Chương 19: Semblance

June felt at home in the nightrealm. A weird sensation, to say the least, this world is the place where he experienced the most physical pain during his lifetime, but wounds on his body would heal. The real world felt harsher to June; he put up a false image of being the ever-optimist. He thought that deceiving himself was better than looking at what life dished out to him in all its irony. Here in the night realm, it was a place where if he did die, it would carry some meaning.

He wouldn't die a statistic in this world; his death wouldn't be something for others to study or to use in lectures to sell a product. To the nightrealm, he was still an infant; he knew nothing of the world around him, but maybe that's why he was much happier with the quaint room they gave him and the job he had. He wasn't sure if it was considered a job technically; he wasn't being paid.

They did take care of him; some of his crew were a bit rough, and the team leader himself was a bit of an asshole, but he still goes out of his way for his crew. June respected few people in the waking world; he believed that courtesy is given as a baseline and that respect is earned through action. The team leader may be a bit rough around the edges, but June enjoyed being around him. These people barely knew him for a week, and yet he felt like he belonged with them; they treated him better than his own family.

In fact, his family was incomparable to his crew. Each and every one of them had their quirks, but they were all good people. He just needed to learn their names still. They might think that June knows, but they would be wrong. June was using the power of ambiguous words when he called them out; it was a good way to avoid their suspicions that he didn't know their names yet. June woke up feeling a bit stiff, but still satisfied with his awkward sleep on his chair.

The book of worm ovulation was on the table, a little ajar with a small charm put on the page he had left off on. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It looks like Shade left him a gift; it was a small ornate handmade bracelet. It looked like it was crafted with care, with small beads of wood, stone, some gems layered on the bracelet, and a small piece of jagged obsidian hung from a loose piece of string purposely.

June put the bracelet on; he was fond of its design, and it felt right on his wrist. June got up and washed himself and changed from his outfit from the previous night. His onyx hair was quite luscious, but since the transformation, it gained a property of being like spines of stone. They were still light and swayed in the breeze, but cutting them down to size was a chore since no regular blade could cut them anymore.

June thought about it for a moment, then removed the bracelet and used it to tie his hair into a bun instead. His beard, on the other hand, seemed to not grow as roughly as it did before and somehow always looked presentable. He completed the finishing touches of his morning ritual and was ready to work.

The crew today was a bit smaller than usual; only four of his twelve crewmates were on deck today. It seems that they were called in to work on a different urgent project with some of the other support crews. Each support crew was assigned to a cohort, not just any cohort, but the ones that performed especially well. The crew he was assigned to also happened to be the same as the one that saved him; he assumed that Ms. Grace had something to do with that.

The crew dormitories were actually more of a collection of odd vehicles that fit together into one larger seamless building, but he got a notification in the morning that the buildings were going to move at 18: 00 since the beast had begun to pursue them again, although he wasn't exactly sure what the so-called beast was.

'That's 6pm, right?'

"It is." June jumped, but his face betrayed no emotion.

"What?" Grace had seemingly appeared from nowhere, followed by Shade. It seemed that June was too in thought to hear the harmonic tune the Shade's ability makes.

"Ma'am." June stiffly saluted Grace. The crew members instructed June on some of the basics of being a crew member and of being in the military.

"At ease." June dropped his salute; he held his breath. It was oddly stifling even though his transformed body was able to function without breathing for well over 30 minutes.

"You can breathe, crew member." June let out a long sigh, then resumed regular breathing.

"What brings you to our humble bay area, ma'am?" Grace let out a melodic laugh.

"They've been teaching you well, but you don't need to be stiff; if the higher-ups knew you were a Dreamer, we would have become rivals of the same rank." June visibly deflated a little; he went back into his regular posture, which had a slight slouch, almost as if preparing to trip over at all times.

"I'm assigning Shade and Julian to your Dreamer training, just the basics, enough that you don't accidentally kill anyone." June nodded slowly. Shade seemed fixated on June's hair, most likely due to the bracelet.

"You will join your assigned cohort in their APC during transport to the new field." Grace seemed to have an amused look while looking at Shade while speaking. But after a while of small talk, Shade and Grace left June to his own devices. Today was less busy than normal but busy nonetheless; he had to clean up the blacksmith's corner and do so before the transport started.