Isaac di Acroina's Story

“Hidayatullah al-Hemyari,” Hidayat murmured. “. . . Call me Hidayat. I ran errands for a terrorist group a few months ago but uh, allegedly I’m. . . the Ultimate Cultist.”

“Ah, yes, if you please!” Isaac replied. “Hanna, huh? Ah, they call me Isaac!” He laughed. “You seem like a nice girl, you know?”

Hidayat stared at them from the corner of his eye.

In the corner, Evlo sat sulking. “Ultimate Public Speaker,” he muttered. “Why take the blow for him, you idiot?! He wanted to kill me!”

“It’s a joke!”
Isaac said, laughing. “No one here is mad enough to actually kill anyone! It’s all just an elaborate joke! Really!”

He wondered if he could move yet—if he moved, would be be disrespecting Johanna?

“We should all just go to lesson and it’ll be okay! That’s why we’re all here, right? Ahah!”

Hidayat looked up, jaw agape at the madness that unfolded before him. He turned around to see if everyone else was seeing the same thing or he was just tripping—and, in fact, the events unfurling were real.

“Isaac, I swear to god, if I packed qat I would have told you.

Isaac, who had just finished getting his wound dressed, stood up. “I don’t remember taking qat anyway,” he said, narrowing his gaze. Then, he laughed lightheartedly and clapped. “I guess, if flying spaceships are real, then dragons might be real after all!”

“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Hidayat breathed and turned to the boy walking back and forth between the doors. His eyes widened.

“No! Because this confirms it! This is all a dream! Juuust a dream!”

“Saleh!” Hidayat cried, running out behind the boy.

Isaac, bemused, stood staring. Then, he smiled and looked away, pressing his fingers against each other, and walked over to the young girl.

“I wonder if I know sign language in my dreams. . .” he murmured. Then, he began to shape nonsense syllables with his fingers.

Isaac tried to gather their attention. “Me! Me! Pick me! I want to know!”

“Hellooooo, what’s with the insensitive questions, Ruby?” Isaac clapped his hands together. “Have you never heard of privacyyy?”

Hidayat didn’t respond.

“Actually, speaking of privacy. . . NO ONE CARES,” he yelled out into hallway after Berith. “Soooo yeaaah uhhh, we should probably stick together, huh? But you all can’t sleep in my bed, though.”

Hidayat narrowed his eyes. Why did this idiot unfortunately happen to end up in the same situation as him?

“Earth or not, we can still figure out where we are. We’re trapped here, but everything inside of this place is free roam. Someone must have set it up, and it’s likely that someone is here with us. That bear doesn’t move by itself. And. . . if they’re not hidden amongst the walls in this building. . . then they’re amongst us.”

“I want us to establish a meeting point at certain times of the day so we can better circulate any information we’ve found. Any objections?”

“Meet at nine! Any later and Hida won’t make it, if he even makes breakfast!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hidayat’s sour gaze and the hissing utterance of, “Eh?”

“Which meeeans, by all things nice and logicaaal~” Isaac swung his arms around both Ash and Meira. “I’ll be staying with you two in a very nice group of three~ Hida, you stay with Saleh.

“Eh?”

“Ruby you go with them.”

Meira flinched. Of course he was touching her. She hated being touched. Mostly.

They'd all run over Ash, but at least she knew the rules. She'd have to find a way around a few, but it would be fine. It would all be fine. And Ash could explain things far better than she could.

"Yes, we're ok with that," Ash affirmed.

The Ruby girl was something else, though. All of them were something else. The place was an obscene mishmash of personalities and people and she hated it. It as far too disorganized and chaotic. She hated chaos. She had no reason not to be suspicious of anyone here so far, except Ash, of course. And Isaac was reasonable, though somewhat sketchy in his emotional state.

"Why of course, I'd love to!" Ruby smiled towards her and Isaac and Ash. Not even a single trace of whatever had caused the small girl to scream at her and Ash earlier was present. In fact, Ruby seemed to have forgotten it entirely. Strange.

"I could hardly stand to bother our busy friend, though, he really seems quite angry at you, Isaac. I will ensure Saleh makes it wherever he needs to go, assuming that's not a problem. But that's only six of us, how about the other ten people present? You've completely excluded them." She swept her hand towards the rest of the students and her glaring smile softened to something kinder.

Meira was impressed. And slightly jealous, if she deigned to admit it to herself. She could never control a person, let alone a crowd like that.