I need to escape from here!

If I stay, Allen is going to kill me. I don’t blame him, though. It’s his best option.

Sure, Dylan was trying to help me, but in the end he would’ve had to listen to Allen. If he didn’t, they both would’ve been killed by Rachel. As long as I live, their fates are sealed. Hell, it’s debatable if they’ll even survive with my gem.

Dylan really does get caught up in the heat of the moment. He follows his heart and doesn’t think for a moment about anything else. That fiery personality of his has doomed all of the friends that he cares about so dearly. He probably doesn’t even recognize it.

Normally deciding to kill me immediately would be a rash decision, but because of the time constraint they’re under, they might not get a chance to change their mind.

His decision to spare me and wait was impatient. Waiting was impatient.

He didn’t care to think of the consequences of waiting. In other words, he decided to wait spontaneously. Dylan wanted me to live illogically and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Now, if I had stabbed Allen first, I’m certain that I would’ve gotten immolated by Dylan in an instant.

I wonder if that word, “immolate,” has anything to do with Dylan’s Delusion? Meaning both to destroy using fire or to sacrifice with it. In this case I should’ve been the sacrifice, but maybe the real sacrifice was his two closest friends beside him.

After thinking such thoughts, I once again focus my full attention on the fight before me.

Back against the wall, I throw a punch at Allen. I’ve honestly never fought anyone before, so I’m not sure what to do here. I’ve only ever seen fights on television.

Allen easily pushes my hand to the side and counters with his own punch.

His fist crushes into my stomach, forcing the air out of my mouth. I stumble back against the wall, unable to breathe.

Allen stares at me with pity in his eyes. He walks towards me slowly with his arms in a boxing stance, guarding his face.

The pain subsides and my lungs once again fill with air, as though was never hit.

Again, I throw a weak, weightless punch, only to be knocked into the wall.

This isn’t working.

Looking around for anything I can possibly use to escape, I see chalk and an eraser on the bottom of the nearby blackboard. The board itself is only a few feet away on the wall on my right.

Despite my small stature, I run straight towards Allen with my whole body in an imitation of a football tackle. I make sure that my center of gravity is off towards the black board.

Predictably, Allen steps to my left and pushes me towards the black board. He has the fighting sense to know that he could throw me much easier that way. It works out for me, though.

I cling to the ledge of the black board to stand back up. Allen just watches me, waiting to counter me when I attack again. He’s gone completely defensive. His offense will only open him up to damage, but he still wouldn’t be able to deal any.

Quickly grabbing the chalk, I fling it off the shelf with my left hand, straight at Allen’s face. Unable to dodge, he only braces for the impact. It bounces off of his forehead harmlessly.

Allen braced, closing his eyes for a brief moment as the chalk flew towards his head. During that moment, I grabbed the eraser with my right hand and hid it behind my back.

Allen opens his eyes, an annoyed expression plastered on his face. Angered by my surprise attack, he throws a punch at my stomach with his right hand. However, this time while his guard is down, I raise the eraser and clap it in between my hands leaving a large cloud of chalk.

In preparation I held my breath and closed my eyes, but he wasn’t prepared. Allen gets a lung full of chalk and is blinded momentarily. He stumbles backwards and coughs violently.

It won’t last long but this is my only chance!

I run around Allen and grab my knife while I dive under the table.

Armed with this knife, I can kill him easily. Right now, while he’s blinded, all I need to do is stab him. This is probably the only opportunity I’ll have to kill Allen. A trick like this will never work again.

I don’t particularly want to kill, though. Actually, I’d prefer not to. If I’m left with no choice then I’ll do what needs to be done. Still, I already know the fear that comes with death. It would leave me with a bad taste in my mouth if I taught someone else that fear.

While I need to die for him to live, he doesn’t need to die for me to live. He probably won’t be able to catch up to me now. So, I won’t stab Allen. If he pursues me though… I’m scared of what I might do.

Crawling out from under the table and jumping over Dylan, I escape out the door.

A smile creeps onto my face once again.

I’m still alive.

***

Dammit!

Even though I know I need to kill Simon, there’s nothing I can do anyway. He’s practically invincible and he’s crafty. If I chased after him now, I bet I could catch up but- I don’t know if I want to go through with this. It feels too cruel beating him up when he can’t die. No matter how evil I think he is, just the thought of fighting Simon makes me sick.

“Is Dylan alright?” I ask Sarah between heavy breaths. She’s still sitting on the floor next to him.

“Yes, he just needs some rest. The bleeding stopped, but he won’t be able to fight for a while. We should probably get him to the hospital to check for an infection, but…”

I guess taking him to the hospital isn’t an option. There would be too many questions for us. Police would be called and we’d meet many new faces. There would be thousands of opportunities for Rachel to assassinate us.

How did the fight with Luke end with no lasting injuries?

Oh. Of course. How could I have forgotten?

Why did things have to turn out this way?

It’s all Rachel’s fault!

I guess it actually started with Luke.

No, even before Luke it was Kyle. As soon as we became paranoid, it was over. Kyle gave us incentive to betray each other, even if it was by accident. Next time I see him I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.

We need a new plan to fight Rachel. She’s a shape shifter with 4 gems. From what Simon described, she can heal and make as strong of muscles as she wants. She’s practically as invincible as Simon and she can fight. It’s over.

No matter how hard I think, I can’t possibly create a strategy to win. My best bet is to just fight. Fight until I die.

Hopeless, I turn to the one person that might know the answer, “Sarah… what do we do now?”

Silently, the only one I can count on shakes her head.

If the three of us can’t do anything, and Simon escaped, what else can we do?

Call Kyle again? It’s worth a shot, but that selfish jerk wouldn’t help us if it put him in danger. If he was answering texts willy-nilly then he’d be killed by Rachel before he could even be useful to us.

Is he already dead? I doubt it. He’s the one I’d bet would survive the longest. He’d outlast even Simon.

Well, I guess I have to prepare to fight Rachel alone.

My ability seems to only activate when I need to protect someone. Does that mean my only chance to even attempt to fight Rachel is by putting someone else in danger? If no one is in danger I can’t even use my Delusion at all.

Sarah speaks up, breaking the silence, “When Rachel attacked me, she didn’t kill me.”

“Yeah.”

Obviously.

“No, but why?”

…

That does seem strange, now that she mentions it. Rachel appears to be a ruthless killer and habitual liar, typical evil behavior. So why wouldn’t she finish off Sarah? If she’d just killed her, there would’ve been no witnesses. Kidnapping takes much more effort than murder.

Actually, if Sarah had died, we all would’ve been none the wiser of our imminent deaths. She would probably meet us one at a time using Sarah’s body. We’d die without knowing a thing. She made such a careless mistake after designing such an intricate scheme with the phones? That’s weird. It’s almost scary.

No, it’s terrifying. What is going on in her head?

A chill runs down my spine and the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Recomposing myself with a gulp, “Are you saying that you have an idea?”

Sarah looks at me with a confident gleam in her eye, “I don’t have the slightest clue.”

“Come on! This is serious!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

As annoying as that joke was, we’re all feeling anxious right now. I’ll let it slide.

It is a good thought though…

Sarah falls deep into thought. After calming her nerves with a joke, she thinks as deep as always. She doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings, focusing only on the mystery at hand. Dylan is asleep beside her. Even though he’s still injured, it looks as though Sarah has forgotten it all. All she wants now is to solve the mystery. She looks almost mystical while she’s thinking like this.

In the meantime, I need to call my parents.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

They’re the hands-off type, but I’ve never really worried them before. Aside from school fights, that is.

The phone rings twice before Mom picks up. With shaky breathing and sweaty palms, I tell her that I might not be home for a few days. I use the excuse that I’ll be at a friend’s house. She seems to tell from my voice that something is wrong. She asks multiple times to make sure I’m feeling alright. I lie each time, saying I’m fine. Each time I say the words, it hurts just a bit more. Thanks for looking out for me, Mom. I hope I can see you again.

Actually, I heard something about phone calls somewhere. It’s not really your voice that comes out on the other side. Your voice needs to be turned into small data. It’s compressed and squished into a very different voice in order to save data. So, you never know who might actually be on the other side of the phone. Their voices are fabricated, stitched back together after being torn to pieces.

Those are the thoughts I had as I talked to my mother for what might be the last time.

***

I run, run, and continue to run.

After a few minutes and I’m sure that I’m not being followed, I sit down on a bench and catch my breath.

When I ran from the school building, I didn’t head to the woods or anything fancy. I just followed the road and made it somewhere close by.

I guess I can never go back home now…

Oh… oh no.

If I go home, who knows where Rachel will be waiting? I surely can’t go there. But, what of my mother who I love so much? My dad who I laugh with and am scolded by? My sister who I play and argue with?

While I think of all the happy memories in my life that are over, all of the things I can never get back, my mind shifts to that stomach churning face. She haunts me. Not Rachel. No, someone far more haunting.

I’m so, so sorry, Christina. I left you… but, what else could I have done?

Allen’s right. It’s all my fault. But, what else was there to do?

I shouldn’t have dodged those nails.

I should’ve just died.

But-

No, I need to live. I’ve thought the very same thing before, that maybe I should die. Right before my arm was cut off, I thought these same thoughts. But, the urge to live outweighs anything else that I’ve ever felt. It’s incredible.

Now that my life is no longer in danger, temporarily, my mind wanders freely.

As much as I know that there was nothing else I could do, I still feel awful. I think that maybe, I loved Christina. Probably not romantically, but there’s no doubt that she was irreplaceable to me.

Somehow, at the same time, my hands no longer shake. I don’t have a headache. My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.

It really was stressful, wasn’t it? That’s the one problem Christina had, she always put her weight on others. She couldn’t carry it all herself. I guess that I couldn’t carry all of her weight either, not without feeling sick and stressed.

Despite feeling so depressed that Christina died, the fact remains that my hands are steady. The stress she caused me has faded.

I hate the fact that I can even think such things of a friend who is so recently deceased.

Christina must’ve been aware of it too. She said as much, right before…

Anyway, she said that she knew how much of a burden she was. Maybe she realized it when Kyle told us his theory… No. If his theory is right, she’s always known. That must’ve been a large cause of stress for her too. The fact that her stress caused others stress, caused her stress.

What a vicious cycle. Despite how much I love her, she has the worst personality.

Grass crunches down as footsteps approach me. With the timing, I half expect to see Christina when I turn around.

“Hello, Simon.”

“Are you Rachel?” I ask deadpan.

“Heavens no. Do I look like Rachel to you?” Kyle asks.

Kyle looks at me with his ever present bags under his eyes. His curly black hair freely grows from his head, unstyled. The black jacket over his shoulders remains unzipped.

“Sorry, that was a bad question, but shouldn’t you be cowering in fear or something?”

Rachel would have killed me already so this must really be him, but what could Kyle want?

“Now, now. Don’t look at me with those eyes, Simon.”

“I feel like I’ve started to understand you recently. It’s disgusting. What do you want from me?”

He puts on a genuinely shocked face, “Nothing! I just want to speak with you.”

He’s acting differently than normal, even if he isn’t Rachel.

Without the energy to continue running, I simply sit still as he takes a seat beside me.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

He’s right, I guess. I hadn’t been paying attention because of the whole dying thing, but it’s nice and sunny, the sky is clear.

“Cut to the chase.”

“Fine, fine. No need to be so aggressive!” He takes a breath. “If you insist, have you considered helping Allen?”

So he does know about Rachel.

“Helping with what?” I feign ignorance.

“You’re such a kidder. Help fight in the upcoming battle, of course.”

“I couldn’t help even if I tried.”

“Sure you could. You’d be an excellent healer for their team. Dylan’s in pretty rough shape right now, he may need assistance.”

“Were you watching!?” I shout.

“I just happened to be around while you guys… talked.”

What a douche.

“No. I won’t help. I don’t want to die.”

“Ah! Now you’re honest! It’s been annoying me this whole time we’ve known each other. You went on about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and you pretended to hate conflict for such dumb reasons. No matter, I believe that it’s in your best interest to fight right now. If you don’t, Rachel will kill you.”

Tch. He just wants me and Allen to defeat Rachel and save his sorry ass.

“No.”

“Are you that confident in your new immortality? I wouldn’t be.”

He knows everything. How long has he been watching this? From what angles?

“Well, she can’t kill me. That’s all that matters.”

“True. You’re correct, about the most important thing. To you, all you need is to be alive. That’s where you find happiness. You’re quite adaptable, only needing that. There are plenty of others who would commit suicide because they didn’t have something they wanted. People who can’t find happiness in the things they have can sometimes prefer death. But you, as long as you live, you’ll be satisfied. That’s beautiful, if I do say so myself. Rachel is one of those people who would rather die than live without their happiness. She may have even been considering it… until she had the opportunity for happiness right in her sight. All she had to do was stretchhhh~ out her arms,” Kyle made an exaggerated hand motion while lengthening the word “stretch.”

That’s probably no more than a coincidence, but her arms stretched a lot in the battle. If Kyle is right, then the subconscious has a big role in how powers manifest.

Rachel ‘stretched’ towards happiness?

Her arms stretched towards my neck.

“Yet,” he continues. “a fragment of that happiness ran away. It’s you, Simon. She’ll do whatever it takes to kill you. I know she has it in her, she’s quite scary. Do you know what’s an even more terrifying character trait than being scary?” He doesn’t give me a second to answer. “Intelligence. Someone who’s smarter than you will always be one step ahead. They’ll always get what they want and they’ll always take it from you. And let me tell you, Rachel is smart. Do you see what I’m saying yet?”

“Get on with it!” Even I can lose my patience.

Kyle chuckles, “Well you see, if I can figure it out, I’m sure that she can. You aren’t as invincible as you think. You both have the same weakness, but with your healing ability, I doubt that your head could be destroyed instantly by any of us. With the speed you heal, no matter how strong the force, you’d probably out heal it. Even though you’re extremely durable, you still aren’t invincible. Care to know your secret?”

This is bound to be interesting.

***

Waiting in the same classroom, Sarah remains lost in thought. I wonder what she’s onto? It seems emotional. Maybe she’s lost hope? Or maybe she’s just thinking about something sad.

“Bzzzzt…”

Well that’s unexpected. A text from Simon.

“I’ve decided to help you fight Rachel. You can’t beat her alone. I’ll tell you everything I know about her and we can fight together.”

This has to be a trick. Simon just ran from me after I threatened to kill him. How can he fight anyway? I just saw his skills, he’s garbage. The message could be Rachel’s too, but that shouldn’t matter. I’ll do the same thing to both of them.

I text back, “Fine. We’re still at the school. I won’t attack you.”

I’m going to attack him.

It’s been an hour since he ran. I wonder what made him change his mind.

“Guys. Simon is coming back. He says he’ll fight with us. I’m still going to kill him if we can’t win the fight. I’ll do whatever it takes so we can all live.”

“Good,” Dylan groans. “Though I’ll make sure you won’t kill Simon.”

Dylan has already woken up and despite the advice from Sarah, he refuses to sleep more. He has a gauze wrap around his torso to stop the bleeding, there was some in my car. He’s sitting up in a chair and we’ve been discussing battle plans. We have nothing so far though.

Sarah remains in thought. Is she still thinking about the same thing?

“Hey, Sarah, what’ve you been thinking about?”

She doesn’t hear me.

“Hey! Sarah? You there?” I wave my hand in front of her face.

“Yes, yes.” She sighs. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“What’ve you been thinking about?” I repeat. She must be very interested in it to be so lost in thought.

“…”

I give her time to think.

“It’s nothing. I was just thinking about Rachel.”

That was a simple answer for how long she thought of her words. Usually she speaks in essays about her thoughts.

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

Well, I guess her betrayal was unexpected. Sarah was closer to her than I was. It must have hit her even harder. Maybe Sarah understands now why she wasn’t killed? I guess it doesn’t matter.

A few minutes later, Simon walks in.

His face is the same as it has been. That deranged face of evil. I can’t believe he’s so different now. He no longer looks like that small eighth grader I initially saw him as. His eyes and face are stern. He looks selfish and desperate.

“Hello,” he greets. “Are you ready to talk?”

“Of course.”

“Well then, I think we can beat Rachel together,” Simon gets straight down to business. He acts more and more like Kyle by the second. “I did injure Dylan, but he’d be best for a sharp shooter anyway. If he stands in the back and shoots laser beams at her head, she’ll be much weaker when you go close range.”

“How am I supposed to fight her? I guess you don’t know my ability yet. I get more physical strength when I need to protect someone. That means I can’t fight her unless someone else is in danger. I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone like that. If I messed up, they’d die.”

“No, I knew your ability. That’s why it’s perfect. We can team up. See, my ability is invincibility. If I act like a punching bag for Rachel, I won’t die and you’ll be able to use your Delusion. It’s the perfect combination of abilities if you ask me.”

I hate to admit it, but our abilities do synchronize well. That’s pretty ironic though. The ability that allows you to protect someone is strongest when used in combination with the ability that makes you need no protecting.

Sarah adds, “We figured that the best way to fight her would be an ambush. There’s no doubt that Rachel is on the offensive. She loves using fake texts so we predict that she’s going to text Allen from my number soon. All four of us will go to the location and then surprise Rachel with an all out assault. If we’re lucky, Dylan may even be able to get a head shot and kill her right off the bat.”

“Are you in?” I ask Simon.

“Of course. That’s a nice plan.”

Sarah looks down, embarrassed by the compliment.

Then, now we wait.

It was only about another half hour before the text came in exactly as Sarah predicted. A text from her fake number requesting that I meet her where Luke and Dylan’s fight took place. Of course, she chose an area that was well hidden and there wouldn’t be witnesses.

“Alright, I’ll be there,” I reply to the message. As a test, I add, “Weren’t you at the hospital for your grandma?”

She responds, “It seems that my grandma has passed… I need you now more than ever.”

Rachel’s slick. She knows my relationship with Sarah and is exploiting my emotions to lower my guard. Not that I really have a guard. She doesn’t know that I already know exactly what she’s planning.

It’s time.

“Are you all ready?”

Everyone stands up and although in pain, Dylan looks excited.

He yells, “Let’s get started!”