It was November twentieth.
It was already almost two months into my first year in Atlantis and, to be honest, I could barely believe it. It was odd, but the time almost seemed to flyby without me noticing. The hardest part was staying clear of Maria, because we had training together, but she didn’t seem to bother me and neither did any of the people in Ahmed’s club.
It was again odd, but I didn’t really put too much thought into it.
“Everything good, man?” said Ivan, putting his arms around me, while we were getting out of hero history. “You’ve been spacing out a lot these days. You sure everything’s alright?”
“Don’t worry.” I scoffed at him. But if I were to be honest, I did really feel like it. Everything felt…wrong. Like something was missing, and I just couldn’t figure out what it was exactly. Still, I didn’t want to be more of a burden than I already was–Ivan already was forced to drag me around everywhere, like Iraklis back in school–so I didn’t say anything about that.
“So, where will we eat your five billion lunches?”
Ivan let out a small gasp at that. “I’ll have you know I’ll only eat five!” he said in mock indignation. “Besides, Sofie invited us over to her dorm for a bit since training was cancelled. Then we’ll go out. Must be so nice to have a room all to yourself.”
I laughed at that. I’d been forced to spend so many nights at her place, that I could almost count as her roommate instead of Sadid’s. It was more than once that I felt like snapping his face in half with my power, but I never did.
I always thought about Alpha Surge. About being a hero. About everything I wanted to accomplish. About what I did to Maria. So I didn’t.
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Instead, I focused on my two friends and on having fun with them. It wasn’t easy, that nagging feeling at the back of my head never left. Eventually, we went to a small place for dinner. It served classic Spanish food and Sofie insisted we try it out. It was relatively cosy, and not that full, with mood lighting and tasty sounding dishes, so nobody complained.
“So, Alex, any news?” asked Sofie once we were in. “We still up for studying on the Friday after the next?”
“Sofie, we spend literally every day together,” I said to her, motioning for Ivan to back me up. “I even sleep on your spare bed at least three days every week. What could possibly happen for me to change my mind?”
Her look shifted at that. It was ever so slight, but I didn’t miss it, even if I didn’t comment on it. “Lots could happen.” Her voice was slightly sad now, and I felt like there was a lot she wanted to say.
She sounded more sincere than she had during all the time I knew her. “I mean, it’s fifteen days! I’m sure you, as a hero fanboy, have examples where life changing things happened to heroes in that span of time.” But that was all quickly changed and the cheery, almost fake, Sofie was back.
Ivan seemed to break out of his stupor first, nudging me to say something back. And so I did. Truthfully, it didn’t take much. I talked about the time Lady Flame came to Crete for a hero convention, expecting everything to be normal and well.
Of course, that only needed a single week to go wrong since her daughter, who was there apparently, got into trouble with a powerful villain. Nobody knew the specifics but, from what little video we had of the event, Lady Flame all but burnt the man alive.
I was stopped short of saying that part by Ivan however, who insisted that stories like this weren’t good for his digestion. I shot back in kind, and then we started spouting increasingly stupid insults at each other, being cut off by the food arriving.
We ate mostly in silence but, for some reason, my eye drifted to a few tables over. A few people I knew were from the top house were sitting there, talking. My focus fell to the girl that sat in the centre of everyone else.
She had crystal blue eyes, and blue streaks in her black hair. She turned over to me, and I instantly went back to my food. She looked annoyed. Here I was, wanting to go by university as quietly as possible, but also apparently unable to keep myself from looking back.
For some reason, looking at her made my heart skip a beat.