The Carnival

[Kaden]

Things had become real awkward, real quick for Kaden. He counted himself lucky, though, since awkward was usually preferable to dangerous or violent or… just about anything else that happened in Kill Town. Or so he thought. Despite the apparent break down Bella… Belle was suffering, he hadn’t expected her to all but throw him through a wall. Had he been in a worse mood, he would have simply taken his leave of the situation, not really big on threats of violence and all.

Despite the slump he felt upon seeing that Piper was no longer a participating member of Gamer’s game, the courier was quick to rally. He couldn’t let himself sink back into a funk. He knew people were counting on him, believing in him, and he wasn’t about to abuse that, no matter how misplaced he thought such things were. There were far more trustworthy and capable people within Kill Town, but, like they say, when life gives you lemons…

The only surefire way to help those who had been captured, that Kaden could see, was to free himself from the game and deal with Gamer in-person. Even though he had absolutely no idea how he would go about doing that, the courier was determined to find a way. At the time, the only apparent way to curry any favor with the teenager was to finish his insane events. If that’s what it took, that’s what he would do. In the meantime, though, if he could help other’s get through their own problems, they would collectively stand a better chance of surviving.

“Before I start, though,” Kaden said. “You should know I’m expecting some reciprocity, here. I don’t just bare my soul to everyone, y’know.”

Leaning forward, Kaden strained to discern any of the barely-audible grumblings that escaped Belle’s mouth. He watched, almost with amusement, as the girl’s knuckles went white, her death-hold on the bra in her hand tightening.

“Oh come on,” the courier said, the tone in his voice lightening. “It’s not like you really have any secrets from me anymore.”

Up to that point, Belle had done a remarkable job in ignoring – or perhaps forgetting – the fact that she was, largely, naked. It wasn’t until Kaden emphasized his last point by extending a finger and poking her in the breast. The hybrid’s eyes snapped from his extended hand to his eyes with a mixture of confusion and annoyance plastered across her face.

“Fine…” she finally mumbled.

“Sorry,” Kaden flashed a quick smile and shrugged. “I’m a curious guy. Anyway, like I was saying, there was this girl I knew a long time ago. Well… ok… it was only eight years ago, and I shouldn’t really call her a girl. She’s, like, a hundred. I swear, she looks eighteen. Maybe nineteen,” the courier added after a confused glance from Belle. “You ever seen people who could regenerate? She could do that. According to her, it kept her from aging. I think. She could be pretty hard to understand sometimes.”

As he talked, Kaden had grabbed the first top he saw from the pile of clothes laying between him and Belle. He breathed a quick sigh of relief as the girl pulled the shirt over her head, covering herself mostly up and allowing him to focus on what he was trying to say. It was a light yellow tanktop with pink trim that fell to her hips and actually looked pretty good. Momentarily distracted, Kaden fished for a pair of grey Capri pants Belle had tried on earlier. He continued talking as he pulled the pants from the pile and tossed them to the girl.

“So, anyway, there I am, fourteen years old, thinking that nothing exciting ever happened. You know how… no… you probably don’t. Sitting in the same classroom day after day gets old. Even talking to your idiot friends gets boring after a while. I’ll admit, once or twice I started up some drama just to keep things interesting. They weren’t exactly the toughest group to figure out, and I was… well… fourteen. I never stopped to think about how much I actually gained from being around people until the summer before I turned fifteen.

“See, as a teenager, I started to get… well… sick. You’ve seen me in action, right? I’m told I’m above par when it comes to manipulating ki. Well, long story short, I started draining other people’s energy because mine would just… run out. I couldn’t even control it. Hugging my parents, or petting our dog, even giving a friend a high-five… any contact and I would start sucking people dry. It was not good.

“The reason that matters is because, eventually, I wasn’t able to play with friends, or go to school, or even go outside eventually. I was stuck in my own house, and even then I couldn’t touch anyone. I doubt you know how mind-numbing daytime television can get, but take my word for it, it’s bad news. So things had gone from bad to worse for me, and that’s when I got it in my head that if I could suck people’s energy, I could use it to help people. I started sneaking out of my house at night and looking for… I don’t know… some criminal to stop. Or something. God that sounds dumb when I say it out loud.”

Having buttoned her pants, Belle scrutinized herself in the mirror of the dressing room as Kaden talked. He had to admire the outfit, it actually looked pretty good on the girl. Even if it hadn’t, he would still have insisted that, since she were clothed, they should move their conversation out of the changing room. As they left the clothing store, the clerk looked, quite disapprovingly, at the mass of discarded clothes that littered the store in their wake.

“So that’s where I ran into her,” Kaden continued his story. “We were both out fighting crime, more or less. In the next few months, I would sneak out and meet up with her and we’d go… y’know… do our thing. Not only was it way more exciting than sitting in my room doing nothing, but she was… how do I put it… nothing she did made sense. Like… nothing. The way she talked, the things she did, the decisions she made… I didn’t understand any of it. And, like I said before, I’m a curious guy. Figuring things out is usually pretty entertaining.

“Now I’m running around with this woman, who’s attractive and interesting and completely takes me away from the boredom and monotony of my usual life. I was, like, fifteen. Of course I’m going to start falling for her. So, I start, like… pursuing her, I guess you could say. That all went well and then, one day, bam!” Kaden clapped his hands together for emphasis. “Everything in my life was taken away.”

“Everything?” Belle asked as Kaden took a deep breath and walked to a bench not far from the clothing store.

“The two of us went out, like usual, but when we got back to my house, it wasn’t really there. Instead we found a nice big pile of ashes. Even today, I’m not exactly sure what happened. When I turned to ask what the hell was going on, the woman knocked me out cold. When I woke up, everything was gone. My home, all family, all my possessions. That was a pretty bad day, really.”

Reclining into the bench, took a moment to simply let his mind wander. An understandably awkward silence had fallen over Belle. The same thing happened every time Kaden told that story… all one times he had told it, at least. The thought occurred to Kaden that maybe he didn’t actually care about Belle’s problem. Well… he cared, but maybe that wasn’t why he was actually talking about his past.

“But that’s not really the main point of the story. That woman… for the longest time, I convinced myself she had taken everything from me. I mean, that was mostly just me trying to hide from what happened, but that doesn’t mean I hated her any less. I didn’t just hate her, though. Hell, I didn’t even just hate women. I hated everyone. Anyone who even looked like they had ever been happy in their life… instant hate. That went on for a while. Well… I’m definitely still dealing with some of it, but the point is, I had to let go eventually.

“Yeah, bad things happen. You know that. What’s important, though, is that you grow from them. If I had let what happened in the past turn me into… I don’t know… some kind of maniacal sociopath who hated everyone, I would never have out lived it. I would have been stuck living every day of my life for the past and, well, that’s not really living. I just couldn’t keep hating people.”

Silence fell over the bench as Kaden finished. Belle seemed to be processing the courier’s words. He found it impressive how quiet the girl had stayed during his story, having prepared himself to deal with a handful of interruptions. Regardless of the girl’s thought process, though, Kaden appreciated the silence.

His own story had given him reason to pause. There were aspects of it that he had never really given any weight before. He understood the ramifications of being consumed by hatred for the only person he thought he ever loved, but actually thinking they were things he was actively suffering from was another issue altogether. How he would get past that, or even if he wanted to were issues he would definitely have to confront someday. Largely, he blamed Sophia for that.

Then, of course, there were plenty of things concerning Sophia that ran through his mind. While making sure they were on good terms was important, their last conversation had left plenty of things hanging in the air. Normally, Kaden would have preferred to pursue her and finish their conversation, but the priestess seemed to be in a… fragile state of mind. He had no idea what may or may not push her over the edge. Again, something to be dealt with another day.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Kaden turned to Belle. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts, as her attention turned to straightening out the front of her shirt and letting her finger run along the wood-grain of the bench. Belle hadn’t been the type of person who busied themselves while in deep thought, at least not during the Carnival. Whether or not that was a consistent behavior, Kaden didn’t have enough experience with the girl to say for sure.

“So,” Kaden broke the silence. “I guess that would make it your turn.”