Interlude

The return of the angel dreams wasn't as negative as the last time, but they were still unsettling for Jasmine as she couldn't figure out why she was having them. She had even tried steering her mind away from them proactively last night by thinking of dragons as she went to sleep.

Still, they came and left her pondering them as she brushed her teeth that morning and went through the rest of her morning routine. She only remembered her homework, classes, and that the judges would be showing up today for the art contest as she stood at the bus stop closest to her house in the neighborhood.

As the yellow behemoth of a vehicle rounded the corner and came to the stop, she greeted the bus driver with a nod of acknowledgement to their, "Good Morning," as she boarded. Finding a seat, she tossed her backpack up against the side closest to the window, unzipped it and thumbed through the folders she had for her various subjects, verifying that she hadn't left her homework behind.

By the time the school bus pulled up to the curb out front of the school, Jasmine had banished the thoughts about the dream from her mind. Disembarking the bus, she glanced at the number on the side of the bus that had followed them into the drop off zone.

It wasn't the one that Liliana would take, if she had chosen to ride the bus, so Jasmine headed to the double doors, following the stream of her fellow students who were also early arrivals.

Ever since that Monday, Jasmine had been catching herself checking for her friend's arrival for it wasn't a matter of if Alan would act up, but when and which of them would be the target.

Finding a seat on one of the attached benches at the long tables within the cafeteria, she retrieved her sketchbook from her bag along with a felt-tipped pen that she favored for inking her sketches. She flipped through the pages to find the kimono girl and began killing time, carefully tracing lines and erasing stray chicken scratch pencil marks so she could photocopy it for her friend.

Liliana found her and after a short exchange, they headed down the long hall that branched away from the cafeteria to find their classrooms.

In between breaks in classes, free time after a quiz in one of her morning classes and pretending to take notes while teachers lectured, Jasmine managed to finish inking the sketch by lunchtime. So, her first stop after hearing the lunch bell, was the library to visit the photocopier there.

She ran off two copies. One for her to give to Liliana at lunch and the other to hold onto for in case her friend asks for another copy.

Liliana wasn't exactly good at keeping track of paperwork.

As she left the library, she passed the doors to the room the school had chosen to hold the gallery at and noticed that one of the doors was open. Inside, she could see the school counselor along with another teacher and a couple of adults she didn't recognize. 'The judges,' she guessed.

They walked around carrying clipboards and would stop in front of each piece, check something off on what she assumed was a list, then continue. Although she was interested in knowing what the results would be, Jasmine knew that she shouldn't loiter at the door, thus continued her way towards the cafeteria.

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In the cafeteria, Liliana was being her usual self and played the role of a minor social butterfly. Flipping back some of the long blonde curls of her hair that had fallen towards her face as she returned to her seat at the long table, she listened in to the few classmates who tended to sit with her at the table.

She was aware of the thoughts and opinions her peers held for her. It wasn't that she was stupid. The truth of the matter was nearly the opposite.

Liliana Kane had been born with a gift and this gift was the secret she guarded the most. She had a form of extrasensory perception (ESP) that tended to be more of a distraction than a boon, for she had to exert a great amount of mental energy to stay in control enough to hide it. The gift, which she viewed as a curse, was a form of precognition.

Most people would see an ability to glimpse into the future as an easy way to get whatever they want. Want to be rich? Just look to the future for the winning numbers of the lotto! Want power? Respond appropriately to the future opportunities revealed and climb up!

Thus, people could be split into two major groups. The users and abusers being the first, who would believe and seek such abilities to serve their interests. The second group were the dissenters and non-believers who would regularly call any type of fortune-telling as a scam and on occasion, would seek to harm such businesses or the ability users, themselves.

The only saving grace for Liliana was that the ability didn't really wake until she was in pre-school, and the first time she referred to a vision, it was discounted by bother her peers and the adults around her. So, statements like, "You are going to get hurt," and "You are going to be sick," were played off as just a warning from a peer who was speaking on the principles of cause and effect.

It took just a few times of her peers arguing back at her as well as their claims that she cursed them that had caused her stop mentioning them. Afterall, at that age, she wasn't sure if they were right and that she was unknowingly cursing them by making a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This was when the gift was first awakening. Now, it was another matter entirely!

For as it grew stronger, she would perceive that there were more options and came to understand that there was no fixed path. Divining the future was a practice of measuring the sheer amount of options a person had at any given point in time and the statistical possibility that they would make every turn or choice necessary to arrive at that destination.

It was like looking at a tree and standing on the trunk. Some branches were closer, while others were distant. You could choose to go out on a limb, but then there would be several splits off from that branch with some being a dead end.

However, Liliana's gift was sporadic and nearly uncontrollable. It wasn't one where she could pick and choose what she saw, so there was no way to direct it. Nearly every meeting of a person would trigger a glimpse of one of the infinitesimal possible futures of anyone in the vicinity! Her brain would be overloaded, constantly by inane data that was more often irrelevant than relevant!

This was the challenge. Suppressing those mini-visions and still having the energy to focus on studies, thus her scatter-brained appearance was the result. Her borderline passing of classes through the years was also a result of this constant internal battle.

However, Liliana had found a sanctuary in this chaotic space within Jasmine. This led her to being blindsided a few times over the years she had known her friend, because it seemed that every event that Jasmine was involved with, was a surprise.

Jasmine just never appeared in the predicted possibilities. It was curious and sometimes frustrating, but Liliana couldn't get upset with Jasmine for the anomaly in her ability. Instead, it provided a little bit of normalcy and excitement to Liliana's life, so she chose to keep this friend around her as it made her curious as to what the future had in store for Jasmine.

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The cafeteria was noisy with the chatter of students and faculty alike, which made Jasmine regret leaving the peace of the library, but she still needed to hand off the copy of the sketch to her friend. Liliana happily received it and chatted with the classmates that she was acquainted with at the lunch table while Jasmine joined the line to get some food.

The cafeteria's food was far from being able to compare to any decent restaurant, but they at least provided options for those who didn't bring anything from home for lunch. Jasmine accepted her tray and paid for the few choices she had made in the line and joined her friend in time to listen to the other's complain about a quiz in a subject that she hadn't gotten to yet.

Using this bit of forewarning, she pulled out the relevant textbook and skimmed over the material they mentioned was on the quiz. At the end of the lunch period, Liliana handed back the homework she had borrowed from Jasmine, which she put away along with the textbook and they headed to class.

The afternoon classes were predictable. Jasmine and Liliana took the quiz that they had heard about at lunch, turned in their homework assignments to the respective classes, and reached the end of the day school bell without issue. Splitting up at where the school buses picked up passengers, they parted ways to go home.

Other than the anticipated question about homework from Krystal, which Jasmine got to answer no, time passed quietly for her once she got to her room. She spent this time coloring in the second copy of the sketch after deciding that she could just run off another copy for Liliana, if needed.

Dinner came and with just her father and sister present, there was nothing remarkable to the meal or the discussion at the table. So, she was able to bathe and get ready for bed a little earlier.

The whole day was like the calm before the storm.