Voen
The cadaver of a Starbound, donated to science, lay before me.
Professor Talvore stood over my shoulder, watching as I worked.
I hated her anatomy class.
I wasn't a scientist; I was a musician, an entertainer. Stuff like this made me want to vomit. They reminded me of the stench of decomposing corpses on the frozen roads of the outskirts back home.
Professor Talvore nudged my hand into place. "Voen, that is not where you start."
"You sure I can't start somewhere…. I don't know… less bloody." I said, pointing my scalpel at the forearm of the cadaver.
"Voen," she snapped.
"Fine, but this is an expensive uniform that could be ruined."
I dragged the sleek blade toward the sternum. With a deep breath, I applied force to my index finger and heard the skin unzip from the flesh.
Blood puddled out.
I cut away the flesh piece by piece, placing the muscle in a bucket for later biopsies until the ribs were exposed.
I gripped the small mallet I was handed, my eyes closed shut as I swung down. The sound split the air like a dry branch being snapped in two. I continued until I heard no more. I threw my mallet into another bucket, my eyes still shut.
I wished I had better control of my enhanced hearing; as a passive ability of my constellation, it meant I couldn't turn it on and off. It took all my concentration to drown out the sounds of other cadavers being torn apart, and yet it still wasn't enough to save me from the onslaught of sounds bombarding my eardrums.
"Quit being a pansy," Professor Talvore said, as others in the lab snickered. No one understood how much of a sensory overload this was, forced to hear things you wished to escape.
It was a prison of sound.
Overstimulated, I dug into the abdomen. "Do you see the person's core?"
Moving the heart out of the way, "Yes, I do, Professor."
"What does it look like?"
"It's.. Dull, grey like cement. Is this supposed to look like that?"
"Voen, have you not been studying?"
"Yeah, but I think the textbooks need to be updated," I said, shifting the celestial core from side to side.
"I want you to identify all the major astral veins," and that's where I knew I was screwed. This was the hardest part to memorize; there was no way to cheat it either, the veins were practically invisible.
Professor Talvore's foot thumped like a restless rabbit. Her patience with me was thinning–as it always had been.
Unsure of what to do, I held the core in both hands. Professor Talvore tilted her head, probably wondering why I was being so hesitant.
She was on the right track with that. I studied, but the only thing I could remember was that if there was cosmic energy in the core, the astral veins would show.
So I channeled cosmic energy into the core, and it glowed. Shining like a mini star.
I took a guess and squeezed the core. Slowly, cosmic energy began to trickle out of the core, branching like roots in the soil. Faint streams of light grew brighter the more I squeezed the core.
A kid in the class screamed.
"Voen stop," the professor told me.
"Why? I'm getting ready to finish the test." Then something slapped me in the face. Shocked, I scanned the room, looking for the culprit.
That's when I understood what caused the shriek. I had poured too much cosmic energy into the core; the astral veins jumped, twitching the muscles aggressively. If I were them, I would have done the same thing.
"Voen, stop now!" the teacher begged me. It was too late; the core was already saturated.
Astral veins in the body hadn't been exposed to cosmic energy in a while. So, the mini leigh lines underwent atrophy.
No longer able to contain the output. In mere moments, the room was plastered with blood from the exploded corpse.
Death stares were abundant. "I'm sorry, guys, I can do the laundry," I said.
No one seemed convinced.
Then Professor Talvore grabbed my shoulder, her grip tightening.
"You fail."
I was tasked with cleaning the lab.
It took hours to get it done. Professor Talvore was a stickler for sanitation rules. By the time I was finished, I felt gross and desperately needed a shower. The grumbling of my stomach told me I could wait, though. Stripping off my lab coat, I hurried over to the cafeteria.
I rushed through the lines. Grabbed as many plates as I could and found a seat near Jace, who was eating alone.
"Vo, you look like a droopy cloud."
"Yeah, it was rough in anatomy today. I just had to be a vitalist; these classes are hard. How do you handle it?" I asked, taking a sip of juice.
Jace took a massive bite out of his turkey leg and answered before he finished chewing.
"Oh, I don't."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, if it looks too hard, I just don't bother," he said, waving his food in the sky.
"Aren't you worried about getting expelled?"
"Nah, I'll just pass the rift test. That's the only thing that kind of interests me."
"But we need you to be good at your position."
"Don't worry, Vo, I'm the best in the class."
"How exactly?"
"Just trust me." I grimaced at his response.
"But what are we gonna do with that smell of yours? You won't be able to get a date for the dance smelling like that."
"The same goes for you once they see how barbaric you look eating," I said, laughing as I took another bite of my food.
"Vo, have you seen Sora?" He paused, letting his fork hit the table.
"Not in a couple of days, why?"
"I think she is upset."
"Anyone could have predicted that, nimbus brain," I said, pointing my turkey leg at him.
"We really have to pull it together for her soon. She's trying really hard."
Looking at Jace, I couldn't help but wonder why he would say things like this but never put more effort into things. Outside of some friends I made in my house, he was the one I got along with the most.
But Jace also kept a lot of things close to his chest. Most of his motives were still very much a mystery to me, unlike those of the other heirs here at this school. So I paid more attention to the small things, his likes and dislikes, no matter how large or small.
I needed to.
He was my ticket.
A ticket to a better life, once I graduate from here.
This was something I discovered at the end of the Totem Game.
I knew that if I helped his sister succeed, it would be a debt I could cash in later. That was my goal, despite my vitalist abilities being a little rough around the edges.
I tapped Jace on the shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "Don't worry, bud, we'll pull it together."