World Breaker [1]

           I’ve seen them hiding behind trees, in deserted parks, and dimly lit cafes —those people in coats. They watch from under jet black hoods with unwavering stares only revealing skin at the tips of cut gloved digits. It seemed like a coincidence at first. That’s until the sightings hit closer to home.  The schoolyard visits started next, nothing too obvious, a coat sitting on the bench across the street or one on the same train but different carriage on the way home. I changed my day to day.  I even tried on different clothing, donning a coat of my own.  It seemed to work, the sightings decreased, and with it went my anxiety.  That was until tonight.  When I opened the blinds and saw half a dozen coats gathered across the street, my first instinct was to scream.

        “What the hell is all that racket?” Mum shouted from downstairs.

        My throat was raw from the wail. A second look did nothing to change the fact that six people were on the pavement area across the road all staring at my bedroom window.  There were no eyes. Shadows inside of coats with fingers, that’s as far as descriptions go. Snatching my old Motorola from the bed, I stumbled to the first storey.

        “Mum, we need to call the police,” I said, already punching in the numbers.

        There was metal grating from inside the kitchen, amongst the sound of water blasting the sink.  If anything, Mum hated leaving the tap open more than she did losing her spectacles.  With the only sound from the kitchen being completely out of character, I held the phone close to my ear and picked up Mum’s salt rock from the lounge coffee table.  It was half the size of my head and strong enough to put someone out —if I landed the hit.

        “What was that Evan? Can’t hear you over all this racket,” Mum called back.

        It sounded just like her, but something was off.  I couldn’t pinpoint the obscurity but it was definitely there.  The kitchen was steps away now, and I could see the tap and something moving near the Fridge door through the passageway entrance.

        The rock felt alive in my hand.  It wanted to be used, to have a purpose. Only in the face of fear do you remember that the security of something like a house and a mother to look after you is really not that much at all.  The phone in my hand buzzed with sound as the operator answered. It became muffled as it joined the contents of my pocket, my only way to quieten the noise.  

         I stepped onto the white tiles of the kitchen area, darting for the open Fridge first only to find no one there.  I turned to the tap behind which was running on full blast.  The cupboard doors next to it were sprawled open, but the contents remained perfectly packed. In fact, nothing was that out of order, besides the stove which was on without a pot on the big burner. That’s definitely a mistake Mum wouldn’t make.

        “There you are, Evan,” Mum said.

         Her voice may as well have been a siren.  I spun toward the sound, heart racing, and rock already moving toward the target.

        Mum’s eyes were filled with shock, and I did everything in my power to shift the trajectory.  It was only after I let go of the rock, sending it hurling toward the wall, that I realised she was wearing a black coat, just like the strangers outside. It was at this time that I noticed the pot in her hand being swung toward me, for whatever reason, it was in slow motion.  There was an acute awareness of the muscles in my neck going taut and my jaw shifting out of line as the pot crunched against bone. To make matters worse it was scorching hot.

        I lifted off my feet and slammed into the dining room table, the world a dizzying array of colour. There was a faint whisper in the back of my mind, a kind of murmur on the wind . . . it said, World breaker.

        The world flashed white and blinked out of existence. All that was left was me in a big black space, with the faint light of consciousness fading away into a crack of light on the horizon.

                                                                  ****

Stolen novel; please report.

        The taste of blood was thick.  It was the first thing I noticed before opening my eyes. Then came the oakwood dining room table stretched out in front of me with a butcher knife impaled at its center.  All six coats occupied the seats, three on either side, with my mother on the opposite end, the head of the party —as it turns out. Confusion ran its course through my thoughts and my insides felt all wrong, none of it made any sense, from the moment I’d seen the coats up till now.

        I tried to move. It felt like my body was constrained to the chair by wire, but as I looked down, the only addition was dry blood down the side of my neck and on the top half of my black hoodie.  The more I strained to make my arms and legs work, the tighter the invisible restraint became. I stopped, both out of panic and worry.

        “What the hell is this?” I said, the words a jumble across throbbing lips.  

         “Maybe you shouldn’t have hit the boy so hard, Mireina,” the coat sitting on my mother’s right-hand side said.

        Mother glanced at me, the coat and crimson lipstick making her look much more frightening than her usual nightgown and hair curlers.  “You can talk when you’ve been stuck by a world breaker with a rock, Nerissa.”

        Nerissa leant into the wooden chair. “The scar on my hip?”

         Mother scoffed.  “Stuck with the edge of a shoe? Pitiful.”

         “A boot-” Nerissa began, only to be silence as mother held up a hand.

         I wasn’t sure how my mother knew these people, or if the lady across the table was my mother at all.  However, she certainly seemed to have control over them to the extent that they would do her bidding, out of what seemed like fear.  I only wanted answers and to be rid of this whole fiasco.  It seemed cult-like, ridiculous to an extent.  “Mother, if you really are my mother, what the hell have you done to me?”     

        “When I said bound, being gagged was implied,” Mother said.

        The coat’s on either side of me stood up, shared a glance, and rested their hands on either of my shoulders. There was a green pulse of energy across my clothing which climbed up to my lips in little scanning squares before disappearing. This time when I tried to speak nothing came forth.

        The two coats sat back down and the person opposite Nerissa rose.  “As much as the Sophotorium respects your work, we must be getting along, Nerissa.”  The voice belonged to a man and had a smooth tone to it, one you felt compelled to trust regardless of how much you knew about his intentions.

        Mother raised an eyebrow. “The last time the Sophitorium respected me, they gave me a house and a pair of nanny panties and told me to stay put.  Do you understand how I feel about your respect, Marken?”

        “Be that as it may, rules are definite,” Marken said.

        “Cut the boy and be done with it, Silverhand,” Mother said, pulling a cigarette from the inside of her coat and lighting up.

        My heart raced as I began to understand what was going on here.  They were going to kill me, the bloody lunatics.  To think my own mother would be a psychopath. I strained against the bonds with every inch of strength until the pressure was too tight, threatening to crush me.  My head hung, not only in shame but without energy to stay upright.  In the last seconds before death, all of your accomplishments flee and you remember the things you didn’t do.   I had plans to be a biologist one day, to explore the world.  I would probably be one now if it wasn’t for High School.

        Marken hesitated, only briefly, before nodding to the coats that had taken the center seats.  The first one rose and pulled the knife from the center of the table.  The second rolled up their sleeves to reveal words tattooed the length of the forearm.  They attended me with either hand clasped around my neck as the other stepped behind and pressed the knife to the flesh under my chin.

       There was fight left in me, I could feel it there, a small lump of energy at my center. I put everything into that ball, all my hopes and dreams, all my successes and regrets, and pushed against the bonds which held me down. Objects around the room glowed white, possibly from my light headedness. There was still a chance, I knew this for reasons beyond logic.

         The knife pressed into my flesh. I closed my eyes, ready to accept the terror that is death.

        “Ain’t that a breaker if you’ve ever seen one?” Mum said.

        I don’t know why I could still hear her voice.  Maybe she had died too, or this was another weird dream like the one from earlier when I thought I’d been knocked unconscious.

        The sensation of movement across my skin prompted me to open both eyes. The coats were still there, only this time they were standing.  The ones who had been holding me were a few steps back, their faces now illuminated in a white glow.

        My body felt strangely loose as if I could neither be harmed nor hurt others.  But at the same time, the objects around the room seemed to beckon me to pick them up, to use them and fulfil a purpose much greater than what they had been given.  I saw the same in the eyes of the men and women now watching me, they didn’t intend harm, instead, they wished to help in whatever way they could. I relaxed, finding my way back into normality, and with the subsiding of emotion, the world returned to its former self.

        Marken whistled. “Evan Vincent, the Sophotorium welcomes you.”

        Usually, I’d be flattered, that is if I wasn’t so flabbergasted.  “What the hell is a Sophotorium?”

        Mum blew smoke through her nostrils and for the first time, all night cracked one of her old smiles.  “Screw High School. You just graduated, kiddo.”