The night before
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Tom wakes up, cold sweat dripping down his forehead "that man knew my name," he gulped. At first, he thought it was just an oddly realistic and quite dreary dream. Although after hearing his name, it gave him a weird feeling, and now after waking up, he still felt the warm sensation in his solar plexus.
Tom looked down at his hand "ha, what did I expect," Tom laughed dejectedly. "That's what I get for believing in magic."
Tom continued his day like normal; after one more shot into him to make sure he was stable, the clinic was getting ready to let him go. As he was about to leave, he saw one nurse whisper to another; he could see them looking at him with a worried look in their eyes.
"He glowed," she whispered with fear in her voice.
"Shut up; he didn't glow; nobody glows you weirdo", the second nurse stated. At this point, she was annoyed that the second nurse couldn't give it up; she had been listening to her rambles about his stomach and hand glowing for hours at this point.
"Nobody glows", she yelled. She looked around and noticed the boy looking at her weirdly.
'What did she just say?', Tom thought to himself, 'she couldn't be referring to me…,' All of these thoughts raced through Tom's head. 'Why was the nurse looking at me while she said that?'
"Haha, sorry for yelling at everyone we were just discussing a show last night about falsely reported phenomena, haha," the nurse heavily emphasized the last part to spite the nurse.
After the first nurse recollected her composure, she took Tom outside. As he was leaving the building, she put on a smile and said, "Hope I don't have to see you here again, Mr. Wizard" she laughed. "Sorry, I said something I wasn't supposed to, to the other nurse, but don't worry about it."
"It's fine, I just thought you were talking about me", Tom questioned.
"Haha, why do you say that, what would that even mean" she gulped, sweat dripped down her head only to be pushed away by the sudden increase in wind speed.
Tom walked up to the nurse and said, "I'm not sure what it could mean, but I saw your eyes on me...did I glow?"
As the nurse backed up, "ha, of course not, that's preposterous nobody glows" she shifted her eyes. "Oh you're kidding, is this one of your magic things, Mr. wizard" she giggled.
Tom accepted it, as he also believed he shouldn't keep pushing her. He couldn't handle not knowing. 'Magic', he thought to himself, magic was everything to Tom, he spent all his days dedicated to studying it to no avail, all of his experiments bore no fruit.
Tom was lost in thought, and he kept walking after the nurse saw him off and started walking onto the road. Tom zoned back in and heard a noise from a distance.
"STOP!" The nurse screamed.
Tom looked to his side and saw a truck barrelling down to him 'ha, fuck, I guess it wasn't my future I saw,' Tom laughed internally. As Tom could feel his whole body tense, similarly to a deer in the headlights that couldn't move, he noticed something, everything slowed down. Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw a glow, and this glow seemingly came from his hands. Along with that, Tom could feel a strong gust of wind; the wind was so strong it pushed him out of the way. This made Tom think, 'The day was cloudy with a pretty moderate breeze, so it wasn't impossible that it picked up, just not very likely.
"Ha, ha hahaha", Tom laughed.
The nurse was still screaming as she believed Tom was going to die "what the hell just happened Tom, you never told me that your experiments worked", she yelled.
Stolen novel; please report.
"They didn't," Tom said dejectedly, "I guess I'm just supposed to live," he smirked to himself.
After getting up and off the road, he waved goodbye to the nurse, who at this point was on her knees just staring off at the space where Tom was supposed to die. She kept looking around to see anyone who could confirm that Tom was alive, but nobody else cared enough to notice as nothing happened. The only two people who knew Tom was supposed to die were the nurse and Tom himself.
As Tom was walking away, he came up with a theory; the future he saw in his dreams was his own. And, the gust of wind that saved him was just the timeline staying in peace. But, that didn't explain one word in his head Wind Dash - Lvl 1, 'what does that even mean, what's a wind dash.' Along with Wind Dash, the second set of words kept ringing in his head, synchronization 0.7%.
"Hey Tom, I never got to tell you my name; it's Sam, by the way!" Sam yelled. After Tom acknowledged her and kept walking, Sam's heartbeat started to pick up. She noticed herself get very weak, after attempting to get up her eyes became blurry and she staggered, next thing she knew, she blacked out.
As Tom kept walking, he began to feel sluggish, everything that had just happened drained all his energy, both mentally and physically. Tom looked at the street ahead of him; all he could feel was that he had nowhere to go. Tom came from a foster home; after he turned 18, his parents didn't care much for him as he hasn't done much except giving them problems with his experiments. So, after his last undertaking, they just decided to send him straight to the psych ward. While Tom was in the psych ward, his parents passed on a message to him. This message just contained three words: Don't Come Home.
He had one person who accepted him, 'Selina', Tom thought. I've gotta show her m
This letter contained 100$ to help him get on his feet, but ironically, Tom thought back;y powers to avoid death, hehe' Tom, with his sudden increase in energy, called a cab to Selina's house.
As the cab drove, Tom began to frantically write a note that said, meet me where the world ends. Disgusted by his handwriting, Tom yelled at the cab driver, "Stop here for a second." After the cab stopped, he ran out of the door, found a nail, and used all his might to force it into the door with the note "fuck that hurt my hand" Toms's eyes teared up a bit, and he got back into the cab. "Go down to the end of the road there's a cliff there drop me off close to the end", Tom yelled while crying.
"Hey kid, are you killing yourself," the cab driver questioned.
"Haha, no, I just have to show a girl I was right all along", Tom giggled.
"Ah, I see, an ultimatum, I die, or you do something, nice kid, been there done that" The cab driver nodded.
"Haha, no, Mr. Driver, I'm just trying to show that I am a magical being out of this universe."
"Whatever your smoking, kid, just leave me a bag of it under your seat", the driver winked at Tom. "welp, kid, we're at your sketchy spot".
Tom handed the driver a 50$ dollar bill, said his goodbyes, and began to get ready. Firstly he wanted to look truly emotional, so he began to cry. Secondly, he had to think of what to do; he guessed possibly running off the cliff as soon as she arrived, but decided to go for the more emotional step-off while crying.
After waiting for longer than he had believed he should have, Tom grumbled, "It's been 10 minutes; I can tell I interrupted her eating. She never leaves her food alone, ugh."
After another 5 minutes, Tom saw a pair of headlights.
"Cue the waterworks", Tom mumbled.
After Tom's show, Tom was ready to show Selina his magic, involving his death. Tom gathered all of his courage and walked off, time slowed down.
Tom's head began to hurt, he saw the same man with the intricate metal wing standing next to him, except this time he had no wing and looked a lot more normal, albeit still very tall.
*****
"We've done it, Tom, the first people to claim a tower," The tall man said while tapping his fist against a plaque on a podium. "Get over here it's your turn dumbass."
Tom, the spectator in his own body, watched along as his body moved. He couldn't hear what it was saying but assumed it wasn't just silent. Toms's body proceeded to walk over towards the bronze plaque in the centre of the dimly lit room. The room itself was odd, being a mix of sci-fi computers everywhere, with random bits and bobs that looked as if they come from lords of the rings, such as swords, wands, and occasional unique-looking weapons.
While still attempting to process everything, his body kept walking as if not realizing he was having somewhere between a nerdgasm and a panic attack, as the last thing he remembered was stepping off of a cliff.
After tapping the back of his hand, Tom heard a bunch of white noise in the back of his head, most of which he didn't pick up, except a few key phrases; Tower #^%$ claimed, Title: $%^$$ lastly Wind Dash - Lvl 1 added to @#$@#$@.
*******
Tom suddenly felt the same feeling from the warmth to the glow. He felt like this wouldn't happen once, let alone twice. His body was reacting, and he felt the wind hitting his back, causing him to regain his balance.
Tom attempted to regain his bearings and piece together everything he just went through, from his brain on a trip to his body getting pushed by random gusts of wind again. As he looked up, he saw the girl who stood by his side running to him… and running faster.
"Tom!"
And just like that, Selina put the fear of God into Tom, Selina didn't notice Tom being pushed back up by the wind, so when she went to catch him, her hands ended up pushing him.
"Fuck, Selina I was sure fate had one line it followed, you managed to fuck with that somehow." Tom grumbled as he fell. Tom wasn't sure if he was ready to accept death as he did earlier that day. He attempted everything he could for the glow to happen again, but it was to no avail. Tom was going to fall; The only thing that brought Tom peace was seeing Selina safe; it hurt him to see her cry, but he was just relieved she was safe.
Tom blinked his eyes….