Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (15 page)

Yi Ling was sitting by the table in the hall, a huge stack of files before her.

She was furiously scribbling on a test-pad, her wrist moving so fast it was almost a blur. Sheets of paper were strewn all over the floor, all covered in Yi Ling’s semi-cursive writing.

“Damn girl,” Kumar said. “You alright?”

Yi Ling did not answer. Her eyes were glazed. Her lips were moving; she appeared to be muttering under her breath.

“…
acceptance
,” she said, her voice a flat monotone. “
In the case of Jaran v Gorsby, it was established that if consideration is adequate yet not sufficient
—”

She did not stop writing.

“Yi Ling,” Kumar said. “Can you hear me?”

“…
the person making the offer must then revoke his
—”

“Shit girl, snap out of it!”

Desperate, Kumar shook Yi Ling by the shoulders. Her body was unusually warm, and she was passive. Indeed, she didn’t even seem to realise she was being shaken. Her wrists kept moving even after they had been forced off the paper.

Kumar was about to call an ambulance when she suddenly snapped back into life. The haze in her eyes disappeared, and her wrists fell limp.

“What just happened?” Yi Ling asked, dazed.

“You were in some kind of trance!” Kumar said. “Damn, girl, do you know how scary that was? Seeing you saying all that mumbo-jumbo like that—”

Yi Ling however, was not paying any attention.

She picked up the scattered papers on the floor, and slowly read them.

A wide smile broke out on her face.

“This is amazing!” she exclaimed, waving the papers in Kumar’s face. “This is bloody amazing!”

“What is?” a baffled Kumar asked, but Yi Ling was in her own little world.

“It worked!” she screamed.

Kumar watched, bemused, as Yi Ling did a little dance for joy. He had no idea what was going on, but humoured her as she pulled him into an impromptu tango.

“Girl be crazy,” he muttered as he retreated to his room. He had no time for this, he still had three more Physics chapters to cover, damn it!

After finally running out of energy, the beaming Yi Ling opened the window, and took a deep breath.

There was a full moon tonight.

And in its silvery light, Yi Ling practically
glowed
.

§

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Yi Ling asked as she stepped into Mr Ong’s office.

It had been a week since her visit to Petaling Street.

“Yes, I did,” her lecturer nodded.

His desk was extremely messy, with empty pizza boxes and plastic drink cartons nestled amongst kitsch travel souvenirs and half-marked assignments.

Even with the window open, the room felt stuffy in the sweltering heat.

“Will this be long, sir?” she asked. “I need to go home soon, I’m not feeling very well—”

“Sit down, Yi Ling,” Mr Ong said, motioning her to the seat in front of him.

“I just want to commend you on what a great job you’ve been doing,” he said.

He held up a test paper: Yi Ling recognised it as an assignment she had completed two days ago.

“In all my five years of teaching, this is one of the best papers I have ever read,” Mr Ong said. “Not only do you mention all the relevant cases, but your arguments are mature and well-presented. Seriously, there’s a lot of stuff in here that’s PhD material.”

He cleared his throat.

“Indeed, the paper was so well-written that well… how do I put this… at first, I thought you might have been… cheating,” Mr Ong’s voice trailed off. “But after checking with Turnitin, and some other sources, I came to the conclusion that you couldn’t have. A lot of your insight is fresh and completely original! No textbook in the world has them!”

Mr Ong stared at her briefly, before quickly turning away. He blinked in discomfort.

“Please excuse me for a while. I have sensitive eyes,” he said.

He opened his drawer and took out a bottle of eye drops, which he quickly applied.

“Right then, where was I?” her lecturer said. “Oh yes.”

He cleared his throat again.

“I’ll be frank: before this, I’d almost given up hope in you. You didn’t seem to be taking the course seriously… I mean, honestly, you were coming in late and sleeping! I figured you for one those spoilt rich kids, you know? The kind who cruise by courses on their parents’ money… I was getting ready to put your name down for my re-sit classes!”

It was difficult to pay attention. Yi Ling’s head was spinning, and her body was burning with a terrible fever. But she forced herself to look interested.

“Thank you for proving me wrong,” Mr Ong said. “It seems that academically, you’re a bit of a late bloomer, but when you do bloom, you bloom brightly. I have absolutely no doubt that you will do great in the exam, but I’ll wish you all the best anyway. And remember, should you want a letter of recommendation for a university or anything, I’ll be more than willing to write you one.”

They shook hands.

“Anyway,” Mr Ong said. “Forgive me for being rude, but… how do I put this? Have you done something with your skin?”

“What?”

“You seem… fairer. And your complexion… there’s something about it that I can’t explain,” he struggled to find the words.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yi Ling said.

She left the office, not even bothering to smile or wave goodbye. One, she was feeling unwell, and two, with her new brains, it’s not like she needed to be nice to him any more.

The last week had been crazy.

Academically, Yi Ling had been excelling.

Her lecturers had all been extremely impressed at the sudden increase in quality of her legal arguments. Indeed, during a recent Jurispudence lecture, one of her answers had apparently been so magnificent that her teacher had taken notes. It was remarkable!

Her sudden boost of intelligence had been noticed by her classmates, who typically, had started sucking up to her. Yi Ling had to turn down countless requests to lend them her lecture notes or go with them for study group. Even Kenny was asking for her help, for God’s sake!

She wouldn’t have been able to help them anyway. How could she tell them that the secret of her success was supernatural, that the answers just ‘magically’ popped into her head?

Even more amazingly, Yi Ling found she was able to solve Kumar’s physics assignments.

She was careful, however, not to let Kumar know this. Again, how would she explain it?

And so, Yi Ling had tried to be subtle. Tried hinting to Kumar he was going about this the wrong way, he had misunderstood a crucial theorem, maybe he should try different calculations, but her friend did not seem to get it at all. His dull wits frustrated her. How was he so
stupid
?

She was thankful for her sudden new talents. Exams started tomorrow, and she was not stressed. And all it had cost her had been her shadow. Which absolutely no one had noticed was missing.

Best deal ever.

Yi Ling worried, however, that she was falling ill.

It had started two days ago. She had been playing badminton with Amira when she suddenly felt an odd sensation in her chest. It had been bright and sunny at the time.

It had started off mild; a slight tingling. Yi Ling had shrugged it off at first.
Maybe my sports bra shrunk in the wash or something
, she thought. She hadn’t had the luxury of free time in ages, and it felt good to be active again.

But the pain had slowly intensified, to the point where she collapsed in tears. Her entire body felt like it was on fire. A concerned Amira had brought her home. A thermometer revealed she had a high fever.

Yi Ling had barricaded herself in her room with chicken soup and copious amounts of water.

The next morning, she felt fine. But the burning pain returned periodically. Sometimes it was her chest, sometimes her head, her legs, her lower body, sometimes her entire being. It was as if someone had lit up a furnace in her soul, which was slowly roasting all her insides.

Today, there was extra agony. The heat was almost unbearable. Not to mention the nausea and discomfort. Yi Ling had taken three aspirins, to no avail. She wondered if she had caught some sort of flu. Oddly, there was no sweat; Yi Ling remained as dry as a bone, which she wasn’t sure was good or not.

She staggered out of the college.

A friend waved at her, oblivious to her suffering. She did not have enough strength to reply. Yi Ling was glad she had not brought her backpack today. God knows if she could carry it.

She would not be able to make the walk back to her place. That she was sure. Especially not in the hot weather.

Yi Ling had never been what the Malays called a
puteri lilin
, or ‘candle princess’, a girl scared of heat, but given how she was feeling, she had to get out of the heat quickly.

She hailed a taxi, begging the driver to turn the air conditioning up as high as possible.

§

“Keep the change,” Yi Ling tossed a 50-ringgit note at the driver, as she rushed back to her apartment.

It took every ounce of strength she had not to pass out. Normally, Yi Ling would take the stairs, but today, she headed straight to the elevator.

Her apartment was empty; Kumar had gone to a tutorial. Desperate, she pulled off her clothes and rushed to the bathroom, where she turned on the shower. Yi Ling closed her eyes and felt the water cascading all over her, delighting at the coolness.

It was almost orgasmic.
Hydrogasmic
. That really should be a word, she thought.

Her relief, however, was short-lived. After five minutes or so, despite the deluge of icy water washing all over her at full pressure, the overwhelming heat returned.

To make things worse, there was suddenly steam in the bathroom. It was perplexing; Yi Ling looked around for a while, before realising it was coming from her.

The water was boiling as it touched her skin!

“WHAT THE FUCK?” she screamed.

Trying not to pass out, Yi Ling rushed to the hall, where she turned on both the fan and air-conditioning. She thought about getting dressed, but decided not to. Yi Ling drew the curtains, and sat naked in the darkness. The cool air against her skin was refreshing.

She pulled up Kumar’s laptop.

Too much heat in the body
, she typed frantically into Google.

A million results; Yi Ling scrolled through eight or nine pages. Most of them were references to ancient Chinese medicine. Apparently heat was caused by too much
yin
energy in the body or something. She did not know how relevant all this was, but copied them down.

Just then, the door opened, and Kumar walked in.

“Holy shit!” Yi Ling screamed.

Quickly, she grabbed the sofa cushions nearby to cover herself. Kumar yelled and covered his eyes.

“What the hell?” Kumar turned to face the wall as Yi Ling ran to her room. “What did you do to yourself, girl?”

“I… I was hot, alright?” Yi Ling had thrown on a bikini, with a thin sheet over herself for extra modesty. Even that, however, felt stifling. “I didn’t know you’d be home!”

“Tutorial cancelled,” Kumar muttered. “If I’d known I’d have stayed for the show.”

“I’m decent already, by the way!” Yi Ling shouted as Kumar headed to the couch, his hands still over his eyes. “You can stop doing that now!”

“No, girl,” Kumar said. “I… I can’t look at you!”

“What?” an indignant Yi Ling screamed, hitting him on the shoulder. “Look, I have been working on my diet, alright, and I know—”

“No, no!” Kumar protested, covering his eyes even tighter. “You’re… you’re shining!”

“What?” Yi Ling was perplexed.

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing, girl, but it’s not natural,” Kumar said. He sat down on the sofa, facing away from her. “You’re glowing in the dark! It’s like fucking
Twilight
!”

“What do you mean?”

“Look.” Kumar took out his phone, and snapped a picture of her.

“Make sure you delete that photo after this, I don’t want you saving it in your Wank Bank or something,” Yi Ling said.

She looked at the screen, and gasped.

The room had been in near darkness; the photo, however, looked as though it had been taken during a solar flare. It was badly overexposed. In its centre, Yi Ling’s body was literally glowing with an intense white light. It was so bright that it obscured all her features, making her look barely human.

The picture reminded Yi Ling of pictures of saints she had seen when going to church with her mother in her youth, except for one crucial difference. While the people in those pictures had the light surround their figures, like an aura, in this picture, the light seemed to originate from the centre of her body, growing dimmer as it radiated outward.

“Holy shit.” Yi Ling almost dropped the phone in shock.

“What have you been doing to yourself, girl?” Kumar asked. “Are you on drugs?”

“No,” Yi Ling said, trying hard not to lose her breath. “This… this is different.”

She told him what had happened. Kumar was shocked, especially after Yi Ling turned on the lights to reveal her missing shadow.

“Impossible,” he said. “You can’t remove shadows! They aren’t even… things! They’re just… just…”

He struggled for words, before throwing his hands in the air.

“I’ll look it up on Wikipedia.”

He went to his laptop.

“There! ‘A shadow is an area where direct light from a light source cannot reach due to obstruction by an object,’” he quoted. “It’s an area! How do you take away an area?”

“Well, that guy certainly managed to,” Yi Ling said. “I think it was magic or something.”

“Magic? You think this is Harry Potter?” Kumar was incredulous.

“Well, what does your precious science say about this, Mr Engineer? Can it explain why I’m suddenly missing a shadow, and why the hell I’m suddenly feeling this stupid heat?” Yi Ling was trying hard not to scream.

“Well,” Kumar paused. “I’m slightly baffled on the first question. But as for the second… when light is blocked by an object, it forms a shadow. Since you can’t form a shadow, the light has to go somewhere else…” He snapped his fingers. “It goes into you!”