We're sitting in Naturals class when my teacher says something I'm not expecting. It's the third of the month.
The desk feels smooth and lukewarm under my hands. I run my thumb along it as I flip through my notebook, reading over my notes.
I've never liked this class much. The only class I love that's on my schedule right now is my photography elective. The other electives? I'd be hard-pressed to remember them. I know that there's one kid in my class who's taking Advanced Building, and another's choosing to specialize in combat. I considered taking Beginner's Combat this year, since it's my last year at school, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to deal with the questions that'd be raised, and anyway, I'm a pacifist at heart.
See, I know there are activities in that class that would chill me to the bone. I know they go out at night, after school hours, like a club, and fight simple monsters. I know kids in that class who look at me in the morning like they wish they had weapons in their hands. Some of them see me as a monster. I know that, and I know that Combat isn't just a leisure elective like photography is. It's serious, it's leading to town defense, and it's centred around the slaughter of people like me.
No, not people. I'm getting off topic. I can't let myself think like this. Reality will warp again and I need to be in this classroom to hear what comes next.
" . . . Endermen - " he takes a quick and cautious glance at me - "are interesting entities and a fascinating topic for this week." The class titters, and I sense some heads turning in my direction. I'm blushing, but it isn't a pleasant blush. I don't feel warm. I just feel uncomfortable.
He continues on like nothing happened. We've never done a unit or special focus on my people. On me, really. We've done creepers, and we've done spiders, and we even read a paragraph about the wither legend, but we've never read about other Endermen. Capital-letter Enderpeople, a culture, fully humanoid. It's strange, hearing this. I press my thumb harder into the pressed-wood surface of the desk.
"Sir, before I forget." I stand, bowing briefly, and place the folded letter on his desk. I notice there are already a couple of them. He nods. Then, "Sit back down."
He posts a picture on the wall. It looks like a painting. In it is an Enderwoman, her face serene, her hands at her sides. I should be embarrassed, because she isn't wearing anything, but my species is relatively sexless from an outside view, and she doesn't look much different from me. We're built differently than humans, even though we are humanoid.
"This," he says, his voice juicy with intellectual poise, "is an Enderman, female variety. She is resting, as shown by her relaxed pose and expression." He unrolls another picture and places it over the Enderwoman before I've finished looking at her. I've never seen such a detailed picture of another Enderperson in this life, even if it is only an artist's depiction. I wasn't ready to see the second one.
My heartbeat speeds up, pounding so hard my vision goes blurry. Nevertheless, I can see what's on the board in front of me. I am in the second row, after all, so it shouldn't be difficult. Yet I've never seen anything like it.
"This, students, is . . . " My mouth is dry, and tastes sour when I touch my tongue to its roof. "A hostile Enderman." He reaches over to point. "Notice the vicious hinge of his jaw. He has been angered, and will not wait to attack." He doesn't even look at me, now. He's on a roll, as he has been before, but I want to reach out and blot out all his words so I don't have to hear any of them anymore.
Hearing him talk like this. Hearing the class take notes, scratching their charcoal sticks onto rough paper. Hearing the same breeze echo outside the building. It feels flimsy, almost like it could fall down if I breathe.
It hurts so much.
"Endermen can attack from a distance by . . . " He clears his throat loudly. "By way of teleportation. They materialize in completely different places. No one knows how they do it. Not even our most advanced scientists." If I weren't so dysregulated, I'd think he's puffing himself up. I could be wrong.
Also. Teleportation?
Before I have time to say anything, or even to think about it, a boy at the back of the class stands up with a loud clatter that kick-starts my heart and nearly makes me cry. Even though I've been alternating between looking at the board and the desk, I have to turn around to look at him.
"Sir," he says, not unlike how I asked the teacher to put down my letter. He's wearing a blue shirt with some sort of stain on it and a pair of jeans as dark as mine. His face is tense with anticipation. The teacher, apparently, sees curiosity, because he sounds satisfied when he calls on him.
"Yes, Solas?"
"What the hell was that?"
The teacher sounds taken aback when he answers. "Who do you think you're talking to?"
"The guy who's supposed to be teaching us, not freaking out students." He swivels and points directly at me. I can only try to hyperventilate a little more quietly. "Kaius, is it?" I nod. "Did that feel weird to you?"
"Uh." The sounds won't come out of my mouth. I'm thinking them, but they won't come. My eyes burn with frustration and embarrassment.
"Of course you are." He nods, looking back at the teacher. I have to keep looking at him, though. I feel like if I don't, I'll fall apart.
I wonder why, all of a sudden, I haven't yet met another like me. I've seen things, of course, flashes in the shadows, figures that looked like me. But in this village, it's bright enough so that no one but the humans really show up on the streets. And since coming here, I haven't really thought about going off the beaten path. If something this inane keeps me from speaking, how could I cope with what lies there, beyond my understanding? Now, though, with the arrival of the letter, I want to push those boundaries.
Even if it's a happy-shining self-destructive thing, I want to push out of the box of memory I've known for years. Realizing this makes me realize, too, that I've tuned out of the conversation, and Solas is calling my name.
"Anyway." He shoves his hands in his pockets and chews his lip in a way that makes me think he's done it for a while. I just look at his lip for a second to know this. After that, it's back to the desk, but I still listen. "How do you know he can't be like us?"
"Well," says the teacher in an exasperated voice. "He's not human, Solas, you know that. I don't mean to be offensive. But he is different. Not worse. Different. Understand?"
He nods, grudgingly. The "grudgingly" is because I like him. I know he doesn't want to bother me. I can see it in the tapping of his foot on the ground. In the restlessness of his whole self.
After class, I go up to him with the same energy in my hands and my feet. I can't seem to stop moving, not since my brain bailed on me. Maybe I am different from them, but it isn't because I'm an Enderman. "You said you were Solas?" I keep my eyes trained on my feet. One of them taps just like his.
"Solas is the name . . . " He laughs, a bright and unexpected thing. "I don't know what the game is."
I'm about to respond in kind when I see the patch on his jacket. A stitched-on patch, bordered in deep red, with the contour of a sword and a bow crossed over each other in the middle. A perfect circle on his left pocket. I know it, not because I have one, but because mine's got a camera, a half-open eye, and a green border.
He notices me looking at it. "Combat major." Best in his class, I remember, but I don't say it out loud. Instead I nod helplessly. "And you're photography?"
"Yeah." I pause, deliberating. "It's pretty cool. This world . . . it isn't that accessible to me. And those photos, they help me touch it. In my own sort-of way." I touch my patch, suddenly self-conscious. Why'd I tell him that much? Not even Mom knows. I don't tell her things like that, since she'd just fawn over her lonely little traumatized Enderman. That isn't what I want for my pictures, but I don't think I've got the courage to say much more.
But he laughs again. It would sound arrogant at any other time, but at this one, I'm just grateful to hear the sound. "Yeah, all right, man." He reaches out to touch the hat that's still on my head. His fingers brush the scarf before falling away completely. "By the way, nice letter. I got mine on there too." He pushes past me and leaves the room.
All the way home, and in my room once I get there, I torture myself thinking about everything I could have done. Damn it! I shouldn't have told him those things. He's the best in the combat class, for God's sake. He probably thinks I'm scum to feed to his iron sword. He must have just been laughing at me.
Now, though, we're together on this trip. And it's starting four days from now, so I don't think there's anything else I can do.
I just have to keep a stiff upper lip in front of him, and try not to act too much like prey. And try not to think too much about the white of the grin I saw so briefly.