They watch him again. They don’t take their eyes off him. Annoying little monsters.

He wishes he could just step on them. Crush them. Like the little bugs they are. Like bugs who deserve to die.

Every night they perform their evil rituals. Unholy little beasts. The chants and whispers keep him awake. Distracted. But necessarily vigilant. Oh well, he has that to thank them for.

But oh the horror! The wickedness of their very presence. The rites that purge this sanctuary of all its goodness. This place is supposed to preserve all that was held sacred of the past, the present, and in the future, the future. Not stain it with these unholy beings!

He only wishes he had the power to oppose these little gods. These little devils masquerading as gods. To cast them into the fire they worship. Where they rightfully belong.

But every time he decides to face them, those stone cold grey eyes lock right on to him. They stop their corrupt ceremonies as they silently turn to glare at him accusingly. With their evil distorted dark faces. Monsters. Blank zombie-like expressions. No questions asked. Their eyes say it all.

You have a problem?

He disrupts their rituals. They know he is the blasphemer. The traitor. The one who will betray them. He knows that they know this. But they only silently watch with their stone cold grey eyes.

It’s a game of who makes the first move. Graciously they deliberately peeve him into considering the first move. No, he will not give in. If they can act all righteous, so can he.

After all, he is only a powerless sentry. A subordinate. He can only follow orders. His very job is to keep watch and maintain order. He cannot participate, he cannot rule, and he most definitely cannot oppose. Only watch. And obey. Helplessly.

His hands clutch at the pendant hanging at his neck. His last hope of remaining sane in the presence of these sinful wicked beings. He wears it like a talisman. He opens it and glances at the pictures of his two children – a boy and a girl – closes it and decides once more that he needs to send them to college one day.

“If you want to keep this job, don’t do anything stupid,” he speaks out loudly. To himself, of course. Staring at the statuettes with his watchful eyes. They just stare back.

“Yeah, just another night at the museum, move along now,” he tries to convince himself.

[a.k.a. Celestial Lessons 002, a stand-alone narrative]

Another morning. Another day. I have to face it. Face her.

As I walk slowly towards the bedroom – her bedroom – I curse myself silently, at my accelerating heartbeat. It was actually louder than my footsteps. She might’ve woken up already, because of that, if not for the smell of her favourite morning coffee, bacon and eggs in the air.

Maybe it was the coffee. Have to stop taking coffee before seeing her.

OFF LIMITS. Read the sign on her door. A warning to me, I feel. Every morning. Do I heed it?

I don’t even bother to knock anymore. She couldn’t care less anyway. College life does that to you, I guess. I turn the knob and enter into a mess of a world, her world, clothes and bags, all over the floor, books and bras…

And there she lay. On the bed. Made for a queen. Tangled up in a heap of pink blankets, sprawled like a lazy cat, thick blonde hair covering her face, bare long legs dangling off the edge…

Curses.

At least she could’ve worn some clothes.

“No…” she groans, groggily, through the golden mane hiding her beautiful face, muffling her soft, husky voice. “Please tell me it’s not time already.”

“I can’t lie to you,” I lie, “you’ve got a seminar presentation this morning.”

“You’d make a terrible roommate, Kieran,” she replies, slowly getting up, folding her lithe catlike body into a sitting position, hair magically parting, emerald green eyes shining through, right through me like a laser beam – I have a thing for piercing green peepers – blanket strategically covering all that was needed to be revealed.

It was just pure torture. Just watching her. Skin the colour of peach glistening in the sliver of the morning sun rays sneaking through the curtains. Such a celestial body. Even the sun wants to take a peek at her, to wake her up, to touch her. What more a lowly being like me?

“I wouldn’t be your roommate even if you begged me to,” I lie again.

She smiles ever so lightly. Another laser beam shot right through me. I think she knew.

“I would’ve stayed at my dorm, if everyone there wasn’t trying to brutally murder me,” she explains, in that groggy intoxicating half-whisper, threatening to rip me apart, and those bedroom eyes, threatening to incinerate me with their laser power.

More excuses. The things I have to put up with.

Calm down now. Breathe. Keep your distance. Stay detached.

“Once more, your breakfast is made ready by yours truly…” I say as she flashes another smile, a brilliant one this time, more brilliant than the sun. It was only gratitude. And I just lose the words, whatever it is I was saying just now.

Stop this. Now.

One last look – I always keep vowing to never look at her this way again – and keep breaking that vow, every morning – I turn my eyes away from her beautiful face, as I say, “Mom’s gone like a ghost again. To work, I think. I’m gonna have to rush off, too. Got a killer Physics exam.”

Turning, walking away from her door, I hear her soft voice fading off, “Good luck, brother…”

I wish she could just stop calling me that.

[Also see: Celestial Lessons 001]

He lies there. Flat on his back. A mere white sheet covering for his modesty. She runs her fingers through his hair. Then traces his manly jawline. Ever so lightly. Admiring his obviously Eurasian features.

She smiles. A serene, satisfied smile. Her natural pink lipgloss glistens as her lips stretch, revealing a row of pearly white teeth, as white as the shirt on her body, and the sheet on his.

She leans in, whispering to his right ear, “Oh, Takeshi… you are the epitome of perfection.”

He does not respond to her enticements. He doesn’t even reply. Just lies there quietly, eyes staring out coldly to the ceiling above them.

“Cold. Too cold,” she continues, feinting disappointment. “But at least you let me touch you.”

She straightens herself up, fingers now running down his bare chest. The smile lingers. He lets her take control, still unresponsive, still staring above into the nothingness.

She sighs, “Such a perfect body…”

The door behind opens. Michael walks in.

“Diana, what the Hell are you doing?” he demands. His eyes fall to the naked Eurasian lying on the table. “That’s Takeshi, isn’t it?!”

Diana quickly removes her gloved hands from the Eurasian’s bare chest, and grabs the scalpel.

“Alright then,” she says to the naked body, tone suddenly changed from seductive to innocently merry, “Let’s find out the cause of your death.”

It was unreal. Control. She controls. She was unreal. Celeste.

He felt her eyes on him. Burning through. Controlling him. His every move, his every action, his every word, or lack of it. Almost like she had him on remote control. Was she really doing this to him? Why? Was she making him do this? Like the way he would stay up late at night, alone in his room, dark, silent, staring at the ceiling, doing things boys his age shouldn’t be doing anymore. The guilt. The shame. Pathetic. Was it all because of her?

He looked upon her like his elder sister. But that would just be wrong. He always did feel strangely protective over her, even though she didn’t really need anyone’s protection, like he did with his sister. But no, not like a sister. She was much more than that. Beyond that. No, ‘sister’ was just wrong.

Her lips moved. The Universe moved with them. With her. Around her. Around him as well. With him sucked in. Like a black hole. Inescapable gravity.

And as her words flowed around him, and the others whose presence, or rather, existence he never noticed anymore, her casually brief glances would feel like intensely burning hair-thin lines of invisible deadly laser beams searing right through his body, his skull, his soul, his ribcage. Yes, that’s just how it felt. To be under her ‘surveillance’. Like an escaped convict running from the blinding spotlights that seemed to be chasing him one moment, then pass by without a care, until the next beam intercepted him.

But he didn’t really want to run from the deadly beautiful laser beams or confounding spotlights of those emerald green eyes.

So why couldn’t he face them? Her.

“Kieran?”

Oh, the softness of her voice. The sound of his name on her lips. The resonance of the vibrating sound waves, too soft to move quarks, but powerful enough to move galaxies, even send them crashing into each other. But so lacking in any real emotion. Like the winter breeze. Cool, deadly beautiful, and sending chills down his spine. How that felt, good or bad, he wasn’t sure. Just unreal.

She called my name? he blinked. She called my name!

She moved towards him. Like a comet. A shooting star. Shining brightly against the darkness of this cold, empty Universe.

Celeste.

Oh no.

She moved closer. Towards him. Or just his general direction, he suddenly hoped.

And with that bleak half-hearted hope, space-time seemed to suddenly distort. Seconds dilated into aeons. The far edges of the Universe around them seemed to come to a standstill. Sounds became as loud as a vacuum, and it didn’t make sense since sounds don’t exist in vacuums. Yet she still moved.

The comet Celeste still hovered towards him at her steady pace. Her long brown hair slightly lagging in the space-time vortex behind her. And then the comet came to an impossible stop. Right before him.

Towering high above him like a beautiful Angel of Death, she asked him, softly, “Are you all right?”

“Um…” he struggled to find the words, “y-yes, Cel– …Miss Samson.”

“Really?” she asked again, so soft almost mocking, so casual almost teasing, “Have you been following everything I said?”

There it was again. Control.

The shining star was now the overwhelming black hole crushing him to the tiniest worthless particle with its infinite mass. Again.

Kieran only nodded helplessly.

Celeste smiled. Like a beautiful predator. Again that subtle mocking. That which only he could perceive. “Good then. Kieran Pittman, define Planck’s constant to the rest of the class, please.”

Now he was seriously doomed.