23 1.20 — Witch On A Wall

There comes a moment in a man’s life where he just sits back and thinks—where in the sour hell did it all go wrong?

This was that moment for me.

The moment when I saw an Asian monk girl standing on the wall of our college, checking out her nails and not the least bit bothered if anyone could see her, I knew I must have fudged up somehow somewhere.

I mean, I had to have, right?

Because if not, then what the fudge was she doing here?!

Did she follow me back home yesterday? Because that would not be surprising. I never believed myself to be a master of stealth. If I were an assassin, I would have been discovered immediately just from the heavy breaths that I took in intense moments. That is how much I suck at stealth.

Even in games, I don’t fudge around with stealth attacks. I have rarely sneaked past guards, thought of creative silent ways to kill my enemies. It’s always gun-a-blazing for me.

Sure, it’s not a pretty way of playing the game but it is efficient and less time-consuming.

Why go around doing stealth kills when you can just shoot a missile on the enemies? Or, you know, magic equivalent for fantasy games.

I am a little disappointed that I didn’t spot her though.

A beautiful girl in black clothes hopping around on walls isn’t exactly something I would be missing. I’m an idiot, sure, not blind though.

Plus, I think there’s something going on with her that might make her invisible. Because if these shits would stare and gaze at a white-haired guy, they would definitely be grouping around and pointing at the Asian chick on the wall.

But no one did that.

No one even glanced in her direction.

Was she invisible? She and her friends did seem pretty shocked when I punched the short guy. Maybe my theory on them being dead souls was right…

How does a dead soul become a magician though?

The mage blew on her nails and finally looked up, probably to check what was taking me so long to get out.

The fear for my life. That’s what was taking me so long to get out.

And now that our eyes met, those fears were slowly starting to turn into reality.

“Hey Naina,” I called out to my friend who was busy talking with Irina, “do you see anything up there?” If me pointing my finger at her fazed the witch in anyway, she surely managed to hide it on her face.

Naina stopped her conversation and stared at the area I was pointing at. She looked at it for a minute. Studied it. Analysed her observations and churned the results in her head before nodding a yes.

She can see her?! Well, there goes my theory of them being dead down the drain! Which also makes me question the mentality of my classmates.

A girl standing on top of our college wall was considered normal but a tall girl with blonde hair wasn’t? I can never understand these people…

“That’s a cute cat,” Naina said, still looking at the sorcerer. Cat? I mean, sure, there have been instances where girls were referred to as—oh wait, she actually meant cat.

A feline of white and brown fur stretched itself before hissing at my kidnapper.

“A cat? That’s all you’re seeing?”

“Yeah,” she said and added, “It’s a cute cat if that’s what you’re asking but ultimately, I can only see a cat up there. Too bad I’m not a cat person, you would’ve gotten a better reaction from.”

“Well, I’m a cat person and let me just say, I wanna take it home,” Idris interjected in our conversation while letting out soft ‘meows’ to try to convince the cat to come in his direction.

“I prefer dogs,” Irina said, “I’m actually thinking of getting another one. Someone that Sitara could play around with. He seems lonely these days.” Sitara was Irina’s German Shepard who had sort of a star-shaped fur sign on his head, hence the name she chose for him.

On an average day, I am barely what one could consider a dog-person, or cat-person, or just any sort of animal person but Sitara I liked because, unlike other animals, he didn’t behave hostile with me.

I don’t know what it is about me that animals just don’t like. It’s weird, I tell ya.

But wait, not the point!

So my theory was indeed right. My kidnappers were dead!

Gee, you’d think that atleast after dying these people would stray away from violence but no, apparently, that’s too much to ask or something.

“I’m guessing you’re seeing a lot more than just a cat?” Naina asked seeming my confused expression as I tried to decipher what the witch was saying. Why isn’t she just saying the words out loud?

Wait, was my dream today a premonition? A magic lady saying something to me that I can’t or won’t be able to hear just like what was happening now with the sorcerer? I swear, if I start getting pulled in reverse, I’ll really lose my sanity!

“Un, nothing, just…just the usual, I guess,” I finally decided to break the eye contact and simply ignore the little witch. By the way, I am not replacing the word witch with something else, okay? Unlike my use of fudge, I really am saying witch here.

And she really was little compared to me. Just a tad bit taller than Naina and she was just 5’3”. See what I mean by unnaturally short people?

“Feels weird to know there’s a ghost up there in the middle of the day,” Idris said, shuddering a bit. My friends knew about my…skill of seeing the dead.

Initially, when we were younger, they obviously had a hard time believing me but as years went by and I started providing more and more shreds of evidence, they sort of started accepting my situation. Except for Kushal. He just thought this was a fun little weird game that we childhood friends played to mess around with people.

Irina believed me instantly though. Apparently, she’s big into all of those things. You know, stuff like psychics and tarot cards and crystal balls and stuff. She was probably just so ecstatic that someone was speaking her love language that she didn’t bother to question our words.

“It’s a misconception that ghosts only appear at night,” Irina said as if reciting some piece of a blog post she read in some dark corner of the internet in a matter-of-factly tone.

“And I can attest to that,” I said, Irina squealed a little in excitement to learn that that little factoid of hers was true, while we walked past the witch, “Doesn’t make them less annoying, though.” I made sure to look at her as I said those words.

Yeah, that’s right. I know you’re there and I will ignore you with every fibre of my being and there is nothing you can do to break my vow!