Chapter Ten
Kyle walked back into his house with the two bags of clothes that were bought for him after what must have been the most awkward car ride of his life. Jules was in shock the entire time, Kyle felt scared for some reason, and Justin was just quiet for some strange reason. They told Mrs. Slade what happened, while leaving out the details about Kyle’s condition. After that, even Mrs. Slade was quiet. As the car came to a stop, Kyle scooped up the bags, opened the door, and walked to his house before Mrs. Slade could begin further questions.
Kyle sighed as he shut the door behind him. The clock showed that he had only been out for three hours, and yet he was exhausted. The television was on, but he went upstairs to put his bags in his room. Afterwards, he walked back downstairs and joined Sarah in front of the TV. The weatherman was currently explaining that it should warm up a little more in the next few days when Sarah spoke.
“Where did you go?” she asked, not even looking at him.
Kyle answered, “Mall,” without turning his head either.
“What did you buy?” Sarah asked, again without turning her head.
“Clothes, mostly,” Kyle answered.
“Have a nice time?” she asked.
Kyle considered before saying, “It was interesting.” Sarah didn’t ask any more questions as the news station turned onto a developing story.
The news anchor was talking about a large object that seemed to have found itself in Earth’s orbit. They had a picture of it from a telescope. Kyle was only half listening until the picture showed up on the screen. It was very streamlined, almost like a fish. It didn’t have a face, but Kyle could guess which end was the front. One end ended in a single point, while the other branched off into three ends, and the thing had two large structures that looked a little like wings. The whole thing was a dark red color.
Kyle studied the picture for a minute before something started churning in his gut. At first, he couldn’t understand what it was. Then he remembered his dream last night, and his warning. The sight of the picture brought up a feeling of dread. This was what he had to worry about.
“What is that?” Kyle asked, pointing at the screen.
Sarah shrugged, saying, “I don’t know. It’s been on the news all morning; someone found looking through a telescope and told all of the news stations. They think it’s some sort of asteroid. I think it’s an alien; it looks like that thing that you touched in Colorado, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said, “it looks a lot like that thing in Colorado.”
“You okay?” Sarah asked, although she didn’t sound at all interested.
Kyle’s eyes were glued to the screen until they took the picture off. When they did, Kyle noticed his heart was racing. Quickly, he ran upstairs and to the bathroom. He flipped the nozzle on the sink on and splashed cold water on his face. The shock actually calmed him down, as if he had just woken up from another dream. That thing looked almost exactly like the thing that landed in Colorado. That thing was the red cloud in his dream. He had never felt this sure about anything else in his life.
He walked out of the bathroom and headed to the backyard. It was still pretty bright outside. Kyle closed his eyes and focused on turning on his energy powers. He felt power pour from his vessels and forming a bubble around his body. When he opened his eyes, his vision was different. Again, his vision was distorted as if he were lying at the bottom of a lake and looking up. Yet, he could see auras around everything. He scoured the sky. Finally, he found the alien’s aura. It was brighter than what he thought it would be, almost rivaling the sun in brightness, only bright red.
He stood there staring at it for several minutes. It didn’t do anything other than float exactly where it was. When he was convinced that it wasn’t going to fly at him in the next minute, he released his energy bubble and went back inside.
A whole week went by without any incident with the alien. Every morning for the last week, Kyle checked the sky for the alien. Strangely, it never changed position; it was always in the same place on the horizon. Kyle would watch it for close to an hour every day.
Finally, it was the day of the party. It was early in the afternoon, and Kyle was sitting on the back porch, watching the alien through his energy enhanced vision and drinking a coke. He hadn’t even changed out of his pajamas yet.
What was it doing? If it was going to attack him, why wait this long? Kyle considered flying out and inspecting it, but it was in low orbit around the Earth, much higher than Kyle had flown. But was that what it was waiting for? It wanted Kyle to make the first move? Well, Kyle wouldn’t, and so it was a standoff.
He heard a knock on the back patio door. He turned to see Sarah on the other side of the door. She beckoned for him to come inside, and then left and went into the living room.
Intrigued, Kyle took one last look at the alien in the sky, sighed, turned his powers off, and went inside.
Inside, Justin and Jules were waiting for him. “Dude,” Justin said, “Where’ve you been all week?”
“Backyard,” Sarah answered for him.
Kyle gave Sarah a look that she took to mean ‘get out’, so she left. When she was upstairs, Kyle said, “Yeah, I’ve been back there.”
“What’s up? You’re still coming tonight, right?” Justin asked, noticing he was still in pajamas.
“What?” Kyle asked. Then he remembered it was the night of Emma’s party. “Yeah, I’m going.”
“Great,” Jules said. “So what were you doing back there?”
“Oh,” Kyle flustered. “I was, uh, just watching something.”
Jules crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “What?” she pressed.
Kyle was silent for a second and said and said, “The alien.”
Justin and Jules looked confused. Kyle explained, “Remember; my little energy bubble thing does some strange things to my vision, and I see things differently, and it’s like I see auras or something. Well, I can see the alien’s; it’s bright red, and almost as bright as the sun’s.”
“Well, forget about it,” Justin said. “Haven’t you been watching the news? NASA has been studying it all week. It hasn’t moved at all. They don’t even think it’s alive.”
“Well, they’re wrong about one thing,” Kyle said. “It may not be alive, but something is telling me that that thing is dangerous. It has something to do with that dream I had last week. I just know it.”
“Well,” Jules said, “don’t worry about it. If the alien was going to attack you, it would’ve done so by now. Come to the party tonight, it’s not going anywhere.”
Kyle thought for a second. She was right; why would the alien wait so long to do something? Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know what it was going to do even if it did do something. His dream showed both blue and red aliens attacking each other, but why would they fight?
“Alright,” Kyle said. “I’ll put it out of my mind, and try to have a good time tonight.”
Jules’ face lit up. “Good,” she piped. “We’ll be back at about sevenish to leave together. See you later.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. The twins left after Jules got a quick hug from Kyle. When they were gone, Kyle sat on the couch. After five minutes of twiddling his thumbs, he grabbed an X-box controller and played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for the first time that summer. Fondly, he remembered that last summer he made it his mission to get good enough to play at the veteran difficulty settings, yet now his skills had gotten a bit rusty. He played for two hours, both the campaign and a few zombie rounds. He always preferred the campaign then killing zombies; he could never take time to aim for the heads, so most of his kills were either luck or he managed to get a shotgun at close range.
A voice to his left said, “Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go?”
Kyle looked over to see Sarah sitting and watching him play. Kyle pulled out his phone and discovered that it was close to six-thirty, and he still needed to shower and get ready.
K
yle groaned and said, “Why didn’t you get my attention earlier? And how long have you been sitting there anyway?”
Sarah answered, “Because a girl has to have some fun every once in a while, and for about fifteen minutes.” She met Kyle’s glare with a smile.
Kyle didn’t have time to deal with her. He rushed upstairs as fast as he could to shower. It was probably one of the quickest showers he had ever taken, but he made sure to wash every inch of his body. He stepped out of the shower so fast he almost slipped on the wet tiles. He got dressed in a flash, combed his hair, made sure he smelled good, slipped his watch on, and was all done by two minutes after seven.
He rushed back downstairs, saying, “I’m sorry. I was playing video games and I lost tra…”
He paused because no one was waiting for him. Kyle thought to himself how they could be late. Jules was a stickler for being on time, so being even just two and a half minutes late was weird for her. But just that second, there was a knock at the front door.
Kyle went to open it, saying, “Wow, guys. This isn’t like you to be la…”
He opened the door, but Justin and Jules weren’t standing there. Instead, Emma stood at his doorstep. She wore a strapless dark blue party dress, black leggings and boots that came up to just below her knees.
Kyle stood there, silent, for several awkward seconds before Emma said, “Hey, Kyle.”
“Hi,” Kyle said slowly. Another awkward silence before he said, “Where’s Justin and Jules? The three of us were heading there together.”
“They went ahead to the party,” Emma explained.
“They went ahead to your party, you mean?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah,” Emma said.
“So, not to be rude, then why are you here? Kyle asked. Checking his watch, he added, “I’m running late as it is, but now you’ll be late to your own party.”
She shrugged, saying, “I thought we could walk together. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No,” Kyle said. “No, I don’t mind at all. But you walked all the way over here just to walk back with me?”
“You don’t mind, do you?” she repeated.
“No,” Kyle said. “Well, come in and sit down for a second before we head out.” He moved so she could walk past him. Kyle couldn’t help but notice how good she smelled as she walked past him into his house.
They sat together on the couch, and Kyle asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water would be nice, thank you,” she replied.
“Alright,” Kyle said. He got off of the couch, went to the refrigerator, grabbed a water bottle off of the bottom shelf, and walked back into the living room. He handed her the water bottle. The skin of their hands brushed against each other as he handed her the bottle. The contact made a tingly shiver run up his arm and down his spine.
“So what’s up?” Emma asked.
“Well,” Kyle started, “it’s been an interesting couple of weeks, with several events I really don’t feel comfortable talking about.”
“Have your… markings been bothered you?” she asked in a quieter tone.
“Not any more than they used to, but I guess I’m just getting used to them,” he replied.
“Well, I’m sure everything will work out,” she said.
“Why do you say that?” Kyle asked.
“Because I’m an optimist,” she answered simply. “You can’t focus on the downside of life; if you want to be happy, think about what makes you happy.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “It’s just been a stressful summer.” He raised his arms to eye level, examining his vessels. “And these are the main cause of it all.”
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I think they’re kind of pretty.”
Kyle looked at her, then back to the vessels, then back to her, and said, “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to his arm. Kyle gave it to her, and like before, she gently traced the individual tendrils up to his elbow. Kyle’s skin tingled like before as she touched it.
For several minutes she did this, neither of them moving from the couch. Suddenly, she stopped. Kyle looked up to her and said, “Don’t stop.”
“Why?” she asked.
“That tickles a little; it feels good,” Kyle answered.
“Kyle, we should go. I don’t want to be late for my own party,” she said.
“Oh,” Kyle said. “Right, sure. Let’s go.”
They both got off the couch, Emma scooping up her water bottle off from the coffee table as they did. Together, they walked to the front door. Kyle opened it and let Emma go out first. He then closed the door after himself and they left in the evening light.
Power Trilogy Book One: An Ancient Power Page 10
