The Seer – Part 2

This is the second part to our short story, “The Seer”. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can find it here!

…

The next night Lana makes plans to spend the evening with her boyfriend, so I make plans with Liam. We grab some dinner from the student union and take it to a table outside, so we can avoid being overheard. The faint white glow continues to surround Liam wherever we go. I can hardly wait until we are seated to ask him about it.

“Do you always have that glow?”

He chuckles at my bluntness. “Yes, I always have this glow. Sometimes it’s even brighter.”

“Is that because you always tell the truth?”

“Hardly.” He chuckles again. “I’ve always been this way. I’ve had to keep it reigned in for as long as I can remember. I realized people don’t notice I’m different as long as the light doesn’t get too bright. Have you always been able to see the lights too?”

“Yep, so I guess you can see them?”

He nods before I continue.

“What about the Other Realm?”

“The Other Realm?” he asks.

“Oh, that’s just what I call the place where all the creatures dwell.”

He ponders me for a moment. “I don’t think I can see that.”

“Oh…” I reply as a blush creeps up my face.

“Tell me about it,” he says between bites of pizza.

I describe the foggy veil that covers the Other Realm and the creatures that I’ve seen. I even tell him about my furry friend. He listens intently, but I still want to know more about him.

“What did you mean when you said that people don’t notice you’re different?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I can see the auras, so I know mine is always white. But I’ve noticed when it gets extremely bright that people have a strange reaction to me. They seem to be…afraid.”

“But you don’t know why?”

“No.”

“What are you usually doing when it gets the brightest?”

“I’m usually just being myself. Like, I let my guard down.”

“You’re saying if you relax, the light gets bright and people freak out?”

“Not exactly. You know how sometimes you are with someone close to you, and you can just be real with them? You act silly and share your secrets?”

I nod, thinking of Lana.

“That’s when it happens.” He pauses. “It’s why I don’t really have close friends.”

I think about what it would be like if Lana knew the truth about me. Would she be terrified of me? Would she still want to be my friend?

“So where is this furry friend of yours?” Liam interrupts my thoughts.

I actually haven’t seen him all day. I close my green eye and quickly scan my surroundings, but I don’t see anything furry.

“I usually see him by my dorm. Maybe we can find him there?”

I lead the way to my dorm in a comfortable silence, as night begins to descend. As we cross through the parking lot, I notice a blur of movement quickly approaching. I close my green eye to find my other-worldly companion waving his arms outward and running towards me. I glance to Liam and motion for him to move to the side, unsure what is happening. When I look back I see another, much scarier, creature following my furry friend, and gaining on him. He doesn’t look back though; he just pumps his short legs, focusing on the barrier between us.

I barely have time to wonder what he is doing before he plows through the veil of the Other Realm. The mist shimmers and warps, clinging to him as if it wants to suck him back in, but he prevails. The barrier bounces back and the terrifying monster slams against it. I dare to keep my green eye closed as I watch it prowl the edge of the Other Realm. It’s a lanky creature with unnaturally long limbs, covered in reptilian scales and with two curling horns atop its broad head. Its red eyes roll around like when you’re trying to find something in the dark. I’m reassured by the fact that it can’t see us and turn to my furry friend.

“Can you…speak English?” I ask him.

“Now what kind of protector would I be if I couldn’t speak your language?” he answers with a tug to the right side of his mouth.

“How did you get over here? And will that thing be able to follow you?” I ask.

“Umm…what thing?” Liam asks.

“There’s a monster right over there, just inside the Other Realm,” I tell him.

“It’s called a dhaceen,” our visitor says, “and our world is called Vaarn. To answer your question, the dhaceens found a way to cross the boundary into your world. Only one being from Vaarn can come through each quarter moon. I had to wait for the right timing to make my attempt, and I had to beat them to it. So, that dhaceen can’t follow me…for now,” he pauses and glances between us. “I see you’ve found the Revealer since I last saw you.”

“The Revealer?” I hold out my palms to him. “I don’t have anything…”

“The Revealer isn’t a thing,” he chuckles, “It’s a person.”

I cock my head to the side before following his gaze to Liam.

“You didn’t tell me you were the Revealer, whatever that is,” I say to Liam.

“I would have, if I had known myself,” he replies. “What does that mean, the Revealer?”

“You have the ability to reveal the true nature of beings. Just like the Seer can see their true nature.” He nods to me as he says the second part.

“So, I’m…the Seer?”

“And you’re the Protector?” Liam asks him.

“One of them. All my kind are charged with protecting this realm. You can call me Tamniirt.”

“So, Tamniirt, why are the dha…ceens here and how do we stop them?” I ask, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

“I’m not sure what their plan is, and we’ll need to figure that out if we’re going to stop them.”

…

“So can you, like, disguise yourself? I don’t think we can just walk around campus with you like this,” I say.

“Oh, right, of course.”

Tamniirt closes his eyes and after a moment all his fur disappears. He looks like one of those hairless cats, only much larger and standing on two legs.

“Ugh,” Liam cries out, “please try another disguise. Any other disguise.”

“What’s wrong with this? I could put on some clothes and I’ll look just like you.”

I cover my eyes and shake my head.

“Fine,” Tamniirt says.

He examines Liam and closes his eyes again. After a couple of moments, his skin smooths out and becomes less pale, his ears round, and he stretches to have human proportions. Finally, hair appears on his head, mimicking Liam’s hairstyle. I snort at this last detail.

“Uh uh, no way,” Liam says as he strides toward our friend. He takes his hand and musses Tamniirt’s hair. “Much better.”

“Oh man, I didn’t even get a picture of the two of you together first.” I grin at Liam.

He just glares back at me.

“We could’ve put you in matching outfits,” I continue. “It would’ve been so cute.”

At that, he cracks a grin.

“We do need to get him some clothes though. Can you hide out somewhere while I run back to my dorm?”

I nod and find a picnic table that is mostly surrounded by trees. Tamniirt and I chat quietly, as I fill him in on the dhaceen that I have already found, and he tells me there is another that came through before him. I spot a familiar darkness as it moves along the path in front of the trees, like a cloud rolling overhead during a picnic. I stop talking and point out the disguised creature that I saw in my dorm. We stand and move through the woods, mirroring the dhaceen’s path.

After a short time, it turns into the woods to sit at another table. We position ourselves behind a couple of larger trees to watch unseen. The monster faces away from us, monitoring the path it just walked down. A moment later a student strolls down the path from the other direction, his aura the same deep red. I scoot around the tree to stay out of his line of sight, and I see Tamniirt do the same out of the corner of my eye.

The dhaceens continue to watch the path, as if they are waiting for someone else. It occurs to me that they may not know that Tamniirt crossed the boundary instead of one of their kind. I glance to Tamniirt and he nods, seemingly thinking the same thing. A few minutes later one of the monsters speaks.

“Something is wrong. I don’t think he is coming.”

“He must’ve missed the window, the fool. I gave him precise instructions.”

“This will set us back another quarter moon,” the creature growls.

“In the meantime, the two of us will just have to keep searching. We’ll cover less ground without him, but we’ll have to make do. We’ll meet back here to look for him again the next time the boundary opens.”

With that, the dhaceens part ways down the path, the one I recognize heading toward our dorm.

“Now we know they are searching for something, but what?” Tamniirt asks.

“At least you’ve set them back a week, and they don’t know you’re here.”

“They will in a week though, when the other dhaceen comes through to tell them. We better make good use of the time, before they’re on to us.”

Liam returns with clothing a few minutes later. Now that Tamniirt has seen the human form of the creatures, and I’ve told them what room one’s in, we decide that Tamniirt can watch him while we are in class. I’ve already spoken to him, so it might be too suspicious for me to follow him all the time anyway. We part ways, agreeing to meet up tomorrow after class.

…

What do you think of the story so far? WTF continues this collaborative story here! If you enjoyed this short story, we would love for you to leave a comment, or even buy us a cup of coffee! We promise to share!

Thanks so much for reading!

– Clever & WTF