Chapter 4

"It's so not like you to fuck up your routine." Aisya comments as she sits next to Irene during the 2-hour break they have between classes. "What happened?"

Irene groans and buries her head in her arms, not wanting to talk about the fact she didn't sleep a wink last night due to what happened and has been paranoid all day after sensing someone or something has been stalking her for a while. She knows better than to dismiss whatever's stalking her as human, considering she hasn't been able to see whatever's been following her all morning.

"It's... nothing. Stuff happened yesterday, I wasn't able to get a good night's sleep." Irene finally answers after going through a few options on how to answer.

"Do... you want to talk to someone about said stuff?" Aisya asks wearily.

"I--"

"With me, most probably."

Irene looks up to see Kai already standing next to her, opposite of Aisya. "Aisya, how have you been? Been a while since we last talked, huh?"

Irene peeks over at Aisya and sees that her friend's eyes seem to have brightened seeing their former classmate. If Irene remembers correctly, during the familiarity night for international undergrad programme chemical engineering students, Aisya confessed to having a crush on Kai, moreso than other students who have an interest in him.

"I've been doing great! Thanks for tutoring chem 2A last semester, I almost got my ass kicked." Aisya giggles, pulling her hijab back slightly to subtly fix it. "Why aren't you in class? Heard from Tiff your class only has an hour break today."

"That's great, good luck with this semester and the next few years." Kai says with a soft smile, though it's obvious he's trying to end the conversation quickly. "Ah, I'm skipping with some of the guys. They're headed over to eat outside of campus grounds. I think Latifa said she's planning on skipping the last half hour so she should be out soon. I have to go though, need to help Irene with some stuff."

Kai tugs at Irene's sleeve almost frantically yet subtle enough so that Aisya doesn't notice his odd behaviour. "Oh, what kind of stuff?" Aisya asks, leaning closer to Irene, which Irene knows is a subconscious move to be closer to Kai, almost insisting that he stays longer to chat.

"Just some stuff that only I can help with. No big deal." Kai says and finally pulls Irene up. She supposes the frantic tugs on her sleeve were more of a warning that he's going to pull her up to stand more than anything.

"Sorry Ais, I have to go. I'll catch you later at statistics." Irene says as he follows Kai. "So, what do you need to talk to me about?" She asks once they're out of Aisya's earshot.

"Well, don't freak out, but something's been following you around campus." Kai answers as he leads Irene to a more secluded place on campus. "I also grossly underestimated just how hard a protection job is since I've never done it before, especially for someone with rare blood..."

"I knew something's been following me all morning but I wasn't able to see it."

"That's probably because it's hiding itself from you and is basically waiting for the right moment to start haunting you," Kai explains. "Or it's because it's in its early stages of haunting you so you can't see it during the day."

Irene narrows her eyes in confusion at Kai's explanation, she wants to ask a lot of things but her mind is blanking on which question to ask first. Kai notices this confusion and pulls Irene to sit down before notebook out of his bag.

"Okay, here. I'll try to make it as simple as I possibly can," Kai says. "We know that there are a few types of people when it comes to being connected to the world of ghosts and spirits, those who can see and actually interact with it to the point of even working together with spirits, people who can sense the presence of spirits, and people who are lucky enough to be completely unaware of their presence whether they believe in them or not."

"Wait, why would you consider the last category lucky?" Irene asks. If Kai wants her to understand this topic clearly, he better tolerate her treating this like a tutoring session.

"Because they can go on until death without being bothered by spirits. I've met quite a few people who can either see or sense ghosts being subjected to bullying, mostly children. As you have seen with the gandaruwa, they're not exactly pretty and that can cause immense paranoia alongside the occasional jump scares. It's either their paranoia as they're trying to adjust looking at spirits and ghosts or they make the ghosts their friends which make them weird in the eyes of others, you get the jist."

"Are you someone who's always been able to interact with ghosts then?" Irene asks, watching Kai flip the pages of his notebook.

"I was someone who was only able to sense the presence of spirits. I found comfort in watching horror movies to deal with the constant uneasiness back when I was in elementary school," Kai answers. "I'm able to see and interact with spirits now after my mentors took me in to pass down their knowledge, they opened my third eye and I sharpened my abilities. It's still not enough and I still have things to learn, but I think I'm sufficient enough to handle specific cases."

Kai then shows Irene a page in his notebook where a drawing of three stickman figures and a bunch of writing is messily scrawled about. The three stickman figures are coloured in three different colours, one a light blue, one a light indigo, and the last one is coloured red.

"Anyway back to the point, I made this when I was receiving lessons. The light blue represents the general population which have no abilities to sense or see spirits, the red one represents the spirits themselves, and the blue-ish purple one represents people like me and you." Kai says as he points to each stickman figure.

"Me too? But I've never been able to sense the presence of spirits or seen them..." Irene trails off.

"I categorise you as the purple one because you actually are able to interact with ghosts, your potential is just... locked away, I guess you could say?" Kai clarifies, pointing to a square connected to the purple stickman. "You have the rare blood that spirits go batshit over and now they're attracted to you. Not to mention you told me you felt the spirit stalking you all morning which means you now can sense spirits, or maybe you were always able to but no spirits have ever gotten close enough to you for you to sense it."

Irene reads the information contained in the square connected to the purple stickman, 'People in this category still exist in the same plane of existence as regular humans, hence why they're still predominantly blue. However, they are able to interact with spirits from the other plane of existence, be it simply sensing or even going to their plane of existence'.

"There are people who can go to the spirit realm?" Irene asks pointing to the last line of the explanation.

"Mhm, my mentors were able to do that. There are some cases where the human's soul is taken to the spirit realm and they have to retrieve it. It's like our realm and the spirit realm are two sides of the same coin, some people are just able to go to the other side of the coin," Kai answers. "Since you're now basically a ghost magnet, I assume you'll be able to see them 24/7 soon enough, or at least until I'm able to kill the person behind the mess we're in and restore everything back to its original state."

"Ah, I see. So, uh..." Irene stutters for a moment, remembering that Kai was a bit frantic as he tries to pull her away from Aisya. "Why did you pull me away from Ais? I mean, surely it isn't just for the lesson about spirit realms and such."

Kai blinks as if he had just remembered why he pulled Irene aside in the first place. "Right, well, remember when I said I'll have to recast the protective spell every month?"

Irene raises an eyebrow, nodding slowly. "Go on..."

"Turns out, I might have to recast it much more often than I initially predicted. Maybe every one or two weeks. Depending on when the plants in the rattan bowls wilt completely."

"And that's bad because...?"

"That means the spirits targeting you are much stronger than I initially thought, like, I literally can't seal them off in one go."

Irene shivers at Kai's answer, her situation turns out to be far worse than she ever initially thought. "What... what should I do then?" She asks.

"For now, stay close to me as much as possible. I would advise you to stay close to a religious place of worship, be it a mosque or a church or even the temple 2 kilometres from here, but sometimes, even those places are haunted by something," Kai says. "Though... I am currently investigating the person behind the spirits going haywire, I'll be going out a lot... so I'll trust you with a copy of my floor's access card and my apartment key. If you're ever in an emergency while I'm away, just run over to my apartment."

Irene takes the access card with a key attached to the card holder, the black card holder having the unit number E 1814 stuck on it with tape. "Will... will I start seeing the ghosts targeting me soon?" She asks as she safely puts the card key in her bag.

"Hopefully it'll be delayed as long as it possibly can, but with how much you're being targeted, I suggest you start watching horror movies" Kai says and stuffs his notebook back in his bag. "I'll repeat this again because I can't stress this enough, if you need my help, even if it's just because you got scared by a ghost, ring me up. With your situation, it's much better to be safe rather than sorry."

"Yes, okay, I under--"

"Excuse me."

Irene and Kai look up to see a woman standing before them. Both of them can tell just how nervous she is by the way she constantly twists the ends of her black hijab and how she avoids eye contact, opting to nervously glance around as if she's being followed by someone.

"Can we help you?" Kai asks, his voice soft and friendly, presumably to make the woman feel a bit more comfortable and less anxious.

"Yes, um... you're Kai, right? Kai Irawan?" She asks, finally willing herself to look at both Irene and Kai.

"You got the right guy." Kai answers with a smile.

'Is this that much of a normal occurrence for Kai? Seems like the girl wants to ask him out judging by how nervous she is.' Irene thinks to herself as she keeps quiet, simply opting to watch.

"I need your help."