A Wider Sky: Beyond Eclipse Series
by Talyis Bagley Ellison
Copyright first edition 2013, 2015, 2016
EPILOGUE
❆✾❀ ~Gaelen~ ❆✾❀
The Eatery was packed with students getting the last coffee and ice cream chats in before we all dispersed to our homes. The Eatery was in a commons building central to all the dormitories. It was the best place to grab a study snack or hang out with friends for a treat. But I was the only one left having to use the Eatery as a study break before heading back to my room to finish my final assignment.
Professor Windsor was being gracious and giving me a second chance to pass the semester by turning in my term paper with the revisions I needed to make. I wish that Haazic hadn't pulled Mouse away from me before I could humbly ask her to help. I was going to promise we would really study, not make out, because as much as i wanted to make out with her before the break, my grade depended on it.
I was surprised so many students were still on campus and the line to buy food was snaking around the tabled area. The university was a cesspool for gossips and the Eatery was a herald square. I always try to stay away from the gossip as much as possible because usually those who got involved with the gossip became the topic of the gossip. Fortunately for me, my family and my line, any gossip about me could be considered treason, but my classmates were still sharped tongued. I was surprised when I first heard Kiowa's name behind me. I was hoping to turn around and see her standing in the eatery saying hello to whomever uttered her sweet name. Its pure utterance made my heart jangle the cage of my ribs and run free. I quickly turned around with probably the cheesiest grin, but she was nowhere to be found. The girl behind me gawked at me like I had bad hygiene and poor social skills.
Then I heard somebody else say Kiowa's name behind the girl still wearing a horrified expression. As soon I soon noticed students mystery whispering Kiowa's name while looking at their tablets, then at me were varying degrees of looking stupefied, proud and something I couldn't quite pinpoint, but it made my stomach tour sour like my biggest fear or secret had been revealed.
I quickly pulled out my tablet to see what had turned the entire Eatery into a craze of odd looks directed towards me.
And then I saw it.
The marquee across my social digest read: "The human has been identified. Yale Green Beret Elite offers an award for the mock capture of the human all schools may participate".
I snorted a laugh. What was the award, admittance into their military club, without pledging?
Fat chance.
I scrolled through the unopened private messages that were not bombarding my social digest. I couldn't swipe them away, Ignoring them fast enough because I was dying to find out who the human was. I did open a private message sent by Haazic with the subject line requested a private urgent conversation. And then I saw it, after Haazic's message. A public post sent by Sebol to the entire school.
I know I was off balance because in my periphery, I could see everybody's food and backpacks and things floating in the air, twirling like a tormented twister brewing and a dead silence from my classmates. My temper was notorious on campus because my powers unleashed on everyone. But I didn't care. I didn't know which direction to charge, towards my room, towards Sebol or Haazic, in all three I saw red. And like a bull, I ran towards where my anger hurt the most.
I charged, horns pointed into her dorm room and she seemed to blanch seeing me, and then I noticed her.
Really saw her.
At first she was as beautiful and as sexy as I had always known her to be since the day she threw my balance off on the staircase when my eyes first laid sight of her. She had stopped my in my tracks, turned my world upside down literally and figuratively. I just dared her to run into me again, run straight through my heart as she had done so many months ago, she changed me in so many ways. She changed my heart to the wretched beating thing in my chest that was hurting.
Yet, this was not that kind of an encounter, one of love and cozy sexy and happy endings. She blanched, her brown skin turned ashen with nervousness like a mouse, but no, it was fear, a real terror of something horrible. She wasn't a mouse. She was a tragic bird lost in flight caught in a blizzard fighting against the strong gales of frigid wind. She cowered in the middle of the room. I had never seen her do that before. But she had never seen me with my sharpened points ready to spear her to death because she hurt me, lied to me and broke my heart.
