Chereads / The Laments of a Guilty Soul Eater / Chapter 23 - The Back Rooms

Chapter 23 - The Back Rooms

Kai was sitting in class, watching Kyle's cloudy thoughts drift by, when he had an idea.

If he was able to change surface thoughts via sculpting the clouds, who said he couldn't change someone's subconscious as well? Of course, that meant locating the subconscious, but the advantages of being able to sculpt someone's very being were well worth the investment of time, effort, and energy.

There was only one problem with Kai's idea. Kyle's mind had slowly been eaten away throughout the days, leaving very little to explore. Not to mention, his already erratic behaviour would make it quite difficult to tell if anything had changed.

Perhaps Logan would be a better target. Kyle and Logan hung out alone quite often, and would likely be doing so within the next hour. Lunch would be a perfect time to borrow Logan for a while…

and to mess with his mind.

Kai wasn't planning on doing anything too terribly harmful. Just some teensy forgetting and remembering here and there for the sake of experimentation.

Something simple, quiet, and easy to confirm.

Something unimportant, yet easy to slip into conversation.

Kai would have to think on that one for a while, or at least for the next 30 minutes of class.

~~~~

Becca was sitting in her fourth hour class, contemplating her thoughts from the night before.

Did Kyle really deserve to die?

Did she have to be the one to kill him?

And if so, how would she do it?

After contemplating for a while, she had her answers to the first two.

Perhaps Kyle didn't deserve to die for slighting her, but she couldn't live any longer with him remaining alive.

The girl blinked, attempting to stop the leaking of her eyeballs before it began. She was unsure of why she was feeling such guilt for her plan. Her gut was both telling her that she had to kill Kyle, and that going through with it would be a terrible mistake.

However, as always, her terrible pain made up her mind for her.

Instead of being afraid to take action, the guilt spurred her to take action sooner.

She would strike before the high school football playoffs were complete.

~~~~

Logan and Ashleighe were sitting together in the library, working on homework. Logan had his arm draped around her shoulder, playing with her hair.

He typed with his free hand, working on a presentation for his biology class.

Ashleighe was more focused on the book report her english teacher had insisted be hand written. Why the teacher had asked for that when it would likely result in unreadable handwriting was something she did not know, but having a valid reason wouldn't have lessened her annoyance at the tedious task either way.

The couple sat there, their breathing aligned, working on homework for the entirety of their fourth hour. They were in sync with each other without even knowing it.

As the lunch bell rang, Ashleighe tossed the concluding sentence on her essay, and Logan shut his laptop. The picked up their bags and headed their separate ways to lunch.

Upon arriving at the lunch table, Logan was pulled aside by Kyle for a private conversation.

On the way to the locker rooms, Logan couldn't help but worry. Kyle had been acting strangely lately, clearly not over his breakup with Becca. But then his concern was replaced with relief. After all, if they were going to talk about it, Kyle had finally reached the first step of moving on.

Logan felt as if a great weight had lifted from his chest. His best friend was perhaps on the road to recovering! He would finally be able to stop asking his sister for updates on his well-being!

To be honest, sending a young girl text messages in a private text channel had made Logan incredibly uncomfortable, so he was glad to be able to move on.

His line of thought ended as the pair entered the locker rooms and sat down.

The next instant, everything went blank.

~~~~

Kai was midair, hovering between Logan and Kyle, for too long. He knew what he needed to do, and he knew how to do it. He did not, however, want to dive through the cold barrier of flowing water surrounding Logan's mind.

So instead, he sat there, waiting for the opportune moment he knew would not come.

Was he procrastinating? Yes.

Was being averse to plunging underneath a freezing waterfall a normal reaction? Also yes.

After a minute, Kai realized his energy was drifting away, his mental tendrils no longer enough to maintain control of both the boys and his ethereal body.

With an unhappy sigh, he closed his eyes and took the plunge.

The bone chilling cold stung the core of his being once again, the price of invading a healthy mind.

He shivered, trying to warm himself up once again.

The cold was not entirely dispersed a minute later, but he had recovered enough to mess about with Logan's mind.

Instead of using his hands to sculpt the clouds, Kai tried something new.

He strained a bit, feeling a tendril of mental energy expand out into the denser parts of the clouds. He felt some resistance, but only fed his feeler more energy and continuing to move deeper.

The experience was interesting, to say the least.

Despite the depths of Logan's mind being cloudy, it was almost as if the clouds were stagnant.

Kai had finally reached what he felt to be the right distance away from Logan's conscious thoughts, and let his mental arm sit still, focusing on the sensations it was sending back towards him.

Interestingly enough, the clouds deep within Logan's psyche were almost more recognizable than the intense yet fickle thoughts he observed in passing.

It wasn't so much that he could see the thought clearly as if it were a distinct impression of something. A strong idea.

The one he was currently holding felt like lavender and silken bedsheets. With further examination, Kai determined it was the cloud that held Logan's opinion of bubble baths - not manly enough to announce he enjoyed them.

Intrigued, Kai felt around for another impression, thought, or value. This time, he learned a bit of trigonometry. Perhaps he'd be able to understand a bit of Kyle's first hour class now.

At this point, Kai felt halfway confident in his ability to seek out ideas, and began to search for something more useful.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for until he found it.

This concept tasted of dedication, kindness, and boundless energy, all of this tied to a face. Kai recognized Hannah as the person all these beliefs were assigned to.

Ready to cause some changes, Kai pulled out the bubble of a cloud and squeezed it until it popped, drinking in the vapour it emitted. Licking his lips with a smile, the hungry soul eater seemed to have understood exactly what he had done.

Hannah's face no longer flashed through the background of Logan's mindscape.