Carried By The Blackwind

“We’ll tell you about it later, Amora.” Akilah wiped the tears of laughter from the bottom of her glasses.

“Wait, what ARE you doing here?” Vida grew confused as the humor of the situation subsided.

“We wanted to train with you guys. I’m not gonna be left out again.” Chase pointed to himself in confidence. Hendrix let out a little chuckle, he found it funny how Chase was always so quick to catch up when everyone expected the least from him.

“What are you laughing at?!” Chase yelled as he noticed Hendrix’s smile.

“Wait. Let’s see what’s on the next floor before we get distracted. We’re on the last stretch now.” Taro pointed up.

He was right, kind of. They were only on the tenth floor, tenth of forty, but the group couldn’t imagine that Alex and Bloom would keep this level of intensity up for the entirety of the tower.

The group walked over to the stairs, beginning to feel the early stages of physical fatigue. Kai walked carelessly up the steps before Akilah stopped him.

“Stop. We don’t know what’s up there, and we don’t want to get caught up in a trap again.” Akilah had grabbed Kai’s hand instinctively, but after seeing his grin she pulled her hand back, rubbing it on her pants to try to clean it.

“Shut up, dummy. I’m here now, do not fear, ya boy is here!” Chase pulled his RoboCop handgun out of his back pocket and walked free of worry up the stairs. Akilah squeezed the bridge of her nose to try to subside the pain of the headache Chase was giving her.

Chase got to the last step of stairs, scanning the room to see if there were any more robotic enemies.

“Coast is clear.” Chase yelled back to the group.

“He’s obviously been waiting to say that.” Amora thought to herself as she chuckled.

The group followed Chase up the stairs as they cautiously looked around the floor.

In the center of the floor, there was a sort of fort made up of cubicle walls stood together to form a hut. The group looked at the hut with curiosity and cautiousness altogether.

“Should we open it?” Amora asked.

“We should open it.” Chase and Kai both simultaneously answered.

The two boys slowly walked up to the cubicle walls, ready for any hint of movement from the structure.

Kai grabbed the wall facing the group and toppled it over before quickly speeding four steps away. Chase jumped back, handgun pointed towards the structure.

The group heard a whirring of gears.

The teens jumped into action. Amora and Akilah stumbled back into a corner of the room. Chase took two steps back and kept his weapon aimed at the center of the structure, where the sound was coming from. Kai assumed a runner’s position, ready to spring into speed at a moment’s notice. Taro activated his Mode, clenching his fists, ready for combat. Hendrix held his forearms out, ready with a song formation in mind for each possibility.

Vida made a mistake. She assumed position just like everyone else, but the sounds jump-scared her so badly that she not only manifested mushrooms, but made them burst with spores prematurely.

Vida was positioned behind the group with her mushrooms, so no one had a visual cue to be prepared for the oncoming cloud of spores.

The entire group went under the effects of the spores before they could even realize what was happening.

Vida, off of her instinctual reaction to the sound, had manifested the spores to inhibit any and all senses of the victim. The whole world turned black for the group of kids.

Their comrades’ breathing went quiet. The sight of the cubicle hut went dark. The smell of dust fell into nothingness.

The entire group could not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel anything for the next thirty seconds.

The group knew exactly what had happened, so they weren’t scared of the effects, they were instead focused on the sound coming from the cubicle hut, which they could not hear or sense at all anymore.

“Shit. What if it attacks us?” Akilah thought. She tried to find some kind of way to know what was going on around her, but since she had no senses at all right now, her Mode had nothing to amplify.

After thirty seconds of terror, the group came to. They looked around and panicked before all simultaneously setting their eyes on the cubicle hut.

Inside the cubicle hut was the hostage. It was a sandbag rag doll with the letter H painted on its chest in red.

The group began to laugh while they looked at each other.

“Oh my goodness.” Amora chuckled as she looked back at Vida.

“All of that just to find out we won.” Akilah put a palm to her forehead and laughed.

“Sorry guys.” Vida felt genuinely embarrassed.

“I guess I don’t have as much battle IQ as Hendrix.” Vida thought to herself. A yell brought her out of her self-talk.

“Hendrix?!” Chase ran over to the place where Hendrix had stood before they had all been put under Vida’s spores.

Hendrix was convulsing on the floor, clawing at his neck.

“Hendrix! Snap out of it!” Chase shook Hendrix. All that Chase got in response was gurgles and choking noises.

“HENDRIX!” Vida screamed as she ran over to him.

On the floor, Alex and Bloom had heard Vida’s scream, but they hadn’t had a visual cue of what was happening like when Hendrix fell out of the building. They began to get worried.

“If he gets thrown out of the building again we’ll just prepare to catch him like last time.” Alex said, trying to calm Bloom down.

“I don’t know, Alex. Something seems off.” Bloom stared up at the tenth floor with anxiety in her heart.

Suddenly, a pitch black smoke exploded from all sides of the tenth floor.

“Let’s go.” Alex quickly grabbed onto Bloom as she ran up the side of the glass tower.

On the tenth floor, Hendrix was still convulsing and scratching at his throat, now drawing a significant amount of blood from the constant scraping.

“Hendrix please-” Vida was cut short by an explosion of pitch black smoke coming from Hendrix’s mouth, accompanied by six guitar strings, all coated in some kind of black substance. The group of teens were thrown back by the smoke, all losing their field of vision as the cloud surrounded them.

The six strings lashed violently above Hendrix’s convulsing body, just like it had before he gained control of his powers.

Hendrix opened his eyes in a black void.

“This is too familiar.” Hendrix thought to himself.

“Hello?” Hendrix yelled out to see if he would get a response.

“Who dares dull your senses, boy?” That familiar deep, gravelly voice rang out from the darkness.

“What?” Hendrix responded in confusion.

“You lose your senses, and you know not who caused it?” The voice responded.

Hendrix thought to himself. He had gone unconscious before he had even realized what had happened.

“Dull my senses? What does he mean?” Hendrix thought to himself.

“I mean, who put you under their spell? Who caused you to lose your vision?” The voice responded before Hendrix could even finish a thought.

“How did you know what I was thinking?” Hendrix asked, surprised at the voice’s response.

“We are one, boy.” A figure emerged from the darkness. It was the same figure from Hendrix’s dream.

The figure wore the same blank white mask and feathery cloak.

“What do you want with me?” Hendrix asked, his concern growing with every word.

The figure stayed silent for a moment, like it was thinking of an answer.

“I will lend you my power. I hear your Mode of choice is the guitar.” The figure looked up from the floor, staring his bright yellow eyes into the soul of Hendrix.

“Y-yeah.” Hendrix was taken aback by the figure’s gaze as well as the figure’s knowledge of his Mode.

“I will form my strength into a fitting weapon for you. Do not disappoint, boy. For god is coming.” The figure faded into black without taking a single step, his yellow eyes never straying from Hendrix.

Hendrix stood in silence, stuck in a black void of nothingness.

Hendrix’s friends continued to try to wake him up.

“Hendrix! Stop!” Akilah screamed at him, trying to hold his hands away from his throat.

The involuntary scratching had caused the skin around Hendrix’s throat to expel blood at an alarming rate.

The guitar strings swung violently from Hendrix’s mouth as that mysterious black substance dripped from each coil.

“What’s going on?” Bloom asked as she sped into the room from the window. Alex ran over as well. They were both shocked at the sight, trying to make sense of the situation through the thick black smoke.

A thud was heard through the smoke. Hendrix’s arms swung onto the carpet beside him in a T-pose. They rammed against the floor like Hendrix’s arms were being restrained by some invisible force.

The kids looked to Hendrix’s left hand as something began to manifest in his grasp.

“For god is coming.” The figures last words rang through Hendrix’s racing mind.

And in his hand, Hendrix felt the weight of something divine, and terrible.