Method to the Madness

I had searched as deep into the facility that I dared to venture; the rest was only the maintenance areas that were designated for Selvas far more advanced than I was and other various members of the faculty that were unseen and unheard of as they sulked in the deep chambers and avoided the thick concentrations of the rest of us. Nothing had offered me any support in finding Elias. My Elias…

Maybe he had disappeared from the institution for exactly that reason; maybe he knew of the way that my heart started beating faster and my hands got clammy when he got near me. In fact, maybe he had hidden away to be Mouse’s secret lover or he had escaped into the oblivion that he had found Binx in.

That first day of his mysterious disappearance, I wandered the night in the eerie corridors. Asking every being that I met along the way, my hopes only sunk deeper and deeper into my chest as I went. “Who?” was always the reply. Nothing more than that. No one to point out where he might have went or offer any solutions as to where I could possibly search. My Guardian was missing, but no one else seemed to care. Everyone except me and the occasional kind words of both Crimson and Cat – though they usually had nothing else to agree upon.

Crimson would make her appearance known to me more often than before, and her visits were more frequent. The same monotonous conversations took part every day, and I only became more upset as she offered me nothing more than her care.

“Anything?” I would ask, when she met me in the morning – and again when she happened upon me frequently through the days.

“Nothing.” She frowned, her fiery hair falling into her eyes to cover the clouds of sadness that were filling them. “I’ve been asking around, but there’s no sign of him – not one!”
It was the same speech every time, but I understood this. It was hard to make more of a conversation when I was worried so much. “We’ll keep looking. I promise!”

When day three of my search had finally rolled around, I woke up groggily. I couldn’t get much sleep when every time I closed my eyes, evil images of worst case scenarios invaded my mind and danced behind my eyelids; I had to concur with only tossing and turning until my body was so exhausted that my mind gave out and I was left with sleep in which my mind was absent. I would wake up dazed, clenching my pillow tightly and believing that it had all been a dream; slowly the recognition hit that my mind couldn’t dream up something so evil, and I was cursed to walk my days without my secret love by my side and my nights without the warm reminder of his touch.

“0074,” Crimson’s high voice that leaked liquid fire rang metallically through the static of the speaker, “can you please come see me in my office?” There was a beep and the static call was ended.

Unlike other times when I had been summoned to the dungeon-like room, I hurried to get there. I hoped with an unprecedented anticipation that it would be Elias’ warm brown eyes, instead of Crimson’s evil black ones, that I encountered when I walked through that door. I wanted to be swallowed up in one of his warm hugs and feel his lips against my cheek as he told me that he had never meant to be away from me.

…I was sadly mistaken. No, I was more than just mistaken, I was heartbroken.

Instead of meeting his brown eyes, I was met with unfamiliar blue ones along with Crimson’s coal-eyes. They were an intense ice blue but with the warmest of inflections, but instead of being entranced, I shied away from them. His face was youthful and wondering, but my thoughts strayed to why I hadn’t been stopped from walking into one of Crimson’s other meetings.

“Ah, 0074! You’re just in time!” She smiled toothily – something that was a rarity aside from her sovereign smirk. “Meet Oliver Jacobs. He, my dear, is a Selva-less Guardian at the moment!” I took a minute then to study this new Guardian, determined not to like him since I knew the conversation that was to follow; it wouldn’t be the first time that I had heard it, and I hoped Elias could reappear in the situation that he first disappeared from. Aside from those ocean-blue eyes, he had blonde hair and a lean body, muscular in all of the right ways.

“I don’t think this – “ I started.

“No,” Crimson countered before I had begun to argue. “I know you are still hoping that your beloved Guardian will return, but we must ponder other options if he doesn’t. Oliver, here, is our first, most prominent, option. I’m not saying that anything has to be official today, but just try to get to know him if you can. Just be open to my option, that’s all I’m saying.” She smiled. “You are dismissed – both of you.”

We walked out together in an awkward silence.

“Listen, 0074!” He grabbed my wrist as I turned to walk down the opposite corridor from his. “I – “

“No,” I whispered. “I know that this is my best option, but please just give me time! I’m not ready for this!” I ran away from him then.

~~~

“Is it even worth you being here right now?” Cat asked me the next day as I walked into my usual training time that day as she noticed my far-away expression. We had had quite an intermission from our trainings as Cat had deemed me unfit to use magic based on the clouds in my eyes.

“Yes, Cat! I need this right now!” I needed to get my head out of things – to forget about both Elias and Oliver. Elias was still gone; Oliver couldn’t get the hint that I wanted him gone. I had been warned that pursuing magic to accomplish this escape was probably the worst offense, but I didn’t care.

Twenty incantations twenty times over and fifteen runes later, I was exhausted. Usual trainings were only ten incantations at most amid a few runes, but I had pushed my limits against the better warnings of Cat. It seemed quite crazy, but conjuring magic was as much of a workout as physical training – though Cat said it got better with experience. I walked out with sweat beads on my forehead and arms that felt numb from conjuring.

That was when I saw him…the dark thicket of hair on his head and the brown eyes that made me melt. Before I even realized what I was doing, my legs were carrying me towards him.

“Elias!” I called, and his eyes turned to my voice with surprise. I wrapped my arms around his neck, resisting the urge to completely wrap myself around his warm body. It was then that I noticed that his arms weren’t wrapped around me either.

I unwrapped myself from him and looked into his questioning eyes. “Wh-who are you?”

“Come on, Elias! That’s not funny!” I hit him in the arm playfully, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek that was then denied. Realizing his seriousness, I added, “I’m A-0074? Come on, I’m your Selva… your best friend… your…”

Nothing seemed to register in his mind about me. I looked into his eyes and my heart fell more as I saw the unfamiliarity in them. His eyes showed nothing of even the slightest recognition and even less of the best friend that once existed. I felt worse then than I had in not knowing where he had went. Now he was here, but only in part. I was falling apart into an never-ending darkness.

“You can’t not remember me! I’ve been your best friend forever!” The first tears escaped from my eyes. There was more than just the pain of him not knowing me anymore; no, he was also the only thing that had ever made sense before. “You can’t! You can’t!”

I didn’t care that the rest of the Selvic population had turned to glare at me from the ruckus I was making in the corridor; it didn’t matter. All that mattered to me was the blank stare I was getting as I stared into his eyes. It was as if part of him – the part of him that I had known – died, and right along with it went parts of my heart and even my soul – the parts of me that I had liked best since he had started being honest with me. All of that had just disappeared with the white blankness that consumed his eyes and with it my life. There was no way to uncover the mysteries of my life from before all of this put us together in this unnatural way.

I couldn’t take it anymore! I had imagined seeing him again when he returned and kissing him, not caring that he might have feelings for Mouse or that the feelings might not be returned. I had imagined him telling me that his leaving me unexpectedly had been wrong and cruel. There were a lot of things that I imagined, but the dumbfound look on his face had not been one of those things. Instead of the spark of love that we somehow shared, there was now confusion and disgust for this stranger that used to be his best friend. I had to hate him – for leaving me… for forgetting me…for being ableto forget me…

I turned around and ran, suddenly aware of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Selvas and Guardians that had decided to see the spectacle. I felt lost inside, unwilling to give up the part of me that was Alyson, but knowing that it was inevitable. Did ‘Alyson’ even exist anyway? Without the one who connected me to my past life, who was to say that she should have been forgotten and thrown away a long time ago?

Tears flowed down my cheeks at faster speeds than was imaginable as I started to hyperventilate. Everything I knew was gone… Everything I loved was gone…