The Unspoken Trial Part II

I froze when I saw her.

She didn’t belong here. Her skin was too pale, too sharp at the edges, her form shimmered above me like a vision forced into the world against its will. Long hair spilled down her shoulders, ears pointed in a way no humans ever could. An elf. Something I’d only heard of in fantasy novels, yet here she was, watching me with an intensity that made my chest clench.

The way she held still made the room feel wrong, like a single note out of tune. Her hair moved without wind, a slow, impossible shimmer. I wanted to blink and have her be gone, to convince myself the world here still made sense. Instead, my mouth dried. Everything in me catalogued the wrongness like a list: the long ears, the pale skin that seemed to drink the light instead of reflecting it.

My breath stuttered. Images I’d only read about flared up, elves in old books, aloof and graceful. That should have made me admire her. Instead, I felt exposed, like she had seen me for the thing I’d been trying to hide from even myself, small, inert, easy to step over.

I don’t know why exactly but I was scared, she looked mostly human, but my mind could only focus on the parts of her that weren’t. The way her eyes worked, like ink blobs falling rather than the whole iris coming in radially was subtle but enough to petrify me.

Then the universe reacted. The air jolted, as though the room itself had caught me looking where I shouldn’t. The figure warped, fading, her mouth moving in silence, before the walls came crashing down.

The bell rang. Too sharp, too loud, the same as yesterday, as I walked in today it was sunny, but rain began to pour down soon after.

I blinked, and the hallway stretched before me again, lockers, voices, a tide of footsteps carrying me whether I wanted it or not. The weight of it pressed down on my shoulders until my posture curled to match.

“Dude, why are you always coming in so late?” a boy laughed as he passed. Same tone. Same words. He may forget that he already asked me that after a while, but I remember. My lips formed the same answer as always, even before I thought of it: “Yeah. Sorry.”

The rhythm of it all pressed in tight, a script I hadn’t written yet couldn’t stop myself from following. I drifted into the classroom, took the same seat, felt the same dull eyes of the teacher glance my way before moving on. The chalk squeaked across the board, writing some problem on the board I couldn’t care enough to solve.

And yet, I swallowed. Something nagged at me, an itch in the back of my skull. The light at the window looked wrong, brighter somehow, too white. The girl two rows over dropped her pencil again, but her laugh came half a second later than it should have.

The déjà vu prickled my skin. Hadn’t this already happened? Hadn’t this already happened? Is it that my memory is too good, or that people forget things too fast? Either way I guess it might have to do with how nothing ever happens in my life so for the few things that do, they’re easier to remember.

The nagging feeling intensified, before it ended completely in an instant. It caused me to look up to board again, I saw the problem, it wasn’t anything too hard. When the teacher asked around the class if anyone wanted to answer, of course, no-one did, myself included. Strangely my hand was in the air despite this.

The hours dragged forward until the hallways emptied into the same dull shuffle toward the culinary club room. My feet carried me without question, as though the floor itself knew where I belonged. The only reason I even go here is because if my parents see me get home early, they’re going to be concerned that I’m wasting my life doing nothing.

As I entered the room, the supervising teacher announced that today we were to do engage in a partner cooking exercise. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it, but the other members were as it meant we were allowed to do more “serious” cooking.

I got partnered up with a girl who was already gung-ho with preparing all the ingredients and tools needed to start on the recipe she had chosen. Stir-fry noodles. I stood a good distance away from her, close enough where the instructor wouldn’t try to push me closer to “engage” but far enough were it wasn’t like I was going to get in her way.

And yet… something was different. A residue of unease clung to me, like a dream I couldn’t quite shake. Everything appeared in order, it wasn’t like I was forgetting to turn in an assignment, or anything so why was it a thread of wrongness tugged at me all the same?

The flame surged, as the girl enthusiastically dropped in some frozen vegetables. Afterwards she began washing the fresh ones in the sink nearby as she waited on the peas to thaw. Never once did she ever lose sight of needed to be taken care of, she was on top of everything. There was no need for me to be here.

As she went to drop in the broccoli, her phone went off. She gave me a look saying, “please be useful for once,” as she apologized and left the room to take the call.

I gripped tightly the spoon I holding for appearance’s sake. My hand shook so badly I nearly dropped it. A voice inside whispered the same old answer, None of this matters. You’ll fail anyway. Better to let someone more capable handle it all, same as always.

Steam fogged the air and the oil snapped in angry little arcs, a sound that tasted metallic on my tongue. I knew the pan, I knew how the noodles would seize and cling and turn a sad gray if left. I could feel the memory of that ruined yakisoba like a bruise under my ribs, the slick smell of burnt ginger, the way the room had tasted of failure afterwards. It was a memory that scolded: stay, it whispered. Let it go. Nothing changes.

My fingers tightened around the spoon as if it were a rope. There was something obscene about putting my hand in where it could burn, where there was a chance, I would fail and be visible for it. Standing there invisible had been safer. It let me avoid the shame of trying and failing. But as the smoke began to thread up, as the pan exhaled a bitter edge, the thought struck me clear and ridiculous, if I never tried, I never knew what I might have saved. If I never moved, then all the things that could have been better would stay worse forever.

So, I moved. Slow at first, like a tentative apology, then faster, clumsy, not pretty. The spoon scraped, the noodles wobbled. My sleeve steamed. But another voice pressed harder, the memory of ash on my tongue, of smoke in my lungs, of the hollow shame when I did nothing. I clenched my teeth. “No.”

The spoon plunged into the pan. My stirring was clumsy, uneven, but it was motion. Action. I added some soy sauce to the noodles to help quench the heat as I lifted the pot off the stovetop slightly. The girl blinked at me, surprised, and for a moment her lines faltered, as though I’d broken the script.

The fire roared in protest, climbing higher, snapping close enough to sting my skin. The world itself pushed back, trying to remind me where I belonged, at the very bottom, watching passively as everything collapsed.

My knuckles whitened on the spoon.

The girl, with a mask of confusion painted on her face, slowly re-entered the room, slower than she should’ve been in this circumstance. A test, memories I’ve yet to make began to return to me. The prison wanted me to falter, to wait for her, to prove I hadn’t changed. But she wouldn’t save me this time.

So, I saved myself.

I yanked the pot off the heat, nearly spilling broth onto the floor. My breath came ragged, sweat rolling down my temple. The noodles weren’t ruined yet. Maybe they never would be, if I kept moving.

The girl didn’t say anything. She just watched a faint frown creasing her brow, as though she were no longer sure what role she was meant to play.

And then I saw it.

Beyond her, at the edge of the dream, a mirror stood. Whole. Seamless. No cracks to hide behind.

I staggered toward it as the world stood still, spoon still in hand. My reflection met me, familiar and foreign all at once, tired eyes, shaking shoulders, but alive. More alive than I’d felt in years.

And in the glass, just the glass, stood the elven girl. Silent. Unreachable. A shadow tethered to me, or perhaps a reminder of something I wasn’t allowed to keep.

The dream frayed, walls pulling apart into static. The prison wanted to drag me back, to force another reset. But this time, I pressed my palm to the glass, grounding myself. Aeris did the same.

I wasn’t the same person I was yesterday. I wasn’t the same kid who let everything burn. I wasn’t done yet.

The world convulsed like breath leaving a lung. Static folded in on itself and then everything fell apart cleanly, the cups, the steam, the clatter, like a stage collapsing. I felt a pull, like being tugged backward through velvet. For a second I tasted soy and smoke and something else under them both, the ghost of citrus scented bread, warm and impossible.

When my eyes opened, my cot curved around me. The cell smelled faintly of metal and old stone, but there was something else, the faintest fringe of heat at my wrist. I brought my hand up without thinking. The bracelet was warm. Not hot, a gentle, persistent warmth as if a hand had rested there and left light behind.

A tiny, ridiculous grin tugged at my mouth. I sat up properly and for the first time in a long while the world seemed to have edges I could hold on to.