The class ends, but I'm not in a hurry to enjoy the brief period of freedom like everyone else. Amidst the noise of chairs scraping against the floor and tables being pushed away, I frown.
The lesson just now was logical, like a story without any plot hole, but at the same time, it seems a bit like it was lacking in substance. The teacher said many things, working well to make the course interesting, but what exactly is the order that had been talked about at length, but in truth while skirting around the most important parts. It was like a story with a good start, an end that can be understood, but a middle part that has been watered down by an author without any good idea, even with its good semantic.
The teacher said that the new order is being civilized. Though I can understand the apprehension at the end, because, indeed, not to mention millions, just hundreds, thousands, or even dozens. When bodies stop being simple numbers on a report sheet, and they become tangible, seeable and touchable, just imagining the spectacle, the bloody field the size of a pool or a lake underneath, all muddy and sticky, the smell, either a metallic tang, if lucky, along with the nauseating touch that would remind of the meat of all the animals we humans are used to slaughtering and putting in our plates, or if unlucky, full of the putrid breath of old flesh in the midst of decomposition, along with parts exposed through wounds each worse than the other, full of insects or bigger scavengers attracted by the feast…
"Cough…"
I seem to have gone on a downward spiral. For no reason other than to make myself seem more intelligent, I'm disgusting the hell out of myself and creating the conditions for my stomach to throw back the milky breakfast from earlier.
I breathe, and exhale, then breath deep, then exhale softly.
"Max, are you okay?"
"Hm? Hm."
I blink, then nod at Emmie when my surprise recedes. Inwardly, I suppress a twitch of my lips. I seem to be suffering from boredom. If I had kept my mind busy, it would have been sane enough to keep it on the right track.
"You sure."
I smile at Emmie, and reassure her with a nod of my head.
"I'm sure, don't worry."
But the redhead still doesn't believe me. She keeps some skepticism in the red eyes she looks at me with, making me shake my head in amusement.
"I might be having some trouble with the milk or the egg from my breakfast. Don't worry, it will pass."
She looks at me a while longer. I bet she would have read my mind, or at least tried doing so, if she was capable of that. But her concern melts my heart, making my already genuine smile softer. She takes in the look on my face, and nods. She opens her mouth to speak, and I already know that she wants to bring back the subject that has been interrupted by the arrival of the history teacher. Unfortunately for her, that discussion seems really destined to only take place much, much later.
"Good morning class! I don't care how your holidays have been, but now, take out your books and open the page we stopped on last term. We will be going forward while reviewing the homework you have been asked to do."
Just those words that seem to precede the teacher make many faces twist. Yeah, maybe the history class has made them forget that holidays, on top of being fun, equated to a ton of homeworks too, something many must have forgotten to even glance at.
I shake my head, enjoy one of the few joys of having an ocean of noisy thoughts perpetually invading my mind, and take out my book. I let out a smile after a glance at Emmie, who is among those wincing the hardest, and turn to my book.
However, my mind doesn't focus. I still go back to the matter I have been pondering. I just can't help it. I simply feel that the matter is unclear, and with a layer of mystery that rubs me the wrong way. And when I think about my conversation with Liz yesterday, I just feel that if there is a mystery to this world, it concerns the trouble that has apparently always been there, but has only started pursuing me since half a year or so ago.
If that factor is considered, then everything would make sense. Mind-readers finding about and killing each other would be logical. The kill or be killed, the strings of assassinations, the war that, itself, has been dubbed a secret, would have no more confusion in its meaning. That would truly be something whose development happened in the darkness, because difference was something that could cause fear, and this, would be hidden. And a war among the hidden, would be in the darkness, would be a secret.
That premise would explain many things, bringing about some clues on the history of mind-readers and mind-reading too. And that would finally lift the veil off something else, the template the teacher talked about.
Being civilized, what does that mean? What does that entail? It is easy to understand that literally, if philosophy is not considered, but it feels too superficial. However, if civilization, which the history teacher equated to restraint in some sense, is also equated to control, that would explain everything.
Control by the ones in the darkness, the ones who have been the main actors of the war of secrets, like hands behind the curtain directing everything like a puppet show. I feel chilled, not by that fact, but by how old the matter is, along with those involved, or better yet, the organization, or the organizations, involved.
I want to hyperventilate, but I only breathe rhythmically, like all my ability to panic has bled out of me over the last part of the previous year. Only, the matter seems a bit too simple. Maybe only with more elements, more facts, will I be able to get a complete view on the historical event.
I exhale, and force myself to return my mind to the lesson, and to the noises that are going into my mind and my ears. Time will reveal what needs to be. I will follow Liz's advice, and let go of the crippling tension to return to being a teenager. I can't do much, but at least, I can not worry her.
With another exhale, I let out a slight smile which only I would know if it is genuine or a facade, and look at the teacher to focus on cheating again even more easily than during last term.