Of Heaven?

 “Mari,” My teacher snapped as I entered the classroom. “Class started over an hour ago. Where were you lollygagging abo…”

“Just had a tussle with some old friend,” I took my sucker out, waving it like a flag as she stared in shock at my bloody clothes.

I hadn’t had a chance to process it, but now that I had a chance to relax a bit all those funny scrapes and cuts suddenly weren't so funny. Blood soaked through my leggings–more red than white. Even my school jacket was littered with cuts and scrapes.

A fiery shot of pain caused me to wince as I took my seat. Bruises pounded against my skin like hammers. Not even I was immune to the side effects of jumping out of a second-story window.

With another glance, Ms. Yamada went back to teaching, a noticeable shakiness to her voice.

Wasn’t every day one of her students walked into class a bloody mess.

I muttered a curse as my sucker shattered in my mouth. Well, if I couldn’t have any flavor I’d still keep the stick. Just the feeling of having something to bite on always calmed me down.

Somehow, those robed freaks had turned me aside from class and into their trap. It wasn’t Chiyo. I couldn’t imagine a world where she summoned enough brains to do such a thing. Not to mention, from her frantic texts, they’d kicked her out the second she left the building.

It wasn’t like their building was far away from school in the first place, barely a block away–and just a single turn. From their first gathering on our commute, I’d been playing right into their hands. It was no one's fault but mine.

So what leads did I have?

I looked up, glancing at Grace out of the corner of my eye, whose head was buried in a book like always. If anyone would be able to get me some information, It’d be her.

But, how much did she know? Grace was the furthest thing from an actor, but her confusion over the phone felt so real. That wasn’t someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes… was it.

I couldn't help but lean back in my chair. None of this made sense. And why me? Why target someone who’d already been halfway to hell?

That question answered herself. It’s a lot easier to convince someone to go places familiar to them. And, well, compared to most people I’d walked closer to the brink.

* * *

“Hey Grace, what you reading now?”

“John Calvin.”

“I love how you think I have any idea who that is.” Why did every Westerner sound like they had two first names? It made everything so hard to remember.

“He’s a philosopher, really good one too. We talked about him in class last week.”

“And you think I paid attention?”

“Frankly I’m shocked you even showed up to class that day,” Grace said, setting her thick tome down. “But you should give him a shot.”

“I need to finish my damn paper before I think about giving anything a shot.”

“You’re still not done?” That got a reaction out of Grace. Of course, it did, only old dead men and homework took up her brain. “Mari you’re running out of time it's due in two days!”

“You don’t give me enough credit. With the power of sleep deprivation, I can write anything.”

“Can you write it well?”

“I can write it,” I said.

“Well it's your grade, not mine,” Grace shrugged, packing up her things. My one relief was for the next hour all we had was study hall–my time to strike.

“Hey actually, do you have your phone on you, mine broke.”

“Broke?”

“Yes, when I fell out of a window.”

“You fell out of a window!” She looked up, finally noticing the scrapes all over my uniform. “Are you ok? What happened?”

“I just got a bit distracted, but I need to call my Dad to get a change of clothes. Could I borrow your phone?”

“Y-yeah of course,” she said, tossing it over. “You know my passcode?”

“Barely, it's so complicated.”

Her passcode was four ones in a row.

“Thanks, you are a lifesaver! While I text him can you tell me about the Calvin dude?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah! The stuff you told me sounds so interesting, I kinda want to hear some more.”

“Did you hit your head?”
“Wow, am I not allowed to have interests.”

“No no! I’m just surprised you're interested. Anyway, Calvin was a hugely influential fifteenth-century philosopher who dealt with predestination…”
I toned out her rambling as I focused on the phone. If there was something guaranteed to distract Grace, it’d be the books she spent eighteen hours a day talking about.

For being so clean in real life, Grace’s phone showed none of that. Her apps were scattered across the screen, with every messaging app known to humanity spread across twenty screens, not to mention her three different email apps.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say her phone was laid out to keep something hidden.

Her social media was first. Despite having more apps than the entirety of my phone on every screen, that didn’t mean she actually used half of them. Grace didn’t exactly scream social media user.

“And that’s how he helped contribute to the protestant revolution, but that didn’t prevent him from spending time in jail for spreading his beliefs. Wasn’t he so brave?”

“Absolutely. I couldn’t have stood up to them like that.” Please say that was on topic.

Her socials were a bust, emails were the same. It didn’t take long until there was just a single thing left–but surely not. All that remained was her second calculator app. Who would be dumb enough to need an entire secondary calculator app?

Not Grace, I opened the app, putting in the same code that unlocked her phone.

Bingo.

Hidden away behind the calculator facade was an array of emails I’d never seen before, all with worse and worse contents as I went on.

“What the hell is this…”

“What the hell is what?” Grace asked.

“Just what you were saying, the whole uhh, arrested for his beliefs thing. I just can’t get over how barbaric they were back then.”

“I know right? Some friends of mind dealt with the same thing. It's insane how even with the passage of time society has stayed equally as restrictive.”

“What… what kind of views did they have?”

“Just ones about how the world we live in traps those who want to escape it.”

“Yeah… Dang, that's crazy.” I hurriedly scrolled down to the bottom of her messages, till I saw one that caught my eye.

“I placed a tracker in her phone last time I borrowed it. Her time is coming, I have faith in you.” Five months had passed since she’d sent the message.

Five whole months, around the same time we became friends in the first place.

“Thanks for the phone,” I tossed her pink brick back, then quickly dashed over to the door.

“Hm? Where are you heading?”

“Teacher’s office, I want to make sure I don’t get detention for my tardiness this morning.”

“Tell Ms. Yamada I said hi.”

“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” I muttered, voice shaky, as I left the room.