7- Stay A Little Longer

“And you haven’t seen them again?” James asked, leaning against the headboard of one of the beds in Evelyn’s castle.

“That’s right,” Evelyn said, Leon watched from the doorway. “They were all gone, the only reason we brought you back was that you were in no condition to leave and we didn’t know when you’d be waking up.”

“But how? What happened in the first place, I mean they just disappeared." His head still had an underlying ache, and he felt groggier than usual though he chalked that up to having just woken up.

Leon cleared his throat, and when Evelyn turned to look at him, Leon shook his head from side to side quickly, to which Evelyn nodded, but James saw the nod as a nonverbal protest- though what the protest was to, confused him.

“You did it.” She said after spinning around quickly and before Leon could say anything. “We played along long enough, Leon”. She said, briefly looking over her shoulder.

“What are you talking about?” James chuckled breathlessly.

“Careful, Eve.” For the first time James had heard, Leon spoke sternly.

“It will be fine.” She insisted before turning back to James. “You sent them away.”

“How? How could I have possibly sent them away? And what does that mean?”

“Do you not feel different, James, at all?”

“I don’t think so...” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m tired. My head hurts, my chest feels.. odd.”

“Your chest?”

“Yeah, it’s somewhere beneath it.” He pressed the tips of his fingers against the center of his chest. “Like here.”

“Hm.” Evelyn shot one last look at Leon, who was scratching the back of his head, and staring distantly somewhere in the corner of the room. “That might be the answer then.”

“The answer?”

“Close your eyes.” She nodded eagerly.

James contemplated it for a moment but after another gesture that resembled a nod, this one much more impatiently, he obliged.

“Good, now focus on that sensation in your chest again.”

James brought his attention targeted first towards his chest, then narrowed it down until his focus was on the center. A shifting occurred in the room, though what shifted James did not know, but from Evelyn’s gasp, he had hoped it was good. The ringing in his chest had amplified tenfold in a matter of seconds both before and during the supposed shifting.

Everything quieted down, and James forced his eyes open, the bed he had woken up in was now floating inches above the ground, along with the vase that rested on the stand beside it.

“What is happening?” James asked, and as if to answer, the bed and case both fell back onto the ground, the bed's stand didn’t break- to everyone’s surprise- and nor did the base, all that was left was a cloud of dust exploding into the air.

“What was that?”

“It was you.” Evelyn's smile stretched widely across her face.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“Tell us more, about where you come from, James.”

“It's nothing like this,” he began. “I mean there are forests, but none are like this one. And there’s no way the forests are doing anything like this one does, unless controlled by somebody. And our buildings are usually much better than this one, at least where I’m from.”

Evelyn’s face twitched at the offhanded comment, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“There are castles, especially in other countries but they're only for tourists.”

“What else?” She impatiently waved him on. “You know something that people there have?”

“Powers?” He asked, and she gave a few slow nods, expecting him to explain further.

“Oh uh, some of us have powers, they’ve been around for as far as we can remember in history but no one really knows where they come from. Some are very strong, others very fast, some can fly, teleport, and there’s even someone who can become invisible.”

“Wow.” She said, though from her tone James didn’t think she was genuinely surprised and was expecting him to get the point of her question.

“Why do you ask?” He asked slowly.

“Do I have to walk you through it?” Her shoulders slumped in a sign of frustration. “Don’t you think you could be one of them? The ones with powers?”

A small smile fought desperately to form across his face along with a mixture of emotions, but he forced both the smile and emotions to the side before responding.

“That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is.”

“I know it is,” he shook his head. “But it wouldn’t happen to me. You don’t understand how rare it is to get powers in the first place.”

“But it happens through an awakening doesn’t it?”

”Most of the time.” He shrugged. “Some are born with the ability but that's even rarer.”

“And besides the point. Didn’t you say you were on some train before you got here? And you just happened to get off and end up here?”

“Yes, what are you saying?”

“So wouldn’t it be fair to assume that you’ve had some sort of an awakening? After what you just did? After everything you’ve seen?”

“Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.”

“It never does, until it does.” Leon chimed in from the doorway.

“Just leave it to me, Leon, that hardly makes sense.” Evelyn shook her head in confusion before turning back to James.

“James you just saw for yourself how the bed you’re sitting on right now was floating inches above the ground, and it only happened after you focused on that sensation in your chest. Can you really doubt this as some sort of awakening?”

“No.” He muttered quietly and the thoughts in his head raced nearly as fast as his heart had begun to.

Having powers was a concept he hadn’t even dared to dream of since he was a boy. What would that mean if he had truly gotten some now? His life would be completely different unless he could hide his powers. Would he even want to hide them? No, helping others would be much more ethical, if it were possible, that is. But even that relies on him having a much more advanced control over whatever this power was, if not he couldn’t even control whether or not he hides them.

“Exactly,” Evelyn spoke, and freed him from the captivity of the onslaught of thoughts. “Congratulations James, you have powers.”

“Oh.” He said absently, already being consumed by his thoughts once more.

“You must be wondering what’s next for you.” She said. “I think you should stay.”

“Here?” James asked, anxiety creeping into his tone.

“Yes, for the time being at least. You don’t have even the most elementary understanding of what your abilities are, what will happen if you head out now, with no guidance?”

“I’m not su-“

“Right now you couldn’t even be considered a fledgling, so weak and defenseless, but if you stay here and train, by the time you go back to your world you’ll be a fierce phoenix, one that crushes anyone who looks at it wrong!” Leon interrupted him, now standing by the foot of his bed and waving his wand as he shouted as if to add to the theatrical display.

“Do phoenixes even do that?” Evelyn buried her head in her hands.

“This one will!” He stuck his chin out proudly.

“James, besides whatever that was, he isn’t entirely wrong.” She said.

“I know.” He avoided eye contact and looked off towards a bland part of the floor only a few steps ahead.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be the strongest person from your world by the time we’re done with you:”

——-

On the other side of the forest, a group of people lay tangled up in shrubbery and bushes common in that area.

“Captain Elliot, what have you gotten us into?” A man picked himself up and picked a piece of greenery out of his hair.

“We’ve been in worse predicaments,” Selena said after the captain ignored him, instead wiping the loose dirt off of his midsection:

“This better be worth it,” a young girl said brushing the twigs out of her tangled black hair.

“I expect it will be,” the Captain said. “If it’s true he created this I’m sure he’ll be quite worthwhile, Selena does this look familiar?”

“Not really, but from what I’ve seen and based on what Agent Lauren described, the forest changes unexpectedly.”

“Right,” Elliot Macer stared at a group of trees bunched together in front of them. “Then we’ll go this way.” He said, beginning to walk in that direction.

“Based on what?” The young girl asked.

“If the forest is changing rapidly it likely doesn’t matter what direction we go, so we’ll go in this one and hope we end up in front of him.”

“If this doesn’t work are we really trapped here forever?” The other man asked.

“Each of you was explicitly told the risks of this mission before joining me. Now let’s go.”

The rest of the Abnormals joined alongside him as they began their mission.