Volume 5: Instar

Issue 2: Memorial

Florian Reyes Honeywell

By Roach

We walked up to the Memorial Mall. The Ranger statue greeted us, keeping watch over the pigeons which gathered around the fountain. As Amber strode through the flock, the pigeons scattered around her in a blur of wing strokes. I looked to the sky to see if any of them resembled the birds from Camilo’s science fair project, Gladiator or Bullseye, but they were already too far off for me to distinguish them from each other. Their gray feathers quickly blended into the San Francisco fog.

It was after school, and—like Amber suggested—we had gone to the mall. I quickened my pace to catch up, while she charged ahead. “So, what exactly are we doing here?” I asked. She had yet to explain our mission to me.

“First, we’ll need to find a birthday gift,” she said.

When Camilo had texted me the address, he also informed me that the party was for Jay’s birthday. I didn’t really know Jay, and I couldn’t even recall ever having a full conversation with them. When it came to potential gifts, I was completely clueless. “Are you sure we should be going to this?” I murmured. “A birthday party seems a bit… personal?”

“Look, Florian. We were invited.” I thought about correcting her—after all, she hadn’t exactly been invited. But before I had a chance to speak up, Amber continued, “It would be rude not to. Besides, you need to get out more. Especially if we’re going to be seen together.”

“What… What do you mean?” I wasn’t exactly sure what she had in mind, but my hope that our interactions would be strictly hero-related continued to dwindle.

“I just mean that… your image needs some work. You can’t just be a hermit forever.”

I bit back a retort about rather being a hermit than an asshole. With a sigh, I instead said, “So… a birthday gift. Is that all?” Somehow, I felt that there was more to this trip, considering that she had proposed it before anything about a birthday had even been brought up.

“You’ll see.” A sly smile crossed her lips.

We entered the building. I took in our surroundings; a row of small shops lined the entrance from the mall. There was a pet shop, hairdresser, sushi place, and a closed balloon store. The sushi place had drawn in some customers, but the rest of the mall appeared mostly empty. The flickering of a neon “OPEN” sign drew my attention, where it hovered above a tattoo parlor. As we passed by, a man watched from the parlor—his gaze obscured by the smoke of his vape. I looked away.

“Nothing quite as serene as a dying mall,” Amber sighed.

“But you think we can find something for Jay here?” As I posed the question, I realized I really had no clue as to where to even start. I added, “What are we even looking for?”

“Well, Jay is into, like… tabletop, board games, that sort of… nerd stuff,” she said.

I shrugged—I honestly had no point of reference to say whether or not that was accurate.

“You don’t pay attention at all, do you?” Amber rolled her eyes as she said it. “Camilo and the other theater kids would play that stuff in the cafeteria like all the time. They were so annoying, you couldn’t miss it even if you wanted to.”

“Oh?” I had always avoided the cafeteria, spending most of my lunch breaks in the library. At least, until I met Camilo.

Almost as if reading my mind, Amber said, “Well, until you guys started hanging out, anyway.”

I had seen her powers in action; how she could visualize the relationship between Camilo and I, and between Max and the plant in the greenhouse. I knew she connected the dots between people—quite literally—but I hadn’t really considered how much time she must spend observing others. Apparently, enough time to know what someone she hardly interacted with might like for a birthday gift.

Or, enough to know that Camilo had stopped playing games with Jay and his other friends… Was that right? Maybe they played outside of lunch hours? Then again, I had never really heard Camilo say much about it. When he talked about his friends, it was brief, and mostly in a theater capacity.

And when he talked to me, it was usually in a superpower capacity.

It dawned on me how little his two worlds had mixed. It wasn’t really a problem I could relate much to. As much as I disliked it, Amber had been right about one thing. I was a hermit.

I lingered on this thought, trying to ignore the swarm’s faint sizzling within me, as the two of us ventured deeper into the mall. Looking for a distraction, I studied the selection of quarter-operated rides which occupied a vacant rental space. They came in different shapes and designs, including—most notably—a sleek motorcycle. The edges were more rounded and cartoonish than a real bike, while its red and yellow paint job had faded over the years—a replica of Ranger’s bike.

Somehow the ride had seemed more impressive back when I was a kid. Now that I thought about it, it wasn’t just the quarter machines that had aged, but the mall itself. It used to bustle with customers and colors, and my parents giving me a couple of dollars for ice cream would be the highlight of any visit. But I couldn’t see the old ice cream shop anywhere, and the customer base had dwindled. There were a couple of kids feeding quarters to a claw machine, while a claw hand reached for a Champion plushie trapped inside the glass chamber. The plushie smiled with a dull expression. I could see a handful of shoppers browsing the various stores… But, aside from the retail workers, the shops were reliably empty.

Amber, who was slightly ahead of me, shot me a glance over her shoulder. As I lingered by the coin-operated machines, she called out, “Come on, Florian. Aren’t you a little too old for kiddie rides?” The sing-songy tone of her voice annoyed me, shaking me free of my misplaced nostalgia. I hurried after her as she continued with a familiar stride, the footsteps of her Doc Martens clacking against the tiled flooring.

I followed her into the GameStop. Loud pop music seeped out from the ceiling stereos, every now and then interrupted by the unmistakable POWER TO THE PLAYERS slogan. The shop was ridiculously small—barely more than a hallway, with video games displayed on every nook and cranny as if to optimize the minimal space.

“What do you suggest?” When I posed the question, the absurdity of the situation hit me: I had somehow wound up shopping at a GameStop with Amber. And I was asking her for shopping advice. At least, she seemed to have a better idea of what to get for Jay than I did… assuming she hadn’t come here for overpriced used video games.

“Hmm…” She scouted out the shelves of various merchandise: graphic t-shirts, Pokémon figures, Fortnite codes, Rick and Morty keychains, mystery boxes, and a multiverse edition of Monopoly. “Here,” she said, giving a nearby rack a spin.

The rack displayed packs of Icons cards. I hadn’t played the game myself, but I could remember that every now and then there would be a new release and cards would start circulating at my middle school. Until the school banned it, that is—and even then, Icons black markets remained in the shadows of the playground.

“You think Jay would like that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It’s, like, one of those games they play.”

We ended up getting a couple of packs from the Heroes of the Void series. This particular Icons release featured heroes and villains in outer space. The card’s packaging incorporated some classic heroes: the Soviet Union’s Cosmonaut and Meteora, but also some fresher faces, like NASA’s Apollo and Artemis.

Once we had secured the gift, we continued through the mall. “Are we done?” I asked, still unsure what she had planned for me.

“Not quite,” she said with the same smugness as before.

I trailed after her, deeper into the mall. Its center was shaped like a dome, where different escalators and halls branched off from it. A bronze obelisk in the middle offered a focal point. A star—Starlight’s logo—topped the obelisk. Skylights washed over it from above.

We went up one of the escalators. Neon lights glowed from the cracks between the steps—the lights shifted between red and yellow, mimicking the color scheme of Ranger’s uniform. Amber stepped onto it, with me following just behind. She didn’t say anything, instead, texting something on her phone. I didn’t speak either. Different songs trickled out from the various shops, mixing together into a low cacophony of muzak.

Once we reached the second floor, we headed for a store called Wishing Well.

“Alright Florian, lead the way,” Amber said.

“I’m… sorry?” I replied, more confused than offended. “You were the one who brought us here.”

“Yes, and now it’s your turn.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry. Just think of it like an exercise in… taste. If I’m going to help you develop your style, I need to know what speaks to you.”

So this was her ulterior motive. I glanced around the store. We were clothes shopping.

The store was small without feeling cramped—not that it really mattered, since Amber and I were currently the only customers there. A store employee lurked in the back, sorting through a selection of band t-shirts I didn’t recognize. While I never claimed to be a fashion expert, the general vibe created a sort of intentional ruggedness; blouses with oversized collars, sweaters with loose sleeves, and dungarees with embroidered motifs. This deliberate edge gave the clothes a sort of paradoxical elegance—something I figured Amber would be into.

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When I didn’t budge, she sighed. “Come on. It’s not that complicated.” Before I had time to process, she put her hands on my shoulders. Although her touch was light, I could feel the sharpness of her nails against my shirt. Then she gave me a slight push, in the direction of the men’s section.

Following her nudge, I walked toward the selection of clothes. I avoided looking at my reflection as we passed by the occasional mirror. Once there, I sifted through a rack of shirts, eventually arriving at a plain gray-white sweater. “This looks… okay,” I said uncertainly, holding up the shirt by its hanger.

“Of course it is.” Amber snagged the sweater from me. “It’s not even trying. How can it look anything but okay?” She rolled her eyes, while letting the hook of the hanger dangle from her fingertip.

“I really don’t ha—” Before I could finish, a voice interrupted me.

“Do you need help with anything?” the store employee, who seemingly materialized out of nowhere, said in a monotonous and slow voice.

“Please put this eyesore back,” Amber replied, handing her the sweater I had picked out.

The employee stared at her for a long moment, blowing up a bubble gum until it burst. I looked down at my loosely tied Converse shoes, feeling embarrassment wash over me. I wasn’t sure whether or not to call out Amber’s snide remark or to add it to the list of things I had decided to let slide today. Finally, the sales associate gave a short nod, grabbed the sweater, and left us.

When I looked at Amber, the swarm twisted uncomfortably inside me. “Fine. So I don’t have taste,” I said, surprised by my own shortness. “So what? I didn’t have to come here. And I certainly don’t have to stay here and watch you insult random people.”

She blinked in succession, her long eyelashes somehow exaggerating her surprised expression. Or was it a feigned surprise, I wondered? I waited for her to say something, but instead, her gaze seemed to go through me—as if I were made of glass.

A sudden weariness came over me. I sighed, my bees giving a slight hum. A sweater wasn’t worth picking a fight over. Maybe I was being more irritable than I needed to… Maybe I could reevaluate with Camilo about our teamwork agreement later. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going home,” I announced, turning away from her.

“Wait,” Amber hissed. I tensed as her nails dug into my arm. But, before I could react, she pointed into the store. “Look,” she whispered.

I traced the direction of her fingertip, toward a jewelry rack squished in between the men’s and women’s section.

“Can we not?” I groaned.

“Are you blind?” Amber retorted. “That girl. I know her. You know her. I see a bond.”

Just then, I saw who she was talking about. A girl, who had been standing behind the rack, now gave it a weak spin. Necklaces and rings clattered against each other as the rack twirled around. The girl looked vaguely familiar; long, blonde hair, pale skin, makeup highlighting her doe-eyed stare. I thought I recognized her from chemistry or history or something, but nothing out of the ordinary—at least, nothing warranting Amber’s reaction. “I guess she goes to our school,” I concluded. “So?”

“She’s shoplifting.” Amber lowered her voice. “Helen is shoplifting. Oh my God. We play volleyball together.” Although disbelief edged her voice, there was a hint of smugness on her expression, as her lips curled into a slight smile.

I looked again, more closely this time. I glimpsed a silver chain hanging from the pocket of Helen’s jacket. As she stuffed her hand into the pocket, the chain retreated with it, like a mouse’s tail disappearing into a crack in a wall. It appeared Amber was right.

“Should we… tell the cashier?” I mumbled.

“Jaz is going to have a fit when I tell her about this,” she said, seemingly oblivious to my presence.

I studied the girl—Helen—as she reached for the jewelry rack once more. She glanced toward the cashier, who was still at the counter, occupied by her phone. Simultaneously, Helen let her hand slip through one of the bracelets on the rack. If I hadn’t been watching her do it, I would have thought the bracelet had always been on her wrist.

Amber now turned to me. Her smile hadn’t disappeared, but there was a certain determination to her expression. “We should do something,” she announced.

“What? I told you I’m leaving,” I said. “Anyway, isn’t this something for security to deal with?”

“Don’t you wanna be a hero, tough guy?”

“I mean, yeah, sure. I do.” I paused, still processing what was happening or what she expected of me. “But… you wanna do something, like, right now? We’re not really prepared… Right?”

Amber rolled her eyes. “You can handle monsters, but not some teenage girl?”

“Then what do you suggest?” I said, shifting my weight tentatively.

“Bees.”

“I can’t just—” Before I had a chance to finish my protest, she pushed me into a nearby changing room. Taken by surprise, I didn’t resist the shove, but stumbled back into the room. She closed the door on me.

“We don’t have much time,” she said from outside. “I’ll keep watch.”

For a moment, I stood still, faced by my own dumbfounded reflection across multiple mirrors.

“Well?” Amber said.

I weighed my two options. One, I could ignore Amber. Two, I could do something about Helen’s shoplifting.

But if I didn’t react quickly, it would be too late.

I sucked air down to my lungs, more by instinct than a need for breathing. Bees hissed in response, before promptly crawling up my air passages. As I sighed the oxygen out, a cluster of bees escaped from my mouth.

A part of me wanted to close my eyes as the dressing room mirrors reflected the horror of the swarm back at me. But I steadied myself as bees crawled out from between my lips, from under my eyelids—like giant, deformed tears. Their exoskeletal bodies glinted in the glare of the fluorescent lights.

As the bees crawled out from my eye sockets and mouth, I pretended that it was happening to someone else, far far away from me. But the pain searing through my eyes brought me back to reality.

I only summoned a handful of bees—around a dozen or so. They crawled across my face, their antennae exploring my skin. A couple haloed around my head. I directed them all toward the ceiling. Once my squadron had made it up high, I sent them through the gap between the top of the door and the ceiling. Then they zoomed into the store.

I poked my head outside of the changing room, where Amber waited. She followed the group of bees with her eyes.

“Don’t hurt her,” Amber said, before adding, “Not too much, anyway.”

“Isn’t she your friend or something?” I said.

“Friends?” Amber scoffed. “I never said that.”

I shrugged. I didn’t have intentions of hurting the girl. By now, she had walked away from the stripped jewelry rack, but—about halfway toward the entrance—the store employee had intercepted her. I listened closely, their voices faint at a distance.

“Can I help you?” the employee said, seemingly unsuspecting.

“Oh, do you have this in a smaller size?” Helen said, pointing to a crop top.

“I’ll take a look.” The employee took the top with her, and headed for the backroom. Helen looked around—turning both ways, like she was about to cross a street during rush hour. Then, she hurried toward the exit.

This was my chance.

While the conversation was ongoing, I had continued to guide my bees toward the shoplifter. They moved as a single unit, flying just below the ceiling to minimize the risk of being seen. Then, with her back turned toward us, I let my bees plunge toward the girl. They descended upon her like a flock of vultures, before quietly crawling into her pocket.

Nothing happened. The girl kept walking, nearing the exit.

“Well?” Amber said, tapping her foot impatiently.

At that moment, Helen reached into her pockets. The bees buzzed in response. I restrained them from actually stinging her, instead, letting them crawl onto her hand.

But that was all it took. Their trembling and humming was enough to make her recoil. At the same time, the jewelry fell out of her pocket, clattering as it landed on the floor.

Helen’s mouth opened wide. She shrieked, while the bees continued to swarm her hand. The employee halted, then looked back with a shocked expression.

Meanwhile, Helen shook her hand frantically, trying to wave the bees off—but to no avail. They held on, buzzing louder and louder, crawling up her sleeve. I still kept them from stinging, but Helen didn’t seem to care about that as she continued to scream and shake her hand. The bracelet she had slipped onto her wrist fell off, while a couple of rings dropped out from her sleeve.

She was too occupied by the shock of the bees to notice the employee staring her down—from her horrified expression to the jewelry now at her feet, also trying to grasp what was happening.

Helen, still waving her hands at nothing, started her retreat. She abandoned the stolen goods on the floor, and scampered out the store. As she rushed down the escalators where Amber and I had come from, I reached for my bees again. At my command, the squadron scattered in different directions. I didn’t want to draw them back to me just yet—at least, not while we were still at the mall. So, I gave them free reign.

The cashier was on the phone now, presumably alerting security to the girl’s presence. Either way, it wasn’t my problem anymore.

Amber clasped her hands together in excitement. “Hah! That was priceless. I wish I had a picture.” She turned to me. “Right, Florian?”

“I’m not sure that’s how I would put it,” I said. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it at all. In the grand scheme of things, the jewelry wasn’t going to make a big difference. Whether or not security caught up to our classmate was out of my hands. But either way, we had made the store employee’s day a little easier. I supposed it was something.

And, I had never thought about using my powers like that before. Overall, it had been a more peaceful resolution than just attacking her.

Amber interrupted my musings, “I don’t know about you, but I think this warrants a celebration.”

“Aren’t we going to a party later?” I said, not wanting to extend the shopping trip any longer.

“Duh,” Amber said. “But we did good. You did good. I think that deserves something.”

I paused. I didn’t know her history with Helen, but based on her reaction I got the feeling that something had happened between them… Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amber just enjoyed the failures of others generally.

She continued, “Let’s settle for an outfit and wrap things up. There’s this diner-themed milkshake place downstairs we can go to. Are you down?”

When I hesitated, she added, “My treat.”

I looked her over. A hint of softness had replaced her smugness from before. Something told me that maybe it wasn’t just about Helen—that maybe it was her way of apologizing, or making up for her rudeness from before. And while I would have preferred an outright apology… It was something, wasn’t it?

Or were my expectations of her just that low?

“Okay,” I finally relented, a little taken aback by my own agreement.

In the end, we both agreed on a casual outfit from the clothing store before ordering our milkshakes downstairs. We found a bench to sit on in the heart of the mall. As before, the bronze obelisk towered in the center. Now that we were closer, I could see the fifty or so names that were engraved onto the structure—the names of all the civilians who had died in the villain attack that had destroyed the neighborhood, before the mall was built.

Amber and I didn’t speak much, aside from the occasional remark about the upcoming party or Mrs. Porter’s… questionable teaching methods. I debated whether or not to confront her about her rudeness, but then again, was it so wrong to let the shopping trip end on a high note? Meanwhile, Amber told me something about how Helen had “stolen” Jaz’s ex-boyfriend, just like she stole the jewelry. Undoubtedly juicy gossip, if I had cared whatsoever. I listened half-heartedly, studying the scribbles of faded graffiti across the memorial obelisk. The bees I had dispersed earlier slowly returned to me, hiding in locks of my hair.

As we finished our milkshakes, I couldn’t help but appreciate the absurdity of the moment, and I wondered how life had led me here. Above, the skylights grew darker with clouds.