Math Class and Manifestations

Chapter 2: Math Class and Manifestations

​The first casualty of my morning commute was my sense of dignity. The second was the peace treaty with Fumo.

​The Super Glue held, barely. The paper talisman—the 'Sacred Seal of Containment'—was now a rigid, yellow square adhered to the center of my black backpack. Inside, Fumo was a contained, dense mass of grudging, demonic power. The silence was less of a relief and more of a threat, like a volcano that had stopped rumbling only to gather strength.

​As I marched through the gate of Andrew Bell High, I was acutely aware of the spiritual residue still clinging to the fabric of my backpack. It gave off a faint, metallic odor, like pennies and ozone, detectable only to those of us unlucky enough to be 'Custodians' of the Void.

​“Try to keep your existential chaos to a minimum, demon,” I whispered, hugging the bag tight. “It’s Algebra II first. I need at least a C- this semester, and zero world-ending vortexes.”

​“The gate is weak, Custodian,” Fumo's voice hissed, not in my ear, but directly in the center of my skull. It was a cold, dense thought, not an audible sound. “Something is reaching.”

​I froze in the crowded hallway. Reaching? I looked around at the sea of normal, backpack-wearing, smartphone-staring teenagers. Nobody looked like they were communing with the Great Beyond.

​I made it to my seat in Algebra II, slid my bag under the desk, and tried to concentrate on Mrs. Ito’s lecture about quadratic equations. The numbers on the board blurred as the metallic smell intensified.

​I risked a subtle, under-the-desk peek. Fumo was a dense, fuzzy black mass deep inside the bag, perfectly still. The Talisman seal was intact.

​But Fumo was right. Something was reaching.

​The energy felt different from Fumo's own. Fumo was the deep, cold, implosive power of the Void-Eater. This new energy was thin, prickly, and intensely negative—a localized spike of pure, overwhelming human despair, acting like a makeshift spiritual antenna.

​My eyes swept across the room until they landed on the student right in front of me: Akira Hashimoto.

​Akira was a quiet kid, usually hunched over his notes, but today, he was pale, almost translucent. He was slumped so far down in his chair he was practically liquid. He looked less like a student and more like an oil painting rendered in shades of exhaustion.

​And he was the source.

​As I watched, a dark, undulating shadow detached itself from Akira’s body. It wasn't his natural shadow; it was wrong. It was too tall, too spindly, and it shivered constantly, defying the direction of the ceiling lights. This was a Manifestation, a spiritual entity drawn to the rupture in reality that Fumo’s initial presence had caused, now feeding on the raw emotional output of a highly stressed host.

​The shadow stretched out an impossibly long, spidery arm. It wasn't reaching for me, or Fumo. It was reaching for another student across the aisle—a girl named Emi, who was struggling visibly with a calculus problem.

​The shadow wasn't going to kill her. It was going to whisper despair into her ear, turn her math struggle into an existential crisis, and feed on the resulting surge of anxiety. It was a spiritual parasite, and it was using Akira as its anchor.

​I had to act fast.

​Without thinking, I quickly—and casually—reached down and pressed my thumb firmly against the center of the Talisman taped to my bag.

​The force field inside the bag buckled. Fumo instantly recoiled from the pressure, releasing a tiny, contained pulse of negative spiritual energy.

​THWUMP.

​It was a silent, internal explosion. The metallic odor instantly vanished.

​The Manifestation—Akira’s shadow—let out a silent, furious shriek. It snapped back to Akira’s feet, curling up tight and motionless, now just looking like a very dense, very grumpy normal shadow.

​Akira jumped, shaking his head slightly, as if he'd just been shocked by a tiny static electricity spark. He looked around, confused, and then went back to staring at his notebook.

​I leaned back in my chair, sweating, adrenaline flooding my system. I had just vaporized a spiritual tentacle in the middle of a high school math class.

​"That was a waste of power," Fumo complained in my skull. "The little shadow was close to the gate. I could have absorbed it. Do not interfere with the natural order of my feeding, Custodian."

​"The natural order is not watching innocent classmates dissolve into existential puddles," I thought back, trying to keep my face neutral while Mrs. Ito droned on.

​My job wasn't just to contain Fumo anymore. Now, it was also to manage the collateral damage—the entities drawn to Fumo’s proximity. And the biggest piece of collateral damage was sitting right in front of me: my classmate Akira, who was unknowingly hosting a spiritual anchor to the Void.

​I had to get him alone, and I had to deal with the shadow before the Manifestation gained enough strength to fully solidify. But that would require taking the Talisman off. And that, I knew, was a risk the world might not survive.