The Xenton Chronicles: The Jenshia Star

Chapter 5: A Hero's Dilemma

I finally made it home. I slammed the door behind me, leaning my back against it. Everything was quiet. That's what I needed right now. A place to think. A Place to sort through all of this.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked myself. "Did that really just happen? What's wrong with me?"

I threw my back pack to the ground and fell face first into the couch, allowing my body to go limp to get some idea of what it felt like to be dead.

"I'm not going back to that school. EVER!" I said into the cushion.

I heard the front door close. I poked my head up over the couch and saw Sam standing there, his bag slung across his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked. That was far from a scolding. I was expecting a sort of lecture.

"I don't know," I replied, sinking back face first into the couch. "Just leave me alone..."

Sam came and sat on the couch. He patted my back.

"I...I don't know what I did, Sammy. One second I'm in a puddle of my own blood, the next I'm burning TJ's hand off.

"Dye, you changed," he replied.

"I know..."

"No, I mean you physically changed."

"Yeah, I know. I felt my face healing just like you did this morning."

"DYE!" he shouted. "Look at me!"

I removed my face from the couch and rolled over to my back.

"Your face literally changed."

Now I understood what he was saying.

"Changed how?"

"It was like you were hot. Very hot. Your body got all veiny but your eyes and mouth..."

"What about them?"

"Dye, your eyes changed colors. They were orange and your teeth were like, sharp."

"What?"

"I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it myself." Sam looked at me as though he was afraid of me somehow.

"Sam, I was on my way home but then TJ and his goons ambushed me and started beating the crap out of me. I...I had no choice."

"I know, Dye. Your buddy Joss ran and got me from my science club meeting when he saw TJ following you out into the courtyard. He told me you didn't want to fight."

I sighed. Maybe I still had a friend in Joss after all.

I saw Sam starting to rummage through his head. His calculating trance was returning.

"What is it?" I ask.

"What if..." he started. He arose from the couch. "What if what happened to us on our trip wasn't actually a dream. What if something actually did happen to us?"

"Like what?"

Sam pondered longer. His hand grasping his mouth as he desperately tried to make sense of everything that happened the last couple of days. "I don't know, but the quick healing, you being able to dodge punches with lightning quick reflexes, your entire physique changing. It all has to be connected somehow."

"You think the lights have something to do with what is happening to us now."

"That's the only logical thing that explains all this. My next question is how?"