Hollow
There was never a time in Sissi's life that she dreaded coming to Jeremie's room. She held the cane tightly at the handle, shaking and turning the doorknob. It opened to four pairs of eyes fixated on her. She gulped, feeling the desert dryness of her throat. "Hey guys," Sissi struggled to say.
"Sissi, Yumi told us everything. So, you have been spying on us," Jeremie frowned. Sissi looked away from him; the disappointment in his eyes was too much for her. "Why?"
"I needed to know how to help," She answered.
"By sneaking on us?" Ulrich asked. Sissi avoided his glaring eyes. She pressed her lips together tightly.
"I wasn't going to tell anyone, and I haven't."
"How long have you known?"
"Probably when XANA attacked you guys with the flies," Sissi answered Jeremie.
"So that's why you've been helping us? So you can be the hero and stop XANA all by yourself?" Ulrich accused.
"Wha- No!" Sissi shot back, "I honestly wanted to help."
"Then why didn't you tell us that you knew," Odd asked curiously. Sissi sagged her shoulders.
"Because you guys don't trust me. You guys rely on each other with your lives. But because of my mistakes, you guys wouldn't have trusted me the same way." The silence was agonizing. She scanned each person. Odd, sitting on the ground, constantly rubbed the back of his head and moved his legs. His nervous glance at Ulrich and Yumi was telling, but Sissi didn't know what he was nervous about. He didn't have a reason to be. Then she looked at quiet Yumi. Her downcast eyes with her shoulders lowered completed her depressed look. But maybe she was worried? For a brief moment, Sissi almost thought she looked...ashamed?
Jeremie on his chair gave her an absentminded look. His calculating eyes seemed to test every probable idea that came to his mind. Then there was Ulrich. His stern furrowed eyebrows and frown gave her shivers. His slightly gritted teeth and crossed arms threw an unfamiliar chill at Sissi.
Why? There's no reason why he should be upset with me. It wasn't like she had done all of this to get him. Her primary mission was to help fight XANA and save Aelita. How the brown-headed teen could muster outright anger to her for this was something that would forever puzzle her.
Jeremie finally broke the silence. "Sissi, as much as we appreciate your help, I don't think we can fully accept you as part of the gang."
"That's okay," She quickly answered. "I don't care if I'm a part of your gang. I just want to help as much as I can."
"Just stay out of our way and don't bring any trouble," Ulrich muttered venomously.
Sissi's body stiffened. She fought a slight twitch of her lips as she gulped again."I won't," She replied in a low tone. Her eyes glanced at Ulrich for a moment and then Yumi before she walked out the door.
Ulrich scoffed, "Can you believe her?" Glowering faces met him back. "What?"
"Dude! Why so harsh? I know that Sissi hasn't been your favorite, but she's really turned the corner," Odd said.
"He's right, Ulrich. You didn't have to be mean," Yumi said.
"What!? You're the one who warned us she was snooping around! Why are you upset that you're right?!"
"I didn't think she would be…like this. I was just trying... to." A deep pit of biting regret stirred in Yumi's belly, gnawing at the inside of her stomach. As she trailed off, Ulrich continued,
"Well, now we know she was spying on us. Now we can stay away from her."
"I don't know," Jeremie groaned and sighed, "She helped keep us from getting caught AND helped us with the XANA attacks. If it weren't for her, a lot of the attacks would have been worse." Then he narrowed his eyes at the brown-headed teen. "But you didn't have to be a jerk about it, Ulrich."
"HOW is this my fault!? Yumi said she wasn't to be trusted and she was right! Why am I being blamed for it"
"Because we might have lost an ally, thanks to you," Odd shot back.
"Okay enough!" Jeremie shouted. "Look, for right now, I have to figure out an anti-virus for Aelita if we're going to be done with XANA." He spun back to the computer screen. Yumi glanced at him with a small frown and narrowed eyes. There were times she wondered if Jeremie just used XANA and Aelita as a cop-out for tense situations like this. She didn't know. Anyway, Jeremie continued speaking under his breath, "Sissi will help where she can. That's if Ulrich doesn't ostracize her again."
"Okay, you know what! I don't need this! If you guys want to keep putting the blame on me, fine! I'm leaving!" Ulrich stormed out of the room.
"Ulrich, hang on, buddy," Odd raced after him. Yumi sighed, dropping her head into her hands. She sat on the bed, sighing hard and long until Jeremie popped in, saying,
"What's wrong?"
"It's my fault that Ulrich doesn't trust her. It's my fault that you guys don't trust Sissi. You're right, Jeremie. If it weren't for Sissi, getting to the factory when the Kankerlots attacked would have been impossible, even for Jim. But it's because I kept mistrusting her that I-"
"Yumi, it's okay. I'm sure that Sissi will be okay with it. She said she understood," Jeremie smiled. Yumi gave a small smile, but she could see the ignorance in the genius's eyes. "Why don't you check up on Ulrich and make sure the hot head isn't burning Odd."
"Will do." Yumi chuckled as she exited the room. Still gripping the door on the outside, she sighed softly as it closed. "You still have a thing or two to learn about girls, Jeremie."
Sissi lumbered to her room. The tapping of her cane was the only thing she heard as she opened and closed the door. She picked up the cane in her hand and gazed at it. She looked carefully for a defect, a spot, a blemish, something that she could see, and when she couldn't find anything, she threw her cane to the floor and snapped it in half with her shoe. Each vicious stomp of her foot crushed more of her cane, more of her dreams, more of her hopes. It doesn't matter if I'm in their group, she thought.
Yes, it did. She smashed the hollowed-out frame to pieces. Her tear-blurred eyes switched to the desk where her plans and designs laid out in an untidy paper mess. "RRRAAAAHHH!" She scraped the papers off the desk. Metal, CDs, and tons of paper crashed to the floor. The ground was now layered in a cover of white and reflective material. Panting and aching, she picked up the pieces of her cane and threw them wildly at the trashcan, missing entirely. She fell to her knees, clutched her shirt like a dying man, and sobbed next to her bedsheets. "I just… I just wanna…I just.. wanted friends. I deserve that… don't I?" She wept. "Am I just this horrible person that no one likes? Is that all I am?" She muffled her mouth into the fuzzy sheets and cried softly into the night.
Time tends to escape us in our moments of suffering. The minutes feel like hours or vice versa. The pain endures and endures; it never rises or falls. It just stays the same. But the fact that the pain stays the same makes it hurt more and more as it is fully realized. So, it ached. The pain ached and ached until finally, the dreaded silence that she thought she escaped returned.
The days went by. Sissi for a while didn't have any cane with her. Of course not that many people could tell. No one at the school saw her much. She was just locked up in her room like some fairytale princess imprisoned in her castle. Only glimpses of her at classes and lunch could be seen. She was completely silent, and some people couldn't even hear her coming behind them. Sometimes, when the night was dark, students running to their rooms could see a faint light shining through her window. They never knew how long that light stayed on a lonely night.
Meanwhile, the 'hothead' cooled down after the argument, but Ulrich's words started to haunt him. Sissi's antics were annoying and menacing before the Incident, but now she was nothing but a 'hollowed out' person. After the discussion, Sissi didn't interact with Ulrich, or the others, at all. No hellos, no waves, no acknowledgment of existence. A few weeks like this and the former Dragon Queen had disappeared before everyone's eyes. Just stay out of our way. He didn't realize how well she had done just that.
The school seemed to lose its natural life. It didn't help that XANA never quite attacked the group, which gave them no distractions from the awkwardness and downright guilt. Even though Aelita came to live on Earth with them and enrolled at the school, Sissi's actions still seriously grieved them. Ulrich especially was miserable, and with a student named William Dumbar enrolling in school, things got more problematic.
One day, actually the same day that Aelita came to live with them, the gang's class had to draw pictures of plants. Aelita and Jeremie were happily chatting up a storm about the growth rate of plants. "Did you know the trees grow new branches from one year to the next according to an exponential ratio of 1.6?"
"1.618 to be exact. It's the Golden ratio. Say, do you think nature obeys nonlinear equation systems?" Aelita asked. Jeremie smiled widely, but he didn't realize that Sissi was on his left and he nearly careened into her.
"Oh! Sorry, Sissi." He apologized. Sissi only looked at him with an emotionless face and walked on into the park. No cane insight.
"Jeremie, are you alright? You're shivering," Aelita said.
"It's nothing. I was just thinking of something. Come on, let's go," He replied. The blonde looked for Sissi but saw nothing. He shivered again.
"It's Sissi, isn't it? That's why you're shivering," Aelita noticed.
"I know I don't believe in ghosts, but right now she's acting like one. You know she's there, but… I'm sorry, I'm being silly."
"Silly or honest," Aelita asked. "Was it really right of you guys to exclude her from the group?"
"Like Yumi said, if she spied on us, that means what she did to help us is suspicious. It's like XANA impersonating one of us."
"But this isn't XANA. This is a human being that, by the looks of it, wants to be with you guys. Just like you wanted to be with me," Aelita smiled. Jeremie sagged his shoulders and gazed at the ground as his hand gently patted his laptop bag. He shook his head and felt his bag again.
"Oh no! I left my laptop in my room! What if XANA attacks?"
"Run back and get it. Anyway, with the drawings we have, I'm sure we're going to get the highest grade."
"Okay, I'll be back in a minute," Jeremie said, running off.
Meanwhile, Odd and Ulrich were doing the drawings. Actually, Ulrich was doing reconnaissance on a particular Japanese and her classmate while Odd played with Kiwi. "Oh, stop freaking out. You know Yumi's crazy about you," Odd said.
"That's what you think. Actually, I have no idea."
"I can't figure you guys out. Are you going out together or not?"
"Not really. It's complicated," Ulrich said, peeping through the camera he held.
"About as complicated as her?" Odd asked. Ulrich turned around and saw Sissi walking out of the park with a cold distant look. She stopped for a moment and gazed into the forest. Her eyes locked with Ulrich's briefly and then she left. The brown-haired teen exhaled loudly.
"Yeah, just as complicated as that."
"I still think you guys were too hard on her," Odd sighed. "I mean, even if she spied on us, she didn't tell anyone."
"Like I said. It's complicated," Ulrich said as his phone started ringing. "Hello? Jeremie? Okay, we'll meet you there. Yeah, we'll pick up Aelita. Yumi? Actually, I prefer you call her yourself." He hung up the phone with a sulky look on his face.
The boys and Yumi followed Jeremie's direction to find Aelita. She wasn't at the crossroads, but Kiwi started picking up her scent. They followed the dog to an old abandoned house that groaned under its own weight. They walked onto the porch and into the house. "Aelita?" called Ulrich.
Suddenly, the door behind them shut on its own, breaking the glass in its wooden frame. Then a wooden table came scraping towards them. "Look out!" Yumi pushed Ulrich out of the way and dived for cover as the table smashed into the door.
"In there!" They ran to the kitchen. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"It's definitely XANA. That means Aelita must be here," Odd gasped as a drawer full of knives came flying out. Jumping and dodging every appliance and furniture, the three finally found an unconscious Aelita in the basement boiler room.
But as they tried to pick her up, Aelita, who suddenly became conscious, frantically spat out, "It's a trap! XANA! He's going to-" the boiler door nearly shut on them, but Odd held it open with all his might.
"Get Aelita out! Hurry!" Aelita made it out just in time before the strength of the door became too much for Odd. The door wasn't locked, but it was impossible to open. "Odd! Get to the factory! Deactivate the tower, it's our only hope!"
"Right! Come on, Aelita."
Sissi had finally made her way to the campus ground and gave her homework to Mrs. Hertz. "These are remarkable, Sissi. You've really become an excellent student."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hertz," Sissi replied, walking silently away. The chilly response made Mrs. Hertz shiver.
Before her hand reached the dormitory door, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. The number was familiar to her, but she couldn't place the name. "Hello?"
"Hey, Sissi! We need your help!"
"Odd? How did you get-"
"It's a long story. Listen, Yumi and Ulrich are trapped in an abandoned house in the woods. They're in the boiler room in the basement, and it's possessed by XANA. Aelita and I are going to get the tower shut down. Can you try and buy Ulrich and Yumi some time?"
"Possessed house, middle of the woods, boiler room, got it," Sissi hung up the phone and charged to the groundskeeper's shed. She found a blowtorch, a handheld saw, and a water meter key (A water meter key is a big T-shaped steel tool used for shutting off the water to a house). Strapping them to her back and darting to the woods, she found the crossroads and finally found the house. She spotted the camera zooming in on her. Using a rock, she shot it out of commission. Sissi looked around the house and found the thing she was looking for. Nearby the street of the house was a manhole cover. She opened it up and used the water meter key to shut off the water. Water heaters contain a lot of water, but it takes a lot to heat up and steam. Without a running water supply, XANA couldn't make the boiler room as hot as it could.
Then, using the key, she smashed the windows to get inside. A chair hovered off the ground and zoomed towards Sissi. She ducked as the chair smashed into smithereens. Barreling down the stairs, Sissi found, at the end of the hall, the metal door to the boiler room. But several small hovering pieces of smashed wood blocked her way. Sissi looked down and spotted a bent metal rod at her feet. She kicked it up to her hands and held it like a sword, growling, "Come and get it."
As the pieces whizzed at her, Sissi jumped and parried the pieces away. Some scratched her shirt, but none made any cuts in her flesh. She knocked some pieces out of the way and ducked others. Flipping over the last piece, she ran for the door and pounded on it. "Yumi, Ulrich!"
"Sissi? What are you doing here? It's dangerous!"
"Yeah, I know. Get away from the window." Before they could even ask, Yumi saw Sissi about to ram the window with the water meter key.
"Watch out!" The glass shattered into pieces, but fresh air started pouring into the already heated room. "Wow! It's working!" Yumi exclaimed. Then Sissi threw the saw and the blowtorch inside.
"Are there scrunchy conduits above your head? Silver looking things that looked crinkled up?" She asked.
"Yeah."
"Use the saw to cut them in half. Try and melt the wheels off the door with the blowtorch. Hurry!" They had to stand on each other's shoulders to do it, but Yumi and Ulrich managed to cut the conduits and let the hot air leave the room. The hot air screamed out of the room.
"Ahh, that's better," Ulrich sighed.
"No time to rest, come on. We have to get that door open," Yumi said. Try as they might, they couldn't get the wheels shutting the door out of place. The blowtorch could only do so much. "Sissi, it's not working."
"Then we go with plan B."
"What's plan BAHHH!" Yumi yelped as a loud clank rang out. Sissi struck the door as hard as she could with the steel key. She smacked near the handle where she thought it would be weakest. Sure enough, the worn metal started to give, and a bulge started letting more heat escape. She was nearly about to get the thing open when-
"Sissi, behind you!" Sissi spun around and saw a fire extinguisher barreling storming down the hall. Instead of sprinting for cover, Sissi stood her ground and watched the floating extinguisher closely. She waited for the right moment and then ducked, letting the extinguisher smash into the door. The door tumbled to the ground inside the boiler room. Yumi and Ulrich were free.
"Come on," Sissi urged them. The three ran out of the house as more flying objects tried to careen into them. Finally, out of the house and a safe distance from it, Yumi and Ulrich panted and gasped for air.
"Whew, that was close. Any longer and we would have been cooked," Yumi said.
"Hey, Sissi, thank you so much for… Sissi?" Ulrich only caught a glimpse of Sissi running far out of the forest. "Sissi wait!"
"Let her go. She's doing what you told her to do. Staying out of the way," Yumi said sadly. They two watched as Sissi ran off into the darkness of the trees.
Continued…