Chapter 8 :D Yeai! :) Enjoy.
We walked till we reached a little and small cafe that I frequented where they prepared the most delicious blueberry muffins I've ever tried. As soon as we entered a welcoming aroma of coffee and recently baked bread reached our noses. The interior of the small shop was pleasant. The walls were painted with home-like colors that invited the customer to relax in one of the multiples couches and sofas spread among the place or in one of the wooden tables and chairs placed near the corners. It seemed the owners wished to replicate the feeling of grandmother's kitchen during winter. I guided Truant to a table that was always empty for me, almost as if it were reserved just for me, placed near a big window that allowed one to see the park's fountain and for light to filtrate into the thick ambience of coffee and cream. I took my seat and motioned Truant with a glance to do so as well. Once we ordered: I, a biscuit and chocolate milk; Truant, green tea, I indulged myself in finding out what our project was about. "Well?" I asked to the loathing young man before me who seemed lost in thought looking out the window, searching without a clue something with his only visible cold blue eye. As usual, my call fell on deaf ears. Truant didn't even flinch.
"Well?!" I asked louder this time, but not enough so that I could remain inconspicuous to those around us and embarrass myself. Truant wished to see me explode didn't he? With the passing of seconds, his blue iris finally landed upon my and his lazy and empty stare nailed mine. A cold tremor hit me as our eyes clashed. A foreign feeling flooded me and I felt empty. For unknown reasons, my being froze over and all what I held inside of me scattered around the fake-wooden floor of the cafe. I searched once more in the eye of Truant something that wasn't there. Nevertheless, inside me I had a hunch which indicated that something used to exist in that cold eye. Something more that for a reason made me feel empty with its absence, something that would brighten this now null and cavelike room, something that burned instead of the icy glare. Curious that it mattered, still mattered, to me. I had noticed the lack of that unknown thing as soon as I left my home with Truant. Yet, now I looked deeper and, strangely enough, the blow hit me hard when I figured that what was missing was by far more important than what I gave it credit for. The missing piece made me feel as if my whole life wasn't nothing without it. Curious that it shall be so, coming from Truant that is. Why did he have to create such clashing feelings in me? I combed my hair nervously and gazed at Truant with the most normal stare I could muster. I couldn't let him realize the power and control he had over me. I wouldn't allow him to see and I wouldn't allow for this to continue.
"V...Li..." I began cuttingly. My voice was like stone and my throat as hay.
"The History project involves an investigation about an event, incident or anything referring to out city." Monotony. Monotony. "It doesn't matter if is fiction or nonfiction as long as the report hold enough bibliographies that support it. Pictures, books, anything." He took out a notebook from the backpack he had brought, opened it in a random paged in which a list was scribbled down. He handed it to me as he kept on talking. "I took the freedom of selecting a few subjects we could discuss about and that may help us to end this project faster." I nodded slowly and engaged on reading the small list. They weren't more than ten subjects, but all of them looked hard enough to get a good mark and yet easy to finish. But, the one that caught my attention, in a negative manner, was the last one. And by the looks of it, if the reddish streak below the letters indicated anything, it was Truant's choice for our project. It caught my attention and not only because I had never heard of something like this, but because it sounded demented and ridiculous. I glanced at Truant incredulously and without words asked him about it. I assumed he knew what my questioning glare was about thank to the reaction the subject gave me. It was quite obvious since none of the above would have made my eyes go wide with astonishment and for my breath to get caught on my throat. Had he smoked something while he was searching for subjects and made this shit up?
Truant's indifferent stare answered nothing. I re-read to assure myself that I hadn't misread the words and letters on his notebook. He was pulling my leg. Such bullshit could never make a project, even less our project. It couldn't be investigated and analyzed. Even if it were a fictional type of investigation because there was no way to support out theories and thesis. It was unexplainable, unprovable. This idea made impossible the impossible. Even fictional subjects held solid proves for they were based on certain events that couldn't be explained at the time. But this...this was completely unprovable! This was the fiction of the fiction! How can you prove what is completely fake? The teacher would want facts, dates, names, the light of reason and this subject simply lacked everything she would grade our project on! Besides, I wouldn't like to waste my time on crap while I could do a hell of a project!
Truant's ice cold eye rested on me. I once more stared wide-eyed at the notebook in my grasp and slowly ascended my view to let it land on his persona. It was then that the subject came to me as a joke and I couldn't avoid chuckling slightly. "The legend of the Red-eyed moon?" I cackled. This was just so funny. I could never imagine myself laughing at Truant's antics. But this was just so damn stupid! Picture it! Our project based on an eyed moon. A RED-EYED MOON! A direct F if not lower! The teacher would laugh out our expense and throw our project into the trash bin without thinking it twice. Even with me chuckling like a kid high on sugar, Truant kept quiet and as serious as when we arrived the coffee shop. He saw my mirth with such indifference that I felt a burning hatred forming inside me once more. And that's when I realized...he was serious. He was fucking serious! The smile was erased from my face like marks on the sand by the sea. "Wait a minute..." My eyes stared at him and searched his nervously. "This...This is for real? This subject is real?!" I asked panicked. He simply nodded. My hands hit the table with force. Screw making a scene. This bastard was for real! He was taking the project as if it were a mere stroll in the park. A game to play and to put my grades at risk. My perfect score just some points to loose. "You know damn well that the teacher would spit on our work before even reading it." I hissed and if looks could kill he'll be a raging ball of fire. Now more than ever I wished for the asshole to catch fire and die more than ever. The bastard took the notebook from my hands without even giving a care about the dirty look aimed at him and changed the page to one filled with notes. He looked at me with that dead and indifferent look and shook his head as if I were the heaviest burden he had to carry all his life. He thought I was a burden? Had he ever imagined how much of his miserable existence I have to tolerate everyday? I was about to talk back at him when his voice interrupted me so rudely.
"In ancient times, when there still existed kings and queens, when people still believed in magic and in fantasy, and when the celestial bodies were the purest and most perfect way to peek at the future...there existed a wide territory right where this city lays. It wasn't very big, yet it was strong, powerful and prosperous. The village was governed by the mayor who in turn responded to a royal family for a faraway kingdom. This mayor was selected among many by three specific values: valor, moral and spirit. The first value was tested by a duel with swords, spears and the like. The second value was based on interrogation by ancient spirits who casted illusionary spells to test the heart. The last one and the most important one was judged by five wise women. Each one protected the five races that coexisted in the territory and each woman protected the areas which the races inhabited. One of them guarded the village in the Center of the territory, home to the joyfullest and warmest of all races who welcomed any tired traveller with a feast. To the North, one of the ladies guarded the frosted and cold mountains where the toughest and noblest of all races inhabited forged by the sharp winds that threatened to bring down the mountains. The Southern areas were guarded by another one which protected the tribe that lived in the swamps, the proudest but most compassionate of all, lovers of flora and fauna alike. To the East the fourth lady guarded the canyons, home of the ruins of an ancestral empire whose tombs lay scattered in the arid ground and where no spirits finds rest. And lastly to the West the last lady guards the ocean where the wisest and grace-fullest of the races lay knowledgeable in medicine, music and clairvoyance. Curiously, just whispers of this territory remain. It is said that during a festive time, in the heavens a gigantic rock appeared. A moon. Yet, instead of the blue-eyed moon the people waited for, they saw hell's fire in its eyes. After three days, in the eve of the biggest celebration of the town, from a starry night sky, the moon let herself fall. The shadows of the night engulfed the land, burning everything in their way. Not even the ancestral ruins remained to mark the existence of such a land. Just mere whispers, for it was swallowed by the darkness of the night and for the fiery mouth of the moon whose eyes, they say, cry blood and fire."
When Truant finished his story I was left aghast. What...what was it? Such legend existed or had he invented it? Could such a thing have existed right here where we lived? I blinked and stared at the person before me. The implications of such a land existing in legend could lead us to the discovery of the century. Could the legend of the Red-eyed moon be real? A flash of white teeth broke my train of thought and I noticed that Truant had a dark and forbidding smirk that left me frozen and dreadful. But what terrified me the most was that for a moment...I swear...His ice cold blue eye became tainted with red blood.