9 Days Before

The way to school felt like a daydream that never ended. In the back seat of the car, Lin sits back.

Groaning due to another day of school, however he's out of sorts: like he's missing something—something important.

It wasn't notebooks, pencils, or any appliances, but something major he can't quite put his finger on.

He recalls this morning, listing everything that had happened: He didn't forget to eat, didn't forget to brush his teeth, he also didn't forget his homework.

Nothing that he listed seemed major enough to fit this puzzle.

The question lies on his mind, as his mother looks back at him in the rear view mirror, "whats up, Hun?" She darts her vision between the road and him.

He snaps back out of it, "nothing." He simply replies and looks at the window, seeing foliage and structures fly by.

She nods and gives a slight acknowledgement towards his decision to not answer firmly, giving a few glances here and there before she mains her focus onto the road ahead.

Placing his head onto his fist as he peers at the window, the rummaging of thoughts formulates again.

Making his mind melt as he tries to figure out what's going on, Lin's on his way to school and his mom is taking him, maybe that's what's off, he normally gets on the bus.

His thought bubble pictures this outcome as a piece to the puzzle,"Hey mom, why is it today that you're taking me to school?" Her mother perks her eyes up to the rear-view, "I've always taken you to school" leaving them both feeling like the puzzle at hand.

"Sorry, I must be tired." He says, shrugging it off doing a big inhale, getting a whiff of car freshener, then letting it out.

The rest of the drive felt dull and long as the two of them remained silent.

~○●~

~○●~

Vehicles start to pull up to the school, doing a gentle turn, following the parking rules.

Lin's mom pulls up, keeping the car to a low buzz. Its engine does a slight massage to its riders, "have a good day at school, here" she says, giving Lin a paper bag filled with lunch goodies.

He accepts the food, making a crumbling sound as he grabs the bottom half. "Thanks, mom." Lin responds to the gesture, placing the goodies into his backpack.

Questions arise: his mother drives him to school instead of taking the bus and she makes him lunch, for some reason to Lin, it doesn't feel right.

Like he just won a reward and his mother is giving him treatment for it.

Lin weaves a goodbye to his mother as she waves and smiles back at him, he pushes the car door making a slight thud to its closer, turning around to see the school ahead of him.

Something about it feels different, which piles onto the other question he has, Lin shrugs it off taking a sigh as he lets go of the unfamiliarity.

Continuing ahead to finish another school day, he makes his way through the arches of the entrance.

His observations speak to him as he notices the school's sign when passing it. "Still looks the same'' with a small sigh, almost encasing it with relief.

Lin strides towards the section on where his locker is, "Yo!" He hears from behind him, a familiar voice.

Here comes Opel, with the sight of him, a memory flashes yet it's dark and blurry, barely making anything out of it; a shiver courses through his spine. "It sucks having to spend summer at this school, huh?" Opel snaps him out of it, Lin's dark memory fades as his friend asks another question. "Are you excited for your birthday that's coming up?"

"Huh? —, oh, yeah. Maybe get the new box-station." Recalling his birth date, he had snuck a wink of what his birthday might include. "Isn't it at the end of the week here, the…30th?" Opel tries to think of his birth date, making an effort to confirm his remembrance.

Lin nods in agreement as the two walk to class together, getting ready for their math teacher's lesson.

They take a seat at their desks, Lin shuffles through his bag, gently pressing his lunch to the side, taking out his notebook and pencil. His bag feels a bit wonky as well, remembering damages he's done to his book throughout the school year, and now it's seemingly a brand new book.

Lin might've remembered things wrong or maybe his mother has gotten him a new book to ease through the rest of summer school.

The classroom door opens up, sparking the sun's rays onto the floor and the wall ahead of it, in comes a student with a small note, passing it along to the teacher in front.

She grabs the note, having the student wave and takes their exit. Their teacher reads it before her classroom, poking up from the note Mrs Koi glances at Lin and passes the note to him.

"You'll be going to class E5" a room where the school's counselor takes students to talk to them regarding their school work, amongst other conversations such as: The new school year, birthdays, class grades, and more. "Okay…" he says with an inflation towards the end, shuffling the math textbook back into his bag, its zipper crackling as Lin closes it.

Picking it up as he takes his leave.

Lin waltzes to the instructions notes, seeking the room to talk with the school's counselor.

Thinking to himself that it could be about his birthday coming up, looking down and up from the note to check the rooms numbers, seeing only the main classrooms.

He changes directions seeing the numbers changing into letters, pacing himself as he checks.

He scans the classrooms, having another white flash towards his memory, the hallways change into ruined remains then it flashes back to its normal scene.

In Front of him is the designated E5 room the teacher and the note had said, a cold sweat races across Lin's body as he's about to enter.

By any means, this should be normal, to be handled like any other situation, but it has Lin sweating bullets.

Twisting its metal doorknob, the machinery rattles inside it, the door opens with a gentle squeak and he steps inside.

Lights flicker as he takes his first.

The counselor looks sideways from his computer, their glasses reflecting its shimmer. "Come, take a seat" he gets up and points with all of his fingers at the chair in front of their desk. "Thanks" Lin says back to him, his legs feeling like bricks as he sludge's towards the seat.

Bulbs flicker, as he inches closer to the seat. The strobe of the light sparks curiosity from its room owner as he looks up, "might need to get new ones" Mr. Buer makes the observation while Lin takes his seat.

They sit there quietly as the clock slowly ticks, Mr. Buer folds his hands and stares blankly towards Lin, almost waiting for a certain response from the student.

"Am I in trouble?" The silence breaks between them and Mr. Buer exhales, "To say the least, we had an incident with a certain student".

"A certain student?" Lin's mind is throwing blanks onto what happened, he doesn't remember anything bad happening, he just made a guess as to why he's here. "Yes, you should know him." A slight memory rings, yet he's still uncertain about the person.

"Is it Opel?" He responds, showing effort to remember. Mr Buer sits there throwing empty looks as he waits for another answer, leaving only one other person he would agree to his statement. "It's Kellic, isn't it?" Then the counselor nods.

"Yes, you two had a falling out I heard" he unfolds his hands and pushes an inch from his desk, the clock ticks filling in the empty spaces of their conversation.

That you've heard? he tries to think back to any events that he and his friend had a 'falling out'

Mr Buer pauses for a moment before he starts again, "you two had a fight at school, don't you remember?" He says, peering at Lin's confused glance.

The two remain silent as Lin ponders recent encounters with Kellic and remembers that he hasn't seen him today, or even for a few days now.

His memory of the week still remains a blur, however there is a faint recall of him and Kellic shouting at each other but that's about it.

"I do, but it was only a shouting match" his eyes darted down at the counselor's desk giving it a stare-down.

"A shouting match!?" He raises his voice a pitch, making Lin glance up at him. His face showed a shocked expression towards Lin's response, "you had a full on fight, fist to fist."

The memory of the occurrence flashes and he could recall a fist flying towards his face, but the person who did it was a silhouette at best, only their knuckles are clear to him. "I…I can say that I remember that." Lin says looking down at his own, examining it for any details.

"Good"

Good?

Mr Buer clears his throat and looks at the clock seeing its past the time limit for Lin's visit "I'm glad that you remembered, I called you in-behalf to see if you suffered from any issues regarding a fight with a fellow student who you share a bond with" he interlocks his hands together as he says the word, he looks down at a sheet of paper, lifting it up and passes it to Lin.

"I'd like you to fill this out when you go home for today, you'll be taking a leave of absence, just like your friend did for fighting at school." Lin takes the sheet with a bitter expression like he had just bitten into a sour candy.

Lin looks at the sheet with his sour complexion worsening "what about the rest of my summer classes?" He says tilting the sheet to scan Mr. Buer's reaction.

The Counselor leans in, "we'll be sending some work home with you and your parents can drop it off once you're done."

Lin fixes his posture plumbing the sheet with, he grabs his bag and tosses it in. "Alright." He simply says.

With Lin throwing an attitude, the bulbs flicker. "You do need to have the janitor to look at the problem" he points up to the light fixture and heads towards the door.

"I'll make sure I'll do that—oh and before you go…" Lin turns to face him.

His vocal cords are silent as his lips move, a scene in Lin's memory sprouts to the very top, seeing: A student being surrounded by other classmates, the classroom covered in ice with snow droplets feathering down, and Mr Clark, Kels dad shaking his son.

"Are you listening…?" He gets placed back, the area around him is pieced together normally, Lin looks outside and sees the sun shining down like it was.

"I said have a great day." Mr Buer says, nearly having a cold jab to his words.

"Thank you Mr Buer…you as well" Lin murmurs to himself as he takes his leave.

{●}

Opel sits in the classroom, feeling like a Ton weight as Mrs Koi continues her lecture, normally he would be paying attention, but everything around him slurs.

Cracking his blurred attention, the door speaks–opening to let the sun's vision into the classroom, along with it came Lin asking for only the teacher and him up, their words sounded gibberish as the two talked.

He's been feeling like this all day, since the moment he woke up from his bed, everything around him was a mess and peoples voices felt like a different language he never heard of.

The only time where things felt normal was when he greeted Lin at their school-hangout spot near the lockers, and after they stepped foot into this classroom everything went back to an alienated frame.

Opel tries to think of other situations besides getting out of bed, but he can't. It's like it's his only memory that's working with him today other than the greet.

He turns to face his friend again, seeing him wave and he puts his hand up sluggishly and does the same, Lin exits the classroom along with the memory of the greeting fading as he goes.

Seeing the memory transform into white shades of nothing.

With the final piece empty, he shrugs and turns back to Mrs Koi, seeing her lips move, but the words unfitting.

A whirl goes by and he slams his head onto the desk, unable to lift it back up, drool begins to foam out of his mouth as the world around him becomes the same pure white as the memory.

Drifting off into an endless white.

The students around him get up in a soldier fashion facing Mrs Koi with blank expressions. "You may take your leave" a woman from behind them orders.

They turn to face the lead woman, and do a salute, it's Sam.

Mrs Koi, grips her hair, yanking it off revealing its a wig, showing her short hair underneath. "Mam, what are your orders?" She stiffens up, doing the same salute. "Place the clone into the original bedroom." She tosses the order. The soldier lifts the body up with a device and hauls them out of the classroom, having Sam follow along with.

{●}

A shrouded figure sits on a royal chair, their whole body covered in head to toe with gray and black fabric, not even a speck of skin showcasing its completion to a giant spotlight acting like the sun underneath layers of ground.

Their body, strapped into the fine seat, matching the criss-crossed arms, the figure moves its head to the giant spotlight, trying to see any detail from the thick fabric.

Tilting their head back and downwards from the failed attempt, peering into darkness as they make an effort to do any function, a sound alerts the character.

Perking the head upright to face the general direction of its location, it's a classical theme playing smoothly, its echo reaching around the room. Playing from every angle possible, however leaving room for peace of mind, the instruments play with grace as the figure places their head downwards once more in no solid tale of emotion.

Within another room the classical music is barely a whisper to the workers, "no sign of clear emotion…onto the next test" the rough voice says to the other member, they turn and press a few key buttons on a large desk.

{●}

Octavia sits by the fireplace knowing everyone is safe, although the question still remains: where is Korith, her non-blooded sister. She searched everywhere that she might've gone, but there's no sign of where she might be.

"Big sister…" One of the other orphans walks up to her, placing a hand on Octavia's forearm. It's hot to the touch.

"Where's big sis Korith." They say with a squeak.

"Don't worry, I'll find her and bring her home." Octavia looks at them with a gentle smile, knowing she can't break structure or things might go a lot worse than they already are.

With a resurgence response the other scampers off leaving her alone by the fireplace, her legs being baked by the open flame. It's still cold in the orphanage, however outside is a perfect day for practice, but she can't bring herself to do it.

Her sword that she got from the guards is still stuck inside the ground outside, awaiting for Octavia to wield it.

She looks up, placing her hands into a fold, leaning on them for support—looking at a portrait of all the orphanage's children, Krissy standing at the far right of them, and the two in the very middle with the house mother and her kid, Sean.

"I'll get you back here I swear…" she says to the open space, Octavia gets up from her seat and walks outside, forcing the urge to train higher on the ladder.

The house mother walks up from the medical room, seeing her exit out the back door, she sighs—wanting to talk to Octavia, but there's no opening to do so, aside from Avia from locking her out and her hands being tied there wasn't any room for discussion.

Even with Korith's disappearance and the whole charade the two of them had caused.

She looks down, her hand still dripping on the railing and goes into the kitchen, still lingering on the scene where Korith got hit by lightning and to the figure in the doorway, thinking that she might have to come to terms with it–to tell Octavia about something she has kept hidden from them.