by T R Tells
A trail of mist cut its way through my jumbled thoughts. My eyes widened, and I didn’t hesitate to follow it.
It snaked through the streets of Belmont Gardens and passed by several houses. It was still pretty early, and the only people that were out were oblivious to the world around them, either jogging or walking their dogs.
After a couple of minutes, the Current had taken me to Kelvyn Park. My growing anxiety made me jumpy, as I knew that this was probably another Apathy Victim. I rushed along the curving gravel path.
There wasn’t anyone in the park except an older woman sitting on a bench, feeding pigeons bread crumbs from a brown paper bag.
I was almost out of the gated park. The streets had a few shops on the left-hand side. I followed the Current and turned right down the road.
There were a few more houses nearby. My stomach turned, and I felt my lips tug downwards. The Current trailed behind one of the larger homes, and I walked along the driveway to the backyard. There was a bottom window on the side of the house.
Squinting through the yellowed windows, I peered inside
I gasped, staggering backward.
There were four girls, chained to a wall, with ripped clothing. My heartbeat escalated, and I slowly returned to the window. They looked terrified.
Were these the kidnapping victims?
A man came down the basement steps, but I’d seen something else behind him.
A Fiend.
And this Fiend had a red mist slowly reeking off of him. The aura that permeated through the window made me sick, and I was getting the feeling that this Fiend was more powerful than the others.
I was going to need some backup, especially if it was going to be a rescue mission, too. I wouldn’t be able to fight him and make sure the girls were safe.
I took out my phone and quietly tip-toed away from the house until I was back at the exit of the park.
“Yeah, what’s up?” they said on the second ring.
“Remember the things that I get into? Well, if you can, I’m going to need your help.”
It didn’t take long for them to respond. “Send me the address, I’m on my way.”
Chapter Seven
I stood at the front entrance of Kelvyn Park and looked at the time on my phone. It was nearing a little over twenty-minutes since I called, and I worried about leaving those girls in the basement for too long. It wasn’t like I could call the police or else they’d be killed by the Fiend since they couldn’t see it.
I just hoped I wasn’t too late; it was already a quarter to eleven.
After a few more minutes, a silver Jeep Wrangler parked in front.
I leaned off the gate when I saw Helene getting out of her car. I waved to her to get her attention.
“You’re lucky I like you. I don’t skip school for just anyone,” she joked, but her eyes and posture expressed something entirely different.
“I know, and I’m sorry, but this is an emergency.” We both walked through the entrance of the park, and I told her what I’d seen.
“And you can see this… What do you call it, Apathy Current?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s a smoky mist. Like the Apathy Victim’s negativity is overflowing with the extended help of the Fiend.”
Helene snorted as we exited the park and headed for the house.
“What’s so funny?”
She shook her head, but she had a smile on her face.
“Oh, nothing, except ‘Fiend’? That’s what you call these scary looking creatures? But you have names like Apathy Current and Victim.”
I pouted. I didn’t think I’d be judged on how I named my enemies.
“Jeez, thanks for the vote of confidence… My uncle came up with those names when he started differentiating similarities to an Apathy Victim that was with or without a Fiend.”
Helene nodded in approval. “And you have a mentor. You’re starting to turn out like some kind of hero, you just suck at names.”
We stopped in front of the house.
“You said that Current from an Apathy Victim is from its negative emotions?”
I nodded. “Mixed with some kind of trauma. So far, that’s the only difference between someone with a Fiend.”
Helene turned to look at me. “Well, let’s go, can’t wait to see you in action.”
I could hear a light frequency reverberating in my ear. It was the same sound I’d heard in school.
Helene said that she would go to the front door and distract the guy. I’d head toward the basement to rescue the girls.
“Helene, you’ll need to defeat the Fiend for the person to return back to normal. It was emitting a cloud of red smoke, and I sensed that it’s a lot stronger than other ones I’ve fought. The Apathy Victim has increased speed and strength.”
Helene climbed up the steps to the front porch with a grin on her face, waving her hand my way and saying something under her breath about ‘fun.’
I wasn’t sure if she’d even heard me, but my only priority was getting those girls out as safely as possible. My panic and fear for their lives made my heartbeat escalate. In situations such as these, it affected the use of my powers, and made choosing weapons difficult.
Focusing all my mental energy, I tried to summon a weapon that would be of some use to me, and something sturdy appeared in my grip: a baseball bat with barbed wires.
I frowned.
It definitely wasn’t the best weapon, and it was a risk if people heard it, but it would have to do.
Reeling my arm back, I smashed the window. I bent down on the ground, carefully sticking my arm through the broken pane to unlock it from the inside so I could slip through.
I dropped to the ground, my feet crunching on the glass shards, and turned around to see the four African-American girls huddled together in fear.
“It’s okay, my friend and I are here to help.” I realized a moment too late that I didn’t have my hood over my head or my mask to cover my mouth.
I went over to one of the girls who looked like she was sixteen. Her long black hair fell into her horrified hazel eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out,” I told the girl and reached for the chains on her wrists. They left behind red welts. Judging by that, and their dirty clothes, they’ve probably been here for several days.
I grunted and tugged at the chains, realizing it needed a key, and I could only create weapons.
“T-There’s a key hanging on the wall,” a blonde girl in a cheerleading outfit said. She looked to be around my age. She jutted her chin forward. “I saw the guy put it over there.”
I walked over to the other side of the basement and grabbed them off the hook. The sound of a sonic blast echoed in the house, and shattered glass was heard from upstairs. I looked up the stairwell and hoped that Helene was doing okay.
“W-What was that?” the third girl asked. Her black hair was matted and wild as she looked up at the ceiling.
I went over to the first girl and started for the locks. “That’s my friend… she’s fighting the guy. Did you notice anything off about him?” I looked over at the cheerleader.
She nodded, “He was always mumbling. It was like he was talking to someone who wasn’t there.”
That must have been the Apathy putting him into a lethargic state.
“Any idea what he said?”
“Something about not being accepted into society by his life choices… That he’s always been treated like this… I don’t know, it was all just nonsense that I didn’t understand.”
The chains on the first girl unlocked and clattered to the ground. The girl gingerly rubbed her wrists.
“Where did you meet this guy, anyway?” I asked the hazel-eyed girl, and she looked up at me.
“Tinder. He catfished me, said he was seventeen, but ended up being some forty-year-old guy.”
I hurried to unlock the girls, their chains clanking to the floor. When I went to the fourth girl, there was a thump from upstairs, and Hele
ne’s voice shouted from above.
“Damn it,” I mumbled under my breath, I knew she wouldn’t be able to handle him for long.
I looked at the other girls already freed. “Can you all handle it from here? There’s a shopping district to the left of the park. You should be able to call the cops there.”
They nodded. I handed the cheerleader the keys, but when I turned my back, they called out to me.
“What should we call you?”
They didn’t need to know my name. It was enough that they knew my face, and I hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite me. I would only leave them with a parting message:
“Just remember this: The truth will prevail. What you went through won’t go unpunished.” I turned before they could say anything else and ran up the stairs to help Helene.
***
The basement door hit the wall when I threw it open. The dining hall was wholly trashed with glass over the green carpet, and the fractured cabinet had fallen on the wooden table, ceramic plates and glass cups were everywhere.
My heart raced. “Helene!” I called out to her.
I turned away from the wreckage and ran through the dining room. A blur whizzed past my line of vision. Helene’s back hit the wall across from me, and a picture frame fell, shattering upon impact.
“Shit, Helene!”
I turned around to see the Apathy Victim. A middle-aged man with balding hairlines and black veins crawling up his neck and onto his face. The Fiend stood behind him, with black tentacles sprouted from its back, as a red aura circled around and hissed something into his ear. I had a feeling that if the Fiend wasn’t stopped, it could increase the Apathy in the victim. I didn’t know what would happen, but I did not want to find out.
I manifested a bow and arrow in my hands, pulling the string back to my cheek and aimed it at the Fiend. The gold bolt struck the Fiend in the shoulder, and it slammed into the wall.
The Apathy Victim fell to the ground, unconscious.
The Fiend opened its jaw in a shriek, and it was the first time that I’d seen the many, razor-sharp fangs that lined its stitched mouth.
“Oh my, Helene—Helene, are you okay?” I called out to her, running to where she’d been thrown. She rubbed the back of her head and groaned in response. I offered a weak smile, “I’m pretty sure I told you that the Fiend was strong.”
Helene snorted and gave me a look, her eyes were now violet. “Easier said than done. I don’t fight these things daily like you.” She looked down at my hands and raised her brows.
“Huh, so that’s what you can do—Duck!”
Helene grabbed my neck and pushed it down into her lap, and the sound of reverberating noise echoed through the air. From my peripheral, I could see frequency waves emitting from the palm of her hand at short, black, bobbed creatures with stubby legs heading toward us. Once the frequency wave hit the blobs, they exploded in a black mass of goo and separated into four blobs. I lifted my head, and Helene cursed.
“And it looks like that Fiend can create some friends that multiply.”
“Because it thinks we’re harming its host,” I pointed out to Helene. “To it, we’re the viruses, and it's sending its ‘cells’ to kill us. I’m pretty sure, like the Apathy Victim, if we execute the Fiend, the black blobs will disappear.”
We both got off our feet as the blobs started to corner us.
“Another crappy name? But, fine. Do you have any other weapons you can use besides that bow and arrow? Maybe like some kind of chainsaw?”
“Just my chain whip, weapons transform based on my emotions in a given situation. Otherwise, it’s completely random.”
There was a gleam in Helene’s eyes, and she smiled. “I have an idea. I am going to make an opening, and you are going to get the victim. If we’re the harmful species, the creatures will make sure that we’re eliminated. You grab the victim, the blobs will come for you, and I’ll do the rest.”
I cocked my head to the side and raised my brows. “Oh, so now I’m bait?’
Helene winked and shrugged. “Change of pace.”
I sprinted toward the left side of the living room, heading in the direction of the dining room. Helene shot a frequency wave from her outward palms, and they exploded on impact. Their blob bodies took only a moment before they started to regroup. I assumed the more times they split apart, the longer it took to put themselves back together.
“Hira, now!”
I materialized my whip in my hand and flung it at the victim, grabbing onto his ankles and pulling the body to me. The Fiend went crazy and started shrieking. I tried pulling the guy in my arms, but his weight was slowing me down, and it felt impossible for me to carry him to safety.
Give it back… We need to feel love… Take love…
“Sorry, but that’s not how love works, you can’t just take it just because you can, or the person is incapable of stopping you; love and trust are earned!” I shouted at the Fiend as it approached. Its tentacles reached for me, and I stared, wide-eyed, as they were getting a little too close for comfort.
“Hey, ugly! Love this,” Helene yelled behind the creature, and I watched as her hands pressed onto its head. The reverberating sounds of her frequencies were so deafening that the Fiend didn’t have the chance to screech in agony. I had to cover my ears, hoping they wouldn’t start bleeding.
The Fiend and what was left of the black blobs disappeared in a splurge of smoke. The black veins on the man’s neck slowly faded away.
I uncovered my ears and gaped at Helene and her ‘plan’. She looked at me with a shrug, as if she knew the idea was nothing but reckless luck. “Well, we’re safe now.”
“You’re going to get us killed,” I said, shaking my head. I grit my teeth as I dragged the unconscious man. “Find me something to tie this guy up.”
Helene left the room and came back seconds later with rope and duct tape.
“This guy was a real pedophile, creeping on innocent girls and forcing them to do God knows what.” Helene shook her head and handed me the rope so I could tie him down. “And people with these disgusting needs almost always end up getting their desires.”
I shrugged my shoulders and tied his wrists and ankles.
“Apathy works in mysterious ways, sadly. He was pretty sickening and deserves more hell than he’ll get. He must have felt something negative enough, been depressed enough, and depending on how much it affected him, it might have caused this.”
“And you fight this?” Helene chuckled and shook her head. “Not a dull moment with you, Night. Do you have a mask too?”
I finished tying the guy up and stood, brushing my hands on my pants. “Uh, just my peacoat and something I put over my mouth. I didn’t have it on today, so I hope those girls don’t give me away.” I looked around the trashed home. “We should get out of here before the cops come.”
Helene started laughing. “I can’t believe the stuff I’m getting into it, but… it’s kind of exciting.”
Chapter Eight
I followed Helene back to her car, sliding into the passenger’s seat.
"So, where to, My Fair lady?" Helene asked, pulling out Google Maps on her phone. I told her the address to Garvy's book shop, and she set the phone on the window's clip before starting the car.
"So, I guess since I'm part of your secret now," Helene said with her eyes on the road, "I should let you in on a thing or two."
I raised my brow.
"Well, that would be nice, but you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," I said carefully. I mean, who was I to force her? But I hoped that she’d tell me something I’d be able to use.
Helene glanced at me and grinned as if she could read my mind.
"For starters, let’s talk about the violet in our eyes."
I sat up in my seat, eager to hear what she would say.
"— I’ve always had them. I never went out to fight crime as you did, but I learned to harness my power, and that included being inconspicuous."
I didn't know what to ask first; how could she have always had powers or would she teach me how to use them.
Helene scoffed, then let out a long and draggy sigh. "You have that look on your face."
I pursed my lips together. "Hmm? What look? There’s no look," I said and shrugged my shoulders.
Helene shot me a 'really?' expression out of a sideways glance. "I don't know. My parents told me, after an incident, that I might have caught something at the Institute."
I furrowed my brows. "The Institute?"
Helene nodded. "Yes, my parents were Epidemiologists for the Omega Institute. They helped develop Omega's research in finding cures to diseases."
"You said ‘they were’, and before you said something about checking in on your grandparents. Did they pass away?"
It grew quiet, and the only noises were the car’s soft engine and the outside traffic.
"—Anyway, my eyes." Helene's knuckles turned white as she squeezed the steering wheel. I didn't want to press her further. If she didn't want to tell me about her parents, she didn't have to. "I know you've been getting lucky, but like those girls who saw you, your luck might run out, and it’s rare that someone has even remotely violet-colored eyes."
"I'm aware of that, but in most cases it's caused by albinism."
"Right, and you’re not albino. I'll teach you how to get your original eye color back."
The explanation was brief. Helene only told me that I would need to focus on my inner aura.
I rolled my eyes. "Easier said than done," I said, mocking her.
"Har-har. What I mean by 'inner aura,' think of it like Chakra. Have you seen Naruto?"
I snorted. "Everyone’s seen it, or at least knows about."
She laughed. "Good, because that would have been a whole different kind of conversation. The body has over 114 different chakra points, but we're only going to focus on seven. The sixth one, Third Eye, is between the eyebrows." She tapped her forehead.
"It is basically ‘beyond’ the physical elements, and where the seat of the mind's power accesses the conscious and subconscious. It’s probably why we can see those ‘Fiends’ and why you can see that Current."