Chương 27: Left on read

June trembled in front of a god of the night realm. He toiled for months uselessly dragging an APC. He lived through years of back-to-back misfortune. He had lost all faith in God, the one of the waking realm. But for the first time, he truly prayed with all he had; he would have cried tears of blood to show his earnestness if not for the Queen of Snow watching him with worried amusement.

His eyes were closed and his hands covered them; he was almost in a fetal position while hiding from the few people filtering into the theater to find their seats.

'Was the beast even considered a god?' It blotted out the sky and turned its remains into its vessel; people who beheld it swelled and popped into forms of twisted beauty. It encompassed the world just as the world itself accepted its ravenous embrace.

'Is this woman also a god?'

'A goddess of snow?' She fits the bill; the world itself rushed to her cold embrace. She makes men and women both tremble from her presence. Who knows what would happen to the poor souls that she decided to behold them for but a moment? Would they freeze? Would they melt? The beast god and the world had a partnership of unity, while here, the frost goddess made the world weep; the world that surrounded her was one of her own, and the world wept that it wasn't born under her rule.

June suddenly stood up like a pillar; the people filtering through the theater caught a glimpse of June, and from the perspective of someone who had seen neither, these people would have looked like the gods themselves descended. Cups of juice were dropped and seeped into the floor like a bloody aftermath; the floor was littered with snacks almost as if a beast's organs spilled out, and popcorn spilled like brain matter against the harsh, wild floors of the stone plains.

June wordlessly and almost nonchalantly stepped on the seat in front of him and gracefully leaped onto the stairway paths that lead up to the seats.

"Where are you going? The movie will start any minute now."

'It has to be a mental hex, some sort of magic; I need a drink.'

'I don't need to tell her where I'm going? I'm a grown-ass man.

'Come on, stand your ground; you can do it.'

"Slushyyy...."

'Oh my god' June started to hate his transcendent body; ever since the reformation of his brain, common things he considered his own superpowers disappeared, he had a harder time suppressing emotions and basic needs, and worst of all, it made it hard to disassociate on command. The world was beautiful when he was in a clear mind to see it, but too much of a good thing is a dangerous thing. June tried to skitter away like a frightened roach, but at the same time he didn't want to look weird in front of her.

'I regret it, I regret it. God make it so I can't feel this feeling again.' If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

'Take it back, dammit.' June's walk looked bouncy as it usually was; he was commonly told he walked like a cartoon character. But he only did that when he was anxious. So he tried a different walk, and for some reason his brain defaulted to a robot walk. Eventually, he settled on a regular human walking style he once saw as an online animation. This entire ordeal of finding a suitable walking style took place in seconds, imperceptible to any mundane person, and hopefully imperceptible to her.

From the regular view, it looked like a beautiful acrobat leaped from a seat to the stairway path with boundless grace, then he started walking. Maybe people would be too distracted by her to notice.

'No, no, no one would be looking at me; I'm overthinking it.' He desperately tried to convince himself of that and walked like he didn't have a care in the world. He walked and walked, noticing every micromovement and twitch in his muscles.

'Damn powers' His gait changed constantly to mimic the next person that looked like they were walking better; he perfected their own styles and made the original owners stumble in embarrassment.

'I need to find a better walker, someone with more fashion sense manifested already.' Normally he wouldn't care, but he felt a hole being stared through the back of his head.

'Oh god, I hope my hair looks nice.' The snow queen followed him for some inexplicable reason.

'Yes, yes, I should make small talk about something.'

"Where are you going?" His harrowing voice sounded confident, despite the awkwardness.

'FFFFFFFFFFFFFF' I don't sound like a creep, do I? Wait, no, she's the one following me.

'I said it too quietly, dammit, or maybe she didn't respond; maybe she's just thinking.'

'Maybe she's just going in the same direction.' June peeled off into the first store nearby as he thought of that and then made a sharp turn away before entering the store.

'It's a women's lingerie store.'

'Oh my god, she must think I'm a weird person now.'

'No, no, why should I care? I don't know her' He continued looking confident and walked into another store despite his previous chain of thought.

'It's a shoe store; God, please don't sell women's lingerie here too.' He walked into the regular shoe store, and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him. He didn't stop moving; he just walked in, walked around a shelf, and walked out. She followed his exact steps and was still staring at him. Every time he made an effort to look her in the eye, she would look away.

'Oh my god, what have I done? What sin did I commit to deserve this?'

'I swear to god, wait, no, you better not be ignoring me, god, why?'

'Please? Please? Come on? I went to church a couple times. I'll start going again if you help me out here' Bargaining did not work, and eventually he made it to the slushy store. It was a quaint little—'She's still staring at me.' It was a quaint little—'She is still staring at me...' They sold other snacks with the slushies, but June never bought the other stuff because he really only wanted the slushies here. June ordered a raspberry and blueberry mix slushy at a medium size; they only served two flavors.

'Oh my god, she's everywhere. I look at the cup, and her hair's the same color scheme.' The mundane stares were anxiety-inducing. The snow queen's stare was causing June's heart to palpitate. Which June thought was impossible; his ability required him to manually use all his muscles individually, which was why he was able to make augments to himself like the minotaur creature he became during the trek.

She ordered a drink too, the same size and same flavors; she even noticed that it was a similar color to her hair too.

'She's comparing the color.' The stall-tender almost passed out when they saw June; they definitely did when they saw the snow queen.

'Oh my god, she knows my name, but I don't know hers.'

'Wait, does she think my name is January still? Why did I say that, dammit?' June's outward look was almost stoic, like a film was happening around him and the camera lusted for his likeness. He sat on a round mall sofa with a leg crossed over another; there was no backrest for him to lay his hands on or lean on, but it looked like a higher being itself placed it here for him.

Well, that was mostly until he slouched over to drink his juice instead of bringing the cup to his mouth like a regular person; he also had his phone in his hand and was scrolling the novel back from where he properly left off. Then he heard a sound he was not prepared for; a bullet would have been mercy compared to it.

"What are you reading?" She was leaning in from above and uncomfortably... No too comfortably close to his face, looking at his digital novel on his phone. He couldn't tell if the fresh berry smell came from his drink, her straw, or her hair. His mind was reeling.

'I wish the beast was back.'