The Mount Part 3

Daniel emerges from his quarters in a white, button-up shirt, black slacks, and loafers, "Good morning, Noe." Sitting up, Noe's fluffy blanket slides off of his shoulders. He assesses Daniel's dress in a stunned stupor. As Daniel walks, the curved corner of his unbuttoned collar caresses his neck. Noe discernibly breathes in and swallows thickly.

"Are you a dog? Why are you panting like that?" Rosalind comes out of the closest guest room and stomps into the kitchen, preparing herself a bowl of cereal.

Doing the same, Daniel prepares three more bowls.

"I vivn't vow vou dwesh sho nishely for a shkewpid wally," chunks of green and yellow flakes fly out Rosalind's mouth, escaping in a joyous wave of freedom at last. Milk stains her Ephrene gown before vanishes.

"Good morning, Feng Mian," Daniel greets Feng Mian with a squint-eyed, close-mouthed smile.

"Good morning, Daniel!" she bounces forward, about to give him a hug. Two hands lift and store her away from Daniel before their bodies can touch.

A sharp stare pierces into Noe's skull. "Why did you do that?" Daniel interrogates.

Noe responds, "It felt bad when she got close to you."

"My body, my rules. Feng Mian, come over here dear," Daniel opens his arms.

"I think I'd rather not," Feng Mian smiles, scooching forward to steal a bowl of cereal before slinking away.

"Why is there a bloodstain in the sink?" Rosalind calls out.

"Don't take your food into the bathroom!" Rushing over, Daniel pulls Rosalind out of the bacteria-infested chamber. "I haven't disinfected it since yesterday morning."

Suddenly, Feng Mian tweely sneezes.

"Feng Mian, were you warm enough last night? Do you need me to turn the AC higher?" Daniel pushes toward her.

Resigned, Noe watches Daniel dote over Rosalind and Feng Mian while he spoons Daniel-prepared, 'delicious' cereal into his mouth.

"Noe," Daniel mentions.

Instantly perching up, Noe looks toward Daniel expectantly.

"Get dressed. We're leaving in five minutes."

The Ephrene deflates again.

After everyone exits, Noe shuts the door behind him. "I'll be back soon."

Ceaseless curiosity lingers in Noe's heart.

Noe turns to Daniel, "It's something my mom used to say whenever she dropped me off at school."

"She was comforting you," Daniel pats his shoulder. "What a lovely woman."

Noe ponders a moment, "I guess so."

Walking out of the apartment, they are swept up by a tsunami of people heading towards Westville Square. A layer of blue-grey clouds covers the sun and casts a monotonous tone to the day that clashes with the hoards of hyper voices and happy chants. Here and there, Noe spots someone from the shantytown inconspicuously limping along.

"We can't take the car. We'll just have to join them."

Swiveling, Noe waves goodbye to Rubin up on the roof who stares knowingly down at him.

"I promise," a recording of Prime Minister Kamiyama statics over comms; the voice Noe first heard upon returning to Westville, "to bring further prosperity to your future and our childrens'."

Half an hour later, the lines of metallic buildings bordering them break apart into an enormous cement square. People of all genders and races push and kick to move forward in the crowd and catch a glimpse of where the Prime Minister shall stand.

"We need to get closer to her to sync our energies and find her later," Feng Mian comments.

"Let's go," Daniel politely begins to excuse himself from the people he tries to walk past as he leads their small procession. Five minutes later, they have only reached so far - possibly pushed back a few steps.

A guy in the crowd stares at their Ephrene robes and frowns in 'not too bad'. "Are you guys cosplayers or som'n?" he asks.

Rosalind shoots her hand out and pushes the guy away using his face.

"I am so sorry about her behavior," Daniel apologises as he trails behind her.

Noe pauses momentarily.

Shoving and glaring people away, Rosalind disappears into the crowd with Feng Mian.

"What's wrong?" Daniel comes up to Noe, jostled by the arms pressing against each other like warm sardines.

"You just reminded me of my mother."

"Oh." Daniel's eyes mist over, "Does your mother not know that you're back?"

"She doesn't."

"What?!"

Remembering the way she deposited him like garbage at Sympathy, relief in her eyes, "She wouldn't want to see me anyway. Let's go," Noe walks down the path again.

"Oh, Noe," Daniel covers his mouth with his hands. A jolt passes through him and he drops them to his sides. Clearing his throat, he looks around before reassuming a stereotypical, masculine persona. He is a thirty-six-year-old male and so must act like one. Commonality is comforting. Unthreatening to ignorance.

"She's here!" someone yells and vibrant excitement tints the atmosphere. Heels clicking against parchment ring from the speakers and the crowd goes ravenous. Taller than the rest, Noe sees a black suit and red heels stand behind a mounted microphone. Her lips are bright red, coated in moist lipstick.

The Prime Minister wastes no time in starting.

"I welcome you all to the Westville Rally of 2079," she smiles warmly, intelligently. The crowd silences themselves to collect every word she speaks. To most of them, she has brought peace and wealth to their tables.

"My husband and I founded Kamiyama and Choi to eradicate the evils of the world our son had come into. We saw your struggles reflected in our own. Now, nineteen years later, I come before you, a calm Westville, a prosperous Westville, running for a second term in office!" her grin widens, teeth grinding against each other, as the crowd erupts in chants that praise her name.

"And now, after four years of recovering from a fatal injury," the crowd hums in sympathy, "please welcome," all the women and some men in the crowd begin to jump and shriek in white bliss, "my son." Her hand extends to her right-hand side where a man no younger or older than Noe walks forward in a suit of white. His blanch hair, otherwise styled elegantly, sticks out in moments of unruliness, pale white skin like marble.

As the young man smiles, the crowd further explodes in cheers, causing a sinister atmosphere to rouse Noe. Looking closer, the young man's eyes are slits of wickedness begetting abnormally green eyes.

"He looks like a lizard," Rosalind remarks.

An albino lizard scrambling up maple wood shuffles into Noe's mind. The tiny creature is poised for attack, trying to protect the middle school model of Noe from attack. Its tiny snout turns toward a faceless group of children where one boy governs the harassment.

Puzzle pieces of information fall against the image, placing themselves over Noe's clear memory of the boy's blank canvass of a face. It comes to him, then, that the boy in his memory had green eyes. The lizard is pointing towards the green-eyed Allery with pale skin.

The young man standing beside his mother, the Prime Minister, is none other than Noe's childhood bully, the man of the year, Allery himself.

Noe sighs in relief and inhales a breath that had been lodged in his throat since the day he viewed Allery burnt on the ground by Noe's own hand. Bending over, he engulfs buckets of oxygen.

For years, the thought that he had hurt, possibly killed, another being had been weighing him down like a ship anchor to ocean floor. Allery is alright. Noe did not hurt him permanently.

A smile tugs at Noe's cheeks.

"Having suffered an unrecoverable burn wound and healing from it, he is the symbol of Westville's road to glory where our bodies no longer dictate our life-expectancy but technology and science can give us eternity. In our future together, I see an elixir to mortality, a world of immortals!"

Unknowingly, Noe has almost reached the front of the crowd with Daniel close to him. Meters back, Feng Mian concentrates on moving the emotions of the people in the crowd to walk away from Noe. To them, they feel a danger is approaching and they must get away from it.

"What do you say? Do you wish to be an everlasting? Vote 'forever' for office. Vote for yourselves. Vote for the redevelopment of Westville into a Superville. Vote for me, Samuela Kamiyama, Prime Minister 2080!"

With that, she breaks from the stage in a torrent of applause with Allery ambling behind.

Reporters swarm the scene, desperately stretching their microphones over the protective barricades to capture even a breath Prime Minister Kamiyama and Allery seize.

"Allery Choi, can you tell me why you chose to keep your father's last name?"

"Prime Minister Kamiyama, how confident are you that you will be reelected?"

"What do you know about Sympathy Boarding School for the Misguided and the various, unethical schools in Westville?"

The last question catches Noe in disbelief. It could not be, could it?

Craning his neck, his body tumbles in turning around.

"Prime Minister Kamiyama. Prime Minister Kamiyama!"

From behind a smokescreen of reporters, dark brown strands of hair jet forward. A woman in an unbuttoned suit and unironed shirt heaves as she rushes forward.

Within the chaos, someone steps on her heels. Forced to pivot, the desperation and sadness Noe sees on the woman's face are all too familiar.

"Mom."