A Cracked Star

[Dawn]

After the woman yells out to me, she gets up before rushing towards my location. She stops in front of me as she tries to wrap her arms around me.

 

“Don’t touch me.” I say slapping her arms away from me as the woman looks shocked. 

 

I don’t understand how she’s here, Saladeen was able to explain how he was here but anything else after him I can’t begin to think of ways they’re here. If this is my soul, which I still can’t wrap my head around, then that should mean no one else can get here. 

 

“Right, sorry, forget you don’t like physical contact like that.” The woman says, talking as if she knows about me causing me to raise an eyebrow.

 

Seeing that the woman starts to raise her hands quickly as she shakes her head. “Wait wait wait. I know how confusing this must be just know I mean no harm. It would do any of us no good.” She says.

 

Saying that she looks to see what I’m sitting on causes her face to contort. “How do you have a chair here?” 

 

“Made it.” I say.

 

“How?” She asks again.

 

“Don’t know, just thought about it and it started forming.” I say as I see another chair form on the other side of the table letting the woman take her seat. 

 

“That out of the way, what do you want to know? I can’t tell you everything however as I don’t know everything. Probably the thing that confuses me the most is how we're all together.” She says.

 

“First off, your name, from the way you’re talking it sounds like we’re stuck together for a while.” I ask.

 

The woman nods before explaining what she knows. “I’m Arya Vamir, sister of two others. Stella and you.” 

 

“Hold on, I don’t have sisters.” I say

 

“You didn’t have, in the past tense. Our situation is complicated and I still have no clue how we happened.” Arya says, tilting her head. “It went like this for me.”

 

~~~~~

 

As Arya, who calls herself my sister, finishes recounting the past events, I let out a sigh as I feel a headache forming. Really this all sounds crazy, and I might actually be going crazy after everything, I wouldn’t find it strange honestly. But this all just sounds like something Katherin would go crazy over. 

 

New world? Check.

New body? Check.

Special powers? Maybe.

 

I don’t know how wide the gap between strength can be here, time to start from the beginning in my pursuit for strength now I guess. I can’t even walk without support at the moment. Stupid tail messing with my sense of gravity, even if it does look nice.

 

“Wait, my friends!” I yell out. “Arya, were my friends anywhere around when you woke up? They were with me when that giant circle appeared underneath me.”

 

“Giant circle, what are you talking about?” She asks me.

 

“The afternoon I went bowling with my friends, we met up outside the place and in the parking lot I started to pass out, but as that happened I vaguely remember seeing a giant circle appear underneath me, with symbols and lines all throughout it.” I say trying to remember the event before I hear Arya start to grunt. 

 

Looking up I see her clutching her head as she bites her lip. It doesn’t take long for her to be through whatever was happening as she props her head up with her hand. 

 

“Sorry, just, give me a bit.” She says as she starts to control her breathing. “Like I explained earlier, I’ve been seeing more and more memories from the two of you. It’s getting annoying at this point as it just gives me the biggest headaches.” 

 

“What was it this time?” I ask.

 

“A few things I’ve managed to understand about your memories is that they show up in two ways. The first, is completely at random, I could be doing one thing and the memory is something entirely different. The other one is when I’m talking about specific events or knowledge.” Arya says.

 

Her words start to make me feel a little hope. “Does that mean?” 

 

“Yes, I saw the magic circle you were talking about.” She replied.

 

“And my friends?” She shakes her head as I feel myself slump back into my chair. “That doesn’t make sense, if they were with me at the start of the spell then they should be with me right?” 

 

“That might have been the case normally, if it was that kind of spell. But it seems that the nature of our soul messed with the spell.” Arya says. “That’s the only thing I can think of to make the results different.” 

 

“Arya, I have to go, I need to find them.” I start to say as I get out of the chair, forgetting about my tail as I start to fall forward. 

 

Before I make contact with Arya she catches me and starts pushing me back into my chair. “You need to relax, there’s nothing we can do at the moment for them. Besides, have a little more faith in your friends, from what I’ve seen, they should manage just fine with each other.” 

 

“I know that, but I can't help but think something will happen to them. I hope that they didn’t get dragged with me to this world.” I say as I steal my emotions again, grabbing my hand to stop my shaking hand. 

 

What is going on? My emotions are stronger than I’ve ever felt them before, I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this anxious before. 

 

“I wouldn’t remain hopeful about them.” Arya said. 

 

Quickly looking at her I find her twirling a bit of hair around her finger. Something about the action seems familiar. 

 

“What do you mean?” I say. 

 

“I woke up a bit before I slipped back unconscious, but I found us floating through space before we reentered this world.” Arya says. “So if. . if they did get dragged with us. I wouldn’t -”

 

“Don't you dare finish that sentence. If there is anything I won’t give up on.” I cut her off, surprised by my own anger I continue to tell her while I try to bring back my emotions. “”It’s Gramps, Rosco, and . . my friends.””

 

I slow my speech as I hear Arya copying me word for word. As if she’s heard me say this before. Looking at her face, I see that she truly regrets what she said and seems to even feel sad about it. 

 

“I don’t get it. You don’t even know them but you seem to actually regret what you just said. Why?” I ask.

 

“When I see memories, it’s not just like I remember something.” Arya starts to say. “I can’t see anything else, only the memory and I feel it. Not just the surroundings, but the emotions you or Stella feel, even something as specific as the speed in which our heart beats when we start to feel anxious, everything. Over the last two or three months, I find myself growing more scared as to what is happening to me. I’m like a blank canvas with you and Stella painting over it.”

 

She slowly gets up from her chair, but not before making another one. “For when we’re all here. I’m sorry if I angered you, just know that you’re not the only one with your own issues. I’m going to check on Stella, if you want to leave just focus your mana inside yourself while thinking about leaving. It’s what you used to create the chair by the way.” 

 

I sat at the table for a while thinking about what Arya said before she left. I can’t help but remember the few friends I made in the last few years. 

 

~~~~~

 

I was always alone through the early years of middle and high school. After getting away from my father, I always found it weird to interact with those around me, often ignoring and not trusting anyone in my grade or class.

 

Kids stayed away from me during middle school. I learned later on that it was because the parents were afraid of what I might do to their child at school after learning what I went through years before. But it was a time period that just went by, I was just always left to myself by fellow students when they went to go out for recess or play games in free time.

 

Teachers didn’t make things hard on me, some even went out of their way to help with any problems I might have had while others just did their job.

 

High school was a turning point in my life, I wasn’t behind in grades or failing any class. If anything I was always driven to learn, to better myself so I wouldn’t be stuck in life leaving me not able to do anything I wanted. It didn’t start out great for me, I was still top of my grade with classes and passing everything. 

 

There were some people who dug into my personal history as I stayed away from everyone else, they got curious. After winter break during my freshman year is when things changed. Students who came to me for questions before started to avoid me, I found my locker in a mess and sometimes even broken into. 

 

A group of female students had the bright idea that they could bully me and get away with it. And they did for about a year, I put up with it all the time, never caring for what they did to me. Even through all that I never reacted much outside of asking them to leave me alone. 

 

I don’t know if they were doing it because they saw me as a creep or not but it carried on till one day another woman, a little younger than me it seemed. She confronted the group of girls and got them to stop, they even left me alone for a few days. 

 

The girl called herself Katherin, one of my best friends who I’ve come to call Kraken because of some of her peculiar habits. One of them being that she would fall asleep pretty easily whenever she was in some large body of water. She said it was always soothing to her and felt like a warm blanket to her. I never understood what she meant by that. 

 

As the school year went on, Katherin would always push for me to go out and do things with her. Likely knowing I wouldn’t take the initiative to do activities myself. Tagging along with me through the school and even introducing me to her other two friends. 

 

Eventually I started to notice that Katherin would behave weirdly on some days. Not as energetic or looked afraid when the time reached a certain point of the day. Finally having enough of her dodging questions when I asked her, I followed her one day. I found her getting bullied by the group of girls that was originally bullying me before she stopped them.

 

It was one of the few times I’ve ever felt so much anger that I lost control of myself. When I regained control of myself I found the girls all laid out on the ground around me with bloodied faces. I found it weird how my emotion exploded out like that but I had a feeling I needed to keep it in control. 

 

From that point on though, Katherin has always been a close friend, stating that she would always try to find new and fun activities for the four of us.

 

~~~~~

 

I won’t just abandon my friends, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see Gramps and Rosco again but if my friends are in this world with me then I actually have a goal. From Arya’s recount of everything that has happened, strength will play a vital part of finding them. I need to learn more about this world and the system that governs it.

 

But for now I need to be able to walk straight again. I worked hard with my trainer to build my strength up back home and I’m not going to let it go to waste. 

 

Doesn’t help that my tail is constantly itching, it was difficult to not start scratching it while talking to Arya. It’s like someone took a bunch of poison ivy and rubbed it up and down, just without the burning you’d normally have as well. 

 

Taking the time I slowly try to feel my tail more as I walk with the support of my ax. Hopefully letting my brain get used to the feeling. 

 

~~~~~

 

I don’t know how long I spend walking around but eventually I’ve managed to get my balance to keep me up while walking. I feel more out of rhythm now than I ever have when recovering from a sickness.  Jogging or running are a no go for now though.

 

“I wish Rosco was here. It hasn’t even been that long since I saw him but I’m already missing him.” I say to myself as I think about my dog but knowing I won’t ever get to see him again isn’t doing me any good.

 

While I was working on my balance again, I was thinking about some ideas for this space. We can create objects here using our mana so I figured we could do bigger things than just a few chairs. I’ll ask Arya her opinion on it, though I don’t think she’ll be against it. 

 

Mana is something I’ve also been stuck figuring out, like how much do I have, how do I use it and so on. Do we constantly regenerate mana or do we have to absorb something? Saladeen also mentioned about the type I have, saying that it changed from the sunstone I think. 

 

“Stupid books.” I mumble to myself as I kick the ground. I’ve read fantasy books back home a few times when I wasn’t busy with school or training, some of them had mana as a basis for power in the book. They always make it seem so easy but I can’t feel a damn thing.

 

“Why didn’t Arya show me how to use it before leaving off to who knows where.” I don’t think I can leave this space until I figure it out either. 

 

“Show you what?” I hear a voice call out from behind me.

 

“AAAH!” I jump off the ground a little before turning around to see Arya with a grin across her face. “What the fuck Arya!?”

 

“Sorry about that, I couldn't resist.” She says before making her way back to the chairs.

 

Looking over there I see that another person who looks exactly the same, except for her eye color, is sitting at the table. Her hair is all over the place though as she looks as if she just went through a tornado.

 

“You looked like something was troubling you, with how agitated your tail was.” Arya says. 

 

“Hmm?” Looking down I see my tail twitching side to side. “Can you blame me, I can’t be the only one who is feeling this itch?” 

 

“Itch?” I hear the woman I haven’t talked to yet ask.

 

“Yeah, I think it has to do with the fact I’ve never had a tail before. It’s constantly bugging me and I can't get used to it. Doesn’t help that our clothing is pressing on it uncomfortably.” I replied.

 

“You didn’t have a tail?” I hear the woman say.

 

“You had a tail?” I ask.

 

“All my life.” She says with a proud smile.

 

“Yesn’t?” I hear Arya say which gets a look from both me and the other woman. “What?”

 

“Really, yesn’t?” I hear the other woman say.

 

“Well I mean, what should I say? I’m basically living through both your lives right now.” Arya says, trying to defend herself which only prompts the other woman to start lightly laughing.

 

“Arya aside, I haven’t learned your name yet.” I say towards the other woman.

 

“Stella Vamir.” She says.

 

“Vamir? You and Arya share a last name?” I ask.

 

“Yeah, she didn’t have a name when we awoke and I asked her a bunch of names to find one and she found Arya the most pleasing.” Stella said. 

 

I look towards Arya before she continues, “You really chose a bottom of the barrel name huh.”

 

“Wha-” 

 

Arya starts to refute it but gets cut off by Stella, “I said the same thing to her when she chose it.” 

 

“I’ll have you know it's a very nice name.” Arya says.

 

“We’re not saying that, just you could have been more original.” I said.

 

“You’re not one to talk miss time of day!” She yells back.

 

“Hey I didn’t choose my name.” I put my hands in front of me.