This city had a wall

Lucy wasn't in any of his classes the next day. He did see her during his lunch break. She wasn't lining up for food, she was talking animatedly to some of the other girls in her grade. Rhys wasn't lining up for lunch either. He watched her, brooding almost, from deep in the cafeteria crowd.

Lucy was enthused with whatever it was she talking about and seemed to be enjoying herself. She burst into hearty laughter as she did, causing him to crack a smile of his own. He wasn't smiling when as soon as her giggles died down, she locked eyes with him, straight faced and serious. She could have easily have been looking at someone else, considering how many people he was surrounded by, but that didn't seem like the case. Had he creeped her out?

He left the cafeteria, embarrassed for leering at her like that. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was now walking to his in-school sanctuary. Passed the thrush, leaves and trees, stood the seldom used back entrance to the school hall. He unbolted the double doors and let himself in.

Why did he have to come off as a creep? He didn't mean to stare, but then, the odds of her looking in his direction were close to none.

He was right about that, but couldn't even think to expect what happened next. Not with how quickly he left the cafeteria.

"Boo!" Lucy announced her presence from behind him. Rhys perked up and screamed, his heart jumped and strained. How was she here so fast? Why?

"How did you get here?" he asked apprehensively, breathing hard.

She held her arms out, she was no threat. "Same as last time, Unbolted the doors in the back and got in. I've been here for an hour or so."

"Wait, weren't you in just in the cafeteria, like, a few minutes ago?" He could have sworn he saw her there.

"Umm, no," she said, idling over his claim, "I've been over here reading."

Rhys sat on his cheap sofa, furrowing his brow. "Doesn't that meaning you left class early? You're newer here and the faculty are probably paying more attention to that kinda stuff."

"To be honest, I'm not interested in school. It won't do much for me." She thumped herself next to him. "Not in this life anyway."

"Why not? What about college? And careers? That stuff is important."

"Well, yeah, you're right," Lucy conceded, "but I want to do something more adventurous than wasting my life in a stupid cubicle, with— with a bunch of papers piling up."

"You don't have to," Rhys said.

"Of course not. I want to do something like…" she contemplated, unsure of herself all of a sudden.

Rhys chortled. "What, I thought you had this all planned out. I'm guessing something creative. Art or poetry, maybe? Music?"

"Ah!" She beamed. "Poetry! I could do that, or be a sculptor or something, I dunno. I really just roll with the punches the world throws at me. My mind wanders a lot, I would make a great poet. With practice, of course."

"If you say so."

"But one thing is certain, though," she continued, hold her finger up. "White collar jobs? Fuck white collar jobs."

They laughed at that, before Rhys said, "Y'know, I always wanted my own corner office, with a great view of the city through some glass panel walls. But in the end, an office is an office, and paperwork is just that. I've changed my mind since, I've seen what it did to my father."

"Why, what's wrong with him?" Leah had angled her body toward him, giving him her full attention.

"Imagine you're an accountant. You drive to work, walk past fucking Debra from the Claims office every day, sit at your cubicle or office or whatever and crank a bunch of numbers until you have to leave. You have a 'routine', as my dad likes to call it. At first it's alright, and then it's so soul-crushingly predictable you hate it. You do this every single day for years. What happens next?"

"It messes up your brain," he continued, "You eventually hate your job and turn to some form of escapism. In my father's case, he drinks a lot."

"Sorry about that," she says

"Don't be."

Rhys and Lucy sit quietly for a bit before she breaks the silence. "What do you want to do when you get older?" she asked.

I don't know yet. I just hope that I'll be in a good place when I have to do whatever it is I choose to do. Mentally, that is."

She looked at him questioningly, like she wanted to asked but felt that it wasn't her place to.

He looked down at his hands. "I have psychotic episodes every now and then. Sometimes they're really bad, but I'm fine for the most part."

"Oh," Lucy said in realization. "So… not schizophrenia?"

"Schitz turned out to be the diagnosis a few times, but no. I only show one or two of its symptoms."

"Anything else?" Lucy asked cautiously.

"I heard from my mum that I sleepwalk sometimes. I guess it isn't possible to catch myself in the act," he said.

"Or where the fuck you're going," Lucy echoed. She got up off the couch and observed a few of the sculptures around them.

"I have cousin up in Shey's Clye, he's schizophrenic— or at least somewhere on the spectrum if there is one, I don't know. Hates the shit out of his medication," she said while examining a miniature house on a shelf.

Fluoxetine? Took it for a while, hated it too."

"Yeah, anyway… I don't get it, no one really does. He makes the coolest drawings ever. Shit that would make fucking Picasso roll in his grave. One day, I'm like, 'Dude you should definitely submit these to a competition or something.' He said he would, but I don't think he has yet. He's really gifted. He said it in passing, he said another person on the schizophrenic would obviously beat him to it, and that he wouldn't bother. He talked about how people like him were gifted in one way or another." Lucy retreated to the couch, looking at Rhys with expectation.

"What are you getting at?" Rhys questioned.

"Are your art skills good? Anything you're good at? You could be a really good at something."

"I can't draw or paint," Rhys said, after assessing himself quickly. "I can do a few interesting party tricks, but nothing special."

"Nothing special, huh?" she suggested. She closed the gap between them, reaching her palm over to him. They were now shoulder-to-shoulder. They was an unnerving confidence in the way she carried herself, her demeanour, her speech. "Here," she said, "Try to read my palm."

"No way," Rhys said as her took her hand. He hadn't held that many people's hands, but he was taken aback at how soft her palm was. The lines in her hands weren't as prominent as in other people, he could only marginally feel them. He couldn't see them. An actual palm reader would definitely remark on that and deliver one heck of a reading. Lines wouldn't be written into the human hand for no reason. She had no lines prominent enough to be worth a reading, not that he was a palm reader.

"Yes way, Rhys," she said playfully, giving him her other hand.

He shrugged, smiling. "Here I go."

He made a show of feeling her hands, enveloping them, caressing them. He felt up and down her fingers making her blush. His own mind conjured up memories of fond memories of Leah. He felt a bit of her in Lucy.

The palm reading she asked of him was nothing more than roundabout flirting. He nodded as he felt different parts of her hand, silently acknowledging the facets the of her persona he couldn't actually see. She looked on mirthfully.

Rhys' show was abruptly put on hold as his train of thought was bombarded by multiple whispers. The incoherent whispers blanketed his consciousness as he tried to make sense of them. They gradually coincided into a chorus.

Spread Chaos, Achieve Death. Six bodies, one in the pen. Bloody—

He roused himself with an almost visible shake of his head and closed his eyes to gather himself. What the heck was that?

"What do you see?" she asked grinning and blushing at how he held and caressed her hands. "Is palm reading your niche?"

"We both know it isn't," he said feeling her hand some more. With his best impersonation of an old man, he started. "I feel," they laughed just as he said that, "Your heart line tells me of an old soul," he said, dragging out his words like an old man would, "you may just be a little girl, a beautiful girl, but you have wisdom and experience far beyond your years.

She laughed in genuine wonderment as much as at the humour of his old man imitation. "Are you sure you didn't see anything at all?" she asked. "My mum says the same thing too, it is kinda true. It's strange someone else can see it too, especially since we just started hanging out.

He might not have seen anything, but he definitely heard something. What he heard made no sense, he couldn't find a way to connect it to her, or anything for that matter. He disregarded it. It was nothing.

Rhys shifted on the sofa. "I really just said the first thing that popped in my hand."

"You didn't see anything in my palms, but somehow came to something valid. That there is some insane intuition. Clairvoyants don't always see stuff, they have a sort of," she gestured a flowing motion, "overpowered gut feeling. It was probably just an educated guess, but still."