Chapter 5: Grey Tom

Ned held up all the holdings single handedly as more fell on it. His eyes were radiating now bright gold and he looked down at Connor whose silver eyes had all but disappeared.

"Get out now, Connor," said Ned pushing Connor back.

Connor didn't bother questioning or speaking anything, he crawled out of the wreckage of what was once a beautiful shaded area. With Connor out of the way Ned, pushed out and landed on the grass the holdings he had held up collapsed behind him.

"What the hell?" said Connor standing up.

Ned looked at his hand, the hand that had held up the holdings and it all seemed fine. At the same time, he felt something receding from his eyes, as if some pressure was taken off it.

"What the hell just happened to the both of us?" asked Ned as he looked at the absolutely shell shocked Alexia and the surprisingly dumbfounded Connor.

"It…it apparently seems that I somehow managed to reach a level of human speed that makes the Olympic runners seem a joke and you somehow reached a strength that would put professional weight lifters to shame," said Connor. "Yeah just a normal earthquaky day."

"But this shouldn't be possible," said Ned shaking his head. "Is this really another hallucination, a dream maybe, someone punch me or hit me or something."

Though he did say that Ned never actually expected anyone to do it but Alexia walked up and kicked him in the face whilst Connor slapped in the opposite cheek, normally it would be something that would severely hurt but Ned didn't even feel those two blows, not just that, he wasn't even knocked back, he sat there like an immovable rock and both Connor and Alexia backed off in surprise.

"It apparently doesn't seem like a dream," said Connor. "Ned, you seriously seem like a rock, can exercise do that for you?"

"No Connor, it bloody well can't turn me into this," said Ned standing up. "If it could then the world would be a lot more violent."

"Granted, but what about me, do I have this thing as well?" asked Connor looking at his hands.

Ned stood up and he looked at Connor who seemed slightly curious. He walked closer and then took back his right hand and laid hooker right on Connor's cheek. He was only expecting Connor to stagger back a little but as soon as he landed the punch he felt the familiar creeping sensation around his eyes and he felt his back heat and he knew he had made a mistake. Connor literally flew several feet away and landed on the ground and then slid a few more for good measure and the calm and collected Alexia screamed.

"Oh my god," said a shocked Ned as he ran over to Connor who lay on the ground several meters away releasing a light groan.

"I am sorry, I did not mean for that to happen, it was just supposed to be a punch," said Ned as he rushed forth and knelt next to an apparently dazed Connor and he again felt the familiar feeling of a pressure relieving of his eyes.

"Well…Ned…where am I?" asked Connor dazed. "Am…I…still alive?"

"Yeah, yeah you are," said Ned looking at the still dazed over Connor.

"Oh…I thought I was a goner?" said Connor still groaning as the light came back to his eyes.

"How do you feel, nothing broken right," said Ned and Connor shook his head and got up.

"I feel like a truck just crashed into me, what the hell was that?" asked Connor. "That was a punch right?"

"It was supposed to be," said Ned and Alexia came over.

"What is happening to the both of you?" she asked.

"I wouldn't have a clue?" said Ned.

"Do you feel sick?" asked Connor looking at Alexia. "We all had the same hallucinations and then both me and Ned felt really…really sick, so wondering are you feeling sick by any chance?"

"No, I can't say that I am," said Alexia frowning.

"Well just be wary, I have a feeling this is all connected somehow," said Ned. "This so above her heads, we are in completely blind here."

"Yeah, if only I could remem–." It looked as though Connor had started say something when he struck dumb all of sudden and a look of sudden remembrance was written on his face. "Oh my god Ned, I remember, I remember where I saw that symbol, it was in this old book at Tom's place, it was sitting on the shelf at that room where you got your head treated, I saw that exact same symbol and then another damn word I can't pronounce."

"Tom's place…you saw this symbol at his place?" asked Ned again looking, his face looked half relieved and half anxious. "What was it about?"

"I don't remember that bit," said Connor. "I actually don't know anything about it at all but it was there this arrow symbol and there was some sort of word under it, I clearly remember it now, it's there Ned."

"It's just an arrow?" said Alexia. "What could an arrow mean?"

"Lots of things I think, pointing being one of the primary ones," said Connor.

"We need to get there," said Ned. "Like now… I need to know what the hell is going on."

"What…no, we can't go there now, the entire school's evacuating to the grounds," said Alexia interfering.

"Yeah, we can't just go there now," said Connor. "It's an evacuation, we need to get the hell to that oval, it's a damn earthquake."

"I told you, earthquakes do not happen on this island!" exclaimed Alexia exasperated.

"The entire island is shaking alright, if that's not an earthquake then I don't know what is," said Connor now exasperated.

"I don't bloody care about the evacuation, I just need to know what's happening to me," said Ned stubbornly.

"We can't go Ned, not now anyhow," said Connor. "We can't just walk out on an evacuation?"

"I'm going," said Ned and he got up and started walking the other way.

Both Connor and Alexia looked at each other vexed.

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"Well if he's going then I'm going as well," said Connor and started following Ned, leaving Alexia to stomp in frustration and then she too started following them.

"If we get in trouble, I'm blaming this all on you," said Alexia as she caught up to them.

"Oh sure…yeah just do that, y'know we didn't force you to come," said Connor angrily. "If you wanna go back then just do it."

"Like I want to go back now," said Alexia. "I want to know what this all about too."

"It's only a book, we can't expect Tom to know anything about it," said Ned. "I just want the book."

"Well yeah sure, but suppose if Tom does know about it," said Connor presenting his hypothesis.

"Well then we'll ask him and he'll tell us," said Ned his face hardening slightly.

"Dude you cannot threaten Tom, he's like a friend to us," said Connor. "That is seriously going to be messed up."

"WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO!" shouted Ned suddenly blowing his lid as he stopped in his tracks. "JUST A FEW HOURS AGO I WAS VERY NORMAL, A FEW HOURS AGO THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ON MY MIND WAS HOMEWORK AND NOW…!"

Connor and Alexia seemed to have taken a step back perhaps him shock.

"Dude, calm down," said Connor eyeing him warily. "Your eyes just turned gold again."

Ned frowned, this time he hadn't even felt that creeping feeling in his eyes, the anger had just came over him. He did feel it though when it receded.

"I'm sure if we ask him he'll tell us what's going on," said Connor. "This has gotten me pretty confused as well, it's all I can do to keep myself from blowing up like you."

"I'm sorry…" said Ned apologizing and he continued walking again.

"It's fine," said Connor. "But you need to understand Ned, it isn't just you with these problems, I'm trying to make some sense of this too, which I'm failing at by the way."

"Strange," said Alexia frowning as she stopped and Connor stopped too and a little while later Ned turned around to look annoyed.

"What's strange?" asked Connor.

"Well the apparent earthquake's stopped but I still feel like something's wrong," said Alexia. "I can't exactly point out what's wrong, but I can just feel it."

"What you got a sixth sense or something now," said Ned looking around severely cross and finding nothing wrong.

"That's possible," said Connor. "I mean you can lift past the limit of a professional weight lifter and I can run fairly fast, sixth sense isn't entirely impossible."

"So wait, now sixth sense is possible as well?" asked Ned looking at Alexia then at Connor disbelievingly.

"Well I wouldn't exactly call it sixth sense, I mean what is really sixth sense," said Connor. "Perhaps she can see danger or something like that."

"Yeah but we both ended up so severely sick before we got our uh…strange whatevers and as far as I can tell she hasn't been sick, that or she's really good at acting, enough to cover up feeling severely sick," said Ned. "I don't see her eyes changing color, speaking on that line either."

"Wait, now hold on, we don't even know what we have currently, you can't just base it all off of somethings that just happened to us," said Connor still looking closely at Alexia as she seemed to be in a world of her own.

"Well we don't even know anything about anything, so you'll excuse me if I try to wrap my tiny head around what's currently happening based on what's currently happening," scowled Ned. "Besides look at her, she looks like she's in lala land."

"I am not in lala land, which I am assuming is what I assume it to be and I really do feel something, there is something severely wrong like with the ground we are standing on," said Alexia frowning again.

"What, is it another earthquake?" asked Connor with panic layering his voice and Ned seemed fairly frightened as well.

"No, at least I don't think so," said Alexia and Ned heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well if you don't know what it is, I'd like to go Tom's now," said Ned turning off and walking again. "That book Connor says he saw is bound to have something of this thing that's happening to me and Connor."

"I'm sorry for asking this late but I would like to know who this Tom is?" Alexia asked.

"He owns an antiquary down near the end of shopping district," said Connor. "It's a pretty cool place."

"I see and you say he has this book which had Edward's tattoo on its front page, and you assume this will provide you with information you need," said Alexia.

"Yeah that pretty much sums it up," said Connor.

"I don't have anything against your reasoning and I personally don't have any insight into these strange happenings but would a book contain all we need to know?" she asked.

"It needs to contain enough," said Ned with a clenched jaw. "Just enough for me to understand what's going, enough for me to figure the rest for myself."

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"I see…" said Alexia and she stopped talking.

When they reached the school gates they found it padlocked with several new locks.

"That's not good…" said Connor. "They've added more locks."

Ned gritted his teeth. "Connor can you take care of the camera."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Connor looking straight at the camera but it seemed to be off because the red light that was usually on wasn't on anymore.

"Ned…I don't think its recording," said Connor getting up closer to look at it straight."

"The quake must have knocked it out," said Alexia as she got closer to it too.

"Good," said Ned and he gripped the gates.

He pulled on it and of course it wouldn't come free that easily but just then he felt that familiar creeping feeling in his eyes. He could feel his strength surging and he gripped it tightly and then pulled and the gates didn't just open, it came of its hinge with a creak and a bang.

"Holy hell," said Connor. "Alright, destroying the locks was cool and all earlier, I mean it looked so uh rebel but you just pulled it off its hinges."

"Apparently I did," said Ned shrugging. "I wasn't expecting this."

"Neither was I," said Connor.

"You can control it?" asked Alexia. "That eye changing and the super strength and all."

"Right now I feel like I can," said Ned. "Well it's not really controlling it, it just seems to come at times when I actually really need it."

"And you really needed it for pulling out the school gates?" asked Connor.

"Well yeah, it helped didn't it," said Ned.

"The word help doesn't exactly convey how you pulled the gate of its hinges," said Connor looking closer at the actual hinges and finding that it was bend and ripped.

"How much strength do you actually have?" asked Connor seriously.

"I don't know," said Ned and he chucked the gates away, literally, it landed a few feet back with a solid thump.

"Really kind of ridiculous," said Connor shivering slightly as he thought back to the hit Ned had planted on him and wondering what would've happened if he had used the strength he used to pull the gate out then.

"I'm glad I didn't get you too angry," said Connor nodding. "Really glad."

"Let's go now," said Ned.

"Y'know I feel really stupid walking all the way back to Tom's place just for a book in the middle of school," said Connor.

"There should be preparation for mass evacuation going on," said Alexia furrowing her eyebrows. "It seemed like the entire island was about to go down."

"Yeah I was thinking that too," said Connor. "But aside from the lack of people on the streets there appears to be nothing severely wrong."

"Yeah well, looking around, even aside the lack of people the environment seems to have changed," said Ned looking around.

The trees that surrounded the place seemed to have fell over, it's very roots becoming free of the soil and there were cracks on the road and building sides, overall it looked to be really unstable situation.

"Ned, d'you even reckon Tom's going to be there, I mean with the earthquake and all," said Connor.

"Well the earthquake's stopped now so what's the problem?" asked Ned.

"Well you appear to be extremely brave all of a sudden," said Connor. "But Ned there is such a thing as an aftershock and in some instances the aftershock is stronger than the original earthquake."

"Look we don't even know if this is an earthquake," said Alexia.

"Really, no, the entire island is shivering because of a cold," said Connor snorting.

"I was just saying, no need to bite at me," said Alexia taken aback.

"What part of that was biting at you," said Connor disgruntled. "That was clearly a sarcastic remark meant to humor your remarks about this not being an earthquake."

"Guys, take a look at that," said Ned pointing at a large crack extending from a building premises to around the center of the road, talking to the bickering Connor and Alexia.

"Mother will certainly have the time of her life trying to fix up this mess," said Alexia snorting and Connor too jointly snorted.

"Mother?" asked Ned, not understanding and Connor looked at him in disbelief.

"Ned, tell me you are joking," said Connor. "Her name is Alexia Hailing, Hailing…Hailing Isle, her mother's the woman that invented this island."

"Oh…" said Ned. "Wow, well you certainly know a lot more than you're given credit for."

"You are abysmally stupid, I just realized," said Alexia shaking her head and trying not to crack into a smile at Ned looking foolishly.

"How was I supposed to know!" said Ned indignantly and his rage slowly dimmed replaced with a feeling of extreme stupidity.

"No, everyone just happens to know," said Connor as a matter-of-factly. "It's not that hard to make the connection."

"No they didn't," said Ned and he nodded to Alexia. "There's no way everyone knew that her mother invented the artificial island."

"I'm giving up," said Connor sighing. "I can't believe it, I really can't believe you didn't know, how could you not know?"

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In all the commotion and with Ned looking absolutely foolish they reached a shop that didn't really resemble a shop anymore, it looked as though it would cave in from a simple touch, the letters on the sign 'Grey Tom's Antiquary' had nearly all fallen off and the glass on the windows and door had all but shattered. It seemed unbelievable that the shop they had visited just earlier would be in such a sorry state. To the side of the shop a disheveled man crouched weeping and looking at him Ned felt sorry that he ever thought to threaten him.

"Oh dude, that is… devastating," said Connor moving forward and he touched a protruding concrete part and suddenly that fell apart and the slab on top of it fell to the floor with a loud thump and a louder weep came from the crouching Tom at the side and Connor jumped back looking guilty.

"Tom…" said Ned wondering what to say.

Tom turned around to look at the three kids and he got up. He then fell on top of Ned with a loud weep and started crying there on Ned's shoulders and strangely enough despite a large man crying on Ned's shoulders he felt no weight pressure, or perhaps that was because Tom was so thin. Connor and Alexia came up, Connor still had a guilt ridden face on him and Alexia had on a sympathetic face.

"It's gone Ned, completely gone," said Tom. "All of it, my pristine collection of mythological action figures, all of it gone."

Connor's shock transpired somewhere between shock and laughter at these words whilst Ned just looked at the crumpling shop dumbfounded and Alexia face crossed from sympathetic to indignant.

"My three gorgons, the figure of Kronos, Loki and Thor," said Tom and he cried even harder. "All of it gone, I can't believe it."

"Uh…Tom," started Ned but he stopped again when Tom wept all the more and he looked at Connor signaling for emergency help but Connor shrugged as he too did not have any idea what to do but nevertheless he stepped forward.

"Tom…" started Connor this time. "I'm sure your figures are fine, at least if you're lucky they should be fine."

As Connor said this Tom's crying went up another level which Ned didn't think was possible and now he felt some pressure not because of the weight but because of the high sound. Tom was weeping right in Ned's ears and he looked angrily at Connor.

"Tom, I'm sure it's going to be fine," said Ned patting him very awkwardly on the back and at this Connor burst into a short laughter.

After a while more weeping and some deep gloomy looks Tom finally calmed down enough to be seated on a piece of rubble.

"What did you come here for?" asked Tom wiping away his tears.

"Well…" said Ned unsure of how to start. "We umm… seem to have run into a small problem."

"Oh, what sort of problem?" asked Tom looking interested but then he paled. "It's not another injury is it, because if it is then you can forget about it, even if I wanted to, I can't do anything with my shop in this state."

"Oh, no, no, it's not about an injury," said Ned quickly. "It's a problem with my eyes."

"Your eyes?" frowned Tom and he moved forwards to look Ned's eyes closely.

"Your eyes seem normal," said Tom. "Nothing wrong, but if you want an expert opinion you need to visit an optometrist."

"No, there's nothing wrong with my eyes, I mean there is something wrong with my eyes, just not, what you think." said Ned again quickly, he just couldn't explain it, how was he supposed to explain that his eyes turned gold and he gained super strength.

He looked at Connor again pleading for him to help. He even looked towards Alexia as if she could possibly help him. Alexia shrugged at him, not knowing what to do and sighing he turned towards curious Tom in an attempt to explain again but this time he couldn't even form sentence coherent enough to make Tom think he wasn't mental. Connor just then who was looking around for something on the ground stood up again after he had apparently found it.

"Ned…" said Connor and at that same moment he threw a sizeable chunk of rubble straight at Ned and it happened just as he turned around.

Both Alexia's and Tom's eyes widened as a concrete chunk the size of a large brick flew straight at Ned to crash into his head. Ned quickly raised up his arms and he caught the chunk of rock with inhuman reflexes and he felt his anger being born again in the pits of his stomach, with a snarl he crushed the chunk thrown at him with one hand leaving Tom flabbergasted. Connor and Alexia had already witnessed Ned's superhuman strength so there were less surprised.

"Ned…you," said Tom and just then Ned turned to look at him and his eyes shone with gold.

Tom looked straight at Ned his eyes and mouth widening. The color of Ned's eyes was gold, shiny and cold, devoid of warm emotions. It was a completely different Ned.

"It happened," said Tom getting up and after the initial look of surprise he looked quite calm, almost eerily so.

Ned was so surprised that the gold in his eyes retracted. "You know what's happening?"

"Yes I do Ned," said Tom and just then when he looked at Ned he saw Tom's eyes, the glow of a dark purple emanating from it, if Ned's gold eyes seemed like a barrier devoid of warm emotions then Tom's eyes were an endless chasm with that dark purple swirling deeply, like a mix of the deepest emotions. "It's finally taking effect…"