Thud. Thud. Thud.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Light became unbearable, the sound of chalk on the blackboard became even more painful, and the dull monotone of Mr Cromby’s voice made me sick to my stomach as shivers shook my entire frame. Why was he even using the blackboard? There was a perfectly good whiteboard next to it but our Maths teacher’s response to progress and modernity was obviously to quietly ignore them.
I’d had Mr Cromby for Maths for several years and I’d always managed to retain a cordial relationship with him despite my grades and complete ineptitude at maths. I urgently raised my hand. I needed to get out of there – quickly.
“Mr Cromby, I think I need to go get some water or something,” I mumbled as I swayed to my feet, taking the liberty of getting up before I had permission.
“Yes, Devon, that’s fine,” I heard him call as I made my way to the door. I contemplated going to the school nurse, but thought that some water would be a good first start. Maybe it was nothing more than just dehydration or something like that. Then the walkway I was following blurred and I had to lurch to catch the handrail. I quickly readdressed my decision to visit the school nurse but again chose not to – the bathroom was closer and there was the distinct possibility that I might now throw up.
I found that by closing my eyes, the pain subsided a little and so I clumsily made my way from the walkway into the toilet block at the end of the quadrangle without opening my eyes – an impressive effort that only resulted in my walking into things twice. Once inside the washroom, I staggered across to the wash basin and threw some water over my face. I gripped the edge of the basin as I let the water trickle slowly down my face. I breathed out as I prepared to open my eyes again – this was going to be unpleasant.
When I did open my eyes again I was immediately sucked into a world of hurt. My vision swam and I saw reflected sparkles dancing across vision. The effect might have been incredibly beautiful if not for the pounding in my head. I gasped as I looked down at my hands. A small particle of blue light was sliding up my arm. More appeared as I watched. They didn’t appear to be following any sort of pattern. I pulled my shirt sleeve up to follow them as they moved further up towards my shoulder. I quickly undid the top three buttons on my shirt and pulled it open to see the particles lazily forming a rough circular pattern on my chest. I took several steps back to see the effect properly in the mirror.
There was nothing. The figure standing in the mirror looked completely normal. No sparkling lights. Amazed, I brought my hand up before my face – the particles were definitely there. They were rotating around my wrist and forearm, slowly making their way back up to my chest. When I returned my gaze to the mirror there was nothing. No, wait – that wasn’t quite right either. I moved forward to gaze at my reflection. Something was definitely wrong.
My eyes, my God, my eyes!
The pupil of each eye was a tiny dot almost lost in the sea of blue that was my iris. In fact, I could see small tendrils of light sweep outwards from my iris expanding over the whites of my eyes. It wasn’t affecting my vision at all, but the effect gave me an otherworldly look. I could see the irises of my eyes pulsing slightly, flexing as I gazed at my reflected face. A face that should be familiar appeared alien and threatening now. My changed eyes altered the entire balance of my face, giving me a malevolent look. I shuddered as my irises finished their transition, completely consuming the white. Then suddenly, as if someone had simply flicked off a switch, all the pain in my head stopped.
I quickly threw some more water across my face, closing my eyes and hoping when I opened them again that they would have returned to normal and that this was some kind of visual disturbance brought on by a migraine. No such luck, when I opened my eyes and gazed into the mirror – the strange eyes were staring back at me.
What the hell was happening? This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in the real world. There was no rational explanation for it. This had to be some kind of hallucination or a weird reaction from cafeteria food, and that’s when I remembered Sarah’s comment about my eyes being dilated. So she had seen it too. It wasn’t just a hallucination. That didn’t make sense though, surely Sarah’s reaction would have been stronger if she had seen glowing blue pulses of light travelling over my skin. Was it possible that she couldn’t see the pulses, but only the strangeness of my eyes? This theory was certainly supported by that fact that I couldn’t see the pulses in my reflection in the mirror. Was it possible that the change to my eyes was allowing me to see the particles on my body?
This idea didn’t bring me much comfort. I was still seeing things that shouldn’t be there. In all likelihood I was simply going crazy. But at least the unbearable pain had gone. I had to be grateful for that at least.
I threw some more water over my face and made my way back out into the quadrangle. I got about half way there before another strange feeling came over me. It was as if I was wearing a wet suit or a thin layer of PVC over my skin. I could kind of feel the blue lights on my skin moving across my flesh. It was an uncomfortable feeling. I made it to the row of benches outside the toilet block before I had to stop as my legs had become rubbery and difficult to control. I took a few deep breaths and steadied myself.
As annoying as this was, I much preferred this to the headache, as at least I could open my eyes now.
“Mr Wills, is there a problem?” A curt voice broke me out of my reverie. Crap, Saunders! I looked up to see him bearing down upon me with a determined expression upon his face. He’d obviously come out of one of the classrooms.
“No, sir… No problem,” I replied, trying to avoid eye contact.
“Sitting there staring at your hands is not the best way to gain an education, young man.” He smiled smugly as if he’d just made the funniest joke.
“No sir, I’m feeling a little woozy,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes downcast lest he noticed my eyes.
“Why aren’t you in class?”
“I had to go the bathroom.”
“And yet you’ve been sitting there for at least five minutes, are you planning on spending the rest of the class sitting on this bench?”
“No sir,” I replied, still desperately trying not to stare straight at him.
“I don’t believe you, I think you were planning on skipping class.” Out of the corners of my new eyes I saw him smiling at me, his hands turning to lock around behind his back, his pose a classic 1950s old English schoolmaster. “Maybe even the rest of the day too.”
I didn’t respond as I was desperately trying to decide what to do, anything further said on my part would probably result in detention. I could almost feel his eyes penetrating into the top of my head in an obvious attempt to assert dominance. He was just waiting for me to say something so he could increase my days in detention. I remained silent.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he barked.
I cringed as I tilted my head to look at him, awaiting the inevitable explosion as he noticed my crazy eyes.
“Two days of detention, Mr Wills.”
I didn’t say anything. Had he noticed my eyes? He wasn’t acting funny though – what the hell was going on?
“Have you nothing further to say for yourself?” he said.
“No sir,” I said, eyes cast back down, my mind working in circles. He must have seen my eyes. How could he have missed something like that?
“Then off to class with you,” he ordered, and he turned and headed back to his classroom.
I watched him go until it was safe to run back into the toilet block. I had to find out what was going on. I was relieved to see that my eyes had returned to normal when I checked back in the bathroom mirror.
What the hell was going on? I could still see the lines on my body that were now faintly pulsating across my arms. I made my way back to class desperately trying to avoid looking directly at my glowing skin. By the time I got back Mathematics had all but finished. Mr Cromby frowned as I s
at down but didn’t comment. Science class was next and it was not my favourite subject, but on the upside it was one of the few classes that I shared with Tony.
* * * *
“You what?” Tony growled. “Detention for two days? Well, that sucks!”
“Yeah, Saunders sucks alright,” I replied, face down in my textbook. Biology was a subject that made me a little uncomfortable. Mrs Dowling, our Science teacher, was a dominating old bag who ran her class with a controlling iron fist. She looked like she was in her fifties, but she could have been much older. She was stick thin and incredibly small yet somehow carried an expression of mild violence and menace that seemed out of place given the fragility of her small frame. I would not even contemplate horseplay in her class. Tony however was not as subdued as the rest of the class or as cautious as I was.
“Well don’t worry. We’ll see that you’re not lonely!” Tony avowed, his face alight with imagined mischief. I could literally see evil plans in his eyes as he contemplated what he was going to do.
“Speak for yourself,” Garry replied. “I’m in enough trouble with Dowling as it is.”
Abruptly Tony got to his feet. As he made his way to the back of the classroom unnoticed, Garry and I looked at each other with bemused yet tolerant expressions. Tony was usually unpredictable especially when he had something up his sleeve. The grin on his face foretold that this would certainly be interesting.
Tony parked himself at the far end of the room. Picking up a telephone directory, he flipped through the pages, idly raising his feet and placing them jauntily in the middle of the table. A look of intense concentration crossed his face.
“Hmm… discreet and exotic!” he said loudly enough to cause everyone to look towards the back of the room in alarm.
“Beautiful and professional, ooh... that sounds good, I want me some of that!” he continued, his finger running down the directory.
“Mr Ward, what do you think you’re doing?” Mrs Dowling demanded, a ruler held in her hand like a riding crop.
“Is this Biology class or what?” Tony said. “I’m looking up escorts. I figure I’ll flunk the written so going all out for the practical.”
“Detention! For a week!” Mrs Dowling practically shrieked, the ruler still vibrating as she whacked it across the table while the classroom dissolved in laughter.
“Silence!” Mrs Dowling scowled at the class, her ruler now like a sword – jabbing at any student who dared to defy her. Silence immediately fell upon the room.
“Oops, overshot,” Tony smirked to me as he returned to his seat. “I only wanted two days.”
The class resumed its lesson. Eventually the students returned to their usual level of noise and the class began to feel normal again.
“Nice one,” I whispered to Tony.
“Now you owe me three days!”
Tony had cheered me up and distracted me but when the alarm bell went off and we all filed out I found myself staring again in wonder at my hands with the small particles of lightly slowly roaming across my knuckles and up my wrist.
I couldn’t for the life of me think of any illness that would lead to hallucinations like the one I had had in the toilet block. If my flesh wasn’t still glowing I would have probably shrugged it all off. However when your fingers are sparkling blue it tends to stick out in your mind.
Detention proved to be as stimulating as I had feared. Saunders hushed anyone who dared to open their mouths so Tony and I sat in complete silence, staring at Saunders' forehead the whole time.
“Last time I do a favour for you,” Tony said out the corner of his mouth as we headed for the door.
“Same time tomorrow, boys,” Saunders smirked, holding the door open for us as we hurried to the school gates.
Tony lived around the corner from Mum’s place, so we usually walked home and hung out for a bit before he went home. Tonight, however, I begged off, explaining that I felt a little off and would just crash. Tony took this with good grace and headed home without argument.
My room was the same as any other teenager’s. In the far corner there was a pile of clothes in desperate need of cleaning. My prized possession, my roller-blades, hung up in the corner by the door with my hockey stick resting below them. I used to go rollerblading with my father when he and my mother were still together. We didn’t go blading much anymore. He was always too busy working now.
My desk was overflowing with sheets of paper, books and magazines. My bed had a comforter lazily draped across its surface but mostly on the floor. Flipping my laptop on I hopped onto the bed and began to search the internet for a reason for my blue sparkly problems.
The internet wasn’t much help. Hallucinations were apparently quite commonplace and were caused by a variety of reasons. The most common reason being drug use, but this obviously wasn’t the cause. I had eaten mushrooms in a stir-fry about a week or so ago, but unless Mum’s shopping trip was a little stranger than normal I seriously doubted that they were the cause of all this. Despite Sarah’s claim, I didn’t believe for a second that this was alcohol-related from last weekend. There was a listing on a web page about a migraine or coma hallucination but that was also usually linked to unconsciousness and I couldn’t remember passing out.
I started researching migraines. I supposed my splitting headache today could have been a migraine. If the other effects were also caused by a migraine then I should go back to normal soon. So I simply sat on the side of my bed, twiddling my fingers and watching the blue particles work their way from my fingertips up my arms. I noted that the effect appeared to be less severe than this afternoon. I took that as a good sign.
Maybe the whole thing would just go away?
No such luck, if I thought I had had trouble sleeping before, this night set a new bar. My body just couldn’t seem to make up its mind. I was either burning up in my sleep, or freezing. By 2am I had kicked all the covers off my bed and was curled up in the centre of the bed cursing the mythical mushrooms that I couldn’t remember eating, the magical marijuana that I hadn’t smoked, and the crazy concussion I didn’t have. It was a long time before sleep finally claimed me.
By 3am the quickening beat of my heart snapped me awake. I could feel the thudding against the insides of my chest. It sounded like a symphony with the gentle clicking of my pulse acting in staccato. The sound of my breath drawn from my body in short gasps almost acted as lyrical accompaniment. I turned and looked into the mirror and noted that my eyes had taken on the strangeness again.
I gripped the sheets, causing light particles to zig-zag across my fingers. These particles were far brighter than before, but now I noticed in the darkness an unusual fact. The light from the particles was not being reflected onto the walls.
I could see the source of the light on my skin, but not shadows that would be caused by them. With the intensity of the light emanating from my body my room should have looked like a disco. It instead looked like those action movies where they show you the night scope. I could see the particles flowing across my body like pulses, not following the conventional lines of my veins. They seemed to dance across my body in random swirling patterns, twirling around my arms and presumably onto my back in time with my breathing.
There were about twenty particles across my flesh as best I could figure but trying to count them accurately had proved an impossible task. After a few minutes of watching I discovered that there was a pattern, an erratic one, but a pattern nonetheless. If I actually was on drugs this probably would have been vastly entertaining; however, it seemed that sleep deprivation didn’t seem to have quite the same buzz as alcohol.
I didn’t sleep for the rest of that night. In fact, I didn’t sleep very well for the rest of the week. My days and nights blurred into one long waking nightmare. When I did sleep it didn’t seem to refresh me; my temperature steadily rose until I felt I was burning up. I couldn’t eat, food tasted like ash and gave me no sustenance, but I was always hungry. After a while my friends began avoiding
me after I’d snapped at them on several occasions for no good reason. It was the longest week of my life, although I can’t remember any details except that I was more irritable and exhausted than I’d ever been. It was as if my body was under some great pressure – I felt ready to snap in two at any moment. I struggled to react to anything, my whole body moved sluggishly and it seemed to take the greatest amount of effort to perform even the smallest task.
I should have gone to see a doctor or the school nurse, but I was hesitant to do so. For one, they might not believe me; and two, they might believe me and send me to hospital. I was going out with Tony at the end of the week and I wasn’t going to miss that. It was the one thing that had kept me going, through all this. I could survive until then. If I was still feeling like this next week then I’d go see someone. It couldn’t be that serious, could it? Besides, it came and went throughout the day. Sometimes I was fine, other times I wasn’t. Maybe it was just growing pains? The more I thought I about it, the more I was able to rationalise it away.
It wasn’t until much later that I realised how much danger I actually was in, not just to myself but also to those around me. There is no greater threat in this world than unchecked power in the hands of those who will not control it or those who are simply unable to do so.
CHAPTER TWO
“Are you ready, man?” Tony slapped me on the shoulder and knocked my backpack off my shoulders. I’m sure that had been his intention, he was kind of a jerk like that, but he did it in such a good natured way that you couldn’t really hold it against him.
“Yeah,” I grumbled as I yanked my backpack onto my shoulders.
“Cheer up bud – it’s Friday!”
Mage Catalyst Page 2
