Astoundingly Outcasted

Chapter #2; Undulations Unexpected

Dolores was uneasy, checking the time on her phone every few seconds.

11:30 am.

Combats class was almost over, yet still, not a sight of Leila.

Dolores knew her pupil well.

Sure, she wasn’t top of her school, or even got acceptable grades, but she would never miss combats, and I... she meant never. She knew something was up, and not something that was easily admissible.

Though, she did hear about a fire in her area last night.

Best check it out.

They say curiosity kills the cat, but for Dolores, at the moment it felt more beneficial than harmful. After all, satisfaction did bring little whiskers back.

Leila didn’t live too far from school and she had seen her enter her small, beat-up residency a couple of times, and had even been there herself on a few occasions. Her youngest sibling was good friends with Adawna, they even had cheery pet names for each other.

However, as she stood near the door, she realised it was ajar; the lock was broken.

Should she go in?

On one hand, entering without permission would have been considered breaking in and that was considered offensive and punishable. But on the other hand, she was doing it out of pure intentions and concerns, and that too for a student of hers and even a considerable friend. The reports buzzing on her phone showed a sprightly 12-year-old gone found kaput.

The latter reasoning had managed to convince Dolores, who soon found herself in Leila’s messy apartment, looking around for her.

Clothes strewn across the floor, walls black with soot and the sword heaved onto one of only two chairs. She knew that it wouldn’t be the most organised without Adawna, though it was to an unsettling degree of untidy, exacerbated by the damp walls mocking her with water droplets. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air, making her even more uncomfortable.

After looking around for a bit, she eventually did find her.

Leila was in her bed, and she was out.

Something didn’t sit quite right with her, something other than the brand new third-degree burn across her face from coming in direct contact with fire.

For even in her slumber—especially in her slumber—what streaked her new wound with reflections and refractions of a thousand colours of the pouring afternoon sunlight couldn’t be easily ignored.

Her heart was beating rapidly, as loud as a drum and her chest, audible for miles around, was falling and rising at a tremendous pace. She asked herself if she should do this, reassuring herself. She stood there gaping for a moment or two before...

“Leila... are you alright?”

Leila woke up with a shock. She didn’t expect anyone to be there now that Adawna wasn’t.

It is said you shouldn’t wake someone up with a shock since it can harm them. Well, in her shock, Leila had picked up Adawna’s old dagger but lost grip of it while she flung it, sending it flying out the window.

Damage done.

Only once did she lose her weapon did she stop to see the person who had dared to break in.

“Miss Dolores? What are you doing here? What are you, a creep?”

Admittedly, Dolores herself felt a little guilty pang at the moment because of the whole ordeal.

“I got worried when you didn’t show up to class, you barely miss. And of course, the situation last night…”

She whispered under her breath, afraid even mentioning it could break walls of glass.

As soon as she finished her comment Leila gave her a demeaning askance conveying nothing but disappointment, and without skipping a beat, lied to her face.

“I had a late shift last night.”

Dolores knew full well that was not the case. She was still a curious one, though.

“You have a job? ...That’s not the point!”

The latter half of the statement was just Dolores moaning to herself.

“If it were just that, you wouldn’t be crying in your sleep.”

Now the whole ordeal had left Leila offended.

“You know what you are, Miss Dolores? A creep. A C-R-E-P-E creep.”

Dolores, rightfully offended, interruptingly shot her complaint.

“You know that spells crepe, right?”

Leila was taking no nonsense at the moment, unlike last night, and without thinking twice, yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Well I don’t care, THAT’s what you are.”

Standing there dumbfounded, she muttered, not so quietly,

“Did you just call me a breakfast food?”

Both had been going back and forth offending each other and had clearly had enough by this point.

Finally, Dolores decided to try and tackle the door issue.

Try.

“Your door was open, if you don’t want anyone here then keep it closed.”

Leila just wanted her out the door at this point, regardless of whether if it was broken or not.

“You think I can instantly fix a broken door? Most people know basic etiquette.”

“It’s broken?”

She asked as if it had never occurred to her before it was spoken out loud.

“No sweat Shakespeare.”

“Sherlock.”

She was acting in the place of an autocorrection software or a dictionary for Leila.

“How did it break?”

She was inquisitive to the point where Leila wished she could just disappear. She stuttered and she muttered under her breath.

“Uhm... a mamber broke in…”

“What did you say?”

She had heard what she had said, she just wanted to hear confidence in her statement and ensure that she had heard her accurately. She secretly hoped that she did mishear her, though.

“A MAMBER BROKE IN.”

“Odin broke in?”

Unfortunately, she did hear her correctly. Didn’t guarantee her belief in it, however. Pure curiosity overwhelmed her, but she decided it was best to keep it to herself, for now.

“Explains why you’re both creeps... The door’s right behind you. I always have other classes to attend. The school day’s not over yet.”

Although part of her statement was up for further debate, her curiosity had been satisfied, and wanted this conversation to continue forth no longer.

And with that, Dolores left and Leila started getting ready for the day ahead.

كريب - أعني - زحف

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Coincidentally, however, someone was in one of Leila’s classes that day.

He noticed that Leila’s burn was nowhere to be seen, which was quite a prominent mark. He figured that she must’ve covered it with a little bit of makeup, not ready to face any judgement from her peers.

Obviously, she couldn’t walk around showing off the blaze implanted in her face without having to answer a zillion queries and satisfying the curiosity of many.

He did actually feel sorry for someone, be that only one person in the whole entire cosmos. The cogs started turning in his head, plotting something that could either go really well, or be overly embarrassing.

What’s he plotting? You’re about to find out.

After school, he caught sight of a lonely little viperen from the corner of his eye, leisurely strolling to a place that would no longer feel like home. He had what he needed in hand; a bucket of watoh... sorry... water.

When he caught pace with her, which was quite easy, out of nowhere, for Leila at least, he threw the entire bucket of water onto her.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning the fact that the water was supposed to wash the makeup clean off of her face, which it did, and that too quite marvellously.

That was something cheeky little Odin had to admit.

Dripping wet, before anything else, Leila quickly manipulated a stream of water from a nearby puddle and sent it the offender’s way. She had a seething urge for revenge and dished it out onto anyone she deemed worthy of her rage. Only then did she question the act, but stood there confused when she saw Odin.

“Wha—”

She stood there, gaping, because of what her classmate just did.

It was now or never.

“Why—why hide that beaut...beautiful story behind a wall of concealer stuff... makeup?”

“What?”

He spoke quickly in a suffocated whisper, stammering on words that refused to come out, soaking wet just like her.

“Why hide that beautiful story behind a wall of makeup?”

He repeated himself on a higher octave, purely caused by the hysteria.

“Oh…”

They both tied their hands while they both stood there, drenched, struggling unadroitly not to maintain eye contact. She started humming to fill the awkward silence.

Then, all of a sudden, without any prior signal, Leila just turned and dashed out of there.

Odin stood there, not only feeling extremely awkward but also extremely bad for making Leila feel the same way.

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However, a local middle-school boy had just crossed paths with a dagger in his neighbourhood on his way back from school...

26th March 2021, Friday.

Dolores;

Whatever happened to Leila? She’s acting up. Sure, she doesn’t have any friends other than Aibek, but she always kept a prankster attitude with most. She never cared to have a social life but she never cared not to. She doesn’t try to mess with the hassle of keeping friendships alive, Aibek kind of did that for the both of them.

Why was Odin so quiet in class today? Was it because of Leila and Adawna meeting in Kaputt? He did tell me about that.

And why was she crying in her sleep? I’ve never seen that before, at least not with Melanie or Odin, even when Odin did get what he called ‘the nightmare curse’. Not even that night, when he was sobbing in my arms, did he cry when he did manage to go to sleep. Why?

Everything goes wrong when you’re trying to be helpful...