Chapter 3

The day had been particularly eventful, the most eventful day of my life actually, full of shocks and surprises, enough to wrench the hearts of famous movie directors and authors and make them proud. You would think that such an eventful would make me quite numb to any further surprises the day might throw my way. You, sir or madam, would be very wrong.

Nothing could prepare me for the sight of pink flames (were they even flames?), literally in the palm of my best friend. The smug look on his face was back. He must be feeling like Prometheus, bringing fire to a lowly human like me. I was gobsmacked and it showed. On my face, through my words, through my actions. You name it.

“WHATTTTT ... IS THAT?”, I asked, flailing my arms about as if it was me holding those flames and not my friend.

“What? I thought you wanted to know if I could interact with miasma?”. Frank couldn’t help but keep the smug arrogance in his voice.

He continued, “You really should get ready though. I am really giving no more explanations alone. Get ready fast to get your answers as soon as possible.”

That was all the encouragement I needed. I got ready faster than I have before, although my clothes didn’t really fit me anymore. And my distress regarding that fact was evident on my face it seems as Frank said, “Don’t worry, you won’t really need to buy clothes much longer. Some experience and miasma manipulation will take care of that for you. Just imagine what you want to wear and perfect form-fitting clothes will wrap themselves around your body.”

Just to emphasize his words, he literally changed his clothes from shirt and jeans to a hoodie and loose pants in the blink of an eye. I like to think that he was just showing off.

I just stared at him for a moment before nodding to myself, trying to keep myself from succumbing to another mental breakdown.

“Cool, let’s go.”

I started to move towards the door of my room when Frank stopped me.

“Hey man, we are taking the shortcut.” He said before moving towards the window of my room.

“What do you...”, before I could get my words out, Frank had just nonchalantly jumped out of the window. To put things into perspective, I live on the 21st floor of a high-rise building. I just stared at the window for a moment before rushing towards it, fully expecting to see the mutilated carcass of my friend. Instead what I saw had my jaws dropping yet again. Frank was on the terrace of the nearest high-rise building, casually waving at me, beckoning me to come. Again, to put things into perspective he had horizontally scaled about 20 buildings in a single jump.

I was wondering what to do when I heard Frank shouting at me. (Voice amplification must be one of the perks of this whole deal because man, he was loud.)

“Hey Dave, just jump. Towards this building. Using all the force you can gather in your legs. I will catch you if it looks like you will jump past this building. It’s better to jump with your eyes closed on the first try though. It’s better for your nerves.”

This scene was oddly reminiscent of a scene in The Matrix. And at the back of my mind, all I could think was, “If the chosen one couldn’t make the leap on the first try, how am I supposed to do this?”

After a few minutes of contemplation, (it could have been hours. At this point who knows) I just stood on the window sill and decided to take metaphorical “leap of faith”. I closed my eyes and with all the power I could muster in my legs, I jumped. After that, I couldn’t help it. I had to open my eyes. Because if it was falling to my death, I had to see the concrete of the pavement below me. But against everything that physics had taught me, I found myself literally flying. That is until I reached the apex of my jump. Because after that it was a rapid decline. I had almost made it to the building when I realised that I would crash face-first into the building. So, I would die anyway. Just before the inevitable face plant of death happened, I felt someone catch me around the waist. Looking up, I saw that it was Frank. He carried me bridal style to the roof of the building. If I kissed him right there and then, it would be the perfect scene out of a superhero movie. Frank being the superhero, me being the damsel-in-distress. I FELT FUCKING EMBARRASSED.

I hastened to climb off his arms and tried to gather whatever degree of self-respect I had left.

“Nice attempt for it being you first try, dude. I knocked myself out on my first one.” Frank said, trying to alleviate some of my embarrassment.

“Yeah, whatever. Where to next?” I asked, desperate to change the topic.

“Don’t worry. Two more jumps will do it. We have to reach the rooftop of that building.” He stated, pointing towards one of the taller buildings in town.

I am proud to say I did better on the next two jumps. Much better. Couldn’t stick the landing though, although I didn’t get any scrapes and bruises, much to my amazement. Frank’s advice: “Roll.” Wise words to keep in mind. Midway through the final jump, I saw that there a group of people waiting for us. Four of them, in fact. Only when I had landed did I get a good look at them.

Two guys and two girls. As soon as we landed on the rooftop, all four of them greeted Frank as if they were lifelong friends. Which on second thought, they probably were. All looked unique. All of them would stand out in a crowd individually. I briefly wondered if being remarkable looking was one of the criteria for a being with a special core. Then I remembered my own unremarkable features and decided it would be best for my ego if I didn’t dwell on it.

Frank took the time I was sizing them up to greet each of them individually, before proceeding to introduce me to them.

“Hey guys, this is David. He is one of us now, a new untethered. We have to help him to acclimatise to this new world.” Then he left it to the others to introduce themselves to me.

Rather than introducing themselves to me though, they proceeded to size me up and then proceeded to give me a curt nod or downright ignored me.

The scene would have been cool in a mobster movie, no doubt, but this stuff happening to me only served to annoy me. The day had been a humdrum of activity and reveals and I wasn’t handling my emotions very well. So, I did what any petulant child would do. I gave them the cold shoulder as well.

That only served to earn a scoff from one of the girls and an awkward chuckle from Frank. He acted quickly to get rid of the tension in the air.

“Hey guys, play nice. Why don’t you guys introduce yourself to David here so that he feels at ease? After all, you’re going to see much more of each other.” Frank said, trying to gain control of the situation at hand. Gotta say it was weird seeing him act as a leader.

The other guys just looked at each other, probably silently urging someone to go first. Finally, after what seemed like a mental battle amongst the four of them, they apparently reached a decision.

One of the guys moved towards me and introduced himself in a gruff manner as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Name’s Samuel. Never call me Sam or Sammy or anything else. Just Samuel. Haven’t unlocked my ability yet.”

Samuel was big. And buff. It was slightly intimidating; I have got to admit. Couple that with this voice and his bald head and you have got a super villain’s henchman vibe rolling off of him.

The next guy was up next. He could not be more different from Samuel if he tried to. Black, curly hair, average looks and the way he carried himself; dude had the guy-next-door nailed on. If the guy living next door to you had sparks of electricity shooting off of him continuously.

“Hi, my name is Thomas Turner. But call me Tom. Everyone does. Nice to meet you.”

Hmm, the guy was friendly enough, I guess. I would have offered to shake his hand if I wasn’t afraid of electrocuting myself that is.

Before I could contemplate further, one of the girls just got in my face and proceeded to introduce herself. Hello, personal space, please.

“Hey, nice to meet you. My name is Lucy Thompson. I can create copies of myself. Friends?” She extended a hand towards me, wanting me to shake it to signify the beginning of our friendship or something. I wouldn’t know. Enthusiastic and friendly wasn’t my type of crowd.

“Copies?” I asked, all the while shaking her hand, which she was refusing to let go of.

In response to that, she blew out a bubble from her mouth away from us. Instead of bursting, the bubble convoluted itself to form a copy of Lucy. Even after all the surprises that had been served on my plate, I couldn’t help being slack-jawed. This stuff would definitely take some getting used to.

Finally, the final member of the ragtag group introduced herself. The only thing I was able to gather was that her name was Emma Turner and that she was ‘slotless’. Whatever that meant. She was beautiful. Like the most beautiful girl, I had ever seen. She was mesmerising, divine ... I am out of words to describe her.

While I was busy staring at her, Lucy had moved towards Frank. Before I knew what was happening, she had stuck her tongue down Frank’s throat. I stared gobsmacked as they kept trying to exchange their lunch. Frankly, it became disgusting after a while. I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only that thought that way as the others were also looking at the couple with varying degrees of revulsion. I had to interrupt this make-out session as I couldn’t watch it any longer.

“So ... girlfriend?” I asked Frank in a deadpan. That caused him to finally come out of Lucy’s throat for air. He shot an awkward grin towards my way before saying, “Yeah, sorry about that guys. Anyways, let’s go downstairs guys. Gotta introduce you to Frost.”

“Frost?” I asked, “Who is that?”