4

Anyone who thinks there’s something to like about Boston has a head filled with nothing but Fenway Park merchandise and clam chowder.

The weather changes at the drop of a hat, slave to the whims of a harbor so choked with garbage that the constant cold and damp are the only way it can get revenge. When the subway decides to work it’s always late, and when it doesn’t it’s a glorified death-coaster. Want to travel by car instead? Good luck, the entire city was laid out by one guy sloshed on so much Ward 8 that his drawing hand had to think for him, something hands are not meant to do, and now the roads look like tangled headphones. Not to mention that on any given day the city is 25% tourist-by-volume, and it always caters to that 25% at the expense of anyone who dares live there. But all of them can feel free to walk into the wrong neighborhood and get shot by any of the over a hundred active gangs whenever they like.

My contempt for this dumpster of a city only festered more the closer the tour bus approached BU campus. The afternoon sun in my window coated my skin in that golden mist as it struck, creating a dull, foggy layer across my upper body.

It had been two weeks since I first gained these abilities, and in that time I managed to learn a decent amount through observation.

The first thing I gleaned was that nobody else could see this energy, and yet everybody seemed to produce it. As I walked around campus during the day, everyone who stood in direct sunlight would release some of this energy through their skin, though it only seemed to be a tenth of what I made. Even when I held my hand directly up to Collin’s face, he couldn’t see it. He did, however, notice my eyes. The only excuse I could come up with on the spot was colored contacts, but those don’t move on their own. Even though I normally avoid Collin enough to keep him from noticing that detail, it somehow felt harder when I was trying.

Secondly, it reacted to my thoughts and could somehow move things on its own. The next practice I attended, every time I loosed an arrow, the golden mist would pour from my hand and into the shaft, engulfing it in a soft glow, before the arrow flew and struck exactly where I wanted it. Now that I knew what was going on, I learned how to control it to a minor extent. I intentionally altered the course of some of my shots, making sure my scores were good, but not unbelievably so. That first practice was dismissed as a fluke. Still, Coach forced everyone to run laps when nobody fessed up to punching a hole through one of the targets.

Finally, there was the fact that it shifted with emotions. It became fairly easy for me to match what someone was feeling to how their “Aura,” as I came to call it, looked. Sharp, jagged edges for anger, curved and wispy lines for happiness, and drooping streaks that pooled at the legs for sadness.

And oh, that night vision. Apparently, once the sun set, I would gain perfect, daytime-esque sight, but became incapable of perceiving artificial light. That was why I couldn’t turn on my phone and why lights looked off when other people could see fine. I just couldn’t see the light they were emitting. Whenever I started wondering what, exactly, was letting me see, I stopped myself. There was no point asking questions that couldn’t be answered. But I did stop going on night time walks.

I still had no idea why it only appeared in the sun, or why it fucked up my eyes, or even why it only seemed to attach itself to my arrows. All I did know was that I wanted as little to do with it as possible.

After an excruciatingly long drive that started nearly three hours ago, we finally pulled into the parking lot of the indoor archery field. Our first competition of the year, and of course it's the furthest from the university. I heard Collin speak from across the aisle.

“You ready for this?” His face and his Aura were both filled with unconcealed excitement.

I grabbed my bow bag from the seat on my right. “Sure, let's get this over with.”

The entire team exited the bus single file as Coach Whitmore led us across the parking lot and into the range. He started rambling on to everyone, giving last minute tips about technique, positioning, nothing I hadn’t heard before. I was too busy taking in my surroundings to absorb anything he said.

Sunlight flooded the asphalt outside the Boston University indoor archery range, which let me see how Coach and the rest of the team were feeling. I walked a few paces behind the pack, to get a full view. Everyone was close enough together that their Auras started blending into each other, creating a chaotic mixture of tense, wavy lines of fear and apprehension, interspaced with bursts of resolve and drips of doubt. All fairly standard for the first competition. Especially considering that BU absolutely smoked Sheffield last year.

The building itself was a massive gymnasium that stood detached from any other campus buildings in this part of the city. Sandwiched directly between Cambridge and Brookline, the university acted as a bridge between the Allston and Fenway Kenmore regions of Boston, giving it massive foot traffic. All this to say the sidewalks and streets were packed like sardine cans, as to be expected on a Saturday afternoon. Trapped beneath the shadows of buildings dozens of stories tall, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the people within were feeling, but some part of me knew it probably wasn’t much of anything.

Just as we were entering the building, I caught something moving in the corner of my vision. Instinctually, I whipped my head up towards the roof, where I could’ve sworn I’d seen…red? I squinted my eyes, wondering if I actually had imagined this visual phenomenon, when Collin called from just in front of me, “You good?”

“Yeah, just thought I saw something.”

✦

Inside, everyone was preparing for the competition to begin. Bows were being strung, hip quivers loaded, sights and stabilizers attached. My teammates were all talking among themselves about how well they thought they’d score, while only giving me the occasional nod as I made brief eye contact. Honestly, that was more than enough for me. I’d never bothered to learn any of their names.

I examined the audience in the bleachers behind the firing line as I strung my own bow, trying to pick out any familiar faces. As usual, the crowd mostly consisted of the families of competitors, and the rare archery fan who had nothing better to do that day. I did manage to spot Mrs. Brightwen, Collin’s mom, sitting in the third row. I only met her after my first competition freshman year, all because she insisted that she just had to meet her son’s roommate. She was nice enough, if not a little overbearing, but she was definitely where Collin got his manners from. It immediately became very clear to her that I liked to be left alone.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

In my scanning, however, I also happened on something out of the ordinary. Three people, who I could swear I’d never seen at a competition before, sitting side by side in the row furthest back. On one end, a tall, middle-aged man with short black hair and a bushy beard, built strong and sturdy like a brick wall. On the other end, a shorter brown-haired man with glasses and a trench-coat seemed to be practicing with a deck of cards. Between them, a petite girl around the age of nineteen by my guess, with olive skin and stark blonde hair, was enraptured by her laptop. They were removed from the main group of spectators, occupying their own little corner, but that wasn’t what got my attention.

A small sunbeam coming in through the high glass windows shone on all of them, revealing Auras that stood out as massive compared to the rest of the audience. Auras roughly the same size as mine.

Are they like me?

As soon as I finished my preparations and set my bow down at my position, I started down the firing line towards where they sat. At the very least, they had to know about what was happening to me, right? I’d just ask them in a way vague enough that, if they really were just random people, I’d only come across as slightly bonkers.

My advance was short lived, though, as I walked by the BU team and felt myself run straight into the outstretched arm of one of their members.

“Well, well, Aiden right?” A voice absolutely drenched with ego announced from my left, “Somebody is feeling confident today, huh?”

I turned around to see who nearly clotheslined me, and saw…someone I was certain I’d seen before, but I couldn’t recall his name. Had I ever learned it? If not, then how did he learn mine? He was a couple inches shorter, with dirty-blonde hair and nine teammates packed behind him like groupies. Whoever he was, he was important to these people.

He continued, “Any particular reason you’re sneaking around here? Though, I guess it’d make sense that you want to try and pick up on some of our techniques, maybe a bit of…”

I chimed in, “I’m sorry, you’re talking like we know each other. You are?”

The man’s once smug expression shattered in an instant, replaced with a look of shock and exasperation. “Are you serious?”

I nodded once.

“Ryan! Ryan Gray! Highest scorer for BU archery three years in a row! The guy who said he’d score higher than you one day, and finally did last year!?”

Not a single bell was rung. The posturing was, however, starting to get on my nerves. “Look, dude, I don’t care that you don’t charge rent for the space in your head, but I’m doing something right now, could you move?” I pushed past his arm and kept walking towards those strangers.

Until Ryan sneered behind me, “What, did your family finally show up?”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Thought nobody noticed? Everybody’s parents show up for this shit, man. Except for yours. Every competition, you never spend any time saying hello or goodbye to anyone. You’re just off in a corner, scrolling on your phone.”

Stop.

“What’s the deal? Did daddy hit mommy too much? Or wait, did mommy hit daddy too much, and he just couldn’t take it anymore?”

Stop!

A horrid tightness had taken root in my chest. I finally noticed how hard my fists were clenched as my nails dug into my palms. That golden mist was geysering off of me, forming a violently crackling Aura. I could feel it seeping from my arms, my hands, the static sensation more intense than ever. Rage wanted to take the driver’s seat, to lunge at this douchebag and stick an arrow where the sun don’t shine. But before I could do anything rash, the range official called for shooters to line up.

I calmed myself with a breath, and began walking back to my position. I didn’t even give Ryan the courtesy of a glance as I paced by.

Some say that spite is the best motivator. All of them were right. I was filled with a resolve I hadn’t felt in a long time. A resolve to show an asshole exactly where he belonged and exactly what I could do to his head if he got within a hundred meters of me again.

I took my spot next to Collin, yanked my bow off the ground, removed my sight and my stabilizers, and got into position. He must’ve noticed something was up. “You feeling alright, dude? You look…emotional.”

I explained, “I just have something to prove. "I lifted my bow up to the target, and started repeating that mantra in my mind. I want it. I want it. I want it. The judges started the timer.

Archers get two minutes to complete an end of six arrows.

I only needed ten seconds.

In rapid succession, I loosed my entire quiver as fast as I could, each arrow being consumed by that dazzling glow as it sped downrange. A steady rhythm of thunk, thunk, thunk echoed through the gymnasium, the only sound to be heard as I continued my onslaught. Shaft after shaft struck only the bullseye, some curving impossibly mid-flight to accommodate my will. Once five arrows had loaded the target completely, I summoned up my freshly bottled anger, pumped more of that energy into it, and blasted it downrange with enough force to ruffle the hair of myself, Collin, and whoever else was next to me. My sixth arrow bisected my fifth laterally, splitting the wood along the nock and coming to rest in its corpse.

Once it was over I was panting, and my hands ached with both numbness and burning pain, but it was nowhere near as intense as the night when I discovered these powers. In fact, the pain was nearly gone after just a few seconds.

Silence reigned as every other archer, none of which had even loosed their first arrow, stared transfixed at my target. The audience was as quiet as the grave, the judges had no idea what just happened, and even Coach Whitmore had shut up.

Then somebody clapped.

In an instant, the entire range was in an uproar. Cheers and applause mixed with Collin slapping me on the back and yelling in my ear. I don’t remember much of what was said, but I do remember hearing a bow hit the floor from the BU side of the range. Satisfaction.

As the audience was appreciating the spectacle, I couldn’t help but look over to that strange trio with Auras like mine. Did that little display tell them anything? Did it let them know I’m one of them? But their attention wasn’t on me.

Instead, all three of their gazes were fixed firmly on the entrance farthest from me, a door propped open to allow freer entrance to the building.

I looked and saw…

Something.

Squeezing through the door frame, there was an amorphous, smoke-like thing entering the building. I hesitate to describe it as black, or dark, because it was so much more than that. It was like looking at pure, unfiltered nothingness, a hole in the world that undulated like an amoeba, absorbing light so thoroughly it’s depth was practically impossible to perceive. Nobody else seemed to notice it either, save for the three strangers.

I watched as the cloud got its entire “body” inside, paused for a moment, and then started growing in size.

No wait, I squinted my eyes and tuned out all the laughing and hollering around me, Its not growing…

It’s coming at me!