Orion: A Heroic Novel

by Travis Johnston

  “And you’re sure that you can’t see Orion right now?” I asked.

  Mom raised an eyebrow and glanced out the window again. “Um… I don’t see any stars right now, Michael; the sun hasn’t quite set yet. Maybe Venus and Saturn are barely visible right now, but why would you think—”

  “He’s just really anxious to go stargazing,” Sarah said.

  I nodded, grateful to have my sister around; she had always been a better liar then me.

  “Well, good,” Mom said, returning her attention back to grading her papers. “The telescope’s in the closet. You’d better get going now if you want to see Jupiter and its moons before they set. And don’t forget to take a jacket.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Sarah said as we left Mom’s office.

  I walked downstairs in a daze, trying to absorb all of Mom’s information. Supernatural powers? I thought. Did the stone give me the powers of the Greek hero? Am I some sort of reincarnation of Orion?

  Sarah reached into the closet and handed me the telescope and my jacket. “Wait,” I said. “We’re actually going?”

  “Yeah,” she said with an excited smile. “Let’s go to Verde Ranch. Lots of open space there. Nobody around. Perfect place.”

  I followed her out the front door and said, “I’m getting the feeling we’ll be doing much more than just stargazing.”

  Chapter 13

  Ray

  I shuffled my way to my truck in the parking lot, my football gear in a bag over my shoulder. I glanced back at the practice field, raising a hand to block the light from the setting sun. The assistant coaches had the players running more drills while Coach Jones was watching over James, the guy that I knocked out. He was conscious now, but sitting on the sideline trying to recover. I hope he’s okay, I thought.

  I threw my football bag into the back of my truck and climbed in behind the wheel. I didn’t turn it on. I just sat there, stewing over what’d just happened. I was angry. And depressed. And… I don’t know. Was my football career over? This was my dream! To play football professionally like Dad and Garret! Reach the Hall of Fame, even! Football was the whole reason I even went to school. It was the only reason I got out of bed in the morning. And now, I couldn’t play at all because I was… too strong? Too inhumanly strong?

  I turned the keys and my truck roared to life. Loud music came on, but I just turned it off—I wasn’t in the mood for music. My truck was low on gas, so I’d stop by a gas station on my way home. I hung my head while I drove.

  I’d often worried about getting an injury because it would end my season. But, this was worse. With an injury I could heal and eventually return to the field. Not with superpowers, though. I couldn’t heal from this. I’d tried everything I could think of to return my powers back to the space rock, but nothing worked. I was stuck with them.

  I pulled into the gas station as warm tears crept down my eyes. I wiped them away as fast as I could, embarrassed, even though no one was looking at me. I fueled up my truck and went inside the gas station’s shop to pay with cash. There was a line. I waited, staring at the floor, lost in thought.

  Somebody bumped into me from behind. It was a big guy wearing a green hoody who smelled like a trash can. The bum had cut in front of me! I wasn’t in the mood to be pushed over today. I gave him a shove before he could talk to the cashier, saying, “What’s your problem you big—”

  I gasped as I was suddenly looking down the barrel of a gun. He had a gun! I froze. Some of the people behind me in the line saw his gun and screamed, dropping to the ground. The man in the green hood glared at me. “Back off, kid!” he said menacingly, liquor on his breath. He looked insane, ready to shoot. I raised my hands and stepped back, my heart racing. In an instant, my depression washed away, and I was alert, praying he wouldn’t pull the trigger.

  Once he saw that I wasn’t a threat, he turned back to the cashier, pointing his gun at her. “Give me all your money! Now!” She screamed and raised her hands, frightened beyond all reason. “Hurry!” he shouted. She trembled as she tried to open up her register, fumbling to press the right buttons. It popped open and she slowly started handing him money with trembling fingers. The hooded man was impatient. “Faster!” He shoved the gun up to her head. She started to sob uncontrollably.

  This was getting ugly fast. It looked like he was on the verge of shooting her. I’ve got to stop him! I thought. But he has a gun, and I’m just a 17-year-old… Then it clicked like a slap to the forehead. I’m a 17-year-old superhuman!

  I noticed that my powers were already on, my heart already racing. I guess the thief hadn’t looked at me long enough to see my eyes glowing. I embraced the burning feeling in my gut, letting it spread throughout my body. Everything slowed down around me. I reached for his gun and I yanked it out of his hand before he could even react. The cashier screamed again. The thief spun around and scowled at me from under his green hood. He had dark skin and a scruffy beard. He reached for his gun, but I easily snapped it in half right in front of him and dropped it on the ground.

  He looked down at the broken gun and then back up at me, confused. On a better day, I would’ve smirked at him. But, today, I wasn’t in the mood.

  The thief turned to run, but didn’t get very far. I felt the burning in my gut swell as I pushed him in the back. He soared through the air and smashed through the shop’s window, glass falling everywhere. He landed on the hood of a parked car, denting it, and rolled onto the ground, groaning in pain. I’d pushed him a little harder than I’d expected, but at least I stopped him, right? And he was hurt, but still conscious.

  The other people in the shop looked at me with awestruck expressions. “Wow…” said the cashier. She was still trembling and crying. She leaned against the counter trying to stabilize herself. All the other onlookers remained speechless.

  “You okay?” I asked the cashier.

  “I—I think so,” she said.

  I turned to the others in the shop. “Has anyone called the cops yet?”

  “Yeah,” said a guy outside of the shop, cell phone in hand. He stood next to the car with the dented hood, it was probably his. “I did.”

  “How did you do that?” asked a middle aged woman behind me in the shop.

  “I—uh…” Was it that obvious that I had superpowers? I guess I did break a gun in half with my bare hands and then threw a guy through a window, and to top it off, my eyes were probably still glowing. I started to wonder what the cops would think about what I did. Would I have to pay for the broken window or the dented car? Would they figure out I have superpowers? Now I understood why all the super heroes wore masks. “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  I hurried out of the gas station, then ran back and dropped off my cash to pay for the gas. The cashier looked confused, but didn’t say anything. I started walking to my truck when the guy who had called the police yelled after me. “Hey kid!” he said. “You need to come back here and tell the police what happened.”

  I kept walking. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. You can fill in for me.”

  “That’s not how this works, kid. The cops need your witness for—”

  I closed my truck door, turned over the engine, and sped out of the gas station. As I pulled away, I could see several cop cars down the street. None of them came after me. I sighed in relief. Why would they come after me anyways? I thought. I’m the good guy.

  As I drove home, I realized that I felt better. I wasn’t as depressed as before. I’d helped those people. I saved that cashier’s life. I was a hero. Perhaps my newfound powers stopped my football career, but they may have given me a new one.

  Chapter 14

  Michael

  It was bright outside, which was weird because it was about 9 p.m. The moon was a sliver in the sky which shouldn’t have granted as much light as it did. The stars in the Orion constellation were especially bright, almost as bright as the moon, much brighter than they ever were before. The night sky seemed so foreign, so different than it did before I
’d touched the mysterious, blue meteorite. Maybe the stone gave me enhanced vision, I thought. But why would Orion be so much brighter than all the other stars? What does that constellation have to do with anything?

  “All set.” I turned around. Sarah sat in a camping chair, her legs crossed, as if she were ready to judge me for an audition. She hadn’t even bothered to unpack the telescope. She turned my blue meteorite around in her hands. “So, is there an on button or something?”

  “I wish,” I said. “Getting my powers to turn on seems a little more complicated than that.”

  “Well,” she said. “Let’s figure it out.”

  “Let’s? I’m the one practicing here. How are you supposed to help?”

  “I’m your coach. Now drop and give me five, boy!”

  I just rolled my eyes and turned my back to her. Verde Ranch wasn’t too far out of the city like Red Knoll, so it wasn’t as good for stargazing, but it had more open spaces usually meant for camping. Fortunately, nobody was here. We were completely alone with all the room needed to test out super powers. I bounced on the tip of my toes and shook my hands in anticipation.

  The last time I’d used my powers, a few days ago, I’d accidently jumped thirty feet in the air. What else can I do? I wondered. I supposedly have multiple abilities. So far I have super jumps and super sight. I chuckled to myself. This sounds like something straight out of a comic book. Perhaps the super jumps is just a part of super strength. Let’s see…

  “You know what?” I said to Sarah. “I actually am going to do some pushups.”

  “Good,” she said, still using her coaching voice. “Now don’t let me catch you doing any girly pushups, you hear!”

  I placed my hands on the dirt in pushup position and pressed up. I could do it just fine, but it didn’t seem any easier than normal. I did four more. Nothing out of the ordinary. I started tiring around twenty. Pushups weren’t really my specialty. I don’t think I’d done any since my last soccer practice, more than over a week ago. I stood back up and dusted off my hands.

  “No powers,” I said.

  “Try thinking back to what you did the last time you used your powers,” Sarah instructed.

  I scratched my chin. Last time I was acting out of instinct… a reflex to blocking soccer balls. Could I somehow reenact that moment? I thought. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a soccer ball flying above me. Just as the imaginary ball was directly above my head, I opened my eyes and jumped to reach it. I was in the air for just a second and came back down. Completely normal. No powers.

  Sarah chuckled behind me, but I didn’t pay her any heed.

  “Hmm…” I mumbled to myself, rubbing my neck. Maybe, I thought, it was a fluke? Perhaps I had one burst of powers to jump really high a few days ago and now it wore off. I glanced up at the night sky. It was still impossibly bright. I could see Verde Ranch with as much clarity as if the sun were behind a dark cloud. My vision powers seem to be working, though. Maybe those don’t have to be turned on or off. They’re permanent or something. But, my super jump powers…

  I tried to recall what else happened when I used my powers. Finally, it clicked. The tingling feeling, I remembered. Every time I did something inhuman, I’d felt that weird tingling feeling in my gut and underneath my skin. How do I turn that back on?

  With my eyes closed, I concentrated on my body’s senses, searching for that feeling again. I felt completely normal. Maybe a little hungry. I could—

  There it is! I thought. With my eyes shut tightly, I focused on a tiny ball of energy somewhere within my gut. It was dormant, I could tell, because I only felt a small tingling in that one spot in my core. If it’s asleep, then maybe I can wake it up… how do I do that?

  I told it, in my head, to wake up. Nothing. I tried imagining the tingling feeling all over my body. Nothing. Ugh… I thought. This thing is stubborn! I had never meditated before. Yoga always seemed extremely boring to me, but now I was wishing I’d taken a class.

  I stood there with my eyes closed, trying to will the ball of tingling energy to open. I took a deep breath, and calmed down my nerves, observing the feeling more than prodding it.

  It was like a dimly lit light bulb stuck in my stomach, slightly irritating but also electrifying. The energy it gave off was thrilling, making me feel a little anxious. It was like that feeling I got on a rollercoaster. Not the fast part at the bottom of the hill, but the part at the top, when you’re slowly climbing up to the peak. That always twisted my stomach into knots, and then those knots turned into hell-bound bats as I went over the hill and plummeted down the ride. Just thinking about it makes my hands sweaty.

  Suddenly, the ball of energy exploded! The tingling feeling surged through my whole body, reaching the tips of my fingers and toes. “Whoa!” I said out loud. The tingling felt like electricity, energy, needles, and bee stings all at once. It was like a mixture between getting goose bumps and having a limb go numb at the same time. But most importantly, it wasn’t painful. It was… awesome! Pure energy! Invigorating! I felt alive, powerful! I checked to see if my skin was glowing, but it looked completely normal.

  Now, I thought. Let’s see what I can do with this!

  What happened next was a blur. I took my first step to sprint around the open area and was surprised to get hit by a blast of wind in my face. Before I could get my bearings, I slammed into something prickly. I fell to my knees and looked up to see that I’d run into a saguaro cactus at the edge of the open area. I hit it hard enough that it toppled over and landed with a thud onto the desert floor. “Whoops,” I said out loud.

  I heard Sarah laughing in the distance. I turned around and was surprised to see her in her camping chair about half a soccer-field away.

  I quickly checked myself for needles, but couldn’t find any. Maybe the needles couldn’t penetrate my skin while my power was turned on. “Super speed and super skin?” I said a smile. “So cool!”

  I can’t believe I was afraid of these powers! I thought. I guess I was more afraid of how they would change my life, but now they’re intriguing.

  I could sense the tingling feeling dying down, so I thought of the rollercoaster again, and it reignited, keeping me supercharged. I laughed to myself. That’s so funny that my powers work that way.

  I leaned into a run and instantly skid to stop right in front of Sarah. She shrieked, curling up into fetal position in her chair. A cloud of dust passed over the both of us. I must’ve kicked it up while running. I just ran about fifty yards in the blink of an eye! I realized. I remembered taking every step of the way, but I could sense the world slowing down around me as I ran.

  Sarah glared up at me, and then quickly changed her expression to excitement. “That was awesome! You have super speed, too, huh?”

  “I guess so,” I said, looking at my hands.

  “Michael, your eyes…”

  “What?”

  “They’re glowing!”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah. It looks so cool, and a little… spooky.”

  “Spooky?” I chuckled. “I’ve got to see this!” I walked over to the car and looked at my reflection in the side mirror. Sure enough, my eyes were glowing. “Whoa,” I said out loud. I moved closer to get a better look.

  The glow was coming from my eyes’ pupils. It was a soft glow, no brighter than a dying candle. The light’s color was a pale yellow, like the light from a lightbulb. The glow pulsed very subtly. It reminded me of the same glow Angela and I saw coming from the blue meteorite I’d touched last week. I wonder…

  I concentrated on the tingling feeling, took a deep breath, and willed it to subside. It did, and my eyes stopped glowing, looking like completely normal blue eyes. “Sweet!” Sarah said behind me. “You can turn it off?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Turning it on is the hard part.” I closed my eyes and focused once again on exciting the ball of energy with my imaginary rollercoaster ride. It worked, the tingling sensation spreading through my body. I was starting to
get the hang of this. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, they were glowing again.

  “So, how’d you get your powers to work?”

  I explained to her how I’d imagined riding a rollercoaster.

  “Hm,” she said. “Did your hands get sweaty when you thought about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Same thing happens to me whenever I think about cliff jumping or kissing…”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What? Kissing who?”

  She waved her hand as if she were swatting flies. “Oh just forget I ever said that. But, I think I know how your powers work.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Turn your powers off.”

  “Okay…” I complied, taking deep breaths.

  As soon as the tingling died down and my eyes stopped glowing, Sarah tossed the blue meteorite at my face. I reacted out of pure reflex and caught it easily in my right hand. “Hey!” I said. “What was that for?”

  “Your powers are on again,” she said with a smirk.

  I blinked. She was right! I could feel the tingling rushing around my body again.

  “I think it’s adrenaline,” Sarah explained. “Whenever your body produces adrenaline, your powers turn on. Calm down, and your powers turn off.”

  “Huh…” I said thoughtfully. “And I get an adrenaline rush whenever I get in a fight or flight situation, like when you threw the rock at me. Or when I was blocking soccer shots the other day.”

  “Yep. And you can have an adrenaline rush just by thinking about an intense situation, like riding a rollercoaster.”

  I nodded my head, absorbing the information. So, I thought. I’ll have to be careful to stay out of intense situations in public.