Rising Shards

When we were stuck in Reed's world—that creepy squiggly void imp guy that was torn between trying to get us to read and trying to get us to kill each other—it got maddening just wandering the hallways of his world generated in the void. I kind of understood from class how places in the void could be dreamlike and not follow real world logic (well, I guess everything in the void is real, it just follows different rules depending on the dimension). This place was similar; it felt like I'd been following Anastasia down a single hallway for a long time, with no doors or anything to be found, just rows and rows of lockers.

"You think there are others happening around us?" I asked. "Or are these just happening to you and the devils maybe?"

"Don't blame me for this," Anastasia said.

"You're the common denominator is all," I said. "I'm not saying it's you either, but maybe whatever these are wants you guys for something."

Ana didn't answer. I saw her clench her fists, and braced myself for her to turn around and try to deck me.

"At the last one, there was a girl with a soft voice," Ana said. "She claimed to have summoned the imp."

"Huh? A girl?" I said.

"But we didn't find out who she was," Ana said.

"Maybe you could recognize her by her voice?" I suggested.

Anastasia shrugged. "Didn't sound like anyone I knew. But she knew about us."

"Weird..." I said.

Ana didn't answer.

"If we don't get to this shopping spree after that super long bus ride, I'm gonna be mad," I said. This was the longest I'd ever spoken to Ana, so I guess my instinct was to just fill the air with noise to keep that going. She may not have liked me, but she was still my sister. I wanted to at least try.

"I don't give a damn if we go or not," Ana said.

"Really? You'd rather do this than get a new dress or something?" I asked.

"Yes. Really." Anastasia said, scratching her head. Every time she glanced back at me, she looked away, like even just almost making eye contact with me was difficult. I was terrible at making eye contact, so I didn't exactly blame her, but her avoiding me seemed more like she couldn't stand to look at me. "Do you think I'd be super excited about it? Did we not just make that abundantly clear with that wingmen nonsense?"

"Well, you seemed to have fun with that." I said.

"I rejected every single candidate," Anastasia said.

"No, you didn't," I said.

"Name one person I didn't turn away," Ana said.

"You said you'd date Sai, why don't you just date them?" I said.

"What? It doesn't work like that." Anastasia said.

"Why not?"

"It just doesn't." Anastasia said. "You're incredibly annoying."

"I'm just curious is all! Sai's cool, you'd be good together," I said.

Ana clammed up again, and I got the sense that topic was shelved for now. I tried to think of something else to say while we were stuck together.

"You wanna talk about the new Tower episode?" I asked.

"Not with you," Anastasia said.

"It's kinda funny we Faleur sisters all like Tower of Hate and Love, isn't it?" I said.

"Not a Faleur," Anastasia said.

"Well, we three sisters then," I said. "Stella likes it too, if you're wondering."

"I don't care what she likes," Ana said.

Tower seemed like a bust of a topic now, but I hoped I could talk about it with her more later. I bet she had a lot of the same opinions on it as me, I just had a feeling. What else could I ask her while we were here?

"Hey, remember back when you said you knew what was up with Kalei? Can you just tell me already? We can't get her to say what it is." I said.

Anastasia smiled smugly. "Why would I ruin that fun?"

"Can you tell me if it's something bad, at least? Like, should I be worried?" I said.

Her smug grin got even more obnoxious somehow, and she chuckled deeply. "Again, why would I spoil that—"

"Ugh, you're annoying too," I said. "Maybe we'll run into her here and her scenario or whatever will finally spill the beans, you know? Ana?" She was already storming down the hallway as I finished. I jogged to catch up with her.

After a few more minutes of walking, I had to wonder if we were doing this right.

"We've been walking down this hallway like, a really long time," I said.

"And?"

"Do you think we're caught in a loop or something? Like we can't go forward until we solve some thing?" I said.

"Tch, should've thought of that," Anastasia said. She stopped and looked around, deciding to try and open the lockers near us. "When we were in the dating show one, Lillia found a way forward like that. I would've remembered that sooner if you would've just shut up."

"That doesn't really make sense though, because I reminded you of it by saying it, so me talking is actually the thing that could move us forwar—"

I was interrupted by Anastasia punching a locker so hard it felt like the entire building shook. She kept her fist against it, leaning on it like she was doing some big speech in a play.

"I don't know what makes you think you can just talk to me the way you do," Anastasia said. "It's like I keep reminding you that I despise you and you won't leave, a gnat that won't stop bothering me. I hate you, and I hate your sister. I'd strike you down you right now..."

"...but?" I said.

Anastasia tapped her fist on the metal. "But I told my friends I'd try to control my anger, a little bit. And I love them more than I hate you, so."

"Kay," I said. I think she expected her dramatic speech to get a bit more of a reaction out of me, but at this point, I was just confused and a bit tired of all this. "Why do you hate me so much, anyways?"

Anastasia scoffed like that was a bizarre question.

"Because the way I see it, I didn't really do anything," I said. "When we were younger, Stella pulled us away from our parents, but I never even knew about you, and she didn't either. Like, maybe I can see hating her, but don't you think it's not really my fault that we got separated when I was basically a baby? Or that our parents were bad enough that Stella wanted to get me away from them? Or that they wouldn't tell us about you? If it's something else...well, I know I can talk about Tower a bit too much, and Raina Starlight, but you like Tower, so you gotta like Raina too. If it's some rumor you heard from Ovie, she made up a bunch of stuff about me in the first semester, so...yeah. I dunno. I don't get it, Anastasia. We're sisters, right?"

Ana had turned so I couldn't see her face. I braced myself to get hit, and honestly the more I rambled, I kind of wondered if I was trying to egg her on. To get her to blow up at me. I don't know why, maybe just an inherent sibling feeling. Sometimes Stella and I would fight like that. Like we just had to get it out of our systems.

My sister whirled around suddenly, her expression strangely blank.

"I—"

I didn't get to find out what she was going to say, as someone shouted over her. It was that teacher from before, now ahead of us.

"There you are!" He shouted. "Nobody runs from Mr. Sleebo's motivational detention time!" He charged toward us, pumping his arms at an absurdly fast rate as he kept screaming louder and louder.

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