20 1.17 — Early Class

The class felt...quiet.

Like, every time I’ve entered the class before, it was always filled with a bunch of indiscernible voices that could range from complimenting friends to talking about shows to imbeciles grouping together and conspiring to backstab someone from the friend circle or take revenge on someone for a stupid and petty reason.

It was amazing to see that a human could find so many things to talk about yet I always ended up in awkward silences during a conversation. Maybe that’s my real superpower.

Atleast this time the silence wasn't awkward.

Not completely atleast. Any silence is an awkward silence for me.

It’s just how I am built.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one in the class. There were a few who were present there, scattered around and sitting by themselves even though they had the whole class to themselves. Or perhaps that’s why they didn’t sit together. Almost too spoiled with the choice or something.

Anyways, if asked of their names at a gunpoint, I would’ve died. Instantly. I couldn’t place the names of any one of them.

In total, excluding me, there were 3 people.

A guy with his head in the books, another guy who kept his head on the desk as if sleeping—which he probably was, can’t blame him—and a girl with a phone in her hands probably chatting with her friends.

…wait, or is that me just being too judgemental?

Like for all we know, she was reading up some articles on…world finances and economic policies. One that was…making her laugh? Maybe the policy is so bad that she’s probably thinking ‘what kind of idiot thought of this?’

Don’t be so doubtful. That could legitimately be a possible scenario.

You know you all are too judgemental. Not me.

That’s what it is.

…Great. I’m so bored that I’m having arguments with you.

Which, frankly, is just like me having a one-sided conversation with myself. I can’t even read the comments you all write. If you do, that is.

Or if there even is one.

Not sure if this is like a published paperback medium or some online daily publishing website. Or both.

There are too many unknown factors in this whole thing for me to have fun with it.

So yeah, it’s not you, it’s me.

Waddling through the silence, I went and sat in my seat. Each and every movement of mine made a deafening noise. Even the guy that was too engrossed in his book looked up and wondered in annoyance as to who this new creature was that didn’t know the rules of this zoo.

The whole silent awkwardness made me rethink the importance of breathing for humans.

I am never, ever, going to come early.

I’ll get into an accident if that’s what it takes to not be here early.

With nothing else to do, I switched my phone on. Thankfully there was enough of a strong network for the internet to work.

I didn’t know why but my fingers began typing out words like Ruh and floating books and Akkorokamui—yeah, finally remembered Quadro’s actual name—in the search bar.

Well, less remembered, more ‘is this what you mean’ when I typed in ‘Akiraromi monster’.

It’s a stupid ass name! I can’t be bothered to remember that! I can hardly remember the names of people entering the class.

Anyhoo, I found nothing useful so I place the phone back in my bag—college’s policy of no phones in class.

I did find something but I don’t know. I already knew what Ruh meant and all ‘floating books’ showed me was, edited images of people pretending to be magicians or memes. I did learn something interesting about Quadro though.

Apparently, Quadro is an Octo. Or it should be according to Ainu and Shinto folklore.

It is supposed to be a half-human, half-octopus monster that lurks in Hokkaido, Japan. Sometimes in Taiwan and Korea too. Sort of like a Kraken, I guess but also more humanoid?

Although, while it did say it’s supposed to be half-octopus, all I saw were 4 tentacles instead of 8. Unless, ofcourse, it only had 4 because it was half or maybe the arms and legs are counted as tentacles too, making it a total of 8?

I don’t know, the site wasn’t too clear about that.

It also said it was supposed to be a woman but it clearly wasn’t. So I suppose, like with all folklore, details weren’t something the people were too keen to follow through on.

The point being, while the class on folklore was very interesting, all it did was give me more and more questions.

Even if we’re to believe that the monster from folklore is indeed real—after yesterday, I ain’t gonna doubt that—the monster is supposed to be in Japan. Sometimes in Korea and Taiwan if it felt adventurous but India? That’s a long way from its home.

Even more unbelievable is it being in this town of all places.

We don’t even live near the sea. There’s no bay or ports of Jivganj. We have just one lake and it’s not even that pretty compared to others in the world. I highly doubt it would choose that lake as it's weekend away from home. I live here and I definitely wouldn’t.

Plus why now of all the possible moments? I’ve been seeing the dead for about, I don’t know, 10 years. Even more than that considering I only realised that these were dead people I was seeing when I was 8.

Never once have I seen any monsters or magicians with flying books.

And despite my shitty memory, I like to believe that such an event would surely manage to print its mark in my mind.

Speaking of memory, more and more people have started to come inside the class and that’s just making me more and more confused. I-I honestly can’t place a name on any one of them. Maybe 2 or 3 but instead of some actual names, all that’s popping in my head is ‘the guy with curly hair', ‘the girl with big hands’, ‘the guy with that annoying laugh’ and so on.

Seriously, now I’m doubting if I’m even in the right class?!