After dinner was over, I made my escape and went straight up to my room and then proceeded to collapse onto my desk chair, utterly drained and exhausted.

I somehow managed to diffuse the strange guy in a red car incident with Dad by quickly repeating to him the same things I'd already told Mom. I more or less explained that he was a special agent with the FBI and that he was only giving me a ride home after asking me some questions about what had happened last week.

More than likely the discussion about that particular topic wasn’t completely over with for me, but Mom and Dad needed to discuss that, and other things, behind closed doors, and away from the prying ears of overly curious teenagers.

Leaning my head back and staring up at the ceiling, futilely trying to divine any answers and advice it might have for me. I put my hands behind the back of my head and let my head relax into them while I closed my eyes for a second to think about all the craziness I’d been through today.

I’d gone back to school to attend the memorial service for the deaths of two of my classmates, and then right after that I was forced to endure a fair amount of hushed gossip from other students about what I had done at the party. No doubt, the rumors and stories about me would continue to spread and persist among everyone at school for a little while longer. Hopefully, it'll calm down eventually. Hopefully…

Then after dealing with that, I was called in to meet the principal and to meet a fake FBI agent who then pledged his eternal loyalty to me and whisked me off in his garish convertible. He then took me to a random coffee shop in Redding that was actually a secret base for a shadowy organization called the IDPA. There I met a ton of new people who seemed to be eager to both compliment or insult me, depending on the person.

Finally, I arrived home and was interrogated by my mom about getting a ride home from some random guy and for talking with the FBI. Then we cooked dinner together and hopefully, I helped mend my parents’ relationship.

Today was just too much. I really should have gotten more experience points for all of this.

Letting out a sigh I looked back down at the grey textbook of magic that was still resting on my desk. I didn’t have any actual schoolwork to do, and I do need to learn more about all this stuff if I’m going to survive any future fights with whatever monsters I may come across.

Reaching out to open the book and start reading through it, I was stopped by a light knocking on my door.

Frick, now what? Did Mom or Dad already want to follow up with me about the stupid convertible thing?

Reluctantly getting up, I made my way to my door which I slowly opened, trying to see who was outside before fully committing to opening it.

Elliot was the person standing outside my door.

That was unusual, he usually only came to see me when he wanted something, or Mom had forced him to come tell me something.

“Elliot?” I asked, the surprise and curiosity plain to hear in my voice.

“Uh, hi.” He said nervously. “Can I come in, you uh said before you’d um, help me study or whatever.”

“Oh. Uh sure…” I said to him while opening the door and moving out of his way.

He walked in carrying a textbook and what looked like some papers. The schoolwork that he wanted help with I guess. I was a bit surprised to see Elliot take me up on my offer to help him study, but this wasn’t the first time Elliot came to me for help with schoolwork. Typically though, he was in a state of panic because he only ever came to me out of desperation when he had an assignment he hadn't even started yet and it was due the next day. This was a nice change of pace though I suppose.

“So…” I prompted.

“Uh yeah.” He held up his book and papers for me to look at and then promptly flopped down onto my bed.

“Little brat.” I told him, but there wasn’t much bite to my words.

Looking down at what he handed to me I could see it was the pre-algebra textbook he was using for his Math class. The sheets he handed me were the few notes he had taken in class when he’d written down whatever his teacher had been explaining at the time.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the sparseness of his notes, but I resolved not to give him too much of a hard time for it since he was already making an effort to do better by even showing up here.

“So, you want me to help you study some for your math class, do you still have that test coming up, or did you have it already.” I asked, remembering our conversation from last week about Elliot’s upcoming exam.

“Uh yeah, it got pushed back to uh Wednesday or Thursday this week.” He told me flippantly, not even making contact as he continued to recline and stretch out on my nice clean sheets. “I think…?”

“You don’t know?” I asked incredulously. As someone who prided themselves on doing well in school, not knowing the exact date for an upcoming test was unthinkable to me.

“Well yeah, it was sometime this week, so I uh figured I should get some help studying, and you did offer, so…” He explained.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Fine, you’re right.” I said sitting back down on my desk chair and spinning it around to face the still lying down Elliot.

“You know, it might be helpful if you actually sat up and didn’t continue burying your dirty oily face into my nice clean pillows. Just a thought”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yeah, but this is more fun, and pretty comfy too.” He told me. “Hey, why is your bed more comfortable than mine?

I shrugged. “Maybe because I don’t have Mom and Dad buying me the latest game consoles, plus getting me a high-end gaming computer, and tons of games to go along with them.”

“Wha-, that doesn’t mean you can have a nicer bed than me!” Elliot demanded.

“You also got an expensive BMX and skateboard, both with custom paint jobs, and…”

“Okay, okay, fine sheesh. You made your point. Have you been keeping records of all my stuff so you can audit me or something?” Elliot asked irritably.

“Something like that.” I told him vaguely while giving him my most menacing smile.

“St-stop that, stop trying to creep me out.” He demanded impotently.

“But it’s so fun though, isn’t that what you told me while you were dirtying all of my clean sheets and pillowcases?

“Okay, okay, fine.” He said while finally sitting up. “There, better?”

“I suppose. So, ready to start studying then?” I asked him excitedly, hoping to spark a similar feeling in him. It didn’t seem to work though, he seemed even more bored and uninterested in his schoolwork than when he'd arrived.

“Meh, I guess we can…” He said while not making eye contact.

“What do you mean? You did bring all this stuff here.” I said while gesturing at him with his own book and papers. “And said you wanted me to help you with studying didn’t you?”

“I mean, yeah I did, but I don’t know…” He said, continuing his evasive explanation.

“Well, did you want to study this stuff tonight or not?” I asked, feeling a little bit annoyed.

“I uh…not I guess.” He told me.

“What the frick Elliot?” I demanded.

“I uh, was just using it as an excuse I guess.” Elliot explained while continuing to avoid eye contact with me.

“An excuse for what.” I asked, pressing him onward.

“To um, uh, to talk with you I guess.” He said in an embarrassed mumble.

“To talk…?” I asked, not really listening for his reply as I started to piece together the real reason why Elliot might be here tonight.

Mom had said he might be having a hard time processing what happened last week. She also said that he might come to me in his own time. Is that what this is?

“Elliot?” I asked, more gently this time “What did you want to talk about?”

“I uh, well I heard what everyone else has said about what happened at the party you went to, but it all just sounds so ridiculous to me. I can’t…I can’t wrap my head around the idea of you being in a situation like that.” He blurted out, much like a damn breaking.

“At the time, it all seemed pretty crazy to me as well. Still does, to be honest.” I told him, my voice softer now than it usually was when I was talking with him.

“How could that have happened? I mean all that really happened right, what everyone else is saying? That you fought some big wild wolf thing, and then scared it off.” He asked me with a strongly desperate look in his eyes.

I didn’t respond right away. My first instinct was to confirm what he had already been told, the lie others had made up for me because of their inability to see what really happened that night.

But I felt bad about lying to my own brother about something like this. He was obviously upset about what he heard happened to me at the party, and he was looking for me to be upfront and honest with him now.

Confirming the lie would make me feel awful, and it would be double awful because he seemed so desperate and vulnerable right now.

Of all the people I could tell the truth to, Elliot was the last person I had been thinking about. Now though, I couldn’t help but feel compelled to go against Gunderson’s advice and try to tell Elliot the truth. Could I even do it now? Did I have enough experience points?

Was it possible to just check and not actually spend them? I guess it should be safe to check at least, the Akashic Record and its system did seem to be pretty intuitive.

I tried willing the information I wanted out of the air. How many experience points would it cost to reveal the truth about everything to Elliot?

Eventually, a small blue box popped up.

Unveil the sight of Elliot Morrow? Yes/No

Cost: 750 Experience Points.

Also quickly pulling up my status screen, I saw that my experience point total was currently sitting at 500, 250 below the needed amount.

My decision was already made for me then. Even if I wanted to reveal the truth to Elliot, trying to tell him would at best just confuse him, at worst it might kill me.

I tightened my expression as I resolved to do something I didn’t want to.

“Yeah Elliot, what you heard is what happened. There was a big wolf that jumped through a window. I managed to find a gun in another room, and used it to scare the thing off.” I said, the words feeling almost painful to get out. I felt awful about lying to him when he came to me like this.

“Yeah, that’s what I’d heard, but it’s just so hard to believe something like that could happen, you know? That we could be attacked randomly by a wild animal, and that…and that we could be killed and die.” He said. By the end he had quickly angled his head downward, hiding his face from me.

“Elliot, are you alright?” I tried to ask as gently as I could.

“I’m fine.” He loudly insisted.

I tried to get a look at his face, but he seemed to sense that I was trying to look at him and kept angling it so I couldn’t get a good look.

“Elliot, I’m…you can talk to me. I’ll listen and won’t make fun of you or anything.” I told him sincerely, hoping he believed me.

“I…” He started to say. “I just, I’ve been having nightmares about you being killed by that wolf, and it’s just…”

He was starting to make sniffling sounds and tears were beginning to build up in the corner of his eyes. It quickly got to the point that he gave up on his attempt to hide his face and finally let me see it.

“Oh, Elliot.” I said as I moved to sit beside him on my bed. My arms wrapped around him in a small one-armed hug. I didn’t want to push him too much into letting his emotions out, but hopefully, a small comforting hug was all right.

It did seem to bolster him a little as he took a breath in and completed his thoughts.

“I just couldn’t understand losing you so randomly like that. If you had died I…”

“But I didn’t die Elliot, I’m still here.” I insisted.

“I know, it's just…I never really thought about what it would feel like actually losing someone I knew, you know?” He asked me innocently.

“I…I do know.” I tried to determine if I should remind him of the others who died there, that I did know them, even if we weren’t close. I knew their names though, and now they were gone. “I know exactly how you feel Elliot, and it's normal to feel confused about this stuff. I’m confused, really confused.”

I eased up a little bit on the side hug so I could look him in his face again.

“And that's why it's good to talk to other people about these things, and I'm really happy you felt comfortable coming to me about this.” I told him with another comforting squeeze around the shoulders.

“Uh, you shouldn’t get a big head about it.” He said with a bit of humor in his voice. “I just wanted to hear what happened first hand is all.”

“Still, I’m glad you came to me to talk about it.” I said while wrapping him up in a full-on hug this time.

“Gross.” He complained while not moving a single muscle.