The Remembered Hero

It’s been a year since we saved those kids, we got Carter enrolled in school and we got into the same classes, we even made a few extra suites to hide at school. Serena would make sure all technology was always running smoothly. Only a few bad guys have shown up through the year but I’m sure that Serion is still around somewhere. Knowing that my dad was alive and out there was worse than knowing that he was not alive and out there. I was sure he was still working with Serion unless they did end up killing him for betraying them. Someone bumped my arm, “You, ok? You look tired.” Carter whispered to me, I nodded and smiled at him, he was right I was tired I hadn’t slept thinking about my dad and Serion. I was also scared that the 20 kids Serion experimented on would end up having powers, I wasn’t scared of sharing the spotlight I was scared that they wouldn’t be able to control it like I could. Jaiden had told me stories about her accidentally burning things at her house. The bell rung and everyone was dismissed to go home, since I lived close to the school, we all just walked there together, Serena also came later we found out that her parents were Debbie and Weston from the first room we went into at Serion, they had been arrested and even though they told the officers they were forced they didn’t believe them. We got home and did our homework then asked Jaiden if she had found anything about Serion. She always told us no.

We went on patrol, and I did the cliché thing of getting a cat out of a tree. I also stopped a robbery of a small gas station. The owner, who said his name was Ben, said this to me, “Thank you so much Ma’am if it weren’t for you, he would of shot me. You know what you kind of remind me of my granddaughter, I haven’t seen her in years.” I smiled, “She sounds nice, have a good day sir.” I walked out and told the police officers everything I knew about the situation, “You ok over there?” Carter said through the ear piece, “Yep, all good here. How about you?” I asked, “Fine nothing to report over her-” He paused, “There’s some shady people over here, I’ll send you, my location.” Then he went quiet, that was weird, why didn’t he tell me what was going on. I got a notification on my phone and saw that his location wasn’t that far away from me. I ran over as fast as I could, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. I saw him standing on the next rooftop looking at his phone. I took my last jump but my power stopped working.

I started to fall, I needed my power to make it all the way to the other side, “Carter!” I yelled trying to get him to help me. There was nothing to grab on to, I started to panic. Then, someone grabbed my wrist. Carter stood above me eye’s wide, “So it wasn’t just my power that stopped.” He whispered barely audible. I didn’t ask anything till he got us up to the top of the roof. “Thanks, what do you mean you lost your powers?” “It was like I lost part of myself and then I couldn’t transform anymore.” He said and he looked like he was trying to shapeshift again, “That what it felt like for me too, well before the panic of falling to my death kicked in.” I thought for a second, “Hey, Serena can you hear us?” No response, “We lost connection to Serena!” I told Carter. Then I looked around the area, “Where are we?” It didn’t look anything like the town we lived in. Carter looked around, “What the. I... I don’t know.” I started to panic again, “We are stuck in some random place, we have no powers, and we lost all connection back home!” I started pacing, “Hey, we’ll be all right. Let’s get out of our suits and figure out where we are.” Carter put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from pacing. I nodded and we started to take off our suits.

We went inside the building and crept down to the bottom, thankfully no one was there, or so we thought, “Hey, what are you kids doing here?” It was a security guard, me and Carter started running outside. We thankfully ran out of there and ran far away enough for him not to follow us. We stopped at an ally way and caught our breath. We went out of the alleyway and started walking. We walked for about an hour. Finally we came across a sign on the ground, “Welcome to North Charleston” I pulled out my phone and look up where North Charleston was, me and Carter have never heard of it. It said it was in a state called “South Carolina” I looked at the map, this wasn’t my planet if I was even still in the same universe. I showed the map to Carter his eyes went wide, “Is this some joke? Or some movie map?” He asked looking back to me, “Nope, I don’t know what this is, but my guess is Serion has something to do with it.” He nodded as response, “But what are we going to do? We don’t even know if the little money we have works here!” I could tell he was starting to worry, “Hey calm down we can figure something out, first let’s head to a store or something to see if people use the same money as us. This place looks similar to back home so we should be able to find it.” I started walking again and Carter followed close behind, checking behind us multiple times.

Eventually we came across a “Wall-Mart” whatever that was, “Maybe they just sell walls.” I mumbled to Carter, we walked in, and they definitely did not sell just walls. We walked and stood in a line grabbing a candy bar to pretend as if we were paying for something. We moved up till we were the second in line, I saw the man in front of us hand the cashier green paper. That must be their currency, ours looked similar but it was light brown, “Oh, we forgot to get the eggs for mom!” I said walking back out of the line.

I put the candy bar back and we walked out of the store, walking to an ally way nearby and sitting on the ground. We didn’t know what to do next, we had no money, so we had no food and nowhere to go. We didn’t talk and ended up falling asleep in the alley. In the morning I checked my phone to see if I could message Serena, mom, or Jaiden, but none of their contacts were in my phone. I typed in their numbers and saw that they didn’t even exist. “So, how do you think we can make money?” Carter said turning towards me, “I guess I can lift some stuff up with my mind, say it’s just magic.” I lifted up a paper soda cup up and down for effect, “I guess but we have to be careful incase Serion is in this world as well.” “I know if you want you can stand by me the whole time.” I started walking out holding a stick for me to lift up and down.

We got to a busy street and started shouting about a magic trick for only 2 dollars to see. A few people came up and I did my thing, some waved their hand around the object seeing if there were any strings. At the end of the day, we had made 20 dollars and hadn’t seen anyone suspicious. “I’m hungry let’s see if we can buy anything!” I said walking over to Carter. He smiled at me then looked past me. I turned around expecting to see someone from Serion but it was just a girl, she looked about our age but who knows how time works in this world, “How did you do that trick?” She said looking amazed, “I’ve always loved magic but have never seen someone do it so perfectly, without anyone even figuring out how it worked!” I smiled at her before saying, “A magician never reveals their secrets.” It was a phrase from my world but maybe she had never heard it before, she smiled at started walking away. I faced Carter and started walking in the direction of the store we went to first.

We got there and got us these little things that had 3 pizzas in it that you put the toppings on yourself, thankfully it only cost us 4 dollars. We sat down in a park and ate our food, it wasn’t too bad, “This park reminds me of where I first found you.” I said with food still in my mouth, “Ya, when I heard you mumble about my title, I was pretty shocked. It finally gave me hope that someone could save me, so I stayed with you. Best decision of my life.” He looked back at his food and started eating again, I smiled before getting up and throwing away the little container it came in. He finished his food and threw his away as well, “Next step, see if we can find a cheap hotel.” I said to myself, “Let’s go somewhere that has free Wi-Fi.” Carter said walking in a random direction, I got up and followed him. We made our way to a coffee shop that had Wi-Fi. After a minute we found a place that would take the rest of our money to go to, but it was kind of our only option, we just had to keep doing the trick to make money.

It was a pretty run-down place so we were a bit suspicious of it, “Maybe it’s just how hotels are in this world.” Carter said going into the lobby to pay for a room. I came in behind him, “One room please.” He said to the man behind a desk. He looked up at us then looked back at his computer, “Sir, we need a room.” I raised my voice, the man looked back us, “Where are your parents?” He said looking around the lobby, “They are out at the car waiting for us to tell them what room we are going to, unless you want some angry tired parents who have sat in a car for 10 hours to come in here and yell you might want to give us the room card.” I said looking at him, “We have money by the way.” Carter said. The man sighed but gave us a room and we played for it, “Thank you sir.” I said all innocently wail walking out the door and back outside.

We went to our room and walked in, it looked pretty trashed but that wasn’t the worst part, there were bullet holes in the walls. I looked at one and could see a couple in the other room making out. I backed away from the hole, “Don’t look at any on this wall.” I said turning to Carter, “This one either.” He sighed and fell onto the only bed in the room, “Do you want the bed, Edith?” Carter said looking back at me, “We can share if you’re ok with that.” I said walking over, “Ya it’s fine, I don’t care.” He turned to his side looking the opposite of me. I lay down as well and fell asleep after a few minutes.