A Silent Soul- Chapter 13
#14 of A Silent Soul
Chapter 13! :D
Hello all you furry people! It's time for the next installment of A Silent Soul. Today we meet a new character who will have some importance later on in the chapter, but for now just enjoy what I've brought to the table! I'll see you all the bottom of the page! :D
P.O.V. Change: Elijah
I could almost feel Jasper's gaze on me as I walked out the door. As soon as the door closed behind me I let the suppressed grin fill my muzzle with joy. He kissed me! I didn't have to do anything! I thought to myself giddily.
It felt like I was walking on air on my way to the sciences building, and it took a tap on the shoulder to realize someone was trying to get my attention.
"Excuse me, do you know where the labs are at? This campus is so big and confusing..." A short chinchilla asked me. She almost looked too young to be attending college but I waved the thought aside to address her question.
"I'm actually on my way there now, I could just show you if you'd like. Would you mind if I looked at your schedule?" I prompted. She nodded shyly and handed me the paper in her hand.
"Hey it looks like we have the same lab! I could definitely show you where we're going. What's your name?" I questioned quietly, almost as if I was talking to a little kid.
"V-Vinesah." She whispered. It took all of my being to not "d'aww" at her, as I felt like she might be offended by it.
"Nice to meet you Vinesah, my name is Elijah." I offered her a reassuring smile which she returned half-heartedly.
"Come on let's go, don't wanna be late." I told her. She nodded and we both set off in the same direction towards the science building. It was a solid 10 minute walk, further than most of the other buildings on campus, but the nice weather made for an enjoyable trip. Vinesah was quiet the entire time, keeping her eyes pointed downwards.
"You okay?" I asked her hesitantly. She jumped at the sound of my voice which made my ears flatten slightly.
"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Just a little n-nervous." She stuttered out. I smiled at the fact that it seemed that she still had a bit of innocence about her, something that a lot of people lost in high school or when they started college.
"Nothing to be worried about, I don't think we'll be doing anything too crazy. I hear we don't get to experiments until like the third week or something." I commented.
"Y-yeah." She whispered quietly. I frowned slightly, but decided not to press as we were nearing the building. The building itself was enormous, rumors on campus were that you could see the building from anywhere on campus and that it was often used as a reference to figure out where you were going.
Luckily our lab was on the first floor, and judging by all the students sitting outside the room the class hadn't started yet. I found Sebastian and Kylee easily as they'd separated themselves from the larger crowd, and I watched amusedly as Kylee let loose a fresh stream of words right in Sebastian's ear.
He took it in stride, nodding at all the right times as if he was genuinely interested in what she had to say. He was always that way, but I wondered how he did it. I'd lose my mind!
"Hey guys, I've got someone I want you to meet." I said approaching them. Sebastian waved at me and Kylee stopped mid-sentence to acknowledge me.
"Oh hi Elijah! How are you? I was just telling Sebastian this crazy story about this couple that I saw in the cafeteria! They were so cute! Oh hey what did you say? Sorry if I cut you off!" She spoke in her rapid tone. My mind finally caught up and I realized it was my turn to speak.
"No that's okay, I just wanted to introduce you two to someone I met on the way here." I motioned to the small chinchilla behind me.
"This is Vinesah, Vinesah, this is my good friend Sebastian and his friend Kylee." I made the introductions. Sebastian offered a wave and kind-hearted smile, but I grew slightly concerned when Kylee didn't say anything.
She seemed to give the chinchilla a slightly dirty look, and I was surprised to notice a very similar look from Vinesah. Sebastian and I shared a glance before I turned back to the small chinchilla behind me.
"Do you two know each other?" I asked hesitantly.
"N-no. Not that I know of." She said quietly, large bushy tail tucking beneath her.
"Never met her before in my life." Kylee spoke somewhat harshly. My ears flattened slightly at the tense introduction, but decided to let it slide for the sake of decent conversation.
"So where's the teacher?" I asked, changing the topic.
"Not sure. I assumed they would have gotten here early." Sebastian stated, tapping his foot. Then as if our question flipped a switch, a yellow tinted chameleon could be seen speed-walking down the hallway. She was wearing a long white lab coat, typical of someone working in a lab.
"Hello, sorry I'm late everybody." She exclaimed as she unlocked the door. Everybody stood up and gathered their belongings as we all filed into the lab and found seats. Naturally our group sat at the same table, hoping by doing so the teacher would simply assign our table as one group.
I glanced around the room at all the different lab equipment occupying the shelves, many of which I'd never seen before. I had to do a double take as the chameleon that entered the room was now a less prominent shade of yellow, a calm blue tint slowly working its way up her scales.
"Alright class, now just to clarify I am not your actual teacher. I'm simply a teacher assistant. But that does not mean you'll receive any less teaching then you would from the actual professor, rest assured." She explained confidently. The blue tint was now a shade darker, displaying her new mood.
Definitely a good thing to learn so I know when the best time to ask a question would be I thought to myself.
"Now we won't be doing anything too crazy today, I'm just going to assign lab groups and have you all get acquainted with the equipment before you go." The chameleon exclaimed, still displaying the almost electric blue color.
"I hope you all like the people you're sitting with currently, because these will be your lab groups for the remainder of the semester. If you have any issues with this please see me after class and I will be glad to try to make arrangements. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves to break the ice while I do attendance." She finished. We all nodded and the room erupted in conversation.
"Sebastian Bateman!" The teacher called out, Bastian coming first because of his last name.
"Here." He said raising a paw.
"Glad we picked a table together, wouldn't have been fun being in the same class but not the same group." I stated, tail thumping against the metal stool I was currently sitting on. Sebastian across the table nodded.
"Definitely, I hope this assignment isn't too difficult. I can't imagine they would make us do anything too crazy without being somewhat familiar with the equipment first." He stated.
"Elijah Moore!" The teacher called out. I raised a paw to get her attention.
"Here." She nodded at me before moving down the list again.
"So how was everybody's first week?" Sebastian addressed us all.
"The classes are soooo boring but I love being on my own! Nobody to tell me what to do or when I can eat and no more mom telling me to do chores it's so great!" Kylee exclaimed excitedly.
"Kylee Jennings!" The teacher called out again.
"Here! Right here!" Kylee shouted excitedly, turning full body to face the teacher. My ears had flattened slightly and my tail stopped wagging as Kylee made mention of her mother. Sebastian leaned over to whisper something in Kylee's ear, her perky attitude evaporating and a horrified expression taking over her face.
"Oh my gosh Elijah I'm so sor-"
"It's fine. I shouldn't take it out on you guys. It wasn't your fault." I interrupted her, displaying my best pained smile. Vinesah next to me must have realized what was going on as I felt her long tail brush against mine. I sent a grateful glance her way who returned it with a reassuring smile.
"Vinesah Zimmer!" The teacher called out, Vinesah coming last.
"Here." She said quietly, raising a small white paw just above her head. The chameleon smiled at her before putting the clipboard down on her podium.
"Alright that's enough delaying! Let's get started shall we?" A green tint quickly became apparent across her scales as she began passing out papers to each group for the assignment.
"You should all have three different papers; one is the instructions for today's mini-lab, the second one is a group team paper, you each need to sign all of the papers, and the final one is the lab safety form. The second two need to be filled out by the end of class and turned in to me before you leave. Understood?" She prompted. A murmur of yes's filled the room as we all read over the papers.
"Okay! You should be able to understand the instructions for today's lab, if you have any questions feel free to ask me." She finished, sitting down at her desk to fill out some paperwork. We decided to get the other paper's out of the way first, passing each page around for all of us to sign. By the time my paper got back around, four distinct signatures were present on the page.
"We need a team name guys, any ideas?" I asked the table.
"We could be the sodium hypobromites?" Sebastian stated. We all looked at him crazily but when I put the letters together I groaned aloud and covered my face with a paw. I could hear Sebastian snicker and I heard another groan from Kylee as she got it as well.
"I think it's a good idea." The quiet voice of Vinesah spoke next to me.
"I guess it could work." I said hesitantly. We all jotted down the full name plus the acronym next to it in parenthesis. NaBrO. Jeez Sebastian... I groaned internally at the terrible play on words but it would serve for some good laughs later on.
All of a sudden I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Pulling it out I saw a message from Jasper on the front.
"Hey... I'm sorry if I freaked you out with the kiss and all, I'll understand if you don't want to talk to me." The message read. I sent a message back.
"Meet me out at the beach around 7, we need to talk." I replied. I listened in to the conversation between Kylee and Sebastian, although Kylee was doing most of the talking once again. My phone vibrated again and I read it.
"Okay, I'll be there." It read. Stuffing the phone back in my pocket I got everybody back on track.
"Alright guys we should probably get this experiment done. The faster we finish the faster we can leave." I explained. They all nodded and we set to work.
The assignment itself wasn't very difficult, we had to retrieve our designated lab basket in the back of the room and correctly identify each one of the items in the basket based on descriptions on the paper. Once done, we called the teacher to come check our work.
"That was very quick! Everything looks right, as soon as everyone else finishes you're free to go. Feel free to continue conversing amongst yourselves until then." She instructed, pleased with our work. Glancing at the clock, I realized that almost an hour had passed during the experiment.
"Did it really take us that long? That clock can't be right." I exclaimed. Sebastian glanced at his watch as well, reading the time 6:30 p.m.
"I thought we finished fairly quickly. Most of the groups are still working." He replied. I shrugged and Kylee launched herself into another conversation with Bastian, so I decided to talk to the shy chinchilla seated next to me.
"Whatcha thinking about?" I asked simply.
"Nothing really, just ready to get back to my room."
She stated. I nodded, "How is your roommate?" I questioned.
"She's pretty nice, but we don't talk much. She's always out doing stuff with her friends." She replied.
"How about you? Is your roommate nice?" She poked back. I felt the tips of my ears redden slightly at the question, trying to think of the best way to answer without revealing too much.
"He's great. He's super nice and stuff, couldn't have asked for a better roommate." I replied somewhat hesitantly. Her whiskers twitched at my response, but didn't pry further much to my relief.
"That's nice. Do you like all your classes?" She asked, changing the subject.
"Most of my classes are big lectures which are really boring, but yeah they aren't bad. You?" I turned the question back to her.
"Me too. I don't like all the people so I just try to sit in the back. Kind of hard to see though." She replied. I was glad to see her beginning to come out of her shell slightly, no longer tripping over her words.
"Yeah, my ears don't like all the noise in there." I chuckled lightly, getting a small smile out of her. My tail wagged behind me at the pleasant conversation, but it was short lived as the teacher retook her position at the front of the class.
"Alright, it looks like all of the groups are done, good job! One last reminder, next week we will be performing our first lab so be sure to bring your lab coats, goggles, and closed-toe shoes or you will not get to participate in the experiment! Don't want a zero on that report!" She paused before continuing.
"Be sure to drop your paper on my desk on your way out in two separate piles, and you're all free to go!" She finished. We all gathered up our belongings and waved goodbye as we all made our way out of the room and out of the building.
Kylee and Sebastian had to go in the opposite direction as Vinesah and I, so we both waved as we went our separate ways. We walked in silence back in the direction of the dormitory halls, the light breeze rushing through my fur causing me to shiver in enjoyment.
One perk of being a husky, cold weather just makes the world go 'round. Remembering the meeting I had to have with Jasper in a few minutes, I turned to the chinchilla walking beside me.
"I've got to go meet a friend by the beach, you know the rest of the way back right?" I asked her. She nodded in response.
"Yes, thank you so much for helping me out earlier." She replied. I nodded back and waved goodbye as I made a left turn towards the beach. It didn't take long to get there and as I approached the beach I was just able to make out the form of my roommate standing at the edge of the beach in the quickly approaching darkness, facing away from me. Taking a deep breath, I approached him from behind, making my presence known.
Alright hear me out guys before you tear my fur out for the cliffhanger... NO WAIT PLEASE NO I'M SORRY! *Goes down in pile of fuzz* OKAY OKAY I'M SORRY PLEASE! But yeah sorry for the cliffhanger, can't wait for Thursday to finish this scene! I hope you all enjoyed today's chapter and if you haven't had to the chance be sure to go check out the first chapter of my newest story, In My Time of Need! It could be something you're into, or it might not be, you'll never know if you don't try it! Anyways I'm out of here, I'll see you fuzzballs tomorrow! Bye! GUYS PLEASE NO MORE NOT THE FUR NOOOOOOO-