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Hey friends! Some really weird stuff has been going on and now I'm sort of a fugitive on the run... um... yeah. I'll tell you all about it some other time. Until then, here's the long awaited follow up to the previous post.
Searphine A. R.
I fused right where I was and ran back over to where Maria was flailing about, trying to escape the water-man that held her tightly.
That's weird isn't it? Water holding someone down, I mean. You'd think that she would have just been able to push through it,
I drew my two pistols, who I decided to call Zack and Zoë, and fired a single shot. The blast hit Rayne right where I had aimed, his leg. He staggered a bit and turned his watery face at me with a fury—or at least I think it would have been a fury if he had more distinguishable facial features.
I gave the usual spiel about my being Twilite, a fighter of the corrupt, an Indigis, and the usual rundown. Well, maybe it wasn't so usual—this was only my second fused confrontation with one of them. Them being the Elite, in case you forgot. I told him that I was in a mood, which was true, and suggested (more like ordered) him to let go of Maria before I got really pissed.
“You know,” he whispered in his disgusting gurgle of a voice, “we don't have to fight. You can still join us.”
To emphasize my point I started to walk forward, pistol tips aglow, and began to count down from five. I think Rayne found me rather intimidating since I saw a slight spasm of something akin to sheer terror flick across his face; in all fairness though, it could have just been a ripple. I prefer the former as it makes me feel better about myself.
Just as I stepped off the curb to cross the street, the beginning of the end happened. I know, it sounds a bit melodramatic, but this is my story. Ha. Suck on that. Anyway, I stepped off the curb and I felt a strange something in my stomach. No, I wasn't gassy. I kept my head held high and walked on, lest Rayne think something was amiss.
Okay, this was where the world as I knew it began to unravel. The heel in my right boot sort of vanished. It didn't break, crack, or anything else, it just flat out vanished. Vanished. Things don't just vanish in reality. Then again, who can say reality is a consistent thing? Before my last birthday, I would have laughed if someone had told me what was coming.
Anyway, I stumbled a bit, struggled not to fall, and then the heel suddenly reappeared. Then it was gone again. I looked down at myself and watched as the image of Twilite flickered three times and then vanished all at once—permanently from what it seemed. I tried to fuse again, no dice.
So there I was, weaponless, powerless, and facing an angry enemy. A creepy smile flitted across his face and he threw up a hand and said “Mist-ify!” Was I scared? Hell yeah! There was a super-powered man made out of water staring me down and ready to attack. I don't remember what all ran through my mind except for a very loud voice in the back of my mind screaming for me to get out there. I listened, or at least I tried to. I turned from the direction I had been facing and was getting ready to get on down with the get down (i.e. RUN LIKE HELL), but I couldn't. The mist around me seemed to take offence to my wanting to get away and started to coalesce (I think that's the right word) and fill my lungs with liquid.
I fell to the ground, coughing and sputtering. I had heard that if you were drowning and started to breathe normally your lungs would just pull the oxygen out of the water and you'd be okay... LIES. I was drowning as the water filled my lungs and formed a dome over my nose and mouth.
Rayne materialized in front of me and as I looked up, I saw that he had an unconscious Maria tucked under his arm. Rayne smiled his creepy, faceless, watery smile and set Maria down. Quite a few profanities ran across my mind and would have passed my lips had there not been a bubble over them trying to drown me.
Several minutes had gone by and I was starting to lose consciousness. My lungs were on fire. As much as you hear about it and see it on TV, you never completely understand what drowning is like until you experience it. You know what it's like to hold your breath. You may even know what it's like to randomly stop breathing when you're sleep and someone pinches your nose. Well, drowning is nothing like either of those. The first intake of water makes you want to cough, maybe sputter a bit. That’s usually as close as most people get to it. I'm here to tell you right now that actually drowning is much worse. It starts with the sputtering but after those first failed attempts to drive the liquid out of your lungs, things change. The air that was in your lungs is gone since you wasted it trying to cough. Therefore, when they pull in water instead of air you think it'll be okay and maybe you'll be the first person ever who will have lungs capable of separating the oxygen from the hydrogen and you'll be able to breathe. Then you realize you're dead wrong. You're just like Joe from down the street and you aren't about to start breathing water. You're going to die.
So there I was, sprawled on the ground, scratching at my face, trying to move the damned bubble dome of water that decided it wanted to play the part of surgical mask and prevent me from breathing. The only thing I got from that were several scratches on my face and a sharp pain stinging the back of my brain. You know how you can go swimming and get water in your nose and the base of your head hurts? Like water got on your brain? Well, that's the best way I can describe what I was feeling then. Then it all ended.
A porch light clicked on, Rayne vanished, along with Maria, into a puddle, and the bubble over my face broke.
Let him tell it, Zaelyn says he turned on the light to bring the trash out and bring the big trashcan to the street as the next day was garbage day. He could see people over in the shadows, but he didn't pay us any attention until he saw me fall. He called out and that was when Rayne dematerialized with Maria. I guess I was too far gone in my own thoughts to hear him yell out.
Okay, now, back to my version of events.
Zaelyn half walked and half ran over to me. Once he realized I was me, (I'm sure there's a better way of saying that.) he pulled me into a sitting position and looked around with the eye of a hawk, most likely trying to see where Rayne had run off to. After several minutes of taking in the wonderful stuff known as air, I explained to him that I was walking and saw a mugger run up on Maria and try to take her. I told him I tried to fight him off but he over powered me, and pushed me down (that was mostly to explain his seeing me fall. Not like I could tell him I had water materialize in my lungs and over my nose and mouth thanks to some random bad guy with super powers). He asked if I wanted to call the police from his house and I politely declined and told him I really wanted to get home and I'd do so from there. He narrowed his eyes in a calculating way before helping me to my feet and escorting me to my street.
After what seemed to be like thirty years, he left with my assurances of going straight to the phone. When he turned the corner I broke into a dead run and ran all the way to Aaron and Jakyb's. By lucky chance, the door was unlocked and I bolted up the stairs and into the den on the second floor. Aaron and Jakyb looked at me once before standing up and leaving the room without making a sound. We calmly passed Grandma Maggie who had come into the kitchen for something and made a beeline for Aaron's room. I told them a super condensed version of what had just happened. Jakyb cursed under his breath and Aaron reached for the phone on his desk. He called Theodore and told him he needed help with his mythology homework. Which, in hindsight is weird because I was under the impression that they couldn't stand each other? Or at least Theodore couldn't stand Aaron. Theodore said he was still at work, he'd just gotten a new job, and we could meet him up there. So we headed out to Momma Dee's.
Momma Dee's is a little quaint diner on the quieter side of town. It was amazing that the place could stay open, let alone have employees, as there was never anyone in there. Twenty minutes and nine dollars and seventy cents later (we took a cab) we were walking into the diner.
“See ya, Terri.”
“Don't forget to lock up, hun. Have fun tutoring.” An older woman, who I assumed was Terri, came from behind the counter and waved a hand at us. “Just sit down anywhere. Feel free to grab a drink okay?” With that, she left the diner and vanished into the darkness beyond the door.
The owner of Momma Dee's really should see about investing in an outside lamp.
A few moments later Theodore came from the kitchen with a large bowl filled with chips and a tray of drinks. He set them on the table and walked over to the door to lock it. He raised an eyebrow at us when he turned and found us staring.
“What,” he asked with a shrug. “From the way you sounded on the phone this is going to be a long conversation and I thought something to eat would be nice.”
“Uh, yeah.” Aaron scratched his head and smiled. Why did he have to be so dopey? And if he was dopey around Theodore, then what was the thing with AJ all about?
“Can we move on?” I was a little annoyed, to say the least. My fusion just broke in front of a known enemy and here these two are making small talk. Everyone turned nervous glances toward me; I ignored them. Then I plowed on and told the whole story, remembering every detail that I could. I even told them about my awesome speech and Rayne's weird reply. The one about me still being able to join them.
And that was when the proverbial crap hit the fan.
Would you believe that Theodore actually had the audacity to ask me what I said to that? He actually asked me how the offer made me feel. I told him, or perhaps I showed him would be a better description. I leapt across the table, spilling the drinks and the chips be damned, to straddle him and punch him about the face as best as I could before Aaron and Jakyb pulled me off.
“SEE! SEE!” Theodore stood up shrieking and repeating himself like a... I'm not sure what it was like, but it was loud and very obnoxious. “I told you something was wrong with her! She ditched you guys when you needed her most. Your parents died and what did Kayori do? She ran and cried about how it made her feel. She beat the hell out of two random people and then she ran off and made friends with the very face of evil.”
Apparently, my so-called friends had been having conversations about me behind my back.
“What? You're the one who treats the rest of us like crap. You avoid us most of the time, and yeah. You're right. I DID have a problem with Ma and Pa dying. Most people in my situation would have. And for your information I didn't distance myself from them, they distanced themselves from me! I tried to be there. I tried to be a good friend and give them both a shoulder to cry on but they turned their backs on me. And I let it go. When Aaron finally came back to school, I didn't say anything about the way he made me feel and suffer through everything alone. He isolated me and it's not the other way around. As far as being friends with evil goes, what exactly do you suggest we do with you?”
So... my tirade wasn't the best, but that wasn't what was important. The important thing was that I got to really yell at someone and let go of pent up anger that I didn't know I had been carrying around.
“Don't even try to turn this around on me. Who's the one walking around all buddy-buddy with that Mays girl? I told you guys when we first started looking at other students as being possible targets that there was something off about her. I told you that she gives me bad vibes and you ran off to be her little minion.”
“Oh, is that what this is about? You're mad because I'm not flocking behind you and being a complete idiot like Aaron is?”
Okay, maybe I shouldn't have put Aaron on blast like that, but he deserved it if he had been talking about me to that jerk.
Then I decided that maybe he didn't deserve it. Aaron looked at me with something as close to betrayal as I'd ever seen. I swear I saw the hazel color of his eyes retreat and the icy blue that was usually just a ring around his pupil expand until his eyes were glowing with a freezing rage.
“I can't believe you just said that.” His voice was barely above a whisper, and that was scary. Aaron hardly ever lost his temper, but when he did, it was controlled. Aaron actually scared me when he was mad. The one time I saw him this angry things vibrated and either exploded or fell and shattered on the ground. You would think that we would have thought there was something a little strange about him then, maybe a bit of real life foreshadowing, but we didn't. He calmed down and we went right back to playing.
“I can't believe you are taking his side!” I was still yelling. “You know what? I'm done. I quit. I'm packing up my contaminated powers and going home. It's not like we're making any progress against Nefaria anyway. She's still snatching people up left and right.”
I headed for the door and by the time I unlocked it and was walking home, I had tears running down my face. I was an emotional wreck and I knew it. I'd been all over the place as far as the emotional spectrum was concerned. I had summed it up to just being moody about Ma and Pa and trying to deal with that.
Maybe there was something more to it than that?
Mark-Anthony