Khamene sat up straight on his bed and looked out his window. Four Wontaria Guards were milling about on the quad, seemingly interrogating students in the area.
A lump formed in Khamene's chest, a ball of unease and anxiety that he could not explain. Seeing the king's guards on campus, and seeing them speak with students was not a frequent sight to see. . . was not a normal sight to see.
Something was wrong, he knew.
He had been in bed the whole morning, switching between reading his required readings and taking five-minute naps, his two consecutive classes for the day taking place from five to seven in the evening.
Now, his head was suffering from an overload of information, the academic texts he'd been reading swirling in his brain like clashing tidal waves, complex words and ideologies drowning him out. Simultaneously, his heart was aching from loneliness and anger at his father.
What's happening? he thought. He clutched his knees to his chest like he usually would when he was a child, hearing his parents arguing voices from the next room, or whenever he felt anxious about something.
Interesting how even growing adults would revert back to their childish tendencies during times of uncertainty.
His curiosity piqued, he reached for his mech-com on the desk to call Ron. The device was shaped like a phone in our world, made of polished stainless steel, and only had one button on the lower portion. Opposite it was a rectangular screen that lit up when the button was pressed for two seconds.
On the screen appeared only three commands: "Call List", "Emergency Services", and "Alarm".
While a revolutionary and advanced piece of technology that was created by a team of scientists and engineers in Derahan almost fifty years ago, the mech-com was very far from becoming as functional as the modern cellphone in our world, only being able to call others, report emergencies, and set up alarms. The most astonishing aspect of the mech-com, surely, was its hologram feature.
Khamene tapped the button, and the "Call List" command lit up. He held the button for another two seconds, prompting the mech-com to open his list of contacts. He searched for Ron and held the button once more.
As he waited, his mech-com ringing while calling Ron, Khamene looked out the window again. Not much has changed except for the formation of the guards. They looked like they were merely rotating in position and not getting the information they had been hoping to obtain.
Finally, Ron picked up. A hologram version of him popped out of the screen of Khamene's mech-com.
"Dude," Ron said.
"There are guards around the campus," Khamene said.
Ron's hologram nodded. "I know, right? Tell me about it. They're asking everyone about a mystic who's gone missing."
Khamene sat up straighter. This was bad news. "Missing?"
Another nod. "Apparently she didn't come home to the Mystic Coven Residence last night. Her Sisters reported it to your father this morning. And now, as you can see, there's a manhunt afoot."
Khamene knew about the Mystic Coven, but he didn't think he'd ever interacted with any one of them before. He just knew that there were ten Sisters and that they had supernatural abilities that couldn't be fully explained. He was not even fully familiar with their names.
"They're asking everyone?" he asked.
"As they should," Ron replied. "I don't know how students could help, though. The Sisters don't even come here, anyway."
"Have they asked you?"
Ron shook his head. "Haven't come across one yet, but I wouldn't be able to help." He paused. "I have heard something, though."
"What did you hear?" Khamene had conflicting feelings rise in his chest, that feeling when you wanted to know the answer, but were also terrified to know it, like asking the doctor if you had cancer.
"I don't know all the details, but apparently there was a crime in Larthas. A murder-suicide or something like that."
Khamene's lips opened in shock. Murders were very rare in Wontaria. He wasn't sure he'd even heard of such news in the past ten or fifteen years.
"A couple, I think," Ron said. "I don't know, I was just eavesdropping on the conversation of two seniors while I was eating in the cafeteria. They'd heard it from two guards talking about it. That's how news spread, after all. But. . ."
A beat of silence.
"But what?" Khamene asked.
"Never mind."
"What is it, Ron?"
Ron looked unsure now, even in his hologram form, his eyes dropped, couldn't look at Khamene. "Don't get mad at me."
"Depends what you'll tell me."
Another pause. The second seemed to stretch forever.
"I also heard that your father instructed the guards to keep word of the crime under wraps," Ron said now, still not quite meeting Khamene's eyes.
"What?"
"He didn't want anyone to know what happened," Ron clarified.
I got that immediately, I'm not stupid, Khamene thought, the words balancing on his tongue. He bit these down; he was just getting pent up, a white-hot ball of fury growing in his chest.
He thought that this wasn't true, that this was just a rumor. His father was not that kind of king, not that kind of person who would keep vital information from anyone, especially not from Khamene and his mother.
Ron put his hands up, palms facing Khamene as if in surrender. "That's all I heard. They're probably just rumors, Kham."
"Yeah," Khamene said, unconvinced.
"I don't think it's true," Ron added, as if that helped.
Khamene gritted his teeth behind his lips. "Thanks."
"I gotta go," Ron said. "Meet you later?"
Khamene nodded and ended the call. The bright hologram disappeared. He looked out the window. The way he saw the guards had changed now, seeing them as complicit in his father's secrets.
No.
Did he really think that his father was that kind of leader?
He thought he did.
Not to mention the incidents that had occurred over the past few days. A murder-suicide, then a student gets attacked here on campus, and now a mystic was missing.
He turned his mech-com on once more, opened his contacts, then clicked on his father's name. His thumb hovered over the button, then stopped. If he was going to speak to his father, to confront him, it would have to be in person. A small part of him buried somewhere in his heart hoped that his father would tell him that the rumors weren't true.
Khamene turned to the clock: twenty past twelve. He had a lot of time before his next class. Attending a class, however, didn't seem so important right now.
He stood up, grabbed his bag, then left his room. His room was at the end of the hall on the second floor of the dormitory. Out in the hall, several students were present, leaning on the wall or sitting on the floor. Some rooms had open doors, fellow students lying in their beds, others on their desks studying.
As Khamene passed through the hall, all of them turned to him. Mostly their eyes held an expression of pity, while a few glared at him with narrowed eyes. He kept a neutral expression, tried to look as brazen as he could look, but their stares pierced through him. Hot shame clouded over him.
It seemed that the information about what his father had done had reached everyone's ears.
His father had paid him a visit. Perhaps it was only right and fair for Khamene to do the same.