Chapter Nine
Things were starting to turn around for Kyle. He was back to just hanging out with Jules and Justin every day. For the next few days, they just sat around, since Kyle was still cautious about going out in public. The twins didn’t seem to mind; they were just happy Kyle was spending time with them. So, they played video games, watched movies, and helped Justin finish his homework.
Kyle opened up more to his two best friends than he ever had before. He told them all about what he had learned about his powers in the last few days. However, he refused to show them when they asked. It just didn’t feel like a good idea at the time to use them.
He also told them about his meeting with Tony, and what he learned about his intentions with Emma.
“Dude, just ask her out first,” was Justin’s suggestion. It didn’t seem that simple, yet neither Jules nor Kyle could come up with a better solution. Kyle would just have to get Emma first. He could do it at her party coming up. But he remembered Tony saying that was what he was planning to do.
“You just have to impress her, man,” Justin said.
“Yeah,” Jules added. “You can do it.” Then she got a weird look in her eye, and said, “And I’ll tell you what. We’re going to help you do it.”
Kyle and Justin spoke at the same time; Kyle saying “You are?” and Justin “We are?”
“Be back here tomorrow morning at ten,” she said, and wouldn’t explain further than that. Kyle finally headed back to his house around ten o’clock, took a shower, and went to bed.
Kyle woke up suddenly. It was still dark; Kyle looked over to his clock. It was two in the morning. Why was he up? He never woke up this early by himself.
Then it hit him like a truck. He felt the pain again. His vessels began to throb and glow in a painfully slow rhythm and his heart rate went up painfully fast. He kept clenched and stiff, hoping for it to end soon. He would have yelled in pain if his jaw wasn’t stuck. He just laid there, still and silent, until he passed out from the pain.
He woke again, except this time he wasn’t in his room. He wasn’t anywhere, for that matter. From the look of things, he was standing in a blue cloud. He didn’t feel pain anymore, though. His vessels were still glowing bright, but instead of a pulse, they were glowing continuously, and very intensely. He realized that this must be a dream, and began wondering how he was supposed to wake up.
Then he heard a voice, yet it wasn’t exactly a voice. It would be best described as an impression of some kind of emotion. To Kyle, it felt like a warning.
Kyle circled around, trying to find whatever the source was. Truthfully, it felt as if it was coming from the mist and from inside him, yet for all he knew, he was alone. “Who are you?” he asked. Whatever it was, it didn’t answer, but continued pushing its warning. Confused, Kyle asked, “What is it?”
The warning, which was at first very general, then changed. Again, no words were said, but Kyle received the feeling of something coming. “What’s coming?” Kyle asked.
This question brought a completely new response. The cloud he was standing in suddenly started to collect around him. It condensed and thickened to where it was just a plane of blue. Then Kyle could just barely see through it. Some distance in front of him floated a dark red cloud that was very similar to Kyle’s blue cloud. Both clouds didn’t d anything for several minutes, always keeping the same distance from each other. Then the red cloud started to behave differently, and for some reason, Kyle found this behavior threatening. It had started to churn within itself, and grew to an enormous size. Kyle’s own cloud started to do the same, and suddenly both clouds were twice their original size. Kyle watched as red tendrils from the red cloud whip out and strike his cloud, not ten feet from where he was within it. Automatically, Kyle directed his cloud to attack. Blue tendrils invaded the other cloud as more red whips struck. The two clouds fought furiously; Kyle flinched when a red whip landed right on Kyle’s chest. It was so fast, Kyle couldn’t have done anything.
Everything went dark. Kyle jerked around when he felt something on top of him. He almost yelled before he realized his eyes were still closed. When he opened them again, he was back in his room. The sun was half up and light other than his was pouring into the room. Kyle took a deep breath. It was just a dream. Or was it a dream? It seemed realer than any dream Kyle ever had. Even as he recalled it, it slipped from his memories to where ever it is dreams go when they are done.
He was soaked with sweat and his heart was still racing. He grabbed his towel and crossed the hall to the bathroom. A shower helped calm him down and clean him off.
It also helped him to think. He tried to remember all that he could from the dream. The first thing that came to mind was the overwhelming sense that he was being warned that something was coming. But what was coming? Then he remembered what the dream showed him. Two cloud-like things were battling each other. One was blue, like Kyle’s vessels. The other was a dark red color. Was that what was coming?
Kyle decided not to worry about it at the moment. After all, how did he know that it wasn’t just a dream? He put it away from his mind and went on with his day.
He got dressed and ate some cereal for breakfast. He had just cleaned his bowl and spoon when he received a text from Jules. It was a reminder about meeting them today in an hour. It also said to bring money, but not why he should.
It wasn’t cold, but it was quite windy outside. Kyle grabbed a light jacket, mainly to hide the vessels a little bit, but it being windy would be a good excuse to keep one on. He walked over to the twin’s house and knocked on the door. Jules answered and ushered him inside. He didn’t even get a chance to sit down, for within five minutes, they were heading back outside and climbed into Mrs. Slade’s car.
It was a five minute drive to the mall. As they pulled into the parking lot, Kyle asked, “What are we doing here?”
Jules and Justin exchanged a glance, and then Justin said, “You’ll see. Just don’t have a spasm and we’ll have a good time this time.” That remark immediately gave him a punch to the shoulder from Jules. Kyle laughed to show that he wasn’t offended, but silently hoped the same thing.
Mrs. Slade left them in front of the Sears’ interior entrance, claiming that she needed to get the twins’ birthday present, get it back home to hide it, and be back, telling them not to leave the mall while she was gone. When she left them, Jules turned toward Kyle and explained their purpose for being there.
“Kyle,” she said, “we are going to get you a new outfit for Emma’s party.”
Kyle looked at her for a second in confusion before asking, “What’s wrong with my style?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Jules answered. “It’s just that Emma has seen it all by now. You have to show her something new every once in a while. Tony is new to her, and he’ll probably play on that.”
“Yeah,” Justin said. “If you’re going to get Emma, you gotta show Tony up, you know?”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Thanks for helping, I guess. So what did you have in mind? I only brought forty with me.”
“We brought money, too, man,” Justin said. “Only, you put more into this than we did; we brought thirty dollars each.”
“I didn’t even know what was going on,” Kyle complained. Shaking his head, he said, “Anyway, that’s only a hundred dollars. What kind of new outfit could we possibly get for a hundred dollars?”
“Well,” Jules said, “We aren’t going to find out standing here, are we?” she skipped (actually skipped, which neither Kyle nor Justin had ever seen her do) into the store, with Justin and Kyle behind her.
If Jules had anything in common with what Kyle called a “normal” girl, it was that she liked to shop. She was good at it, too. She could bargain hunt like a pro, and could see a sale coming from a mile away. Kyle always knew she was good at shopping, yet he had never seen her in action before. To Kyle, she would always just show up one day with new clothes and no explanation. But watching her shop was s
eeing a side to her that Kyle didn’t even know existed. Her eyes and hands found their targets like guided missiles. Kyle and Justin soon just established a central location, since they just kept getting in the way and obviously didn’t know what they were doing, pointing out shirts that made them laugh. They just talked while Jules went back and forth with various sets of shirts and jeans. Kyle learned to stand when he saw her coming, and she would see how the outfit looked, and decide whether or not she liked a part or all of it.
After her sixth trip back, they had a look for Kyle. New Levi’s jeans, plus a black tee shirt underneath an Air Walk brand button down shirt left open. Mrs. Slade caught them as they were paying, only having four dollars left over from their combined total, and inspected their findings.
Mrs. Slade had to go back to their house to drop off the twins’ birthday present, so she gave them thirty dollars to stay at the mall until she was ready to pick them up. They spent the money at the Fuddruckers restaurant in the mall for lunch. Kyle was barely paying attention to the conversation; he would fade in and out, and whenever he came back in, the twins were talking about something new. Kyle’s mind kept falling back into the dream he had last night.
“What’s up, Kyle?” he heard. He had zoned out for the fifth time that day, and this time Jules finally noticed.
He hesitated. Should he tell them? They were his friends, but something in the back of his head told him that this was way too big for them to help.
But they were his friends. They are his friends, and no matter what the problem, he could trust them.
“I had a weird dream last night,” he began. “I’m just trying to make sense of it.”
“What was the dream?” Jules asked. Kyle gave them the best description he could, which was another thing that just didn’t make sense. Kyle rarely remembered his dreams, but this one was so vivid it just stuck to his mind.
After his description, the twins were silent for a moment. Justin finally said, “Dude that is just weird.”
“Tell me about it,” Kyle said.
“Clouds don’t fight, man,” Justin pointed out.
“I didn’t know that, Justin,” Kyle remarked sarcastically. “But I’m starting to think it wasn’t just a dream. I never remember dreams, at least not this perfectly. It’s just stuck in my head and I can’t get it out.”
“Are you saying you had a vision?” Jules asked.
“Maybe,” Kyle said. “It was more like a warning, then I saw the memory I described.”
“You mean the two cloud things?” Justin asked.
“Yeah, except I don’t think they were just clouds. But I don’t know what…” Kyle trailed off.
Kyle shook his head, not wanting to think about it right now. They decided to wait outside for Mrs. Slade to return for them. It was windier than it had been that morning.
A huge gust of wind hit them just as they walked outside. They all managed to hold onto the bags they were carrying, but Jules didn’t have a hand on the hat she was wearing. The hat was blown off her head and within a few seconds was out in the middle of the street.
Jules sighed, saying, “Just wonderful.” She handed Justin the bags she was carrying and walked out to retrieve her hat.
At that same moment, a truck turned onto the road from the parking lot, but the driver was distracted by something on the floor of his truck. He was moving way too fast to have noticed Jules as she stepped off the curb and into his path. Jules didn’t even see him coming…
But Kyle did. A split second before Jules was about to be hit, Kyle jumped. Energy poured into from his body from his vessels. He rushed forward and scooped Jules up before she took a second step on the road. Momentum kept them going in the same direction, but they more or less glided in front of the truck. To Kyle, it felt as if everything was in slow motion. They flew past the truck and kept going for about fifteen feet, during which Kyle twisted over to where he would land on his back instead of landing on Jules. However, they ended up bouncing and rolling another five feet after landing. When they all stopped, Kyle ended up on top. All of this lasted about five seconds.
Jules looked confused and wide-eyed. “What… was… that?” she asked, taking a breath in between each word.
Kyle was equally out of breath. “Truck,” he breathed out, “Almost… hit…”
Just then, Justin ran up to them, holding all of the sacks and Jules’ hat. “What was that?” he asked.
Kyle just backed off of Jules and helped her up.