Ingress

The chatter in the cafeteria was deafening as usual. For the people already accustomed to the noise, they seemed to be completely unaffected by the intense piercing of their eardrums, or are plain ignoring it in favour of winning the unspoken contest of letting their voice be heard. For the newcomers or occasional visitors, their first response upon entering the double doors would be to wince, and then sigh in defeat before looking for a vacant seat, realising that there was little they can do about the din. An amused grin is drowned among the sea of hurled words and laughter every time someone walks in with the expected reaction.

It’s so predictable, he thought. People are so predictable it’s both funny and pathetic.

Sitting at the back of the large room, the boy looked like any other ordinary teenager who was here to dine and catch up with friends in the small break between mind-numbingly exhausting classes. Surrounded to the neck with fellow students boisterously engaging in their social lives, it was hard not to think that he was the same as everyone else. But if one were to observe him more closely, much like how he is observing those around him with bored eyes, one would realise that he was completely alone, in every sense of the word.

Not that anyone was observing him at all. They all looked past him as though he were a ghost.

And he liked it that way.

The doors slid open again in a tell-tale sign that someone was either entering or exiting. The boy’s eyes could not see anyone who had the slightest intention of departure from the rowdy environment, and so he concluded with a slight smirk that the sensors were triggered by someone on the other side. Even if he had already seen the same wince on about a hundred people just on that day alone, it never failed to amuse him, as they never failed to satiate his strange sense of entertainment.

A severe let down was putting it mildly.

The corner of his thin lips that had twitched in expectation stilled and turned downwards. His eyes widened by a fraction before narrowing into slits, and he crossed his arms and legs, rocking back and forth on his chair in childish disappointment. He felt cheated and betrayed, but could not deny the part of him that piqued in curiosity at the sudden disruption in the monotony.

Well this is new.

His eyes followed the girl who had entered and sat down so smoothly it was almost impossible to say that she was human. Her face was blank from the moment he saw her, and she sat dead upright as she chewed mechanically on her food. The people around her, probably her friends, were chatting animatedly at her, but she didn’t seem to process anything at all. She looked through them, much like everyone looked through him.

It was slightly unnerving. He had been curious about her at first, but as he continued to watch her, an uneasy feeling started blooming. From his chest, he felt as it spread to his limbs, head, and finally made it back to firmly grip his heart. It felt cold and slimy, shaking his bones and his nerves, down to his very core, and soon the world around him was completely gone from his senses.

It felt like death.

At this point, he was no longer in control of his actions nor his consciousness, but he was dimly aware of his legs frantically speeding him out of the cafeteria. On the way out, amongst faceless students who looked blissfully unaware of the sense of urgency that he portrayed, he briefly captured one blurred figure before he was gone.

That figure was looking at him.

In his hurry, the boy missed the way the emotionless girl had seemingly come to life, as though a switch had been flipped. As though her soul had only just returned to her body. As though she had finally found what she had been searching for all her life.

“It can’t be…” she rose from her seat in disbelief, ignoring the confused and concerned exclamations from the people around her. She slowly walked towards the huge door that she can’t quite remember coming in from, her pace picked up like a crescendo before she was fully bolting towards it. Not at all stopping to wait for the sensors to register her presence, she slammed straight into the glass repeatedly in her desperation for it to open.

It never did.

Instead, with her face pressed against the translucent surface, she could make out the boy standing outside on the corridor. His head was tilted towards the sky and the sun was draping him in a warm blanket of light. His eyes were closed and his mouth was slightly parted open, his arms dangling loosely by his sides.

It made for a very ethereal picture.

And that was what calmed the adrenaline in her veins down, until she was succumbing to her emotions as she leaned her full weight on to the glass, making sure to get her eyes as close to it as possible.

A single tear slid down her slightly red cheeks as she watched, spellbound.

The boy slowly turned to face her, though she could see that his eyes were still closed. A smile was beginning to form on his face. A genuine smile that was as bittersweet as it was pure, laced with sombre acceptance.

He opened his sapphire eyes to meet hers, and she had to restrain her tears from forming, if only so that they wouldn’t blur her image of him.

The first image of him that she has had for over a year. The last was something that she had no wish to recall for the sake of her sanity, lost in the midst of dark blood and anguished screams.

But she has the distinct feeling that she is forgetting something important. And that feeling has never been stronger than now.

As he looked at her, his smile widened, as though he saw something that made him extremely happy. She almost wanted to punch it right off his face because how could he? How could he be so happy when he was-

“Dead,” she whispered, afraid that speaking it too loudly would shatter whatever was happening.

“You’re dead. How?” her voice became so small that she doubted anyone could hear her, especially not him, through the barrier that was still persistently separating them.

But it looked like he did hear her, for his smile widened even more if possible, though she can see that it was now forced. She could see the pain in her eyes reflected off his, as his smile wavered slightly, as though it could collapse any moment.

They stared at each other for a few more moments, before the girl could finally feel several arms around her, trying to pull her back into reality. She struggled vainly against them and grew more and more panicked, trying to retain him in her field of vision as the glass made his image blurrier and blurrier.

The horrific memories that she had so desperately tried to lock up came flooding back to her like a tsunami, crashing against the fragile rock that was all that was left of her sanity, weathering away at whatever she had tried to salvage and mend.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have even tried.

“Let me go! You have to let me…” she sobbed desperately, crying like a dying whale.

“Please, let me out of the door…”

The arms didn’t stop, but with her last shred of strength, she lunged towards the door once more and caught his still smiling lips mouthing what seemed like words.

Her eyes widened and threatened to close as her consciousness finally lost the battle to stay awake.

Just before her eyes are shut to the world, she could have sworn that she saw blood on his face, threatening to cover his smile. Just like that day a year ago.

She could hear his voice now, piercing into her mind, like a light in the darkness, finally exposing the last, deepest recess of her mind that she had been hopelessly ignoring for the past year.

“You better not join me so soon, you hear me?”