am-books Chapter 11 - Begin Again
Chapter 11 - Begin Again
Mirian sat straight up, gasping for air, heart pounding. She looked around, tears falling from her eyes as she remembered. She'd been shot. She'd died. Gods, she'd died horribly!
Then she looked around. She was—in her dorm room?
A drop of water hit her in the face.
"You okay?" a voice said. Lily. It was Lily!
Mirian burst into tears and scrambled out of bed. "You're alive! Oh thank the Gods." She gave her a big hug.
Lily put on her glasses and gave her a quizzical stare. "Uh, obviously. Are you... okay?"
"No. Gods above, no. Holy hells. What... that was not a dream. There was no way that...." Mirian looked around. Another drop fell from the ceiling, this time onto the center of her bed. She went over and looked up. The hole was back. "They fixed that. What in the hells?" But there it was. When she looked up, she could see the glint of outside light, all the way up past the third floor.
"Wait, is that a leak?" Lily asked. "We're on the first floor. How the hell did that happen?"
"I..." Mirian paused. Well, she still had no idea. "What's... what's today?"
"Fourthday," Lily said. "Did you have a nightmare or something?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. Holy hells." She was thinking: There's no way that was just a nightmare. This wasn't like a strange dream that felt real until she woke up. It still felt real. And it hadn't been a day, or a week, it had been almost an entire month. She remembered all of it—her exams, the break, the second quarter starting... the attack. "What... like, I know this sounds stupid, but what's the date?"
"1st of Solem. Fourthday. Year of Poclym 4851, if you need that too. Mirian, what is going on?"
"Nothing. Everything. Shit, I... I don't know. The Academy... it was attacked. Twenty-seven days from now." The tears came to her eyes. It had just happened. "We died," she said. "All of us. Gods above." She started trembling, and had to sit down on her bed. Another drop of water splashed on her head, but she ignored it.
Lily was staring at her. "Mirian, you're freaking me out."
"Sorry. I'm freaking myself out too. I'm... I don't understand." What did it mean? Had it been a vision? Or had the Gods listened? She thought of Yiaverunan's hourglass, of the God's statue overlooking the Kiroscent Dome's rotunda.
Of all the stories she had heard of the Gods, none of them were like this. The closest comparison was the Prophets, who heard the voices of the Gods. And the Prophets had been devout priests of the Luminate Order, they weren't some random student. No one would believe the Gods were talking to her. Worse, she could be branded a heretic and jailed.
She looked at Lily and wiped the tears from her eyes. Second chance. You've been given a second chance. She would save them this time.
"You really don't remember any of it?"
"Do you need... I can call a healer. Or escort you to the hospital. Or temple. Do you... Mirian, are you sure you didn't just have a terrible dream?"
"That must have been it," she lied. "Sorry. It was... vivid." It was real.
"Isn't your exam today?" Lily asked.
Mirian blinked, and noticed the clay cube with glyphs on it that was lying on her table. Right, she thought. None of the things she'd done last time had happened yet. She still needed to complete the quarter. There was no sense sabotaging her career by skipping classes. Besides, who was going to believe her? She needed proof.
Another drop of water hit her. Oh, and she needed to deal with the Gods damned hole again!
"Hello," she said to the man at the maintenance desk. "There's a leak in my dorm. One of the water heaters got hit, and if it's not stopped it'll cause flooding and damage in three rooms."
The man looked up at her. "You need to submit a formal request to the Office of Student Housing," he said.
This had happened last quarter, too. "Funny, because they told me to go straight to you because it was an 'expedited request.' You know how water damage works, right? The sooner its fixed, the less hassle."
The man gave such a long and dramatic sigh it was like his soul was leaving his body. "We're busy," he said, after he was done.
"You can't send a single person with repair metal and a sheet of copper? Even a temporary fix would go a long way."
He gestured to the back of the office, which was full of empty desks and vacant spaces. "Do you see anyone else? It's just me, at the front desk. Everyone else is busy." There was a great deal of frustration in his tone. Her mind went back to Valen, saying don't pay attention to what people say, pay attention to how they say it. Or something like that. Come to think of it, she'd say that later today. Something was going on.
"Can I ask... what it is? The thing that's going on?"
He rolled his eyes. "Sure."
Mirian hesitated. "Uh, what's going on?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"Because I was told not to tell people. Especially students. Now if you don't mind, I have a lot of paperwork..."
Mirian decided to take a chance. Telling the guards was obviously going to backfire, because they either didn't care or were in on whatever was going on. But maybe an annoyed bureaucrat was the perfect person to tell. "Does this have anything to do with the weird guy I saw jumping onto the roof of the Alchemistry building? The cloaked guy who did not look like a student at all?"
The man opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then raised a finger, then put his finger back down. Finally, he said, "When... was this?"
"Just before six o'clock class. He dropped this. I told a guard about it, but he just shrugged." She brought out the water-damaged scroll.
The man's eyes went wide. "May I see that?"
Mirian set her jaw. "Only if you give me three small plywood squares, some nails, and a copper pipe so I can put in a temporary fix. The leak is right above my bed. And no one is allowed to be mad at me about it if I accidentally put a nail through something important."
"Deal," he said.
Another realization struck Mirian. She already knew when and where the next break-in would be. "Also... the guy on the roof. I heard him talking, I don't know to who. He said something about being at the myrvite kennels at 9:40. Which, actually, I'm late for class there, was creepy as hell to hear some guy wanted to break in to the same building I was going to. And really weird that the guard in the plaza didn't care." Technically, she hadn't told the guard this time, and she wasn't going to. No way that ended well for her. She was pretty sure the guy on the roof hadn't gotten a good look at her, but the more times she interacted with these people, the more likely something bad might happen. She'd died once, and it was awful—she wasn't looking to repeat the experience.
The man looked at her carefully. Not with disbelief, she hoped. Finally, he said, "Our leading hypothesis was this was a fraternity prank gone off the rails."
Oh shit, Mirian thought. Maintenance was too busy to fix the leak because they were too busy fixing... stuff. Stuff all over the Academy, she guessed. And not just broken locks. "How many... uh... things...?"
"Dozens," the man admitted. "And all over the place, too. The Torrviol Guard is looking in to the break-ins, but they haven't turned anything up. Look, don't go spreading that around, I've told you too much as is. Here, the least I can do is get you what you need to do a patch job." He left the desk, and returned a bit later with a linen satchel that clanked about as it moved. "Oh, and please make sure to use the lever by the water heater to disable flow before you replace any pipes. There's a scroll in that bag with the spell you need for the weld."
"Thanks," she said. "And good luck with... all the stuff."