Watching Time (Novel): Chapter 10 (It)

John noted once again that sleep would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach. He sighed, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. If I can’t sleep, I might as well stay awake.

          He stared at the picture that rested on his dresser, the one solid surface other than the floor. The picture featured a girl he had been very good friends with a year previously. As always, he was drawn to the eyes. Her eyes were emerald green, although he remembered that they appeared how her eyes would turn blood red whenever she called upon her powers…

          The powers that she had tried to keep buried deep down, until it found them.

          Since that night, he hadn’t seen her. She had told him to run, and when he didn’t, she stopped fighting it long enough to teleport him away. John had no idea if she had survived, or what had happened to her.

          She might have died trying to save me.

          John walked over and picked the picture up, once again absorbing her appearance. He knew she could’ve changed since then, but he wanted to make sure he remembered her exactly as he last saw her. In the picture, she had raven-black hair that fell down over her shoulders, and a slim build. He knew that build was a lie; she could pack a punch.

          He fondly remembered when they first met. She had been thinking, and John, who had interrupted her thoughts, was punched directly in the nose. He had fallen unconscious, and woke up two days later fully healed. He still didn’t quite understand her powers; they seemed to let her do anything, from kinetically ripping something to shreds to healing someone in the blink of an eye. She had told him she had to charge it, and it tool an hour to obtain a minute’s worth of power, but that seemed to be her only weakness.

          Well, that and John.

          He jumped as a tapping came to the window, and he wondered if she had somehow made it, and had just been gone for a while, but his face fell when he saw Myra outside. He opened the window. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “My parents would probably kill you if they knew you were here.”

          “Naomi walked me over here,” Myra told him. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”

          John frowned at this, but stepped aside to her let in. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her, so he figured he might as well let her enter quietly. He didn’t provide any information regarding his disappearance. If she knew how hard it was to stay on my parents’ good sides…

          Myra climbed in, closed the window and turned towards the picture in John’s hand. “Who’s that?” Her voice was filled with a bit of worry.

          She heard my argument with Mark; I was okay with the others thinking I was in love with Myra, but…

          “No one,” he said, putting the picture face-down on the dresser. “Someone I knew a while back.”

          “’No one’ and ‘someone’ are two very different terms,” Myra noted. “What happened to her?”

          She wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

          “She saved my life, but ever since, I haven’t seen her since,” John shrugged. “She could be dead, for all I know.”

          Myra’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Mark supposedly saved Naomi’s life, and someone else saved yours…? What’s going on that I don’t know about?”

          “A massive series of coincidences,” John told her. “Naomi and I were in similar situations. Mark and Lina were in similar situations, too.”

          “And Mark survived, yet Lina didn’t,” Myra finished, her tone almost a whisper. “No wonder you don’t get along with him.”

          If only it were that simple.

          “But my question still wasn’t answered,” Myra reminded him. “I want to know what happened.”

          John shook his head. “That’s not important. You should go back home. It’s late, and if my parents found out I was even awake, they’d get upset. If they knew you were here…”

          As if on cue, the hallway lights clicked on, and footsteps began approaching. Myra dove under the bed, and John cringed. There was no way his parents wouldn’t see her; the light would illuminate the darkness underneath-

          The door creaked open. John faced his father.

          “Why are you still up?” his father demanded. His voice was hard, angry. The words spoken could, with many parents, have been comforting yet reproachful, as if disciplining the child. But John’s father?

          He’s going to punch me. He’s done it before.

Myra heard a thump. “Now get in bed and stay in bed,” the deep voice growled.

          The door shut, and soon, a light clicked off. Myra exited her hiding place and went to John. His cheek was bright red. The sound definitely wasn’t a slap; did John’s father punch him?

          She was no expert, but she didn’t think it was good to be punched in the head.

          “Told you,” John muttered. He stood up and seemed to shake it off, as if he had just been bitten by a mosquito. Then again, Myra supposed if John was used to it…

          “I’ll go now,” she told him quietly. She opened the window and stepped out.

          “Wait,” John told her. They both hesitated before John continued. “How did he not see you?”

          “I don’t know,” Myra shrugged. “Luck, I guess.”

She slid the window shut. She barely heard him say, “You’re still…” before the window was fully closed, and yet she figured he hadn’t been speaking to her.

          He’d been talking to someone else, and yet there was no one in the room.

         

“You’re still around,” John whispered as the window clicked shut. He picked up the picture. “You’re alive. You hid Myra, didn’t you?”

          He listened, but only silence answered. If she was alive, it meant things weren’t great. She was around, but undoubtedly invisible, meaning she was constantly draining her power. Concealing Myra, too, would have consumed even more power. And that means she’s been saving up power like crazy, if she’s that free with it. What’s been going on in this last year?

Myra walked back home with Naomi, but stopped on the porch. “How did Mark save you?” she asked.

          Naomi hesitated. “It’s…a very long story.”

          “We’ve got time,” Myra argued.

          Naomi seemed to consider this. “Quite honestly, I’m not the best one to ask. Sometimes I think I was just seeing things, that what happened as I knew it wasn’t what happened.”

          Myra nodded slowly. “Who do I ask, then? Earl? Mark?”

          “Mark.” Naomi walked through the entry way and Myra felt scared.

          If I want answers to my questions, I’m going to have to speak to my only friend’s rival.

          Someone who doesn’t trust me.

Myra held herself back. She waited nearly ten whole minutes before knocking on Mark’s door, just so that it would be six-thirty. Mark answered. “It’s so early,” he moaned. He was, however, already wearing blue jeans and a black shirt. The only notable differences were his missing blue glasses and his hair, which stood on end.

          “I have been waiting all night to ask you something,” Myra told him.

          Mark shrugged as if it didn’t matter, then stood waiting.

          “I wanted to ask about when you saved Naomi’s life,” Myra continued.

          “She looked dazed,” Mark said. “Scared, even. And on the middle of the road, too. I yanked her off before the car got in the way. Why?”

          Myra thought a bit before answering “No reason” and began to walk off. Then she froze and turned around. “I was wondering…did you know Lina?”

          Mark frowned. “Who?”

          “Doesn’t matter,” Myra shrugged, and continued walking away. She could have sworn she heard Mark sniff, but when she casually turned her head, she saw him watching her, his face practically made of stone.

Myra hated eavesdropping, but she needed answers, so she sat in the room next to Earl’s office, ear pressed against the wall, listening. It wasn’t hard, the interior walls weren’t very thick.

          “The threat has passed,” Earl was saying. “The same thing that endangered you and the others is gone. There’s no reason to expose Myra to it.”

          “We thought it was a myth, and then it killed Lina!” Naomi protested. “It could still be out there!”

          “And you think it’s safer for Myra to know it existed?” Earl countered. “To cower in a hole wondering if it’ll come back out? I promised her parents I would keep her safe if they died, and I intend to fulfill that promise.”

          “What if she’s on the street one day and it attacks?!” Naomi’s voice was tense, as if a life-long strain was taking a massive toll on her. “That’s how it killed Lina, it took John by surprise and forced her to sacrifice herself!”

          “Lina is not dead!” Earl roared. “She locked it, and herself, in the void. She sacrificed herself, yes, but she has a chance of survival. I cannot protect Lina and Myra both, so if you value the life of your friend, you won’t tell Myra so that I can keep helping Lina. Do you understand?”

          There was a quiet mumbling from Naomi that Myra couldn’t make out.

          “It won’t escape, and even if it gets free, we can capture it easily, now that we know it exists,” Earl assured his daughter. “Just don’t tell Myra. There’s more pain in this life than she needs.”

          “Yes, sir,” Naomi muttered.

          Myra was filled with more questions. What were they talking about? What was it?