I’m going back to school today unfortunately
Okay so I actually didn’t really get a break from school. My mom said I could have but she’d have stayed home too and helicoptered over me. I love my mom but I’m genuinely fine with what happened. Probably. I'm not really thinking about it. Whatever.
The thing about hero incidents is that witnesses, and in my case victims, often get left out of the news. From a law drawn up like 40 years ago. Apparently some reporter was a repeat kidnapping victim cause the bad guys thought the hero cared about her more than the average joe. He didn’t and he got more annoyed every time he had to save her, until one day he just didn’t.
She ended up being saved by another hero. That happened a few more times until the bad guys finally wizened up. As for the reporter she got to have a ton of interviews with multiple heroes and went on to run for city council where she helped pass the law to protect victims.
The point I’m making is that no one at school is gonna know except for me, the teachers, and anyone I open my mouth to. Teachers had to know to help accommodate students or something along those lines. And I say teachers but it’s just my direct teachers and the guidance counselor. So when I pulled up to school on my bike nothing was out of the ordinary. No one was staring at me like I’d survived some freak accident or nothing.
I chained up my bike, walking into the school building. It was still a little too early to go to homeroom but the cafeteria was open for breakfast. I skipped breakfast at home so the reheated frozen food was gonna have to do.
“Marcus” My friend called out to me from the table with some of the other kids I ate with
“Yo” I dabbed them up. These were the kids I sat with and talked to occasionally. We were cool and we would play on our consoles together but I wasn’t really close with any of them. I would still go out if they asked to hoop or hang out or something, that’s just where it ended. I have only two close friends that I talk to consistently.
They come in right around when homeroom starts and eat breakfast at home.
I got my food while making small talk with the kids around me. The conversation mostly centered on the fight yesterday between the supers. Superhero fights weren’t exactly rare but Ascendant is the probably the most famous super ever. Any fight he gets into people start talking, not to mention this happened pretty close to the school too.
I mostly tuned out what they were saying and ate my food. However, as I was eating I started to notice something at the edge of my vision. When I wasn’t focusing on anything I could swear that I was catching glimpses of those soul ball thingys. I could almost feel them too, but when I turned to look they were gone. I tried unfocusing my vision or anything to try and see if I was trippin out with no luck.
“Doesn’t your boy rock with heroes like that, Marcus. What’d he say about it?” This guy Diego asked me
“What’s up?” I turned back
“What’d Wyatt say about the fight?”
“Oh I don’t know, I haven't asked him yet. I’ll let you know” I stood up “aight y’all I’ll see you later”
As I walked through the halls I couldn’t help trying to see the souls. If I were being honest with myself it was probably just my mind playing tricks on me. I didn’t really get much sleep yesterday, and not because of the near death experience. I wasn’t tired at any point last night, my mind was too preoccupied with what had happened too. It ended up being like 2 am before I slept, and I got up for school around 6 am. Which is weird because I don’t feel tired.
Most of the day passes by quickly after reaching homeroom. The teachers don’t make too much of a big deal except for my english teacher pulling me aside before I left and asking if I was okay. I made it all the way to the class before lunch when the next weird thing happened. The teacher, Mr. Abel, was an older German man with a ring of hair on his head that didn’t touch the top.
He’s a dick
I mean that in the worst way possible. This one time a kid had left school for a week to go upstate for a funeral and Mr. Abel not only counted the days against the kid, but had a quiz for him when he got back. Luckily the Principal intervened and stopped it. Mr. Abel would’ve been fired if not for the tenure he accrued. Technically the old teacher was following the old school rules that hadn’t been updated too, that was rectified almost immediately after the incident.
Anyways this guy loved to drone on and on and on but didn’t ever say anything important. He’s one of those teachers that spends half the class going over what we learned in the last half of class the previous day. It’s so grating. So I was ignoring whatever he was yapping about because I already knew what he had to say about it. I was looking down at my notebook pretending to take notes when I saw it again.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a ball of light. This time instead of immediately reacting I tried to understand what I was feeling. There was a slight buzzing in my eyes that I hadn’t noticed this morning. As soon as I focused on it the buzz shifted from the side of my eye to the center where my iris was. Suddenly the kid sitting in front of me had a glowing ball in the area his chest would’ve been in. I looked around the room and sure enough every person had a ball. They were pretty uniform in that there wasn’t much deviation. A ball of pure light with some kind of weird aura around it.
The interesting part is when I looked over at this one girl who sits next to me. I mentioned her before when I died yesterday. She had braids that went down to her waist, luscious lips that formed into a beautiful smile, her eyes always hit the light just right enough to stump you. That was only focusing on the physical though the dark skinned beauty was smart and funny in a way that meshed with my straight man routine. Way too nice and way outta my league. Naomi. Even her name was like music.
That’s not what got my attention today
No, remember how I said all the souls around me were uniform. That was only mostly true. Naomi’s soul was anything but normal. Her soul had a more see through quality to it but had some kind of iridescent shine to it. It kinda looked like a big bubble. And orbiting around the bubble were a bunch of tiny bubbles in a couple different colors. It was weird. And fascinating. But more importantly it was distracting
“Mr. Jackson, if your done gawking at Ms. Copeland so you can focus back on the class please”
I kept my face neutral as a couple kids laughed and a few looked at me weirdly. I could feel my cheeks heat up slightly as Naomi looked at me strangely too. Yeah, there goes any chance of having a conversation with her this year, maybe even ever.
Without showing the expected reaction of getting publicly humiliated, most kids put my stupid staring off to the side. The only one’s really looking at me were a couple of jerks that were snickering in the corner. Dang that sucks. I sighed and looked down at the notebook in front of me. We finally reached the point in class where Mr. Abel started to go over new material and I had to take notes down.
Abel was going on about this fight against a mass horde of zombies that nearly wiped out the world, something we go over literally every year, when a note slid across my desk. A glance to my right revealed Naomi side eying me. I opened the note
It read: ‘Are you okay?’
Huh that’s nice of her. I mean I was the one staring at her and granted it wasn’t to be a creep but there's no way she would have known that. I wrote back a quick ‘yeah. Sorry about that I spaced out. Didn’t mean to stare’ and passed it back to her. She smiled at me after she read the note and gave her full attention back to Mr. Abel. Not too much longer the bell rang.
“Mr. Jackson, a word?” Abel pulled me aside before I could slip away
“Yes, sir?” Those old types usually had power trips goin on. Easier to lean into it to get out faster
“I understand your… situation, but I trust this isn’t going to be an issue?”
Wow no type of sympathy huh, to think I haven’t milked the incident at any point today and I’m STILL getting accused. Yeah aight
“No, sir”
“Good” He shrugged “The guidance counselor would like a word after school”
With a heavy sigh I left the history room. I figured the guidance counselor would want a meeting. I’m probably gonna skip it though, I get he wants to touch bases but I really don’t want to spend an hour with someone tryna psychoanalyze me. Up next I had lunch with Wyatt and Gemma, the two people I make an active effort to be friends with. As I was walking to the cafeteria I passed by the bathroom and decided to duck in. Nobody was in there yet so I had a little time. I walked to the mirror and focused on that buzzing feeling in my eyes.
My soul was reflected back at me
It wasn’t uniform like the others
Instead my whole body was covered in that weird aura thing, like my soul was taking the shape of my body. I felt my hands start to sweat and my breathing quicken. I physically looked down at my hands and felt my mind flashback to just after my death. This was too similar.
Oh god
I let go of the buzzing in my eyes but the unnaturally hot feeling and fear that sat in my chest stayed. There was one other thing I saw. My eyes were glowing when I was using that soul vision thing. They were glowing a bright purple. I had to know if they were actually glowing in real life or just in my vision. I let myself feel the buzz reach my eyes again but this time took out my phone and took a picture of my face. Sure enough when I looked at my phone my eyes were purple. Not only that but I couldn’t see the aura around myself in the camera.
That’s interesting
I glanced at my phone and the hand holding it. It really did look like I had overlayed my soul over myself. I did that for a second before I felt more buzzing but this time coming from inside the hand I was focusing on.
Suddenly I dropped my phone
But not really
The phone had gone through my hand
I blankly stared at my hand that still had the buzzing feeling in it and the ground where my phone had fallen. I reached down and tried to grab it with my arm but it went right through the floor. Just like that it was unimpeded, no resistance at all. I pulled my hand back to see nothing changed in the slightest. I let the buzzing in my arm fade and picked up my phone. I stared at my hand feeling fully solid again. I slipped my phone in my pocket and walked closer to the sink. I raised my hand above the sink, allowing myself to feel the buzzing enter my hand. Then slowly I pushed my hand INTO the sink. I turned on the water and watched as it passed seamlessly through my palm.
The bathroom door opens and I quickly act like I was washing my hands and drop the buzzing feeling. I steadied my breathing and walked out of the bathroom.
I have superpowers