Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Friendship Runs Thicker than Blood ❯ Revelation ( Chapter 2 )

CHAPTER TWO: REVELATION

Finally, Sira had an idea.

“She must have some of her other friends' phone numbers in her phone,” she whispered to Anna, early on Thursday morning when they were the only two sitting in their favorite spot under the stairs.. “Maybe they've heard from her, or know what's going on.”

“Are you suggesting we steal her cell phone?” asked Anna, aghast.

“We'll return it,” Sira assured her. “She leaves her backpack in her mom's office during lunch, right?” Anna nodded hesitantly. “We'll wait for her mom to leave, grab the phone, write down some numbers, and put it back. No one needs to know.”

“It sounds so simple,” said Anna.

“It is simple. Are you in?” Sira wanted to know. The other girl thought for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.

“But only if we don't find out what's going on by lunchtime,” she added.

So, during lunch, they watched the office. When Seda's mom left, they went in. There Seda's backpack was sitting on a chair in the corner, as usual. Sira opened the pocket where she knew her friend's cell phone to be and slipped out the small silver device. The two girls went off to the back staircase, which they judged to be a good hiding spot. They turned the phone on and accessed Seda's contacts.

“Get Jem Mom and Jem Dad,” Anna advised. Sira wrote the two numbers down. “Mimi.” Sira wrote that down too.

“What about Leon?” she asked, looking at other names on the list.

“Better not. I don't think she'd be in contact with a boy she dumped,” Anna pointed out. Sira nodded. “I don't see any other names she's mentioned.” They turned the phone off and stole back to Mrs. Volind's office to put the phone away.

“Will you call after school?” Anna asked once they were in the main hallway. “I can't; I've got conformation class.”

“I'll make Leo do it,” Sira said. “But I'll wait until after school to tell him about it. Let's keep this secret for now.” Anna nodded.

After school and P.E., Leo found Sira in the library.

“She wasn't there,” he said as he sat down.

“Wha?” asked Sira, coming out of her reading trance.

“Seda wasn't at P.E.,” Leo repeated. “She just didn't show up. It was so strange. She never misses a class, even though she doesn't need the credit.”

“Yet another thing she did that she never does,” Sira observed. “Anna and I came up with an idea, though.” She filled Leo in on the plan.

They went into a small room off the library, where they could talk and place the call without being disturbed. They decided to call the Jem Dad number first. Leo dialed, and when a man's voice picked up after two rings Leo asked for Jem.

“One moment,” the man's voice said. They heard him calling for Jem, and after a few seconds, a girl's voice came on.

“Hello?” she said.

“Jem?” Leo asked.

“Yes,” said the girl suspiciously. “Who's this?”

“I'm Leo, a friend of Seda Volind's. Have you heard from her lately?” he asked.

“No,” replied Jem, sounding friendlier. “I've been emailing and IMing her, but she hasn't replied since last Friday. Why? Is something wrong?” Jem wanted to know. Concern crept into her voice.

“She's been acting weird all week and hasn't been talking to us, and we're having the same trouble getting through to her,” Leo explained. “We were hoping you'd know what's wrong.”

“No, she hasn't talked to anyone at Newmeadow. I've asked,” said Jem. “Can you please ask her to email me?”

“I'll try,” Leo promised. “She's been very good at avoiding us all week. Thank you.” They said goodbye and hung up.

“Any luck?” Sira asked.

“She hasn't been in contact with any of them, either,” Leo told her. “I'm really worried now.”

“Me, too,” Sira admitted. Since there was nothing they could do about it, they dropped the subject and returned to the library.

Seda's friends watched her carefully the next day, especially Leo and Sira, in light of their news from their talk with Jem. She looked totally exhausted. Anna noticed she was looking much thinner than she had all year and wondered if she was eating at all. After all, no one saw her during lunch.

During the morning announcements, Sira conspired with Leo. She was tired of worrying about her friend and she really wanted answers.

“I have geometry with Seda right before lunch. I'll grab her and make her come with me, Meet us in the math room across from Ms. Petack's room,” she whispered.

“Should we bring other people?” Leo wondered.

“No, let's just keep it between us for now. We want her to tell the truth, and we don't want to scare her away.” Leo nodded his understanding.

Such was Sira's plot. She watched Seda carefully during geometry, and packed up subtly when class neared its end. When the lunch bell rang, Seda stood up at once. Sira grabbed her wrist before the girl could disappear again.

“You're coming with me,” she said. The room emptied quickly; when it and the hall were deserted, Sira made to haul Seda across the hall.

“Can I at least bring my stuff?” Seda asked witheringly. Her friend considered, and then nodded. She maintained a grip on Seda's wrist as Seda picked up her backpack with her other hand. Sira pushed the other girl across the hall and into the empty classroom. Leo was already there. He closed the door behind the two girls. Seda looked from one face to the other, then dropped her backpack and removed herself to the most distant corner of the small classroom.

“Seda, what's been going on with you?” Leo demanded. “You've been avoiding us all week, and we know you haven't been answering emails from your old friends. You look like hell, and now you're cowering in a corner. What the hell is going on?”

“I don't need to explain myself to anyone, least of all to meddlers who call themselves my friends,” Seda spat. “Keep your noses where they belong.” Despite her harsh words, she looked scared and vulnerable.

“Seda, if something's wrong, we'll help you,” said Sira, choosing to ignore her friend's verbal barbs. “Whatever is going on, we're your friends and we're here to help you.” She took a step closer to the girl pressed into the corner.

“Don't get too close!” Seda ordered. “I can't control—” She snapped her mouth closed. Sira and Leo exchanged a glance, and Sira took a step back.

“What can't you control?” Leo asked quietly.

“Nothing,” said Seda in a choked voice. “I can't control anything.” Sira finally lost her patience.

“Seda, we know something is going on! We're not idiots! Just tell us what's wrong, goddamn it!”

Seda froze. She looked even more vulnerable all of a sudden. She slid down the wall until she was curled up sitting on the floor. Then she started to cry. Leo and Sira looked at each other, slightly scared, before approaching their sobbing friend. They knelt down next to her.

“What is it?” Leo asked. Seda raised her tearstained face and looked at them blearily. She hiccupped in dismay.

“It's not safe for you to be this close to me,” she said through her tears. Her friends gave her a blank look and refused to move away. Seda swallowed hard and wiped her eyes. She drew a deep, shuddering breath before speaking again.

“In the first weekend of spring break, I went to D.C. with my parents and my uncle's family. I was in the gift shop of the Museum of Natural History when the building next to it exploded. Apparently there was a radioactive experiment going on, which caused the lab to explode and also ignited the gift shop. Of the fifty or so people in the store, I was the only one who survived. The fire didn't touch me. Not one piece of falling rubble hit me. There was this shield around me that protected me.” She lowered her eyes from Leo's blue eyes and Sira's green ones, which were fixed on her in disbelieving amazement. She plowed on with her tale, now talking to the khaki fabric of her skirt.

“A firefighter found me under a section of wall, unconscious. After I woke up, I told him about the shield, but he thought I had been hallucinating. The official explanation for my survival was that the piece of wall had protected me. But I know what I saw, and felt. There was a sort of force field protecting me from the fire and debris. I don't remember the wall falling on me, so it must have been after I lost consciousness. After most of the danger had passed, I felt really dizzy and tired. That's why I fainted.” She had to take another shaky breath before continuing.

“After I was found, I was taken to a hospital, where the doctors discovered that my brain waves were erratic. All the normal patterns were there, but so were other, more complex ones. None of the doctors recognized them. However, when I woke up, I seemed completely normal. I wasn't speaking Swahili or anything. My vital signs were stable; the doctors ran all the tests they could think of, and they all came back normal. So I was released from the hospital, none the worse for wear, and we continued our vacation.

“About two weeks after the explosion, weird things started happening. I was hearing whispers, even when I was alone. I had dreams that actually came true. I could have sworn that inanimate objects around me were moving; I could see them out of the corner of my eye. I thought I was going crazy.

“More things started happening. Things I was looking for would suddenly be right in front of me. A pen that I knew had run out of ink suddenly had a full cartridge. Sometime in the middle of the third week after the accident, I realized that the voices I was hearing were other people's thoughts.

“I didn't know why. I was scared. I could hear secrets, things I wasn't supposed to hear. Random strangers' thoughts assailed me. The worst was a woman who was going to kill herself. I didn't know which one she was, or where. I couldn't stop her. I heard her last thoughts. It was the worst experience of my life.” Seda had to take another deep breath to get her emotions under control.

“Then I found out that I didn't have to hear everyone's thoughts at once. I could shut out people's voices, or read their minds, at will. I could also shut out the snatches of possible futures. I was calm again. I wasn't going crazy. Everything was under control.

“But last Friday, I went to the doctor. I don't know how or why, but I think that the medical equipment there amplified my abilities. I discovered I could manipulate minds, not just read them. I can move things without touching them. I can heal myself, but I'm not sure about healing other people. I can turn invisible, and go from one place to another in the blink of an eye. It got much, much harder for me to control these new abilities of mine. They break out when I least want or expect them to. The only thing that I can't do anymore is see the future. That's a relief, because the glimpses I could see unsettled me and made me crazy.

“Even so, now I have to keep myself under strict control, or I start hearing things I shouldn't, or things start moving of their own accord. I got angry at my parents the day after I discovered my new abilities, and everything started flying around the living room. I shudder to think what would happen if I lost control and sent a person flying like that. It's not safe for me to be around people anymore unless absolutely necessary so things seem normal. I mind-wiped my parents so they don't notice anything strange about me. It's getting harder and harder to hide things. I'm scared of what'll happen if someone finds out. I'm scared of what might happen if I lose control. I could really hurt someone.” She heaved a shaky sigh and met her friends' eyes for the first time since she had started her narrative.

“So now you know. I'm a freak. Please don't tell anyone?”

Leo and Sira were stunned. Did they really hear what they thought they heard? One look at the other's face and they knew they had heard right. The desperate request at the end of such a long, strange tale only made it harder for them to comprehend what their friend was telling them.

“You don't believe me,” Seda said flatly. “Don't bother denying it—I can feel you disbelief without even trying. I'm going to prove to you I'm not lying or crazy—though even I wonder about the crazy part. Watch.” Suddenly, she wasn't there anymore. Leo cried out and reached for her hand. He felt her arm; She was there, only invisible. “See?” said Seda's voice. She reappeared. Sira's backpack rose up from the table and began flying around the room. “Don't tell anyone,” she ordered. In an instant, she was gone, this time for real, and her backpack with her.

Still stunned, Leo and Sira went down to lunch, not talking about what Seda had just told them. Of course, she wasn't at the lunch table. Sira understood now. She was probably alone somewhere in the school, invisible.

Seda finished the day's classes, but once again was nowhere to be found after school. After a thorough search of the building, Leo and Sira sat in the library.

“Do you believe her?” Leo asked. Sira knew who he meant.

“How could I not, after what she showed us?” she responded. “And Seda doesn't lie.” She remembered another secret that Seda had trusted her with, involving the two thick scars on Seda's shoulder. “Not about things like this, anyway.”

“Are we going to tell anyone?” Leo wanted to know.

“No way! Can you imagine what government scientists would do if they found out about her?” Sira protested. Leo shuddered.

“Fair point,” he conceded. “Do you think she'll talk to us about it more next week?”

“If her behavior this week is anything to judge by, she won't,” Sira said. “But I wish she would. I don't like to see her all torn up like this. I wish I could think of some way to help her!” She slammed her fist on the table in frustration, then cursed at the pain it caused.

“We'll try to talk to her on Monday,” Leo said, ignoring Sira's antics. “I want to help her as much as you do.”