Rising Shards

We stepped into the main hall of Tesata, which had a big pool in it. There were three doors around us, as well as some small closet like enclosures in the school, rooms that had nothing in them but sand and void pillars with the bowl thing on top of them.

“I think I see where Oka got the three door idea from,” Kalei said.

“It looks like a temple, kinda,” I said. We wandered around the main room. “This void jump thing seems a bit more involved than ours were.”

In a few minutes we saw everything there is to see.

“And that concludes the tour,” Kalei said. “Stop me if I’m being too much but…this is a school?”

“Yes,” The formless Void Oka said. “It’s one of the most famous Cani elementary schools.”

“How do you even learn here?” I asked.

An Oka appeared before us. She was a child now. She tripped on her shoe that broke. Nobody helped her.

“Oh, it’s baby Oka!” I said. “She’s adorable!”

“She’s not really a baby,” Kalei said. “She is super cute though, even if she’s in a place like this.”

“Do you want to see my old room?” Void Oka asked.

The child version of Oka took off towards the farthest door, that was marked Room 3.

We took off after the vision of Oka. Past the third door was a thin hallway, with about ten rooms on the sides. Oka stopped about halfway through. She sat on her bed.

“If these are gonna be this much of a bummer I might opt out of the others,” Kalei said.

I zeroed in on the books on a shelf on her wall, because there wasn’t much else to look at. I recognized the older edition of Raina’s third book almost immediately, but that seemed to be the newest thing in the room. Everything else looked practically ancient. On top of that, the room was barely bigger than a closet.

“So they didn’t call these rooms like the other three because they’re basically closets then,” Kalei said.

“And Oka lived here,” I asked.

Child Oka nodded, which made me jump.

“It’s pretty nice once you get used to it!” Child Oka said.

Something sounded off about her. She sounded and looked too energetic given the situation. She smiled widely, showing off her fangs. They looked huge on her.

“Do you have like…anything?” Kalei asked. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine!” Oka said. “My teachers here said that a room like this is the only way all my gifts can awaken. Oh, but I do have these!”

Child Oka got up and started bragging about all the books on her shelf. Kalei kicked at the bed, which looked like it was made out of stone outside of a thin mattress. She also showed us a small plush bunny that she said was her ’comfort bunny’ and I nearly cried from how adorable her joy about this little bunny was.

“Oh,” Kalei said. “What else is in this place?”

“There’s the lounge, and the classroom, and the office,” Oka said. “But we’re not allowed in the office. A teacher’s space is their own private place. That’s what headmaster says.”

Kalei just kept whispering “dude” over and over to me as she shook her head. Luckily, Child Oka was far enough away not to hear.

“Do you want to see the rest of the place?” Child Oka asked.

“Sure, show us the way.” I said.

Child Oka showed us the lounge, which was even sadder than her bedrooms somehow. All that was in it was a small kitchen, a couch, and a bookshelf that barely deserved the label that said “library” above it.

“This is where we got our food, and we can watch the TV,” Oka said. “But headmaster only likes musicals, so…”

Kalei shuffled through the set of old tapes, which were entirely workout tapes from at least thirty years ago, and old musicals. They looked like they’d turn to dust if we were too rough with them.

“And that really concludes the tour,” Kalei said as we returned to the main hall, which Child Oka told us was the classroom.

Child Oka laughed nervously as we stood outside Room 1.

“Sorry,” Child Oka said. “It’s just weird. Headmaster says we weren’t allowed in here ever.”

“Well, we’re not students here so it’s fine,” Kalei said.

Child Oka stayed frozen. Kalei got tired of waiting and opened the door.

“No, don’t!” She yelled, but Kalei wasn’t delicate and stormed in anyways.

The room basically looked like a waiting room for a dentist. A row of connected chairs divided the room, looking as though they’d been sat on too many times. My heart pounded when I saw it, in a dimly lit corner behind curved glass.

The glass case had a giant stone inside of it and wedged inside of the stone was an old looking bloodsaber.

I cautiously walked to it. There was a plaque beneath it, but some of it was etched out or scratched up so much I couldn’t read it. All of the ___ were bound to the sword by their bloodline. When the first ___ found it, it lay nestled under the Rainbow Falls.

It looked mostly like a regular modern bloodsaber; the blade was clear like glass save for the veins housed inside of it. I saw a murky reflection of myself in the glass protector, with murkier reflections of Kalei and the child version of Oka behind me.