▷ seventh wonder

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kalon tryout by tonks, please do not post
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❝ when ra, the greatest of the gods, was created, his father had given him a secret name,
so awful that no man dared to seek for it, and so pregnant with power that all the gods
desired to know and possess it too — ❞
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moodboard
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❝ i've lost myself and i can't find the way back — ❞

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▷ what's your name?...seven......▷ what is your preferred gender?...female......▷ how old are you?...i-i don't really know......
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seven is one of few living individuals who has successfully survived a procedure commonly known as the kakudai
experiment. the experiment was originally meant to be performed on soldiers of war and when survived, gives the
subject the ability to expand the limits of their mind, body and soul. the price of such abilities was the loss of all previous
memories, and often, soldiers would be declared clinically insane and institutionalized. those who hadn't lost themselves to
psychosis were rewarded with almost-limitless physical strength and the ability to execute flawless enchantments. often,
the talent could be augmented by runes, etchings that could be carved into the skin. each rune was unique to it's user
and the bigger the rune, the bigger the power.

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one... ────────────────────────────────────────────────

“she’s gaining consciousness, you better move fast or she’s gonna start screaming”.

something dry prods against her face, separating her eyelids.

“their eyes always do that, right?”

her vision is blurred, there’s pressure on her left eye. urk

“if i can just— “
“leave it in, we don’t have enough time”
“it’s not too late. hold her down”

a blurred shape forms itself in the right side of her vision. it smells oddly of rubbing alcohol and stale cotton. “seven, can you hear me?”

slurred, she reaches up to her face, to brush away whatever is pressing there.

“get her— “, clammy fingers clamp down around her wrists, bringing them back down to her side. something cold clicks around them. handcuffs? “seven, it’s important that you don’t touch your face.”

“why is she conscious?”
“i don’t know”
“you messed something up”
“no, i didn’t. give me that”

something rustles to the left. she shivers, hnng

“stop moving.” a puff of breath in her ear, hot and intimate. “there’s a needle in your eye, don’t move.”

she doesn’t move. something electric starts trilling above her head.

“ahh, crap. crap!”
“what?”
“they’re here.”
“already? that can’t be right, check again”
“it says it right here! we have to go!”
“i’m already in”
“you can’t do it while she’s conscious, you’ll kill her.”
“i probably won’t.”

she tries to wiggle, “ph— lease do— on’t kill mee”

“you can’t do it while she’s conscious, and she’s probably not even the right girl.”
“if you’re just going to sit there and be a pain in my neck, then move over”

she groans weakly, “i... have to... sn... eeze.”

“sneezing would be a terrible idea at this point, seven.” a weight settles on her pelvis and her vision darkens as her eye shifts painfully in the socket. “seven, this might hurt, a lot”

something clicks, followed by a high pitched electric whine. a cold metallic rim is set against her forehead and a needle drives into her brain. she lets out a shriek.

“you — you’re toasting her!”
“you’re okay, seven. you’re fine”
“she’s — ahh that’s nasty. she’s bleeding from her eye.”
“shut your mouth before i shut it for you. seven, you need to listen to me very, very carefully.”

nooo no no—

“i’m implanting a small tracking device into your brain, so you might have issues retaining your past memories, but we’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”
“they’re inside the building, we need to go, now.”
“alright, alright” the room became quiet, “i’m done.”

the pressure on her forehead subsides and the cuffs around her wrists fell loudly to the floor.

“we need to wash the blood out of her hair” a rush of water and someone was assaulting her face with soggy paper towels. “good lord, her eyes look terrible.”

“if they get close enough to see her eyes, we have bigger problems” fingers prodded at her eyelids again, forcing them to open. “seven, can you walk?”

she groaned, “nnhhgf”. it didn’t come out at all like she wanted, her head felt like it could roll off her neck if she didn’t concentrate on keeping it there.

“good, i’ll take that as a yes” the person’s hands clamp down on her biceps and jerkingly haul her up to her feet. “so, seven, here’s the deal. i need to get you out of here in minimum time with minimum fuss, and i want your complete cooperation. if i don’t get it, i’ll make things worse for you than they already are. not because i have anything personally against you, i just need you correctly motivated. understand?”

she nods her head, which she quickly discovers is a bad idea, because the walls start to swirl and the taste of bile rises in her mouth. she topples over, head hitting a metal counter on the way down, the world letting way to darkness.

[ 651 words ]

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[kipin]

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two... ────────────────────────────────────────────────

“could you try not to hit every pothole we come across?”
“it’s a dirt road, i don’t really know what you expect me to do.”

she feels hungover. her head is fuzzy and her mouth seems as though it has been stuffed with cotton. small blurry patches of golden light shine into her pupils through what she assumes are tinted windows of a car. her neck is bent at an uncomfortable angle, her torso facing upward while her legs are twisted to the side, like she had been haphazardly thrown like a sack of potatoes. she tries to separate her arms from where they’re cramped beneath her body, but they fall short of anything that could be considered movement. a sticky surface pulls crudely at the small hairs on her arms, causing them to sting. duct tape. she can’t tell if it’s an upgrade from the handcuffs or not.

she rolls over —which proves exceptionally difficult in light of the tape constricting her arms —and sits up, hitting her head on the low ceiling of the hatch-back. her whole body is stiff and she can tell she’ll be sore for at least a few days, especially her neck, which aches with the worst crick she’s ever had. she lets out a muffled groan through… a cloth gag. wonderful.

“i think she’s awake”
“i know, i can hear her grumbling”
“should i sedate her?”
“no, we’re almost there.”

she tries to scream, nothing but a pathetic gargle escaping the confines of the gag.

“scream all you want seven, nobody is gonna hear you out here”.

“mmfph”, she sits back against the vibrating plastic wall of the trunk, whimpering in defeat. her head tilts to the side, giving her a view of the cloud of dust developing in the wake of the car’s tires on the dirt road. the landscape that passes in the back window of the car is flat, which means that they’re probably miles from any form of significant civilization. she sighs and closes her eyes, her head still feeling as foggy as ever. she hears squeaking metal and crunching gravel and after a long burst of silence—

“seven, wake up”

she opens her eyes and turns her head towards the voice, towards a man who has opened the hatchback. he seems familiar but she can’t quite place her finger on where she had seen him before, if at all.

“atende quiarei latheo. turn around”

she obeys, pivoting so the back of her body is facing the man, which seems odd to her. they had gagged her, tied her up and thrown her in the back of their crappy car, shouldn’t she be fighting back and trying to escape? the tape around her arms is peeled away and the gag that had been ruthlessly rubbing itself against her cheeks falls slack and drops to the carpeted floor of the car. she turns back around, the skin on her shins being rubbed uncomfotably. the man holds out a hand which she gladly takes and uses to steer herself out of the car. she dusts off her pants and straightens, finally getting a good look at the man standing beside her.

his skin is dark and his short hair a shade of ebony. he looks relatively normal, as far as she could tell. well, almost. she hadn’t noticed until she really looked, but his eyes are a dark glowing crimson, and the thin red lines of what she assumed is a tattoo covertly peek out of the crisp collar of his shirt.

“are you okay?”

she gives a lethargic nod, not really taking the time to actually think about how she feels. she looks down at her feet, bare and pale against the dark cobblestone that paves the driveway. the cool texture would have felt satisfying against the soft pads of her heels if a small pebble hadn’t been trying to painfully merge itself with the arch of her foot. she didn’t move, her brain didn’t seem to have the capacity to command her body to do so.

“sorry about the gag and the tape,” the man clicks the hatchback closed, “it was only a precautionary measure, nothing personal. usually by the time subjects wake up they’ve forgotten the procedure and start to go mad. oddly enough, you stayed calm.” he wipes his hands on his pants, leaving small dusty prints on the grey material. “seven, can you walk?”

she’s still looking at the ground, transfixed by a small cluster of pebbles that resembles a human face.

“seven.”

she looks up and nods absently. she felt like a passenger in her own mind, like someone else had taken control. her brain felt like jelly; everything was blurry but her vision seemed clearer than it had ever been. the man smiled and lightly latched his hand around her bicep, uprooting her from the driveway.

he lead her down a long path that sprouted from the driveway, “you’re probably wondering why you’re here, so i’ll fill you in on a few things while we walk.” he continued to walk as he looked up into the sky. the constellations were scattered in the murky abyss like they had been dropped and forgotten. “our original headmistress founded the academy in 1874 as a haven for those who were gifted with the ability to practice magic, which they called devilry at the time”, he laughs airily at the term like a joke, “the academy and its history has been passed down through the generations and fell into the capable hands of our current headmistress, alice marx.”

the man stops talking, whether to catch his breath or to let her process the new information, she isn’t sure. she hummed, urging him to continue.

“they’ll explain everything inside but basically, you’ll be tested and analyzed and if your forms are approved, you’ll be branded and enrolled into the academy and if you’d like, you can pick a name,” he extends a hand, “i’m finn, by the way.” she shakes the hand he’s offered, noticing that even though it’s calloused, it’s warm and welcoming. he points upwards towards something in the distance, “that’s where you’ll be staying”.

seven’s eyes follow to where she assumes he’s pointing, to an enormous victorian-esque building she can safely assume is the so-called ‘academy’.

[ 1,050 words ]

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three... ────────────────────────────────────────────────

finn leads her through winding halls before halting abruptly in front of a set of large, polished mahogany doors, and pulls an enormous ring of keys from one of the pockets in his slacks. after searching though the keys, he seems to find the one he needs and inserts one into the brass lock laying low on the door. he turns the key until he’s rewarded with a small click.

he pushes the door open and turns to seven, smiling. “this is your room”.

she follows him and stops just inside the doorway, the cold of the wood-paneled floor seeping into the bottoms of her feet. “woah”, the murmur reverberates off the high ceilings and finn laughs. the room is enormous, a black king-sized bed has been pushed against one wall while the opposite is occupied by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. there’s an open window on the farthest wall, a soft evening breeze flowing through the thin screen that separates the room from the outside.

seven walks towards the window, peering outside into an empty courtyard, a large fountain bubbling soothingly in the middle. she plops down on the soft mattress and looks towards the shelves that hold what seems like thousands of books. she sighs and looks toward finn, “is there a bathroom in here? i feel like a sewer rat”

he chuckles, nodding his head, “of course”, he points towards a door that’s being dwarfed by the book cases, “you’ll find everything you need in there. speaking of, is there anything else i can get you before i leave you to yourself for the night?”

seven pauses on her way to the bathroom, “yea, actually. is there anything to eat here? i’ve been hungry since i got shoved into the trunk of that stuffy car.”

finn grins, “i’ll have one of the waitresses bring you something to eat”, he waves a brief goodbye and quietly shuts the door.

seven resumes her journey into the bathroom that, not to her surprise, is colossal as well. it doesn’t take her long to hop into the shower, vigorously scrubbing the grime from her skin and combing large globs of shampoo and conditioner through her hair. after an hour she’s finally clean and the large mirror that hangs above the sink has been fogged over. her skin feels raw but she doesn’t care.

she rubs her palm against the slick surface of the mirror, finally getting a good look at herself, but the face that stares back in the reflection is one she doesn’t remember. her dark skin has a tinge of green that is almost sickly, the bangs hanging above her eyes are uneven and stick to her forehead. and her eyes, god her eyes. her irises are a dull lime green and her pupils —if you could call them that— are oddly rectangular. they seem to resemble something familiar, but her brain doesn’t have the energy to conjure the memory.

there’s a small pile of neatly folded clothes on the corner of the counter, complete with a black sweatshirt, a pair of cotton shorts and necessary undergarments. after donning the oversized sweatshirt, seven ambles out of the bathroom and into the significantly cooler air of the main bedroom. lightly shivering, she moves towards the window, looking out for the last time before sliding the open pane shut.

after the temperature has noticeably heightened, she looks around the room, realizing for the first time that there’s a small coffee table at the foot of the bed. on it sits a covered plate, a pink post-it note stuck to the side.

seven, had them whip you up something special for your first day! welcome to our academy. -finn

she smiles and plucks the note from where it had been placed, folding it and tucking it into the pocket of the cotton shorts. her attention back on the supposed ‘something special’, she removes the lid from the plate. a small puff of steam curls into the air and dissipates, the smell of cooked meat lingering in her nose. on the plate, there’s a large steak gushing with brine, accompanied by a baked potato and some type of fancy steamed vegetable she can’t identify.

she finishes the meal and scavenges the bathroom for a toothbrush, only coming up with a small capsule, which she hopes is a toothpaste tablet.

seven’s stomach is full and a creamy haze begins to descend on her brain. she settles down onto the soft mattress, the black silk sheets are like heaven on the skin that she’s sure will be sporting bruises tomorrow. she doesn’t remember the last time she felt this good. but, honestly —

does she really remember anything?

[ 780 words ]

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four... ────────────────────────────────────────────────

seven wakes up with sore joints and an unbelievably dry throat. she sits up. the large room is being flooded with a soft orange glow, the thick scarlet curtains still framing the large double-paned window. she looks around, memories of the previous hours streaming back into her mind. the plate that formerly housed her dinner sits empty on the edge of the coffee table at the end of the bed, and as she plants her feet on the floor, her skin is welcomed by a damp pile of fabric. she looks down in dismay and picks up the towel, only to throw it to the ground again.

she stands up and bends over backwards, joints popping as they twist and shift after several hours of being still. “urghh”, she groans and pops her knuckles, a force of —habit?

she finally manages to grumble into the bathroom. “holy”, she combs her fingers through her hair, a knotted mass stopping them before they make it all the way through. she hadn’t noticed it before, but there’s a crusted path of drool trailing it’s way down her chin. she cringes and grabs a small washcloth sitting on the marble counter, soaking it in the water of the faucet and wiping the dried saliva away.

once she has successfully tamed the wild beast that is currently taking form as her hair, she ventures her way back into the main bedroom, seeing that a small indigo envelope has been pushed through the small crack under the door. she picks it up and carefully peels it open, extracting the delicate piece of stationery. the lettering is gold and glittery —official.

.....seven, as a test of your magical aptitude, we wish for you to attend the official evaluations, and if you succeed in proving your talent in the subject, your tuition, food and boarding will be fully paid for. you have been scouted exclusively for your previously examined ability, we hope you don’t let us down.

signed,



a small slip of white paper has been attached to the inside of the envelope, on it a list of small golden numbers that seven assumes are times the so-called testing is being held. she places the small pile of stationery on the coffee table and moves towards what looks like a small dresser in the corner of the room. she slides open the top drawer and rifles through the mess of random garments. finally, she settles on a reasonable pair of dark blue jeans and a red sweater which, weirdly, fit her perfectly.

after wandering through the halls for close to twenty minutes, seven finally accepts that she is, in fact, lost. she turns a corner and spots another person. “hey”, she yells, probably startling the small boy. he turns, eyes wide as saucers, strawberry blonde hair whipping his forehead as it follows the momentum of his body. he can’t be older than eleven or twelve based on his build and the way his cheeks still hold a small bit of baby fat.

“ah, you startled me”, the boy theatrically clutches at his chest ,”you’re the new girl aren’t you? you still go by seven, correct?”

“yeah, that’s me. how do you already know who i am? i got here last night.”

“you’re seen as a prodigy here since your abilities were otherworldly even before you were administered the kakudai. i can see why our headmistress has placed interest in you”.

seven doesn’t know what kind of gibberish the boy is spilling, “all that aside, do you know the way to the…”, seven looks down at the white slip she detached from the inside of the envelope and furrows her brows, “e-examination chamber”.

the boy nods, “sounds a bit creepy, doesn’t it? but yes, i know where it is. we all go through testing before we get here, though it’s strange you have to as well, considering your past experience”. the boy holds up a finger and unlocks the door he had been standing by, ducks in for a few seconds and returns cradling a large textbook in his arms. “alright, i can take you there,” he looks down at his wrist to the face of a small watch, “i’ve got some time before my experimental psych lecture”.

the boy, who introduces himself as noah, leads her out of the large dorm building and through the courtyard she had been observing the previous night, the fountain still bubbles pleasantly in the center of the paved circle. small cafe tables had been scattered about the lawn, some occupied by other students flipping through thick, yellowed textbooks or sipping from glasses filled with tinkling ice and lemonade. the atmosphere of the courtyard could only be described as serene; she admits the delicate tingle of wind chimes is a nice touch.

across the courtyard lies a smaller building, and once seven crosses the courtyard and steps through the doors, she can tell it was constructed recently. behind her, noah faintly clicks the door shut and taps her on the shoulder, “i’ll sign you in before i leave, my class starts in five minutes and it’s halfway across the campus”. he walks over to the desk in the corner, where a stout woman passes him a clipboard. he hastily scribbles on it and turns to seven, “how old are you?”.

she hesitates, “i-i don’t really know, actually”.

noah gives her a quizzical look and turns back around, muttering a minuscule okay as he hands the clipboard back to the woman. he starts walking towards the entrance, “i’ll be off, can’t afford to be tardy”, he smiles and pushes the door open, bidding seven a quick goodbye before sprinting off in a different direction.

seven sits herself on a worn leather couch cushion and waits patiently, bouncing her knee until the woman behind the desk calls out a crisp, “seven?”

[ 978 words ]

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[kipin]

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five... ────────────────────────────────────────────────

the stout woman opens the door to a testing room and waits for seven to walk in on her own. the room is painted a dull grey and a small school desk has been placed in the middle of the concrete floor. the woman gestures for seven to sit, so she does. the desk is facing a large mirror, but her intuition tells her it’s a two-way; she’s being watched. the woman leaves momentarily, then returns with a television trolley in tow. she wheels the cart a few feet from seven’s face and pulls a notepad and pencil from the bottom rack, setting them lightly on the desk’s top.

she clicks a small button on the tv and it whirrs to life. “we will be examining your level of focus, concentration, and natural magical aptitude. you will be shown a series of videos that consist of rapidly changing images. one of the images will be a type of food unique to each video. all you need to worry yourself with is writing down the correct name of the food. there are numbers on your paper that will correspond to the numbers shown before each video. so please make sure you are writing the answer in the correct spot.” the woman turns and walks through the doorway, flipping off the light switch and closing the door behind her, leaving seven in dark confusion.

the tv screen turns from black and white static to a number one. seven looks down at the notebook, the numbers one through four are listed vertically down the page. a man’s monotone voice sprouts from the television’s small speakers, “begin series 1-1”.

the screen turns black for a mere second, then a jumble of images flashes by. “end of series 1-1”. right as they began, the images were gone, and seven was left with an empty mind and a blank page. she tries to think back to the images. what had she seen?

a scarecrow. a hot air balloon. a pair of red rubber boots. a chicken. a boat. an egg?

she isn’t sure about the egg. the images had flown by her pupils so fast that she wasn’t sure about any of them.

screw it, she writes under the number one, EGG. she sits back in her chair, thinking, waiting.

the same monotone voice comes from the tv again, “begin series 1-2”.

seven sits up, eyes on the television’s screen. she would get it, for sure this time. the images flash by again, and identical to the first series, they were gone as fast as they had came.

a pouring waterfall. a black cat. a green meadow. a white, fluffy cloud. a banana?

she scribbles down under the number two, BANANA.

it wasn’t good enough. she needed a sure way to see the image. she scavenged her brain, for anything that would help, but came up empty. the voice, “begin series 1-3”.

right as the screen turned black, she felt like her brain had been switched on autopilot. her eyes started to slide closed and she mumbled under her breath, subconsciously, “supreso temporis”. she looks back up to the black screen, thinking she had missed the images.

crap, she looks down at the paper, then back up, to —a picture of a child running? the image slowly shifts to another picture, this time of a beach.

[/i]the images are slowed down?[/i]

she’s sure about the pictures this time. a gigantic willow. a dog catching a frisbee. a woman holding a cup of steaming cocoa. then, finally in the mess of images, a cheeseburger.

in a deeply slurred voice, “end series 1-3” it sounds quite funny.

she excitedly scribbles under number three, CHEESEBURGER.

the next sequence rolls slowly by, she sees a carrot uprooted from fresh dirt and scribbles it down in the fourth empty space on the page. her brain slips into that creamy haze again and she absentmindedly whispers, “prophiere”. the woman from before enters the room and flips the light switch. seven squints into the light, eyes burning as they slowly adjust. the woman walks over to the desk and gathers the notebook and pencil, stacking them in a neat pile in the crook of her elbow.

the woman smiles and gestures to seven, “come with me, darling”. she leads her from the room to another, and sits her down in a chair that looks like it belongs in a dentist’s office. she looks around, the walls are covered in intricate designs, labeled with words in a language she doesn’t recognize. the woman makes sure she’s comfortable and opens the door, “wait here, the analysis will only take a minute”, the door closes with a click and seven is alone, yet again.

[ 788 words ]

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[kipin]

wip, might not finish in time, busy with summer projects