VII – I got a feeling somebody’s watching me!

Previously on ‘Glitch’:

GEO, the treacherous member of the Skulls who betrayed Thief Queen to steal her Heart in a Vat (the supposed command console of reality), discovered that she is alive and somewhere in Chicago! He made a sinister alliance with Duke Midas, leader of The Cubs (the mafia that controls half the city).

Yet somebody comes after Thief Queen and Edward first: the Sprites—strange creatures who are brought into reality in order to punish mobs (beings) that are abusing Glitches.

Will Edward survive his first test as a Glitcher? Find out!

-| Glitch - |

"The July Days were a turbulent moment in American history," lectured a teacher with messy hair and poorly tied tie. He had so many dark circles that he looked as if he wore sunglasses. "To talk about the July Days, I gotta first tell you about the miserable year that 2026 was. Give mom and dad some credit because things looked ugly! The dollar fell, Americans suddenly got a real shock about how poor they were, and people were royally pissed like they weren't since 1776!"

Edward sat on the class’s front row, yet he had no eyes for the teacher. He jolted his head left and right as if he expected an animal to come out of the ventilation and assault him.

Thief Queen Elizabeth, inside Edward’s mind, observed the teacher as he lectured. "This modernities teacher of yours looks like he just got off the bed,” she remarked. “What does he do at night?”

"Dr. Welsh is weird,” replied the boy, struggling not to call anyone’s attention. “But could you please focus on the invisible frogs trying to decapitate me?"

"Wait, am I seeing toothpick scared of something?"

"Sorry, it's that Hermione's drawings creeped me out—”

Dr. Welsh, the teacher, pointed at Edward. "Mr. Williams!" the man rose his voice.

Elizabeth snorted, "Pretend he's talking to someone else."

"I can't,” murmured the boy, “there are like eleven people in class—"

"Talking to yourself, Eddy?" inquired Dr. Welsh, crossing his arms. "You know, I used to hear voices and talk to them all the time when I was in college. Doug, my girlfriend at the time—yes, her name was Doug. The girl got bullied more than me. Doug used to say that that was really charming about my personality. She said I..."

The man spoke as if he read his own detailed autobiography. Dr. Welsh acted like he stood on a stand-up podium as if the class were no more.

All students sighed in frustration as the teacher ranted and joked about stories that had become as familiar as gunfire noise in the night. “Damn, I don’t believe he’s talking about Doug again!” said a chubby student with ginger hair as he opened a bag of snacks. “I’m glad I bought these. Want some, Eddy?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at the anxious boy and shaking the food.

Yet Edward was so caught up in his own fears that he did not hear the offer. He frowned and talked to Elizabeth, "Okay! Mr. Welsh started deviating. No more class today. Where are the evil toad Sprites? Could they just appear and stab me in the back…"

The ginger student scowled, disappointed. “Eddy?” he faltered. “You never say no to Berg’s Pretzels. Who are you talking to? You don’t like Pretzels anymore, man?”

Edward once again did not reply. He looked out the window and swung his head to face any suspicious noise—which ranged from bushes moving to a nail falling to the ground.

Yet his ginger friend did not need an answer to feel insecure about himself. He made a hundred assumptions over a single gesture, “You fear you’ll gain some weight and become like me, Eddy? I know you do, you are not replying. Come on, man! Life’s not worth without some food! Don’t judge me. All my insecurity is just making me eat more and…”

His ramblings bothered Elizabeth. “Edward, your friend is talking,” she remarked. “Please tell him to shut up, I must concentrate.”

The boy recoiled and faced his ginger friend. “I’m so sorry, Schmidt,” said Edward, noticing that his classmate ate something. “Oh, I see you brought pretzels. Can you give me some?”

Schmidt looked away and whistled, obviously ignoring the boy’s plead.

Elizabeth bargained:

“Maybe it’s better if you keep your stomach empty. It’ll make less of a mess if the Sprites get to you.”

“You are right,” resigned Edward. “I just wanted to distract myself. I feel like I’m going mad and I haven’t even seen any of the Sprites yet—”

A cold hand touched his shoulder.

"Eddy, are you alright?" asked Adela, his young blonde neighbor who shared his fascination with Glitches. She had the voice of an angel, and her touch felt softer than a pillow. "People are talking."

Edward looked back and faced a wall of curious eyes. His classmates were ten of the few brave souls who hadn't dropped off high school.

"W-What’s going on?” he faltered, grinning awkwardly. “Did they draw ‘I’m gay’ again on my shirt? It took me forever to clean the last t—”

Adela interrupted him, “Haven’t you noticed, Eddy? You’ve been talking a to yourself a lot and doing weird things. Are you sure you are alright?”

“Y-Yeah, I'm alright, Adela. Thank you for worrying. I’m just stressed out”—he faced his colleagues and waved his palms—“it’s just stress, guys. No worries!”

The school's bells rang. Dr. Welsh, who rambled about yet another set of stories about Doug, threw his notes into the air. "Yahoo, break time! said the man as he ran out of the room.

Edward stood up and packed his notebooks to leave, yet Adela held his bag.

"Are you sure you are alright?" she insisted. “You know my uncle is a reverend. You can join his—”

"I’m okay, Adela," he faced her, “trust me.”

“Want to eat outside today, then? If you eat alone, the rumors might get worse, so…”

Edward blushed. “W-wait, that’s sudden. Wouldn’t Brad mind?” he hesitated.

“Brad and I are off and on. You know how it is”—she frowned at her right hand. She had taken out her boyfriend’s commitment ring—”so what do you say?” she asked, grinning at him.

“Maybe it is not right—”

Elizabeth yelled in Edward’s head, “Bloody hell, how is it not right? Screw whoever that Brad is. This dummy wants you.”

Edward felt as if his heart exploded in his chest. He became so red that a tomato would envy him.

Adela frowned, embarrassed. “Why are you acting like this?” she asked, blushing. “It’s just lunch. Look”—she stepped aside and pointed at the school’s old playground—“today seems pretty windy. We should really eat outside. Doesn’t the weather look nice?”

Edward looked out the window. Yet a shiver crept down his spine and his grin collapsed. He noticed that the school's swings bounced.

"There it is,” remarked Thief Queen Elizabeth, “the Sprite.”

A human-sized frog bounced on the school's swings.

"Look!" said Edward, jolting his finger at the playground.

“What?” asked Adela. She looked outside and could not see the Sprite. "You don’t like the windy weather?” she asked him, yanking a boxed lunch from her bag. “I’m sorry, but I really did not want to eat inside. Brad might see me and it will be awk—” she noticed that the boy paid no attention to what she said.

Edward could not move his eyes away from the toad on the swings. The creature stuck its tongue out, revealing an ax wrapped around the tip of its tongue. The boy shrunk back and grabbed Adela’s shoulders.

"P-Please, Adela”—he shook her—“promise me you won’t eat outside today!”

“W-Why—”

“There’s a…” He faced the swings and the bouncing Sprite disappeared. Edward sealed his lips and scowled, crestfallen. His curious colleagues surrounded the boy as if they surrounded the victim of a car crash. Yet instead of a broken car, the spectacle was the death of Edward’s reputation.

“Eddy, please let go,” faltered Adela, glancing at his hands on her arms. “You’re hurting me.”

Edward stepped back, embarrassed. “I-I’m so sorry, I…” The curtain of mind-boggled faces staring at the boy made him nervous. He wondered where had so many faces come from. “I must go!” he said as he yanked his bag and left the classroom, leaving his colleagues to their own theories.

“What’s up with Eddy?” asked a blond classmate who wore a red french barret. “He doesn’t look très bien aujourd’hui.”

Schmidt replied, “Must be drugs, Louise”—he filled his mouth with pretzels—“didn’t he skip school yesterday to go hang out with Macro?”

“Macro? That abominable idiot? The one who joined the Cubs?”

“Yes,” said Schmidt with his mouth full. “Crap, Eddy is going downhill since his parents broke up. I remember when my dad used to tell me to look up to Eddy. Now he’s seeing things and hearing voices. People change.”

Adela listened to her classmates as she watched Edward run away. Their theories felt like stabs. Yet Schmidt continued:

“I knew something was totally bogus when he refused my pretzels. Maybe whatever he’s taking makes his appetite a—”

“Eddy is alright, okay?” snapped Adela. “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with him! He told me to stay indoors because there is too much wind and he’s afraid I’ll get a cold!”

Louise, the student with french berret, mocked her, “Oui, my dear. Keep telling that to yourself.”

“He’s going through a lot, ok? You can’t just judge him for having Macro as a friend.”

Schmidt rolled his eyes. “If it is Macro, we can,” he remarked, laughing.

A gloomy bald girl stood up from her seat by the window. She wore black & white clothes and the contrast between her dim vests made her resemble a zebra—or the ghost of one. She moved her soft swarthy face and glanced at Adela, Schmidt, and Louise.

“There was something on the playground, though. Something evil,” described the eerie girl as she stood up and walked to the exit of the room. “Don’t judge him for seeing what you cannot.”

She faded like a phantom—not leaving a single clue behind. The group of friends exchanged sights, bewildered.

“Who is not confused, lift your hands,” said Schmidt, narrowing his eyes at his classmates.

They all stared at him, motionless.

“I figured so,” he concluded, yanking a pretzel from his bag. “I miss when Sammy was not so weird.”

****

Edward was oblivious to what his classmates thought of him. He ran to his locker, confused. “Have I done bad, Elizabeth?”

“For you, yes. For her”—Elizabeth smirked—“not so much. Sprites would not kill her, as they are here to punish Glitchers. Yet they could threaten her so that you would get in a vulnerable position to help her. You’ve done something stupidly noble. If anyone had doubts that something is wrong with you, now they know for s—”

The boy saw a crowd surrounding his rusty locker. The people gossiped, baffled. Their shoulders were like layers of walls between him and his textbooks.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” pleaded Edward as he opened his way through the mob.

“—Now they are sure something is wrong,” finished Elizabeth.

He frowned and saw all his school supplies littering the ground. Eerie drawings of fleshless faces and gore were like wallpaper in his locker.

“This is disgusting,” remarked a teacher, crossing his arms. “If it were some girl pics, I’d understand. But this feels like the drawings of someone who might attack a school, I tell you!” His words spread speculation like wildfire consumes a dry forest. The mob recoiled and gossiped. The first St. Michel’s High was the stage of a killing in the past, and the school displayed a monument for the victims on all its entrances to remind them of what happened. The fear of a new catastrophe was an assiduous guest in the school.

Edward recoiled. “I can’t have my textbooks laying around—“

“They don’t know that is your locker, toothpick,” intervened Elizabeth. “Just get away and don’t pick up anything.”

“B-But—”

“Leave. Pretend you went to the bathroom.”

“A-Alright,” he resigned, fearful that his mother would kill for all the wasted school supplies.

The boy walked into a bathroom and laid his notebooks by the sink. He faced his reflection in the mirror as if he expected to hear a solution. “Elizabeth, this can’t go like this!” he mumbled. “It’s been like 2 hours and everyone seems to think I’m mad already. The principal will come and they’ll find out that locker is mine. It’ll get worse!”

“The Sprites have found you already. All we need is to lure them out and attack them. Most Glitchers die because they are ambush—“

She noticed that loose nails rolled on the floor.

“—have they been doing repairs?”

An entire row of bathroom stalls collapsed. A toad’s tongue stuck out of the debris and wrapped itself tightly around Edward’s waist. “What?” he recoiled.

“Stay firm!” ordered Elizabeth.

The boy faced his reflection in the bathroom’s mirror and saw that a giant toad used the tongue as a grappling hook. The entity held two thin daggers as it propelled itself towards the boy.

Edward felt his body burning. He cried in pain and his eyes flashed bright purple. The boy turned into Thief King Edward.

The purple-eyed man faced his aggressor. “You’ll regret coming to my world,” he said, confident. Numbers hovered over the creature’s head:

“Rogue Class Kobold” LV2 Sprite

HP: 4atm

Reaction: 188ms

Strength: 90lbs

Dislocation: 16mph

Equipment: Ethereal Daggers

KNOWN SKILLS

- The Tongue of the Relinquished: Unbreakable tongue with infinite length and three times the strength of the Sprite.

- Growth: Can swallow other Sprites to increase Level and evolve.

“Can do,” concluded Thief King with a smirk. His reaction speed was so high that he felt time slowing around him. He yanked one of Edward’s notebooks from the sink and heaved the paper at the Sprite’s daggers.

“My notes!” cried Edward, speaking in the Glitcher’s head.

The toad’s blade tore apart the notebook and pages sprung at the entity’s head, blocking its sight and attaching themselves to its gooey body.

“Did you really have to destroy my notebooks?” snorted Edward.

“Quiet,” said Thief King. He jolted his arm forward and used Edward’s notes as napkins to grab the creature’s slippery neck. The man lifted the Sprite over his shoulders and mauled the being into the sink as if he hammered a nail. “It’s pointless to resist,” he said to the Sprite, pressing its head against the bathroom sink. The mirror and all spouts broke with his move. Waters filled the sinks to drown the immobilized creature.

“We got him, Elizabeth!”

“You may contort and fight”—Thief King used his weight to keep the toad’s head in the water. His eyes brightened and reality distorted around him—“but you shall not prevail. You shall drown in the waters of lie and deception for all eternity, evil creature. Yours is a fate worse than the underworld, for you shall never see it. You shall forever be the rope in the painful tug-of-war between Death and Life. Befriend your despair, accursed entity, for it shall remain,” he finished his speech, grinning maliciously. “The Fire of Mourgiana devours y—”

A girl stood by the bathroom’s entrance. “Excuse me, can I use the boy’s bathroom—”

Her jaw collapsed. She could not see the Sprite. All that she saw was an embarrassed Thief King standing amidst a ruined bathroom as he tried to drown his own right hand in a broken sink.

“—Help!” she cried out, running away.

Thief King turned into Edward once again right before curious guests heard the girl’s plea and invaded the bathroom. The boy pulled himself away from the sink and faced the spectators, embarrassed.

“T-This is not what it looks like!” swore Edward, putting his hands in the air as if he faced the police. “I-I can’t explain this, but the bathroom broke by itself!”

An older woman who was as tall as a child made her way through the crowd. “Edward Williams?” she asked as she rose her glasses and squeezed the eyes to see him with clarity.

The boy nodded, embarrassed.

She shouted, “To my office, now!”

Tables for the Table Gods:

Spoiler: Spoiler

Edward's Stat Cards:

Edward (Thief King Mode)'s Stat Card: