Lepta was walking home, humming a peaceful tune. The sky was bright, birds silent as skulls and Lepta cheerful as a capybara, despite the rising feeling of melancholy she’d been feeling since the morning. Of course, as she always was on her walk home she was talking to her bestie, Gems.
“Guuuurl no… you’re joking, right?” Lepta asked.
Nuhuh, Alex reeeally said that! Little punk Gems said over the phone, whispering the last part.
“Soooooo how are things with Brian?” oh you wouldn’t believe this…
As they continued to chat about Gems’s interests, cars and other pedestrians passed right by Lepta. She failed to stop the strange feeling of melancholy from making her think when she and Gems met.
*
It was the first day of 4th Grade and Lepta already knew that she was the best. Her mom said so afterall; it must be true. A little girl she didn’t even recognize walked into class, she was rather distinct: about Lepta’s height—short—had dark, straight, burnet hair, barely not black; pretty, green sneakers; little blue jeans; a green shirt; and green backpack. Lepta used her smarts to figure the girl liked green, and thus mentally dubbed her Green-Lover.
The girl got in line waiting for her to be assigned a seat. Lepta idly watched the girl’s progress towards the teacher. Wow, she has nice hair. Lepta thought and decided to try to draw the girl, while waiting for class to start. After Lepta sketched the general shape of Green-Lover she noticed the teacher pointing at her-wait, Ms. Smith isn’t pointing at me but my table.
After this world-shaking realization that she wasn’t the center of every conversation, Lepta realized that Green-Lover was the one Ms. Smith was directing to her table. She watched Green-Lover approach with mild apprehension while mentally chanting: don’t be weird, don’t be weird, don’t be weird…
*
…Lepy… Lepradoor… oh the mightyist of all Leprions… Lepta? Hello—Lepta is ripped out of her memory by the sound of Gem’s voice—Leptaaaa?
“Oh sorry, got distracted, what were you saying?”
ohhhh ‘distracted’ ay? So who is he? Actually that’s a dumb question; I know, did he say yes?
Somehow even through the phone Lepta could tell Gems was winking.
“The sandman–I was just daydreaming; unlike some of us, I don’t only think of dudes. Also I haven’t asked yet. Something just didn’t feel right today.”
Well at least I’m not some sick freak who loves staring at screens while a number slowly goes up.
“I’ll let you know, there are more than one numbers going up when I play.”
Liar; remember when you forced me to play ACL—”ADO” Lepta helpfully interrupted, but Gems didn’t even pause—or whatever, there was one number going up the entire time—my boredom!
“We didn’t even finish the tutorial.” Lepta said, walking past a parking garage. “We didn’t even get to the point that we could level up!”
Says the one who likes Loading Bar Simulator.
“Wha-”
**
Gems jerked the shrieking phone away from her ear. “Ow, Lepta! What happened?” The only response was silence, or so Gems thought at first. But as time passed and she held her breath, she was able to hear something–faint screaming.
“Lepta, this isn’t funny. What happened?!” Faint screaming, then the automated voice of the call being cut off unexpectedly. “Lepta…?”
Gems quickly grabbed her coat James gave her, paused then grabbed the hand gun Lucas got her. She carefully hid it with the holster he also got her, and tucked it away. Sometimes she wondered what Lucas was thinking when giving a loaded hand gun to a 13 year old, and how he did it, especially considering he, himself, was also only 13 at the time. But right now she didn’t really care about the how or why and just wanted to make sure that if Lepta was kidnapped she could… like shoot the kidnapper or something.
Gems decided to forgo her boots since there wasn’t that much snow outside and her current slip-ons should do fine enough. Gems ran outside. She knew the general area Lepta was in when the call ended considering how many times she’d walked to Lepta’s home from school, and how long it had been since the end of school. She didn’t even make it halfway before the phone calls started.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
She ignored the first call, focused on her task. But after the third time, she got concerned. After the fifth one, she knew something was wrong. While running she grabbed her phone and answered it.
Gems! Did you hear what happened to Lepta?
Gems’s heart dropped, “what?” Somehow she knew already, she just didn’t want to believe it.
She died. A flipping truck crushed her. Apparently the bus driver also died.
*
A week later, Gems was at her best friend’s funeral preparing herself to give the remembrance speech for Lepta. Listening to Lepta’s mother, Tyche, talk about her daughter’s first steps, first video game, scholarly acumen, and countless other kind memories, Gems started crying. She was far from the only one; Lepta was widely liked by all her cousins both younger and older. Additionally despite being an introvert, she still had close—and not so close—friends. And even Jorn. Jorn and Lepta had been dancing around each other nearly as long as Gems knew her. Despite all the time they had spent dancing around each other, Lepta told Gems that she was finally gonna bite the bullet and ask him to prom. Even from five iles away Gems could hear his distinctive sobs, Lepta once described it like a blender with hiccups. Gems got hiccups from trying and failing to repress her tears.
Finally Tyche finished reminiscing her memories of her daughter, and walked off the stage, replaced by her husband. She walked over to her seat next to Gems and sat down. “You don’t have to share. But if you still want to, you’d go after Hector.” She said limply gesturing towards her husband on stage, before seeming to curl in on herself. She seemed so much larger on the stage, but she was just a mother who lost her daughter.
Gems nodded, fearing that speaking right now would use all the motivation she built up to talk about her best friend.
Gems and Tyche watched Lepta’s Stepdad talk about his time, if brief, with Lepta. Until he ended his speech, and went to comfort his wife.
Tyche put her hand on Gems shoulder and said “you really don’t have to do this. Are you sure?”
Gems nodded again and walked towards the stage. Trying to mentally prepare herself beyond what she’d already done. At last, with a deep breath she started. “I still remember when I first met Lepta; it was sixth grade right after I moved here…”
*
Gems walked into class, saw the line of students waiting for their seat to be assigned, and joined in. After a short wait she got to the teacher’s desk. Mrs. Smith introduced herself and told Gems to go sit at a table with one other girl—”I still remember what she looked like; she wore an epileptic assortment of colors: a bright green t-shirt, blue jeans, and mismatched socks. The thing I remember most of all was her gloves. She was the only one in the class to wear gloves. At first I thought the gloves were archery gloves, but I quickly realized that they weren’t archery gloves. Archery gloves protect your index and middle finger from the sharp bow string. L-...Lepta’s gloves were artists gloves, they protect paper and drawings from the oils and sweat of your pinky and ring fingers. This shows her personality, perfectly; she never wants-wanted to leave any stain on the world or others. She showed up to school, did the minimum in both school work and socializing. That was unless someone needed help; she was always willing to help others.”—As Gems walked to the table the girl looked at Gems like a gazelle waiting to bolt.
*
Gems felt her heart rising to block her throat and decided to end the speech early. “We should all strive to be as pleasant and caring as Lepta is-…was.” The rest of the funeral was a blur; all Gems remembered afterwards was a blur and crying herself to sleep, just the night before, and the night before that, and for that matter every night since Lepta’s death. And she cried herself to sleep the next day, and the day after that. She cried herself to sleep for the following months. But eventually she started to learn to get over the grief. A year later she still cried herself to sleep every once a while, but rarely.
**
Lepta heard a scraping sound and looked up at the parking garage. There was a truck falling bumper-first towards her. All she had time to do was throw her hands up and ask the universe “wha-” she got crushed. “-t the eff!”
“Greetings mortal!” A booming voice resonated through the air. Some part of Lepta took note of the fact that all other sounds stopped and the way the voice bounced around like she was in a building. The other part fell while screaming, and clutching her ears.
“Seriously Grem, why did you go and scare the mortal?” A notably more feminine, quieter, and pleasant voice chimed through the air.
“I did no such thing! I just said-” Before the voice could defend itself any further the friendly voice cut-in “Grem, quiet! Before you cause more harm to the mortal.” Good thing too; Lepta was barely coherent, deafening screams failing to deafen the godly voice.
“It’s not my fault you didn’t give her a protection ward.” The godly voice argued, quieter than before.
“You didn’t give me any time you numbskull.” Said the Hera-like voice. Lepta suddenly felt a wave of relief go through her body; the world no longer felt like it was collapsing upon her. “There we go, she shouldn’t die now. Hello mortal, I am Glem, the goddess of Lintle.”
The mail voice cut in “and I am Grem, the god of Lintle.”
Lepta finally opened her eyes and stared at the Duo. They were faint silhouettes in–and completely surrounded by–light. She asked the most pertinent question to her right then: “am I dead!?”
“No…Yes…not really; we retrieved your soul.” The goddess said.
“Why?” Lepta asked, a little hesitant about questioning a goddess now that she had the time to register that their voice was strong enough to debilitate her.
“We need your help; disgusting demons plague our world. Due to your soul's passage to this realm we can give you powers we can’t give to our people.”
“...” Lepta remained silent. She was afraid; she got crushed by a car, crushed by a god’s voice, and on top of that gods kidnapped her. She fought down her fear to ask one last question. “What happened to my family and friends?”
The goddess looked confused for a moment, before realization bloomed across her face. “Oh don’t worry, we removed you from your timeline. It’s like you never existed. Your family and friends don’t remember you at all. Now let's get you ready.” The goddess smiled the most benevolent smile Lepta had ever seen.
**
Gems looked at the calendar, sighed and grabbed her keys. It had been twenty years since her best friend died; she’d moved on, for the most part. She got new friends. She knew it was stupid and sentimental like her mother always told her—or at least tried now that Gems got that restraining order on her—but even after twenty years she still cried and left flowers on her friend’s grave.
