"Oh, there you are, Feste," Chaz greeted after a brief moment of idly searching. I breathed a sigh of relief. "You got lost or something?"
I shook my head. "No. Not really. The teacher pulled me aside to talk for a little bit."
Chaz's mouth began to move as if to ask about something, but he instead kept silent and broke our eye contact. Noticing this, I replied with what I thought his question was going to be. "We just talked about... other things. Not about my trauma." It still felt weird to say that word. It was almost as if the term didn't apply to me.
"Oh." Chaz shakily held up a hand and waved it. "Well, goodbye. Feste." I barely had a chance to bid my classmate farewell as he ducked back into the crowd of students, quickly disappearing from my line of sight.
Now alone, I figured that it would be best if I made my way to my dorm room to finish up the day. Thoughts began to race inside my head: the flashbacks that I now almost automatically stifled, my labyrinth and the meeting with Midnight. These persisted up until I fell asleep in my bed, where they simply transferred over to my virtual self.
"Feste!" Boingo's voice echoed down the labyrinth hall in an irritated tone. "I was looking for you for so long! Why didn't you stick around in the field?"
"Oh, you were there?" I rattled my head to clear it up a little. "Well, sorry for leaving you there, then."
"You know just a simple 'sorry' doesn't cut it," he continued. Boingo's eyes had a distinct flair to them, most likely an instinctually intimidating one. "You better be there for me tomorrow or I'm going to lose it. You hear me, Feste?"
"A-About tomorrow..." I couldn't help myself from stuttering. Boingo seemed ready to leap onto my face at any given moment "I have an appointment with Midnight at lunch."
"Midnight, huh..." The initial burst of anger seemed to drain out of Boingo. Still, he was fairly irked. "How do I know you're not lying? How do I know you're not making up excuses? Are you secretly going to go out with... with Endora?"
I stepped back. How did Boingo jump to that conclusion so easily? "No, it's to fix this labyrinth stuff," I rapidly justified. "I think something might be wrong with me. Something severe."
The smaller creature first peered at my face then at his surroundings. "Well, it is kinda boring. But still, how can this be bad? I mean, it's just a hallway; nothing more, nothing less."
"Well, remember the staircases?" I pointed towards the nearest one. "There might be something hiding for us or something if we go down far enough."
Boingo tilted his head. "And you unlock a new level when you talk to someone enough, right?" A lightbulb illuminated inside of his head. "Then you just need to make more friends and we can see just what that is, then!"
My heart began to pick up its pace slightly. "It's not that simple. And that's what Midnight is here for. He can disable whatever this is without the need for me doing that."
"Oh," Boingo seemed to deflate. "So it's just the three of us, then?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "At least for now, that is." Looking back, a question arose in my mind. "Where's Endora?"
Boingo's angered expression returned. "See, I knew it! Soon you're just going to abandon me to hang out with her! Just like all my other so-called friends..."
"No, it's not that at all! I haven't seen her for quite a few days now."
"Well, whatever. I think we just have to move until we find her." Without waiting for my response, Boingo dashed between my legs and bounded down the hallway. Once again, I was forced to run after the alien.