“Dude, c’mon,” I begged, staring up at the ceiling of the room I grew up in. “I’m really stuck on this college cover letter. It’s so… boring to write. At least send me yours? The one from when you applied to Castleton? I need help.”
My older brother, Marc, just sighed, “It’s easy, Kai. You just talk shit about how cool you are.”
“But I’m not that cool,” I replied, my face heating slightly. Self doubt. Real attractive. I trusted my brother, though. He wouldn’t tell anyone I was being a sook and he certainly wouldn’t judge me for it.
My brother sighed loudly into the phone. “You are though, Kai. You could probably build a rocket if you had a junkyard to work with. You’re like… a young MacGyver. Plus, you’re really nice. Everyone loves you. Maybe you could even get some testimonials from important people around town who know you.”
“I… actually, that isn't a bad idea,” I said, sitting up to look around my room.
He wasn’t wrong. I definitely wasn’t the stereotypical popular kid, with my good grades, lack of interest in sports, and overall slightly fruity attitude. But these days, school wasn’t like a nineties movie, where jocks threw wimpy kids around. In my experience, if you were funny — made them laugh, they’d basically adopt you.
That was what happened to me. Back in middle school, everyone was waiting around for class to start, some alternative-looking girl was being kinda cringe. When other kids had gotten too close, she’d hiss at them — like, legit hiss like a cat. Of course, my mental filter had to choose that moment to break. Under my breath, I’d muttered, “She’s like, a… H-A-G? Lol, yeah, a hag.”
The guy beside me thought it was hilarious, and he made me repeat it for his friends. Unfortunately for the girl, it sorta stuck to her as a nickname.
The worst part was, I’d sorta meant it as a compliment. Not, like, exactly, because she was hissing at people — who unironically hisses at people? That’s just cringe. Anyway, by the time I explained that it meant ‘Hot Angry Goth,’ nobody cared. She was called ‘Hag’.
As for the guy who originally found it funny, he’d decided I was his buddy, so I got dragged into a friendship that had lasted the rest of my life up until now. Alec was basically the golden retriever of my friend group. He just kept bringing random introverts in from the cold like they were lost kittens.
My gaze caught on the pile of dirty clothes behind my bedroom door — clothes that were next to the hamper, not in it. Man, my aim was shit. If Mum actually came home, she’d give me that disappointed eye-roll that hurt so much — like I was a perpetual fuckup who couldn’t do anything right.
“I take it by the sudden silence that I’ve finally jogged your brain into working?” Marc laughed, snapping me out of my high-speed chase with the train of thought in my head.
Sheepishly, I stood and walked over to pluck a tee off the ground. “Uh, yeah dude. I think I know some people who could talk me up.”
None of my friends would mean shit for a college application, but some of my teachers, maybe…
“No problem Kai. I know how you work, after all. Gotta crank-start your big brain like one of those really old cars.” My brother was the best, and that wasn’t just because he was a cool dude. He also just… understood me and didn’t try to change me or mould me into anything other than who I was.
“Are mum and dad home?” he asked, but by the tone of his voice he knew the answer already.
I picked up another item of clothing and dropped it into the hamper. “Nah. I think they’re lowkey in love with their jobs and they only have a house and family ‘cos it looks good.”
“Highkey more like,” he laughed, but it was a sombre sound. We’d grown up comfortable, money-wise, and we both knew it, but parental love was something drip-fed to us, if we got it at all. My brother was only a year and a half older than me and we had a lot in common, including the camaraderie of two boys who really should have had more supervision growing up. If I was the one who made the crazy contraptions, then he was the one who used them to create untold levels of chaos.
My favourite was the dildo crossbow. When he managed to fire that gross street-dildo over into Mrs Fero’s yard, I just about died laug—
The room shuddered, and I gasped, “Fuck! Earthquake again?!”
“Same here!” My brother yelled from my phone. Up on the top of my dusty bookshelf, my science fair trophy wobbled, then tipped. I missed whatever Marc tried to say next. It’s kinda hard to concentrate on a conversation when you’re dodging your own past achievements.
Wait, Marc felt the earthquake too? What? If it was this bad over in Norfolk as well, then this wasn't a simple shake — it was biblical. “But…” I gasped, rushing to take cover in the doorway. “...but you’re over the other side of the Appalachians!”
There was no response from Marc, and the ground heaved like it was going to tear open and replace the whole city of Theprin with a mountain.
“Marc?”
No reply.
Terrified, I checked my phone and saw the call had dropped. Oh god, that wasn’t good. That was really really not good.
Then, like the Earth was trying to gaslight me into thinking it never happened, the earthquake ended. Earth was a filthy liar, though. All over the nice little suburban house that I called home, things were still rattling. A crash echoed up from downstairs, and I winced. The kitchen was going to be a nightmare of broken whiteware and partially splattered food. The smell of alcohol told me that mum’s precious wine display was probably all over the floor. God, it was strong.
To escape the smell of fifteen different types of wine mixing in the dining room carpet, I rushed out of my room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Where should I go? Front or back yard? Back, I think. Maybe? Was it right to leave the house? I definitely didn't feel safe in the house, so…
Indecision hobbled me, and I froze. It was lucky I did, because I was standing still and stable when a cold spike of iron lanced into my brain. I screamed, and my legs buckled, dropping me to the floor. Pain. Pain… What was happening to me? Fire spread down from my brain, riding my nervous system into the rest of my body. As one, every nerve ending flowered into fish hooks that sank themselves into my flesh and pulled outwards.
I choked out a sob and fell backwards, leaving me gasping, prone and staring up at the ceiling. It was too much. I tried to escape, to pull myself out of the pain, but I couldn’t because it was me.
Then, abruptly, it was gone. Oh god… oh god, what was happening? Was I dying? I was young, I couldn’t be having a stroke, right? Hold on, what was that?
Floating above me, three… impressions hung in the air. Instantly, I could tell that they didn’t actually exist. For some reason my mind was conjuring them. The hallucination was so real I had to reach out and pass a hand through one, just to be sure it was a figment of my imagination.
Choose.
The foreign thought battered its way into my psyche. Meaning coalesced around the three floating, swirling masses of… colour? It was hard to tell. Each one was made up entirely of sensation and brief flashes of imagery. One felt like crushed, wet plant matter held between forefinger and thumb, with the smell of acrid chemicals boiling in the background. Another was beautiful — fingers dancing over strings, or tapping on hide drums… along with the sound of cheering, laughter, and victory. The third contained the scent of linseed oil, cast iron, and the tension of a weapon built to kill at the pull of a trigger.
Choose.
Choose what?! Choose, fucking, what? Tell me what was going on, damn it! Tell me what this meant!
Choose.
The taste of vile liquid trailed down my throat. I gagged, but there wasn't any liquid — it was another hallucination. My panic was interrupted by a haunting, urgent melody, and vague images of a piper preparing warriors for war. I shook my head, trying to clear it. The warriors faded, but that only let something else in — the last anxiety-inducing cut of a whittling knife as it carved wood to shape.
Choose.
I had to… I had to choose between… what? Making medicine, being some sort of fantasy bard, or my usual tinkering ways? Wait. H-hold on.
Alchemist, Bard, and Tinker.
A spark of understanding lit behind my eyes, hot enough that it could've seared holes in the eggshell-white ceiling of the hallway. Alchemist, Bard, and Tinker. There was only one option. I was a Tinker at heart. Making things made my brain whir with glee.
Raising a hand, I pushed at the ephemeral glob that had the impression of the Tinker, and a wave of calm certainty washed over me. This time, I was surprised by three very real dark metal orbs that fell onto my chest. Sitting up, I caught them before they fell to the ground and inspected the matte surfaces of the strange objects. Wh-what the… these weren’t some crazy hallucination, these were real, these were…
Was I getting superpowers?
Except, when I picked up one of the orbs to get a closer look, eight new impressions imposed themselves on my thoughts like a rioting rainbow full of confusing imagery and colour. Unlike with the previous choice, I didn’t have to tease out the meaning of each one. It felt like I was already beginning to automatically translate whatever this system was telling me, if only vaguely.
They promised to increase various… I could only describe them as attributes, like I was a video game character or something. I could feel the first option — Strength, I think. It felt like moving weight, or raw effort, or— I didn’t have time for this. I stuffed the little metal orbs into my pocket and stumbled to my feet. The door, I needed to figure out what was happening. I needed to— The whole back of my house detonated.
A violent wave of force hit me like a truck, and I flew backwards, flipping and spinning until I hit a wall. My head swam. My vision pulsed in and out of focus. Did I just die, or… no, I was prone, staring at the ceiling, again. I laughed, then grimaced as my body told me never to do that ever again — whether it meant flying through the air or laughing, I wasn’t sure.
God, I’d really like it if I could stay on my feet for like five freakin’ minutes. What even was that? Did a gas main blow, or—
An otherworldly, shuddering scream ripped through the air. I felt goosebumps ripple over my skin. What the fuck was that? That did not sound like a noise that… that a human being could make. Fear pushed me to move, and I scrambled to my feet.
Why the hell I rushed towards the sound, I had no earthly idea. Sure, the scream sounded like it came from the throat of a monster, but whoever it was, they sounded hurt. I couldn’t… maybe my concussed brain was doing fucky shit to the scream. I had to go and help, I had to…
I slowed to a stop and stared. Wow, there was just a chunk of our house missing now. It looked like a gender-reveal had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong. Except, as far as I knew, my mum wasn’t pregnant. Must’ve been some gas explosion…