I'm a bit disappointed that only 1 person has commented. I hope more people read this story and comment
I tried the formatting, nya, but it didn't work.
Anyways, here's the second half of the story! This one might be a little longer but not by much.
Instincts Part 2The next day transpired much in the same way: Venice arrived at the library, signed in the student book, and walked through the isles to her spot. But her manner was altered. Instead of feeling relaxed and content, she was frazzled and anxious. She had barely slept that night. Their meeting, her realization – all of this was far too much to bear. But due to the occultist’s secretive nature, she couldn’t confide in anyone her problems. She was out of her regular control, pushed to the limit of her abnormality threshold, and it showed.
Her wicker chair was empty, but less inviting. The pond outside the window seemed shallow and flat. The normal library noises caused Venice alarm at every pen stroke and pipe rattle.
She tried to drown it out with her book. Her fingers shakily pulled out the bookmark. Paragraphs describing wind patterns on the North American continent appeared, but they did not greet her. She could imagine little pieces of words flying off the pages and slipping past her head. None of this seemed significant.
In anxiety and frustration, she threw her book down. It landed at a pair of black shoes, standard issue, which had appeared out of nowhere. Venice followed the legs.
Lux stood in a similar position to yesterday, but more cautious. Perhaps she was thinking out her words, planning her methods more than yesterday’s intrusive act. She bent down to pick up Venice’s book, and handed it to her. But Venice didn’t take the book from Lux’s hands. She stared nervously at the girl.
“I don’t trust you,” she said quietly. They were still in the library.
“I know,” Lux said, apologetically. “I thought so.”
Venice had no reply. Lux pulled up the same stool from yesterday. Her actions seemed almost identical. Things kept on repeating, like patterns emerging from experiments done in the lab. Venice knew the outcome; it was undesirable.
“Look,” Lux began.
“What am I to look at?” Venice said. “I can’t possibly look at you.”
Lux ignored her. “Its obvious that what happened last night shocked you. The dilated eyes, the nervous shakes, not to mention that great adrenaline rush that launched you out of the courtyard – I can tell that you’re nervous, maybe even violated.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time in people’s faces, you should know them well,” Venice said curtly. But what Lux had described was absolutely true.
“But I also know that there’s something you’re hiding. Something that you’ve been hiding, even from yourself,” Lux said. “I saw it last night. A little candle lit in your face.”
Venice turned away, her face suddenly flush. She held her hands across her chest. For minutes they sat like this, Venice isolating herself and Lux waiting for some sort of reply.
She did have a secret. It had come upon her last night – a memory that was partially old and partially new. And certainly, she didn’t want to tell Lux.
But what other option do I have? I have no one else to disclose this to, she thought.
Eventually Venice turned back around. Lux smiled, a bit warily.
“Last night,” Venice said, taking a breath, “I remembered something from my childhood.”
“Go on,” said Lux.
“It was when I was, maybe, 6 or 7 years old. My mum and I had gone to stay at my mum’s parents place outside a quaint hamlet in the countryside, while Dad worked in the city. I was a bit more mischievous and poorly behaved than I am now, often getting into trouble with the help.
“One day I had come up with a fantastic idea. I had seen many birds during my stay, and was fascinated by them. I would watch them for hours, flying freely in the air, and I longed to join them in flight. So I had my nanny help me make a pair of paper bird wings that I could wear for fun. They were big enough that I could slide them over my arms, and I pretended to flap them. But my plans were bigger than this. I believed that if I had a pair of wings like a bird, I could fly like a bird.” Venice said.
“Oh,” Lux commented, realizing what was probably going to happen next.
“When the nanny left, I executed my plan. I foolishly jumped out of a second-story window, flapping my little paper bird wings madly. I didn’t fly, of course. I fell like a stone.”
“Were you hurt?” Lux asked, and it was sincere. “Did you break anything?”
“Strangely,” Venice said, “I didn’t ever reach the ground. Someone was waiting for me at the bottom, and they caught me.” She turned her gaze towards the big window, out in the sky. “This was the part of the memory I hadn’t remembered until last night. I could remember falling, but nothing more.”
She paused, momentarily. This would be the hardest part to tell, because she had a hard time even telling it to herself.
“I didn’t know my savior, but she seemed to know me. She put me down. I remember being shocked, both that my plan failed, and that I hadn’t fallen to my doom.”
“…She told me she was an occultist, that it was the occultist’s doing that had saved me. And…” Venice said softly, and her voice wavered. “She told me that someday, I would be asked if I thought I was more than what I was, and that I would promise to answer that question by saying ‘bird.’ And then she disappeared.”
Venice’s head drooped. She felt on the verge of tears. Strange feelings boiled inside her, like the pipes overhead. Things she didn’t know, suddenly so important, so relevant. Was it coincidence, or was it destiny?
Lux made no move to comfort her, no arm stretched out to reassure her, probably sensing that Venice didn’t want her assistance. But she did move the stool closer.
“You have a big decision to make,” Lux said. Venice looked up, her expression echoing her younger self, after being rescued. Shocked. Surprised. Uncertain.
“I don’t know if I can make that decision,” Venice replied.
“You have to,” Lux affirmed. “Your life hangs in a moving state that can’t be righted until this decision is made. The occultists still need a fifth person; we’re useless without five. You have a calling. You have a dream, and you have this memory.”
“That’s
all I have,” Venice said.
Lux sighed. “I guess that’s true. Understand, Venice, I can’t force you to do anything. But the more I tell you, the less choice you have. Knowledge is binding. You have to go with your gut, trust your instincts.”
“My instincts,” Venice repeated.
“That little sense in you that points you in the right direction. Seize it. Tame it. Let it guide you, like a compass guides a traveler to the north. Your instincts are true. It’s what you felt when you fulfilled your promise made to the lady who saved you. You told me you wanted to be a bird, because your instincts told
you that you wanted to be a bird.”
Venice thought about it. While she was thinking, Lux grabbed Venice’s book back up from the floor and placed it in Venice’s lap. Venice didn’t even hear her leave. One second Lux was there; the next second, as Venice turned to thank her, Lux was gone.
The next couple days were some of the hardest in Venice’s life so far. It was only one decision, but how important a decision it was! She was sloppy on her schoolwork and couldn’t pay attention in classes. Her energy was focused on making the decision.
She went over and over the little information she knew in her mind. Occultists weren’t entirely secretive, because Venice had heard of them before – but only as a sort of urban myth. Paul had told her about the Leviathan under Venezia. Lux had talked about “protecting the hidden world” and that it gave them advantages. Venice thought about how Lux seemed to disappear on a whim. Was it a power she had taken from occult practices? Was it something that was really that important for Venice to have?
Probably the most important factoid that affected her deliberation was that of her rescue by the mysterious woman. At times, Venice would force herself to remember the woman’s face, but it was impossible. The woman had rescued her through occultist means. It was almost as if the woman
wanted Venice to become an occultist, as if it was part of the deal – Venice is rescued, and later becomes an occultist. The fulfillment of this promise was the hardest thing for Venice to dismiss, because of its nature as an actually experienced event instead of a piece of information given to her.
So Thursday night, three days after their meeting, Venice imposed on herself an ultimatum. By tomorrow, she needed to make her decision. That was it. She had twenty-four hours to decide.
Those twenty-four hours didn’t pass smoothly. Everywhere she went Venice obsessively looked for some sort of sign – something fantastical and magical, which would indicate to her that she was destined to become an occultist. But as the hours went by, she began to realize how ridiculous this seemed. Was a unicorn really going to dash across the walkway to the science hall? Would she really see a phoenix jump out of the fireplace in the library? The more she thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. It was the wrong sort of sign. Lux had said that occult meant hidden. A unicorn would be too obvious.
Venice paused from thought to check the clock. 6 pm. She only had 3 hours left to decide. Presently, she was in her dorm, doing homework.
Frustrated, she put down her marking pencil. She wasn’t really concentrating on her calculus homework anyways. Her stomach bubbled up all sorts of nervous feelings, and her skin prickled. It was nothing to take lightly. Becoming an occultist would change her life.
But would it change her life for the better?
Do I really want to be a bird, she thought,
or do I just want to keep a promise? Lux’s comment implied that occultism had benefits, but certainly it had drawbacks. Would the benefits outweigh the risks?
She needed to take a break from thinking. Venice reached for her rucksack and took out that same book she had been reading on migratory patterns. She hadn’t touched it since her last conversation with Lux.
Venice opened the book to where the bookmark was, and instantly, her face scrunched in confusion. It was not the page she had been on. Hadn’t she been reading about wind patterns? This was a section she hadn’t gotten to yet in the book. It was possible that when she threw her book on the ground, the bookmark had been displaced. But still, it was curious.
She read on:
The bright orange and black markings of the Monarch make it an iconic insect, easily recognizable by researchers and butterfly collectors alike. Even a man who had never seen a Monarch in his life could identify it by picture.
But while men delight in the Monarch’s distinct color palate, possible predators are repulsed by it. It is important to remember that in nature, the more colorful something is, the more dangerous it is. The orange patterns indicate to hungry birds that the Monarch’s wings are covered in a lethal poison. Instinctively, the birds know not to hunt the Monarch.
It is interesting to note how differently man and predators react to the same insect. The markings, in nature, send off signals to predators’ instincts to keep their distance at their own risk. But we do not have these instincts, because the poison that is lethal to birds is not harmful to men. Instead, we have made the Monarch into a catchall for butterflies and an image known worldwide. The difference of instincts is what allows scientists to carefully monitor and research these majestic insects without danger of being poisoned.She stopped there, because the book had moved to another topic. This couldn’t be a case of coincidence. The word “instinct” popped up too many times. Lux had been telling her about that: the sense of right and wrong, of safety and of danger.
Venice looked at the bookmark in her hand. It was really just a small piece of cardstock. The front side was blank. She turned it over. Just as she suspected, someone had written a message on the other side.
“The occult exists because human instinct is too blunt to perceive it,” the message read.
She mulled the words around in her head. “The human instinct” – it was what she and every other human had. But the occultists had something more. They knew of the occult, and they protected it. Occultism was more than being human…wasn’t that what Lux had asked her in the first place? Wasn’t that what the woman who had rescued Venice in the past told her to remember?
Venice took a deep breath. She tried to look inside herself, tried to search for that little piece of instinct that she had. She needed its guidance. The clock ticked. The ultimatum drew closer. She needed to decide.
And then, Venice felt that same cold shock pass through her like it had when Lux asked her the question. It seemed that a little light dashed across her vision. The instinct didn’t speak in words. Instead, it spoke in feeling. For a second, she felt like she was flying, like she had dreamed to do. She tried to hold on to the sensation, but it faded quickly, grounding her again. And when she landed, things became clearer.
----------
Venice stepped into the library on Saturday morning, imbued with purpose. She knew what would happen. She walked through the rows of books, passed the studying students, and into the back of the library, where Lux had pulled up her stool and sat at the foot of the wicker chair.
Venice met Lux’s gaze.
“Well?” Lux asked.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. I’m joining the occultists,” Venice said.
I really like Lux's talk in this part of the story. She's a fun character to write. The fake book blurb was hard to write (had to include "man" and "men" because of the supposed time period). The formating here isn't as it should be like in word, but it'll do.
I hope you all like the story so far! This concludes the first story of
Instincts; the next story is called
Form and Function and probably will have 2 parts, but possibly 3.
Comment if you like it!
The Occultists, An original fiction. Hidden world, strange people.
Pokédox Forums - The Pokémon Freak Getaway > Pokédox Forums > Fan-Fiction Forum > General Fan-Fiction/Original Fiction
May 23 2010, 08:45 PM
what
