The Shadow of Eudaimonia

Chapter 12: Rendezvous of Four

The boy, however, skillfully dodged their series of vicious attacks. His agile body neared the grace of a theatric. Although he was quickly on the defense.

"What did you do to them?" Calvin asked in horror.

"Well with your Obelisk and mine combined, I can control other cells, other beings. Isn't that nice?"

"My Obelisk? What the hell is that?"

One of his dazed classmates threw a chair at Shijian but before it hit him, he twisted his wrist and the chair flew back where it came from, hitting back his classmate. Calvin's mind melted from what he saw. Last time this kind of shit happened to him he was dead drunk. But this time he had no excuse for what he had just seen.

"Oh, I would love to explain but we've got company, so might as well be—" Cleo stopped midway and stared in disbelief at Calvin's legs which made Calvin himself look as well. His legs were gone! His pants were lying haphazardly on his seat. But he could still feel the weight of it as if it was there.

"Wha-where the fuck is my legs?!" he went hysterical.

"Shit. She's here too." Cleo whispered.

Meanwhile, two of Calvin's possessed classmates had cornered the boy named Shijian. One of them threw a punch. The other went low and tried to kick him on his knees. But Shijian managed to slow down their time. Their movements were almost at a halt. That gave him the chance to jump and dodge the two attacks. Shijian then tried to move closer to Calvin but Mrs. Rodriguez, also insane, grabbed him from the back and locked his arms. The other students then swarmed onto him like zombies.

Calvin, on the other corner of the room, was drowning in panic and confusion. He groped where his supposed tummy should be but his uniform was now swaying like a ghostly curtain.

"Fuck what is—" before he could say the next word, Calvin's mouth had disappeared and slowly all parts of his face were gone. The next thing he knew he was at the open grounds of his school.

"Almost there..." said the purplish-white haired girl in front of him. Her arms were stretched out in the air, fingertips and eyes glowing purple. She was red and sweating a river. Calvin was too dumbfounded that he didn't instantly notice that he was naked—well, almost naked. Only his black underwear remained from all of his clothing. He tried to cover his junk but he realized that he was missing an arm, the one Cleo was gripping like a hawk.

"Wait for your other arm" she said, catching her breath between words "and please don't distract me with your genitalia."

Calvin couldn't speak for a second as if his brain forgot how to. This must be another dream, another hallucination. "Who the fuck are you? Not this shit again. What is going on here?" The girl didn't answer. In silence, Calvin's arm slowly re-appeared, completely attached to his body. The girl sighed after and fell on her knees. And so did Calvin.

"Can you stand Veross?"

"Oh hell no! Miss you are making a mistake! Every one of you! I'm not Veross!"

"Cut the act, I'm on your side. I'm Vide, the Obelisk of Space."

"On my side? Vide?" Calvin wiped his face rigorously as if it can remove his confusion. "This is not happening! Am I going crazy?"

"You really don't know?"

"Miss! I don't know anything!"

The girl frowned and gave him a stern look. "You're Veross. You're now the Obelisk of Odds."

"Obelisk of what?"

"You are now the controller of odds. You govern every possibility, each universe that exists and will ever exist. Did the old Veross have not explained that?"

"What? No...I don't know." Calvin was stumbling with his words.

"Vide! Veross! What the hell? Why are you still here?" Shijian shouted, while running towards them. Half of his face was covered with deep red blood.

"What happened to you? Are you alright?" Vide asked.

Shijian clenched his fist. Even from a distance Calvin could see in Shijian's eyes an unmistakable terror. "I'm fine. It's that she...she ate a few other students." Calvin's mouth went agape. Cleo is the zombie lady, he thought.

Vide shook her head. "No. You don't think she's planning to—."

"I think she is. She's changing her body again."

"We have another problem Shijian." Vide said pointing to the direction of a confused Calvin. Shijian looked at Calvin and glanced down below. Embarrassed, he discreetly covered his eyes.

"Why did you leave out his clothes?"

"It's difficult alright? The more atoms I displace the more difficult for me to translocate an object. He's lucky I've left him an underwear. Besides that's not the problem."

"We can deal about that later." Shijian turned his back towards them. "You two should run. I'm going to stall her."

"Run? Again?" Calvin asked. "I'm not going anywhere until someone would explain what the fuck is going on?"

"That's our problem," the girl uttered in defeat.

"What? He doesn't know? Veross didn't explain to you? Shit, this is bad." Shijian said in hurry, his words spilling like wine.

"Basically, the one after you is Ortus, she's trying to kill everyone. And we're here to stop her. Is that an acceptable explanation to you? Now stand up and let's go."

Calvin shook his head. "Let's say I believe you two but I literally can't stand. My muscles atrophied since she attacked me months ago. I need my crutches to walk!" Calvin explained. A part of Calvin still believed that all of this was a dream just like the last time this craziness happened to him.

"You guys...you really need to go. She's, I mean, he's here."

Calvin drew his eyes at the stairs and saw a huge half-naked man— no...a beast, with radiant ember eyes that resembled death at a pit of fire. He was chomping on a severed hand while slowly making his way downstairs, relishing each step, as if he knew with absolute certainty that they couldn't escape him.

Calvin's stomach churned.