Zen suddenly opened his eyes as he woke up to a splitting headache which made him wince. Looking around the strange place he realized he was on a bed in what looked like an infirmary.
He slowly brought himself up to sit on the bed as he clutched his head .
"You're awake!"
Zen looked to where the voice had come from and saw Neo standing next to the bed.
"Stay here, I'll go get the doctor"
As soon as Neo left, Zen felt a another presence in the room, and looking to his left,he saw Zaria standing there with a strange look that didn't match her usual hostility to him. She looked conflicted, almost a little sympathetic even.
"What did you mean by that?" She asked
Zen tilted his head, confused
"I... don't understand the question"
"You don't remember?"
"Everything after the instructor touching me is blank"
She seemed to believe him as she stopped asking.
A few minutes went by with both of them just staying in silence until Zaria's gaze fell on Zen's right hand which was still covered by the glove .
"Are you...are you really...?"
Before she could finish, the door swung open as Zen's roommates,Jade, the soul gear class instructor, and a beautiful brown haired mature looking woman in a doctor's uniform came in.
The doctor immediately began to inspect Zen to make sure there was no permanent damage on his body while asking him some questions.
"Are you feeling okay? They got you pretty bad".
Zen, confused, asked
"Who?"
The doctor's originally caring and kind expression disappeared as she raised a brow at the question before looking at the crowd behind her with some suspicion.
Damion, the soul gear class instructor nervously spoke after seeing her expression.
"Don't blame the kids, this was all my fault"
He turned to Zen before speaking again.
"You're probably confused as to what exactly is going on. Soul gear, as you already know from my class is intricately linked to an individual, their aether, ability, skills,aether, identity, experiences, memories and so much more . The trigger to soul gear is often in the individual's subconscious mind, that's why extreme focus and concentration is...."
*Cough,cough*
Damion looked at the doctor who was looking at him strangely. He suddenly realized that after being surrounded by students,he had instinctively started acting like he was in a classroom and had turned the whole thing into a lecture.
Damion coughed and tried to regain his composure despite it being apparent that the kids didn't mind. In fact they quite enjoyed his teachings ,both now and in the class. He seemed to have a special way of teaching and explaining things that made people eager to listen. He taught in a way that made it beyond obvious that he knew what he was talking about while frequently putting in his own insights and experiences and was always ready to listen to students' questions and opinions.
Plus, his voice was pretty nice to listen to.
Damion decided to quickly get to the main point.
"Although you don't have an ability, I was still able to access your subconscious . It appears that after some traumatic experience, you had instinctively locked away some of your memories in your subconscious in order to release the burden on your mind. After entering your subconscious,i had unknowingly released the seal on your memories. The sudden burst of information must have overwhelmed your mind, causing your consciousness to get drowned out, and you to start acting erratic , forcing your friends to have to.....'calm you down'.
As soon as Damion finished, Xavier suddenly burst out saying
"Dude! You were an absolute animal . I didn't know you could fight like that. That was totally savage. I mean,look what you did to the teacher "
Zen looked at Damion and noticed a bandage around his nose.
Damion just smiled
"It's fine, barely even hurts. You just caught me by surprise is all.
Xavier cheekily whispered into his ear
" Poor guy,the doctor said she wouldn't help him heal it until you woke up"
Zen still had some questions but as he tried to adjust his sitting position,he suddenly winced .
"Why does my butt hurt?"
Everyone in the room turned to look at Xavier who suddenly started laughing nervously while shuffling away from Zen.
Zen slowly touched his neck.
"And....did i get kicked in the head. It feels like my it's about to fall off"
This time it was Zaria's turn to be stared at by everyone. She quickly turned her head to the side, refusing to meet their stares, however it was obvious she wasn't indifferent to them as her ears turned red and her face began heating up.
Damion looked at Zen and couldn't help feeling pity as he remembered what had happened.
Damion looked warily at the glowing symbol and prepared himself to attack when he suddenly heard something.
*Sob*
"Please stop"
Damion warily turned around. For some reason it felt like the voice that was sobbing was coming from all directions.
The crying continued but he couldn't do anything as he didn't know where it was coming from.
*Sob*
"Someone. Anyone. Please help"
Damion was getting agitated. He wasn't an overly emotional person, and he was very adept when it came to controlling his mental state, but hearing the sound of a child crying and begging for help without being able to do anything about it would affect anyone.
A young boy suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Seeing the child that was sobbing, Damion considering leaving as he remembered that all of this wasn't real , but eventually he decided to go.
The moment he took his first step, he suddenly tripped on something. Looking back he realized it was a badly mutilated human corpse.
Although startled, he wasn't very moved as he simply brushed it off and once again tried to move towards the boy that was crying.
As he stood up, he suddenly found himself surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of corpses .
The boy at the center of it all didn't even move as he just kept crying.
Unable to take it anymore, Damion yelled towards the boy to get his attention.
The boy suddenly flinched and turned around to face Damion, allowing Damion to see his face and realize that it was just a younger Zen.
The boy smiled and was about to say something when out of nowhere a long blade that looked like it was made of light suddenly appeared behind him boy, and without any effort, separated his head, arms,legs, and torso in less than a second.
Before Damion could even react he was brought back to reality by a punch to the face.
Remembering all this, Damion couldn't help but feel concern. He knew everything that happened in there wasn't real,in fact, they might not even be memories, but the fact that the boy's subconscious mind was in such a state due to those people, and from such a young age was simply heartbreaking.
"When will they grow tired of committing such evil?" He asked himself quietly in his mind, feeling exhausted.
One thing he hadn't told Zen was that it was possible it wasn't just his memories that he had locked. He had spoken to Zen's dorm mates and after hearing about his strange indifference and emotionless character, Damion felt it was possible that Zen had also locked up those excess emotions alongside his memories, making him more robotic and emotionless.
If only Damion knew that he was actually almost one hundred percent correct but was just missing a few little details.
Zen decided to get up from the bed. Neo came along to help him up and although he felt fine,he didn't refuse the help.
Xavier seemed to remember something at that moment and said
"Oh yeah! Dude your eye is like the most badass thing I've ever seen! Max told me it was a mutation . Why didn't you show us earlier?"
Zen was confused for a second but realized they must have seen it while putting him down.
Zen shrugged and slightly pushed the hair covering his right eye to the side, allowing them to see it.
Every single person in the infirmary,even the other patients, suddenly paused for a few seconds
Although the other patients in the infirmary didn't know what just caused it, but the people in front of Zen did as they stared at it.
Instead of the dark black of his left eye, his right was primarily a dark shade of purple. Instead of a regular pupil,his was a slightly wide golden vertical slit,and inside that slit was another smaller bright crimson vertical slit.
His eye seemed to have a hypnotic and suffocating effect that drew eyes everywhere to it,it looked like something that demanded attention everywhere it was seen.
Zen wasn't inserting any aether into it but it seemed to have a natural effect on people. The deep purple seemed to invoke a sense of mystery and mystery and wisdom. The bright gold seemed to release a purely majestic regal feeling,as if it belonged to royalty. The bright crimson at the core could only be said to be purely malicious,it released an aura that of death, damnation, and slaughter on people who dared look too deep into them.
Mystery. Majesty. Malice.
These three elements combined in one single person caused a unique effect that even Zen didn't notice.
Zen quickly covered it up again.
"It attracts too much attention" he said plainly.
Turning to the nurse he asked if he could leave now
She seemed to suddenly remember something as she went to her desk and came back.
"Open your mouth kid?"
Zen was confused but obliged. As far as he knew, he didn't have any dental problems.
As soon as he did, the mature woman shoved something into his mouth before he could react.
Zen realized that whatever it was tasted good and....orange flavored?
Zen looked at the stick outside his mouth and realized it was a lollipop.
The doctor patted his head a few times
"There. Now you can leave. And don't get into any more unnecessary fights"
Zen nodded slowly, although he wasn't sure how possible that was.
The doctor hurriedly shooed the crowd out of her office before getting back to work.
Outside, the crowd of students were already splitting up.
Jade had said goodnight to Zen and was leaving with Zaria.
Oh yeah. It was night now.
Appearantly, Zen had been unconscious for the entire evening.
Zen was about to leave with a others when Damion suddenly called him aside
"What do you need?" Zen asked fluently despite the lollipop in his mouth which he didn't plan on dropping any time soon.
"Nothing. Listen i....may have seen some..... stuff in your mind. I just want to say,if you ever need to talk about anything,let me know"
Zen nodded
"I will sir"
"Call me Damion"
Zen nodded and watched as Damion left.
Zen walked back to his roommates. They didn't ask what had happened and just walked back to the dorm together
Along the way,Xavier suddenly said.
"Oh yeah dude. Sorry for hitting your ass"
Zen shrugged and replied surprising them with his response
"It was unexpected. I would have seen it coming if it was Maximilian though"
Maximilian was confused at his sudden involvement in this.
"What does this.."
Before he could finish, he suddenly stopped moving.
"Max? Is something wrong bro?" Xavier asked
"I-it's nothing, I'll just take another route"
Zen looked to the right and noticed that they had just passed the female bathroom, and it was that point Maximilian wouldn't cross.
"Oh!"
Hearing that "oh!" of realization from Zen, Maximilian suddenly remembered something
("Well what if I want is you?")
Maximilian suddenly remembered what he had said in the dungeon and looking at Zen,he suddenly realized why Zen had brought him up earlier, and as he did an expression of panic appeared on his face
"He thinks I'm...."
Zen didn't bother waiting anymore and kept walking.
Maximilian wanted to move forward and explain to Zen but he couldn't.
"Are you sure you're okay dude?" Xavier asked.
Maximilian wasn't listening. He just wanted to yell out to Zen that he was wrong but he felt like that would only make things weird for Xavier and Neo.
"Yeah, you guys go ahead and I'll see you at our room
"Okay,if you insist. You know you can tell us anything bro"
Maximilian only smiled and thought that this wasn't so simple.