After taking his first shower in almost a week, Zaire was feeling spirited. He hadn't eaten anything, yet there was energy in his steps, clarity in his mind, and most importantly, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
Is this… how hope feels like?
He wondered, looking at his palm. For the first time, he saw a clear way to deal with his curse. Maybe he wouldn't have to live in hiding anymore, maybe he wouldn't have to kill himself, perhaps he could even use his powers—whatever they may be—to his advantage.
Zaire quickly shook his head. Let's not daydream.
With that thought, he went to his parents' room, took a key hidden in a small compartment behind the light bulbs, and opened a small vault full of valuables.
He took exactly eleven thousand dollars, intending to use the extra money for living expenses. On that end, he called a food delivery service to order food for two and walked downstairs.
There, in the foyer, the girl he had met less than an hour ago stood facing his parents, motionless and muttering something to herself.
Immediately upon entering the room, Zaire saw that the smell of rotting flesh, as well as any other such remnants, was missing; the room felt neat and clean, and not just visually or physically.
"Do I stink a little less now?" Zaire chuckled and asked the girl.
To that, the girl looked over her shoulder, slowly curled her fist, raised her index finger, and brought it to her delightful, Cupid's bow lips, "Shush."
Zaire wordlessly made a zipping motion from one side of his lips to the other.
The girl kept muttering quietly for a good few minutes, and the more the time went on, the more he realized that a strong sense of refreshment and calm was spreading through him.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of chanting, the girl raised her hands as if to play a standing piano. Zaire's jaw dropped to the floor as what happened in the next moments.
Her nails, the very tip of them, slowly began to glow and leave a trail of said glow. She aimed one hand towards his mother and one towards his father before performing identical gestures.
With her thumb, she drew three complex symbols in an invisible triangle. Then, she placed her thumb and pinky just outside of the symbols above and below, respectively, before twisting her hand and making a perfect ring around the symbols.
Perhaps using the circle as some sort of margin, she used her index and ring fingers to draw up various letters outside the ring that looked like a strange mix of traditional Chinese and a type of Indo-Aryan language Zaire didn't recognize.
During his observations, he also noticed how she wasn't writing entire words, simply letters with occasional diacritics that, much to his disbelief, he didn't recognize.
Additionally, she drew four perfectly straight, perpendicular lines positioned externally at its cardinal points, and wrote big symbols on each quadrant.
After half-a-minute of this, her left hand finished before her right hand, and once both were done, she pushed her palms forward towards the centre of the vertical, floating assortment of whitish-blue symbols made of light.
If he weren't one already, this alone would've turned Zaire into a conspiracy theorist, but what happened next was even more amazing to him.
The corpses that were stuck to the wall and ceiling began to age rapidly. In minutes, everything turned to pure dust, bone and all.
In the moments that followed, the ashes flew into long ropes and gathered in front of her palms.
"Is… it done?" He asked, full of trepidation.
"No," she said, looking towards the doors that connected the foyer to its adjacent rooms. Soon, long ropes of ashes came flying from there, too. "This was the rest of them; part of them had disintegrated on the outer side of the room walls, while the rest had fallen here."
"I see," Zaire said, looking at the two hovering balls of ashes. "Should I, um, get… urns or something? I don't think we have any."
"Leave it to me," She shrugged. Before writing two more magic circles, and the next moment, two white urns materialized, and the ashes went into them.. "Here," she said, pushing the urns towards him.
"Hold on," Zaire carefully held one of them before placing it on a nearby table with delicate gestures.
The girl put the urn in her hand next to the urn Zaire had placed.
"Here," In that time, Zaire took out a stack of cash and held it in front of her. "Do… you do this professionally? 10 grand is the standard funeral price; I just think you can earn a lot more, not that I'm complaining or anything, haha!"
The girl took the money and put it in a purse. "Everything I did is actually free; this money is to deal with the bureaucracy of such an unnatural death. Just a heads-up, on their death certificates, I will put that your dad died of a ruptured brain aneurysm and your mother suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. To any medical professional, their death wouldn't look coincidental that way, and it's also clean."
"I see," Zaire nodded, unsurely. "Is there a reason for your free service?"
"Well, I felt bad for you. Life is going to get really hard from now on, and you haven't been attending school for a while, so I dropped by."
Huh? School? Have I seen her before? Do I know her? Is it rude to tell her I don't know her?
Zaire thought, eyes squinting as he shuffled through his memories to find this girl—she wasn't there, he didn't even know her name.
Regardless, she deserved his gratitude. "Thanks for your assistance," He said, with a courteous bow.
That's when the doorbell rang.
He turned to the door and curiously raised an eyebrow. "Who—"
"It's DoorDash," the girl said calmly, back towards him, already walking towards the door. "Let me get that."
"Thanks again," Zaire chuckled. She waved her hand dismissively. "Also, sorry for not starting with this. Could you tell me your name again?"
"What?!" The girl, the same girl who had been calm and composed ever since he had met her, squealed in shock.
She turned on her heels, completely ignoring the deliveryman ringing the doorbell for the second time. "You don't remember me?" She frowned, "We go to the same school, we are in the same class and section. My name is Akari."
"Wait, Akari? Akari Puterre? Roll number 32, you sit in the centre, low tables to the right, closer to the windows, right?"
Akari's eyes widened, "So you do know—wait," she shook her head, "that's not the problem. Are you stalking me, or do you know this about everyone?"
"Everyone, in my classroom. It's best to know who you're dealing with in an elite school." Zaire shrugged and walked forward. "Never mind that, you look completely different than how you look in school. You look…" He stopped talking, unable to talk more without sounding rude.
"Nerdy?" Akari supplied with a thin smile.
"Invisible," Zaire corrected with an impassive face.
Akari shrugged, "It's best to stay invisible if you have superpowers." Before walking towards the door.
"Wait," Zaire walked towards her and handed her some cash. "You better not be thinking of paying yourself."
She smiled sweetly, "I wasn't planning to."