Theo and Jess both sat in silence for what felt like eternity. Theo’s mind was racing at a million miles per house. His brain was desperately trying to unscramble the series of fucked up events he had just witnessed. His heart was still beating out of his chest, and he was so pumped with adrenaline that he’d forgotten the collection of major injuries he sustained during the fight. Finally, he broke the silence.

“Is… is he dead?” Theo asked stupidly.

“Half his face is fucking missing! The fuck do you think?”, Jess shouted.

“Holy shit”. Theo went silent. The sight of the dead boy’s mangled face made him want to throw up, but he couldn’t look away. It was almost as if he was convinced that the longer he looked, the more he’d get used to it, and then the whole thing wouldn’t feel so fucked up.

But it was fucked up. He’d just murdered a 19 year old boy. Was it self defence? Would anyone believe that? No, Daniel was from a very powerful family. Even if he’d killed himself and recorded the whole thing, his family lawyers could still find a way to pin it on Theo if they wanted to. George had seen Daniel chase after Jess and Theo, if he turned up dead, he’d know it was them.

Shit. George was still in the forest. His whole gang was, and they could find them at any moment.

“Jess we gotta hide the body. Our lives will be over if anyone finds out!”

Jess had been hastily pacing back and forth, her hands clasped on top of her head. She didn’t respond to Theo.

“Jess?"

“Fuck! Just, let me think!”

“Think about what? We have to hide him, now!”

“And how do we do that? Bury him? Burn him? I don’t see a fucking shovel or lighter around here! So what? We just carry him to our dorms and hope nobody sees us? Fuck Theo!”

“Shit sorry ok! I’m just really fucking stressed.”

“…The coin.”

“What?”

“You said you found a coin, an artifact”, Jess elaborated.

“Shit, yeah.” Theo had completely forgotten about the coin that had gotten him in this mess in the first place.

“Well? What does it do? People say when you get an artifact it like, talks to you. Tells you what it does or some shit.”

“Yeah, yeah it spoke, but I don’t remember it all.”

“Well get it back and make it tell you again.”

Theo was about to ask how exactly he should do that, when he felt a small metal object appear in his hand. He opened it to see the coin sat in his palm. He expected it to be covered in blood, but it looked good as new.

Talk to me, give me something. Tell me what you said last time. Theo directed his thoughts at the coin. Suddenly, his ears were once again flooded with the same golden voice as before.

“This coin may look ordinary, but you'll find you can flick it at an opponent with quite some force. Flip it in the air and catch it however, and you'll get a pleasant surprise.”

Right, Theo thought, that’s what it told me last time.

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This time, however, the voice continued.

“Artifact name: Gambler’s coin

Artifact rarity: Unknown

Artifact level: 1

Default ability: Powerful Flick - you can launch the coin at extremely high speeds.

Secondary ability: Coin Flip - you may flip the coin once per day to temporarily change your default ability. The coin must be caught after flipping it for the ability to work. The cooldown on ‘Coin Flip’ will reset at midnight. The temporary ability will last until the end of the day. 'Coin Flip' has a small chance to fail. When this happens, all abilities are disabled until the end of the day."

“Shit”, Theo whispered to himself. He’d never heard of an artifact anything like this before.

“What is it?”, Jess asked eagerly.

“The thing I did where I flicked the coin really hard? That was just its default ability. Once a day I can flip the coin and get a random new ability until the end of the day.”

“What the fuck? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, that’s what it told me”, Theo replied.

“Fuck, that’s… different. Can you flip it now to get another power then?”

“Yeah, although it said the ability has a small chance to fail.”

“Unless you wanna flick it into this dead body a hundred times until we’re left with a bloody mess, I don’t think it fucking matters.”

“You’re right. Ok, I’ll give it a go”

Theo placed the coin on the edge of his index finger again. His curled his thumb under it, just like when he had launched it at Daniel, but this time he resisted the power he felt building up. He flicked his thumb up, sending the coin spinning a few feet into the air. He caught it again as it came down.

“Ability 'Coin Flip' activated.

New power being assigned at random.

Power selected: Shrink - you may shrink any non-living object by touching it. Larger objects will take longer and require more energy. If the object remains intact after an hour, it will regrow to its original size."

Wow. Theo had so many questions. Did the coin give him a power that would be useful in his current situation, or did he just get really lucky? Also, why do so many of these abilities involve time limits? Regardless, this wasn't the time to ponder the specific ins and outs of artifacts.

“…hear anything good?”, asked Jess.

“Yeah, really fucking good. I can shrink non-living things for an hour. I guess we just shrink him and then… I don’t know, squash him?”

“Well, I guess he counts as non-living. Alright. But what happens after an hour? Do his body parts go back to normal size?”

“It said it’ll only get bigger again if the object remains intact so, hopefully not?”

“Ok, um, go for it then, I guess?”

Theo stepped closer to the dead body and bent down. He hesitated for a second, he’d never seen a dead person before, let alone touched one. No, he didn’t have time to hesitate, George could find them at any moment. He placed his hand on Daniel’s arm.

Theo immediately felt his whole body come alive. He could feel the energy passing through him, down his arm and into Daniel. As it happened, Daniel started to slowly shrink. After a few minutes, he was about half of his original size. Theo was starting to feel the fatigue set in. He began to slouch over, his muscles relaxing. His eyelids were getting heavy.

But he couldn’t stop now. He shook his head, waking himself up. He pushed the energy out of his fingers as hard as he could. Daniel continued to shrink at a steady pace, and soon enough, he was no taller than an average soda can.

Theo finally stopped. He slumped on the floor, feeling completely drained.

Jess, who had remained silent the whole time, rushed to his side.

“Theo! You ok?”

He forced his eyes open.

“Yeah, shrinking something that big just took a lot out of me. I’ll be fine. Anyway, what do we do now?”

“You said we squash him, so, we do that I guess?”

“I know he’s already dead but, it still feels wrong”

“Think of what that shit head has done to you over the last year. How many times have you wished you could stomp on him like a bug?” There was a darkness in Jess’ voice.

Theo thought of Daniel’s smug smile that he wore whenever the teacher left the room. The insults he threw at him before punching him in the stomach, kicking him in the balls, or more recently, trying to drown him. Theo remembered the humiliation he had felt after Daniel and his goons and covered his chair in super glue, forcing him to walk to the nurse’s office with it stuck to his ass. All of the retorts Daniel had made about Theo being an orphan, insulting his dead parents. Theo had never met them, but it still made his face burn with anger. He fucking hated Daniel. He hated that he did whatever he wanted. That he didn’t have a care in the world. He hated his stupid fucking face and-

SQUELCH!

He lifted his fist to see a tiny splatter of blood, bones, and insides.

“Fuck you, Daniel” he said in a calm, quiet voice.

“Shit, you actually did it”, said a surprised Jess. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

She kicked some dirt and leaves over the tiny murder scene. “Let’s get out of here.”

And with that, she helped Theo to his feet and the two of them trudged painfully back towards the campus.