"Ladies and gentlemen; youngsters, welcome to the west branch of the Tradent Mall, one of the four major shopping malls in Rendah. Today, as part of our schedule, this will be our first stop. I'm under the liberty to let you know that everything you pick from this mall, whatever it may be, is already paid for." The students responded with murmurings and delightful cheers.
"Though…" she paused. "I'd advise you not to take more than you necessarily need." She smiled. And with that courteous warning, they flooded the shopping mall and saw many things they probably wouldn't have seen in their life time if they were in Dolrea; target machines, a whack-a-mole, a jackpot machine, an arcade machine, clothing of different rare materials, stuffed toys modeled after first generation beasts to mention a few. The girls took a liking to the stuffed toys and clothes of designs they had never seen before while the boys had their fun at taking turns with the whack-a-mole, the jackpot and arcade machines. It was a new experience for them and they spent hours in the mall fascinated by these new things they could never dream of.
"Rendah is really such an amazing place" Trilith bawled out and let himself into a seat one of the malls restaurants.
"Right? There are so many fun things around, I can't even decide what to pick."
"Really?" Amine intriguingly said. "I guess it's one of those things where you have too much you don't know what to pick."
"Yeah, it doesn't help that we can pick whatever and it is ours." Kai added.
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that's the case, I just don't know what to grab, I feel like I don't really need anything." Khay sighed.
"Tsk." Trilith scoffed. "I got a rare heavy turtle armor." He chuckled.
"Good for you partner."
"Don't sweat it. I'm sure something will come along."
"Well, I think you don't want anything because you don't need anything, thinking back, I don't think I've ever really seen you with anything but your fists." Amine said. "It'll come to you when you need it."
"Hmmm… Maybe a staff? Yeah."
"Yeah! That would be better than nothing!" Trilith exclaimed.
"You'll never guess who I bumped into." Lilith made her presence known as she Khay shifted for her to sit.
"Lilith. Aren't you supposed to be out there with the girls?"
"Yeah I was but I happened to have ran into Theodora. I filled her in about this morning, told her we all want to meet together and talk about what happened."
"What'd she say?"
The Beach.
"I'm so sorry, I had no idea there was a meeting concerning Kaina. I would have made time to be there."
"Well, that's all in the past now and it's not like you are at fault or anything." Khay assured.
"We're all here now." Amine said.
"Yeah."
The group found themselves underneath one of the beach's many huts and dressed for the occasion, beach shorts and descent beach wears. But it would be of no use. Circumstances had made it impossible for them to join their colleagues who were going about the beach making merry and enjoying the delicacies it had to offer them. They were too occupied to notice this particular team excluded from all of it.
"So… what happened?" Yegan's curiosity got the best of him and all eyes were on Theodora and she had realized. "What do you mean?" she nervously chuckled.
"I mean, we all know where we stood in what occurred, and suddenly you went from victim to participant in the blink of an eye." Khay addressed the issue at hand.
"We want answers." Ranfa sharply stated.
"What could she possibly know? Yousef scoffed.
"Yousef!" Yegan called out. His stern voice stifled Yousef's grievances as he glared at him. "Let the girl speak." He cautioned. "So?" he continued. "I know you tried meeting Kaina, you did meet him…"
"Really? She did?" Khay cried out.
"Back then, I thought you were one of those girls who had taken a liking to him and wanted to just confess to him or something.
"Really?"
"So even people like Kaina have things like that happening to them."
"Yeah, believe it or not. It happened a couple of times, he was never one to pay attention to stuff like that… so when I saw you standing with him I thought it was the same old, but recent happenings have had me wondering what that really was all about."
"I uhh… well…" Theodora sighed. "I had a dream you see, and I didn't really understand it then so I did what I could."
"What was the dream about?" Kai asked.
"I saw Kaina. In my dream, he was standing with you guys, his friends, and then a really black snake with crimson red eyes came up from the ground and slithered its way past all of you one by way, almost unnoticed. And when it got close to Kaina, he sort of saw it coming, then all of a sudden he was alone, the snake became very huge, and Kaina became scared and ran, he ran and just kept running as the snake gave chase. Then I woke up."
"Woah! That sounds terrifying."
"Yeah, it was, I woke up sweating lots, it was almost as if I was the one being chased by this snake, yet it was not me.
"That is a very strange dream."
"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Yousef sharply cut in.
"I didn't really understand what was going on. It was a first for me so I had to give it a thought."
"Where I come from…" Yousef's tone softened. "That would be a sign of something bad waiting to happen."
"Yousef…"
"Yeah, I knew it was something bad, that is why I tried to talk to him, several times, but it was no use. I had the same dream about 5 days after. And I really had to think it through this time, then it occurred to me that, I hoped for Kaina to change, I didn't know him but when I saw all the pain and chaos he was causing everyone in the academy I thought to myself; 'There is no way anyone could have been born this way, something must have happened, certainly he can change.' so I prayed."
"Pray?"
"Yeah, pray."
"Like offer up a –uhmm… word to a god? The gods?"
"Well, you could put it that way, but I prayed to God, THE God."
"There's something like that?" Hodgard whisperingly asked Ranfa. And "I don't know, maybe but let her finish." Ranfa replied.
"So I remembered that. And knew this was some sort of answer to it. So I went to him and tried to tell him the dream that had been plaguing me at night. Guess what he said."
"Snake? Me run from a snake? You must have the wrong person."
"That's what he said, I tried, time and time again, but each time, he wouldn't believe me. Or even let me talk. I could tell he was getting tired of me but I couldn't let up and the fourth time I tried, he threatened to burn my throat, and that was just 2 days ago, so I thought I would give it a rest. Then, he came to read his letter, and all that, I was glad, I got an understanding of the dream somehow and thought, finally, he got free, he has his friends now. Everything is well. Then…"
"He went and did a whole 180, something totally unlike the Kaina we knew. A completely different kind." Khay added.
"Yeah…" she responded.
"That is some serious dream." Kiriku sighed.
"Then when everything went haywire, and he was attacking all of us, I prayed even then, asked God to save him, that, this isn't what I prayed for." She sighed. "Then, Kaina attacked me, and I went unconscious, then I had a dream again, this time, the snake had caught him and it was coiled all around him, it looked almost as if it was about to eat him, his head was the only part of him I could see and there was a smaller snake around his neck choking him. Then I woke up with this… this feeling." Her voice softened and yet, had a concreteness to it. "I knew I could do something about it so I did what came to mind."
"That really was something though, what we couldn't get through she just… cut through." Lilith commented.
"Yeah…" Khay added. "But then it was almost as if they ran away or something, it looked like we'd become a threat… or a nuisance at that point and by some miracle, we survived."
"Yeah, thank you again, that one really came out of nowhere." Lilith smiled cheerfully at her.
"Is that really all that you can tell us Theodora?" Yegan heaved a heavy sigh, his arms folded across the table from her. She stared on nervously; "Well…"
"Whatever it is, you can feel free, you're part of us now, I doubt anyone would take whatever you say lightly at this point." Lilith smiled at her.
"We've got your back" Trilith added.
"Alright." She sighed, letting go of the weight that held her down. The topic she was about to raise was a dicey one, and even she herself felt uneasy speaking openly about it, even though she knew it was the truth, outside of her homeland, things of such magnitude weren't taken seriously, it was part of why she was hesitant about confronting Kaina or anyone about the dreams she had, until now.
A loud yawn interrupted them. "This sitting around really is making my nerves stiff. Theo – chan, let's step out for some fresh air."
"Chan?" Kai and Lilith synced in out loud.