On the drive home, Shawn slouched in the driver’s seat with half-lidded eyes, hypnotized by the road as if it was a pocket watch in the hands of a magician. His sports car hummed down the freeway, the volume and pitch of the engine rising and falling. I wasn’t really a car guy, so I had no idea what model it was or how many horses were inside. He was usually anal about keeping it clean and pristine, but the leather seats, the steering wheel, and the floor mats all had blood on them. He must have been trying to process everything that happened at the Hasbrook’s, so I decided to go easy on him.

“You almost got everyone killed back there,” I said, lacking any compassion for his internal struggle. Going easy wasn’t in my repertoire at that juncture, and I wasn’t about to coddle his ego. Besides, I learned long ago that mentoring is all about crushing your student.

He stirred from his stupor to glance at me and then, more attentively, back at the road. The corner of his mouth rose in a smirk before he spoke, “I thought you said she had an affliction… of the soul!” I met his mimicry and long pause for dramatic effect with a deadpan expression. “C’mon, I’m not stupid. None of that would have happened if you showed up on time.”

I remained silent.

“What? I couldn’t wait in my car forever and wouldn’t have been able to stall them that long. I watched you plenty of times and it looked easy, so I figured, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ You never told me that was the worst that can happen.”

“By plenty of times, what you really mean is twice. You watched me bring two people back from the dead. What’s more, that’s not the worst that can happen.”

His eyes darted between me and the pavement a couple times. “What do you mean that’s not the worst that can happen?” A sinister grin spread across my face, but I didn’t say anything. He rolled his eyes.

“What the heck happened back there; why did she turn into – that?” he asked.

“As I tried to explain before I charged in there like a matador fighting a bull in a cage match,” I said. He made a face at my analogy. He never seemed to get them. “Bringing people back to life is a bit more complicated than a frat party. It’s more like – baking a cake. There are several ingredients that you need to prepare in a certain way. You can’t just measure out the amount of flour you used last time and expect it to turn out the same.”

“What are you talking about? That’s literally how baking works,” he said.

To be frank, I had no idea how to bake a cake, it just sounded good in my head… which didn’t feel quite right, but I had to uphold the all-powerful hero persona I was developing.

I was still using energy to dull the pain of my injuries. That had to be it. I was probably just tired from the overuse of power. Also, the Cara bites were a bit itchy. I shook my head and jumped back into the conversation to save my analogy.

“Wrong, that’s how you’d think baking works. You have to consider the time of day, what breed of chicken the eggs come from, whether to use a plastic or glass measuring cup…” His expression told me I wasn’t making it any better. “The point is that you never should have tried resurrecting someone. Actually, I was only supposed to teach you how to keep your life from seeping out of you. Since you can do that, lessons are over.”

There was blissful silence between us – before he ruined it by pulling over to look into my dreamy gray eyes.

“You were using real magic back there,” he said. “Can you teach me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I said so.” He made a face of either anger or passion, I couldn’t tell which.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll figure it out on my own.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Yeah…no. You’ll just end up killing yourself.”

“Then teach me!”

“I don’t wanna,” I said, crossing my arms, turning away, and pouting.

“What are you, like 12?”

“No, I’m – ” I took a moment to remember. “19.”

“What is wrong with you?!”

“What do you mean? I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. I was barely managing to maintain the façade, but I’d endure. I had to be strong for all my fans. “Let’s just go, I’m hungry,” I said. Shawn clenched his jaw.

“Ugh…you’re impossible.” He grumbled as he pulled back onto the street. There was another lull before he said, “At least tell me why she turned into a psycho zombie?” I sighed.

“Fine. Let me break it down in simple terms. In a way even you can understand,” I stalled. He rolled his eyes at me. I cleared my throat. “You like cars, right? Well, the body is the vehicle for the soul. Energy is the fuel that runs it. There’s a lot of moving parts that do things – and stuff. Sometimes they stop working, and it breaks down, just like my car did today. That’s why I was late by the way.” He didn’t need to know that I didn’t pay my parking tickets. Why should I have to pay just to park somewhere anyway?

“Uhh… that doesn’t answer my question,” Shawn said. “Look, I get how energy works and what it does, but when I put it in the hot dead chick, she turned into a monster. When I saw you do it to other people, they came back to life.”

“That’s what she said.”

“What?” he asked.

“Never mind. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. Clearly, you weren’t paying attention. Well… to continue the vehicular analogy, you filled Cara’s car with orange juice while she had a hole in the gas tank – because you’re an idiot.”

He made a face then turned to look at me. “Jesus! Can you be serious and explain it plainly instead of using ridiculous analogies?”

I stared at him with consternation. “Don’t call me that.”

His face switched to one of confusion…or constipation, I couldn’t tell which. “Call you what?!”

“Jesus. It’s Jesus, not Jesus.”

“Jesus? Wait. Your name is Jesus?” Shawn barked a laugh.

“What?” I asked.

“Your name is Jesus and you heal people!”

“I don’t get it,” I said. His laugh froze as he stared at me with disbelief or… hunger?

My contempt flared all of a sudden. My restraint up until that point suggested that the hate-tainted energy had almost all been purified by my soul. With it, however, my access to elemental magic would be gone. Hard as it is to believe, even I have weaknesses.

I can use my energy to boost my body’s abilities, but I can’t use it to conjure the elements like other mages — or at least not without help. On the other hand, I could heal significantly more easily than other mages, and almost none would have enough power to bring someone back to life.

As I was saying — or thinking, the purification process hadn’t finished yet and the hate lingered. So, considering Shawn’s attitude, I thought that “it would be so easy to turn the wheel into oncoming traffic, do a backflip, land on the wrecked remains of the car like Spiderman, then do some healing, but just enough for me to gloat over the misery I’d just caused.” Thankfully, I didn’t say that out loud.

“What the fuck, man? That’s dark,” Shawn commented. Did he just read my thoughts or… Wait, did I remember to yell at him for swearing? What was going on? I decided to investigate.

Energy was pooling in my head, but it wasn’t healing anything; it was making my brain work harder. I was wasting energy to make myself smart enough to carry on a conversation. I had to stop before I made things worse.

“Food,” I said and pointed. “Pull into that Benny’s Burgers.”

“Ugh…burgers, again?”

“Of course. Benny’s Burgers and Pietro’s Pizza Palace are the only places worth eating at.” He groaned and the car’s tires rolled into the parking lot. I drooped as we joined the drive-thru line.

“Are you alright? You look pale,” Shawn said.

A quick self-inspection caused blaring alarms in my head. My addled brain produced spaceship warnings: ‘Energy levels dangerously low! Forcefield powered down. Self-regeneration functions offline. Life support failing.’ I held back a giggle with a shake of my head.

“Y-yeah, I’m just hungry.” I hurriedly got out. Walking around the back of his car, an involuntary grimace caused me to trip, then I re-donned my stoic mask. “Get me twenty cheeseburgers.”

“Twenty?!” Shawn exclaimed. “Wait, Jesse. You’re covered in--"

“Yeah, you’re right, make it thirty,” I slurred without looking back.

Shawn’s voice was drowned out by the glass door closing behind me. Finally, some peace and quiet, I thought stumbling into a bathroom. There were urinals affixed to the wall, so I must have picked correctly. Looking around for people, my attention was drawn to the stupid blower thing. I scoffed.

“Why bother? They don’t even dry your hands.”

I braced myself over a sink and threw up. My vision faded but came back into focus. My puke wasn’t the right color nor was it vomit-flavored. I squinted and smacked my lips like I was judging wine on a panel of experts. It was a deep red with thick legs trailing down the sides of the porcelain. It had a full-bodied mouth feel carrying notes of iron. Oh — it’s blood.

One of the stalls opened at the far end of the restroom. Hadn’t I checked for people? I must have forgotten.

“Whoa. Are you alright?” an alarmed man asked rushing to my side. “Hey, you’re bleeding!”

“No. No. I’m fine – but I wouldn’t recommend eating the fish sandwich,” I said blearily, then I threw up again. My legs wouldn’t support me anymore. I heard a crack when my knees hit the floor and my head drooped forward against the cool sink. Darkness enveloped me.