“Good manners.†She used to think of the words in the same way she felt her guide did. At a point, her opinion changed to what is was today. “There’re two kinds of ‘good manners’: the real kind and the fake kind.†Certain memories rose up and threatened her daydreamed winter. The full and nearly suffocating scent of lavender, the sweet sour of hibiscus, the impossible soft of roses. For a moment, her focus was completely lost. “People where I come from give fake and take fake. Real’s nice, but bull will do just fine.†Some semblance of the calm she had been trying to prepare remained, and she immediately felt stupid for letting any personal cynicism out. “I mean,†she started, her tone corrected to sound indifferent. “That was just a generalization. I bet that ‘fake’ manners can just come from societal anxiety or something, y’know? Misunderstandings and s***.†She probably was not going to come off as eloquent or ladylike after her slip, but she remembered the molding laundry at her back and felt justified to make a mistake. The acknowledgement was just the slightest bit relaxing, and it let the winter back in her thoughts, just as the sound of talking leaked in from the third floor hallway door.
With her luck, they were probably just passing by, and since she mentioned the first floor, it was probably lining up to be another missed chance, but when Alistair opened the door, apparently for her, two girls came in. Spencer stopped, reflexively getting out of the girls’ path, but then to wait. For an instant, relief started to release the breath she held in her lungs as it seemed that nothing was unusual. But then one alerted the other. “I-it’s that guy!†As the girl named Amy’s face contorted in panic, Spencer tensed and halted. Her mind, still unaccustomed to danger, snagged trying to react, but then she heard that easy command, “RUN!â€Â
At the imperitive, Spencer’s sympathetic nervous system charged her, as if with a voltage, and no contrived thought separated her from the word she heard and her response to do just what it said. Her instincts led her back up the stairs. As she ran, the weight of the laundry bag threw off her movement, and she tripped on the landing a floor up, bashing her knee. Adrenaline put the pain out of focus, and she got up, leaving the bag behind as she continued, barely conscious of the awkwardness of her knee. When she fell again because of it, hitting it into the edge of yet another stair, she got up and jumped off the railing. Just as gravity started to pull her down a potential four stories to a broken end, the temperature differences completed, and she launched up to the sixth floor landing with cyclone-like winds.
‘She cleared the railing and let the wind stop just before it slammed her against the ceiling. She landed harshly, almost falling down the stairs, but she stumbled up and rushed through the hallway door, not daring to look back until she shut it. She almost ran, but at the sight of her hands, she stopped for a single second. The dew on her hands was only half liquid; it was turning to ice. She turned from the door and continued to flee, fighting against the strained and hurt knee to her door. She half looked at the lock and half looked at the staircase door as she fumbled the key into the door and pushed inside, locking the door almost before it could shut.
She backed away from the doorway, breathing heavily. She was not safe there. She considered the balcony. If she went outside and jumped, maybe she could reach someplace populated enough that she would have help. The campus, however, was spaced very well. She knew it for fact, she could not jump that far, and even if she could, she would be frozen on the way down; she would be broken or killed by the impact of the fall. Was she trapped? The panic response acted before she could think it through any more. She reached out towards the door, and nature followed her command, violently taking the heat energy out of the air both in front of and behind the door. In seconds, both sides were brought down in temperature so low that the door was sealed with frozen water vapor and dry ice. The cold of the door was enough, for just seconds, to form liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen, which flash-froze the hallway for several meters away from the door.
When the magic stopped, Spencer’s hand remained raised, trapped in the rime that now covered her whole body. Blind and struggling for air, she slowly broke the ice at her joints and fell against the foot of the spare bed. The magic and the adrenaline were now spent, and her mind regained its thoughts. As the minutes passed, she felt dread. She should have gone with the other girls. Her bag would make it clear, if nothing else, where she had gone. Now, she was in a worse position than she was in before, if her worst assumptions were true about the kindly guide. She considered the door. If she was still in danger, was the ice thick enough? Would it hold? For an instant, she felt a strange sense of guilt, though in the haze of exhaustion and struggling to breathe, she could not figure out why.
With her luck, they were probably just passing by, and since she mentioned the first floor, it was probably lining up to be another missed chance, but when Alistair opened the door, apparently for her, two girls came in. Spencer stopped, reflexively getting out of the girls’ path, but then to wait. For an instant, relief started to release the breath she held in her lungs as it seemed that nothing was unusual. But then one alerted the other. “I-it’s that guy!†As the girl named Amy’s face contorted in panic, Spencer tensed and halted. Her mind, still unaccustomed to danger, snagged trying to react, but then she heard that easy command, “RUN!â€Â
At the imperitive, Spencer’s sympathetic nervous system charged her, as if with a voltage, and no contrived thought separated her from the word she heard and her response to do just what it said. Her instincts led her back up the stairs. As she ran, the weight of the laundry bag threw off her movement, and she tripped on the landing a floor up, bashing her knee. Adrenaline put the pain out of focus, and she got up, leaving the bag behind as she continued, barely conscious of the awkwardness of her knee. When she fell again because of it, hitting it into the edge of yet another stair, she got up and jumped off the railing. Just as gravity started to pull her down a potential four stories to a broken end, the temperature differences completed, and she launched up to the sixth floor landing with cyclone-like winds.
‘She cleared the railing and let the wind stop just before it slammed her against the ceiling. She landed harshly, almost falling down the stairs, but she stumbled up and rushed through the hallway door, not daring to look back until she shut it. She almost ran, but at the sight of her hands, she stopped for a single second. The dew on her hands was only half liquid; it was turning to ice. She turned from the door and continued to flee, fighting against the strained and hurt knee to her door. She half looked at the lock and half looked at the staircase door as she fumbled the key into the door and pushed inside, locking the door almost before it could shut.
She backed away from the doorway, breathing heavily. She was not safe there. She considered the balcony. If she went outside and jumped, maybe she could reach someplace populated enough that she would have help. The campus, however, was spaced very well. She knew it for fact, she could not jump that far, and even if she could, she would be frozen on the way down; she would be broken or killed by the impact of the fall. Was she trapped? The panic response acted before she could think it through any more. She reached out towards the door, and nature followed her command, violently taking the heat energy out of the air both in front of and behind the door. In seconds, both sides were brought down in temperature so low that the door was sealed with frozen water vapor and dry ice. The cold of the door was enough, for just seconds, to form liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen, which flash-froze the hallway for several meters away from the door.
When the magic stopped, Spencer’s hand remained raised, trapped in the rime that now covered her whole body. Blind and struggling for air, she slowly broke the ice at her joints and fell against the foot of the spare bed. The magic and the adrenaline were now spent, and her mind regained its thoughts. As the minutes passed, she felt dread. She should have gone with the other girls. Her bag would make it clear, if nothing else, where she had gone. Now, she was in a worse position than she was in before, if her worst assumptions were true about the kindly guide. She considered the door. If she was still in danger, was the ice thick enough? Would it hold? For an instant, she felt a strange sense of guilt, though in the haze of exhaustion and struggling to breathe, she could not figure out why.
