Echolite

Perched on the rooftop of my living complex, one of millions in the metropolitan area of Santo Monte, I take a big draw of my vape and exhale the urge to step off. As I stare down at the traffic beneath, I let the raspberry-flavored smoke curl out of my nostrils.

A thick knot of rejection is lodged in my throat. My eyes are burning. I press the heels of my palms against my lids. The corners of my finger catch dry remnants of my stage makeup. I rub at the sides of my face, white powder flaking off and getting caught in my eyelashes. The oily stage makeup cakes under my fingernails. Over and over, my mind replays how carefully I was applying it in that sterile dressing room, and I groan, trying to chase away the pang of humiliation.

The memory is chased away and swiftly replaced with the wide-eyed stares of the jury. The utter bewilderment on their faces. Me standing there, looking like an idiot.

The hot smog of traffic rises and stays there, swaying between skyscrapers and hovering above my shorter building. Glass faces of high-rises reflect the glaring afternoon sun while their shadows envelop the streets below.

Have you ever been trained, professionally? I hear their awkward, polite dismissals through the sound of beeping cars.There’s no denying, your gift is impressive, but an artist can’t rely on phenomena alone.

Hot tears escape my eyes as, all at once, more voices flush my head. Teachers calling me unteachable. Contestants claiming I’ve an unfair advantage. People saying it’s ‘too much’. Problematic. Dangerous.

My skull whirls the words like blender, and it fucking hurts. I bite my knuckles, my shoulders shuddering with every sob.

I missed the fucking mixer for this shit. Why did I even go there? What was I hoping; that somehow things would go differenty? I already decided I was going a different route, and still I filled out the stupid application the minute I saw the open audition call and went running. I saw it was on the same day as the mixer, and I couldn’t bear missing out on—what? My elusive last shot?

I could’ve met someone at the mixer. Someone who could’ve, maybe, tell me, honestly, if I even have a chance.

What if the Academy won’t have me either?

I draw another puff of my vape and blow a shaky breath out. My head grows hot as all other thoughts get pushed away by anger.

Oh,the fucking ironyif the Academy won’t have me either. There wasn’t a school, audition or theatre that I’d been to that didn’t hint I might be better suited ‘elsewhere’. Phenomenals have been fighting for a quiet life since the seventies. The fucking the slogan that made history:Heroes by choice, not force.

Half a century later, the stigma remains: if you have a phenomena, surely you must serve the country, not yourself. And boy, Santo Monte sure loves its paragons of virtue and strength.

I’m no fit for the fucking military. So why did I give in and apply to the Academy? Purely out of fucking spite, I could go through with it, just to hear what reasons they’ll give me at the entrance exams when they’ll inevitably turn me down. That my phenomena is ‘too tame’ and that I’d be better suited for entertainment?

My long hair, which lost its hairband a long time ago, curtains my field of view. I brush it away from my face and stare down the chasm between me and the street below.

I take a shaky, deep breath.

A quiet song escapes my lips:

”I think there might be

something wrong about me.”

I rise.

“Like I don’t see

what others do around me.”

I dance.

“They say I dream too big,

I play too small,

I mumble rap,

I sing too loud,

Untrainable,

Too perfect for the role.”

An aircon burst to life.

”I think I losing—

Losing—

I don’t know the rules and—”

I pull my hair against the pressure in my temples.

“Haven’t seen my mind

for a while now.

It’s so abusive—"

The railing becomes my xylophone; the service pipes my drums.

“Everyone’s trying to confuse me.

I’m losing my mind, my mind;

Alright? Alright.”

The siren of an ambulance wails across the city.

Seagulls yell.

I rap a beat on hollow metal.

”It’s alright,

alright—”

I back into the wall of the concrete stairhead

”I’d like to play a game with you;

no thank you.

I don’t remember signing up for game shows.”

I crawl along the wall; my hands punch a rhythm on the concrete.

”What do you want from me,

I tried to be

the role I was assigned to be.

I roll the dice for chance

and get a fuck you."

I turn the corner, towards the open plane of the roof.

”I’m sick of losing—”

Sometimes flies right at me.

I duck and roll, or more like dodge and tumble, landing painfully on my knees. The figure whistles right past where my head was a second ago and, with a loud thump, bounces against the concrete of the roof. I turn my head to see asome guyflying between my building and the next one.

"Asshole!” I yell in his direction.

With the grace of a frog flapping in zero gravity, the guy tumbles mid-air, succeeding neither on taking a proper look behind him, nor focusing on where he is about the land. He ends up rolling onto the next roof like a can. I suck the air in through my teeth. That looked like it should’ve scraped his skin right off.

I awkwardly try to get up on my cotton legs, then watch him do the same. I don’t know how he hasn’t shattered at least all of his ribs, but he seems okay enought that he raises one hand at me. Before I can think of what that might mean I see him take a running start, and hefucking jumps over the gap between our buildings and land on his bent legs. Much more gracefully this time, but still stumbling a little to regain balance.

“Jesus, fuck, man!” I cry out, my heart pounding.

"Hey,” the guy says, panting slightly. “I’m so sorry for that, I swear I didn’t see you.”

“You do know you could’ve killed me?” I hear myself say, coming out of my shell shock.

The guy rubbed his mouth, gawking. I took a good look at him. He’s wearing some kind blue, exoskeletal braces on top of regular fitted sweatpants, and on his forearms, too. Joints, meshes, springs and all. It doesn’t look like professional gear, more like something made in a garage. A mop of curls on his head. His broad shoulders pop out of his sleeveless black tank. Every bit of skin is covered in fresh, bleeding scrapes. And on his wrist...

“Oh my God, you’re right,” he says, gesticulating frantically. “I’m—I don’t know if I—I’m so glad—dude, if there’s any way—”

“Is that a Vanguard Academy band?” I ask.

“I—” He glances at his dark green wristband with a chiseled turquoise font, and though I can’t actually read from where I am, I recognize the colors. “Yeah? Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m just applying for the entrance exams, actually,” he says distractedly, fiddling with the band.

“Were you at the mixer this morning?”

He blinks. I notice how freakishly large his pupils are. Is this guy high on something?

“Yeah. Were you?”

“No,” I say, sitting down on a broken air conditioner. “I...had another thing,” I mutter rubbing at some remaining stage paint on my neck, and hate myself for how the pathetic I sounded.

I realise I must look like a fucking clown with my stage clothes and—fuck—I probably cried and rubbed my eyeliner all over. Thankfully, he doesn’t ask about it.

“I see. I mean, well, not to down-play the fact that I almost knocked you off a ten floor building,” the guy says, sitting downon the dusty concrete. “But, you dodged that like a ninja. Not because— y’know—” He awkwardly gestures at the long, black skirt I’m wearing. “I don’t mean to—I just—my name’s Mason, by the way!” He scrambles to stand up and reaches out a hand. “Mason Montague.”

I take a deep breath involuntarily, how intense he’s being right now. “Jin-Haru,” I say, shaking his hand. “And, it’s a twelve floor building.”

“Jin-Haru,” he repeats. “I take it you didn’t pair with a training buddy, then?”

I blink. “A what?”

“At the mixer there was this speed-dating session,” he says too eagerly. “Everyone had to pair up with someone to, like, hype each other up and prepare for the entrance exams.”

I feel a pit in my stomach from missing out, and I’m immediately mad at myself again for going to that audition.

“You know what? I can make this up to you,” says Mason, clicking his fingers. “This is—Wow. I was late to the mixer, actually. I slept in like an idiot and I didn’t get the chance to really connect with anyone?” His sentence turns into a question, or a hopeful suggestion. “So, if you need a buddy, here I am; special delivery!” he jokes, hands on his hips.

I don’t mean to look him up and down, but my eyes do anyway. His face is something between a car accident and a supermodel. The sort of ugly-hot some actors have going for them. A few very prominent scars and a very particular nose. If this is how he usually breaks his falls, then no wonder. I’m pretty certain those leg braces came with elbow pads and a safety gear that he refuses to wear. And every facial expression he makes—and he sure makes a lot of them—is somehow both an unfortunately paused movie frame and a magazine cover. How can someone be this awkward and extroverted?

“Sure,” is all I can say.

Mason’s eyes widen. “Really? Wow. That’s—wow, yeah, let’s do it!” Gosh, what a nerd. “Does your phenomena also let you parkour by any chance? You do have—? Are you phenomenal, Jin-Haru? Sorry I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah—No, yeah, I have a phenomena,” I say, falteringly. “No, I do not fly.”

“I mean, I don’t fly either.”

“Right, you just Mario double-jump off people’s heads like they’re turtles.”

Mason crosses arms and grins apologetically at that. I notice blood dripping from his elbow.

“You’re bleeding as fuck.”

He turns a little, looking down his shoulder. A wide strip of skin peeled back across his shoulder and arm, scarlet lines running towards gravity.

♫

We take the stairwell to my floor. The door to my apartment kicks a bag of trash I forgot to take out yesterday. Fuck.

I step over my duffel bag and plain white mask that I dumped in when I came home earlier. “Just, go to sit in the shower or something, I’ll find something.”

Awkwardly holding his shirt to his nearly degloved tricep, Mason steps over the junk and pushes the bathroom door open. I remeber that the sink is full of full of grimy shampoo bottles, expired make-up and God knows what else. Fuck me raw.

Tripping over plastic bags and shoeboxes filled with shit I have to sort, I try to get to my wardrobe—the only piece of furnitute I own—and nearly slip on my worn t-shirts and socks. As I dig for the first-aid kit, I kick an empty energy drink can, which trips a few empty bottles of beer, which trips seven empty plastic bottles for refilling water from the water cooler at the gym—which, I never get around to. I cuss under my breath.

I hear the shower water running and Mason goarning in pain. Kit in hand, I dart to the bathroom.

“Bro, are you sure you should be doing that?” I croak hoarsely.

Mason whips a few, swift rinses, sucking air through his teeth. “Nah, it’s fine, I do this all the time.”

“Have you seen the fucking mold on the walls?” I say, unzipping the kit and pulling out the roll of bandage. “You’re gonna get fucking sepsis just by locking eyes with it.”

He fukcingchucklesat that and turns the water off. “Could you open my back pack?”

I sigh, doing as he asks. He fishes out a yellow bottle and hands it to me. “Use this.”

“What is this?”

“Just go wild and use half of it,” Mason says, turning his meaty shoulder to me.

I do as he says, shaking the lemon-yellow powder straight onto the open wound. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“I’m starting to feel it, yeah,” Mason says through gritted teeth.

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

“I told you,” he waves me off like he waved me off on the roof. “I’m fine, I heal like a dog.”

“Have youseen ugly ass street dogs? Have you seen your own fucking face?”

Mason huffs another laugh. “Okay, cover it up.” I start wrapping the bandage roll around him. “Go over here first—No—Yeah—Gimme,” he rambles before taking the roll and doing it himself. “There’s a trick to it.”

I watch him wrap himself with a practiced swiftness, my heart pounding because there’s a weirdo in my bathroom, he’s bleeding, shirtless andjacked like a Greek statue. His pecs and shouders pop with each move and I try not to blatantly look. What is even happening?

“Do you have the stretchy, sticky bandage in there, too?” he asks, holding one end of the bandage with his teeth.

I do and he directs me how to secure it.

“You know, I swear this doesn’t usually happen,” Mason says while I pull more of the bandage out. “I’ve, uh, learned how to tumble and roll. Usually.”

I make a generic, unimpressed sound.

“But, you know, when you shouted,” he says with fascination, pointing at his ear. “It’s like you were inside my head. That was so thrown off, like, I thought you came after me. What was that?”

I cut the banadge with little scissors.

“My phenoema,” I say hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Mason asks with a dorky look on his face, then winces .

“I have painkillers if you need them.”

“Can I see?”

I find my strip of pills next to the mattress on the floor that served as my bed and bring it back to him, along with half a bottle of water. He actually studies the back of the package, carefully.

“That’s really strong,” he comments. “If you need these, I can go to a pharmacy; if it’s prescription.”

“It’s fine,” I mumble, opening the bottle and handing it to him.

“Listen, I might be a little weird for a moment,” he says, putting the pill in his mouth. “Stuff runs through me real fast. My eyes might look weird.”

“Is that why you you look like you had coke for breakfast?”

He looks at me with those freakishly large pupils, his forehead curtained by those messy surfer curls, and my stomach tenses up.

“That’s normal, I mean weirder.”

With that, he swallows the painkiller and water, then reaches for his backpack and fishes out a candybar, tears it open with his teeth and bites into it.

“Sorry, I need—” Mason says, chewing and covering his mouth. “Calories. Is there a Daily we can go to? Do you want a shawarma? My treat.”

Still trying to catch up with the last fifteen minutes, I take a moment to respond. I open my mouth, then close it, realizing he’s staring into space. His pupils have grown so large, I can’t see his eyecolour. A chill runs down my spine. The haunted look he gives the air in front of him is blank, unfocused.

“Hey,hey," I say, patting his good shoulder. “Don’t ‘game over’ on me, bro.”

He blinks slowly and raises his head to me. I back away on the dirty tiles.

“Say something normal,” I plead.

“I don’t have a shirt,” he says, normally.

I get up cautiously. “Sure. Wait here.”

Keeping an eye on the door, I frantically peel off my clothes, pull on a black hoodie and jeans, and slip into a pair of flip flops, thinking now would be good time to call an ambulance and maybe the police, just in fucking case. On the floor was a rogue hairband, and I tie my hair into a bun. By the wardrobe, I find an oversized black t-shirt that smelled mostly of deodorant and had a crab logo with the words ‘crustaceon club staff memeber’ written around it. Thrifted for a dollar, he can keep it for all I care.

When I peek into the bathroom again, I see him wiping his eyes and blinking hard, looking like a person again. He sees me and simpers.

“Shawarma?” he asks again, putting a hand on his impeccable chest. “My treat.”

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading the first chapter of my draft, Echolite (working title.) Check out my link on my profile for some behind-the-scences commentary on this chapter, and feel free to ask me a question there.

Otherwise, it motivates me a lot if you let me know you enjoyed it by liking, commenting, adding me to your reading list. Thanks again.

𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎,

𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚒𝚖𝚊