Mark tapped his foot and stared at his phone. He idly scrolled through the Nexus Hub home page, watching his cold breath puff out in clouds of smoke as he did.
Why’s that so entertaining?
Mark chuckled and made a large cloud with warm breath.
The door next to him opened, and he pushed his phone back into his pocket when he realized it was Sarah.
“Oh, oh- hey! Sarah, wait up.”
Sarah looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Ambushing me? Really?”
“Who me? Never! I’m just here to walk you to your car.” Mark said, feigning innocence.
“Mhmm,” Sarah said.
They walked to the edge of the block in silence.
“Soooo,” Mark said in his most convincingly casual tone. “How’s he doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, dude. I know you guys talked when I left. It’s part of the reason I dipped out of there. No one knows him better than you, and that pains me to say,” he added while raising an eyebrow and leaning into his short blonde friend.
“Don’t try to butter me up.”
“I know he probably talked to you too. Did you use your therapist juju on him?”
She shoved him. “I hate when you say that. ‘Therapist juju’ makes it sound like I have a disease or something.”
“Oh, but you know what I mean. Your deep, dark, secret powers of making people spill their secre-”
Her glare cut him off, and he coughed.
“All out of the deepest compassion and care, of course.”
Sarah rolled her eyes again and they crossed the street together. There was an odd silence to the chilly night and they walked from the light of one street lamp to the next.
“It’s not my place to share, Mark. I’m sorry. You’ll need to talk to him if you want to know what he’s got going on.”
Mark was almost an entire foot taller than Sarah, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Nahh. I trust him; he’ll let me know when he’s ready to talk.” Mark patted the top of Sarah’s beanie affectionately to get a rise out of her.
She swatted his hand away. “He could use you, you know? It might help him a lot if you reached out rather than waiting for him.”
Mark nodded and looked away as cars passed.
Yep. That might be best, but Alex hates to be smothered. I’ll give him some time, and if he doesn’t come around, I’ll knock some sense into him.
They continued to walk, and Mark pointed out a few of the Christmas lights that were set up in the windows.
“I feel like the last few years, Christmas gets set up earlier and earlier each year. This year, all the Awakened stuff is really causing people to shift their attention. All of this increased crime the news keeps talking about is pretty crazy. Especially if you think about people fighting against the cops with powers.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “The major stations mentioned preparing supplies in case of a government shutdown or riots.”
They’d heard things like that in the past, as large political movements or rallies weren’t uncommon in Northern cities.
This feels different. Maybe I should hit up Walmart on my way home and grab a few things.
“Mark…” Sarah said, her tone turning serious.
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He looked down at her, waiting for her to gather her thoughts.
“I know that this probably seems like your and Alex’s nerdy dream come true, but please. Stay away from this stuff. Some of these soldiers and veterans that I’m seeing at work are really messed up from whatever is going on. They’re hurting in a way I’ve never seen before. They talked about PTSD from wars when I went through my training with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, but I really wasn’t prepared for it to be like this…”
Mark laid a large hand on her shoulder.
“I’m just worried that this will be too much. We have trained soldiers, and even though guns work in the Rifts, none of our technology does. There’s no way to communicate and… and whole groups of them can go missing in a single Rift. I’m worried that things are changing too fast, and we won’t be able to keep up.”
There was a long silence as they walked, and Mark spoke up when they reached her car.
“I know you might not want to hear this, but I’m being serious…” He made sure that he had her eye contact as he continued, “The only way to ‘keep up’ may be to embrace the changes. And that’s not me speaking as a huge fantasy nerd. It’s me talking as a friend and someone who wants to make sure his friends are safe.”
They looked at each other and embraced.
Mark had always been a touchy guy, and his mom had always said that sometimes a hug could help lighten the load of a heavy heart.
Maybe I shoulda given Alex a bigger hug.
When they parted, he smiled down at her. “Besides, knowing you- you’d probably get some wicked cool healing powers and go about trying to save the world.”
His smile grew to a grin as she scoffed and gave him a friendly shove.
“I can’t save the world. I’ve got to go feed Mittens. He’s going to be angry at me for not getting him his wet food yet.”
----------------------------------------
Mark kept walking toward his apartment. He lived a bit less than a mile from Alex’s house, so it was often easier for him to walk than drive.
He watched a video on his phone, one headphone in, keeping an ear out for traffic or approaching footsteps with the other.
He had gone halfway home when he heard shattering glass and several kids screaming. Mark looked up from his phone, trying to pinpoint where he had heard the noises. The sounds bounced off of the tall buildings in the surroundings, making them sound like they were coming from more than one spot.
A moment later, a car alarm began honking and Mark threw his phone in his pocket and began running toward the sound.
When he rounded a corner, he saw a small group of teenagers gathered on the far side of the street.
“Hey, are you alright?!” Mark called.
Several of them looked up and ran, scattering in different directions.
Why are they running?
Mark looked both ways and rushed across the street. One boy lay unconscious on the ground, and a girl was over him, yelling his name.
“Jared! Jared, wake up!”
Mark moved swiftly to her side and examined the boy. There wasn’t any blood that he could see, but the glass was shattered from the nearby car. It had dents in its door and all four windows were broken.
“What happened to him? Are you okay?” Mark said. He gently directed the girl’s attention to him and kept his voice calm while inspecting her for injury.
While the girl stopped yelling, she didn’t look at Mark. She sat back on her heels and just kept staring at the boy named Jared, tears welling up in her eyes.
Mark pulled out his phone and dialed 911. Mark put them on speaker while telling the operator their location and that he was CPR-certified. He found it challenging to remember the lessons they took last year before becoming camp counselors for Sarah’s niece.
"Hey, hey. You said his name was Jared, right? I can help Jared." Hearing her friend's name, the girl finally looked up at Mark with tears in her eyes. "I need you to tell me before I move him- did he hit his head or have anything fall on him?"
The girl shook her head and stammered several incoherent sentences about powers and fainting.
Mark did his best to manage the situation and speak to the stunned girl while checking to make sure that Jared was truly unconscious. He gently shook the boy and called his name several times, asking if he was okay. The lack of response seemed to make the girl even more upset, and she began to cry even harder as she stood and paced back and forth.
Mark ensured the boy’s head was tilted, and his airway wasn’t blocked by anything. He removed his gloves and held his hand over the boy's face but couldn’t feel anything with his cold hands. Leaning down, he placed his cheek close to Jared's face and felt a faint warmth from shallow breathing.
Mark took off his coat, and the 911 operator let him know that paramedics were en route. He rolled Jared into a recovery position on his side to keep his airway open and prevent any choking on vomit. Afterward, he covered the boy with his jacket and monitored him closely for several minutes until the EMTs arrived.
Once the professionals took over, Mark felt a lot better, but he struggled to regain his calm breathing.
The wrap-up of the scene took almost an hour as people interviewed both him and the young girl who had stayed behind. Mark found out the story from the officer who spoke with him last.
So, the boy had powers and wanted to show them off to his friends. When it worked, his friends got excited and egged him on to move something bigger with his telekinesis.
From there, the girl had described, through tear-filled sobs, that Jared had tried to move the car and struggled for several seconds. Suddenly, the car door had dented, and the others had cheered, but then the glass broke, and Jared passed out. He seized on the ground and then lay still, which is when Mark had arrived.
Mark gave the paramedics and officers his number in the event they needed to follow up with him.
The rest of the walk home was quiet as Mark considered the sobering events of the evening. He wanted to call Alex, but he knew that his friend was going through something of his own. He decided to replay the events in his head and consider whether there was anything he could have done differently.