Rising Shards

My phone buzzed the next day. I was expecting it to be a text from Oka, but it was Kalei calling me. She never called me, she preferred texting, so this was weird and a bit alarming. I answered right away (well, after a few rings so I could to calm my anxiety spike down).

“Hey,” Kalei said.

“What’s up?” I asked.

There was a long pause, then Kalei sighed.

“I dunno,” Kalei said. “I’m…not feeling ready to go back, I guess.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I said. I didn’t want to think about how classes and lunches and the dorms without Aira and Laenie would be. For Kalei, it’d be a different set of emotions. Her crush sentenced herself to Wildfire Hearts just so Kalei could stay at Rising Shards and not have to be with Order of Terina jerks who’d messed with her before. “How are you holding up otherwise?”

“Not…great? I guess?” Kalei said. “I thought about calling or texting her.”

“Did you not?” I asked. I hadn’t called or tried to contact any of the others that went to Wildfire Hearts, and was embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it.

“Yeah, I was about to, but it didn’t feel right,” Kalei said. “Like I hadn’t earned talking to her so soon yet, something like that. I started thinking of other stuff I could do.”

“To take your mind off of it?”

“No, to bring her back.” Kalei said.

“Oh,” I said. “How’d that go?”

“I tried to go in.” Kalei said. “To get her. And the others too. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Go in where?” I asked. “The void?”

“Yeah,” Kalei said.

“Wait, how?”

“I just went back to school and asked. Caya let me go.” Kalei said. “But I think she just wanted to show me we can’t do anything for a while yet to help them. So I’m just sitting thinking about how I don’t want to go back to regular school.”

She sighed again. I tried to think of something supportive to say.

“Nikki went there to spare you from it,” I said. “So maybe to like, honor that sacrifice, maybe going to school would be what she would want you to do? I mean, she’s not dead, we could…ask her whenever we see her again, but. I don’t know.” I continued to trail off. Kalei didn’t answer, so I panicked and tried to think of something else. “Plus, the sooner we go back, the closer we get to actually being able to do something to help them. That recreant thing Caya and Diast were talking about.”

“That’s true,” Kalei said. “At least with class I can focus on that instead of sitting here just thinking about stuff I can’t even do right now.”

“Yeah! That’s a good point.” I said.

“Oh, forgot to say,” Kalei said. “I watched that Tower stuff you sent again, that was so weird. Why’d they cancel that spinoff?”

“Right?” I said. We got talking about Tower of Hate and Love Jr., and the more cheerful and snarky Kalei I knew began to creep back in. We chatted for a while until we each had to get started getting things ready for our return to school the next day.

“Thanks, Zates,” Kalei said. “See you soon, dude.”

After she hung up, my phone started ringing again almost immediately. I thought Kalei was calling me back, but it was a number I didn’t recognize. Normally I wouldn’t answer a call like this, but I was enough in talking on the phone mode that I could at least hear who it was before hanging up immediately if it was a spambot or something.

”Um, hello?” I asked.

”Is this Zeta Faleur?”

”Y-yes.” I said. I recognized her voice immediately. It was Caya. ”Hello, Caya...?”

”Excellent,” Caya said. ”And hello to you as well. I trust you are doing well. I apologize for calling during your time off.”

”It’s alright.” I said. I couldn’t tell by her tone if this was going to be bad news or not. 

”I just wanted to inform you that I will personally be handling the investigation into Arctus Kathron.” Caya said.

”Oh,” I said. I wondered how Diast felt about that. ”Sounds good.”

”Due to the complicated nature of the situation, it may be some time before I can provide anything substantial,” Caya said. ”I will let you know of any updates I find once I am able.”

”Thank you,” I said. The whole thing was confusing, but having Caya on the case made me feel like it wouldn’t be long before she found something out. But that ’once I am able’ kinda sounded like she might not be able to tell me right away if she did find anything out. Maybe some kind of privacy thing with how Arctus was actually at school talking to me.

”Void stuff is confusing,” I said. 

”Indeed,” Caya said. ”But I will leave you to your recovery week. Thank you for understanding.”

”Yeah, no problem,” I said weakly.

After Caya hung up, I sat back in the couch. Like Kalei earlier during her call, it was my turn for a long pause to think before sighing.