Chapter 1
“Bye mom! Love you!”
My child, Andreas yells before running out of the front door to go to school.
He seems extra excited today. As if something happened last night that put him in a good mood.
I walk calmly to my room and sit on my bed. I look at the digital clock on my nightstand.
8:45am.
I lay down with a sigh, and close my eyes as I drift off to sleep.
U.S.A, Grimburg RD, 9:15 AM
“Andreas!” My friend yells at me, as she is sitting on the steps that lead into our school.
“Hey!” I yell back at her happily.
“You seem excited today. Something happen last night? WAIT. Let me guess!” She laughs. “You got asked out by Raja?”
“Nope!” I laugh, and grab the railing.
“Okay… So, what happened?” She asks, tilting her head to the side in confusion.
“Well.. You’re gonna think I'm crazy and delusional!”
I whisper, loudly though. Loud enough I think the group around us can hear me.
“Let’s go somewhere private though.” I grab her hand and lead her to a trap door under the bleachers. I only know this spot since the janitors come in here to get supplies, but it used to be a storm shelter.
“Why are we here?” She hissed, but not in an aggressive manner.
“I need to tell you something!” I silence her. “Some dude came into my room last night, and told me he needed my help. He gave me this gem,”
I pull a gem out of my pocket.
“And he told me I was the ‘chosen one’ and that I was the only one who could help him take down this villainous woman.”
My friend tilts her head again.
“You must’ve had a fever dream, because superheroes and villains are bedtime stories, dingus.”
She scoffs.
“Look Aliyah. I know what I saw and heard. Why else would I have this gem?”
Aliyah grabs it out of my hand.
“Andreas. I will believe you, but just this once. But, only if you can show me what this gem does.”
I grab it out of her hand.
“Fine.”
I double tap it. Nothing. She smirks at me. I throw it, and it glows.
“Did you just break it?” She laughs.
“Nuh uh!”
I giggle and run to grab the gem, which is glowing brighter than a lamp.
“So..?” She asks me.
“Hold on!” I yell, louder than I intended.
“Okay, sir grumps.” She scoffs.
I double tap the gem again, and this time it explodes. However, something about me felt different. I took a step, and fell. Next thing I know, I’m blacked out.
I wake up, the digital clock on my nightstand says, 1:21pm. “My son. I can feel.. Something’s wrong.”
I jump up and out of my bed. I put on some casual yet formal-ish clothes. I walk to the kitchen. Anxious. I grab some water and drink the whole glass. Still anxious.
“Fine.” I grab my keys, and my phone. I ran to my car and started it. I called the school. Still anxious.
“Pick up! PICK UP!” I yell, loudly.
“Thanks for calling Westborne Middle. going on?” It’s the lady at the front desk.
“My son. Is he okay?” I ask, sounding a little too worried.
“Uh yea.. He’s just--” She stops. She stops as if she’s saying too much.
“He’s what!?” I ask, nearly yelling.
“He blacked out earlier. He’s awake but just fatigued.” She says, as if she’s not telling the truth. As if she knows what happened to Andreas.
“I’m already on my way to pick him up. Have him ready by the time I get back.” I say, very sternly. A little too stern as if someone was commanding a dog to sit but it wouldn’t.
I wake. My head hurts. I can hardly walk or speak. I stand, weak but capable.
“Wha--” I try. I can’t. The lady at the front desk throws a cup of water down my throat.
“Better yet?” She asks, calmly but sternly.
“Uh.. I guess? What happened?” I ask, wobbling.
“I could ask you the same question. Why were you in the old storm shelter with red broken shards everywhere? That’s a safety hazard you know!?” She yells. I never heard her yell. She’s almost crying. Was she that worried?
“I- I was just-”
My mom barges into the office demanding to see me.
“My baby! Are you okay?! What happened?” She asks, worried she might hurt me with her words.
“Yea.” I answer, emotionlessly. She grabs my hand and drags me to the car, where she takes me home. We don’t say a word to each other for the rest of the day.
I sit in my room and grab my phone. I scroll through my contacts and find Aliyah’s.
The phone rings hopelessly. As if it were a miracle if she would pick up the phone. Did something happen to her there?
She answers.
“Are you okay? I was so scared!” She yells.
“I’m fine. It was probably that gem.” I say, tirelessly.
“That’s the only explanation we have, Sir Grumps.”
She laughs as she says ‘Sir Grumps’.
She likes that nickname for me, doesn’t she?
“I told you to not call me that!”
I laugh, trying to uplift her mood and mine.
“When I was in the office,”
the mood changes from happy to a concerning amount of seriousness.
“The lady at the front desk was almost crying for me. Do you think she has a history with the man named ‘Willborne Wild’? What type of superhero name is that anyways? I have so many questions.”
“Stop right there Grumps. His name is seriously Willborne Wild? O-EM-GEE.”
She starts to laugh hysterically. I can almost hear her crying and laughing so hard.
“Yes!”
I laugh just as hard as she does.
“Anyways Grumps, I need to shower. I’ll call you later, yea?”
She asks while laughing.
“Yea.”
I answer.
“Bye Bye Grumps”
She hangs up.
I plop onto my bed and raise my hand to the ceiling. As if I was reaching for something. Suddenly, I feel an electrical surge throughout my body which causes me to jump. I see electricity fly out of my hand to the ceiling, leaving a brown-ish black marked circle on it.
“Oh-My-God. What the actual heck?!”
I scoff, but this scoff is exciting, and happy.
I face my hand to the open window next to me and tighten my muscles. I feel the same surge in my body and FUEM! A spark of electricity goes flying out of my hand into the deep night sky. I smile happily, and plop back down onto my bed and sleep.
“You are the chosen! Get up! GET UP! You have to stop them! STOP THEM!”
I hear a voice.
I jump up and put my suit on. I look and see an explosion where I jump onto a car and onto a roof.
I see a woman, about 6’1, and brunette. She’s running to the area.
She must be my partner.
I follow her but she teams with the villain.
I dart towards her and kick her in the face as she yelps loudly. Her partner throws me to a brick wall. My back drags against the wall as I grunt in pain. I stand with blood coming from the inside of my suit. I charge at the both, but my rage cannot be contained. A strange yellow glow forms around me as it lights up the area. Next thing I know, both of them are gone.
There is blood everywhere. Everywhere. But it’s not mine.
Did I kill them? That couldn’t have been me. It couldn’t have. They’re alive.. Right? They have to be!
I search the area desperately. Nothing. No sign of the two. Nobody. No sign of a crowd either. Wasn’t a big fight either so I don’t think they’re dead.
I go back to my room, and fall asleep in my bed.
I wake up startled after a dream of the front office lady hysterically screaming,
“WHY DID YOU TAKE IT!? WHY DID YOU TAKE THE GEM?!” She doesn’t know about it.
It was honestly just a fever dream.
I pack my school bag and run to my school.
“What happened to you, Andreas?”
nothing.
“Andreas?” … “ANDREAS!”
“Huh?!”
I come back to my senses, startled.
“I said what happened to you!?”
It’s Aliyah.
“You’re covered in blood!”
I want to tell her. But I don’t at the same time.
“It’s.. not mine.”
“Not yours? What do you mean by that?!”
She looks at me, frightened. Concerned.
“I was in a fight with two villains. They exploded something and I had to fight them.”
“Oh, so you’re some mighty superhero now, huh?!”
I look at her.
“I guess you could say that.”
“BULLCRAP!” she yells.
I jump slightly.
“If you can’t accept that then just leave.” I scowled at her.
“Andreas that’s not- forget it.” She raises her arms and drops them to her waist dramatically.
I walk to the bathroom, and on the walls in black, smudged writing it says in bold letters, “ You’re nothing, but a pathetic lowlife.”
It doesn’t have a name for who it’s targeted to, but I’m not gonna take it personal. I use the bathroom and wash my hands, I mean, who doesn’t?
I grab my backpack off the floor and run to my next class.
I reach for my pencil but I feel that electricity flow in my body again. I quickly aim my hand at my leg and-
“OW! CRAP!”
My teacher looks at me concerned and annoyed.
“What happened?” He rolls his eyes at me.
“I stabbed myself with my pencil.”
I show him my leg, there’s blood.
His face instantly drops even more.
“Go to the nurse, you have my permission.”
I nod and walk to the nurse’s office.
Except, I don’t walk in. I go to the bathroom and skip class. It’s wrong, yes I know, but you have to live a little sometimes. I go off campus for lunch, grab something at the cafe but I see her. She looks just like the lady I fought last night.
My breathing becomes heavier, my fingers begin to shake. I run out of the cafe leaving a $20 bill on the table. I run to the woods where I sit by a tree and try to calm down. I walk around desperate to fix my mood.
I trip on a branch, where I am greeted by a hand.
I reach for it, not there.
I get up quickly.
Nothing.
“GET UP.”
I jump.
I look behind me.
Willborne Wild?
“What’re you doing here?”
I look at him.
“You’re the chosen. Now act like it.”
I look at him again.
What does he mean by that..?
“What do you mean?! Elaborate!”
I walk up to him, but he steps back.
He frowns and tenses his face.
“You. Are. The. Chosen. You cannot be afraid. Heroes are NOT afraid!”
He yells angrily, but I jump back at his voice.
It is as if a dog just bit me in the arm.
His words sting into my head as I scream.
“Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
My knees give in, and I fall to the ground onto the tree.
I look back up, and he’s gone.
I tilt my head, and squint my eyes.
He was never there.
I look around once more, only in curiosity. I don’t see anybody there, so I just go back to my house.
I mean, where else was I supposed to go? Deeper into the woods?
Nope.
You have to be delusional to go deeper in THOSE woods.
It was the next day. I grab my bag, and walk out of the house to go to school. I didn’t even say “bye” to my mom. Not even “I love you”.
I can’t. I’m too shaken to even say anything. I don’t know what I did to get myself into this position.
Why did it have to be me? It could have been ANYONE else.
I hate this. I wish I never accepted. I wish- I wish I could’ve been normal and happy again. I’m full of regret and anger.
I don’t know what I’m doing, and how to do it.
I grab the key to my locker out of my bag, but I see a broken gem piece in there.
I never put that there.
Did someone find it?
Did someone find out that it was me?
My breathing grows faster, and harder.
I feel like I was just punched in the face.
I feel like crying. I can’t breathe.
I’m panicking too much to do so.
I grab my key and open my locker.
I reach for the stuffed animal in my locker and clutch it to my chest.
I don’t care anymore.
I don’t care if I get bullied, or die.
In fact, that’s what I want to do now.
I grab my head, and push out those thoughts.
I grab the gem piece and hold it with my shaky hands.
How did it get here?
Who put it there?
“Whatever.”
I mumble to myself.
I put the gem piece back.
Now I just need to find Aliyah.
She’ll understand.
Maybe she was the one who put it there.
I grab the gem piece and search around the school hallways for her.
Except I can’t find her.
She always skips class in the bathroom, but I’m a guy, I can't go in there.
That’d be weird and ew.
I grab a pen and paper from my bag.
I slip it under the door that leads into the bathroom because Aliyah always skips the first elective in there.
I gave her a note which read, Hey Aliyah, I need to talk to you. IF you’re the one in there. It’s Andreas btw.
I hear the door unlock.
Aliyah’s head peeks out and she opens the door once she sees me.
“Andreas!” She whispers, but as in a whisper-yell.
“Did you put this in my bag?”
I grab the gem piece out of my bag and show it to her.
“Nooo?” She says slowly, as her head tilts to the side like it always does when she’s confused.
“Do you know who did?” I ask, but she shakes her head.
“Must’ve slipped in when you passed out and it broke.” She says, reassuringly.
I shake my head no, and begin to tell her something but the bell for second elective rings and that was my queue to go.
She grabs my arm tightly.
“Tell me before you go, I need to know.” I nod my head and turn to her.
“I checked my bag and cleaned it out after I got home from when my mom picked me up from school. It wasn’t there before.”
I tell her, with a serious tone. She looks at me.
“Well.. Maybe your mom put it there? I have to go though, but just think about it. Okay?”
She lets go of my arm and runs down the hall to band class.
My mom? None of the shards were in my house, she couldn't have put it there.
I then think about how I “saw” Willborne wild in the woods.
Still, what type of name is Willborne wild anyways? Sounds like a creep-o.
Maybe I put it in my bag, or it’s a sign that he was there, but I can’t recall it.
It was him. 100%.
No way it wasn’t.
I scratch my head and place my hands in my lap as I sit criss-cross to focus.
I close my eyes and place my earbuds in my ears which plays white noise to help me focus.
I try to look back at that time, to every last detail.
I finally gain the memory back, and play it in my head.
He walked from behind the tree, with a shard in hand. He throws it at me, but misses.
“Crap”
I hear him say, as he picks it up and puts it into my bag before yelling at me.
He was there?
I don’t recall him ACTUALLY being there.
I grab my bag, and I run out of the door to the café. I run past the café and to the woods behind it. They’re dark, and every tree is leafless and dead.
I almost feel bad for them, but I don’t.
“I know you’re here. I know what you tried to do. Don’t hide it from me.” I scowl, but there is no sound around me.
I can only hear my voice.
“Come out!” I yell.
I only yelled to get the attention from him.
Nobody is there, and if there is someone there, then they won’t come out.
“Another day then.” I sigh, and walk back to the café, and then to my house.
I put my bag down on my bed, and open it.
I grab the gem piece and stuff it inside of an old shoe box in my closet.
A few more pieces to go, and I might be able to take this. Whatever is going on, away.
I will finally be normal again. I would finally be able to fit in with everyone else. I’ve always been the outlaw in the class, and I mean nobody partners with me, and I’d prefer to be alone. Just music, and isolation. The perfect mix for someone that loves to be alone.
I grab the homework out of my bag and search for a pencil in my closet.
I don’t know why I think there would be one in there but I just have a feeling.
Well, I didn’t find it.
But, I found a picture of me and my mom when I was a baby.
Her blonde hair and hazel eyes looked so colorful. Now she’s just dull, she’s not as bright as she was back then.
