Thirteen years later.
After the time Jonathan had been submitted to Brighton Hospital for urgent care, his parents had made a few rounds coming to and fro from their residence in London, hoping that their son would be back on his feet soon. But when his release date became more uncertain over time, they had him transferred to the Regent Hospital back in London.
Arran had found this out a week later when after Jonathan’s seat in professor Callaway’s classroom grew emptier by the day, he finally paid a visit to Brighton hospital. On the drive back to the Metropole, he relived his last memory with Jonathan – from their wager to his collapse – and a wave of passion suddenly brought him to tears. He regretted that he hadn’t taken the time to visit his friend. And now knowing that Jonathan was transferred a week ago and clearly worse than he thought, he wondered if he would ever see him again as before – the lively hazel eyes, apple in mouth, that silly grin.
Guilt was swelling the more he thought about it.
It was my fault.
Before the following weekend, after Arran had told Dominic and Oliver about Jonathan’s transfer, Oliver made the suggestion that they take a spontaneous trip back home. The idea being to visit Jonathan. Arran liked the idea and Dominic did too. So they called a driver Friday night to bring them to Oliver’s parent’s flat, which they chose for it being the closest to the Regent hospital.
Arriving at the hospital, the trio made their way to the front desk, where a wide chested man was seated there with his head down.
“Hi,” Arran said, “we’re here to see Jonathan Spector.”
“Visitors?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay,” he said, collecting himself as if it were his first day on the job, “are you family?”
“Yes,” they all said simultaneously.
The chord of three voices caused the Innocent to look up speculatively, aware of the obvious disparity in phenotype among them.
“We’re cousins,” Arran clarified.
“uh-huh,” the Innocent muttered looking back down at his array of papers.
Arran, Dominic and Oliver exchanged glances that were an even mix of hope and doubt. They had made the mistake of coming the day before in true form, as concerned friends, and after they were turned away it was decided that a day should pass before returning – hoping that another Innocent would be on shift at the front desk. Seeing that it was, they decided to cross their identities for the sake of the greater good.
“Write your names on these,” the man said while holding out rectangular stickers, a visitor’s badge.
Oliver snatched them out of his hand and heard two loud voices immediately follow. He avoided eye contact as he handed a badge to each of his comrades, feeling their reprimanding impressions for a lack of inconspicuousness.
“He’s in room 307.”
The room was well lit and looked less like a hospital room than it did a hotel resort & suite. The shallow carpet was a smokey-grey that raised a contrast to a red-velvet sofa with white trim accenting its outline. Behind the sofa was a large window that stood in place of a wall, which revealed an ideal vantage point for the most discreet of people-watchers.
When the three entered the room, they followed a small hallway that was decorated with still life paintings – stepping over a few bed pillows along the way. For whatever reason, they were scattered all over the floor.
Coming into the main room, they saw that across from a floating television screen was the bed that Jonathan laid on; the size of it made him look tiny.
“Hello, Jonathan,” Arran said softly. He noticed his friend was thinner and looked almost savage-like without his long hair sleeked backward.
“Arran? What are you doing here?”
“We came to see how you were doing.” Arran looked over his shoulder to confirm his statement.
Jonathan’s eyes followed his motion. “Dominic and Oliver,” he said with a smile, “Hey guys.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Hey, how are they taking care of you here, Jon? Can I call you Jon?”
Jonathan nodded an approval to the latter question. “As long as it doesn’t turn into Jonny.”
Arran gave more than what the little joke merited and laughed unusually hard. It was with a kind of unexpected relief for having seen the first clear sign that his friend was okay. Or at least better than he had last seen him.
“And I suppose I’ve been treated well here. The doctors are good and the faculty runs professionally.” Jonathan shrugged. “I guess that’s really all you can ask.”
“And how are you feeling?” Oliver asked.
Jonathan looked at Oliver as if he were Sherlock Holmes under the consideration of a three-pipe-problem.
“Better,” he said finally.
Arran looked over the rusty-brown haired boy and ran his own diagnostic. Sure, better was a good answer. An accurate answer. But a vague answer nonetheless. So, looking into his mind, he saw the psychological torment that he endured for the past few weeks – the history that ran through Jonathan’s mind before arriving at the answer for how he would define his current state. And for him, this was what constituted as ‘better’: Arran saw the hours of sleep after the strains of sleepless nights, the moments of rest that came after bouts of manic episodes, the helpless screams that he let out until his throat burned; he also saw the reasons he recounted for why life was worth living, his relentless effort at keeping himself from doing what he felt so strongly needed to be done. What had to be done.
Jonathan looked at Arran in a disappointed way, showing him that he was caught.
Arran withdrew his fluency and walked to the bed and sat down. “Jonathan.” The sound came out fragmented.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I know. It’s okay.”
Arran put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“Jonathan, can I ask you something?” Oliver asked.
“Sure.”
“What made you do it?”
Arran’s face turned red with anger. “You don’t have to answer that stupid question.”
“No, it’s okay.” Jonathan gave reassuring eyes and looked back to Oliver. “I’ve actually thought about that a lot myself…”
Arran tensed up as Jonathan trailed off. He wasn’t ready to deal with any accusation (from his friends or from himself) that might pin him as the culprit.
“You see, I’m a very competitive person; and I didn’t want to lose our bet. So I-
“Whose bet?”
Jonathan gave Arran a hesitant look, unsure of what was off limits to say.
“Our bet.”
Oliver traced the eye contact and saw the remorse behind them. “Arran?”
“It’s not his fault,” Jonathan was quick to say, “I should’ve known my limits.”
“Don’t worry about it anymore,” Arran urged, “it’s behind us now.”
***
Arran, Oliver and Dominic walked outside of the hospital without a word being spoken between them. But Arran knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened. He looked over at Dominic in time to see him open his mouth and draw a slow breath – the classic tell that he was about to say something.
“Arran, why didn’t you tell us?” Dominic said with grim resignation.
“What?” Arran said automatically.
“You know what! Stop playing the ignorant card. You’re not an Innocent.”
Arran simmered at that remark and opened up his micro PC.
“What are you doing?” Dominic said.
“I’m calling our driver.”
Dominic sighed and waited for the transparent blue display to vanish. When it did, Arran turned his gaze to the distance as if he planned to keep it there until the driver arrived.
“Well,” Dominic said after a minute, “Do I have to spell it out for you? You basically started a game of chicken with Jonathan to see who could shadowshift first. And luckily for you, he drowned before you weren’t able to turn back to shore.”
“It was an accident, Dom,” Oliver said, putting a comforting hand on Dominic’s shoulder. He’s new to all this.
After receiving his friend’s impression, Dominic began to calm down – remembering that Arran was practically shadow illiterate before coming to the Metropole.
“Besides,” Oliver continued, “on the bright side of things, this actually confirms that I made a prediction with precision.
***
The first time that Arran had heard that prepositional phrase was in his Premonition class at the beginning of September. Professor Stable, a silver haired man with prominent cheekbones, was laying out the rubric and answering questions about the Foresight log.
“There is a rule of devotion that an Aesthete lives by. And since you are all in the business of becoming Aesthetes, this should be important for you to live by as well. But let me start by saying that the rule of devotion is more than just a rule per se. It’s more of a philosophy. A mood. An attitude towards life. And the best way for you to learn it is by first getting in the habit of making plans. Which brings us to the Foresight Log.”
The professor opened up a different translucent screen on his micro PC and expanded it, making it large enough for the whole classroom to see.
“It’s a really simple template. All you have to do is write into each box what you plan to do – including also the time frame in which you plan to do it. That is very important…Would anyone like to volunteer their schedule to see how it works with the Foresight Log?”
The professor looked around for a moment. A disobliging room of students.
“Whoever does will have a head start by having their log filled out for tomorrow.”
With this small encouragement, Arran raised his hand.
“Good Arran,” the professor said while scrolling down a list on his micro PC. “So let’s take Arran for instance,” he pulled up the student’s schedule and synchronized it to a Foresight Log, “Of course the log takes into account when Arran will be in class,” he pointed at red squares, “so it automatically frames itself to show the hour-by-hour slots that you can plan into. As you can see, these squares are empty and highlighted in green.”
The professor looked back at Arran. “So, what will you do tomorrow before your first class at 10:00?”
Arran fidgeted a little in his seat. He felt uncomfortable with opening up his private life to a room full of strangers.
“I set an alarm at 07:00, so I guess I’ll have breakfast at 07:15?”
“Okay good,” the professor said while typing it in. “What and where will breakfast be?”
“Uhh, I have to write that too?”
“It’s important to be as exact as you can. It’s good practice.”
Arran went through what he knew was stocked in his kitchen before giving a flippant response. He would actually need to eat this the next morning; and he didn’t want to make a last-minute trip to the market just to satisfy his log.
“A buttered croissant with English tea at my flat – sitting Indian-style on my bedroom floor while looking out the window.”
The classroom laughed and Arran smiled along. But the professor didn’t so much as smirk at the obscure detail. He kept typing along as if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to add.
“You laugh, but the more detail the better. This is called intention. Very good, Arran.”
Even though Arran meant to wave it off as a joke, he didn’t have the heart to strike out what he’d been praised for. So he let the detail stand and raised a question.
“Why is it so important to be detailed – to have intention?”
“Well, it’s not like there aren’t details in your life. And as Aesthetes in training, you don’t want to be ignorant of them. On the contrary, you want to control them. So it can be said that the more accurate you are at intending your day, the more aesthetic the quality of your mind will be.”
“Okay. But if it’s quality you’re after, how do we show progress in this class?”
Well there is quantity involved in how we measure your progress, of course,” the professor flipped back to the grading rubric of the syllabus, “According to the Institute’s standards, you must maintain an 80% concordance with your foresight log to pass this class. But I will say this: Realistically, if you really want to improve your chances of getting into the Aesthete Institute, you’ll maintain a 90% concordance or higher. Now, before you let that get you down, know that you also get bonus points if you log a foresight with precision. You’ll have to make this notation” – he etched out a WP on the board behind him – “next to the event you claim will occur. And this can’t just be what you’re going to get for lunch. Basically, it has to involve something out of your control where there is a 1 in 1000 chance of it happening. For instance, it can’t be, log: At 15:10, I witness John beat William in a duel (WP). This wouldn’t qualify. But if you did, log: At 15:10, I witness John beat William at a duel with this final sequence of movements – jab-cross-body kick-duck-uppercut-hit (WP). That would qualify.
“But who can make that kind of prediction without a vision?” A student blurted out.
“What do you think building intention is for? Detailed planning is exactly what primes the mind to register a vision. Visions are the ultimate goal. They are seen as the natural manifestations of one’s mastery over intention. And as such, they get rewarded.”
“Is there any penalty for predicting incorrectly with precision?” A student asked.
“Yes. A 5-point reduction on your overall grade.” The class audibly gasps. “But the pay-out, so to speak, is 2 to 1. Meaning, you get a 10-point addition to your overall grade if you predict correctly.”
***
Arran broke off his stare and turned to look at Oliver. And his words fell in perfect sync with Dominic’s.
“What prediction?”
Oliver smiled, being obviously pleased with himself.
“I logged that someone would fall victim to the shadow the same day that Jonathan went to the hospital.”
“Wow,” Dominic said, “I mean that’s great, Oliver. But how is that just confirmed today? You should’ve received credit for that the day it happened.”
“Not quite. That wasn’t everything that I had logged…I also recorded that it would be motivated by a gamble.” He looked at Arran. “more specifically, a wager among friends.”
“So that’s what you wanted,” Arran said, “That’s why you wanted to come here. You just wanted to confirm that your prediction was right!”
“No, Arran. Not just that–”
“Yes. Only that. Ha, that’s why you made the suggestion to come here. I mean you don’t even know Jonathan.” Arran shook his head and placed his tongue on his upper lip. “It all makes sense now. This was all about your prediction and needing us two here to confirm that it was true.”
“Arran, stop.”
“No, forget it. I’m not going to testify for you. You can get someone else.”
“Are you serious! C’mon Arran, that’s fucked up. Dom, help me here.”
Dominic took a deep breath and looked at Arran. “You know he needs two people to testify for his prediction to be confirmed.”
“Like I said, he can get someone else.”
Just then the driver pulled up. Arran opened the back door and waved for Dominic and Oliver to get in. When they did Arran closed the door firmly and opened the passenger door.
“I’ll give you fifty extra bits if you let me sit next to you.”
“It’s really not allowed,” the driver said, “I cou-
“A hundred then.”
The driver blinked and gestured for him to take a seat.
“You really know how to be petty,” Oliver called out from the back.
“And you really know how to act in bad faith,” Arran called back.