Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  I grew a devious smile and turned around to the Grinner, boldly lifting the glass jar above my head. I looked at him piercingly as he slowly turned around. I was stunned at what I saw when I didn’t have the time to be.

  His fleshy face began emitting black smoke and instantly renewed itself. I grimaced at him and angrily threw the bottle at his feet. His eyes opened in shock as his legs suddenly became soaked in the volatile, frost-emitting liquid.

  I didn’t know how it worked but I used my instincts. Knowing I could also control air, I took in a large breath and blew. The impact was too strong for me to withstand and I was sent jolting backwards to the wall, but at least the liquid nitrogen instantly solidified into some sort of ice-like substance, abnormally creeping up and binding his legs and upper waist. The chemicals alone couldn’t have done all of that – it was good to know my powers were manifesting in one way or another. I just needed more time.

  Suddenly, my hands began burning. I tried hard to ignore the slight sensation. I lifted them up to my face and noticed the air around my hands and holes in my palms vibrating vigorously. I didn’t know what it was, but after I smelt its strong and quite intolerable smell, I knew it was gas. I had no time to notice things, but at the same time I didn’t want to escape. Something was pushing me to oppose him.

  I searched frantically around the sink for matches as the Grinner struggled to break free of his icy prison. The icy substance began to crack and he squirmed more.

  “Matches; where are the matches?” I pressurised myself. I quickly found them. I lit one out of frustration and dropped it on my left palm. Before I knew it my hand was viciously ignited with fire. The ice chinked and began to rupture more and more.

  “YOU’RE DEAD, BOY!” he yelled at me. I nervously raided the sink for the empty aerosol cans. I sprayed many but they were all empty.

  “Come on, come on!” I suffered. The ice was almost cracked. I picked up a bottle in the back and sprayed it. It was empty. I shook it madly and sprayed again. The Grinner flexed his wings around him and screamed out sadistically as he forced himself out of his ice-bound prison. I sprayed it in the air once more and miraculously, it worked. If I was right, I conjured alien fire. I was just hoping that it meant it was stronger than the flames known to man.

  Suddenly, without warning, a long and thick ray of purple fire – still connected to his hand – was shot out at me. I quickly turned around and ducked, spraying the aerosol can upwards as the blaze of fire shot over me. The shot of fire instantly redirected upwards as I sprayed, obliterating the roof above us.

  The Grinner’s face sharpened in disappointment. I swiftly stood up as he stopped the ray and retracted his hand. Instantly, he shot his hand out again, letting out his purple fury with more intensity – but I simultaneously pointed my ignited left hand towards him and sprayed the aerosol can behind it.

  At that point, we clashed – me, the awkward, alien boy in the uniform, against the devil’s minion.

  The impact of the two fires colliding was so strong, it sent out a force throughout the room; shattering and breaking all glass objects. It was hard to support. I released a full blast of red-orange conflagration against his black-purple blaze. It felt as if we had hands interlocked and were wrestling. My blazer and tie were billowing behind me in the raging wind and I couldn’t help but keep my disguises down. My head instantly turned red with luminous hair and my eyes glistened like heated rubies. Along with that, the burnt skin marks dissolved away and my Vernaescian Celt marks showed, shining a brilliant red.

  I could feel him applying more force. I sprayed but intensified my muscles to at least stand a chance. He suddenly inhaled deeply and broadened his chest. He sharply leaned towards me and I was suddenly sent exploding away from the part of the building I was in. I waved my hands in frenzy as I tried to slow down my landing. I crashed through the wall, thrown into the air and through the night-disguised sky.

  With a thud I landed in the rain on the grass. I winced as I found it hard to get up. I heard loud gusts of air behind me (which should have been his wings) and he had landed. But I felt too weak – I had to give up. What had I done?

  My ankle was suddenly grabbed and he dragged me away. I stretched out my arms and dug my fingers into the soil as he pulled me. I screamed and yelled loudly as my ever pouring tears mixed with the rain whilst he pulled me along.

  My hair quickly darkened to brown and my eyes became emerald green. I squirmed more and more as the Demon Grinner dragged me ruthlessly. But unintentionally, vines and roots whipped and snapped out of the trails my fingers had left in the soil and murderously rushed to him. He quickly dropped me as the thick roots and sharp vines bound him. I speedily treaded back through the rain, staring at him. I clenched my jaws and the roots and vines suddenly ejected sharp thorns. I heard him wheeze for air as the thorns pierced his throat. I quickly got up and ran away towards the front of the school.

  But it wasn’t just him. I quickly attempted to halt as I eerily saw an army of people dressed in black with void-black eyes marching towards me. I slipped and skidded, trying to stop by digging my hands into the ground. But nothing worked. I closed my eyes as I was about to skid right into them. Nothing. I opened my eyes and they were nowhere to be found.

  I had no time to think about that, I had to escape. But the crisis was over; my heart thumped in excitement and joy as I saw the others run up ahead. I saw Liam angrily take off his blazer whilst my heart flooded with warmth as I reunited with the others, people who were stronger than me and could help protect me.

  “GET DOWN!” Liam yelled. My reflexes promptly made me drop to the floor. The ground quaked reverberatingly as thunder struck the Earth around the trees in the compound. Inside, we could hear the children and staff screaming as lightning struck the school’s roofs and stole its power. All I knew was that I never wanted to get on Liam’s bad side. His hands became a shocking blue and writhed with electricity. The black sky began to lighten and dissolve to grey as nets of forked lightning formed in the heavens. The dull, but somewhat lit, area of Richmond upon Thames became a mass of darkness as the street lamps exploded and the power went out for miles to go. The Grinner choked and his face stared at the skies in horror. Liam’s eyes were exploding with a blue that ached my eyes to look at and his fair complexion began to turn ashen as electricity surged through his veins and skin. His grunt became a loud yell and the nets of lightning gathered in the sky above his head. The wind was a tornado around us beneath a sheer mass of blackness. Liam launched his hand to the Grinner with a sadistic cry and we were all sent jolting back as the static from the sky fell to Liam in an Earthquake whilst he channelled it to my attacker. We huddled on the ground, clasping each other’s uniforms and grasping our arms as we stayed on the ground in fear. Liam’s beam of fantastic electricity was a metre thick and displaying unimaginable light as it tortured the Grinner. Liam’s pale grey flesh seemed to be sizzling. Smoke wafted from his eyes and hair and also from his skin. Finally, he let go and the static began to diminish as we saw the Grinner ascending away from the crater left in the earth as he turned into black smoke. Liam was drained, barely standing upright and swaying unsteadily like a weak piece of rubber. He was sizzling and his now jewelled, static-ridden, magnificent blue eyes contrasted with his dead skin. I hugged the others tightly as he gently swayed towards us.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, tears still rolling down my eyes as I constantly repeated a phrase in my head that overwhelmed my tormented mind…

  I almost died.

  CHAPTER 8.

  Power

  “They’re never going back to school.”

  “Angelina, you’re overreacting,” Tantrus said, somehow calmly as he sat on the sofa.

  “Am I, Tantrus?” she paced, nerve-wracked. “My son almost died and is upstairs traumatised and Liam, the poor thing, was forced to use almost all of his power! We should just be glad he’s not in a coma! I had to take them off school and make up some stupid excuse!” mum sna
pped. She bit her fingernails and seemed to have lost her cool. Anne suddenly walked into the living room.

  “How is he?” mum asked.

  “He’s getting better,” Anne replied calmly.

  “And Liam? He’s scared me so much. He must never do that again; he’ll give me a heart-attack!”

  “He should be fine. He’s restabilising and his skin is slowly returning to normal. We shouldn’t rush it. He needs to rest. But you know his anatomy, Lina. If we let him have the rest he requires, he’ll be better by tomorrow morning.” Mum sat herself down and buried her face in her hands.

  “Angelina, it’s not your fault. No one could have foreseen this.” Mum looked up at Anne sadly with her eyes swollen and red from the excessive crying as she then leaned her head on her friend’s shoulder.

  It seemed death was looking for me.

  I sat on my bed with my legs pulled up to me. I was shivering and my wet blue hair was still drenched in water. I was too stiff to change out of my uniform. I was alone in here with Liam fast asleep opposite me, pale and grey with what seemed to be scars on his skin.

  I was still engulfed in fear.

  I saw my doppelganger waltzing around the room with his black eyes opened menacingly. He didn’t smile, but he hummed creepily. I swallowed hard as I saw his movement slow down whilst he meandered towards me. I lifted my head up and trembled. His face was inches from mine; his black eyes looking through me as if he were looking into the depths of my soul. He precipitously looked at the door.

  The last time he did something like that I almost died – so naturally I sharply withdrew as the door creaked open. But he was gone in the blink of an eye. Jojo walked in timidly, holding a box of tissues and a fizzing green liquid.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked smoothly as she sat herself down. “Take this, it’ll help with the trauma.” I hesitated before taking the glass with my trembling hand before cautiously sipping the sweet, fizzing tonic. It burnt its way down my throat and I could feel my body numbing as it instantly rushed to my head. The anchor that sat in me and the spear in my heart that made me unable to forget how I could have so easily been killed were softened as my tense muscles relaxed.

  “I – I need to learn, Jojo. I can’t remain defenceless anymore,” I sniffed. Jojo gulped guiltily, knowing she could have very well defended herself.

  “Your grandfather’s downstairs. He wants to introduce you to some people. But first get changed. And don’t worry – you’re safe on Vernaesce.”

  Why did I get the impression I wasn’t? This doppelganger of mine wasn’t trustworthy. For all I knew, he could attempt to kill me in my sleep.

  I trudged down the stairs with Jojo and the others behind me. I had changed out of my thick, wet and dirty uniform. I tucked my dangling hair behind my ears and for bizarre reasons, I kept expecting the light soaring through the house to turn dark at an instance and shatter the sky with meteorites. Mum looked horrible. In a way, not because she was scared, but because anger wasn’t a look that favoured her graceful face. Granddad sat on the couch, but he wasn’t alone – and I didn’t mean Tantrus and Anne. I guess Jojo was right.

  I stepped down from the last step with a thud. The adults and the strangers suddenly ceased their murmuring as soon as they laid eyes on me.

  “Aden,” granddad started nervously, “how are you feeling?” I gave an incoherent nod as my lips trembled.

  “Aden, I am truly, deeply, profoundly sorry,” he sympathised.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I started out somehow harshly. “As a matter of fact I don’t feel I should be ‘concealed’ like this,” the adults looked at me, embarrassed at my last statement, “as you were all suggesting,” I ended.

  “You heard that?” Tantrus asked.

  “The wind – I’m pretty sure it carried the sound waves.”

  “Look, the reason I am sorry, Aden; to all three of you children,” he directed towards Jaden, Jade and me, “is because I should have allowed you to explore your kinetic abilities – become more at one with them; so to speak.”

  “Let me stop you right there; I’m not angry. I don’t really want revenge…but I want to be able to defend myself. And I’ll never forget what Liam did, almost giving his life and taking out his energy to save me. I don’t need to let anybody else do that. I’m not going to lie: I’m pretty jealous of what Robbie, Jojo, Liam and Tammy can do.” Mum seemed uneasy and disturbed the whole time the conversation took place.

  “You can reach just as full potential as them. This is why we are in the midst of these guests,” granddad ended. The attention was now turned to the two males and females that stood boldly next to him.

  They were all tall. One of the men had rough, red, shoulder-length hair, held in a ponytail that matched his fiery red eyes. He was the only guy of the two dressed extremely casual. The other was dressed formally with short, bark-brown hair and stunning, solid green eyes.

  One of the women wore a frilly blouse with silk sleeves covering most of her hands. She wore a frilled skirt to match and also, the strangest shoes I had witnessed. They looked like tights in one way or another but were shoes, nonetheless. They were of a reflective blue colour and their white shoelaces crisscrossed their way up. She was a ginger; a head full of thick, long auburn-orange hair that cascaded down her shoulders and back in wavy locks. She had blue eyes like mine.

  The other woman was just as tall and had the body of a gymnast. Her hair was waist-length, straight and gleaming white, which she kept in a tight ponytail. She wore a white tank top and tight fitted grey jeans, complimented with flat Burberry shoes and had the most stunning light blue eyes, somehow like mum’s but these seemed somewhat were screaming; they had emotion, they were alive. Granddad named them in the order I had seen them.

  “Meet Dorian Pescalin, your Pyrokinetics tutor – that’s fire manipulation. Tobias Treadman, your tutor in Agrokinesis – a Terra-Turfers natural ability to manipulate wood and plants. He’ll also obviously take you through Terrakinesis, which is the manipulation of earth. We also have here Mirabelle Vinora, your Hydrokinetics tutor. And lastly is Vala Vorgell, your tutor in Aerokinetics. They’re all teachers at Lappington Academy of the Associates Ring – an institute serving as a college and University for Vernaescians after completion of the eleventh year of secondary school,” he concluded.

  “Now, bear in mind, this isn’t to make you the strongest people on Vernaesce. This is your ‘catching up’ because, trust me, you three have missed out on so much. What you’ll all start to learn are probably in the ranges of Vernaescian teens your age already,” Tantrus said to Jaden, Jade and me. Then, all our attention was drawn to a little blue bird that gently flew in from a window in the room’s which was shaded by the rustling tree outside.

  “Aw,” Jade muttered underneath her breath in awe. Suddenly, it twisted and morphed into a man whose face I was unlikely to forget.

  “Mr Leery?” Jade, Jaden and I quickly exclaimed. His coiling locks of black were springing over his head like loops and fell over his forehead. His Caucasian skin was pale yet yellowish. I suspect it was due to the consecutive Shifftocasting. It seemed to have probably affected his eyes, somehow looking slightly inhuman. We were unmoved by them though; we had absorbed the fact that many things were possible on this planet. Nothing could scare me much anymore. I mean, what could possibly scare us other than a bunch of sadistic madmen that want us decapitated and deceased? Hm?

  “Speaking of which,” granddad started, “Mr Leery – Mr Leery, your Biology teacher, is retiring from his actual position for a trainer’s position in Lappington.”

  Jaden was the one who still found it most hard to come to terms with: “you’re a Shifftocastan?”

  “And your new teacher,” Mr Leery began. “I look forward to training you.”

  “I’ll make sure you all get a timetable,” Tantrus added. “But for now, Aden, you’ll go with Tobias to begin your Terra-Turfing lessons.” I looked over to him.

  “Ca
n I go and change into something more appropriate to train in at least?” I asked Tobias.

  “No time, Cinderella! You’re dressed fine. Come on! While we’re young,” he hurried me out.

  “Stay safe,” mum’s voice quietly said in my head. I looked back and noticed her looking at me only vaguely before I turned around with Tobias and headed out of the colossal doors. Suddenly, Liam traipsed down the stairs, squinting at the bright light flooding the house. His skin was moderate and was midway of fully restoring to its previous replenished state.

  “Liam! What are you doing; you need to rest,” mum said soothingly.

  “The electric circulation was jamming. I was too still for my body so I had to move a bit,” he replied croakily as he massaged his throat.

  “Meanwhile, Jade will practise with Angelina,” Anne spoke. Jade shot a confused glance to her.

  “Does uncle Tom know any of this?” Jade quizzed.

  “Of course he does; he’s my brother, Jade,” mum answered dully.

  “Liam, these are yours,” Tantrus swiftly threw him two, long, thick batons. They were reflective and seemed to have been made from a sturdy, shiny metal.

  “Is this Tartalum?” Liam asked as soon as he gripped them. Tantrus nodded casually whilst sipping an emerald green liquid from a whiskey glass.

  “What’s Tartalum?” Jaden asked.

  “It’s a Vernaescian metal that’s stronger than diamonds and cannot be melted or moulded by Earthly fires or means,” granddad answered.

  “Is it meant to be like a wand or something?” Liam asked. Granddad merely scoffed.

  “Not really. But seeing as it would conduct your electricity, it should help you fight or control your Electrokinesis better.” Liam flexed his hands and the batons were immediately encircled with flickering blue static.

  “Thanks.”

  Suddenly, I never felt so small. The shade that sheeted me from the aisle of towering oak trees on my left and right hand sides impressed a burden of unimportance and fear on me. But it was just because of that attack. Him, the Grinner. Because ahead, the life-sized planet in orbit and Vernaesce’s two moons made me think of the glory this world had to offer. The sun embedded in the bright blue sky ahead shed light on Tobias and me as we strolled towards open grass and out of the trees’ shade. My eyes glistened like reflective sapphires and I had to block the rays forcibly crashing against my face.