The Monkey King's Curse

Chapter 3: The Stick of Truth

Jovan didn’t answer. He couldn't. His throat felt tight, his entire nervous system vibrating like a piano wire pulled to the snapping point. He turned away from Anisa, his boots scuffing hard against the linoleum as he practically lunged toward the exit.

"Jovan, wait!" Anisa’s voice echoed off the ceiling tiles, clipped and sharp. "You can’t just walk out of here and pretend you’re going to be okay. This isn't a fever dream you can sleep off."

He didn't slow down. He pushed through the heavy double doors, the sudden influx of bright, unfiltered afternoon sun hitting his eyes like a physical blow. The campus was swarming with students, a chaotic blur of motion and sound that set his teeth on edge. Every laugh, every footstep, every rustle of a backpack sounded like it was happening right inside his own skull.

"Hey, you! Speed racer!"

The voice was grating, familiar, and unwelcome. Jovan didn't have to turn around to know it was Marcus. The varsity linebacker was a permanent fixture in the quad, usually surrounded by his usual entourage of muscle-bound sycophants.

"Look, man, I really don't have time for this today," Jovan muttered, quickening his pace.

"Is that right?" Marcus chuckled, his footsteps heavy and aggressive behind him. "You looked pretty frantic coming out of the hall. You run out because the professor was too smart for you, or did you just have to change your pants?"

Anisa caught up, sliding into stride beside Jovan, her eyes darting between him and the looming figure of the linebacker. "Leave it, Marcus. He’s not feeling well."

"Oh, look at that," Marcus sneered, stepping squarely into their path, forcing them to a dead stop in the center of the walkway. "The lab rat has a handler now. Does she come with the scholarship, or are you just charity work, Anisa?"

Jovan felt his internal temperature spike. The hum under his skin—that erratic, golden current—began to swell in his chest. It felt hot, angry, and distinctly impatient.

"Move, Marcus," Jovan said, his voice dropping into a register that felt foreign even to him. It was lower, steadier, and carried an undercurrent of cold, lethal warning.

Marcus blinked, taken aback by the shift in tone, but he recovered with a sneer. "Or what? You going to write a sternly worded essay at me?"

"I'm not playing this game," Jovan said, trying to force his way around him.

Marcus didn't budge. Instead, he shoved Jovan hard in the chest. "I’m talking to you, weirdo. Don't walk away when I’m talking to you."

The physical contact was the catalyst.

The instant Marcus’s palm hit his sternum, the world shifted. The golden energy surged from Jovan’s core, screaming through his veins like a wildfire. He felt a sudden, sharp yank against the weight in his wrist—a sensation as if something had been ripped from the void and forced into reality.

With a sound like a crack of thunder, a heavy, dark-wood bo staff materialized in Jovan’s right hand. It wasn't just metal or wood; it felt like an extension of his own arm, dense with static potential. Without even thinking, his wrist snapped in a fluid, complex arc. The end of the staff whipped through the air, stopping a fraction of an inch from Marcus’s throat with the force of a falling anvil.

The wind of the movement ruffled Marcus’s hair.

The quad went silent. Or, rather, the world outside went silent, the background noise dropping away into an eerie, vacuum-like stillness.

Marcus’s face drained of color. He froze, his eyes locked onto the weapon. "What the—"

Jovan’s heart was hammering like a drum, his vision swimming with golden, iridescent sparks. He looked down at his own hand, watching as the wood seemed to ripple, the grain shimmering like molten gold under a thin layer of lacquer. He hadn't pulled it from his bag. He hadn't pulled it from anywhere. It had simply manifested.

"Jovan, drop it!" Anisa’s voice cut through the haze, urgent and terrified.

He didn't need to be told twice. He released his grip, and the moment the staff left his fingers, it didn't clatter to the ground. It dissolved into a fine, glittering mist, swirling back into his skin at his wrist, disappearing into his pores like smoke caught in a vacuum.

Marcus stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on the pavement. He was trembling, staring at the empty space where the weapon had been, then up at Jovan.

"Did..." Marcus stammered, his bravado shattered. "Did you just... pull a stick out of thin air? What was that? A projector? A trick?"

Students were beginning to stop, whispers rippling through the crowd as they saw Marcus sitting on the ground, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

"Get up, man," one of Marcus’s friends said, looking confused. "Why are you sitting there?"

Jovan didn't wait. He grabbed Anisa’s sleeve and started walking again, his stride long and hurried. He didn't look back. His lungs were burning, and the gold in his veins was beginning to settle into a dull, thrumming ache.

"Don't look back," Anisa whispered, walking beside him, her gaze fixed straight ahead. "Just keep moving. We need to get you into a car, now."

"I did that," Jovan whispered, his voice trembling. "I actually summoned it. It felt like... it felt like it was part of me, Anisa. Like it was waiting for a reason to come out."

"I know," she said, her voice strained. "I saw it. You didn't just conjure a weapon, Jovan. You tapped into something ancient. And you did it in the middle of campus."

"I couldn't help it! He shoved me, and it was just... there. It was like my arm moved before my brain could even tell it to," Jovan hissed, glancing around at the gawking students.

"You’re going to have to get used to that," Anisa replied, her expression hardening. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her keys, and pressed the unlock button on her key fob. The chirp of her car sounded like a gunshot in the tense silence. "You aren't just a person anymore, Jovan. You’re a vessel. And the vessel is starting to leak."

Jovan climbed into the passenger seat, his hands shaking so violently he had to bury them in his lap. As he sat down, he felt the seat cushion shift. A phantom weight, a familiar, heavy pressure, tried to manifest behind him again, but he clamped his eyes shut and pushed the feeling down, forcing the golden light to retreat into his marrow.

"We have to go somewhere quiet," Jovan said, gasping for breath. "Somewhere with no people. No crowds."

Anisa started the engine, the roar of the exhaust sounding muffled and distant. She shifted into gear and pulled away from the curb, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "I’m taking you to a place I’ve kept under wraps for a long time. It’s the only place where you can learn to control this before you end up killing someone—or getting yourself dissected by the people who are looking for exactly what you’ve got."

Jovan looked out the window. The trees were blurring into a green smear. "You knew about the bracelet, didn't you? You didn't just guess."

Anisa looked at him, her eyes uncharacteristically somber. "I didn't guess. I’ve been waiting for a ripple in the fabric. You’re not the first to find one of these, Jovan. But you might be the first one who survives the week."

Jovan leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, the golden hum in his veins pulsing in time with the engine. He looked down at his right wrist. It looked perfectly normal, pale and unassuming, but he could feel the weight of the staff resting inside the bone, waiting.

"I just wanted to pass my exams," he murmured to himself, his voice lost to the sound of the wind rushing past the car.

"Forget about the exams," Anisa said, her eyes tracking the road ahead. "The only test that matters now is the one that's currently tearing your DNA apart. And we’re going to find out if you’re strong enough to pass it."

The car turned onto a gravel road, leaving the campus behind. Jovan closed his eyes, his mind drifting into the gold, and for the first time, he didn't try to push it away. He tried to listen to it. And in the dark of his own imagination, he heard a sound—not a hum, but a whisper, ancient and cold, echoing from a place that wasn't on any map.

He was terrified, but for a split second, as the staff flickered at the edge of his consciousness, he felt an exhilarating sense of power that made the fear look small. He gripped his arm, his golden eyes flashing in the dim light of the dashboard. He was no longer a student. He was something else entirely. And he had a feeling that Marcus was only the first thing he was going to break.