I'm a...what?

The first chapter of Protector.

The bell rang loudly as the student filled the hallway. I made my way to my
locker.
It has been only a little more than two weeks and I'm already getting used to the
environment. My sister Sarah's untimely death came as a vast blow to me. Even more
shocking was that I kept thinking, convinced really, that she might have known she was
going to die. I still remember how she bid me goodbye with that sorrowful look in her
eyes before she went on that school trip to beach.
Her very first and the last school trip.
She had fallen off a cliff, and the authorities had found the mangled body by the
shore.
She was five years old when she died, and I was ten at that time.
My parents had to transfer when they realized that I kept having nightmares
about it even after a year of her death. I was twelve years old now, but they still treated
me like a child.
“Hey, Sam!”
I craned my neck over the crowd to see who it was. I found being short for
my age irritating. A girl with blond hair the exact shade of mine stopped in front
of me.
“Oh, Nicole.”
Nicole Frayde is my cousin and she was also in my class. Her parents, Aunt
Philis and Uncle Jackson helped my parents to move here. She was a pretty girl
with shoulder length hair and blue eyes.
“Are you free today afternoon?” she asked with a little eagerness.
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Just asking if you wanna hangout
or something.”
My brain automatically started building up an excuse. Nicole had asked me
to hand out with a bunch of her friends I hardly new and the girls had attacked
half the shops in the mall in a record time while the rest stood outside. I always
had to resists her attempts to socialize me. My life was fine more than it had
been before I moved. I can't understand what her problem is if I was a bit sullen.
But I still have one or two classmates whom I can call distant friends. Anyway,
that afternoon was one of my most wasted afternoons.
“With...?”I asked, trying to show that I was at least a little interested.
“Just a couple of friends.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I have a lot of homework to catch up, and that's
without counting Mrs. Beetle's class.”
“Homework?” she asked incredulously. “Today's Friday.”
“Is it already?” I wondered. I had to admit, the week has flown.
Nicole looked at me suspiciously. “You still aren't worried about Sarah, are
you?”
“No, no, I'm not,” I said hurriedly. “It's just that everything is so different
thanWho's
that?” I suddenly noticed a good looking boy I've seen in my class
with brown hair standing by the wall, who looked like he's waiting for Nicole to
finish speaking with me. He was somebody I remembered because he was in the
same class and he also lived in the same block as me and Nicole.
“He's Alex,” Nicole replied with some hesitation, “a family friend.”
“I don't think he'd like that description.”
Nicole smacked me. “Stop teasing, Sam. Are you coming or not?”
“I'm not sure. I'll think about it, OK?”
“What's there to think so much about it? Yes or no?”
“Alright, no.”
She shrugged and turned to leave. “Fine.”
“Wait,” I said. I wasn't sure about this possibility, and I certainly hadn't
planned to ask Nicole about this in school, but I couldn't imagine another time. “I
know I've only been here for two weeks, and maybe it's just me, but you seem to
spending much of your time with him,” I pointed at the brown haired boy, “and
that girl, whatshername,
the one with the glasses”
“Lynn?”
“Yeah, them, instead of your usual friends. I mean, that girl isn't even your
type.”
“I told you, they're family friends.”
“Do you want me to be with them or something, because I'm getting that
sort of impression.”
“Why would I?” she asked, but this did not sound honest. “Anyway, if you
don't want to come, it's alright with me. I'll see you later.” She went flouncing
down the hall.
I shook the thought out of my mind as headed to my classroom. I wasn't
positive that her answer on my possibility was truthful, however. I pushed the
thought out of my head. Nicole and I usually went on good terms. Maybe she's
right. Maybe I'm still worrying over my sister. That just can't be, I thought
desperately. It's more than one and a half years.
But I knew the reason I rejected. It's because I didn't feel well today. Since I
got up in the morning, I kept having that nauseated sensation that something
bad and unexpected was going to happen. I would've stayed home, but the
feeling was so intense, I wanted to ignore it badly. Result was that I was at school
as usual, and in a much more sullen mood.
I entered to the classroom, and sat down on my usual place. I felt sick and
had a sudden thought of going to the infirmary.
What happened to the ignoring? I asked myself. Forget about it already. It's
just a stupid feeling.
Mrs. Beetle entered to the class. She was old, nearly mid fifties and the way
she spoke made the listeners feel sleepy. It could either be a real talent or her
love for boring facts. Depends on the way you see it. She started droning without
a hesitation, while I stared pointedly out of the window.
In a few minutes, I was fascinated by a spider that was crawling over the
bark of a nearby tree. I found that I could make out individual hair covering the
spider's body. I enjoyed the sight for a few seconds.
Then I did a double take.
The tree was more than three meters from the window, and the spider
wasn't exactly large. Feeling surrealistic, I pulled my gaze back to the class room,
and did another double take. I couldn't believe my eyes, literally, when I agnized
that I could easily see the notes on the book of the guy in the front row as clear
as it's mine. I saw a lark flying up in the sky, and I could as well identify its eyes.
My sight was so unbelievable that I could see Mrs. Beetle's pores.
“Mr. Timmons, are you listening?”
I thought my eardrums might have exploded. Mrs. Beetle's voice was
naturally a little rough, but anybody who heard it the way I do would have
thought it was a major understatement.
I flinched and touched my right ear to which she was the closest to.
“Please don't shout Mrs. Beetle. I can hear you perfectly fine.”
Apparently I was the only one who thought she was shouting because the
rest of the class, including the teacher stared at me bewildered.
A loud screech of brakes pierced what was left of my ears and I instinctively
winced and clamped my hands over them.
Mrs. Beetle was now looking a bit afraid. She was breathing deeply and
with my new sight , the scene wasn't pretty. I also realized that I could hear her
heart beat, which was rather fast.
“Is everything alright, Mr. Timmons? I could...”
Her unusually loud voice was drowned my an even louder honk of a car. I
cringed very noticeably to the rest of the class. Why do people never really worry
about sound pollution? Then, I knew.
It was only to me. The sight, the hearing, it was only to me. Maybe I have
finally cracked or something. Sanity had been a soft spot for me since my own
parents thought for a period of time that I had gone mad over Sarah's death. Or
maybe, I'm just dreaming. Yeah, that sounded like a believable excuse.
“Can I go to the bathroom, Mrs. Beetle? I don't think I'm feeling well.” My
voice was shaking slightly and sounded loud to my own ears.
“Sure, sure. Better hurry...”
She practically jumped out of the way as I hurried to the door, a hand over
my stomach to add some reality. At the door, I saw the girl, Lynne, the one Nicole
is hanging out these days, staring at me. She dipped her head back at the book
when she saw that I was looking. She was obviously a nerdy kid, which I thought
was a kind of odd because from what I know of Nicole, this is the least type of
people Nicole tries to befriend with.
Once out of the classroom, I ran all the way to the nearest bathroom with
my fingers in my ears. The bathroom was deserted since it's not the break time,
and inside, I shut my eyes closed and took a few deep breaths. It only made me
feel the bile rising up. I strode to the small window and opened it to let the air in.
A flimsy breeze blew from northwest
side of the building that ruffled my hair.
“Northwest?”
I muttered.
Twelve years old and I couldn't even read the compass. Suddenly I knew
what direction the wind came from without even the need to open my halfclosed
eyes.
Why does it matter anyway? I thought. Nothing of this makes any sense.
I closed the window, and stepped away from it. I remembered a remedies
my mother had taught me a few months back on how to calm myself.
“Control your emotions,” she had said, “and you can control yourself.”
I had panicked in the classroom, and panic had worsened the hallucination.
Also, your imagination, I added under my breath, not knowing how I ever
came up with such a weird revery.
“Take a good, long breath and count to ten,” she had said. “Then, count
backwards to one.”
“After that?” I had asked.
“Repeat.”
I leaned against the wall into a comfortable posture and started counting
silently. Restraining my mind to only to the counting, almost fifteen minutes were
spent in the bathroom in order to finally get my panic diminished.
Breaking the tranquil state, I removed my hands from my ears and opened
my eyes, waiting for the same illusions.
Non came.
I sighed. Everything became clearer now. I had fallen asleep in the class
(nothing to be surprise of) and had dreamt. Then I had woken up thinking it was
all true and made a complete fool of myself. Better hatch up a good excuse.
I went back to the classroom, trying to look sick. I opened the door and
Mrs. Beetle stopped speaking, and gestured me into the classroom.
“Quite alright, now? Or do you want to meet the nurse”
“I'm fine, Mrs. Beetle.” I forced a smile. “You know my mother. She always
wants me to eat the breakfast she made my herself and she's not much of a cook.
I suppose something went wrong.”
Mrs. Beetle looked convinced and nodded.
I took my seat. The rest of the class went without any more hallucinations.
When I made my way to the hall after the bell, a rain had broken out. As usual,
the weather reporter was bluffing, and without either an umbrella or a rain coat
and being within the walking distance from the school, I had no choice but to
wait until the rain end. My mother would never forgive me if I walked all the
way home in the rain. But I wasn't he only one. The hall was packed with kids
without a way to their houses in this weather. I saw Nicole, Alex and Lynne
hanging around somewhere. The quick rain ended in a few minutes before a
brilliant sunny condition broke out, although I was sure the sun would only last
as much as the rain did.
I trudged along the back of the school, taking my five minute short cut
through the woods. The woods were beautiful with all that water reflecting the
sunlight. My vision suddenly blurred, and even before it cleared, I knew what
was going to happen.
My sight was just as incredible as before, but unlike in the classroom, the
sight suited here.
The leaves were dripping with water droplets and every drop had its very
own mini rainbow. The world was way more colorful than it was before with all
that shine added. The grass had a radiant green to it which was enlarged by the
water drops resting atop them. The flowers were vivid and iridescent and each
petal gleamed in a unique color.
The way I saw the world, in it's sharp edges, blazing perspective, and with
a thousand different colors, is a world that made my previous way of looking at
things seem flimsy in comparison.
And my hearing, just as it had happened in the classroom, was astounding.
I heard every drop of water hitting the grass, every rustle the trees made, every
chirp the birds made for a considerable distance, and even my own heart beat. I
could judge the distance between me and the sound in seconds, and I heard the
whimper of a fox, far to the right. I have never heard a fox in these woods, but
then, they run when a human is near.
Another thing that came to me was the touch. I felt the tenuous wind that
kept whispering softly at the back of my neck, and I immediately knew which
direction it came from.
I was very quite for a moment, and this time I had no excuses. Nothing to
convince myself that I was dreaming. Nothing to persuade myself to believe this
is the unreality. I took a deep breath to engage in what I had done earlier, but
stopped short when a sudden aroma filled my nostrils. It was a damp, earthy
smell, mixed with the slight scent of flowers, and the rich smell that sometimes
comes from wooden barks of trees. I smelled a rabbit that had crossed the same
path that I was standing upon not just a moment ago. Every scent was fresh, and
I found no old smell since it rained just now.
I tried breathing through my mouth instead, which was a bad choice. I
opened my mouth for inhaling and instead tasted nervousness in the air.
My own nervousness. I was momentarily surprised by the way I felt it,
tasting an emotion as it was a sample of food. I was faintly disappointed. I didn't
like that sort of emotion. Abruptly, I was unsteady on my feet. I took a step
forward and fell on to my knees, the world blurring around me again. It was
hard to breath, and, as the sounds dimmed and the sight darkened, I passed out.
❄❄❄
“Sam!” somebody called. “Sam, wake up.”
I blinked a several time to clear my vision. I was lying on the damp, grassy
ground and I saw the heavy sky through the canopy of trees. Nicole was kneeling
by me with a concerned expression.
“Are you all right?”
“I'm fine,” I replied groggily while trying to sit up. “What happened?”
“Maybe you could explain what happened to us.” I realized that Nicole was
not the only one with me. The brown haired boy, Alex, and, Lynne, the girl who
had looked at me in the class, was standing a few feet away from me, both
looking at me curiously.
It was Lynne who had spoken. She had honey blond hair and gray eyes.
She would have been a kind of pretty, if she wasn't wearing that black rimmed
pair of glasses that made her look nerdy.
“Huh?”
“What happened back at Mrs. Beetle's class?” She spoke in a way that a
tone of order was added to her voice.
I glowered at her, knowing that she won't believe me if I told her.
She turned to Nicole. “I think he stabilized with his Ability.”
“Stabilized with what?”
“Give him a break,” Alex spoke. “He already had gone through enough
shock.” He grinned at me. “What was it like?”
I was lost for words, due to a number of reasons. One, I hardly understood
a word they were talking about. Two, one of these people are Nicole, whom I
thought I knew a lot about. Three, I just passed out after a series of weird events,
and these people seem to think it as something short of hilarious. Four, what
Lynne said troubled me a great deal more than the rest. It sounded a lot like I
was getting some disease or something.
I stood up. I felt more stronger than I thought. I walked over to a wet,
mossy stone and sat on it, calmly.
“I'm not moving an inch until you tell me for weirdness's sake what is going
on.”
They all looked at me for a moment. Nicole stood up. “My mom would be
at home. Let's go there.”
“No,” I said defiantly. “You heard me. I'm not going anywhere, until you
explain everything.”
They looked at each others eyes before Alex spoke.
“You're gonna wet your butt, sitting there, pal.”
“Right now, that's the last thing I care about,” I snapped. “You can't expect
me to walk around perfectly calm after what had happened.”
“Look, let's give him a brief explanation and get out of here,” said Alex. “It's
going to rain soon.”
“Fine, then,” Lynne said. “But you have to go first. What happened in the
class?”
“The class?” I decided to say the whole truth. “Well, I ... I started seeing
things.”
I saw them exchanging another look.
“You can believe me if you want to, or call me crazy, but I'm telling the
truth.”
“We never said you're crazy,” said Alex. “Go on.”
I nodded. “Okay. So, I had this unbelievable sight that made me see even
the smallest thing. And I heard things much more louder than the others. I heard
every small thing. I had this feeling, too. If I felt any wind, I knew which way it
came from. I freaked out. It was natural to. So I ran to the bathroom and counted
to ten. It worked. It was over in a few minutes. So”
“What do you mean 'over in a few minutes'?” Lynne wanted to know.
“I kept repeating the counting and when I stopped, in was as good as a
dream. Or at least, that's what I thought. I made myself believe I had fallen
asleep in the classroom, had seen a dream, and when I woke up, I had thought it
was real. And then, after school, I was taking this shortcut,
when everything that
happened before happen again. Funnily I didn't freak out as much as I did at that
time, because there was no denying it was all true. But I panicked when some
other feelings kept coming to me as well. Smell, you won't believe it. I felt like I
could smell out a specific scent for miles. And the most peculiar one is the taste.
When you breath through the mouth, you taste the... well, the, uh...
environment.”
“Environment?”
“It's more like the...the emotion in the environment,” I struggled to explain
the queer sensation. “I was nervous at that time, and when I tasted the air, I
tasted the nervousness. Get it?”
“Somewhat,” said Lynne in what I might have called in a disbelieving
manner of speaking. “Is it over now? The feeling?”
“It went out after I fainted.”
Lynne nodded. “That's all?”
“Yeah.”
Alex whistled. “Wow. Five in one, huh?”
“What?”
All three of them, even Lynne, looked at me impressively.
“What?” I repeated.
Nicole shrugged. “We'll tell you later. For now, we'll just explain the things
lightly.”
I nodded. Better than nothing.
“We, Lynne, Alex and me, followed you, because you acted a bit strange.
We were a kind of warned that you might, actually. We realized than you were
walking home through the woods and when we came to check on you, you were
passed out.”
“ 'Kind of' warned ?”
“Well...” Nicole looked troubled. “Have you ever wondered...I mean, have
you ever felt...different?”
“Get to the point, Nicole,” I said with a little too much force than I intended
to.
“Alright,” Alex cut in. He seemed angry at my regard. “Ever heard of the
term 'Protectors' with a capital 'P' ?”
“Unless in comics and games, no.”
“You are one.”
“What? A Protector?”
“Yeah. We all are.”
I grimaced at him. “You're pulling my leg, aren't you?”
“How do you explain all those unnatural things, then?”
I had no answer.
“See? You are a Protector.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because,” said Nicole, “your parents are Protectors. So are mine.”
I jumped to my feet. “Stop joking! I shouldn't have told you about all these
things. You guys are just trying to get a laugh out of this.” I made my way
through the trees.
“Wait,” Nicole called. “I can prove it.”
“Prove what?” I asked without turning around.
“Prove that you're a Protector.”
“Nicole, no,” Lynne spoke for the first time since we started arguing. “You
don't have a total control over it. Remember the last time you”
“Last time, it took me more than 2 hours to control it, I know,” replied
Nicole in a fedup
voice. “But your Ability is too harder to prove and Alex's is too
dangerous. Somebody has to do it.”
“Nicole, I don't think it's a good id”
“Shut up, Alex.”
Alex looked very taken back and didn't reply.
“Sam, you need proof, and here it is.”
She closed her eyes. We all waited for a few seconds. Then, Nicole suddenly
wasn't there anymore.
I automatically took a step back.
“Don't worry, Sam.” It was Nicole's voice. Although Nicole was nowhere to
be seen, the voice is coming from the exact spot she was standing before.
“N...Nicole...?”
“See? I can become invisible.”
I stared at the spot. “Wow,” I breathed.
I saw no need to reject it. Nicole was till there, but invisible. I merely saw
that as a fact.
“Seriously, Nicole, what”
“Let's go home, okay? We'll explain this to you then.”
“Right.” I nodded.
It started drizzling without a warning. I saw Nicole's outline made by the
bouncing of water drops away from her body.
Nicole moaned. “My hair...”
“I told you it's going to rain,” said Alex, somewhat triumphantly.

End of chapter 1.

Author's Note

My very first chapter.