Creatures of Snow (13 page)

Sky stepped away from the
wall, into the center of the hall. “I won’t, I just needed to, I
don’t know…”

“
No worries, sometimes I
think with my stomach too. Come on, I’ll sit with ya.”

“
Ah, no, I was just
leaving, it seems pretty crowded in there.”

“So what, we’ll make
room.” Con pushed him towards the cafeteria. “You can’t let a
little crowd scare you. One thing you will never be able to avoid
is people.”

Sky reluctantly led the
way into the open room, heading for the closest food line. “I don’t
know. I’ve done an okay job of avoiding most people my whole
life.”

“
Ha. The trick is to
assimilate and not be noticed, not to avoid.” Con pulled on his
sleeve, “Not that line, that food smells like moldy cardboard, this
way.”

“
I’m not good at blending
in.” Even when he tried.

“Well, consider this a
lesson.” Con guided him to one of the longer lines. “Being able to
adapt to any situation will be crucial when traveling to other
Levels. If you’re not good at blending in, then stand out, but
stand out in such a way that you command a room, that way no one
will mess with you.”

That sounded harder then blending in.

“Geeze, you Regan boy’s
sure lack confidence, what’s with that? I mean seriously, there is
no good reason either of you shouldn’t have been the most popular
kids in your school. You’re smart, good looking, tough, and yet you
somehow lack any sort of self worth.”

Sky shrugged, he never
thought of it like that, “So, Soul is still real shy then,
eh?”

“He was, at first,” Con
looked down the long line of students, “but not anymore.” He turned
back to Sky, “At Arche – if you don’t value yourself you won’t
survive.”

“So, he’s popular?” That
was hard to imagine.

“
You could say that.” Con
shrugged, wobbling his head from side to side. “Popular in the
sense that everyone knows his name.”

“What does that mean?”
Everyone knew their names at their primary school too, only because
it made it easier to pick on them.

“
It means he became so
good at everything that every student and professor in that place
knows to fear and respect him.”

“Fear him?” He couldn’t
mask the cynical laugh that followed those words.

Con nodded as they
advanced a few steps, “In combat, Soul exceeds us both Ellie and
me.”

Sky’s heart sank even
lower. “Good to know. If I ever see him again, I’ll be sure not to
fight him.”

They had moved maybe five feet, but still
seemed miles away from getting anywhere.

“Probably a good idea.”
Con laughed. “And it’s not a matter of
if
you ever see him again, because
it’s inevitable, the school isn’t that big.” Con turned just enough
to slap him on the back.

“Fine. It’s not a matter
of if I see him then; it’s a matter of whether or not he’ll talk to
me.” All the talk about Soul and his awesomeness was leaving a sour
taste in his mouth.

“
I told you, he had his
reasons, and they were good reasons too. Sometimes you have to let
go of what you know to learn something new. He just needed, you
know…space.”

“He can have all the space
he wants.” Sky crossed his arms and turned away, looking around the
room. He stole a look over to Al and Lee. They hadn’t noticed him
at all and had started packing up their stuff to go. It was fine.
The truth was, Sky wasn’t part of REALM and in a few months was
leaving for Arche anyway. It was better this way. Better to grow
apart than just be cut off.

“Allen Kane. Do you know
him?” Con had followed his line of sight.

“Yeah. You know him?” Sky
didn’t know what to make of the look on Con’s face.

“Not specifically.” He
answered absently, casting a suspicious eye over to Lee. “What’s he
doing with that Angonian I wonder…?”

“That’s sort of rude, you
know.” Sky watched as Lee scanned the room with a military
precision. “Lee’s a nice guy, and you can’t just call him an
Angonian because he’s like a hundred feet tall and has red
hair.”

“Yes I can. He’s the fifth
in line for the Brunsalen District throne.” Con’s eyes narrowed.
“Why would he be here?”

“Uhhh, to go to
school.”

Con just watched quizzically as Al and Lee
headed for the door. “Interesting.” Was all he said.

“
Ugh, this line is going
nowhere. I don’t know if I’m even hungry anymore.”

Con nodded and looked around to the other
food stations, “Another good lesson for you is patience.”

Sky groaned and shuffled forward a few more
inches.

“
So Allen Kane, you’re his
friend?”

“
What? Yeah, we’ve been
friends since we were little. How do you know him?”

“I never said I knew him.
I’ve only heard about him. Half Telic’s are rare.” He shrugged,
“Wish he would have applied to Arche instead, we would have
snatched him up.”

Sky winced as the boy in
front of him stepped back onto his foot. The kid didn’t even turn
around to apologize. “So, who is on this team of yours that you
keep talking about?”

“Only the best. We’re
called, The Powers, and are the strongest team in the
Choir.”

“So, Soul must be a
Power.” Sky said it sarcastically, not expecting Cons boasting
smile.

“You catch on quick.” Con
let out a deep laugh, “He’s our trump card. We got me for long
range fighting, Ellie for close range fighting, our little creeper
Seth for strategy and Soul for everything and anything in
between.”

Sky stared at Con’s
beaming face. “Are you serious?”

“I rarely am, but this
time, yes. And we all really want you as one of us - that’s why
Ellie and I jumped at the chance to be your mentors after the other
two dropped out.”

“
What about Axis? I
thought I wasn’t really part of the normal system.”

“I’m not really worried
about it.” Con smirked oddly, gesturing for him to move up a few
more inches. “Axis is a hurdle, one we thought we avoided when Soul
turned the position down, but now, with you a part of it, we just
have to work around it.”

“
I guess I don’t get it.”
Sky didn’t know if he was worried or excited or both.

“
You don’t need to yet.”
He patted him on the head, “All in good time.”

By the time they got to
the front of the line the bell had already tolled. Sky had his
actual break, but Con had to run off to make his reports to
Blanks.

“
See you next period.” Sky
jumped out of line as well. None of the food looked or smelled
appetizing anyway.

“
Probably not, I’ve got
some other stuff to take care of. But, if you want, come by the
warehouse after school today, I’ve got some extra lessons
planned.”

“Okay. See you later.” He
waved a goodbye as Con disappeared around the corner.

He stood there, alone in
the hallway, wondering what it all meant.
Soul wants me on his team? That can’t be true.
He figured, with his luck, it was probably all a
big joke. Well, whether or not that was true, he had no real
choice.
Just keep your head down and play
along.
The story of his life.

Chapter Ten

As Sky slunk into sixth
period he was ready for an opened eyed nap. The History of Levels
class was one of the more interesting ones, but as the biggest
lecture he had on his roster, it was a prime candidate for a
completely unnoticed zone out.

He located the largest
herd of scribblers and settled into a seat just behind them. The
scribblers never drew attention, they never asked questions and
they would be so busy transcribing the lecture to ever notice
him.

“Welcome young, eager
minds, to the History of Levels.” Professor Finley announced loudly
to the class.

Her booming voice jolted him up out of a
near slumber. He looked around casually as he tried to remember
which class it was again.

A resounding clap from
Professor Finley brought the glass board behind her to life. “Now I
know that the last few weeks may have been a lot of tedious
information that most all of you already knew, but in my defense I
was just trying to level the playing field. Information often gets
lost in translation, misinterpreted and even
exaggerated.”

Professor Finley looked
around the large circular room, her owl shaped face was nearly lost
in the mass of brown frizz that surrounded her head. “But now that
we’re all on the same page, we are about to venture into the heart
of the history and I’m certain that I’m bound to say a few things
that you’ve never heard before.” Professor Finley gave them a coy
smile and gestured to the board behind her. “Let’s start over -
from the very beginning. What is a Level?”

All hands in the room went
up instantly; she smiled and pushed her glasses up her slender
nose. “That was just a rhetorical question, but thank you all for
your eagerness.” She laughed as her large eyes widened excitedly
behind her glasses. “As you all know, Levels are what we here at
REALM call the different ‘dimensions’. There are many reasons for
this, but mainly it fits nicely into our anagram, otherwise we
might be called READM.”

She seemed pleased at the
chuckles she received. “Now, there are three parts to this whole:
Realm of the Havens, Realm of the Living and the Snow in between.
Let’s pretend, just for now, that this room is
everything
- it
is existence. Now, within existence, there is this.” she took
out a loaf of bread and set it on her desk with a thud. “This is
the tangible reality that we have labeled the Living Realm. The
Living Realm was once as whole as this loaf of bread.”

She slowly brought out a long, serrated
knife and held it for the class to see. “Now, what eventually
happened - whether in an instant or over millions of years - this
whole loaf became sliced. Each slice is a separate reality to our
own, each slice is what we have labeled the Levels.”

Professor Finley held the
classroom in a captivated silence as she carefully began to slice
the bread.

“So although none of the
Levels are exactly the same, they are still made from the same
ingredients. Some may have slight differences, the languages or
dialects for example, but even these would stem from the universal
language.” She said about half way through the cutting.

“
They may have different
cultures and activities and beliefs. Some may look different,
having evolved or mutated slightly from our own genetic makeup, but
in the end, we are still all carbon based life forms, made up of
the same elements.” She finished cutting and gestured down to the
bread. “One is still all, and all is still one.”

She placed a hand on
either end of the loaf and pressed the segments lightly together,
“As you can see, once sliced there is space between the slices,
even if they are butted up against one another, there is still
space, they will never fit back together. That may seem
insignificant to some, but to us, this was our first major
discovery.

“The space between space.
It exists between Levels, it exists within the Levels - it is a
fuzzy, static filled space that barely outlines reality, but has
physical presence. We call this space the ‘Snow’. This is where the
Flickers originate and where we first discovered their migration
patterns, but again, that is for another time. Back to the
bread.”

She picked up one of the
slices and held it up for all to see. “There is a limit to how many
times a loaf can be cut before the pieces become too thin and start
falling apart, and we feel the same is true within the Levels. We
know of seven Levels so far with our reality being ground
zero.”

Sky wasn’t nearly as bored
as he had anticipated, and he totally forgot about napping.A
student near the middle of the classroom raised her hand. Professor
Finley nodded at her with a smile.

“What about the sub
levels, Professor Finley? I think I’ve heard them called
echoes?”

Professor Finley clapped
her hands together in an excited fashion - accidentally shutting
off the board. “Excellent question! Echoes are a fairly new
discovery, although they were always thought to exist, we now have
substantial proof.” Professor Finley came around to the front of
the desk. “Think of the echoes like slicing a slice like this…” She
picked out one of the slices and cut it down the middle. “An echo
is a split from a Level, but is not actually what we classify as a
Level itself. We can’t be sure what causes them, but they seem to
be alternate versions of the same reality. But, honestly we don’t
know all that much yet.”

“
Are we going to explore
the echoes as well as Levels?”

“
Perhaps someday, but for
now, we’re just trying to figure out the Levels themselves. Baby
steps, you see.”

Another student raised
their hand, “What about the Haven races? I heard they only exist in
our realm.”

Professor Finley clapped
her hands again, this time springing the screen behind her to life.
“Another wonderful question! Yes, Haven races do in fact only exist
in our Level. As far as we know their genetic codes are never
repeated in any form anywhere else. This is one of the reasons why
we believe this is Level 1. The Haven races were made before there
were even thoughts of a Living realm, although they are here, they
are not
from
here
and so their ingredient is not dispersed throughout the
bread.”