Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ Aqua ❯ Scattered Glass ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter Three

Scattered Glass

 

 

When she looked up at the school clock, it read 5:00 pm. She had gone well over the last period, and her brain was starting to go hazy from all the work she had been doing. The library was almost empty, except for the couple avid book readers. She gathered up her books and work and randomly stuffed them into her bag before heading to the cafeteria to get some dinner.

 

As with lunch she grabbed the food from the food line and walked out to the forest. They ate in silence for the first half of their meal until Darain picked up a soda and held it out to her and asked, “What's this?”

 

A sudden idea sprang to her mind as she took the can from him and shook it up. “Now, most people usually don't do this, but-” An odd smile crossed her lips as she pulled the pop-top and sprayed him with the soda inside. Darain covered his face with his arms until the soda stopped spraying him, then he lowered his arms and shook the sticky liquid off his hands and arms.

 

Darain grabbed another soda and shook it up and sprayed her with it. Aqua dropped her half filled can and covered her face, laughing. Once Darain dropped his can, she grabbed another and sprayed him with it again. This time Darain got up and darted in the opposite direction, but Aqua got to her feet and followed him. On their back by their meal, Darain bent down and scooped the last two sodas up and sprayed her with both of them.

 

By the end of their soda fight, both of them were sticky and grinning like idiots, for neither had laughed so hard in their lives. Aqua picked up the soda that she had originally sprayed Darain with and drained the last few mouthfuls before crushing the can and tossing it with the rest of the garbage.

 

After they were finished eating, Darain asked, “So what do you do to get rid of this stickiness?” Aqua finished unsticking a hamburger wrapper from her fingers and said, “You know that blue liquid you hate so much?” She waited for Darain to nod before continuing, “Well, that's how.”

 

Aqua got to her feet and walked over to the side of the lake and dipped her hands in up to the elbow before scrubbing the remaints of the sticky substance away. She got to her feet and flung the lake water from her hands and lower arms as she said, “That's how you remove the soda.”

 

Darain's ears flicked back in apprehension at having to come into contact with the stuff that had nearly killed him, but he did as Aqua had shown him and found that the blue liquid was remotely harmless so long as he wasn't actually submerged in it entirely.

 

Aqua eyed his ripped clothes and asked, “You don't have any changes of clothes, do you?”

 

“No, why?”

 

“Well, you can't go wearing those things the entire time you're out here.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, I'll get you some changes of clothes.”

 

“You don't have to. I expect that my parents will come looking for me any day now.”

 

“Your parents are going to come looking for you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“On their own?”

 

“No, they'll probably send guards to scout the area first and then come themselves.”

 

“Guards?”

 

“Yes, I'm the prince of my race after all.”

 

“Prince?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So, what is your race called?”

 

“We're the Night-n-Gales. Haven't you ever heard of us?”

 

“No. As far as I know, this is the first encounter we've had with a being that's not human.”

 

Darain looked slightly surprised at the news, but recovered quickly. “Well, I guess there are races that've never had contact with another outside their own species. I had heard of such things, but I never believed that they were true,” he said as though stating a simple fact.

 

“So, what's with the ears?” Aqua asked, pointing to the white cat-like ears that topped his head. Darain reached up and rubbed his ears. “You mean these?” he asked, Aqua nodded.

 

“These white ears are the trade mark of the royal Night-n-Gale family. How does your race mark their royalty?”

 

“We don't. They're just like us commoners, or at least they were when we had royalty. We haven't had a ruling family for a long, long time. What color are the ears of non-royal Night-n-Gales of your race?”

 

“It depends on the individual, the color ranges from black to bright, neon pink.”

 

“Neon-pink? How's that happen?”

 

“I don't really know, but I think that the parents have some decision in the color.”

 

“O-kay. So, why weren't you with your parents or guards, if you're so all important, in the first place?”

 

“I…ah…left the planet without anyone's…notice,” Darain admitted nervously. Then, to divert attention from his embarrassing mistake and avoid awkward questions, he motioned to her scars and asked, “Where did you get those?”

 

The last remains of the light mood that they had retained through their conversation instantly evaporated as Aqua quickly stood and stalked away. Darain got to his feet and followed after her, asking, “What? What did I say?”

 

Aqua rounded on him and made him nearly run into her as she snapped, “Let's get one thing straight. When we're discussing things, my past is to remain untouched. Got it?” She snapped the last part a little more forcefully than she had intended, but it seemed to get her point across since he nodded and let her walk away after that, until he called, “You're a spoiled brat is what you are.”

 

Aqua didn't bother turning around as she stuck her middle finger up at him over her shoulder as she walked around a bend of trees. Once out of sight of Darain she broke into a flat out run out of Hangman's Forest so that she could slip inside the doors just before they shut for the night. The security guards waited for her to step inside before they locked the front doors for the night.

 

“Cutting it rather close tonight, aren't we, Aqua?” one asked eyeing her quizzically. Aqua shrugged and walked down the halls to the dorm side of the school. She passed rooms from 1 to 106 where she stopped and opened the door and slipped inside. When she turned around, she saw her roommate and roommate's best friend's boyfriend kissing.

 

Aqua gave them a disgusted look as she stepped back from the scene. “I thought you were Amber's boyfriend and best friend,” she growled, disgusted by the sight of them. When the pair heard her, they broke apart and turned to face her and exchanged a nervous glance that told Aqua that they hadn't been expecting her back so soon.

 

Marin blushed a bright red, as she sputtered, “Y-you won't t-tell her, will y-you?” The boy, Danny, snapped, “You'd better not. It's none of your business anyways, so stay out of it,” but his ferocity wavered under the cold look that he received from Aqua.

 

“Well, it became my business when I found the two of you in my room,” she said in a deadly calm voice. Marin paled as Aqua turned on her heel and walked out of the room, down the hall and to room 109. She knocked a couple times before Amber's sleepy face appeared in the doorway and she asked, “What is it?”

 

“I just thought you should know that you have a back stabbing boyfriend who's currently kissing your best friend in my room,” Aqua bluntly told her. Amber's blue eyes went from sleepy to wide-eyed in shock. “Just thought you ought to know,” she added in a gentler tone than what she would have normally used with other people.

 

Marin and Danny came up behind her as she turned to go. “What gives you the right to cause suffering when you have no clue to the meaning of that word?” Marin asked, desperately trying to pin something on the younger girl. Aqua turned her cold green eyes to Marin's wide turquoise ones and quietly said, “It's you who doesn't know the meaning of pain.”

 

Then she calmly walked back to their room and stripped her sheets and tossed them to Marin's side of the room. She covered her bed in fresh linens and switched the pillowcases before changing into her pajamas.

 

She rolled the stiff clothes up into a ball and tossed them into a pile of dirty clothes. As she drifted off into sleep she could make out muffled shouts coming from three doors down, but they were of no concern to her. It was their problem to sort out now, not hers. Her final though before she drifted into welcoming blackness was, At least Amber won't have to deal with a cheating, backstabbing boyfriend in the near future.

 

* * *

 

Aqua got up with her alarm the next morning at 4:30 am. She rolled over to see that Marin's bed was empty. Not caring where her roommate was, she swung her legs out of bed and instantly yelped in pain.

 

She pulled her feet back up onto the bed and yanked the curtain back to let the last remaints of moonlight in so that she could see what she had stepped on. Embedded in her foot were several pieces of glass. She fumbled on her nightstand for her pair of tweezers. Gritting her teeth, she used the tweezers to pull the shards of glass out one by one.

 

After pulling each bloody piece out she dropped it on her nightstand until pooled blood dimly shown against the moonlight. She counted thirteen pieces in all. Her sheets were now dyed red from the blood that spilled from where the glass had embedded itself, much to her dismay.

 

Getting to her feet and carefully stepping around the remaining shards of glass, she made her way, barefoot, out of the room and down to the other end of East High where the cafeteria resided. She knew that Marin would be there, gloating about her prank on the cold, uncaring Aqua to the few people who were early risers.

 

As she made her way down the hall, she left bloody footprints to mark her progress. When Mrs. Jameson, her math teacher, saw her, she screamed, “For goodness sake, Aqua, these are white tiles. If that blood dries, it will be nearly impossible to get off.” Aqua snorted and snapped, “Then tell that to Marin, it's her fault that I'm bleeding in the first place. I bet she's even gloating about what she did to me in the cafeteria, surrounded by a bunch of ditzy girls.”

 

Sure enough, five or six girls surrounded Marin as she recounted the story of how she had nearly lost her head to Aqua's hidden swords as she “heroically” placed the shards of glass where the monster would surely step.

 

Aqua walked up behind Marin with a slight limp and said, “I think you're exaggerating.” Marin whipped around and whatever she had been about to say died away at the sight of Aqua standing there glaring at her, though she quickly recovered and said, “I told you, you don't know the meaning of pain.”

 

Aqua lost her temper at those words and curled her right hand into a fist and socked Marin squarely in the jaw. Marin was sent skidding into the next table from the force of the punch. She got to her feet and rubbed her jaw where Aqua had punched her. Marin opened her mouth to speak, and a tooth fell out.

 

“You broke my tooth,” she screeched. Aqua calmly walked around the table to stand in front of Marin and snarl, “This is nothing compared to what I could do to you.” Marin paled a little, and the girls that had been listening the Marin only moments ago, were now stark white as Aqua revealed a nastier side of her personality.

 

“I-I can do much worse than this morning,” Marin said, trying to regain some of her shredded pride, but Aqua refused to even let her retain even a scrap of dignity.

 

“Be glad I have control over my emotions, otherwise you would have had a broken jaw, instead of just a broken tooth,” she said calmly, her voice echoing in the deathly silence of the quiet of the cafeteria. She glanced at the other girls before walking towards the nurse's office.

 

When she opened the door to the nurse's office, she was instantly greeted by a screech of horror. “Aqua, look at those footprints on my white tiles. You'll have to clean those up before you leave,” the nurse ranted.

 

Aqua yawned widely to show that she didn't care. She walked up to the counter that held the medical supplies and snatched up a white roll of cloth bandages. As the nurse ranted on about her nice white tiles being dyed red from blood, she wrapped her feet where the glass had pierced her skin. Once she was finished with the bandages she pocketed the rest of the roll for later use.

 

The nurse didn't even notice her leave due to the fact that her whole attention was fixed entirely on the bloody footprints. Aqua walked back down the hall towards her room and ignored the looks she got from the people she passed that saw that she was still wearing her shorts and tang-top pajamas. She no longer left bloody footprints as she walked, but she still glared at everyone.

 

Aqua dressed in a random set of clothes she found lying on the floor, whether they were dirty or clean, they smelled just fine, and that's all it took for her to wear them. After pulling on her sneakers she walked back down to the cafeteria and nicked a breakfast for her and Darain. The others in the cafeteria didn't bother her, but they watched her with a mixture of suspicion and fear. Amber was nowhere to be seen, so that meant she was moping over her failed relationship or else getting over the scumbag.

 

Once again she made sure that no one followed her to the forest and saw Darain. They ate in a terse silence before Aqua left for her classes. Her classes were as long and dull as ever, with no variation from their normal course. At lunch she ate with Darain, and after that went to her afternoon classes. At dinner, they spoke for the first time that day.

 

“So, what was your day like?” Darain asked.

 

Aqua glanced up at him from her meat and cheese sandwich and shrugged, “Alright, I guess.” She realized that he was trying to break the silence between them as she added, “Yours?”

 

“Okay, I guess. What'd you do?”

 

“Fell asleep in most of my classes.”

 

“I wish I could fall asleep in my classes, but my teachers are a bit too uptight, especially with me since I'm the prince. They have all these expectations of me, and they hate it when I don't live up to them, like this one time…” Darain went on to explain all the times that he had messed up in front of his classmates and embarrassed his parents.

 

* * *