A Bag of Fingers
Leviathan could finally relax. He finished his first meeting as a First Cadet, and it went better than he thought it would. Everything he thought would happen did.
Even the shouting was less than he expected.
He didn't really want to be in charge, but he knew he needed to do it because it was expected of him. As the descendent of Michael Slater, his life was already chosen for him, and he had quickly accepted this is how it was.
His peers didn't understand because they had choices in life; Levi didn't.
Everyone had left the meeting room except for Ace. He dug daggers into Levi with his eyes; hatred was an understatement.
"Ace", groaned Levi. "What can I do for you?" Levi leaned back in his chair and prepared himself for the verbal assault.
"You need to quit", hissed Ace. "You fucking got the position because your dad owns the Academy".
Levi's composure went away. He knew it was coming, but he was tired of having to try twice as hard to prove himself, and still being accused of nepotism.
"The only reason you got into the academy is because my father is friends with your father", seethed Levi.
"Fuck you, that's not true", Ace shouted.
But it was. Levi was tired of listening to Ace complain about him getting to do whatever he wanted when Levi spent his entire life training for the day he would replace his father and run the family business.
"Yes, it's true", Levi insisted. "Why would a teleporter be in the same squad of Level 4 Evolutionary Ability Types"?
"But I-”
Levi interrupted him. "Yes, you have an Evolutionary Ability, but it hasn't changed at all, during the four years of training we've had!"
Ace was silent. For once he had no comebacks in their daily arguments.
"You're lucky, and you don't even know it", Levi continued. "Your weakness will hold us back on missions, so either get rid of your complex or quit!”
Levi quickly left before his anger got the best of him. He was tired of Ace always arguing with him, and sometimes he didn't respect him.
Levi walked down the patterned wooden hallways, past the giant rose window in the main building, out the building, into the gardens.
He needed to calm down.
Levi was always angry, or quick to anger but he refused to admit it. He tried to not yell at others, especially his team mates since they would be together for a very long time.
Almost everyone in the same training group wound up in the same teams after training. Most of them would only be separated by death. He felt bad for yelling at Ace, but he also needed him to know that , he was in charge.
The faster Ace understands I'm the leader, the easier this will be for all of us, Levi thought.
Levi loved the gardens because it was empty. Barely anyone came out here, and he could finally be alone without someone asking him to do something for them.
He hated the extra responsibilities but loved telling people what to do. Soon the little rushes of power he got from telling others what to do and how to do it would soon wear off, as he would soon learn that when things went wrong, the leaders get blamed.
For now, he worried about how all his team member's personal drama was ruining things for them. Coming late because of a breakup, or failing a required test because they were up all night partying. They all had strong abilities, but their rank was fifty seven, when their potential was so much more.
Levi felt more like a father to a group of kindergartners than a leader of his peers. He thought about why his father wanted him to keep an eye on Ace. There was nothing strange he did, well, stranger than his already odd behavior, and Levi thought it was a useless task.
After a while he realized pacing around outside wasn't going to get him anywhere.
Levi turned the corner of the hedge and saw something horrifying.
Candice was throwing up into a fountain. A girl with stitches all over her body was holding her hair back as she continued to retch into the fountain. Levi stared, looking at the girl covered in stitches, her skin ghastly and pale. He had seen her somewhere, he just couldn't remember where.
Levi took a step back, and felt like he walked in on something personal.
" I hate this shit," gasped Candice. " I had to eat human food at the end of the meeting to blend in, and I didn't spit it out in time".
Wait… human… food…, thought Levi. Doesn’t she mean just food?
He hid behind the hedge and listened to their conversation.
"Don't worry master", said Amity. "I brought you lunch. You're always famished around this time of the day".
Amity took off her backpack and brought out fingers.
Candice began to munch on them like chips.
The upbeat record track of Levi’s life came to an abrupt halt as he saw her eat human remains. His mouth started to water and his eyes teared up at the sudden revolting scene in front of him.
"This is why I have kept you for so long", Candice giggled. "I don't even have to tell you what I want. The others could learn from you".
"Thank you, Master", Amity grinned.
Levi shuddered in horror, as he watched his team member eat fingers without any hesitation. Upon further inspection he realized that the fingers were all multi colored, from several different bodies.
He needed to do something, but he didn't know what. He took pictures of Amity and Candice, but they were too far away to show what she was eating.
Levi walked briskly, as fast as he could, not looking back.
Levi was at the library. He went into the research section and decided to figure out who that girl was with Candice, and why they were eating fingers.
The library at the Academy was one of the largest in the eastern seaboard. It was not a normal one by any means. It had almost every book on almost every topic conceivable. If it wasn't a digital book, you could find all the older and physical ones in the back, under special permissions.
It had beautiful arches on the inside, and wonderful mahogany bookcases. The wooden floors were in an alternating checkered pattern, alternating between lighter wood and dark wood. It shined under the dim, comfortable lights.
If there was anything to be found, it would be at the library.
Levi uploaded the picture of Amity onto the internet and reverse image-searched it. What he got was disturbing. It was a police report of a missing girl.
Amity was the missing girl. She had been missing for months. There were local videos of her, posters of her missing were online. Levi must have remembered her from one of the photos. It made no sense how a missing girl would be wandering around the campus, and it made even less sense why she was giving fingers to Candice to eat.
He sat at the computer and went over his options.
He wanted to tell his father, but he was afraid he would believe him, or even worse, find an excuse to punish him.
Levi was afraid to do or say anything that would anger his father in fear that he would wipe his memories, like he had done to so many others. Every day Levi wondered if he had already done it, that he just didn’t realize it yet.
Levi didn’t want his father to do the same to him that he did to Ace, so he simply decided it was best to not tell him, and he would discover the truth on his own. He exited the research section and saw Santos and Fenton sitting in a corner.
"…. And she had stitches all over her body," said Fenton.
Levi overheard and made a beeline for their table. "How do you know about her? Amity", asked Levi.
"I-I, I saw her when I was about to go back to my dorm. They're so creepy.”
"Did they do something to you", whispered Levi. He looked agitated, and it scared Fenton.
"No, I mean, she had no aura, man. Like…. she was dead", said Fenton.
Levi pulled out a printed missing poster from the computer with a picture of Amity on it. "I think she is", said Levi.
"Oh, she's definitely dead", groaned Santos. "I mean, kind of. I don't know what the fuck Candice is though. She is older than dirt itself".
Levi looked confused. "Wait, Fenton, why are you hanging out with my bodyguard", said Levi.
"Santos is your bodyguard", exclaimed Fenton. "Why do you have one? Why does he live in our dorm?"
Levi ignored the question and tried to play it off.
"My dad worries. I don't need one. Anyway, why are you two together?"
"He's helping me find clues about Candice", said Fenton. "So why does he live in our dorm?"
They continued to ignore him, hoping he would never bring the topic up again.
"I've met her before", said Santos. "A really long time ago, back in Egypt. She's not human. I don't know what she wants hanging around here", he said.
Neither was Santos, and Levi found the irony palpable.
"I remember when I met her, she wanted me to join her", Santos sighed.
"Join in what," asked Levi.
"I don't remember, but I know it was bad. She made a lot of promises. If you must sell me an idea, it probably isn't that great", Santos replied. "I can't really remember; it was so long ago. In fact, I didn't recognize her until recently".
"Wait, when did you first meet her", asked Levi.
Santos paused and counted his fingers and really thought about it. He made a strange face, and flared his nostrils as his two remaining brain cells tried to rub together and start a fire.
"Huh. I think it was about two…."
"Two years ago," Fenton asked.
"thousand years ago," he finished.
The sudden silence was gross.
Fenton knew he wasn't lying though. It just made him uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry", said Fenton. He paused and clapped his hands together.
“What the fuck are you talking about? The campus has mental health services for this.”
"I'm so old I stopped counting", Santos announced. "I haven't been keeping it a secret, but you people never believe me".
Fenton laughed nervously, but when he saw the look on Levi's face, he knew he was telling the truth. Levi broke out in a cold sweat, worrying that he would have to deal with another major issue. Levi had begged Santos many, many, many times, to stop telling people, but Santos told him it was fine because, no one believed anything he said anyway.
Fenton got scared.
He was confused.
At first, he had a crush on Santos because his aura was beautiful. It had many lustrous colors and shone around him. Now he noticed the little fangs around his mouth when he smiled, and knew that the aura was not of a good soul, but a trap for his prey.
"Don't be afraid of me", Santos grinned.
"I'm not afraid of you", whispered Fenton. "Why would I be afraid of a crazy man?"
"Don't lie to me. I can smell the fear in your sweat", Santos spat.
Now Fenton was definitely afraid.
"Stop messing around", Levi grumbled. "What are we going to do about her?"
There was another silence.
"No clue, man", said Santos, shrugging and looking around as if the answer would appear in front of them.
"Uh… yeah, same here. I didn't think I would get this far, actually", said Fenton.
"I mean, it's not like she's doing anything weird, right", asked Santos.
Levi leaned in close to Fenton. So close he could smell his cologne and it made him gag.
"I. Saw. Her. She ate a bag of fingers".
Fenton went pale and took two steps away from him, and then two more for good measure.
"There's a lot of weird abilities at the academy, but I don't know any that require cannibalism," Levi said
"You don't know that", said Fenton. "Her ability is controlling the dead. Maybe that's how it works?"
"True", agreed Levi. "But what about the dead girl? Why didn't she just return her to her family, or call the police? What if she killed her"?
"We have no way of proving that", said Fenton. "Unless we have proof of actual danger, all we have is hearsay".
They all wondered what to do.
"Why don't we just kill her", Santos suggested. "I mean she's probably already dead, so it's not like it will hurt. We'll be doing the bitch a favor".
"But if we don't have proof, then we're just a bunch of murderers'', argued Fenton.
"Eh, I've killed a few guys'', said Santos. "Trust me, she 'ain't the first dead bitch, won't be the last, they won't notice she's gone".
Levi doubted that. Ace would definetly notice if his girlfriend was dead, and so would a few other people on campus. All of Team 57 would notice, and he worried that Santos would kill her, and tell everyone, not worried about any consequences, or just proud that he did it.
Levi paused. He considered that Candice wasn't really human, so maybe some murder might be okay.
"What if we just tail her", said Levi. "Figure out why she's here and eating fingers".
"You seem really stuck on the fingers thing", said Santos.
"You weren't there,” Levi said quietly.
"I could get Ace and Candice dating again. If they date again, I could get info on her from him", said Fenton.
"That's a really great idea", said Santos. "Kinda fucked up you would use your friend like that".
Fenton groaned. "If you could still call us that".
They all decided which parts of the campus they would stake out to follow Candice. They all decided to meet up once a week at the library and trade notes, getting enough info to at least decide what to do with her.
Fenton left feeling a little bit better that he wasn't the only once suspicious of Candice, but he was also paranoid about Santos. His crush disappeared quite quickly at the idea of him being a very disturbed man.
Fenton walked through campus, waving at people he knew. He tried to listen to music to distract himself from his mind wandering to bad places but it didn't help.
It just made him walk in the wrong direction and it took him longer than usual to get back to his dormitory.
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