Rising Shards

I expected to feel really funky after taking my first pill from the medications Diast gave us for our diving and swimming in various Elka lakes and such. I even texted Stella saying she might need to pick me up if I got sick, just in case. But I didn’t really feel anything. At breakfast, we all went over how our first pill taking went, and all agreed that the pills really did smell like egg farts like Kalei said. Shortly after, Lillia stood up, decreeing that she had been denied the typical amount of icing for her cinnamon roll, and had to rectify it with the cafeteria staff.

“How are you feeling? Got the jitters?” Oka asked.

“I feel…OK? Surprisingly?” I said.

“I kinda got the jitters.” Oka said.

“Maybe cool it on that coffee.” I said.

She had a big paper coffee cup with a plastic lid in front of her, and while it did make her seem more mature in a way I was very much attracted to (she carried herself around coffee in a much more adult-like way compared to Latte, who was more frantic and scarier about it), it also seemed like way too big of a coffee to be giving out to students. I wondered if I looked mature to Oka when I got a free coffee earlier in the semester, but I whined about it the whole time and Stella called me saying not to drink too much caffeine, so any mature points were probably far down the drain that day.

“But I slept really crappily last night,” Oka said. “I need it to be awake for today.”

“Is Lillia really loud or something?” I asked.

“No, she’s deathly quiet when it’s late, or at least she was last night,” Oka said. “I guess I’m not used to the new bed yet.”

“I’m not used to sleeping without you in the room either.” I said.

We both sniffed practically simultaneously, not wanting to subject the breakfast crew to our sobbing even though we both really wanted to.

“I just had a Kilander thing,” Oka said, trying to change the subject so we didn’t think about our room situation.

“Oh? That had to be super early.” I said.

“Yep, and it was pointless!” Oka said. “We all just had to meet up to take a picture together, which I wasn’t even in! Berin gave me a coffee though.”

I wondered what it’d be like to have family that was that busy that you’d have to meet with them for stuff like that. Stella was busy on her own, but she generally kept me out of it. Although Stella had brought me to get our photos taken together before. There were photos of us in the apartment, but just us. After that dinner three or so years earlier, I went around the apartment looking for frames and photo albums with any other family members in them, but there weren’t any, which only made me more confused. I didn’t even have any early, foggy memories of other family members; the earliest I could think back to it was just me and Stella.

Class was pretty normal. It was weird to be back, like after a few sick days when it feels like returning to class will be impossible, but you kind of just muscle through it. Diast was the only teacher that went easy on us the first day back, the rest were in hardcore catch-up mode, which sucked because it was only like a week and a half of classes that was missed out on. Soleri in particular gave us a brutal amount of after class work right away. Almost too fittingly for my morning worries, the first book we had to read in Soleri’s class was about this big farm family. I resisted the urge to talk about Raina Starlight’s Farm Adventure or the farm related stuff in Tower of Hate and Love, even if I really wanted to. Without those to talk about, I started thinking about family again, imagining myself with a huge family living on a farm, where we called our parents ”Ma” and ”Pa.” Poppi also gave us a stupid amount of homework, but the family book was on my mind through class more than the formulas. As soon as math ended and I was on my way to lunch, I absentmindedly texted Stella.

“Hey Stella, we’re reading The Empty Fields of Wheat in lit class, and it’s got me thinking.” I didn’t know what I was going to text after that outside of my semiannual questioning of a wider family, but I didn’t get a chance to, as Stella called me immediately.

“Hi Stella?” I said.

“Zeta,” Stella sighed immediately, which meant she knew exactly what The Empty Fields of Wheat had me thinking about. “I...”

“I’m sorry.” I said, continuing my tradition of immediately apologizing and backing down, even though I hadn’t even specifically said anything about family. “I shouldn’t have…”

“I, no.” Stella said. “It’s just. There’s a lot going on with the move, and the new job…I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about…that on top of everything else.”

“I get it,” I said. “You never want to talk about it, it’s fine.”

“That’s not it,” Stella said. “And don’t talk to me like that.”

“I’m not talking to you like anything.” I said curtly. “I just. I get it. Every time I ask, I get the same thing so I’ll stop asking. And I didn’t even really ask this time!”

“Zeta…” Stella said, her voice coming out almost like a growl.

“I won’t ask to see the new apartment anymore, either.” I said. “I’ll just let that be a mystery too! Because I don’t get to know anything!”

I could tell Stella was about to get really steamed, and I was already at a high level of steamed. So in a mix of anger, hurt, and panic, I hung up and shoved my phone in my backpack.

From class, the weird dream, waking up early, back to class stress, and that phone call, I was feeling drained by lunch. Poor Oka was having another coffee. She and I both nearly flung ourselves off the table when Kalei arrived with a big paper grocery bag that she dropped on our table with a big thud.

“Alright, who’s in on the pet food challenge?” Kalei said.

“The what?” Oka asked, clutching her heart.

“Big thing going around online, how have you guys not seen it?” Kalei asked.

“I don’t know, where is it on?” I asked, my own heartrate still spiked from the surprise.

“It’s on Trifle,” Kalei said.

“I already told you a ton of times, Trifle makes me really sad and down.” I said, shuddering at the thought of the last time I was on the site and saw some very mean comments about Raina Starlight. “It’s got a really bleak userbase.” Trifle was one of the websites Stella specifically forbade me from viewing while I was having my recovery on the couch time. She didn’t have to ban that one though as I generally avoided the site.

“Going by Zeta’s descriptions of it, I’ve steered clear of Trifle.” Oka said.

“Well, whatever, then I can explain it,” Kalei said. “Basically, if you want to find out what animal your Cani-ness is closest to, you try out some pet food.”

“Pet food? That sounds super gross, what?” Oka asked.

“You only have to eat a bite. Then if one tastes really good to you, that’s your animal.” Kalei said. “So who’s in?”

“I don’t want to eat pet food,” Oka said.

“You just have to try a bite. Don’t you want to get in touch with your Cani heritage?”

Kalei got out bags of cat treats, dog treats, fish food, ferret food, and a few others and set them on the table in a fairly nice, if wholly unappetizing, display.

“So then like…why?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll film us all doing it, and then we’ll get a million views on Trifle and get like a sponsorship or something.” Kalei said.

“You’re gonna film this?” Oka asked.

“Duh. That’s the whole point of the challenge! You film it and either you get a Cani puking from eating gross animal food or looking all shocked that they actually like the gross animal food.” Kalei said.

A silence fell over the table as we studied the various snacks Kalei had somehow procured. Did she get them quickly at the start of lunch, presumably sprinting to whatever was the nearest store and then running back? Or did she bring them from home?

“Are we actually considering this?” I asked.

“Or is Kalei just gonna force us to do it whether we want to or not?” Oka said.

“Somewhere between Option A and Option B, I think.” Kalei said.

Oka shook the fish food container. “Are there even fish Cani?” She poked at the bird seed. ”Are there bird Cani?”

Kalei shrugged as Lillia arrived, looking like she was having trouble processing the display in front of us. Lillia looked as pristine as ever, seemingly unaffected by everything we’d been going through, enough to not affect her appearance at least.

“Pet food challenge,” Oka said. “That ring a bell with you?”

Lillia looked like she’d just smelled the nasty odor of the Elka defense pills but sat down with us anyways.