she avoided the gaze of several patients as she turned the corner into her mother's room. Fayrn did not notify anybody in the Academy about her mother’s situation, so she had to strategically plan her visits. Dellum had not said anything about her so far three late appearances to class spaced over the course of three weeks, but she knew each absence would decrease her credit, especially since Dellum valued attendance highly.

"I’m sorry, I think you’re in the wrong room." Her mother was sitting upright in her bed as Fayrn turned the corner.

Every time.

Fayrn let out a small breath. “It’s me mom, Laila, remember? I came last week, we talked about my human at my Branch.”

Her mother’s eyes lit up, “Oh yes, I do recall things we talked about.” Her mouth hung in the open, wavering, words that she attempted to remember wisps of thought passing.

“How are you, mom?"

"Oh, dying more and more each day, what's new?" Her mother snorted with sarcasm. "But it's very kind of you to ask, Laila. I do much better with your company, even if you do rarely come," she paused and turned her icy grey eyes to peer emptily at Fayrn. Her gaze was so intent that Fayrn stiffened, thinking she almost realized it was her and not her Laila. "Did you bring your book like I asked you?"

In response, Fayrn opened her leather brown book and her mother smiled when she heard the sound of crinkling pages.

Fayrn looked at her mother smile, something she had rarely seen.

"Saffron trudged up to the house and unlocked the door, awkwardly trying to keep the door open while pushing her luggage in. The divorce was final and now she was alternating between houses; the time with her mother was nice, for she was able to attend after-school hangouts, despite never truly wanting to go to them, but the days spent with her father were isolating and devoid of talking. Dinner was slapped on the table: microwave burritos on a good day and chips from the pantry on a regular day. Saffron was able to pull off some eggs for breakfast and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for school lunches, but the food wasn't what made living with her father such a pain. She didn't understand why he even claimed half of her, as if she was a thing to be possessed, when he didn't even want to spend time caring for her. The worst was the impalpable silence that echoed throughout the large house, the silence that left Saffron sometimes wondering whether she was alone, not necessarily physically, but also mentally."

Fayrn paused to turn the page.

"Laila, you do write quite well."

Fayrn jerked up, her mother's voice catching her by surprise. She stayed silent.

"I always knew you could manage to become a great writer and never neglect your family. Too bad Fayrn had to stuff her nose in books and watch the world pass her by, that ridiculous girl. She may get into Afloria or Heliv, but she will never truly live her life."

Fayrn smiled while her heart cracked, the comment no longer offensive or a surprise to her.

"It's funny how you mentioned that Saffron and her father never interact," Her mother chuckled, "That sounds just like Fayrn and I. I hope when I die that girl regrets never talking with me."

No, Mother. You never talked to me. Fayrn's eyes glistened with pain. She continued reading.

"Saffron's high school was holding its annual science fair presentation the next Saturday, and her mother had already eagerly agreed to come. Saffron didn't care whether her father came, or so she told herself, and decided not to even tell him about it since he was always working and never asked about school. On Tuesday night, she sat at the dinner table reading her homework quietly and munching on half-frozen peas that barely melted in the impatient minute that her father had microwaved them. Her father walked into the kitchen and grabbed a burger that he had saved from the day before and sat roughly on the other side of the table, chomping away. The sounds of pages flipping and vigorous chewing echoed throughout the grand hall.

'How's school going?'

Saffron looked up from her reading and stared at her father, who averted her gaze and was looking down at the burger. Did he actually begin a conversation with me? She thought in amazement. A burning candle lit in her stomach.

'It's okay,' she began casually, 'We just had a physics exam today.' Saffron continued reading and chewing in silence, but thoughts raced in her head. Should she tell him that her science fair project was entered in the school showcase on Saturday? Should she ask him to come?

No, don't be ridiculous, he doesn't care about your project at all, he just asked you because he feels like he should at least talk to you once before you go back to mom's.

Yeah, you're probably right. I probably shouldn't ask him, he's never gone to any one of my activities anyways.

The candle extinguished. Still, the wick fluorescenced with a dull, campfire orange.

'We're having our school science fair showcase on Saturday morning, do you want to come?' Saffron blurted the sentence without even thinking, a common result of anxiety and overthinking.

'No.'

Her father's response was curt.

Right. And you were saying?

Saffron’s conscience snapped at her. You're so dumb for trying— you know he would say no and like usual, not give an explanation.

Saffron's father dumped his burger in the trashcan and went upstairs without a word or a glance back at his daughter."

Fayrn closed the book. "That's where I've ended for now."

She heard the clock behind her ticking and the faint beep of the monitor. When her mother didn't reply, she felt a rush of panic at first, looking anxiously to see if her mother had fallen asleep or worse, but her mother was most definitely awake, and simply stared off into the open space.

"You make Saffron sound so much like Fayrn, you know?" she barely whispered. "A girl not worthy of time nor energy.”

Fayrn was surprised that her mother even recalled her hatred toward her.

"Maybe you're just looking at it from the wrong perspective," Fayrn replied, trying to keep pain out of her voice. “Maybe Mr. Hathor didn’t see Saffron’s attempt to be vulnerable so when she eventually gives up and closes off he simply blames her for it. Maybe he doesn’t realize that the things he says hurt her deep on the inside. Maybe all she wants is for her father to see how hard she tries for him, how hard she wants him to love her.”

Before her mother could process and respond, she stood, gave her mother a tight kiss on the forehead, and left the room with a lump in her throat.




"You're quiet tonight."

Fayrn looked up from her reading.

Tell her.

No. Don't. She’ll forget within a day.

Tell her. It'll help.

Inadequate.

Fayrn smiled at Aurelia. "It's just been a long day."

"Did you accidentally sleep in this morning? I can give you some of the notes we took. Did you grab dinner yet? Ethen and I are heading out in five."

Go with them.

Inadequate.

"I'm good, not too hungry today."

Liar.

Inadequate.

Leave me alone. Fayrn snapped within herself, voice breaking.

Aurelia shrugged. "Okay. Just make sure you do eat if you're hungry."

She's kind. She cares about you.

She cares about everybody. You're not special.

Aurelia left, and Fayrn was alone.

"Well, at least we're alone now Annabelle." She looked at her horse, who lay to the side, grabbed her, and peered into her maroon-black eyes. Slight scratches lined the edges from a few years of wear. "Visiting mom was," she sighed as she spoke to the horse, "was really tough."

Fayrn closed her eyes and held the soft plush animal in her arms, the embrace nonhuman yet comforting nonetheless.

Her whole life, she had worked to learn all the emotions and to identify them and describe them perfectly.

But it was only now that she truly understood what it felt like.

Loneliness.

Somehow, she welcomed the physical loneliness, giving her a space to release her internal loneliness.

"What she says about me really hurts," she whispered, "but we know it's not true, right? None of what she says is true—it's just her messed up perception of what I am and who I am."

Her mother never failed to be blunt: Fayrn would never be a good enough person like her sister Laila, she was ridiculously unextraordinary, ugly, and undeserving of such a life. Laila, who refused to visit their mother because she had no interest in subjecting herself to the pity and sympathy that her mother wanted to receive but gave only to Laila when they were children, was too selfish. If anything, her mom had loved and praised Laila the most, attention Fayrn never dared to dream of receiving, so Laila should be the one returning to care for her mother.

Fayrn was, as her mother always said, inadequate.

And for the longest time, even though Fayrn shouted back and fumed in her room, deep down she truly believed that her mother was right— for what was her incessant arguing if not a denial of some truth?

"No, we're not what she says." She held Annabelle tightly between her hands and shook her head furiously.

Right, keep telling yourself that.

"Will you leave me alone?" Fayrn shut her eyes and buried her head between her knees. There existed a powerful desire to scream. "Will you just leave me alone?"

Never.

“I’m mental,” Fayrn looked up, gasping for breath now that tears clogged her throat. “I’m mental, I’m going mental, I hear voices inside of me, I’m talking to a stuffed animal, I talk to a freaking stuffed animal who knows nothing about life, who’s a plaything for two-year-olds!” Rage suddenly consuming her, she stood and threw Annabelle across the room, clenching her fists and holding her breath as water danced around the edges of her eyes, thoughts rapidly circling over and over again in her mind.

Confusion.

Despair.

Lost. Regret. Weak. Defeat.

Slowly, quietly, Fayrn padded over to pick up the brown horse from the ground, hugging her tightly and stroking her gently.

"I’m so sorry, Annabelle, forgive me for ever doubting you. You have been such a great companion. We just have to visit her a few more times before she's gone. We just have to hold on and swallow her words till then. We can do this." She gritted her teeth, bone squeezing against bone.




The day was cloudy. It was simply cloudy, so that to one it might seem like the sun was hiding shyly behind the clouds, but to another it might seem like a thunderstorm brewed beneath the grey puffs of cotton candy stretched across the sky. To Saffron, today, it was the latter. Recently, she thought, when was it not the latter? She stood by her science fair board with pride as judges passed to converse with her and classmates stopped to admire. But the only person she truly wanted to impress was her father, who she knew wouldn't even remember that she had asked him to come. Her mother had dropped by earlier, but left in order to head to a job interview, and so Saffron was left standing to the side of her board, watching others laugh, giggle, and gossip to the side while she attempted to look occupied in studying the minute hand of the clock above her tick, tick, tick.

"Ms. Hathor, I am very impressed with your project, very impressed indeed."

Saffron smiled and nodded politely to her physics teacher who was going around to all the boards. "Don't forget that next Saturday we have the parent conference for those who want to head to the state science fair competition!" He winked at her.

Saffron perked up. The wink and hint must have meant that her project had qualified! Excitement bloomed in her as her teacher walked away and she looked around— she couldn't wait to tell her mother! Her father wouldn't even have to come to the conference next weekend; Mrs. Hathor had already promised Saffron full support in her scientific endeavors.

Saffron noticed Mariette was standing at the end of the row next to her board and she paused, happiness suddenly drifting from her heart. Mariette's board was a mess and it was obvious she had slapped together the project simply for the grade. Mariette was a mess too, Saffron noticed, and she assumed that something between her and Henri had happened.

She took a step forward to run to her and ask her what was going on and comfort her, as they used to do to one another when they were younger, but something held her back—some grim satisfaction that Mariette got what she deserved for leaving Saffron.

That's a terrible thought! Saffron was amazed at her own wickedness, but the inner satisfaction of having Henri dump Mariette was not a feeling that she could control, just like interior jealously or envy were not completely controllable feelings.

Saffron stepped back and looked onward.

When awards came, Saffron's suspicions about her qualification to regionals was confirmed with a blue ribbon pinned to her board. Immediately after, she called her mother and revealed the wonderful news.

"There's a parent conference next Saturday at two to plan for the state fair! Can you make it?"

The pause in her mother's reply told Saffron everything she needed to know.

"I'm sorry honey but I've got a job interview that I really can't miss. Can you ask your father to go?"

Saffron hung up.

It was a rash move, one she would probably come to regret in minutes, but the combination of her rage and sorrow was too much that if she said anything to her mother she knew she would regret it.

Her father?

He wouldn't come if his life depended on it.




As Fayrn got out of the car and hurried to class, she saw Izzy approaching from the other direction. They made eye-contact, however fleeting it was, and Fayrn attempted to wave and put on a smile. Izzy immediately turned, looking down at the ground as if preoccupied with thought. The two passed each other without a word.

How people change.

Sitting in the back of the classroom, Fayrn decided that Skye's new dress gave her a new aura of confidence. The tilt in her head, arch in her back, tug at Jackson’s clothes, they all screamed confidence. But then there was the quick glance down at her notebook, the faltering smile, the barely hesitant nod, they all screamed insecurity. Fayrn did things like this when she wanted to keep her mind off other thoughts. Picked up on things on people and made judgements about them, assigned them emotions, actions that would allow her to transcribe true human nature on paper. She turned her head to look at Professor Dellum to attempt to look like she was paying attention about his lecture about shame in relation to vulnerability. She was sure it was important, but she would catch up later about the details.

"Now, for your next assignment with your Core, there will be a little twist."

Fayrn raised her head, thoughts of Skye disappearing.

"You all will be switching books."

Fayrn narrowed her eyes. Switching books like editing each other's writing?

"No, not editing each other's writing, as I have you already doing that quite often," Dellum answered Fayrn's question without knowing it, "You will be switching humans. This is to prevent attachment to your humans, which I've noticed has been happening from my weekly readings. I've already chosen your new assignments, and you will have to read everything that has been written so far in each other’s notebooks and continue writing to the best of your ability. Practice the transition, smooth out the voices."

Groans came from the class; Jackson smacked his hand on the desk and muttered something along the lines of 'I had plans for Connell'.

Dellum paused. "Sometimes, people change and become completely different in a way that you never thought was possible. For the humans on earth, this could be attributed to bad transitions in writers when ownership changes. It is our goal not to do this, or to do this in the best way possible so that it is natural and logical. You'll find assigned switches on a paper in the front of class.

Fayrn thought of Izzy —changed in a way she never thought was possible. Suddenly, Fayrn frowned. Were Ioskiean lives being written by another planet in another far off land?

Cold air rushed through her body. What if these thoughts she was thinking were being controlled, being written, by just another girl on another planet?

She jumped when Ethen put a hand on her back.

"Fayrn? You okay? You look terribly sick."

She felt a rush of heat to her face and turned toward Ethen. "No, I'm good, thanks."

"Fayrn's just upset that she has to trade humans with me." Jackson walked up to her and shoved his leather book into her face. "Don't get why you'd be upset, I've written Mr. Hathor so well for you."

He snatched her leather notebook and flipped through the pages. "Looks like I'll have to do some damage control here."

Fayrn squinted angrily at Jackson.





It was only in the car three mornings after when it finally sunk in that she no longer had Saffron.

She would be lying if she said she didn't get attached—attached to a fictional character. She wanted so desperately to be able to explore Saffron's redemption and fight against her father, her adventure through the maze of loneliness and depression, and whatever else there was to explore in life: love, heartache, failure, death.

Fayrn felt her throat tightening with grief and looked out the window, the images of the town flying by her in a blur. In a way, Saffron had been her only true friend.

You're incompetent. She's just a fake character. This is good practice for the real world.

The car stopped in front of the hospital's dreary entrance and Fayrn thanked the driver, increasing her pace as she walked toward her mother's familiar room.

She skidded to stop as a Doctor walked out from the room.

"Doctor Ellis," she nodded her head curtly.

"Ah, Ms. King, it's good to see you." Doctor Ellis' gaze shifted uncomfortably.

"How is my mother doing?" she prompted.

Doctor Ellis smiled the kind that contained fake sympathy. "Ms. King, I think after today, it might be best if you didn't visit anymore."

Fayrn stared back at the doctor's sad eyes.

When she walked in, her mother laid there, peaceful. Fayrn glided across the floor to sit in the chair next to the bed and hesitated to hold her mother's hand.

"Lily? Is that you?" Her mother had peeked open an eye weakly.

Her mother's voice and hands seemed frail.

It’s Laila, mother.

"Yes mother," Fayrn's voice shook and she wished it didn't.

Her mother chuckled, but it became a harsh wheeze. "I'm so glad you came Lily, I was thinking about what was going to happen with Sara and her father."

It's Saffron, mother, but Fayrn had no will to correct her. Instead, Fayrn read to her. She read from her mind, since she didn't have her book anymore, and she didn’t want to read Jackson’s story. She tried to remember everything she wrote about Saffron from the beginning, since every visit she would have to remind her mother what happened before. When she finished recalling what she had wrote, she continued to tell Saffron’s story, making up whatever came to mind about her; how she longed to get to know her father and how her father kept disregarding her and putting her down. She continued to weave how Saffron felt frustrated and vulnerable and crestfallen, and that it was no longer worth to try and work something out with her father, and how she felt isolated and alone and had no friends, and saw no point in life anymore even though she tried to tell her parents she was struggling but they were so consumed with their own lives they had no time for her. She described how Saffron carried the weight of sadness in her heart, because now even her mother was isolating her, how she longed to bury her into someone to release all her pain, how she fought through the next years of mental loneliness and grew, trying to start fresh in new places and be vulnerable with new people and fight hard for herself, how she didn’t tether her happiness to any one person to save herself from future pain, how she eventually learned self-love through her grief and her insecurities, how she worked a job to earn her way past college, how she visited her father again in the future and was courageous enough to close the wound between them, how she had a family reunion with smiles, jokes, and laughter, how she met a man who made her heart flutter and her eyes dance, how she allowed herself to love, get married, have a family, find peace.

And when Fayrn finished talking, she looked up, and she was calm, unaware that tears clung to her eyes.

And her mother was also calm. Too calm.

Fayrn sat there for the remainder of the night, clinging to her mother’s cold skin and drowning herself in tears she never knew could exist.






Chapter 8.

Fayrn stared blankly at the page of words in front of her. She reread the sentence. Eyes shifted back to the beginning, reread it again. She blinked, the words blurry. She frowned; it was something about Mr. Hathor being frustrated at Mr. Leandro's risky venture in the firm. Good enough. Next sentence.

Sighing, Fayrn closed the book. Maybe she should revisit this tomorrow; considering that the next checkup was in three days, she imagined she could pull off a decent chunk of progress the next few nights. Just as she got up for a walk outside, the door opened and Aurelia and Ethen came in.

"Hey Fayrn!" Aurelia smiled in her direction, and then immediately stopped in her tracks. "Are you okay?"

Fayrn cursed at herself, hoping her face wasn't a mess. She thought the tears had already dried.

"Yeah, I'm great!" She put an extra ounce of cheeriness in her reply, praying that Aurelia would buy it. "I'm just going out to get some food. I'll be back sometime tonight."

"Can I come with you? I'm also pretty hungry."

Fayrn looked at Ethen, surprised.

Might as well have Aurelia come along too and then I won’t get any time alone. Her thoughts instinctively kicked in.

"Uh sure, you guys can come," Fayrn attempted to be nonchalant.

"You two go, I need to start writing on Mariette," Aurelia glanced nervously at her notebook, referencing the new trade.

Ethen and Fayrn left the room and an awkward silence filled the gap between them as they trudged through the grass. Fayrn looked up at the night sky, the darkness somehow comforting.

"How are you, Fayrn?" Ethen broke the silence.

There we go, another one of those polite conversation starters. Fayrn wished that the things people said were simple reflections of their true feelings, and not niceties or small talk.

"I'm great, how are you?" she asked politely, nodding toward him, but not meeting his gaze. From her peripheral vision she could tell that Ethen was staring at her steadily.

"I'm okay. There’s the mid-year carnival tomorrow, so I’m pretty excited for that."

Should she tell Laila? No, Laila wouldn't care anyways. The Doctors would most likely notify her.

"Are you going to go?"

There wouldn't be a funeral. Nobody would go to see her mother, so there was no use in putting together an elaborate ceremony for her. The Doctors would deal with the body.

"Fayrn?"

Maybe she should have said something before her mother passed, anything, something about how it had been her the whole time and she was sorry for any pain she had brought and she only ever wanted to make her proud.

“Fayrn?” Ethen’s voice was louder now, and he put a hand on her shoulder.

Fayrn looked up finally, startled, and met Ethen’s gaze. His eyes glistened with concern.

“Sorry, I’ll see if I have time to go.” She smiled her half-baked smile and stopped walking.

“You know what, I’m sorry, I said I was going to get food but I’m really not hungry at all. I think I’m going to just walk around and get some fresh air.”

Please don’t offer to come with me. The other half of her begged him to come.

Ethen cocked his head. “I’ll walk with you if you’d like some company. If you don’t, I’ll go back and it’s completely fine. Either way, I hope you tell someone what’s going on because I know you’re not okay. It doesn’t have to be me, by all means, but you ought to tell someone.”

There’s nobody to tell.

Fayrn squinted her eyes. “Thanks, Ethen,” she paused, “catch up with you later?”

The two parted ways and Fayrn continued to trudge in the darkness, hands crammed into her coat pockets and pace slowing to a near shuffle.

Her mom was gone. And with her, only Laila was left in her family. And, she was sure, some distant fourth or fifth cousin she was unaware about. Their family never really was one for huge reunions.

Fayrn stopped walking, realizing she had neared the edge of the Academy grounds. She was at the road. Scattered cars buzzed by, and the wind they created was almost refreshing. Fayrn shuffled to the side and sat on the stone wall. She had never wished ill on her mother. Never —even when her mother had wished things as cruel as death on her. All she knew was that she tried to be the best daughter she could and yet she happened to still remain a ghost her mother saw through. Inadequate, ugly, blindly consumed in writing… for the longest time, Fayrn had allowed her to believe that the first two were true.

A car whistled by and Fayrn closed her eyes. She buried her face in her knees.

Now, she believed that all three were true.

“Is this what grief is?” she whispered to herself, words muffled by her inability to breathe. “Is this what you want me to feel, to write about, to explore, Dellum?” she spat, gritting her teeth. “These Abstract Concepts? I’m ahead of the game!” She laughed out loud, a dry chortle. “I know what loneliness is, internally, in the mind! I know what grief is! Not the grief of a dead parent because I really couldn’t care less about my mother, just grief as a mindset! Just crying, without a reason, without a damn reason, even though we were always taught that there has to be some reason! What if you just don’t know the reason sometimes?”

Three cars sped by, and for a moment, in the perspective of a glassy, thin veil of tears where the lamp-post lights seemed to glimmer and melt together, Fayrn wondered what it would feel like to step in front of the cars.




“Fayrn, wake up.”

Something prodded her back.

“Aurelia it’s Saturday, let me sleep in.” Fayrn groaned, feeling exhaustion ache all over.

“It’s the carnival today. And Ethen told me he’s not going unless you’re going so you better get your butt up right now and join us for breakfast.”

Instantly, Fayrn was awake. Of course Ethen said that. Fayrn attempted to be irritated that he was trying to be nice to her, but she knew internally she was grateful. Maybe the carnival would help her clear her thoughts.

“I don’t want to attend a stupid carnival,” she grumbled while Aurelia pulled her arms, dragging her body sideways on the bed.

“Yes you do, you know you want a break from writing.”

Momentarily, Fayrn had forgotten about the writing. She hadn’t even finished reading through what Jackson had wrote, and now she only had a day left to come up with something for Dellum’s check-up.

Fayrn slid out of bed and stood, ignoring the fact she was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. For once in her lifetime, she didn’t care about her writing. Why should she care? Aurelia was trying to get her to go to the carnival and Ethen’s prompting or not, having company right now was something that felt right. Besides, Fayrn thought, dumping on a fresh set of clothes, Skye and I had a healthy discussion in class about what Mr. Hathor and Leandro would say and do. I can probably compile a decent chapter with those notes.

Fayrn scrambled after Aurelia out the door. Her heart was heavy, she could feel its presence within her chest, but somehow, it seemed to glow. Feeling a pump of exhilaration through her veins, Fayrn pasted a smile on her face and stepped out into the daylight, feeling the rays of heat hit her.

Already, there were screams of elation and laughter rippling through the main quad in front of the dorms. The smell of burnt popcorn and sweet cotton candy filled Fayrn’s nostrils and she felt the pulse of the blasting music surge through her.

“Don’t eat too much cotton candy, I heard it’s bad for you.”

Fayrn turned to see Ethen’s smirk and she rolled her eyes, even though she found herself smiling.

Next to her, Aurelia squealed. “Let’s go through the obstacle course! Ethen I’ll race you!”

“Sure, I’ll race you Auri, as long as I get to race Fayrn after!” Ethen charged after the red-head, laughing deeply.

Fayrn watched the two race after one another. A light breeze picked up and her hair floated with the wind. She began to walk after her classmates, slowly, and then faster and faster till she could almost feel the sadness on her chest fly off.

Crusty sugar lined her teeth as she shoved a mouthful of pink cotton candy into her mouth. Ethen tore a huge chunk off the top of the cone that the three were sharing and shoved it into Fayrn’s face and she yelped in surprise, jumping back and gawking dramatically at Ethen as Aurelia doubled over, laughing.

“Come on Fayrn let’s race!” Ethen beckoned and let Aurelia take the cotton candy cone. Fayrn grinned at him as she slid off her shoes. “You might have taken Aurelia but I’m going to have to disappoint you!”

Ethen’s eyes twinkled. “We’ll see who’s talking after.”

The carnie belted a “Go!” and the world suddenly slowed. Fayrn felt her feet slip as she threw herself forward into the little hole that was just in front of her. Standing, she let her momentum weave her through the tall and bulky pillars, side stepping to avoid touching any of them. She felt herself move slightly up and down, Ethen right beside her. Clearing the pillars, she flung herself through the middle of two horizontal bars, yelping when she felt the top pillar punch her in the head as she barely squeezed through. Over Aurelia’s cheers, a high pitched ringing persisted in her ear. She shook her head, trying to shake off the noise, and squinted up at the next obstacle — a giant wall with little steps to climb over. Instantly, she threw herself against the stairs and began to claw at whatever steps there were.

“Oh no you don’t missy!”She could hear Ethen behind her suddenly, and she felt strong arms close around her stomach and pick her up. She screamed and burst out laughing when Ethen threw her back to the ground and turned toward the stairs himself.

“Ethen you cheater!” Fayrn rolled to the side and reached to grab his foot. He slid and fell, grunting sourly as Fayrn stood and scrambled over the top of the stairs, finally sliding down and feeling familiar soft grass hit her feet.

Aurelia was jumping up and down. “Fayrn! You did it!”

Elation.

Fayrn sat on the edge of the bounce structure, breathing heavily yet unable to hide her triumphant smile as Ethen clambered over the steps just moments later and slid down.

“I need a drink,” he immediately announced, and the three of them burst into laughter.

Fayrn stood, and suddenly the high-pitched ringing blared in her mind. All of her senses came back to her: the sear of the sun on her skin was too hot, her throat felt too dry and prickly, figures in front of her became too fuzzy, hazy, crooked.

“Fayrn, woah.” Ethen immediately stopped smiling and put a hand on Fayrn’s shoulder to steady her. “Are you okay?”

Sun hot. Throat dry. People hazy.

She nodded just barely, and reached out to Aurelia for support as she swayed from side to side. “I just, I think I need to go lie down, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Concern wavered in Aurelia’s eyes. “We’ll help you back immediately.”

“No, I can walk back myself, don’t worry about me, go have fun.” It took every muscle in her body to stand straight and let go of Ethen and Aurelia. “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

Smile for them.

She smiled her half-baked smile, grilling herself to show a little bit more teeth as she stumbled in the direction of Cespaturn.

When Fayrn stumbled back into her room, she immediately lunged toward her bed to keep from collapsing and felt convulsions all over her body. Mind swirling with flashes of light, she was brought back to reality. She began to shake all over, thoughts consuming her mind, gnawing, choking, squeezing, until finally the tears came, the tearse came with thoughts of her mother, thoughts of Izzy, thoughts of loneliness, thoughts of death. Fayrn grabbed Annabelle, squeezing the horse to her chest as tightly as she could, tears trickling down onto the plush animal.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, we’re okay, we’re okay.” Muffled words, repeating them again and again until her breath slowed to a steady pace.

She sat back and wiped the edges of her eyes with the back of her hand, still trembling. She climbed into her bed, picked up Jackson’s leather book, and began to read. As she read what Jackson had written on Mr. Hathor, she found herself breathing easier, breathing quieter, eyes fixated in the movement from left to right, left to right. Her thoughts were replaced with critical eyes— Jackson missed a comma there, he should have switched those two phrases, he could have used a better word for angry. Fayrn found herself nodding; this was her comfort zone, this is what she knew. Page after page flipped. Jackson was a stellar writer, Fayrn found herself biting her lip in frustration at the thought of a wonderful but arrogant writer. It was dangerous. She reached where he left off, with Mr. Hathor talking with Connell about taking the big leap in expanding the firm. She groaned at the thought of working with Skye; dazzling fake jewels and flashy eyes were not company she wanted.

Keys jingling in the hallway and the familiar sound of Aurelia and Ethen echoed off the walls outside. Fayrn cursed, ducking forward to chuck the pile of tissues that had accumulated near her pillow into the trashcan and leaning backwards just as the door opened. Aurelia’s head peeked over and Fayrn looked up, smiling.

“Hey! We’re back. You okay?” Aurelia came in the room, followed by Ethen.

“Yeah, I was just a bit dizzy from the heat and all the movement,” she lied smoothly.

“Do you need some medicine? I can grab some from my room.” Ethen instantly offered.

Faryn looked at him, and then at Aurelia. She was silent for a moment.

“Thanks, but I think I’m good.” Lying was harder than she thought. When humans were in grief, they naturally sought something, someone, to ease the burden, to help mollify the journey. Where was the line between true grief and simple selfishness and want of attention?

Ethen left, leaving Aurelia and Fayrn in silence. Fayrn watched Aurelia move slowly around the room, and instantly thought of both her mother and father committing suicide.

“Aurelia,” she paused, without knowing for sure what she wanted to ask. Ask about her mother and father dying and how it felt? If she ever felt lonely?

“How’s the writing coming?” It wasn’t exactly a dumb question. But she knew that if Aurelia’s mother had trouble writing to the point where she believed taking her life would be easier, then Fayrn had to watch out for Aurelia.

Aurelia smiled a warm, broad smile. “It’s okay, thanks for asking. I mean, if you wouldn’t mind looking over the transition I made from Ethen’s writing to my own before it’s due that would be awesome, but you’ve already looked over so much of my writing so it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Fayrn looked down at the empty page in Jackson’s book staring back at her. She only had the rest of the night to compose a decent portion of Mr. Hathor’s story.

“Sure,” she smiled back at Aurelia, whose face was pinched with anxiety. “I can look at it.”

Relief.

Fayrn felt a pang in her heart—Aurelia went through so much stress writing and then wondering if it was near good enough to turn into Mr. Dellum. Fayrn reached over to take the journal that Aurelia passed her and flipped as far as the writing went. She skimmed through the latter end of Ethen’s writing and then turned the page, immediately expecting a similar voice and sentence structure that Aurelia should have begun with.

Fayrn had to stop herself from cringing as she read the first sentence that Aurelia wrote. It wasn’t bad, of course, but the abrupt shift in voice was blatant. Ethen’s writing was smooth, tactful, conservative, Fayrn was impressed, but Aurelia had started out dry, choppy, awkward. Fayrn took her pencil and scribbled in some notes on the side of the paper, attempting to keep the comments cordial. She herself knew that doing the transition from Jackson would be difficult – but she was partially relieved since Jackson was a decent writer himself and would allow room for Fayrn to maintain the level of writing.

“Being a Soldier can’t be that bad, right?”

The question took Fayrn by surprise. She looked up from reading the journal and peered curiously at Aurelia.

“I don’t think it’s bad at all, besides being the Ocrorix’s slave and having to do all the dirty work.”

Regret.

Encouraging, Fayrn thought. You need to be encouraging.

Aurelia shrugged. “I don’t think I mind those things.”

Fayrn sighed internally. Aurelia’s writing was not bad. But if it caused her so much stress, energy, tears, sweat, and internal turmoil to compose a simple paragraph, was it worth it? Fayrn would have hoped that after five years of learning and practicing how to write Aurelia would at least become somewhat smooth. Maybe it was her mother’s genes.

Fayrn frowned. Genes.




When the rosewood flowers dulled to a simple rouge, the Academy students began to pack and head home for mid-year break. Fayrn had stayed in Academy ever since ninth for the breaks, since she preferred the solitude over her mother’s slave-like and tense company. This year, however, Ethen had invited both Aurelia and Fayrn to his house for the break, knowing Aurelia’s foster situation and being somewhat cognizant of Fayrn’s shaky familial matters. His perfectly beautiful mother came to pick the three of them up and drove a long ways back into a nice, small, yet serene community of houses.

“Alright, here we are,” Mrs. Schifrin guided the students through the front door.

Cinnamon apple trickled into Fayrn’s nose, and she noticed candles burning brightly. The furry carpet tickled her feet and the couches seemed soft, squishy, as if she could sleep on them forever.

“Aurelia, you and Fayrn will share a room if you don’t mind, upstairs to the right.” Mrs. Schifrin gestured up.

Suddenly, thundering footsteps came pounding down the stairs.

“Aurelia!” Squealed a little girl, Ethen’s sister, Fayrn presumed, and Aurelia laughed out loud as the two embraced.

“It’s so good to see you Katrina!” Happiness lit Aurelia’s eyes and Fayrn smiled quietly.

“Now Ethen, I have to head back to Teania, but Rob and I will be home sometime tonight and I’ll prepare dinner, okay? Just make your friends comfortable.” She gave her son a quick kiss on the forehead and sped out the door.

“Your mom writes for Teania? That’s amazing.” Fayrn said, referencing one of the top-tiered Branches.

Ethen shrugged as he began to carry the girls’ bags upstairs. “It’s not that impressive; the important thing is that she’s happy.”

Katrina bounced happily as she followed Ethen upstairs, Aurelia and Fayrn trailing.

“Who’s the other girl?” Katrina tried to whisper to Ethen but failed to keep her curiosity silent.

Fayrn barely listened—her eyes were trained on the line of photographs that trailed all the way up the stairs. Most of them were pictures of Katrina and Ethen at a young age, playing in the grass or posing in front of Academy on their first days. Fayrn paused as she reached the last photo, a shot of the whole family together: Katrina in the middle of giggling, Mr. Schifrin tickling her, Ethen making a goofy face, and Mrs. Schifrin looking horrified at the three of them.

“I had the same expression when I first came and saw those photos.”

Fayrn jerked up, and saw Aurelia looking at her.

“What expression?”

“It’s a little bit of sadness mixed in with unknown nostalgia. Unknown, because you don’t really have the memory, you only wish you had it.”

Fayrn blinked at the girl; it was one of the few times anyone actually saw through her.

She stepped onto the upper level and peered curiously around, peeking her head in rooms and admiring the wonderful decor, pristine clean, and homey smells: cherry blossoms, campfire s'mores, blueberry cheesecake.

“This is my room, I apologize for the mess.” As Fayrn wandered deeper into the house, Ethen popped next to her and gestured toward a small square room. Stepping in lightly, Fayrn’s eyes rounded in amazement. Devices, drawings of inventions, and tinker tools and materials were strewn across the room, unfinished gadgets resting on the bookshelf and a long chain of random materials compiled on his desk.

“This is amazing,” Fayrn breathed, reaching out to pick up one of the mini helicopters on the desk.

“Thanks,” Ethen grinned. “Built that one myself. The top part flies off if you spin the bottom. Oh—this is one of my favorites that I never got to finish.” He ran to the edge of his bed and picked up a ball. “I get up in the middle of the night and can’t see a thing, but I don’t want to step on anything, so I push this ball down the plank, it lands in this pail and rises up, knocking a second ball which funnels down into this catapult and is launched onto this seesaw, which,” Ethen stopped, scratching his head. “Well, I stopped there but the idea was to have the ball roll and hit the light switch.” He laughed.

Fayrn smiled, genuinely impressed. “When did you build this all?”

Ethen grimaced. “Junior Academy mainly, and a tad in ninth when I came home, but really I didn’t have time when Advanced started.”

A pang echoed in Fayrn’s heart as she followed him out and back down the stairs to where Aurelia and Katrina were sitting.

“Look Ethen! Aurelia’s going to draw me as a beautiful princess in a castle.” Katrina pointed to Aurelia, who had begun sketching on a sheet of paper.

“I know it’s going to be impressive!” Ethen grabbed a sheet of paper and began to sketch himself. “Join us Faryn! You may be a writer at heart but you know you want to draw.”

Fayrn smiled, taking a seat next to Katrina, who eyed her wearily before ducking under the table and running up the stairs. Amusement gleamed in Aurelia’s eyes.

“Poor Katrina, always been scared of strangers.”

“She’s not really scared of them, per say,” Ethen corrected, “she actually really wants to get to know Faryn. I’m sure it’s just the introvert inside of her that’s making her want to hide and be alone.”

“Introvert? Katrina is the craziest, wildest, bubbliest little girl I know!” Aurelia protested.

“Just because a person is loud doesn’t make them extroverted, Auri,” Ethen gazed at her critically. “It’s simply where they feel comfortable investing their energy. There are social introverts, who most likely have a subdominant extrovert but their energy is often consumed after a lot of interaction and they’d prefer to go home to a nice room by themselves, there are interior introverts, introverts both dominant and subdominant, who really just dislike social interaction and prefer to hang out with a small group of intimate friends if they can’t be alone, and the same idea goes for extroverts.”

Fayrn scrunched up her face as she looked at the horse than she drew on the paper. “It’s nearly impossible to just make four categories of social energies and place people in them though, I feel like there’s also vulnerable and fluid introversion and extroversion, people who are one thing but wish they were the other but aren’t vulnerable or brave enough to try it.”

“I think that’s just an aspect of their personality, whether or not they’re shy or brave,” Ethen countered, “I feel like introversion and extroversion are state of beings that aren’t a reflection of what a person wants—it lives within them.”

“Well, we get to categorize and choose for our Earthlings, so it’ll be a lot easier then.” Aurelia nodded just as Katrina came tiptoeing back down the stairs.

Fayrn gave her widest smile. “Hi Katrina. Do you want to come judge my drawing?”

A slight smile rose on the young girl and Fayrn felt feathers tickle her heart. Katrina bounced down and looked at Fayrn’s drawing, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s ugly.”

The three students laughed as Katrina looked at them innocently.

“Don’t worry Kat, I’ve almost finished your princess and castle picture!”

Fayrn peered over at Aurelia’s drawing and felt chills crawl up her spine. It was beautiful: towering clouds shading a deep, pine forest that consumed a stone castle, and a princess at the very top, looking deep into the sky, her eyes shimmering with an almost-real nostalgia.

“That’s beautiful, Auri,” Fayrn breathed, captivated in the world as if she was in it.

Aurelia blushed and held out the picture, “It’s just a rough sketch, I’ll fix it and paint it for you tomorrow okay Kat?”

Katrina bounced up and down in excitement and dragged Aurelia out of her chair, yelling at her to come play with her puppets.

Fayrn looked happily as they disappeared up the stairs.

“Aurelia seems happy.”

“She is,” Ethen nodded. “And it’s nice to see my sister again.”

“She seems wonderful.”

There was almost pain in her voice, but she swallowed it down hoping Ethen wouldn’t hear the catch in her voice.

“She said if she wasn’t an author in the future she would want to work with animals.” Ethen smirked. “She’d make the best vet on Earth.”

“I’m sure she would.”

For some reason, Fayrn’s heart felt heavy. It almost felt like she was carrying regret, as if somehow Katrina’s broken dreams for the future was partially her fault.




The saffire night came quickly, hampering the sun’s efforts to cling onto life. Fayrn set marble plates on the dining table, food already steaming with heat as she finally took her place and started to eat.

“How was school today Katty?” Mrs. Schifrin broke the silence at the table.

“Good!” Katrina piped up. “We’re starting to learn some of the harder science, it’s going to be so interesting!”

Her mom laughed, “Sounds wonderful little lady, and how did your vocabulary exam go?”

Katrina’s eyes gleamed. “I only missed one!”

Fayrn listened to their exchange, wondering how different her life would have been if her mother and Laila would have such conversations at the dinner table.

“So, Fayrn, tell us a little bit about yourself!” Mr. Schifrin was a little older, short gray hairs puffing out from his mustache and sideburns.

Fayrn swallowed the beans she was chewing on and cleared her throat. “Well, I go to Honnsworth, obviously, and I have one sister who writes for Azure. I like writing, I suppose.”

Mrs. Schifrin was stuffing herself with mashed potatoes, nodding furiously.

“That’s excellent, very excellent, and how has Honnsworth been so far—Ethen, Aurelia?”

Ethen shrugged, “It’s our final year at Academy but nothing’s changed so far. Our teacher is pretty cool, and we’ve started writing with a Core.”

“Ah, yes, that’s quite crucial,” Mr. Schifrin wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Learning to work with your Core is awfully important, in fact, just today I got into a huge argument with one of our juniors, she thought she knew how to run things.” He snorted. “I’ve been writing for longer than she’s been alive, probably!”

Laughter rippled around the table.

“You know what happened to me today?” Mrs. Schifrin bumped in. “My human got to adopt a new dog!”

Katrina shrieked with excitement. “Oh Mommy you can’t make it die again after a week, you have to let him live!”

Mrs. Schifrin smiled. “Don’t worry Kat, our Core has decided that little Rolfy will be around for quite a while.”

Fayrn cocked her head, “I’m curious, Mrs. Schifrin, how does that work, with the animals? Do animals also get Ioskieans writing their lives?”

“Oh, no, deary, there’s definitely not that many Ioskieans to assign to every single living organism on Earth, so the animals, insects, they don’t get Ioskieans. That’s why they can’t think as humans do—because their subconscious is guiding them, and their conscious doesn’t think of much except for survival. Now, when a human takes on an animal as a pet or as part of the family, that’s when we have slight control over the conscious of the animals because we can write how our humans play with or train their animals to be slightly smarter. Does that make sense?”

Fayrn nodded. “I think that’s fascinating.”

Mr. Schifrin grunted, “It’s still a convoluted maze, the whole control over subconscious and conscious business, so I try and stay away as much as I can.”

The chatter that continued was small talk, nothing deep or riveting or engaging, but Fayrn found herself loving the exchange more than any other conversation she had ever had. She could sense the genuine interest, laughter, and love that filled the air between Ethen’s family.She would be lying if she said she wasn’t jealous, but at that moment, she truly felt like she belonged to part of a family, and that was good enough for her.





Chapter 9.




The return to Honnsworth came sooner than Fayrn expected. She was welcomed with dazzling colors of spring, but in the back of her mind, she missed the wafting candle scent of family. Re-entering class was a reminder that she was still training to be an author; that she had not yet been accepted into a Branch yet. She collected her book from the front of the classroom, since Dellum had taken them over the break to study and read the stories in depth.

“Welcome back everybody, I trust you all had safe and wonderful trips home.”

Fayrn narrowed her eyes curiously. There was a hint of some emotion in Dellum’s voice, something she couldn’t quite put her hand on. Irritation pricked her, she should be well-trained enough to pinpoint the emotion.

“We will start with another Abstract Concept and then move onto discussing plans for your Core for the remainder of the school year. Our next Concept is On Intelligence, Natural Talent, and Luck.”

Fatigue.

Fayrn’s eyes lit up as she finally identified it. Dellum had concealed it well, but there were little ticks that he couldn’t hide: the slight drag in his words, the faint bags under his eyes, the exhaustion that hid behind the light in his appearance. Why was Dellum fatigued? They had just gone on a long break, and she assumed he didn’t have a second job he was working; reading the stories shouldn’t have been that much work with so much time given.

Pushing the confusion out of her mind, Fayrn took out her notebook and began to scratch on the parchment, the feeling of writing almost new to her.

“Now, you all have learned that there is natural character and there is motivated character; how does this relate to intelligence and natural talent? Quite logically, actually. Intelligence can be considered a natural character, some people are born book smart or street smart, but intelligence can also be honed, shaped, and gained through motivated character, call it studying, working hard, learning. The same goes for talents: musical talents, dancing and singing, anything else that you all have learned. Now, what about this is abstract? It all seems pretty logical to me.”

Fayrn raised her hand, an answer suddenly striking her.

“Balance?”

She took Dellum’s silence as encouragement to continue talking.

“The mantra of life that we learned, balance, how we can create and shape our own human’s balance. When you pit natural character versus motivated character in the world it creates differences in people’s luck, fostering competition, differences in success, and oftentimes emotions such as jealousy, envy, ambition, inadequacy. This balance and unfairness, of those who have natural talent versus those who are pitted to work twice as hard to reap the same results is abstract in that way, I think.”

Dellum nodded approvingly. “Life is unfair. You all have realized this, having to sometimes pit unfortunate events, one after the other, at your humans while others live a life of luxury. Not every human can be successful, not every human can be the next president. There must exist bus drivers, there must exist plumbers and people who clean out sewers. This is all part of the balance. Now, whether these people are correlated with those who have natural talent or those who work hard is up to the logical connection you create in your human. Remember, create their Expectations, and then shape their Reality. If someone works hard all their life, logic tells you that their Reality will be shaped in reward. This is true for many cases, but play around with their balance; maybe, create a Reality so harsh that they end up failing anyways. Explore this in your next few chapters with your new characters.”

Fayrn thought about Aurelia: a girl with no natural inclination to be an author, but worked diligently every day of her life to try and improve. She deserved happiness.

The Core gathered together and began to discuss their ideas on how to incorporate the natural versus motivated Abstract Concept into each of their new humans. Fayrn thought of Mr. Hathor: smart, hard-working, and talented in public speaking and logical argumentation. She had to explore the failure that came even with his natural intelligence and hard work, the failure that was only rampant because of other humans, other lawyers that were smarter, faster, and luckier. Faryn stayed after class, planning with Skye to discuss how Leandro and Mr. Hathor would discuss the future of the firm, and later made her way back to Cespaturn. The grey clouds seemed to tower above her, threatening rain, but she made no haste as she returned to her room, where Aurelia and Ethen were waiting.

After dinner, Fayrn sat at her desk, stomach full with warm soup. She pulled forward her leather-bound book with all her notes and Core planning to begin writing on Mr. Hathor. Flipping through to find an empty page, Fayrn suddenly stopped. She turned back one page and blinked. She flipped backward another page, and then forward. Backward, forward.

Disbelief.

“Aurelia,” Fayrn sat forward and passed her notebook to the girl. “Some of my notes have been ripped out.”

“What?” Aurelia’s eyes widened with alarm, taking the book and flipping back and forth. “Do you remember what was on the pages?”

Fayrn nodded solemnly, disbelief beginning to turn into frenzy. “They were all the notes I took with Skye when we were discussing what Leandro and Hathor would say and do together. Auri, without those notes I’m not going to remember exactly what we wrote together.”

Panic.

Aurelia slid through the other pages. “There’s no evidence that any pages have been ripped out—the binding between these consecutive pages is clean. Are you sure they were in this notebook?”

“One hundred and fifty percent, Aurelia, I know where I take notes.” Fayrn clenched her fists. “This is Jackson, I just know it. He stopped changing up our plans a while ago, but now that Skye has Leandro and I have Hathor he knows he can sabotage me in this way. He must have snuck in our room while we were at dinner.”

“I believe you,” Aurelia nodded grimly. “We have to tell Dellum that he did this.”

Fayrn turned away. “Dellum would never believe us, there’s no evidence. Besides, Jackson is one of his star students and this would just look like me pinning an excuse on a scapegoat.”

“Can’t you ask Skye to see her notes?”

She shook her head. “Jackson’s obviously enlisted her, there’s no way she would help me. No, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ll just have to write as much as I can from memory.”

Your tricks won’t work, Jackson.



Dellum dismissed the class and Fayrn stood, stretching, her back aching from slouching all day. Dellum had just finished his lecture on the next Abstract Concept that he wanted the students to incorporate: On Grief and Suicide. The piles of leather notebooks were sitting in the front of the class for retrieval, designating that Dellum had finished reading over the newest updates.

“I would like to see Ms. King and Ms. Giometti in my office now please.” Dellum said, giving both the girls a sideways glance. Fayrn rolled her eyes at Skye. They had submitted their journals just days earlier and Fayrn had a strong idea where this was going.

She trudged into the office, Skye right behind her. Dellum strode to his chair and sat, picking up two leather bound journals on top of his desk.

“As both of you know, I’ve just finished reading the latest updates for the transitions. I have to say that most of the class did fairly well with the transitions. But there seems to be an apparent lack of correlation between your two stories of what occurred between Mr. Hathor and Mr. Leandro. Can one of you tell me why that is?”

Skye batted her eyelashes in confusion and turned toward Fayrn.

“I wrote everything like we planned. Did you?”

Fayrn shifted irritably in her shoes, suddenly feeling the heat of both gazes on her.

Mr. Dellum narrowed his eyes when Fayrn didn’t respond. “Thank you Skye, you may go.” He handed Skye her notebook and she bounced away happily, leaving Fayrn and Mr. Dellum in the silence.

“Ms. King?” He looked at her expectantly.

“I apologize if there was a mismatch in what Skye and I wrote,” Fayrn began slowly. “We didn’t plan to meet up until the night before it was due, for she was always busy at some party or something, and while we were meeting, I just, I probably forgot to write down some things to remember to include.”

She cast her eyes downward, grinding her teeth as she lied as smoothly as she could. She would not be someone who pointed fingers, especially since there was no evidence. Jackson wanted to play dirty, but she would not sink to his level.

“Ms. King, mismatching what you write is one of the most dangerous things that can happen in the Branches. It creates a disturbance on Earth of how things are portrayed—and events and interactions that happen. If you write something, a conversation, that Ms. Giometti did not include for Leandro, it is simply creating something in Hathor’s world that does not exist in Leandro’s world. Do you see the problem?”

Fayrn nodded solemnly.

“Also…” Dellum trailed off, frowning, and then shaking his head. “I want you to make sure this does not happen again.”

She nodded curtly, grabbed her notebook, and exited the classroom. Instead of taking the sidewalk to Cespaturn, Fayrn crossed the field and headed toward the little forest that was at the edge of the Academy. She gripped her notebook to her chest, trying not to feel the ire rising. Now Dellum thought she wasn’t a great cooperator with her Core, his recommendation for the Branches surely would mention that.

The closer she got to the little forest, the further she heard flutters of conversation, and she began to feel isolated and enclosed inside the nature; tranquil.

"You look beautiful this afternoon," she complimented the yellow flowers that bloomed by the edge of the oak trees. She turned to the other shriveled plants nearby that were barely popping out of the ground with dirt clinging onto the edges of the young leaves.

"Not your best day, but keep it up!" She was startled to see a squirrel munching nearby, unafraid as she passed. "Good evening master squirrel, I don’t mean to disturb."

You're mental Fayrn. Talking to plants and animals?

She found a patchy spot deep within the trees, covered by shade and slivers of sunlight that peeked through the leaves. Opening her leather bound book and taking out her favorite, orange colored pen, she lay on the grass and began to contemplate about grief and suicide for Mr. Hathor.

Jackson had characterized Mr. Hathor as confident, cocky, sure in his ways, master of the house, master of the business, a people person. Often, however, those who externally seemed so sure of themselves were internally at war with themselves, so they put up a mirage to hide their insecurities. Fayrn scribbled notes – explore insecurities. What were Hathor’s insecurities? Fear of failure – that was one that Jackson explored when he wrote about vulnerability. Fear of loss of masculinity – whatever that meant, Jackson had wrote it well. He talked about having to keep this image of a successful businessman, and having to sacrifice time with his daughter. Fear of dying alone. Fayrn penned this. Fear of loss of connection with daughter. Inability to open up to daughter. Fayrn felt a pang in her heart at the thought of Saffron. She bit her lip—Dellum was right— she had grown slightly attached to Saffron already, and Saffron wasn’t even a real human. Fayrn shook her head, clearing her thoughts.

Now, the tie from his insecurities to grief. An obvious one stared her in the face—the loss of his case, the firm, and the downfall of his profit—perhaps he gets fired. That would tie into his insecurity of being able to provide for himself, provide for Saffron, his worry about his image, his masculinity, his wealth. Fayrn nodded in satisfaction. She wanted to delve into this grief. She wanted to isolate Hathor —no, Fayrn shook her head and bit her lip in frustration. She wanted to tie in his loneliness with grief. Not physical loneliness, so he would still be in contact with his co-workers, simply his mental loneliness. Isolation from his daughter… or maybe not isolation from his daughter. Maybe confrontation. Confrontation about the divorce. Saffron wanting to live with her mother full time. Questioning him why he even wanted half of her if he ignored her all the time. Grief from lack of love. Grief from realization of loss of Mrs. Hathor. Inability to find another job. Suicide.

Her heart suddenly felt as if a thousand stones tied themselves to it. The process seemed too simple; she knew there were so many more emotions that went with it, so many more complex ideas that tied in actually carrying through suicide. But people constantly thought of it, Fayrn acknowledged, even if they didn’t carry it out, there was always the thought of “this would all be better if I was dead”. And that was the idea of suicide that Dellum wanted them to explore. Fayrn closed her eyes. What does grief feel like? It felt like that—a thousand stones tied to one’s heart. No, more than that— daggers puncturing each vein that allowed them to breathe. Fayrn thought of her mother. Izzy. Her sister. Aurelia’s parents. She closed the notebook and buried her head in her arms, ignoring the strands of grass that tickled her cheek. There was so much sadness in the world. So much grief. Was there even enough happiness to balance it out?

“Fayrn King?”

Fayrn jolted upwards, her heart jumping out of her chest. She sat up abruptly.

“Ethen? What in the—” Fayrn looked from left to right in surprise. They were far from the quad of dormitories, and Fayrn bumped into few people who knew her when she retreated to the forest in the past.

“Did you follow me here?”

Ethen raised his eyebrows. “I know I bother you a lot, but I don’t stalk people. I come to the forest sometimes to write. I’ve never seen you here before though.”

Fayrn shrugged, letting go her guard. “I used to come a lot in past years. But the start of this year...” she trailed off, searching for words. “I guess I just haven’t found the right time to come.”

Ethen shuffled his feet. “Mind if I join you? Or, I can find a different patch of the forest to write.”

Fayrn blinked. “Sure, you can join. Just be quiet, I’ve been thinking a lot.” Ethen sat where he stood and took out his leather notebook.

“Want to share some of those thoughts with me?” he asked quietly, keeping his head down.

Great, conversation. Fayrn was annoyed, admittedly, that she had come for quiet but now was striking a conversation with Ethen, but she paused.

“Not much,” she began, “just about grief and suicide for Mr. Hathor.”

Ethen looked sideways at her.

“Do you feel like it’s people’s fault if they don’t write as well just because they haven’t experienced a certain emotion?”

Fayrn’s eyes shifted back and forth. “It’s not their fault, but it definitely makes it easier for those who have experienced those emotions to write about it. I’d say in general emotions are universal and people can draw upon some experience in their life to channel the same feelings, even if it might not be as strong. And there are plenty of examples that don’t follow the correlation—people who have experienced such emotions sometimes aren’t necessarily better writers,” she paused, “are you thinking about Aurelia?”

Ethen grimaced. “Am I that obvious?” He sighed. “It’s just—I’ve lived a very privileged life. Both my parents are in great Branches and love each other and have been supportive of me, and I have an amazing little sister and we’re just one big happy family and nothing drastic has ever happened to me. I went through school as the popular guy who always had my group of friends, got the chicks I wanted and never had a broken heart, always excelled in grades, you know? And Aurelia, sweet Aurelia, who has been through so much pain and anguish in her life and still struggles to write, to put them all into words, while every story and life I write reaps praise from my professors and teachers, I just, I just don’t get it.”

Fayrn looked at Ethen steadily. “Just because one has been through a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that one knows how to put it into words. Sometimes, emotions are just meant to be felt and expressed through actions, and not words. The fact that you write well simply means you have enough natural talent and empathy within you to understand what others go through.”

Ethen nodded. “I know, I know. Sometimes I feel guilty, though, that our world is built around writing and amazing people like Aurelia have to suffer because of it. I wonder what it would be like if we were simply like Earth, and Ioskiea was just a world where people had jobs and got to choose what they did.” He grinned, “It’s strange thinking about myself being an engineer, but I think that’s something I would do. I know Aurelia would be an art teacher.”

Curiosity.

“I’d probably be a writer, regardless,” Faryn looked up at the sky, watching the clouds float steadily. “It would be weird not to life-write, though. Imagine what it would be like to be able to make your own world with whatever you want: dragons, magic, talking animals.” Her eyes glistened with excitement.

“Have you ever tried just writing whatever you wanted? Created your own world?”

Fayrn smiled faintly. “When I was young, still in Junior Academy, I wrote in my free time. I created this world called the Mirendelves, a group of twelve different animals that each had their own special power.”

“Did you ever finish the story?”

“No, I threw out the notebook long before I started Academy.”

Sad.

A boring description for such an emotion, Fayrn thought, but she wasn’t dismal or gloomy or downcast about her abrupt end of fantastical writing, she was simply, plainly, sad.

“This is what I mean,” Ethen’s voice turned crisp with an edge. “Life-writing consumes our life, we’ll barely have time to pursue any hobbies we might have had in Junior Academy when we get into the Branches. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we just quit Academy, quit the Branches.”

Alarm.

“I feel bad for those who don’t enjoy writing, and yes I do dream about writing stories other than Earthling’s lives, but this is how it’s always been,” Fayrn immediately responded, almost too harshly. “It’s our duty to write the lives of the humans on Earth, and those who complain need to toughen up and work hard to deal with it.”

“For such a bright minded and wise girl you seem pretty dumb about this.”

Ethen’s reply stunned Fayrn—she flushed from the compliment but felt heated at the offense.

“Dumb about what? Being aware that we have to make sacrifices for the lives of those on Earth? That I’m not selfish enough to do a job that I want and instead I do what we have to do?”

“You don’t think you’re being selfish because you like writing! If you didn’t, you would feel the same way that Aurelia and others feel—wondering why they’re writing the lives of humans on Earth and not living their own! Maybe you don’t care because you’ve never even had a life before writing and don’t want one! All you care about is getting into a Branch and it’s been driving you your entire life!”

Hot tears stung Fayrn’s eyes as Ethen finished, his words scalding. She breathed hard and fast. The words returned—her mother’s words: yelling, storming.

Inadequate.

All she ever wanted to prove was that she wasn’t inadequate.

Fayrn guessed none of it mattered anymore.

Heartbeats of silence passed, gentle breeze the only faint whistle between them.

“I’m sorry Fayrn. Didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

Fayrn looked up and smiled sadly. “No, Ethen, you’re right. It’s hard for me not to be consumed with making it into Afloria or Heliv. It’s what our society has taught us, pushed us to achieve for. And with my family,” Fayrn stopped and put her hands on her forehead. Her voice broke and she had to stop and swallow, wait for the trembling to pass.

With my family, she wanted to say, I’m sorry that I never got to know my estranged father. I’m sorry that I grew up with a mother who barely had time to care for her children, who forced us to fight for ourselves, a mother whose goal in life was to make me feel insignificant. I’m sorry that writing was maybe the only thing I’ve ever felt decent at so I want to try and make myself a dream, a goal, something I want to do for myself in life.

The trembling did not pass, and Ethen’s eyes rounded with empathy.

“I’m worried about Aurelia.” Ethen shifted the subject and Fayrn was grateful. She was not in a state to be vulnerable. “All this thinking about grief and suicide and her parents…”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same, actually.” Fayrn nodded, coming back to her normal self. “I’ll keep an eye on her when I can, and I know you care a lot about her.”

Ethen smiled. “Sorry for causing such a ruckus in your peaceful afternoon. I had no suchintentions. And Faryn, I’m always here if you want to talk about anything, even though I know you secretly hate me and all that.”

Fayrn saw the twinkle in his eyes and she made a sour face at him before reopening her leather notebook.

The two wrote for the rest of the afternoon. When the sun dipped behind the hills and the two packed and headed toward the dining hall, Fayrn’s heart felt a little bit lighter than when she came.







Chapter 10.

Professor Dellum stood at the front of class, hands clasped together in an orderly manner.

“Class, it has been a quick couple of weeks, and there are only two fleeting months left till your final examinations and application to the Branches. Now, we will do mock interviews and practice exams before so you will be fully prepared for the exams. Let’s focus on finishing out the year strong. I’d like to introduce our final Abstract Concept: On Religion and Fate.”

Fayrn scribbled the words at the top of her notebook, questions immediately spewing from her mind. Dellum stood by the board and wrote the word ‘religion’ in bold, black letters.

“What is religion? What is religion used for?” Dellum challenged the classroom.

One girl in the far right corner raised her hand.

“A fundamental set of beliefs and practices agreed upon by a number of persons about the state of the universe and the conduct of human affairs.”

“Yeah, we all know how to look words up on the online dictionary, Selena,” Jackson muttered, loud enough for the class to chuckle and Selena to blush furiously.

Dellum raised his eyebrows. “Thank you for setting the foundation of what we know about religion, Ms. Millhot. Mr. Dawe, since you seem to be competent at explaining the meaning of these concepts, why don’t you give it a shot?”

Faryn couldn’t help turning to meet Aurelia’s and Ethen’s gaze and they smirked at each other. In the past few weeks, she had grown closer to Aurelia and Ethen. At first, she had only accompanied Aurelia to her little parties and movies because she didn’t want Aurelia to think that she disliked her company. However, with Ethen tagging along and the two always joking around, she gradually found herself smiling unconsciously around the both of them. Eventually, she began to look forward to spend time with the two. With every laugh, with every inside joke, Fayrn felt she was finding herself.

Jackson stood and Faryn looked at him expectantly.

Let’s hear great things, Mr. Dawe.

“Religion is more than just a fundamental set of beliefs, I think,” he started, referring to Selena’s set definition. “It’s a way of life, a code of living, not just believing. It’s about putting faith into something that nobody has really seen or proven. It takes a certain vulnerability, I think, to be able to just put yourself out on the line and believe in something.”

Dellum nodded approvingly and even Faryn shrugged in concession.

“Impressive connection to vulnerability, Mr. Dawe. Anybody else want to add?”

Ethen’s hand shot up.

“Religion is what people turn to in order to seek for an explanation for many things that don’t have explanations in their world. One thing humans fear most is the lack of knowledge, the lack of understanding the unknown. They turn to religion as an answer to those unknowns and that mollifies the fears. It’s also about blame—humans like to seek something to pin wrongdoings on when things go south, a scapegoat. Many people blame their God for many happenings on Earth, but in balance, they also give God the credit when good things happen. Either way, it’s putting their lives in the hands of a higher power so they are not held accountable for anything, which sometimes can be a sign of invulnerability.”

Dellum smiled. “Religion: vulnerable or invulnerable? I want you all to start thinking about the connections between these Abstract Concepts.”

Faryn pursed her lips in thought. Religion. She always thought that it was a complex idea, when they were introduced to it years before. They had learned most if not all the religions that the humans on Earth practiced. She agreed that it took vulnerability to believe in something— a certain risk and life-on-the-line attitude that many put their hopes and faith in. Yet, it was dangerous, and there definitely was a lack of accountability; Ethen was right. When people start letting their God take credit for both joyful things and unfavorable events, there could be a certain invulnerability about shame, regret, and pride. It would be more vulnerable to own up to whatever went right or wrong in life and form actions based on that. Of course, as the students learned in Academy, it depended on what the human believed in. But some things truly aren’t always about accountability, Fayrn argued against herself, sometimes it was simply the luck of the world, what some people believed was fate. Fayrn sat up straighter when her thoughts hit the second key word in the Abstract Concept.

“Listen up, Core,” Jackson raised his voice as he addressed the team. “What’s the next step? Right now I have Saffron in conflict with her dad about living with her mom full time, but we need to think about how to include this next Concept.”

“It’s a little queer to suddenly bring up religion, especially since we didn’t establish a religion for the characters in the first place.” Skye attempted to contribute.
Fayrn barely acknowledged Skye. “Well we were supposed to, because that’s one of the main rules we learned about initial human characterization, Skye.”

Skye looked up dumbly at the ceiling. “Oh yeah, I forgot about all those rules.”

Fayrn saw Aurelia nervously slide her glasses up her nose beside her and knew she must have forgotten as well. She didn’t truly blame the girls, however, since there were always so many rules to keep up with. Fayrn simply had them memorized from all her exams in the past few years.

“Religion ties a lot into fate and vulnerability,” Ethen pondered, steering the conversation back to the Abstract Concept. “So I think we can definitely tie that in.”

“Ms. King, after your discussion I’d like to see you in my office, please.”

Fayrn closed her eyes and attempted to hold in a huff of breath as Mr. Dellum passed their group and strode to his office. She wanted to wipe off Jackson’s smug smile. Grabbing her bag and sighing at Aurelia and Ethen, she heaved herself to the office, now a familiar sight for her.

Mr. Dellum clasped his hands together at his desk quietly.

“Ms. King, I noticed this early on but thought it might have been simply a bad day, or a bad week, so I decided not to bring it up until now.”

Fayrn felt a sinking feeling within her as her teacher continued.

“I’m not usually one to comment on my student’s writing, but I have noticed that the, quality and precision of your writing has been slowly diminishing over time. Now, because you are one of my best students, I wanted to make sure that you haven’t been slacking on your writing since final exams are around the corner and I need to be sure when you get into the Branches your quality of writing will be as it was at the beginning of the year.”

Fayrn blinked. What did he say? She frowned. That couldn’t be right, her writing couldn’t have had a dip in quality. Fayrn sat down, beginning to feel dizzy. Now, her recommendation would simply not allow her to make Afloria. Ethen’s words echoed in her head, but she pushed them away.

“Sorry Mr. Dellum, that’s a disappointment to myself as well. It’s been a hard month,” she paused, suddenly feeling an urge to tell him what happened. “My mother died just recently, from Alzheimer’s, and I think ever since then I’ve had this lack of focus. Also, I’m really worried about Aurelia so I’ve been editing her writing and tutoring her. I’m sorry if I haven’t had the same time to devote to my writing.”

Vulnerable.

It was one of the few times she actually felt the emotion, the state of exposure, deep in her words, her mind, her heart. She had never been so instantly vulnerable with anybody; perhaps since Dellum was an authority figure, almost a mentor, she felt more at peace with telling him.

Mr. Dellum nodded at her. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother. If you need some time off, you can always file a request with the Academy. Take time to explore the grief within yourself, for if you push it away, it will simply return to haunt you. With Aurelia, I want you to encourage her to come talk to me so that you can also focus on yourself. I think it’s a brave and kind thing to be helping her; she’s lucky to have you as a friend. She won’t be getting this type of help in the Branches, though, and needs to learn to be an independent writer. Be careful what you’re letting her get used to. You’re free to go.”

Fayrn stood and turned to leave, but paused.

“Sorry, sir, if I’m not taking up too much of your time, I just had a quick question about the Abstract Concept we discussed today in class. The humans on Earth believe in so many different types of Gods. But, in a way, aren’t we their God? We basically control their fate.”

Professor Dellum motioned for Fayrn to sit. “A God is a figure that someone chooses to believe in, not necessarily someone who truly controls the ropes. As the artists of the Earthling’s lives, we can choose what they believe in, but we ourselves are unknown to them.”

“Their fate is written out for them, but they don’t know that,” Fayrn murmured.

“Precisely. The humans live immersed in the unknown, remember. They think they have free will, and in a way they do, especially in the unconscious, but it is up to us to lead them through lives, with or without a religion or God they want to believe in.”

Fayrn looked up sharply. “Who’s our God?”

Mr. Dellum shifted. “Pardon?”

“The humans have Jesus Christ, and Allah, and Buddah, and so much more. No Ioskieans believe in any of those. Do we even have religion? What is our God? The Ocrorix? We believe in everything they do for us, we pray to them, even though some of us have never even seen them, we believe that they exist and are watching us, are they God?”

Fayrn almost jumped as she saw a shadow pan Mr. Dellum’s eyes. His muscles tightened and the blood running through his veins seemed to surge.

“Professor?” She lowered her voice, afraid she had said something that offended him.

He looked up, and his jaw was still clenched.

“That’s a good question, Fayrn. Are they your God?”

Faryn was startled by his sudden change in tone.

“Well,” she began, attempting to be neutral. “Usually people believe in things that they’re not sure if they exist or not. I’m pretty sure the Ocrorix exist since, well, people like you and Soldiers and Doctors work directly under their orders. So, I think they’re more just like the presidents or leaders of Ioskiea rather than Gods.”

“And do you think they make good leaders?”

Shock.

Fayrn narrowed her eyes. What? She knew that Dellum wanted all his students to think critically, but questioning the authority of the Ocrorix was beyond ordinary.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” she stumbled on her words as she stood. “I promised some friends I’d meet them later, thanks for letting me know about my writing and I’ll try my best to get back to normal.”

She found herself walking too quickly, almost stumbling, on her way out.





“He asked you what?” Aurelia shoved a mouthful of her hamburger into her mouth.

“Keep it down!” Fayrn hissed, spinning sideways to see if anybody was listening. Fortunately, the dining hall was lively with chatter. “You didn’t hear me wrong. He actually seemed to change after I brought up the Ocrorix.” She sipped on her lemonade.

“That’s impossible. Dellum works for the Ocrorix. He would never question their leadership.” Aurelia shook her head and shoved a few fries after her hamburger.

“Do you think he was pushing you for an opinion on the Ocrorix?” Ethen looked concerned. “Maybe trying to test if you were loyal or not?”

“He definitely questioned my opinion on them, especially if they were good leaders. His tone was harsh, almost accusing. I tried to stay neutral when I did talk about them though.”

“I think you both are taking this out of context. Just because Dellum works for them doesn’t mean he necessarily has to like them. Maybe the Ocrorix just shortened a term of his teaching or something and he has beef with them. Just relax.” Aurelia waved her hand fleetingly at Fayrn and Ethen sitting opposite her.

Fayrn exchanged a glance with Ethen and knew he was just as bit uncomfortable with Dellum’s sudden reaction, but the two fell silent.




The door swung open and Fayrn strode in, boots clicking on the marble floor. She gripped her leather bound notebook to her chest, squeezing it tightly. In the past week, she had written a healthy and powerful chapter of Mr. Hathor’s exploration of Religion and Fate, and she was sure Dellum would be impressed. She looked up and stopped in her tracks. At the front of the classroom was an old man with frail, grey hair, saggy skin, and thin black glasses that sat at the very tip of his nose. Stunned, Fayrn sat down and exchanged glances with Ethen and Aurelia.

“I know, don’t even say anything,” Aurelia immediately jumped in, shifting eyes to the old man at the front of the classroom, “I’m hoping that Dellum just caught a bad case of the flu.”

Fayrn felt her heart pounding. It had to just be a substitute teacher. Usually, Dellum announced to the class when he would be gone, which was extremely rare, but it was even less likely that he would quit in the middle of the school year.

“Attention class!” The old man cleared his throat, his words a grumble. Audible whispers scattered around the room and students glanced at each other nervously. “My name is Mr. Mathews, and I will be in for Mr. Dellum for today.”

“Where’s Dellum?” shouted a student from the back and Mr. Mathews whipped his head around, scowling.

“I will not tolerate wild behavior. Where Mr. Dellum is is none of your business, it is completely his. Now get out your notebooks and start writing this prompt that Dellum left behind: What is the role of fate and destiny in your life? Do you believe that someone else controls it, do you even believe that you can control it?”

The prompt was powerful, but the way Mr. Mathews read it made it seem like he was asking the class to do chores. The scowl he wore seemed to be sewn to his face.

“I expect to see three whole pages done by the end of class. If you finish early you are to be working on your yearly project. And absolutely no speaking whatsoever.”

Fayrn exchanged glances with Ethen and Aurelia and they all shivered, bug-eyed at the sudden strictness.

Fayrn perched on the desk, elbows propped up as she began to think about the prompt. Destiny— something she believed seemed like an end-goal, something that people were bound to do in the future, meant to do, based on their actions, their hopes, their dreams. With a pang, she remembered Ethen’s confrontation about the fact that all Ioskieans were meant to be writers. Then, there was fate, which seemed more like what was out of control, what the universe had planned in general. Fayrn believed her destiny was to be a writer, and it was fate that brought her and Aurelia together as roommates. But was it really? For humans on earth, their “fate” was simply controlled by the hands of the Ioskieans. But of course, the Earthlings didn’t know that; they assumed that their fate was simply the nature of the universe playing out. Fayrn considered her own fate. Assuming that there wasn’t simply a chain of universes writing each other’s lives, she frowned at the thought, then technically, her fate was truly just the universe throwing dice together. But her destiny was controlled, in a constrained manner, by the Ocrorix. The Ocrorix. For a moment, Fayrn recalled her conversation yesterday with Mr. Dellum. An uneasy feeling churned in her stomach.




“Yes, Ms. King, Mr. Schifrin, Ms. Laliv, come on in.”

Mr. Dellum opened the door to his office and Fayrn stepped in, tentatively, Aurelia and Ethen following her lead.

Eyes downcast, sadness. Saggy bags of skin, slur of words, fatigue. Slouch in walk, defeat. Crinkled t-shirt, impassiveness.

Fayrn made the mental notes. Ethen brushed her shoulder and from making eye contact she could tell he had also noticed. Dellum had been gone for a week, and Mr. Mathews refused any acknowledgement of why Dellum was out.

“What can I do for you three? Besides being behind on reading the stories, I will get to that, no worries.” Dellum waved his hand in the air.

“We just wanted to stop by and say that we’re really glad that you’re back and we’re sorry to bother you at I’m sure such a busy time for you to catch up,” Aurelia blurted, clutching Ethen’s hand and attempting to drag him back to the door.

Dellum looked dumbfounded at the usually quiet girl’s outburst.

“Well thank you, Ms. Laliv. I look forward to seeing you all in class tomorrow.” Dellum looked at them expectantly.

“Actually, I had a question, if you’re not too busy.”

Fayrn wasn’t sure what prompted her to speak out; Ethen and Aurelia were already halfway out of the office.

“I was wondering, sir,” she continued,“Actually I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time; I’m curious about impact that genetics have, or ought to have, on our humans.”

Dellum paused from shuffling around his papers and looked up at Fayrn, eyebrows furrowed. Fayrn took his silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“I mean, genetics is a large portion of our lives, influencing physical attributes and maybe even personalities. If we get to write our humans the way we want, and basically create their personality, give or take what we’re given about them in the beginning, how are we sure how to incorporate genetics into it, assuming correlation with the Core parents, and what degree of freedom are we given in order to align with genetics and to deviate from it when it comes to personalities?”

Dellum smiled, a tired smile, and Fayrn felt her heart lift in hope. She had been thinking about the relation of genetics to their writing for a while, ever since Aurelia metnioned it, but never really thought about asking Dellum till later on. If she could use it to get Dellum to open up, however, perhaps it was time.

“Ms. King, you have such a bright mind,” Dellum sighed and sat down, motioning for the students the sit. “The truth is, we’re not exactly sure the relation between genetics and personality yet, so our writers are allowed a good amount of freedom for personality as of now and we’re letting the scientists and researchers on Earth hang on a branch for a little bit of time, until we ourselves discover the relation and can write according to what we know. You learned, I think in grade eight, that it was best to follow a correlation of parents’ behaviors; if the mother has a terrible temper and the father has a wonderful disposition it would be logical if the child picked up on either one of those, or a mix — now you know why.”

Fayrn nodded, but frustration was welling inside her. It was hard not to get answers to all these unknowns.

“How about disease?” Ethen piped up. “Diseases can be genetically inherited,” he paused, and he asked a question Fayrn immediately thought of, “How do we write the life of a human with a mental illness or developmental disorders, Professor? We were never taught. I mean, we learned about their symptoms and causes, but to write the life, the thoughts, of a human with Autism? Down’s? I feel it’s an arduous task that we’re not able to tackle without experience or practice.”

Professor Dellum sighed. “It’s not in the curriculum to be taught in Academy. I’ve pushed for it to be in grade thirteen for many years, but the Ocrorix has yet to yield.”

Fayrn narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t they teach us?”

Dellum shrugged. “I suppose they believe that those writers who are assigned such humans can take workshop classes in their Branches, since they want the fundamentals of general life writing to be taught first. Writing lives is one of the most arduous tasks ever.”

There was a moment of silence, and Fayrn was about to suggest the three take their leave, but Aurelia cautiously raised her hand.

“Professor, how does an Ioskiean with a mental illness or developmental disorder write the life of an Earthling?” she barely squeaked out the words.

Fayrn felt her heart skip a beat. That was a thought she had never considered. Here she and Ethen were, consumed with questions about how to write the life of a human, and Aurelia flipped the idea. Surely it was possible for Ioskieans with certain mental illnesses to still become writers despite its complexity? Write some of the simpler lives— toddlers, perhaps, and then pass on their books to other Ioskieans once their Earthling became old enough for independent critical thought. Fayrn nodded internally, that must be how it was done. She looked up at Professor Dellum, waiting for him to confirm her speculation.

Fayrn felt her breath cut off. Tears were streaming down Dellum’s face, and he began to sob uncontrollably.

Shock.

Her whole body froze, pricks of ice shooting up her arm. She turned toward Ethen, wide-eyed, and he was also visibly shaken by Dellum’s reaction. Aurelia rushed to grab a box of tissues and pushed them toward Dellum, who took a few and blew on them furiously.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled through the tissues. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, it was my fault for asking,” Aurelia said, eyes widening in fear and concern. “We’ll leave you if you’d like.”

“No, stay.” Dellum wiped the edges of his eyes and sighed. “I’m sure I can trust the three of you with this knowledge.”

Fayrn sat at the edge of her seat, tense. Dellum picked up one of the photographs on his desk, the one Fayrn had noticed much earlier in the year of him and the young, chubby boy. It had been so long ago since Fayrn had seen the photos that she had almost forgotten them.

“This is Dalton Dellum, my son. Right now, he’s in grade eight. He’s sixteen years of age. He’s been repeating grade years for some time because,” Dellum paused, his voice catching, Fayrn felt an overwhelming grief overcome her. “He has Down’s syndrome.”

Fayrn felt her heart, her body, trembling. She heard Aurelia gasp, saw Ethen’s muscles tense next to her.

“I’m so, so sorry Professor,” Aurelia whispered.

“How, how has he been doing at school? Is he enrolled in an Academy for next year?” Fayrn questioned, voice wavering.

Dellum looked at her with dull eyes. “The Ocrorix won’t let anybody with a developmental disorder enroll in Advanced Academy. They’ve done tests on him, says that he’ll never have the capability to be an author— that there’s too many Abstract Concepts and critical thinking to be understood.” Suddenly, his voice began to harden. “I know that Dalton is intelligent though, and he has every capability to write and be an author, if not for the older Earthlings then at least for the younger ones. This last week I went to speak against the Ocrorix, wanting to present them evidence that Dalton has every right to be enrolled in Academy. I even started teaching Dalton at home by myself early this year, letting him practice life-writing.” He pulled a folder from the bottom of his desk and opened it, revealing several sheets of crumpled papers with sloppy handwriting on it. Fayrn’s pulse quickened and she shifted eyes quickly at Ethen and Aurelia. The sheets looked the same as the paper that Ethen had stolen, the same one that Fayrn had said was a terrible writer. Guilt and grief consumed her and she suddenly felt dizzy from the confrontation.

“I know you all have seen a paper like this; these are what Dalton wrote. Not bad for a young kid with Down’s, huh? It shows so much potential. But the Ocrorix wouldn’t listen. They’re putting him down once he finishes eighth.” Dellum hung his head.

“Putting him down? You just mean not allowing him to be in Academy right?” Ethen pressed. Dellum’s silence gave him the answer.

“That’s terrible. What does the Ocrorix gain by killing these kids?” Aurelia was horrified, as if her God had just been proven to be unjust and unreal.

“The Ocrorix strongly believe that developmental and mental diseases are evolution’s natural way of keeping order within society; it’s natural selection, survival of the strongest.”

“There must be a way for Dalton to stay,” Fayrn said, gritting her teeth. “Convince the Ocrorix to let him stay in Junior Academy and help with the Soldier janitorial staff, or something. Anything they need simple man power for.”

Dellum shook his head. “I’ve tried, but they have a system for that. They have a set number of pre-selected, pre-trained Soldiers partitioned out. Besides, this is what society is. They’ve been killing off the mentally ill for decades, generations. Why should Dalton suddenly be an exception?” His eyes were now downcast. “I’m sorry for troubling you three with the grim knowledge of what has been tormenting me for the past many months. You may all just pretend like nothing happened and I look forward to reading your stories.” He was cordial now, back to being the Dellum they knew.

“Professor, let us take him.”

Fayrn blurted out the suggestion without thinking. She began to piece the details together as she continued speaking.

“Once we finish grade thirteen, we’ll be off to the Branches. We’ll be able to have our own apartments, or houses, where nobody else lives. Let me take him to live with me, and you can just tell the Ocrorix that he fell to his death in an accident. Soldiers might keep an eye on your house, your family, but they’ll never even come close to me.”

Ethen and Aurelia were looking at Fayrn, shocked.

“Fayrn you know this means going behind the Ocrorix,” Aurelia whispered.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Fayrn pushed Dellum, whose eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought. “You can come visit him too, and I’ll promise to take care of him.”

Dellum sighed. “I’m not sure if this is worth putting up a fight and endangering your career, Fayrn, but I’ll think about it. There’s some time before the end of the school year. Thank you.”

The three friends left the office, stones of sadness tied to the soles of their feet.




They ate dinner in silence. They barely touched their food, forks scraping the potatoes and spoons stirring the soup aimlessly.

“Let’s just try not to think about this for now, alright?” Aurelia said, keeping her voice as positive as possible. “We should focus on getting into a good Branch, and then we can work on keeping Dalton alive.”

“Yeah, that’s a good plan. I’m pretty sure everything will turn out okay. There’s no way the Ocrorix would ever do anything drastic to us even if they did find him with us.” Ethen nodded.

The three trudged back to Cespaturn and the girls parted ways with Ethen.

“I don’t really understand why the Ocrorix still make us stay in Academy and take the exam if we know that we don’t want to be authors,” Aurelia complained as she sat at her desk and pulled out her notebook.

“It’s definitely to encourage people to stay authors.” Fayrn nodded, folding her clothes and placing them in drawers. “If they let anybody drop out of Academy when they wanted and switch to being Soldiers, Doctors, or Teachers, we’d barely have any writers.”

Aurelia bit her lip. “I wonder how they decide who gets to be Soldiers. What if I don’t get picked?”

Fayrn cocked her head. “I assume there’ll be a separate evaluation and entrance exam for that. I believe in you, Aurelia. I’m sure you will make it.”

She sighed, tugging at the edge of her hair. “I wish I could be an amazing writer like you and Ethen. It would make life on here so much easier.”

Inadequate.

Fayrn shrugged. “I like writing, that’s different than being good at it.”

“Could you help me outline this next part for Mrs. Hathor?”

“Of course.” Fayrn dragged her chair next to Aurelia’s desk, and for the first time in a long time, she felt a freedom from the need to perfect her own writing, and instead, just a desire to spend time and help her friend.





Chapter 11.

Anxious.

The emotion seemed to consume her everywhere, from the soles of her feet to the strands of hair on her head. Her heart pounded fiercely, drums of nerves coming together in an almost irregular rhythm. Her palms were oozing sweat, and no matter how many times she slid them against her legs, sweat continued to stream. Fingers tapped against the side of her leg, impatient as the exams were passed out. Today was the written portion of the exam and tomorrow, the interview. She fought the urge to chew the edge of her pencil, knowing that she had prepared and studied long for this final exam. She turned to the right to meet eyes across the room with Ethen, and he looked too calm. Aurelia was sitting behind her to the left, and she gave her a quick smile for encouragement, for she was most likely ten times as nervous. From the corner of her eye, Fayrn saw Izzy’s curly, blonde hair many rows ahead of her and she sighed. The final weeks leading up to the final exam seemed like a blur— days cooped up in the room reviewing years and years of notes, finishing up their final project for Dellum and trying to channel an understanding of as many of the Abstract Concepts as possible, all while keeping Dalton out of her mind.

A thick packet slid in front of her and Fayrn took a deep breath, filling out her name and identification information. All the teachers who taught thirteenth grade lined up at the front of the class, a large eight written on the black board of the large lecture hall to signal the time.

The clock began to tick and the unitary sound of the front page flipping echoed through the hall.

Inadequate.

Not today. Fayrn nodded to herself and turned to the first page.

The first few questions were simple: facts and rules she had memorized to heart. Natural versus motivated character, attachment to human, logic, self-attachment to Earthling, law of emotions; the basic rules governing human nature: birth, sickness, marriage, death, education, work, heartbreak and relationships; typical events that most humans went through; knowledge on each different religion, culture, disease, government, crime, and occupation. Then there were some of the harder questions, asking for emotion identification given certain scene sketches and challenging relation situations where a multiple choice response would determine the result of the scenario.

Four hours passed, hitting the halfway mark, and Fayrn put down her third pencil, its tip dull. She picked up her fourth pencil, six more lined up behind it, and plunged into the next question.

There are a bounty of emotions in the human life. Pick one that you believe is one of the most important emotions and explain.

They wanted her to pick the most important emotion? Fayrn felt torn. Emotions themselves were intertwined, incorporated together. There wasn’t exactly one important emotion. Happiness? Sorrow? Anger? Fayrn tipped her head, knowing that those three would be among the most popular answers. She wanted hers to be unique, to be different, yet also be prevalent, real, integral to human life. Could there be a wrong answer if she justified it enough? She turned the page to peek at the next question.

What is the mantra of life?

Fayrn smirked, distinctly recalling the first day of class where Jackson and the entire class was lectured for their lack of knowledge. She knew she would be able to write extensively on balance and how as the author, she controlled the balance of her human.

Write a short story, maximum of ten pages, of any human you’d like, incorporating one of the Abstract Concepts. Write the chosen concept at the top of the page.

Finally. Fayrn smiled through her fatigue. This was what Dellum had been preparing them for the entire year. Mentally, she perused the Abstract Concepts they were thought. Something that didn’t seem too popular as a choice, but one that she still cared about.




When the clock struck the eight hour mark, Faryn’s booklet was already closed, sitting quietly on the edge of her desk, ready for collection. All six of her wooden pencils had dull tips, eraser ends shaved and worn down. She thought back to her last sentence and felt a twinge of anxiety; she could have used a better word for sad, she must have missed a comma, she should have switched the middle two words.

Enough. A surge of power shot through her. It’s over.

She stood and moved into the line of students exiting the building. Once outside, everybody burst into lively chatter about the exam, some excited and others angry. Fayrn saw Aurelia and Ethen moving to the side and she shoved her way between students to catch up to them.

“Hey! How’d it go?”

Anxiety bled through Aurelia’s eyes. “I have to take the Soldier exam tomorrow before my interview and I feel like somehow I’ll screw that up more than I just screwed up this test!”

“Aurelia, it’s tomorrow, and you’ll do fine. They won’t test you on anything really, it’s just an evaluation of your personality to see if you’re fit to be a Soldier.” Ethen patted her on the shoulder and Fayrn gave her a quick squeeze.

“Don’t think about what we just took! It’s done, it’s over.”

“What Abstract Concept did you pick to write about?” Ethen asked as they made their way toward Cespaturn. “I picked On Grief and Suicide and I wrote about a child with a developmental disorder.”

Fayrn almost stopped walking. “You did what?” she hissed, alarm flaring through her. “Ethen, we were never taught how to write the life of a special needs child.”

“So?” Ethen met her gaze challengingly. “If they never taught us, they can’t expect me to write it perfectly, so it gives me more leeway in judgement. Besides, that’s not the point. The Ocrorix will be reading these and they ought to get an idea that special needs humans are first and foremost humans with lives. They experience things like grief, especially when they’re sentenced to their death. Sound familiar?”

Fayrn shook her head, “To suggest that you have knowledge that the Ocrorix are doing such things is a dangerous move, and I’m sure they’ll feel a little threatened.”

“You know, Faryn, I’m surprised you even offered to help Dellum with Dalton, it seems you’re too good to even risk getting in trouble with the Ocrorix; watch out they might even drop you from Afloria to Heliv!”

Fayrn clenched her jaw in fury. “I know the difference between reckless stupidity and making a meaningful difference, thanks, and just because you have no goals in life because you don’t know the value of hard work due to your privileged life doesn’t mean that you have to keep mocking the fact that I aspire to be a great writer, and yes, I do want to get into Afloria and there’s nothing wrong with that, and there’s absolutely no correlation between looking out for a friend or wanting to be a good writer and being a stickler for the rules.”

Fayrn took a breath and turned away from Ethen, afraid she would continue to explode about things that weren’t even related, like her mother always thinking she was inadequate and her sister never being there for her and Izzy betraying her and forgetting her like she was nobody and how she helped Aurelia every single night and if she was really selfish and only thought about Afloria she wouldn’t do that.

“Would you guys like to grab dinner?” Aurelia looked nervously from side to side, attempting to change the subject.

“I’m okay I have no appetite,” Fayrn refrained from snapping.

“You’ve got to be hungry after the eight hour exam, Fayrn. Come with us.” Ethen’s voice was low and strained, almost apologetic. She caught his glance and sighed, submitting silently as they turned toward the dining hall.

Fayrn kept her eyes trained on her food, refusing to look up at Ethen while Aurelia was away getting food. Anger still seethed within her skin.

“Fayrn, please. You know I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” she mumbled half-heartedly.

“You’re right you know, there’s no correlation between wanting to succeed and being a stickler for the rules. I only ever was teasing you.”

Fayrn tipped her head to the side. “Yeah, I know, but sometimes I can’t help but think that you’re right, that my life should have more meaning than just getting into a Branch.”

Ethen shrugged. “It’s just about what you value. Some people value their independence, value their jobs because they enjoy it and are successful in it. For others, they might value family, love, relationships.”

Fayrn scrunched up her face. “Somehow, the latter seems to be the morally right value to prioritize.”

Ethen shrugged. “Both exist in the world and it creates that balance that we learned about. If everybody valued the latter, we would have little of the former which would be terrible. If everybody valued the former, then we would have none of the latter, which also is an essential part of life.”

Fayrn smiled, her traces of resentment beginning to fade. “I can always count on having a wise, deep discussion with you.”

Aurelia returned with a plateful of food, and the three fell into a normal conversation. Fayrn watched Aurelia and Ethen as they conversed, and couldn’t help but wonder if she truly valued her own success at Afloria compared to having wonderful friends like them.




Fayrn stood in front of the double doors, waiting for the signal to go in. She dug her nails into her palm, ignoring the sharp bursts of pain. Was it normal for an interview to be this long? The student in front of her was running twenty minutes over. Finally, the doors swung open and he walked out.

“Jackson?” Fayrn gaped.

He smirked, giving her a salute. “Good luck in there, soldier. I set the bar.”

And he was gone. Fayrn cursed internally as she walked in, nerves rising through her chest.

A spotlight shone on a metal chair in the middle of a large, square, room. In two of the corners she could make out the shadows of two people with large notebooks, pencils scratching paper nonstop. She took a seat, and waited silently.

Steadfast.

“Fayrn King?”

“That’s me.”

“Great. We’ve just finished looking over your exam and this’ll be quick so just take a breath.”

The female voice sounded warm, welcoming.

“You attended Honnsworth for all your Academy years, is that correct?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Wonderful grades, and very impressive recommendation from your most recent Professor.”

Fayrn almost let out a breath of relief. She sent a silent thanks to Dellum.

“Ms. King, what two qualities do you believe you can bring to your Branch?”

Fayrn was anticipating this question—Dellum had included this in his practice interviews. In class, she had answered passion, more specifically her passion for writing, and industriousness. Combined, the two qualities made a lethal force.

She opened her mouth to begin with passion, but stopped, something popping into her mind at the last minute.

“Empathy.”

The word felt right slipping off her tongue, so she continued, “Writing accurately and being able to feel the emotions that we try and instill in the Earthlings takes a great deal of empathy, something I believe I am capable of bringing. There also takes a good amount of empathy for others in the Branch, understanding what they’re going through when writing. Perhaps they need emotional support because they just finished writing a death and it consumed all their energy and will; empathizing with them will help keep the Branch close-knit and supported in both high and low times. I believe that throughout my life I have empathized with not only the humans I have been writing but also my classmates enough to support them and not just sympathize when they were having hard times.”

As she was explaining her answer, the pencils never stopped scratching; in a way, it was almost irritating.

“The second quality I believe I bring is fire. Not only the energy, persistence, and passion that a fire has, but also its serenity, calmness, warmth, and assuredness. I love trying to help others in their writing but also challenge them if I don’t believe they’re right. I think this fire that’s within me could contribute a driving yet mediating force within the Branch.”

But are you really empathetic? Are you really fire?

Inadequate.

“Great. What are some of your goals in life? What do you value?”

Well there aren’t many goals available considering we’re all authors. Fayrn found herself recalling Ethen’s words.

“My goal is to be the best writer possible in my Branch,” she gave a safe answer. “Hopefully to continue, to the best of my ability, our destiny to write the lives of Earthlings,” she paused, hesitation flickering inside her. “Aside from that I hope to start a family. I value my own success and it has been my dream since I was young to make a great Branch and be a great writer, but I also value my friends and family.”

It wasn’t a lie: she wasn’t sure at this point what she valued more, what she wanted from life. Talking about both sides of the coin was safer, and she felt lucky that she and Ethen had recently discussed the idea.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Fayrn tried to ignore the sound of the lead grinding against the parchment.

“Great. Now, hypothetically, imagine you are an author who has already been in the Branches for several years. Which human on Earth would you have liked to write the life of?”

Fayrn raised her eyebrows. She didn’t know about too many humans on Earth, but of course they had studied the more famous ones: celebrities, politicians, athletes, historical figures, scientists.

Abraham Lincoln was probably an overused answer, even though Fayrn definitely would liked to have explored and wrote his life. Rosa Parks, Bill Gates, and Gandhi were also inspiring figures that came to mind, probably also very obvious answers. Fayrn paused, remembering a human that she had learned about separate from the lessons in tenth grade. After class, she had gone with Mrs. Jill back to her office and they had cookies and tea together while discussing some of the less famous Earthlings.

“I learned about one kid on Earth,” she began slowly, trying to form words in an educated manner. “His name was Sam Berns, and he had progeria.”

Click. Click. Click.

“He had a talk, called My Philosophy For a Happy Life, and Mrs. Jill and I watched it together when I was in tenth, and it was heart-warming and inspiring. He died at seventeen years old. I think he died living a full life. Whoever wrote his life, it must have been hard, but enlightening to explore a mindset of happiness and love even with a life of grief and the knowledge of death. I think I would have liked to write the life of Mr. Sam Berns.”

There was a slight gap, just the slightest gap, in the flow of the words from the figure sitting on the left. Fayrn caught the hesitation in writing, barely, but she heard it nonetheless.

“Great. Now, if you were writing the life of a human, what is something you want to include in their life? We’re looking for a certain event, or achievement in their life.”

Fayrn raised her eyebrows. There was a question open to all possibilities. Set a record at the Olympics? Be part of a natural disaster? Win a Newbery Award? Perhaps something more common yet equally building.

“I think I would include a death,” Fayrn paused, and suddenly all the memories and thoughts came back to her.

“I mean, I know death of parents is one of the frequent and required elements, but usually it doesn’t happen till the later third of life, adulthood. I would want to include it in either of the earlier two parts of the human’s life, child or teen,” she continued, clearing her throat. “Death of a parent has a different impact when it happens young. It’s natural when we’re older, it’s expected and prepared. The role of the parent is usually finished. When it happens at an earlier than expected time, it robs everybody involved. There’s a lack of guardianship, of guidance, of normality, that’s so much different. Death can be painful, but humbling, and character building. It teaches independence, gratitude, and strength all hidden within grief and sadness.”

For you, mom. Fayrn sighed.

“Great. Now, if you could, what would you add as another Abstract Concept to be taught?”

Raising her eyebrows in interest, Fayrn paused to think. There were so many ideas and thoughts that were abstract, not fully fathomed by the Ioskieans. Genetics instantly came to mind, as well as the three bodies of mind, but perhaps they weren’t abstract, simply topics that Ioskieans weren’t fully aware of yet.

“I know these are also considered emotions, but I would say On Love and Hate,” Fayrn knew that this would most likely be a common answer, but she truly had thought extensively on these emotions and their cross as state of minds, and she wanted to be authentic with what she wanted to add as part of the Abstract Concept curriculum. “For me, love comes in almost two subsets—emotional love and love as a state of being. Emotional love is simply feeling passionate about things—I love writing, I love animals, I love nature. When love transitions into a state of being, it becomes more than an emotion that you can identify. It begins to consume the human’s logical thought and becomes a battle of brain versus heart, gut feelings that dominate the state of being. I still haven’t exactly worked out what scenario someone would really be considered to be in the state of mind of love, but I definitely think it could be strongly correlated to the love that humans can have for each other. And there’s also a great deal of exploration to do in the difference between infatuation and love, and who gets to define what is what, and when humans can tell whether they really know what true love is or if they’re just consumed in the moment. There is a similar idea for hate; you can hate your homework, hate writing, hate a person, but hate as a state of mind is so much more different, it, again, begins to consume a human’s natural logic and drives them simply from the feeling. There’s this cross between love and hate that I believe is interesting to explore as well; how quickly one can turn to another through simple interactions or actions. In fact, many even say the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference, even though it feels like hate should be the opposite of love,” Oh dear, I’m rambling. Fayrn snapped back into reality, “so I think it would be interesting if On Love and Hate was an Abstract Thought.”

Pencils scratching paper echoed in the box that encapsulated her for many beats.

“Great. Now let’s review some of your answers to the free response questions on the exam you took yesterday. Let’s begin with one of the most important emotions that you identified for us — joy. Can you just briefly summarize your answer?”

“Well there’s nothing brief about expecting us to pick one important emotion, but yes, I picked joy. It’s intertwined with a lot of other emotions, as many of of them are, but through my life and learning about these emotions through Academy I’ve come to realize that joy is prevalent in ways unimaginable in our lives. And I’m talking about joy, not happiness or elation, or cheerfulness, I mean the joy that’s just in-between serenity and ecstasy, that perfect silver line. Most of the time people only find happiness, especially temporarily, say if they get a good grade on an exam or have fun with their friends, but true joy, pure joy, that’s an emotion that lingers on the edge of a state of mind, something that people can really only aspire for. Really, life revolves around joy, trying to find it short-term or long-term, and finding it either for themselves or for other people, if that stage of selflessness is reached.”

Inadequate. Fayrn fought back tears.

“Through true joy one can find acceptance, self-love, serenity, and self-identity. More importantly, it is the emergence from grief and insecurity, and the portal to determination, industriousness, and profound knowledge.”

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“Mhm. Finally, I want to visit your story. You chose vulnerability as the Abstract Concept and your story was about a teacher in high school. Can I ask you to identify where you believe you incorporated this concept?”

Fayrn tried to recall what she wrote.

“I wrote about the parallel lives that a teacher sometimes has to lead,” she began calmly, quietly, any previous weakness that might have shown now isolated and closed off. “He must appear to be an educated scholar in front of his students, and know the answer to every question otherwise they scorn him as uninformed. He must prepare lessons every day. He must be open to after-class conversations and discussions. He must tolerate loud-mouths in class, and encourage quiet-mouths to speak up. He must keep track of when a student’s academic performance isn’t as good as it was a month ago. He must appear at school every day the same: calm, collected, ready to inspire and teach with ambition and excitement. Then when he exits the school setting he leads another life — the one at home. He must go home to his children with energy enough to pick them up and swing them around and around. He must review his kids’ homework and read them bedtime stories. He must listen to his partner’s day and comment emotionally and intelligently. He must read the mail and worry whether he is earning enough to pay the bills for the next month. He must think about his kids going to college and how to save up for that. He must stay up into the night grading his students’ papers. He must always appear strong, as the father, with no fears. Nobody understands this two-faced life, No student tries to understand him, and his family doesn’t try and understand his school life. I believe I have incorporated a form of vulnerability in the crossing of these two lives. The teacher comes into a vulnerable state when he opens up to his students about his personal life; he exposes himself. He knows not whether the students will care or if they’ll simply spread it around as gossip— but it is this vulnerability that allows them to connect on a deeper level, and feel those raw, human emotions. The same goes for the other half— he opens up to his wife about his school life. Acknowledges the bottled up emotions, the frustrations, the fears. Allows himself to appear exposed, emotional, even as the head of the household. That’s a vulnerability within someone whose role in society pressures him to remain invulnerable, and that’s what I tried to explore in my story.”

For you, Professor Dellum.

There was complete silence in the square.

And then the writing resumed: even-paced, constant.

“Great. Thanks for the talk, Fayrn. Go ahead and send the next person in, and you’ll hear about your assignment very soon.”

Fayrn stood. She smiled, and suddenly felt a freedom and light-heartedness that she had never thought she could feel before.




Chapter 12.

Darkness shrouded the sky, but Fayrn could barely notice. She sat in bed, wrapped in her blanket with Annabelle resting in her lap; the horse’s eyes seemed to glow. Aurelia lay on her bed sideways, her feet dangling off the edge of the bed. Ethen sat on the rug, notebook open as he reviewed his notes. The dull lamp illuminated a flicker like a campfire.

“You know Ethen, if you really want to study you should go back to your room,” Aurelia said, giggling. She was in an awfully good mood now that both her interviews and exams were through.

Ethen shrugged. “And miss out on a night of adventure and carefreeness with you guys? I’ll pass. Besides, according to most people I’ve talked to, the interview isn’t that bad.”

“It’s not,” Fayrn confirmed for him again. “You’ll do fine.”

“So, assuming that Aurelia gets to start training to be a Soldier, that leaves us two to house Dalton.” Ethen closed his notebook. Aurelia cringed.

“Well, don’t count me out yet, I probably won’t even make it.”

“Hush and nonsense Aurelia,” Ethen interrupted her.

“Depending on which Branch we each make we should have him stay at the apartment or house that’s furthest from the center of the city where the Ocrorix stay,” Fayrn reasoned.

“Would he stay with us forever? Who’s going to take care of him while we’re away at the Branches? What if we want to bring dates back to our apartments? Or start a family?”

Fayrn wrinkled her nose, the barrage of questions irritating.

“I’m not sure if he’ll stay with us forever, but I’m sure with enough time the Ocrorix will forget about the situation and we can sneak him back to Dellum. I’m sure during the majority of the day he can take care of himself, but we’ll have to ask Dellum for some advice on that. If you want to bring dates or start a family that’s fine, he can stay with me, I probably won’t be doing either of those for a while.”

“That’s ridiculous Faryn,” Aurelia jumped in. “How about when Ethen wants to have visitors, he can bring Dalton to you, and when you have visitors you can bring Dalton to him.”

Fayrn nodded. “Alright, fine.”

There was silence for a while.

“I think, in a weird way, taking care of Dalton is good for us too. I mean, it forces us to stay in contact with each other,” Ethen said.

“Who says I want to keep in touch with you?” Aurelia stuck her tongue out at Ethen and all of them laughed.

Carefreeness.

Elation.

Gratitude.

The emotions were almost overwhelming.




“Greetings, for what may be the last time I see some of you.” Dellum stood smiling at the front of the class.

“It’s been a hard year for some, not only academically but also socially and emotionally. I want to congratulate all of you for making it this far and for dedicating time and energy to this class. In front of each of you is an envelope, and inside, your future awaits. Please proceed.”

Instantly, screams of excitement and cries of disappointment burst from students as they discovered their Branch.

“Fayrn! Ethen!”

Aurelia was climbing over chairs and desks, shoving her way past students, her face lit with a golden halo. She held up her letter as she reached the two, gasping for air.

“I did it! I got accepted! I’m becoming a Soldier!”

Fayrn shrieked in excitement and Ethen whooped, hollering as they attacked her in hugs.

“I’m so happy for you Aurelia, I told you!” Tears spilled down Fayrn’s cheeks.

“Thanks! What about you two? Ethen?”

Ethen held up his letter. “Poscian!”

“That’s great!” Aurelia embraced him and he smirked.

“Not a bad Branch; I think I’ll be very happy stirring trouble there.”

Fayrn caught the mischievous gleam in his eyes and she laughed, hugging him.

“Faryn? Come on, we all know you made Afloria,” Aurelia said, turning back to her.

Fayrn felt hot, suddenly feeling her heart pounding faster than ever. Her envelope sat on her desk, unopened, the seal almost too beautiful to break.

“I, I think I”ll open it later. I want to keep feeling this happiness for you and Ethen,” She replied honestly.

“Hey hey hey suckers! Let’s put our hands together for Jackson!”

Jackson swung around, waving his letter around each of their faces.

“How’d you do Jackson?” Aurelia questioned innocently.

“What do you think? Afloria for life baby!” He cackled, droplets of spit exploding.

Fayrn’s heart sunk dramatically. Jackson truly made Afloria, meaning there was a slim chance she made it. Heliv was just as good, if not equally good, she thought, trying to keep herself calm. Perhaps she made it there.

“And how about you, Miss King?” Jackson cooed mockingly. “Are we going to enjoy ourselves in Kalive?”

“Shut up Jackson,” Ethen defended Fayrn before she could get in her retort.

“Although I am not allowed to take sides, at this point in time I am no longer your official teacher, so I must say I agree with Mr. Schifrin, indeed, with the shutting of up, Mr. Dawe.”

The students swung their heads around, stunned, to find Mr. Dellum standing behind them with a calm expression. They all gaped, and then burst out laughing as Jackson turned a fuchsia pink. Some students nearby wolf-whistled and started clapping.

“You tell him Dellum!”

“That’s right Jackson you suck!”

Cheers erupted from the class and Fayrn felt an incessant, bubbling, laughter explode within her. Mr. Dellum approached Fayrn quietly as celebration ensued around the classroom, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Very well done, Faryn. I’m proud of you.”

Fayrn beamed with gratitude, and as Dellum walked away, she picked up her envelope, beginning to slowly tear at its edges. She slid out the letter and read the first line.

She let out a breath of air, and then closed the letter, clutching it to her heart. She looked up, and saw Ethen and Aurelia staring at her in the middle of a pile of students chattering wildly. The sounds passed through her ears and there was just silence. Everything seemed to slow. The lights glowed, becoming blurry bulbs of sun rays.

She smiled at her friends and gave them a tiny nod. A huge grin spread across Ethen’s face and he clambered on top of one of the desks and hollered loudly,

“Fayrn made Afloria!”

Cheers; beaming smiles; Aurelia squeezing her till she couldn’t breathe; Jackson muttering something about having to deal with Faryn for the rest of his life; Ethen’s arms warm around her; Dellum’s proud gaze from the edge of the classroom; everything seemed to fall in place perfectly.

Happiness.