Knight in Shining Armor

While eating breakfast, I flick through dozens of channels trying to find something interesting to watch. It’s all just boring news. As plain as my eggs. Wars in distant countries and natural disasters in places I’ve never heard of, why is it even worth reporting?

Suddenly, I see a familiar forest on a local news channel.

“Next to North East high school, there has been some sort of fire. Several trees seem to have been burnt to the ground and the grass is coated in a thin layer of ash. Luckily, the fire didn’t make it far. Authorities are working to identify how the fire formed. They speculate that some students may have been messing around and accidentally caught something on fire. Witnesses report some strange events happening just two days ago in the area, around the time when the fire is assumed to have started. One witness reportedly saw a bright light emanating from the forest along with sudden high winds. When they tried to take a video, the light and winds had already died down. Proof of the claim has yet to be found, but it is eerie nonetheless. Experts find it odd that the fire stopped with so little damage caused. For a fire hot enough to take down trees, it’s strange that it didn’t spread any farther and clouds of smoke weren’t noticed by anyone. Authorities speculate that the delinquents who caused the fire may have somehow put it out on their own. This mysterious event…”

Uh oh.

I really didn’t need a reminder that happened.

“What’s wrong?” My mom asks.

“Nothing.”

She saw me staring a hole through the television, too stunned to continue eating.

What a sobering wake-up call. That fight, our powers, affected more than just us. They made the news. I’m sure Luke’s family was affected as well.

That’s enough. I can’t keep thinking about this, it’s sickening.

Using as much will as I can muster, I bike to school and go through the day as usual.

During lunch Sarah, Dylan, Rachel, and I continue to talk normally, though we gracefully dance around the elephant in the room. After school, Sarah, Dylan and I hang out at the cafe. Rachel had to go home.

After some fun chatting, Dylan is the first to leave. He seems to leave first pretty often. I can’t help but wonder if it has to do with his dad.

Right after we part with him Sarah tenses up, “So, about Luke’s gem…”

“Yeah. Should we even mention it to Kyle yet? We could meet with him in person, but that might be suspicious. If he really did betray us, we shouldn’t just casually ask him about it. If we confront him too lightly, he may use the opportunity to run away. We don’t know where he lives or what school he attends either. He’s never mentioned it to anyone so far.”

After I lay out everything we know in an easily digestible way, Sarah stops to think.

I can ask the questions, but I definitely can’t answer them. It’s a bit embarrassing, but Sarah is far more intelligent than I am. All I can do is rely on her.

“We should tell him about the loss of my power. It’s risky, if he truly has betrayed us. Using the loss of my Delusion as a pretense, we can set up a physical meeting with him. Being as interested in our powers as he is, hearing that I lost mine will interest him for sure. He doesn’t trust us, but maybe if he knows I lost my power, he’ll let his guard down a little. When we’re in person, we can get answers for both the missing gem and my missing power. Confronting him at the abandoned school, we can easily corner him in that room to prevent him from escaping because it only has one exit.”

“As expected of you! Nice work,” I compliment her with a smile. “Actually, any update on how your power is doing?”

She blushes at the sudden praise, “Thank you. There’s one thing that sticks out to me now. It’s rather important too. I hadn’t thought to mention it with the… recent chaos.”

I’ve noticed she has a habit of delaying what she’s trying to say. I nod along to try and speed her up.

“Well, my gem, it used to glow purple, but now it’s clear. It looks like glass. I purposely left it at home today and it hasn’t shown up.”

“That can’t be good, but I’m sure it’s a clue for your power’s disappearance. We definitely need to check with Kyle now. Hopefully he hasn’t betrayed us, we need his mind. I can’t tell if he’s smart like you, or if he just has a critical mindset for solving problems. It’s probably both.”

After a few minutes of designing the perfect text, I read over it one more time.

“‘Hello Kyle. I know it’s only been a short time since you decided not to attend the meetings, but we have new information that you may be interested in. It seems that I have lost the ability to use my Delusion. I figured that you might like to help out. It’s sure to lead to some important information. Only me and Allen know about this. If you want to, we could meet up in person to figure it out. Thanks.’ Sound good?”

“Sounds good to me,” Sarah nods.

She left designing what the text said to me. Between the two of us, I’m at least a little better at communication.

I hand the phone back to her without clicking send. If I let her do it, all the responsibility doesn’t fall on me.

Pressing the send button, Sarah slides her phone back into her pocket, “What now?”

“Well, it’ll be a little while before he responds so-”

I was cut off by the “Pling” of her phone’s notification.

“That was fast!” The surprise makes me lose control over the volume of my voice.

Sarah’s mouth hangs in bewilderment by how fast he was able to see and reply to the message. She takes her phone out and reads his reply.

I thought that because he was so fatigued all the time, he must have a full schedule. However, the fatigue might just be a symptom of how he works hard to keep his schedule empty. He must be very diligent.

“‘That does seem very peculiar. I think it’d be a great idea for us to meet up. Bring Allen along too. We can meet as soon as you’d like, I’m available anytime. Let’s meet at the old school building.’ What should I say?”

“Do you want to meet today?”

She stops to think, “It’s still pretty early, why not? I want to meet while there’s still daylight.”

“Then go ahead and ask him when the soonest we can meet is.”

A few more messages were exchanged and we waited an hour before driving to the old school building.

“If he decides to attack us, can you handle him?” Sarah hesitates before asking.

If she’s scared, I guess I’ll have to help her relax. She should be a little more trusting though. Kyle wouldn’t attack us, even if he is a thief. Although, he does seem a little sketchy sometimes.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. He won’t hurt you, not while I’m here.”

She still looks nervous, but less so.

We park in the lot a bit away from the school and start to walk over. Sarah follows close behind me as we approach the run down school.

I knock on the door and open it.

“Hello?”

A tired voice responds, “Hello, I’m in our usual room.”

I walk over to the door-less room with Sarah practically on my back. She follows me closely and cautiously.

Kyle got here early? Usually he’s late. Maybe he just hates small talk, so he waits for everyone to show and then gets straight to work.

“Short time no see,” Kyle says with a straight face.

If that was supposed to be a joke, it was really lame. It sounds super weird coming from Kyle of all people. I might see that coming from Simon or Dylan, maybe even Christina, but Kyle?

Sarah and I stay standing in front of the doorway and Kyle is sitting in the chair opposite of us..

“So, about Sarah,” this time I take the role of cutting to the chase. “She can’t turn invisible anymore.”

“So I’ve heard. Just curious, what happened to her gem?”

“It’s become clear. The light inside vanished.”

“Interesting… but back to the important stuff, when did this all happen?”

I open my lips but Sarah responds to his question from behind me, “Right after Luke died.”

“I see… Do you have any idea as to what happened? You were at the scene of the fight, I recall.”

“Yes. I was.”

“I didn’t hear what you did there, only that Allen got stabbed by Luke. What was your role in the fight?”

“Well… I kind of ran in and Allen had to save me.”

Kyle stops for a moment, interested.

“Ah… So that’s it. How sweet.”

Sarah almost sounds offended at his word choice. She’s still clinging to my back, so neither I, nor Kyle can see her face, “What’s with that?”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean it in an offensive way. It’s just that, I’m surprised that you haven’t figured it out yet.”

“What?”

Kyle’s face and voice relax, once again disinterested, back to his tired old self. When he talked about his theory before, he had a child-like wonder to him. Even now, he had sounded interested in the scenario, but he’s lost all of that. It’s like he’s already solved everything. The answer is obvious to him.

“To put it bluntly, have you developed romantic feelings for Allen?”

Huh? Keeping the surprise off of my face would be an impossible task. Not only that, but this kid is totally messing with us. I can’t believe that we came here for this. He even greeted us with a lame ‘joke’.

Silence.

No rebuttal comes from Sarah. She just continues to hide behind me.

I attempt to look at her face by turning around, but she continues sticking to my back. She doesn’t respond and won’t let me see her.

Sarah’s a slow talker, maybe she's still computing what she heard.

…

Kyle looks more bored than ever.

“Bullseye, huh?”

“Explain it to me at least!” I shout, impatiently.

Kyle continues his relaxed demeanor, “Well, I’m now ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent sure of my old ‘Delusion’ theory.”

“Where did the last point oh oh one percent go?”

“Tsk tsk tsk, you can never be certain, Allen,” The words make my eyebrow twitch, “Anyway, an invisibility Delusion would happen if the user believed they weren’t seen or if they didn’t want to be. I assume that Sarah here is like that. I’ll bet that she doesn’t have siblings and her parents don’t pay attention to her, that might be the root of her personality. Now, I never addressed what might happen if your qualities as a person changed. What if you were no longer deluded? I bet it would be this. You saved her. Sarah, for the first time, was seen by someone else. They even saved her life. A girl of her age, who wouldn’t fall in love with a knight in shining armor? You could say that in her being saved and recognized by another person, she was no longer invisible, not to them. At least, she doesn’t want to be.”

Knight in shining armor… I like the sound of that. It’s kinda like a hero.

“Romantic, but I still don’t get it. She told me that she hates the feeling of being invisible. Why would her Delusion do something she hated?”

“I find it unlikely that she hated it. Highly unlikely. In truth, was she afraid of something else? Maybe she hated the fact that she liked being invisible. What if she didn’t want to accept who she is? It’s not common to be a person who dislikes social interaction. Often times, people like that can be misunderstood. She probably wants to fit in as much as everyone else. Saying that being invisible felt bad, would definitely aid in trying to fit in. Denying herself, not wanting to admit that she’s different. Deep down, if she used to hate social interaction to a point of preferring being invisible, that would make perfect sense for her ability. But, what if meeting a certain someone changed her previous idea on people in general? If her heart and mind opened up, perhaps her ability would be lost entirely.”

I find this all hard to believe. I’ve never been in a relationship, despite being seventeen. It’s sad, but I still have some childish ideas of what a relationship is. That can’t really be helped though.

A few more seconds pass with silence. Sarah still hasn’t made a move to deny what Kyle was saying. She won’t look at me either. Maybe she’s embarrassed? But if that’s true then…

Score!!!

Getting impaled by giant ice spikes was worth it.

I need to handle this so that she won’t be upset.

“I see. Is that true, Sarah?”

“…”

We can probably talk about this later, when Kyle isn’t here.

Now with that situation settled, I move on to the main event, “Well, we got off track a bit. We actually had something else to say to you as well. Sarah, can you step out next to me yet? Since the loss of your ability isn’t anything sinister, we should get serious again.”

It takes her a second, but she steps out from behind me and faces Kyle. She still evades eye contact with me.

I continue with a serious tone, “Kyle, there was another suspicious event recently, do you know what it is?”

He responds as laid back as always, “No, I don’t. Does it involve me?”

“It does. You took care of Luke’s… body, right?”

Saying anything about Luke still feels bad. It was too recent.

“Yes. That was me.”

“Did you happen to take something off of his body?”

“No? What are you getting at?”

“His gem. Did you take it? Nobody has mentioned it yet, but someone has to have it.”

Kyle still looks relaxed, “You think that I took it? Such accusations. But, I understand. We are in a time of paranoia and suspicion. I can see why you believe me to have been the culprit. However, are you certain that it was me?”

Huh? It has to have been, right?

“You didn’t see the gem on him, did you? That means that it was either taken by you, or someone before you got there. Everyone else was together.”

“Is that really the case?”

What does he mean?

“Of course.”

Kyle folds his hands and crosses one leg over the other, “You’re assuming that it was stolen. That’s quite amusing. I didn’t mean to ask if you were certain that it was me who stole it. No, I meant, are you certain that it was stolen at all? Do you have some sort of proof that the gem still exists? Luke is the first case of the death of a person who has a gem. Who knows what happens to the gem itself? It might just disappear. Or maybe it breaks. It’s even possible that Dylan’s laser incinerated it.”

Oh. We jumped the gun, didn’t we? I still think he took it, but there are plenty of unknown variables still.

Kyle shakes his head, “To think that you guys believed that it was me. You were suspicious of me? You thought I betrayed you? Good. You’ve done well. It wasn’t me, that much is true. Or is it? Why trust my words? If I stole it, I’d lie my way out of here. Don’t trust a word I say. Doubt. But, being that I cannot prove my innocence, what will you do? Will you search me for the gem? I guess you could, but there are hiding such a small object would be child’s play-”

“What are you saying?!”

“Calm down,” Kyle switches which leg is on top and leans in. “I’m saying that you’ve come here under prepared. No, completely unprepared. You found the most likely suspect and only asked him if he did it. Of course I’d say ‘no.’”

This guy is something else. We’re interrogating him and he is scolding us for assuming that he wouldn’t lie. Everything he says contradicts his goals.

Now what? Do I search him for real? He really could hide it somewhere on his body that I wouldn’t find. There are plenty of options for stuff like that. Even if he just put it in his mouth, I wouldn’t see it under his tongue. The gem may not even be on him at the moment. They teleport around anyway, so who could possibly know where it is? Is there even a point in searching him?

Sarah speaks up, “Sorry for accusing you. What do you think happened?”

“I’d say it was destroyed. If the person dies, the gem probably goes too. I still don’t know what the gem is, but if it’s the crystallization of his mind or dreams and delusions, those are all gone now. They were stolen from him. They were destroyed. The gem probably went with his hopes.”

That’s pretty dark.

Actually, that means Luke’s struggles were in vain. Not by killing or stealing can you obtain a second gem. Maybe if you took someone like Sarah’s?

“Is the interrogation over? This was an interesting conversation, thank you.”

Kyle stands up and begins to walk out the door. He brushes between me and Sarah. We couldn’t stop him from walking through us. We’re still trying to cope with our mistakes.

I step forward as he leaves the school.

“Hey, wait!”

He just left! I can’t believe it. We messed up bad. We overlooked such a simple option. His paranoia has spread to us so deeply that we hardly considered that it was something harmless. We just automatically assumed the worst.

“So…” Sarah speaks softly. “About what he said…”

That happened too. I wonder if Sarah was even paying attention to our utter defeat just now.

I wait and give her the time to think that she needs. The once awkward silence, now feels gentle and nice. I’ve heard it so many times before while talking to her. It’s calming now.

“I… kind of do like you. That’s so embarrassing to say.”

Sarah’s face glows red, she still hasn’t looked up at me. She’s glancing out the window and she fidgets awkwardly with her hands, but she doesn’t turn invisible. She wants to be seen. By me.

Oh no. I wasn’t prepared for this. I always get mad at characters in stories when they get cold feet after talking big, but this is harder than I thought!

“Thank you… I like you too.”

Is that what I was supposed to say? What does it mean to ‘like’ her? Did I just make some kind of commitment? Does ‘like’ mean that if we ever part ways, I lied to her? I may have messed up here. Our relationship could get really awkward.

She ever so slowly turns her head towards mine. She’s significantly shorter than me, so she looks at my chest first and then slowly looks up.

My heart is kind of pounding. What happens next?

We make eye contact.

Uh oh. I don’t know what happens after this. She must not either.

We continue to just look at each other. I can’t even tell how long this has been happening anymore. It feels like we’ve been staring at each other for minutes, but I guarantee it’s only been a few seconds.

The window of opportunity for a kiss or something intimate has died. We are now stuck awkwardly locking eyes.

Somehow, I’m the first one to look away. I start to feel my face heat up. I can’t let her see that, so I turn around. Blinking a few times, I put my hand on the back of my head.

“Well, time to head back?”

She makes a “mhm mhm” in agreement.

The drive back felt long. I couldn’t let myself look at Sarah. Just looking at her felt a bit weird. I couldn’t start a conversation, either.

She stops in my driveway and looks at me, but says nothing.

This needs to me, “I guess I’ll see you later. Maybe we could… hangout sometime. The two of us.”

With a red face, she instinctively turns her head away.

Unable to keep the excitement out of her voice, she softly replies, “Yeah!”

With that, Sarah drives home and I bide my time until night.

My mind no longer cares about whether Luke’s gem was stolen or not. Actually, I can no longer care that the recent tragedy even happened.

Forget that! I’ve got a date! Or, well, I will have one.

Still!

I can’t sleep. I just can’t. There’s too much to think about, with Sarah.

Giddy, I walk outside to see the stars.

Man, I love the stars.

Sitting in my driveway, I stare up at the starry sky. They’re so bright and gorgeous. Whenever I see them, I just want to grab one. I want to reach up and steal one out of the sky.

Hopefully I can have a long lasting relationship with Sarah. It isn’t official yet, but I still can’t help thinking about it.

To live up to her vision of me, to be that knight in shining armor… That’s the first step of being a hero.

I can’t wait to go on that date with her.

My first ever date.