CHAPTER FIVE: FITTING IN

Congratulations. You now know how to move from point “A” to point “B” within the school, and to avoid -- at all costs -- breaking the rules. But schools, as far as I can tell, are also a place of social development. Consider joining an extracurricular activity. Pull light-hearted pranks on your roommates. The student culture of Kingsly is rich.

Fitting in isn’t just a fulfillment of social needs, though. It’s a fulfillment of safety needs.

Unfortunately for us, Kingsly happens to be a dangerous place to learn and live. If you follow the rules, then the school will not harm you. That says nothing of the things that live here. Students, “inanimate” objects, and predatory ideas lurk in every corner.

Never fear, however; there is an answer to your plight. Your best protection is friends.

Kingsly friends come in two classes: disposable, and disposing. Disposable friends can be used to distract threats, disposing friends are used to eliminate them. Gauge the usefulness of your classmates. Ask yourself: which of my fellow students can take a beating, and which would be doing the beating?

Ideally, you’re the latter.

Baker awoke gradually, sensory input drifting into his mind and pulling him from a dreamless sleep. The uncomfortably firm mattress and pillow on his cheek provoked him to open his eyes and focus, flooding his retinas with not much at all, considering that the room was dark. He pulled himself into a sitting position and yawned, then fell into an existential chasm when he realized that he was still real and still really lost. He still had no idea who he was or what he was doing in the school. Still had no prior experiences.

“Good morning, sunshine,” snidely remarked Romov.

This prompted his memory of the previous days events. Several classes were roughly “taught”, before he stumbled to what seemed like a bed and laid in it.

Baker allowed a pitiful groan to escape his lips.

“Me too, buddy. Now up and at ‘em. We’ve got work to do.”

Baker reluctantly stood in the dark, and the light in the room flickered on upon noticing his presence. He was in a tiny, cramped dorm -- as though scientists had methodically engineered the smallest bedroom possible for a single human, then cut it in half. A single bare lightbulb on the ceiling illuminated the room, which, despite being quite clean, produced in one the feeling of intense squalor, in part magnified by the raw cement floors and walls, somewhat evoking a prison cell. Folded clothes laid next to his bed on a side-table. He dressed himself. As far as he could tell, they were essentially the same as yesterday’s, only clean.

“Do I have a new schedule?” asked Baker.

“You’ll know where you need to go when you need to be there,” cryptically non-answered Romov. “For now, we’re headed to the library.”

“Why,” flatly stated Baker. He contemplated crawling back into the bed and rotting away.

“One of my shards is stored there.”

“See, so, thing is, that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t make any sense.”

“Physically or logically?”

Baker sighed with disgust. “Both?”

“Listen, I explained this yesterday,” stated Romov before launching back into a metaphysical lecture that didn’t actually make any sense. Baker tuned out immediately and attempted to make an expression close to intent focus.

“--and when we’ve got the last of my five shards, I’ll be able to take a new physical form, at which point I will assist in your escape from Kingsly,” dramatically concluded Romov. Baker understood this sentence fragment, at least.

“Can’t you possess someone else? Someone… competent?” Baker whined.

“First of all, I resent the term ‘possession’. I think we have a symbiotic relationship, and even if you think I’m not helpful, I don’t exactly have much control over your body, which would make me more of a parasite.”

“Ah, comforting clarification,” mused Baker.

“Secondly, other people can die. Will die. You won’t. And if I die when I’m inside your head, you’ll die. And because you can’t, I won’t.”

“Does everyone in this school only speak ‘cryptic circular logic’?”

“It’s more elliptical than circular.”

Baker stared blankly at the wall.

“I see.” He stretched as much as he could, then opened the door leading out of the room. Or, at least, that’s how things happened in his head. It took a moment for Baker’s half-asleep mind to realize that the door hadn’t opened when he had told it to.

“Interesting,” said Romov.

Of all the things a seemingly omniscient entity inside your head can say to you, “interesting” ranks among the most disturbing.

“What?” Baker snapped.

“...The door is locked. That’s interesting,” said Romov indignantly.

A somehow familiar smell drifted up from the floor that managed to catch Baker’s attention. And, when his senses had properly attuned to the process of observation, he retroactively noticed a sound that had been constantly and quietly echoing in the room since he had awoke.

“Do you hear that?” said Baker, very still, as though movement would call the noise’s attention somehow.

“That’s a stupid question to ask someone who shares your senses.”

Baker ignored him, a process he’d become rather efficient with, and that he’d even come to enjoy in some small part. He swivelled his head around, attempting to locate the source of the sound. He found it on the floor.

A dark patch had sprouted from the ground, where the cement floor had been wetted. A membrane of water reached lazily across the floor, and Baker visually traced it to the edge of the room, then followed it up the wall and to the ceiling.

Water was sprouting from cracks in the ceiling and walls, and the patter of drips against concrete was growing more rapid.

“Interesting.”

Baker let his mouth hang noiselessly open, his eyebrows scrunched together over worried eyes. The floor was now evenly coated. Baker took a step backwards, and his panic was infinitely magnified when his shoes splashed in the room-puddle.

In the nebulous field of psychology, more concrete details are oft overlooked in the favor of more general statistics that would support a broader conclusion. And yet, the academics with a true and pure love for the field still find incredible fascination in the minutiae of independent existence. Therefore, I maintain that the most fulfilled human being hypothetically possible would be a psychologist with a stopwatch, reviewing their findings after watching Baker look towards the door nervously, relievedly realize that there was a gap underneath the door for the water to escape from the room, and then experience a peculiar mixture of betrayal, bafflement, and hopelessness as he realized that the water was ignoring this gap and continuing to pool up in the room regardless.

Romov wasn’t a psychologist and didn’t have a stopwatch, but as a mildly psychopathic individual with a love for the sciences, he came close.

“It appears someone is trying to kill us. Or, at least, kill you.”

Baker barely understood Romov’s words as they passed through his mind, as said mind was preoccupied with a simulation of drowning. A mildly censored (in the interest of pleasantness) transcription of Baker’s thoughts throughout the next few moments is as follows:

Man. This really sucks. I don’t want this at all. I’ve heard that drowning is terrible. Drowning is frowning, as they say. And this Romov fellow is being quite unhelpful. Perhaps I’ll request his assistance.

“DO SOMETHING,” screamed Baker. A small bit of blue fire leaked from Baker’s mouth, pinching off into a tiny floating ember. It bobbed in the air for a moment, as annoyedly as an ember can bob.

“Ah, yes, let’s get the flame being -- whom, to your knowledge, is composed entirely of flame -- and let’s have him flame away all this water with his flames.” The ember dissipated. “Good plan.”

Baker grabbed his head, and stared wide-eyed at the water, now up to his ankles, mind racing for anything he could do. The literal interpretation of racing, in this instance, is actually the most appropriate, as Baker’s mind chased itself in a circle and abandoned any productive processes in the interest of speed. A shadow fell over the water as something passed in front of the light. Baker spun around.

It was polished wood, emerging from the ceiling slowly. The shape grew longer and longer, before eventually revealing itself as a canoe. The passenger of this canoe, of course, was Djymm, with a rather disheveled look about him. Sweat was beaded on his forehead and he was panting with ragged breath. The oars broke the ceiling, and the canoe splashed in the water below, rocking steadily. Baker and Djymm caught each other’s eyes in an exchange vaguely reminiscent of meeting an old elementary school teacher in the grocery store, and they’ve got an impractical number of condom boxes piled in their arms.

“Mr. Baker!” said Djymm with ragged breath, breaking the silence. “Good to see you! I really would love to chat, but I am currently very preoccupied--” he started to row forwards, smoothly drifting past Baker. The tip of his canoe entered the adjacent wall. Looking back at Baker with a mildly lost look, as though he had accidentally left something behind, he added: “You look… well.”

“Wait, no, Djymm! Help! I need help!” scrambled Baker.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid I am rather beset by a complicated”

Then the wall closed over Djymm’s head, and the rest of the canoe similarly vanished into the wall, along with the last vestiges of Baker’s hope for not drowning. The water had risen to his shins. He sat on his bed and let his head fall into his hands in despair.

“I’m sure you’ll understand me unhooking myself from your senses now, Baker. See you soon,” happily added Romov. Baker’s body shivered as Romov’s connections to his nervous system were rescinded. Then it really was silent, for the first time that morning. The dripping water was a smooth stream that silently added to the pool. All that was left to keep Baker company was a familiar smell. It smelled like… a basement, he supposed. Though he didn’t have any reference for that knowledge. He watched the room stoically, gauging the time he had before things really got ugly. Maybe two minutes. He braced himself as best he could.

Soot strung itself together in the corner, rapidly expanding into the shape of a human being, before color resolved and the surface of the coals rippled into skin. A dress flowered into existence, and the red fabric wrapped around the newly existent person. She had wavy black hair that reached a little below her shoulders, a soft face, and two piercing hazel eyes set like gemstones in ivory. She had a very polite expression on.

Again, the unexpectedness of the meeting applied to both parties.

“Oh, hello,” began the woman, “have you seen an old man in a canoe anywhere?”

Baker emitted a slack-jawed “uh” as his brain attempted to process this new event. At last it caught up and he pointed glacially at the wall through which Djymm had exited. She nodded cordially and continued towards the wall.

After taking a step, however, she seemed to notice she was knee-deep in water. She looked down distastefully at it, then back at Baker.

“What is this?” she asked.

“...Water?” replied Baker. She returned this statement with a confused stare, before picking her way delicately to the wall. “Uh, ma’am, one second please--” managed Baker, before the woman evaporated into soot. Her shadow was left on the wall for a few seconds before fading away. Baker sighed. He stood, intending to wade towards his night table in search of a phone or something similar, or at least a crossword puzzle he could pass the time with until he died. As he took his first step, however, he met unexpected resistance at his feet, and tumbled into the water.

“Good morning, sunshine,” snidely remarked Romov.

Baker rolled out of bed. The light turned on. He tried the door handle. Locked, of course.

“Interesting,” mused Romov.

“You have no idea.”

Baker fumbled his pants, shirt, and shoes on to his body.

“I’m guessing something killed you. My condolences. In the interest of finding a solution, what was it?”

Baker scanned the room. Tiny transparent droplets had already started forming at the cracks in the walls. He pressed his hands against the cold cement and peered at the water closely.

“I see,” said Romov.

“Djymm and a woman came through here too,” said Baker. “After you unhooked yourself and left me to die.”

“Sounds like something I’d do. Why didn’t you get help from Djymm or this woman?”

“I tried. Apparently people here are fond of ignoring me. And both were in a rush, as well. The woman was looking for Djymm, I think.”

“Many people are. I couldn’t tell you why.”

The water had already started pooling faster -- certainly faster than the last time. It was knee-deep when Djymm entered the room.

The canoe plopped into the water.

“Can I get a ride?” asked Baker, optimistically. Djymm peered down at him curiously, still rowing.

“Depends on the time I have,” Djymm said. He winked meaningfully.

“I’d say about thirty seconds,” replied Baker.

“Thirty?” replied Djymm, as he began phasing into the wall. “Why, this whole room will be submerged in this”

A few seconds passed after the canoe had disappeared into the wall.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust a man who doesn’t finish his sentences before exiting a room,” said Romov. Something itched at the back of Baker’s mind. Normally (or abnormally, for most) this would be a sign of Romov’s presence or possibly something horrendous attempting to consume his brain. This time, however, this itch came from within, not from without. It was a feeling, not unlike Blue, that something was horribly wrong.

He looked down at the water, the surface gently rippling in waves where it met Baker’s legs. He dipped a hand into it, and pulled it away. He pinched it between his fingers and rubbed it into his skin, then wiped the wet from his hand onto his shirt. Something was wrong here, fundamentally. Not just with his situation, but with the details.

Soot collected in the corner and spewed into the shape of a human. Baker cordially smiled at her, then offered his hand for a handshake.

“Hi, I’m Mr. Baker. Nice to meet you.”

The woman looked at Baker confusedly for a second, then down at his shirt, then at his hand, then down to the water. Her brow furrowed.

“Cardona,” she said, ignoring the offer of a handshake. She looked around the room, then trudged slowly towards the wall where Djymm had exited.

“Cold,” said Romov.

“Interesting,” corrected Baker. He felt a shuffle in his brain as Romov adjusted, as though he were leaning forwards.

“Oh? How so?”

“She remembered,” said Baker. The water reached his chest. A pit in his stomach formed, and he felt off-balance and heavy.

Then realization struck. His heavy feet and knotted stomach, the look on Cardona’s face. Djymm’s ever-present humor. And following the realization, he devised a plan.

“Romov, can you kill me quickly? I think it’d be nicer than drowning.”

“I thought you’d never ask. By the way, did you notice that we aren’t buoyant?”

“I did, and I think I know who’s trying to kill us.”

Romov chuckled from within Baker’s head.

“Color me impressed, then. On the count of three.”

And then Romov immediately incinerated Baker’s brain.

“Good morning, sunshine,” snidely remarked Romov. Baker rolled out of the bed and the lights turned on as he started to get dressed immediately.

“This is… unexpected behavior,” said Romov.

“I’ve died twice already,” said Baker, watching the ceiling impatiently.

“...Did the ceiling kill you?” asked Romov, only half-sarcastically.

Again, the water was knee-deep by the time Djymm entered the room.

“Djymm killed you?” incredulously asked Romov.

“Mr. Baker!” said Djymm.

“Good to see you too, Djymm. I won’t keep you,” answered Baker quickly. Djymm smiled warmly as he passed into the wall.

“I see! Good luck this time, my”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust a man who doesn’t finish his sentences before exiting a room,” said Romov, again.

Roughly thirty seconds later, Cardona formed in a corner and dropped into the water. She had a significantly less polite expression attached to her face.

“If you don’t help me now, you’re going to be stuck repeating this until you do,” offered Baker. Cardona narrowed her eyes, and the room fell silent for a couple seconds.

“So you are the one causing this trouble, hmm?” she said, a hint of vindication creeping into her voice. “Alright, then. I expect this back when I next see you.” She reached up to her face, and with her thumb and forefinger plucked her eye from its socket. It was absolutely disgusting, so I’ll spare you the gruesome description. Baker was incredibly disturbed, and it looked very painful.

She tossed it towards Baker, who caught it in both hands. It was… sickeningly jelly-like.

“W--... what am I supposed to do with this?!” asked Baker, staring at the eye. He looked up expectantly at Cardona, only to find her fading shadow on the wall.

“I think I can be of assistance here, actually,” said Romov. Fire flickered behind Baker’s eyes, and erupted from his tear duct. Spiraling thorns of flame jetted down his arm and pierced Cardona’s eye, and Baker nearly vomited from the dizzying exposure to an entire new source of vision as Romov bridged the gap between the new eye and his own.

Baker closed his eyes instinctively, filtering out his old sight. Through Cardona’s eyes, he saw a sea of shiny black.

“Tar?” half-whispered Romov.

...UHHH.