EVA - Preview 1

Turning back, I swing once, twice, swipe after swipe of my sword parried by an insurmountable foe. It's a losing battle, and he smiles from under his hood as he drives the spear forward, a shot I narrowly deflect with my shield, deflecting it away from my body and opening up an opportunity to recover some ground. Channeling the winds, I drive, shouting,
"Prepare thyself for my wrath!"
"Miss Rinato!"
"Yes, sir!" I stand up from my desk. The class is looking back and forth from me to Mr. Barr.
"Solve for x." He gestures to the board, where a complex substitution equation has been laid out before me. Walking forward, I take the chalk with shivering hands. Surely, I couldn't be stumped by something so primitive. I write an equals sign on the next line.
"Wrong. Sit down."
"What? I haven't even written anything!"
"Substitution equations never begin with an equals sign. There has to be a value on both sides."
"I am sorry, sir." I bow low. "I have failed you once more."
"Eva, you haven't failed me. You're only failing yourself. With Christmas break beginning this weekend, I really do hope--"
"Yes! I swear it!" I shout, holding the chalk high in the air above my head. "I swear that, the next time I am called to take up your blade, it will be with honour!" I return the chalk to his hand, and he gives me a crooked glare.
"Must you make a mockery of my class in everything you do?"
"I have no desire to offend, sir! I only wish to offer my most sincere--"
"Sit down, right now."
"As you wish."

"Oh, afternoon, Eva." Helen beams at me from her chair in the counselor's office. "Here, have a seat." We take a seat in a big, expensive, and impossibly fluffy couch. The folds of its cushions feel as though they could swallow me whole in a single swoop. In a good way.
"Afternoon, Helen." She scowls at me.
"I thought we'd agreed that you were to call me Mrs. Ordo."
"Helen's better." She rolls her eyes and smiles.
"And what did you do today?" She inquires, without a hint of sarcasm. Bright, good-natured, well-mannered Helen, with her wide smile, perfect teeth, clear, smooth skin, and brightly coloured dresses, which she alternates with the days of the week. Thursday; she has on a long, purple one with a black skirt and thick shoulder straps, a bright green flower accenting her ridiculous colour scheme.
"I had another incident in class." I say with fake shame. Really, though, I thought it was kind of funny.
"A fantasy?"
"I think that's underselling it just a little."
"Oh?"
"It's not just fantasy anymore. They're starting to bleed over into my waking life. I can't even tell where the line is."
"I see." She nods her head knowingly.
"Your voice worries me. Are you formulating ideas?"
"Eva, I've been in touch with your family." She stands up and starts shuffling through some junk on her desk.
"Ohhh, come on, you haven't been talking to the Infernal Tormentor again, have you?"
"Eva, I told you not to call your father that."
"Stepfather. And when the shoe stops fitting, I'll stop making him wear it."
"That's not the point, you came up with that name during a fantasy; if you keep using it, it will become harder to distinguish reality."
"But, you're not denying--" She turns and thrusts a card into my hand. Small, rectangular, rigid, sterile white paper. I take it and look closely at it. In large, imbedded gold lettering is a name: Thomas H. Quinn. Smaller, in black below it, "Professional Psychologist".
"You can't be serious."
"Look, I know you've been to a lot of therapists, but Thomas is a very good friend of mine, and he specializes in dealing with conditions such as your own."
"'Dealing with it?' My 'condition'? You're just trying to get rid of me, like everyone else."
"Eva, don't talk like that; you know I love you like a daughter."
"Oh, yea, love me like a daughter; just like my stepfather, just like my sister, just like everyone else who's had to deal with me. Love me, right. Love me like a thorn in your side!" Crumpling the card in a slowly tightening fist, I collide heavily with her office door, sending it flying open into the corridor before slamming it behind me as I make a break for the back doors of the school. There are still two more periods left in the day. I don't care. Sitting on the back steps, I stuff the card harshly into my pocket and look off into the distance at a chain-link fence at the far end of an expansive green field. It's not me, I tell myself. Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me. I repeat this mantra until my head has fallen into my palms. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

"Nothing!" I shout at no one in particular, bringing my head up.
"Nothing indeed." A voice from nowhere speaks. "In fact, there are things right with you that most people couldn't dare to dream for." Looking all around, I spot a limber stray cat stalking along beside me. It is albino white in colour from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, giving it an appearance somewhere between a cat and a rabbit.
"Did...did you say that?"
"Why, I most certainly did." It turns to look at me, and as its gaze meets mine, my breath catches in my chest, my heart skips a beat, and I recoil in terror, nearly rolling off the stairs. Its eyes are a solid, sinking void of black, and massively oversized, like two eight-balls were pushed into its head where its eyes should've been.
"You're a fantasy."
"The way I see it, I'm a dream come true." It speaks with a voice that seems almost tangible, as though I'm meeting something that is more real than anything I've experienced before. Its every word seems to reach me with a certain coldness; a blank, deathly chill in my bones rather than simple vibrations in my ears. I want to run.
"You're not real."
"I am." I'm taken aback by this answer. My fantasies always dissipate if I identify them as such. But no animal like this thing truly exists.
"No."
"You know it's true. And I've come to offer you a proposition." Dumb with silence, I stare into those bottomless eyes, and my body begins to numb. "Everything you know is in danger, and you're the only one who can do anything about it."
"I'm not different."
"That's a fantasy, Eva." It knows my name. "You've always been different. Everything you do, every step you take, every thought that whirs in that inexplicable mind of yours has been different, from the day you were born."
"Why are you here?"
"I need you." I chuckle a little at this.
"Oh, you need me. I see. Do you need me, or Lady Arturia?"
"So it is true."