SpellShocked

So...apparently, I have magic.

No, really. I'm not joking. I have actual, honest to god, spellcasting, wand waving magic.

Confused? Yeah, so was I. I can't really say I expected my entire world to go absolutely bat-shit crazy in the space of 24 hours, but here we are.

The day my life changed, I woke up in an extremely good mood because it was the last day of school before summer vacation. Needless to say, I was looking forward to a few months of relaxing, hanging with my best friend Zac, sleeping in and, best of all, not having to do any school work.

I pulled myself out of bed, feeling unusually awake for 7:30 in the morning. I wandered over to my closet and raked through it, looking for clothes I thought would make me look good – a herculean task most of the time. It wasn't that I thought I was completely tragic looking...some of the time. On a good day I actually quite liked how my blonde hair had an effortlessly messy look, and how my light green eyes looked when contrasted with my hair colour – but mostly I just felt distinctly...less compared to other people; less good looking, less tall, less muscular. In short, I just didn't really feel like there was anything special about me.

And that seemed to be highlighted by my social standing in school. I wasn't a steroid binging jock who played football or lacrosse, but at the same time I wasn't one of the nerds being thrown about in the hallways just because they were different from everyone else. In fact, the only reason anyone seemed to know who I even was, was because of Zac.

Zac had been my best friend since the first day of elementary school when he had basically dragged me from the corner of the playground where I sat by myself, and insisted I play superheroes with him. We had been inseparable ever since. Even when he bulked up the summer before high school and made the basketball team, he still didn't abandon me, his popularity dead weight. Zac was fairly popular and did hang out with some of the more popular kids, but he always brought me along for the ride whenever he did. And while I appreciated the sentiment, I constantly felt out of place sitting beside him while the rest of his jock buddies made poop and fart jokes. The end results of all of this was that I sat in silence and was known simply as 'Zac's friend' to most people in the school.

That title was fairly accurate too; I didn't have any other friends aside from Zac. That was mostly because I felt like I didn't need any other friends, but also because I felt separate from everyone else. Part of that was because I've always had slightly more than mild anxiety and low self-esteem, so speaking to other people is sometimes difficult, but mostly I was just terrified of them finding out I liked guys instead of girls. Okay, yes, the world has come on a bit and there's gay characters in almost every TV show you watch, but we all know that high school is a totally different playing field to the rest of society. In high school, if you're different, that's not usually a good thing. It's ammunition for the rest of the student body to use against you if they so desired.

So, I kept myself to myself, and I was happy to be a shadow that roamed the corridors, unnoticed by most. I didn't feel like I needed anyone else besides my best friend and my family. I mean, I wouldn't have said no to a boyfriend, I just didn't think it was likely to happen to an invisible, closeted high schooler who looked like me. Not that that stopped me from drooling whenever I saw a hot guy walking past me and wishing I had the confidence to go and say 'Hi".

I managed to find my favourite pair of jeans that I thought made my butt look less flat, and a long sleeve t-shirt that was a little baggy but made me feel comfortable and cosy. I gave myself a quick once over in the mirror and was fairly satisfied with the results for once. In all honesty I didn't expect anyone to look at me and think I dressed well, most of the time I wanted to dress well for me. Some days – well, most days – my self-esteem tank was running on empty, so finding something to make me look nice sometimes made me feel a little more confident in myself.

I smiled slightly to myself in the mirror, before grabbing my backpack and running downstairs to grab something to eat.

"Good morning Charlie," my mom said when I walked into the kitchen. She was drinking coffee and I saw her eyes smiling over the brim of the cup.

"Morning mom," I said cheerily, pulling a box of cereal out of the cupboard.

"Well, someone's in a good mood," she laughed.

"Can you blame me?" I asked, grinning "Only one more day of hell before I'm free."

"I know the feeling." She winked at me. My mom was a school teacher – thankfully not at my school – so she always had the summer off of work, and she felt like she probably deserved the time off much more than the students did. I tended to agree with her, mostly because I knew exactly what school kids were like, being one myself; she would need a few months away from the 'Why doesn't he like me's?' and the 'Duuuuuude's' to maintain her sanity. Of course, I wasn't going to let her know that she was right; I'd never hear the end of it.

"I think it's ridiculous that you get paid to sit about the house for two months," I teased.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to pay for you and your expensive tastes.

"What expensive tastes?!" I spluttered, choking on the cereal I'd just shoved into my mouth. She ruffled my hair affectionately.

"How about your expensive taste in restaurants?" she asked, "How would you feel about meeting your dad and I for dinner at Pomodoro when you finish school?" Pomodoro was my favourite restaurant; it served the most amazing Italian food and as such it was a little pricey.

"Well, I'm not one to turn down a free meal," I joked, blushing slightly when I realised she had a point, "Can I bring Zac?"

"Like I could say no," she rolled her eyes sarcastically, "You two are practically joined at the hip." I couldn't deny that she had a point, I don't know where I would be without Zac.

I had come out as gay to Zac when I was 15 after years of anxiety. At first I was terrified because I couldn't understand why I thought that Wayne Daniels was clearly more attractive than his older sister Angela when Zac's jock buddies were discussing her at lunch. But then, when I had eventually accepted that I was gay, I was terrified that I would lose my best and only friend because of it. Eventually I told him because I felt guilty, like I was lying to him about an important part of my life when we had always told each other everything.

When I told him, he didn't laugh or act disgusted. He said, "Are you serious dude, no bullshit?"

"Y-yeah...no bullshit. I...I'm g-gay." I stuttered, looking down at my feet. My heart was pounding, and I could feel tears beginning to build up in my eyes. I couldn't bring myself to look at him, I couldn't stand to see my best friend looking at me with disgust. A few seconds of silence passed and then I felt him pull me into a hug. I was completely stunned at first; I had expected to be punched rather than hugged.

"Thanks for telling me Charlie," he whispered in my ear, squeezing me tightly, "Don't worry, this doesn't change anything between us, you're still my best friend. It doesn't matter to me who you love."

I cried. And I mean cried. Like a massive baby. And Zac, the saint of a human being that he is, held me the entire time as I poured out my anxieties and fears through my tears, releasing years of pent up pain and fear.

Zac was true to his word too; it changed nothing between us, aside from some jokes of the gay variety from Zac. I didn't mind them because I knew they weren't mean spirited; we'd always teased each other good naturedly since we'd met, so the fact that he joked about me being gay was proof that he didn't care about it, and that he still felt the same way about me. At the time, I thought I had finally started to get the weight of my biggest secret off of my shoulders. I'd felt freer than I had in a long, long time. I had no way of knowing I was about to be landed with an even bigger secret that I really couldn't tell anyone.

"What time should we be there?" I asked.

"You could just walk down after school and we'll meet your there at about 4?"

"Sounds good to me." I finished up my breakfast just as the doorbell rang.

"That'll be Zac. I'll see you later!" I called as I ran towards the front door.

"Enjoy your last day!" I heard her yell.

Zac was standing outside the door, backpack slung over one shoulder. He smiled and said, "Hey bro," when I came outside. He held up his hand to do our 'secret' handshake; we had developed it one day when we were young and thought it would be the height of coolness if we had a handshake only we knew. Now, we knew it was lame, but the habit had just stuck after all these years. It wasn't even an impressive hand shake, all we did was slap our hands together with the palm and then the backs of our hands, finished with a fist bump – the imagination of seven year olds was something to behold.

"Hey," I replied, shutting the door behind me, "You're not busy after school, are you?”

"Oh, you know me Charlie. I've got a hot date with a cheerleader, as per usual," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Hm, I must have missed all of those other times when you had a hot date with a cheerleader," I replied, "Who knew you were such a player?" Truthfully Zac could have had any girl he wanted; he was tall, toned, and handsome, with light brown eyes, immaculately styled brown curly hair, and a face chiselled by the gods themselves. In all honesty I probably would have had a crush on him had he not been my best friend. The only thing was, Zac didn't seem to be interested in any of the girls who came on to him. When I asked him about it once he simply stated that he was waiting for the right girl to come along and wanted his first relationship to be more than just a high school fling.

Zac punched me lightly on the arm, "You know, you could just humour me every now and then."

"What, and have your ego grow even bigger than it already is?" I asked, "Not a chance."

He punched me again and laughed. "I'm not doing anything after school, why?"

"Mom wants to go out for dinner after school to celebrate the start of summer, I asked if you could come too and she said yes."

"Oh, I'm so there!" Zac was one of those people who ate like a pig but never seemed to put on any weight.

We chatted about the plans we had for the summer while we made our way to school. I only lived about a twenty-minute walk away from the school, so we made it there with plenty of time to spare. We met up with some of Zac's sports friends outside the main entrance and talked (or at least Zac did) until the bell rang for first period.

The day passed by unusually quickly, but that was mostly due to the fact that absolutely no teaching went on all day; it was the last day of the school year, what could they possibly have left to teach us at this stage anyway? Everyone spent the day sitting on tables and chatting to friends instead of actually working. I spent that time chatting to Zac about our plans for the summer or flicking through random websites on my phone when Zac was in a different class to me. By the time the final bell went, everyone had become antsy and people were tensing in the seats, ready to spring up and rush out the door the minute we were released.

When the bell did ring, I waited for a few seconds to let the rabble in front of my escape the classroom before I attempted to leave myself. I rushed out of the doors while keeping clear of the mob of students and caught up with Zac at our usual meeting place, underneath a big tree near the outer gates of the school.

"Dude!" Zac called when he saw me, "It's about time! I'm starving!"

"You're always starving," I retorted. I was feeling that warm happy glow developing inside than told me I didn't have to deal with teachers, sweaty athletes and homework for about two months, and I couldn't stop myself from smiling widely.

"Then you should know better than to keep me waiting!" he whined, "Now come on! Move your ass!" I rolled my eyes but ran after him when he started jogging out of the school grounds. We walked for a couple of blocks - Zac talking about how he was going to order everything on the menu – and bankrupt my parents in the process – before everything went wrong.

We had just started walking down a street with a bunch of shops lining the roads, when we heard a shrill noise from behind us. Turning, we saw the distant flashing of red and blue lights, the wail of the sirens growing louder by the second. Two police cars were speeding towards us.

Then another sound made me spin on my heels. Two men wearing stupid plastic animal masks had just slammed open the door of a bank and were running towards a parked car. I looked down at their hands and saw that they were carrying plastic bags full of money in one hand, and guns in the other hand. I froze upon seeing this, while the people around me who had clearly noticed the guns as I had, began to scream in terror. The men ignored the panicking people around them and headed straight for a car. I just had time to notice there was another masked man inside the car – the getaway driver – before I felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me away from the masked men.

"Charlie, move!" Zac shouted, dragging me away from the masked men and shaking me out of my stupor. We began to run down the street, but we didn't get far before the police cars we had seen in the distance were in front of us, parked horizontally across the street, forming a makeshift blockade.

The cops had left their vehicles and were aiming their guns over the top of the cars towards the robbers and were shouting words I couldn't quite hear over the din of the screaming. Zac had stopped pulling me down the street; he had noticed as I had that it was quite a narrow street, and the car on our side of the road had parked in a way that he had blocked off the sidewalk, making it impossible to pass without performing some kind of Starsky and Hutch roll over the top. I briefly considered doing just that when the sound of gun shots rang out all around me.

"Shit!" Zac swore, as he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down behind a trash can nearby. From here I could see that more police cars had arrived and had managed to blockade the other end of the street in the same way, leaving the robbers trapped from both sides. And seeing no other way out, they had stupidly decided to fire at the officers.

Zac and I tried to lower our bodies to the ground whilst keeping them covered by the trash can. I was still so disorientated, but the terror had finally set in and I could feel my heart racing and my palms sweating. The gunshots were so much louder than I had ever thought possible, considering I had only ever heard them in films. The shots mixed with the sounds of renewed screaming, as well as the sounds of shattered glass and the wail of car alarms as stray bullets hit shop windows and other parked cars. I was clinging to the trash can and Zac's arm at the same time, hoping and praying we would make it out of here alive.

From our position, Zac and I could see everything that was going on. The thieves didn't stand a chance. Two of them were mowed down in seconds, bursts of red exploding from their bodies where the bullets hit. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't, the sick horror of what was happening gluing my eyes to the scene. The last masked man ran from the car back towards the nearest store to himself, his head rotating between the sets of cops to his left and right, firing indiscriminately as he ran. He dove through the door to the shop, and for a few seconds nothing happened. The cops had stopped firing and a couple were making their way carefully towards the store.

I flinched and swore when the window to the store shattered and a hail of bullets began to spray from the widow. The advancing cops flung themselves to the ground behind any kind of cover they could find. That the masked man turned and was now aiming from the store window towards the officers directly behind us. However, the angle he was aiming at put Zac and I directly between in the crossfire, with nothing but a flimsy trash can that was partially covering us. I barely had time to scream before the bullets started to fly towards us.

In that moment, it was as if time stood still. Looking back on it, I suppose I might actually have manipulated time in some way, but at the time I clocked it down to adrealine. I felt the air move around me as the bullets whizzed past, narrowly missing us. I thought we were done for, until blossoms of red erupted from the last masked man's chest in the same sickening way as his friends, only this time it was happening in slow motion, extending the horror of what I was seeing.

I thought we were safe after I saw the criminal go down, but my stomach fell as saw the man fire one more shot as he fell to the ground. The man's aim must have been ruined by the impact of the bullets, because he had aimed much lower than before and his final shot had sent a bullet flying directly towards where Zac and I lay on the ground.

I heard myself scream in slow motion, and without thinking, I raised my hand up in front of me. I don't know why I did it, it's not as if I really thought I could stop a bullet that was flying directly towards my face with my bare hands. I guess it was just natural for me to protect myself with my hands and close my eyes to wait for the impact.

Only a few agonising seconds had passed and I felt no impact. Suddenly the noise around me seemed to sped back up, the screams fading back in as though they had been muffled before.

"Ch-Charlie?" Zac stuttered, sounding terrified, "What the hell is that?!"

I slowly opened my eyes and saw what looked like a thick, wispy blue coloured fluid in the shape of a circle floating in mid-air in front my hand. It was behaving like water would if you swirled it around in a bowl and was about the size of a plate. The bullet which had been heading for my chest was now moving slowly forward through the strange substance, and tiny cracks were beginning to spread out from the point of impact as though the fluid had become a solid around the point where the bullet had hit. A second or two later, the bullet pushed itself out of the other end of the substance and fell at my feet with a soft clang. The cracks began to repair themselves immediately and the small solid area of the plate became fluid once more. I dropped my hand and the fluid seemed to evaporate instantly, leaving no trace of the substance behind.

"Ch-Charlie?!" Zac stammered again, "How did you do that?!"

"I-I have no idea..."

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I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter! If you have liked it, or if you have any suggestions for improvement then feel free to leave a comment, it would help me out a lot! Thank you for reading!