Chapter 5 The Stranger And The Blamed

IT IS RAINING outside.

Kane watched one by one of her students with their mother or father exits the classroom, some parents holding an umbrella while other kids have raincoats on.

But she was not paying attention to anybody.

Until she was left alone.

A bolt of lightning flashed, then a thunder roared. For an instant, Kane blinked, her arms flinched a bit. She was like this the entire day, unbelieving her conversation with Clarence that very morning she was on the jog.

Her phone rang atop her desk table. Even though there is this speck of bothersome information in her, she rummaged to pick her phone and accepted the call.

The woman closed her eyes, a sigh escaped from her mouth. "This is Kane, speaking."

"Kane," a monotone voice pronounced, identity unknown.

Her eyes gaped open, and a while after, blinks gone off her troubled state. Her lips are midway disclosed as if she recognized that certain tone, calm and neat.

"Do you still remember me?" the guy asked, no sign of kidding splashed on his soft utterance.

"Who are you?" she boldly asked, eyes drew away to the standpoint of the window, and through its transparent glass, she could sight the heavy downpouring outside.

"It looks like you don't," the caller verified, a disgruntled chuckle departed from him.

There was a beep.

The call has ended.

Kane shivered, stupefied by what the day has brought her into. Her fingertips brushed her hair, a groan escaped her lips. This isn't what she's anticipating- everything's haywire- even the case of her missing journal is involved, but will there be a verge to all of this absurdity?

Sooner, she will actualize that there is no phantasm for her as a last resort. She must do what she can do for everything to function properly. That's the first thing she has to commemorate.

A tight-lipped whine withdrew her lips, and a moment after, she's proceeded to clean the room before walking herself home. It's almost six o'clock when she left the room, and while she's in the middle of walking in the hallway, a man approached her and blocked her way for her to postpone her feet.

"Miss Delos Reyes," he called, his pressing eyes mocking her sanity. "I didn't seem to see you at the canteen these past few days."

Kane looked at the empty soccer field meters away from the hallway, at her left, and visible are the droplets of rain that soak once the arid ground. It obviously is gonna be one rainy night.

Kane tucked the strands of her hair on her ear, gleaming are her eyes that stutter sadness. "I'm quite. . . busy," she looked at him and meet his stares, never did she noticed the way he gulped, his brows furrowed, "as always, Mister Saavedra."

"Then that must be really it." The man, Mr. Saavedra, nodded a few times with jaws clenched. "I hope you're doing. . . fine."

"I am- Well," Kane stammered, make a bit shift of her way to be able to continue to walk, "see you around."

She didn't hear him respond.

Perhaps, he's too far away for her muttering to travel to his moving position, greatly that the sound of downpour may have distorted her words.

IT DIDN'T end. The drastic whiff passing by the vacant crosswalks as the birds made their track to find shelter. The stoplights are consistent giving signs when to halt and when to stride which Kane abided at.

For the stoplight has turned red.

The mist is everywhere caused by the pouring. The blur it provides is enough for her to see everything. Her ochre skirt drained a half, her hand grasping the handle of the umbrella, breathing in the smell of water and sludge as she's loitering for the stoplight to switch into a green.

There is isolation, but not the kind of isolation that can make one's soul lonely. It's a satisfaction in the heart, upbringing healing just like what tingles the spirit of Kane. For once in her life, she felt that the rain is an ally- a remedy that can make her eyes close.

Somebody will loathe how the rain pestered his day or how its gloom upheaves a dying soul to its limit. The rain is something that is a bad omen. They blame the rain for having tears.

At one glance, they may have thought that its job is not to console but to infuriate. They may constantly ponder that everything it did is never compared to the sunsets or sunrises. That's awfully wrong.

For Kane had once was in anger with it, but she had been aware that it's not the fault of the drizzling nor the droplets. It's the people who have gone ludicrous to signify rain as grief.

Mike showed him the other side.

The inkling that furnishes a reasonable claim.

She glimpsed at her wristwatch. It's already passed six as the hands of her watch are pointing at six and five.

It is strange to her when she gazed up, blinks slower, adjusting her umbrella to have a perfect view of what's above. The sky seems like a day, clouds a bit lighter than they usually have to be when there is a storm.

Her eyes shifted into the bus station across the crosswalk, and her eyes begin to get wider.

A subtracted contrast of hoodie, jeans as black as a plain night, while those eyes. . .

Those eyes, even though smudged by the mist, they are raven black, piercing through her with those quadrangle glasses. A recognition withdrew her lips, a certain assumption has risen that she must convey a justification.

Kane commences being conscious that the person is currently eyeing her, and her curiosity is potent to unveil the identity of the unknown.

She stepped forward to get nearer the station.

The thunderstorm once again wailed as the wind blew heavily, sending off rain into another direction. Kane clasped her fingers intact with the handle of her temporary shed.

Positively, the thunderstorm didn't make Kane be troubled.

The surrounding may have been a haze, hence, Kane's instinct is as clearer as her hunches. As she observed the stance of the stranger, Kane assumes a single matter. He's familiar to her.

She's closer.

It seems to be a guy, his age just like her, his face is blank while his stares seem. . . concerned as those never left Kane. However, why would a stranger be concerned about her? She must've made the remark gone wrong.

She's almost there, only a few meters away.

A bus straightly drove off that she postponed her feet from wandering, its beeps deafened her ears, and her heart raced due to surprise.

And when it is gone, when her eyes meet the bus station, it is only left with nothing but a bench and a broken lamp post beside it.

He is gone.

The odds are truly in her way.

AN HOUR HAS PASSED since she got home safely, but she could still sense the chills given by the stranger that she encountered. After that, Kane decided to call her brother Baron and told him about the event.

She held her phone tight.

"You sure you have seen him somewhere?" her brother Baron asked over the phone.

"I am assured of that," Kane replied between her rasps, creasing her forehead. "Anyway, it's been a while, Kuya."

"Huh. You said that he's familiar and yet what you only have seen is his outfit. Seriously, Kane?" Baron lets out a chuckle. "It's been a while since we last have a phone call conversation."

"It's because you don't have any time for me anymore. You have a job as I do have as well." Kane bits her lower lip.

"And you did change as I did. Now see what happens when you influenced me to study English and learned how to speak fluently." Kane heard him walking as the busy disturbances are overheard too from the background. "It's entirely your fault, dear Kane."

"Hazel told me the same thing." Kane looked up at the canopy. "We all are in constant change. We can envision that the world. . . it's slowly moving forward. See what it brought us into as of this night, having a conversation with a language that is not entirely ours."

"Hazel, huh." Baron exhaled silently. "I was also informed that he confronted you the moment Clarence confessed that he saw me at Loire's party in her residence. If you didn't know her, she's in the same block as Clarence."

"Loire's off the topic but Clarence and Hazel aren't." The woman laid her back on the satiny bed of hers. She took the frame atop her bedside table, then she locked her eyes down, an arm cuddling the thing she seized. "They told me about my journal that you had received from someone. And that someone turned out to have written it without my consent."

"Are you sure?"

Kane parted her lips midway. She's sure at least, even though it's a sliver. But still, as far as she can recollect, she didn't let anyone have the confirmation to write her journal- probably expand the fact that the consultation can't ever be spoken of.

"Although I still remember that everyone in the Sanctuary knew about your diary. Almost the population of our party had read most of its content back then," Baron continued. "Even Clarence, Hazel, or. . . Mike."

Kane finally disclosed her eyes, a bittersweet twitch reaction on her lips. "Stop bringing the past right now to avert the topic. For all I know, Clarence still is familiarized by the appearance of my property that was stolen from me since that day that both of us needed the Lair to obscure ourselves from the threats."

"All right then." Chortles are coming from Baron's line. Kane thought he's off to work already. "I have your journal. It's safe with me."

"I know you will." Kane hesitated to continue, but seconds onward, she has decided. "But that guy. . . he may have been the one who took my diary- you know it's the only escape that I have in the past to protect me from the cruel world- so tell me. Who is he?"

Baron snorted. "I can't tell you that myself."

"Then who will?" Kane asked directly, her voice pitching higher. "Clarence only said what Hazel stated to me. They were exactly the same. The discrepancy was that Clarence told me his physical features that were too further to describe Mike or any of the members of our part-"

"He will," Baron interrupted, sincere. "When the exact time comes and you're prepared, he'll come and have a talk with you. Face to face. Alone. So that things will be settled as it is with our past which cannot be undone."

"But why not now? If I say I'm ready, will he-"

"It's going to happen when you certainly are. Who knows when it will be?" Baron asked out of the blue. "Just be patient and hold on, Kane."

She wants to be furious. To yell at him. She can do it at that juncture he said the word patience.

In her life, she struggled with her thoughts, attempted to secure her emotions. She kept those all the time to prove that she can manage to survive without anyone's help and she's doing it thus by far. Her growth was never bliss for it was dread.

However, she was too good for that.

She always has a choice.

Hence, she must be patient enough.

THERE ARE FRECKLES of sweat on her forehead, her brows pleating as misery wants to depart her mouth that results in her moan. Kane's hand is grasping the bedsheet as she is tempted to move her unconscious and stiff body.

In her dream, her vision is kind of imperfectly smudged for the boats can't be wholly distinguished as one. They are one by one being taken by the flow of the wild water.

Mellow voices, distorted hisses of the summer breeze, the rigid flashes of the water, and the splashes of it are all honoring the horror she felt that moment.

Entities are withstanding their position, stuck and statued, clouded by the mysteries at that certain seconds. The unfriendliness of the river was nuzzling Kane as she's toiling to escape someone's zeal of tugging her in between that person's arm that's behind her.

"Let go! Let go." Her voice echoed. "Save her! Save her!"

But everyone seemed to be chanting the same thing that silenced her.

"Let go," the murmurs mimick. "Let go."

The next scenario arose.

Her feet could not touch the bare ground beneath the water which hauled her in, therefore, the hums pursued.

"Let go."

Something is pulling her feet. There has to be a way out. Her breathings are faster, the thumps of her heart race slower than common.

She's the one who's drowning.

Her visions grew dark, never put a subsequent battling with the unseen entirety of vapor.

And another whispering comes to be a spell, pinching coldly both her ears.

"Save me."

Kane opened her eyes, her breaths running out. She gathered her knees at a corner of her bed and make her back to kiss wall trouble. Her nightmare, it seems that it's kindling much worse than the usual.

But is there a usual nightmare for me? Kane asked. For she knew there was never an eternity when she was used to having those excruciating dreams, making her suffer from the remorse of her youth.

She told Hazel that she never regretted everything that happened. Was that all a fabrication to hide herself from the truth that she wanted to get away from her past? Things get clearer as time pulls forward, and Kane and the sand ropes in her head, or her confusions, perhaps, will certainly be blanched after she reckoned everything.

"Save me." A hush that brought an earful lull.

She remained hearing the whispers.

A tear falls down her cheek, and as a familiar tendency, her arms extended around her wobbling knees to console herself from the dread that's not helping her heal.

It's roughly midnight.

Kane wanted to cry, but she shouldn't do that most of the time. She has to toughen her gears so that every attempt she pushes herself to nurture, it will not be a letdown. Sometimes, crying is torture that opens all wounds for it does not help one to regain his vitality.

Her sigh weighs deeper than the typical ones.

As Kane closed her eyes, she could see a river and a hand sinking, drowning the life that the subject has, dying helplessly with hopes gone in the wilderness of the cold water.

"We can help her!"

"Please, do something."

As her lower lip has pursed partway disclosed, Kane shook her head twice to clear her mind.

"Kane, stop it. It's no use."

"We're late."

"It's your fault, Hazel," Kane said to no one. "It's your fault."

Or is she putting the blame on someone who can not do anything but to stare just like she did that makes her guilty also?

It appears to be that way.

It appears that Kane didn't blame the man after all.