The next morning Jack woke up at five-forty-five.
He went to the gym at six.
He followed each step like he had followed them before—every single day. The same movements, the same steps of the same tasks… and all the while he was trying to put the portal out of his head.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. It wasn’t every year, but every two or so one would open up somewhere near him. They had a sort of specific energy, and he seemed to be able to pick up on it. He had no idea what it was or why it happened. He remembered thinking maybe it was a result of having gone through one before, or maybe it was the one lingering remainder of the Nymian powers he had once held. If so, it wasn’t a relief, just another reminder that he was weaker than he had once been. The magic that had given him purpose was lost and gone and it was never coming back. He knew that from experience too.
The first time had been about a year after he had returned to Earth. It had been a bad year overall, and he hadn’t adjusted well, but when he had that same sort of feeling, the sense that something significant was nearby, he had run wildly out in the middle of the night into the woods behind his house.
And there it was, sputtering and glowing with colors that confused his eyes. He remembered distinctly the feeling of intense gratitude, of thanks, of salvation. It was finally here, it had been a whole year but now he could go back, he could finally go home. He wasn’t lost, he wasn’t unloved – wasn’t forgotten. It was all meant to be after all and he had passed the test.
But it wasn’t Nymia. The world beyond that portal hadn’t been the same as before. Jack didn't know that was even possible, or that more than two worlds existed. Through that portal it had been just darkness – oozing, threatening darkness. Jack hadn’t cared, he jumped through anyway, feeling desperate in a way he couldn’t put into words. The darkness smothered him, pushed on him—weighed him down. He choked and cried out but no sound escaped his lips.
He had had to claw his way back to the light. The portal was already closing and he realized if he didn't make it back through he would be trapped forever in the crushing black. He almost was. As it snapped closed the portal almost took his foot along with it. It ended up getting his two toes on the right side.
And that’s how his parents had found him, bleeding and sobbing in stained pajamas in the middle of the forest at one-thirty in the morning. His parents referred to it between themselves as his first ‘episode.’ They had said a lot of things about him during his teenage years. They usually didn’t think he was listening in on their conversations, not when he was thirteen. They got a little more subtle as the years went on, but how was he supposed to explain to them that this was anything other than a tantrum? He had faced things more deadly than anything on Earth, fought entire armies, flown into the face of death, and defied it time and time again. He had stitched up wounds that should have killed him, saved countless lives, and even buried friends he had failed to protect.
He had seen and done things they would never dream of, but none of it had mattered. It was all just talk of therapists and counselors and "learning to appropriately express your feelings, son—it’s normal. We all have to learn how to do that."
Jack shook the memories from his head and went inside the gym for an unfulfilling workout.
Stupid.
After his shower, he walked past a full-length mirror. He usually didn’t have time to stop and look, but today he had quit early. It was one of those days where he just didn’t have the energy to finish his workout. He stopped and inspected his arms.
Small.
And of course, they were. He looked nothing like the other nineteen-year-old version of him had. What looked back at him from the mirror was a sad sort of skinny, pale parody. The other him was a man who had gone up against the greatest warriors ever to take sword in hand. That version of him had lived a rough life in the open air for years, daily training and running and riding and fighting – his skin kissed by Nymia’s giant ringed sun.
And there had been the powers. Jack flexed the muscles in his right arm in memory of long-lost sensations, the feeling of tingling fire inside veins, the warmth of ability, or the flow of potency. He wished just for a moment he could distill just a drop of water from the air, tease out a tiny flame, or make the smallest swirl of air in his palm. It was no use. He had tried a million and a half times, and every time he had failed.
That had maybe been the worst to lose—the magic. The strength and age were hard to adjust to, but losing his powers was devastating. It was like being cut off suddenly from an entire sense, like waking up blind, deaf, or unable to feel warmth anymore. It had been claustrophobic at first, and to be honest, he never really got used to the suffocating pressure of the absence.
No, the man in the mirror definitely wasn’t Jasku. That was Jack Ledger for sure, and Jack Ledger was the one who got dressed and headed back to his apartment.
Breakfast was at seven-thirty again—a banana, peanut butter toast, and instant oatmeal.
At seven-forty-five he was inside his car, turning the key. The engine cranked but wouldn’t start.
No. Please. C’mon, come on! He turned the key again. I’ll buy you spark plugs I promise. I really, really promise I will, just do this for me one last time. The engine continued to crank and crank but It wouldn’t start. Jack stopped, took the key out, and laid his head down on the steering wheel before sighing deeply.
“Yatakii,” he said aloud. It wasn’t exactly a curse, it was the Nymic word for idiot, and he used it a lot, mostly on himself.
Jack opened his phone and tried to remember the name of the ridesharing app Maria had suggested last time he had been late. Actually, she had suggested it the last three times. It was something stupid. Movebody, movebodies? Bodymove? The app store was having trouble loading. His phone service was terrible right outside his apartment and the wifi was too weak to reach the driveway. He would have to go inside, download the app, install it, and probably have to sign up and put in all of his information before using it anyway. It was obvious he was going to be late. In an act of final desperation, he dropped his phone, slapped the dash in front of him, and turned the key one more time. The engine suddenly fired.
Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Jack walked into the office at eight-o-three exactly. “Sorry, I’m late. Luckily traffic wasn’t bad but my—“
“Car didn’t start?” Maria said. “I told you to get Bodymover.”
“Bodymover! That was it!”
Maria handed him the sign-in form. “Mr. Haynes is watching your class for you.”
“Mr. Haynes?” Jack said. “Of all the people, you decided—”
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“I didn’t decide,” Maria said. She motioned to her computer. “The system works it out on its own.”
“The system hates me.”
Maria took the clipboard and handed Jack his key. “Maybe you should show up on time.”
“I’m buying spark plugs tomorrow!” Jack headed down the hallway toward his classroom but he wasn’t hurrying. He braced himself for Mr. Haynes to spend about seven and a half minutes saying the most condescending couple of things imaginable to him in front of the kids. It would probably be something about him being young, or reminding him he’s not a real teacher, or commenting on how stupid it was to not go to college while insisting afterward he had no idea Jack had dropped out—that one had happened three times already. Maynes also insisted on calling him Jack instead of Mr. Ledger which didn’t help his credibility with the students.
Jack arrived at the door, readied himself, and pushed it open. Mr. Haynes was standing at the head of the classroom erasing the board where yesterday Jack had rewritten 'behave for the sub OR ELSE!' The elderly teacher was wearing that hundred-year-old tweed suit and had that stupid mustache that reached out further than his glasses.
“Ah, and your substitute teacher has arrived!” he said. Jack didn’t appreciate the emphasis.
“Yeah, so sorry everybody,” Jack hurried into the room. “I just had some car troubles today and traffic was horrible.“
“Ah. Well, Jack you know you’ve got to be prepared!”
“Mr. Ledger,” Jack said flatly.
“Not true!” Mr. Haynes said. For the life of him, Jack didn’t know why the man used that stupid British accent. Everyone was pretty doubtful he was actually from England. It sounded more like he ripped it off from some 1930s-era black-and-white movie. Some people just had to make life harder fro everyone else for no reason.
“It is true,” Jack said as patiently as possible. “My name is Mr. Ledger.”
“It is not Mr. Ledger,” the old man said. Jack cursed internally. Of all the days to escalate an argument this stupid and the geezer chose this one specifically. He calmed himself before answering.
“I really think it’s important to maintain a professional—“
“And it’s not Jack!”
Jack stopped talking. “Uh, what?”
“You’re name is Jasku.”
Jack was immediately frozen, stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the classroom. It was like a physical blow. He dropped his laptop bag and shook his head. Everything in front of his eyes swam and seemed to close in on him. He opened and closed his mouth a few times trying to work out some words, but nothing seemed to want to come out.
“Poor boy’s speechless,” Mr. Haynes said.
“I… I…”
“Not quite speechless I suppose.” The old man carried a cane around with him everywhere, and he used it to point straight at Jack’s chest. “You are Jasku, are you not? Or at least you used to be, yes?”
Jack quickly looked around. All eyes were on him, and though it wasn’t very warm in the room he began to sweat. He turned back to Haynes and tried to talk quietly.
“How… how do you know that?”
“Well, it’s yours, isn’t it? The name I mean.” Mr. Hayes leaned back against the wall and motioned with his cane. “Figured if it’s your name it's one you’d be likely to have heard before.” A few of the students chuckled briefly. Jack looked around and then hurriedly took a few steps closer to Mr. Haynes.
“What are you doing?” he said quickly, voice still lowered. “Why’d you say that? I haven’t told a single person about… no one knows that name.”
“I do,” Mr. Haynes whispered, smirking. Jack searched the old man’s face for more information – a tell, a sign, anything. What was going on? How could he have figured it out?
It couldn’t be the journal. Everything was written in runes. That’s the only place Jack ever put anything about Nymia. He literally hadn’t even said the name out loud to anyone in the last seven years.
There’s no way. There’s absolutely no possible way anyone could know except…
Jack felt a tiny glimmer ignite inside his stomach, an old glimmer he hadn’t felt for a long time. It wasn’t possible, was it? He gulped at the lump in his throat. “You’re not from—”
“I always had a problem with you calling yourself Mr. Ledger,” the old man explained, sidestepping Jack’s question. “It’s not appropriate, with you not being a real teacher and all.” He headed back to the whiteboard and Jack just watched him, dumbfounded.
“I on the other hand should officially be called Professor Haynes,” the old man picked up a marker and elaborately wrote his name on the board. “A little too official for Secondary School I know, but that’s just the way of it nowadays I suppose.” He turned back around to Jack and fixed him with a piercing gaze. “Sometimes we get called things we’d prefer not to be.”
“You’ve been to Nymia!” Jack suddenly blurted. His voice was strained and leaden with emotion but he didn’t care. “You’ve been there!” Tears began welling up in his eyes. “You have to have been there!”
Mr. Haynes just smiled and shook his head. “Jack, Jack, Jack. You have so much to learn about the universe don’t you?”
“Please,” Jack didn’t care how desperate he sounded. “Please tell me you’ve been there. Please tell me you can help me.” He choked back a sob “Help me get back.”
“Should have stayed in college Jack,” Mr. Haynes said. “Should have become a teacher like me.”
“Please!” Jack shouted, almost falling to his knees as he stepped unsteadily forward. The class burst out into confused laughter but he didn’t care. Let the kids see, let them think he was desperate. He was.
Mr. Haynes walked slowly up to him. “If you had gone to school Jack, you may have learned a thing or two.” He reached his cane out and tapped Jack on the shoulder. “Like for example, Newton’s Third Law. You remember that one don’t you?”
Jack looked up through his tears, confused. “Newton? Isaac Newton?”
Mr. Haynes nodded. “Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t—I don’t understand. What are you talking about? How do you know about my name, about Nymia?”
Mr. Haynes smiled to himself and shook his head before leaning down close and meeting Jack’s eyes. There was something in the way he looked at him that Jack hadn’t expected. Mr. Haynes was always jovial. Condescending sure, but jovial. Now that they were this close, Jack saw something else in the old man’s eyes. It was only a short moment, but he got the feeling there was something deeper there – something almost sinister, and also maybe something else a little bit… hungry.
“I’m not here for your world,” the old man said. “I’m here for all of them.”
“All?” Jack asked. “What do you mean?”
“Lesson number two, conservation of energy,” Mr. Haynes said. “Neither created nor destroyed, only converted from one form of to another.”
“I—I don’t understand,” Jack said. “Energy? What are you talking about? What energy?”
Mr. Haynes smiled. “Yours.”
The old man suddenly swung his cane and slammed it into Jack’s side. There was a flash of light and some sort of concussive force that picked him off his feet and smashed him into the wall at the other end of the classroom. Pain erupted in every limb and joint as he fell back down to the floor. He felt things pop and crack inside of him and limbs move in ways they shouldn’t. Everything became dust and rubble and the only thing he could hear over the ringing in his ears were the kids screaming.