“You’ll get your sister back when I get my answers, young lady!” he threatened, again. “And when I get my weapons back...all of them.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked, confused. Olivia’s worried eyes found mine.
“You promised, Lucas,” she whispered. My heart fell into my stomach. I had promised to get her sister out of this fiasco. I never should have promised such a thing. I still had no idea what was going on. I had to do whatever it takes to get Sophia back. General Love stepped up to me with his muscular arms crossed.
“I want some answers, son. Now,” he said. No kidding, so do I.
I looked up at his hard eyes, trying not to notice his disfigured, missing ear. “Okay.”
“Come with me,” he ordered. General Love marched out of the room. Olivia steadied me again and handed me my precious backpack. She stole a nervous glance at my phone wedged in my hand. I gave it a small shake, trying to loosen its hold a little bit. It was no use.
“Thank you,” I said, with a loopy smile. She nodded in understanding. The guards pushed at Olivia and I to move forward. A second shove scooted us out the door of the Nurse’s Office. My anger came to life as my balance returned. With a couple more unwelcome shoves we found ourselves in the dark school hallway. I was now seething with anger. What was wrong with me? I never let my anger get the best of me. I hated confrontation.
The flickering light on my phone had settled to a steady pulse. It lit the gloomy corridor like a scene from a horror movie. The halls were now empty, except for the military personnel and scattered police officers. As my eyes focused down the hallway in the direction of my locker, I was surprised to find something familiar. The same yellow light pulsated around the set of lockers my secret was hiding in, as if warning me. The bright S.O.S. blinked in the same rhythmic timing as my phone. I held my phone in front of my face to be sure I wasn’t seeing things. Olivia let a long, nervous breath out.
“What’s down there, Lucas?” she asked, in a whisper. I didn’t know anymore. I’m not sure I ever knew. Holding my phone tighter, I squinted my eyes. Even with the yellow strobe of light constantly flashing, it was still so dark in the school. Too dark. The power was officially off, but it shouldn’t be this dark, this unnaturally black.
“I found...something...” I trailed off, trying my best to answer her question. Olivia looked at me worried.
With a not-so-polite shove from the guards, we slowly began to move forward. I held my digital torch out in front of me to light up the blackened corridor. General Love followed closely on our heels. So close, I could hear his breathing only inches away from us.
“It’s too dark. I can’t tell what is up there...” I sighed. “I mean, what is that?”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said, trying to make sense of what she was witnessing. Up ahead, where my locker should be located, was a huge shadow. It was made of many shapes and sizes, and reached up to the ceiling. It reminded me of the outline of a wild and jagged city, made of sharp and pointy buildings. It was hard to distinguish any visible markings within this shadowy cityscape with the flashing light everywhere.
General Love stepped backward, aligning his position with the closest guard. “Manning, what’s the latest reading of the situation?” he asked, quite loudly. The guard was still holding the same handheld meter that scanned me in the Detention room. He glanced at the flickering screen, quickly.
“No reading, General.”
“What?” General Love snapped.
“It stopped working as soon as we left the office,” Manning said, as fact. He leaned away from General Love, obviously nervous of his commander’s brooding demeanor. The General stared at him hard before turning back toward me and then my hidden locker.
“That means it has a range of 100 yards now. It’s getting stronger,” General Love said upset. Manning nodded without a word, putting away his broken gadget. Their conversation was distracting and I tried to concentrate on the mysterious wall of shadows in front of me. My eyes strained, causing a momentary headache. It was just too freakin’ dark. I was at my wits end.
With my free hand massaging my forehead, I closed my eyes and mumbled, “I wish I could see...” Olivia was the only person close enough to hear me. In one bright flash the lights came back on...all of them. The school lights, the parking lot lights, all the emergency vehicle lights. Even the flashlights in the hands of military team. I stopped moving, as did everyone else, except General Love. He stepped forward with a large grin, filled with a new awareness.
“How did you do that?” Olivia whispered, in my ear. She squeezed my arm tighter, pulling herself closer to me. I looked at her scared face, trying to hide my own confusion. I didn’t have time to think about what had just occurred, because of the mind-numbing sight before me.
“Oh my God. Is that?” I choked on my own words. General Love burst out with a hearty laugh from behind us.
“My weapons!”
I fell speechless. My locker was now hidden behind a wall of guns and ammunition. Knives, grenades, baseball bats, hockey sticks. Any and every kind of weapon I had ever seen in an action movie was stacked in a jagged, puzzle-pieced wall that reached up to the ceiling. Even the stun-gun I had been knocked unconscious with earlier was stuck together in a impossible, apocalyptic piece of art. My legs felt like noodles.
“Impossible,” I gasped.
“You like it?”General Love asked me.
“What is it?”
“I like to call it the Sea-O-Death!” he smirked, and then slapped me on my back.
“How many?” I started to ask.
He cut me off. “All of them! Every last one of my mighty toys!”
I glared at him lost. “This isn’t possible.”
“I don’t care, Mr. Ryan. I want answers. I want my guns back, and I want what’s in that locker. I want your weapon, now,” his joking tone faded.
“Weapon?” My head spun. Could it be a weapon?
“E.M.P., magnetic time-bomb, school locker nuke...I don’t care what it is. I just want it!” General Love’s voice trembled with a weird desperateness.
“I...don’t...” I stuttered, and found Olivia’s worried face. Even as scared as she was, she would not let go of my arm. In my head, Sophia’s voice rang out...
“Save me.”
I had to do something. I had to try and save Olivia’s sister. I promised.
“Well, are you going to help, Mr. Ryan?” General Love said, with a nudge.
“I’ll try.”
“Good,” he smiled.
“For you,” I nodded toward Olivia. She watched as I pulled from her grasp, and slid my bag over my shoulder.
With a new quaking in my hand, I placed my flashing phone directly in front of me. The pulsating yellow lights stopped with a crackling hum. Both my phone and locker fell dark. I inhaled a long breath. Suddenly, the sound of stretching metal scraped at my ears. It was loud enough for most of the audience to hear too. Uneasiness spread through the crowd behind me. Slowly, my phone started to vibrate. My fingers pulled from its surface, stretching themselves in relief, but my phone remained attached to my palm, as if magnetized. I was terrified to move. So was everyone else.
“Lucas, what’s happening? Olivia whimpered. My eyes found hers. My phone slid down my palm as if it was coated in baby oil, leaving a sparkling trail. It slowly came to a rest between my lower wrist and forearm. It was vibrating so hard now that I thought for sure my bones might shatter. I grabbed at it with my other hand, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Lucas?” she asked, again.
“It hurts,” I winced. My phone centered itself along my skin and dug into my flesh. It burned as it burrowed in, but the vibrating slowed to a dull throb. Thump, thump, thump. I could hear my pulse synchronize with it. Thump, thump, thump, as if we were one, now.
General Love took a large step backwards, motioning for his men to do the same. I enjoyed their fear, but I wasn’t sure why. My phone continued to amaze. It molded itse
lf into a more elongated shape, sleek and formfitting. It no longer hurt. Amazingly, it felt good, comforting. It felt...right. I flexed my arm, staring at my new, alien gauntlet. Strength filled the muscle in my arm and hand.
“This is weird,” I smiled at Olivia. “A good weird.”
She glanced at me worried. “Are you...okay?” Her stare accused me of being crazy. For all I knew, she was right. None of this was sane. I slowly lowered my arm to my side and took a small step forward, sensing a growing confidence coming from inside my locker. In front of me, the wall of ammunition and death began to tremble and shake. Gently at first, but then, violently. With a wicked grin, I pushed myself forward.
“Lucas!” Olivia yelled. I glanced over my shoulder, finding her worried stare, and winked at her.
“Let’s get this party started!” I called out, flexing the new strength in my fist. I shouted at the top of my lungs, “MOVE!”
As I ordered it, the wall of weapons came alive like an army of toy soldiers. They spun and twisted around, jumping out of order and then back in place. All standing at attention. All in a unified line down the hallway. I flicked my new mechanical wrist and they all flew toward the wall. Every piece of weaponry lined themselves along the corridor of lockers, their firm casings clanking against the metal. The line of ammunition covered every locker down the whole hallway. Each gun and blade stuck against the wall like overpowered refrigerator magnets. General Love blinked in amazement.
“Incredible,” he said, wickedly.
As the onlookers studied the impossible sight, something caught my attention. Stuck against the locker door next to mine, was the backpack that magically held my schoolmate, Grant, imprisoned. I could still hear him as he screamed out for someone to help. I wondered what exactly was hidden away in that bag. I reached out and removed Grant’s backpack without any resistance. Easily, I removed its contents; a couple school books, a sack lunch, and a small, black bag with a gold drawstring. Along the back of the bag, sewn in white thread, was a few words of wisdom...
... ‘HEAVEN SMILES ABOVE ME. WHAT A GIFT, THERE BELOW.’
“What is it, Lucas?” Olivia asked, from just over my shoulder. She had moved up, right behind me. I smiled and emptied the tiny bag out. Three silver throwing-stars fell out and hovered in the air. They looked like a relic from a Bruce Lee movie. They spun in the air, fluidly dancing around each other before slamming themselves into the locker door. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“More weapons,” I chuckled. Was it some sort of ‘peace bomb’ in my locker? Did it come here to rid the world of all our evil death machines, starting with the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, Arizona? I placed my hand on the surface of my locker door, enjoying the buzzing hum of the sheet-metal. Maybe it was some sort of super computer sent from the future to stop some horrible catastrophe? A laugh filled my chest at the ridiculous thought. I really have played too many video games.
“Go on, Mr. Ryan,” General Love ordered from a safe distance. My exotic armband began to blur with metallic silver smoke escaping its touchscreen. The smoke curled itself upward and into the vents lining the top of the locker door. In my mind I asked the door to open, and on cue, it did. With a thin and eerie creak, it slid open. As everyone around me held their breath, scared completely by the vision before them, I stepped closer.
“Pick me up,” I said, with a crooked smile.
LEVEL 11: Uprising
I stared at the mystery in my locker with a new smile. What lay before me was unbelievable and beautiful. Emotions and feelings began to possess me, but they made little sense. I felt misguided, but understood. Angry, yet calm. Hot and cold. Up was down. Yes was no. So, I did the only thing that came natural to me...I poked at it.
“Here goes nothing,” I shrugged. Olivia inhaled a chunk of oxygen from behind me. I stole a quick glance her way to see if she could see what I was standing in front of. She could.
Before me was one thing and one thing only, my reflection. My excited face, staring back at itself. In place of my open locker door was a long mirror that stretched the entire length of the opening. It was crystal-clear, with cold air coming from it. Soothing and inviting, like an opened refrigerator door on a hot summer day. The shiny surface shuttered with tiny ripples, like a pool of water. Gentle waves would dance along its surface as my breathing increased. In the wild reflection, I could see General Love clutching at his bare gun holster behind me. I couldn’t hold in my smile.
“Lucas?” Olivia spoke, cautiously. When she did, a small portion of the magic mercury pool bulged out for her, as if reaching for her words. I immediately thought, ‘TRUST ONLY HER.’
“Trust me,” I whispered back. My eyes found hers in the reflecting pool. With a quick wink, I reached out in front of me and tapped my fingertip against the silver waves. A thousand miniature eruptions scattered across its perfect surface. Mirrored bubbles popped and fizzed liked a soft drink. I found it hypnotically exquisite. Electricity filled my fingertip and raced through my body, down to my toes. Purple waves of energy pulsed off of me, shooting down the school halls, in all directions. The weapons that aligned the lockers popped from their magnetic prison and fell to the floor in a domino effect.
“Lucas!” Olivia screamed. Our ears filled with a whirling buzz. It was everywhere, and building in strength. Olivia slammed her hands over her ears. I closed my eyes and jammed the rest of my hand into the unknown. My mystical armband followed easily until my arm had disappeared past its elbow. I waited for something to grab my hand, or my arm to disappear into another dimension. None of that happened. Instead, the buzzing stopped and the sound of laughter came from over my shoulder. With half my arm still embedded in the pooling mercury, I turned to find General Love and all of his soldiers, standing in a circle around Olivia and I.
“Uh oh,” I swallowed.
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan,” General Love smiled. With a wicked twitch in one eye, he stabbed a large handgun into my face. Its barrel settled right between my eyes. The rest of his team were eerie statues with freshly loaded assault rifles pointed at us. Something was off though. There was an unnatural gleam in all their stares. Their eyes looked wrong, evil. Whatever it was, it sent a warning signal to my gut. I tightened in place and Olivia started to shake.
“I think I’m stuck...” I mumbled.
General Love bellowed like a crazy hyena, “Looks like you broke it, boy!” He stomped one step closer, just an inch from my face. So close I could taste his bad breath. “You mind getting out of my way, I want that weapon!”
His voice burrowed itself in my head, but that wasn’t what stole my attention and scared me to my core. When he spoke his last few words, he did it with two tongues. At least that’s what it looked like. A set of blood red snakes taunting me from behind perfectly white teeth. Both snapped inside his mouth like two tiny whips before disappearing again.
I tried to scream, but nothing came out. The rest of my arm slid into the locker.
“Give me the weapon!” General Love demanded, again.
I gritted my teeth together. “It’s...not...a...weapo...”
FFZZZZZZZZZZZ...BOOM!
The top of my locker exploded in cold, silver light that shot through the ceiling of the school. A giant wave of sparkling energy flashed outward, covering everyone in its chilly wake. My sight blurred and every inch of my skin covered itself in fresh goose bumps. Another pulse of energy rolled over us, stunning General Love and his men. More energy filled the halls, growing with ferocity and the sound of a freight train. With a dull thud, I jerked my arm free from the locker opening.
“Olivia! Hold on!” I screamed out. Her hands had found my waist before I had even finished my panicked announcement. My locker continued its assault on the school’s structure, carving an even larger hole into the roof. Classroom doors flew open, desks flipped over inside of them, and glass shattered and ricocheted everywhere. All the locker doors imploded, sucking themselves in with the familiar sound of metal crinkling.
With the next round of explosions, General Love found himself flying backwards in slow motion, three feet off the ground. His team of hooligans suffered the same fate. All of them slowly rolling and spinning through the air, their weapons just out of reach from their emptied hands.
“Urrrgggh!” General Love gurgled. It sounded inhuman and echoed loudly. His rage was almost as deafening as the mind bending explosion. Fear choked me and I made the only decision I could think of...I ran.
“Come on!” I yelled through the storm, and jerked Olivia behind me as I started to run. I had no idea which way I was headed, only that we needed to get there, fast. Olivia locked her fingers in mine. Our feet carried us quickly down the hallway while everyone else spun around in mid air, turning like the second hand of a clock. We ran down the hall, watching as jagged pieces of glass and debris bounced off of our moving torsos. I couldn’t believe it.
We made our way around the final corner of the building, where the school library was located. The two large entrance doors were now gone, probably because they were mostly made of dark, tinted glass. We pushed through the opening and found ourselves surrounded by all the library’s books. They were attached to the ceiling in messy stacks that reached below like an upside down city of words. They were only a few feet away from our heads. As we ran underneath them they would rustle and slam their spines against the closest stack next to them. The empty bookshelves lay toppled over, spinning on the floor. All the desks in the room had scattered themselves along the walls, hanging crooked and broken.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder, my cell phone, slash, magic gauntlet, began to ring. My personal ringtone started to play much louder than expected. It was a very popular song from the 80’s and absolutely embarrassing...
‘TURN AROUND, BRIGHT EYES...EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART...’