AcademyX- School For Gifted Children

The Vanishing

"Hey Joel! Joel! Get up!" I hear.

I open my eyes to face Damon staring back at me with concern in his eyes. He looks a little shaken, but I'm sure it's just because I overslept.

"Oh hey. What's wrong?" I ask.

"Something weird is going on, and the teachers won't tell us what it is" he says.

Unsure of what he was saying because I'm still tired, I ask again, rubbing my heavy eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"This morning, a girl was running through the hallway looking for Marianna and no one can find her" he says.

"That doesn't sound good. What if she just went for a walk?" I ask.

"She has been missing since very late last night. Who goes on a walk at midnight and isn't back the next morning?" He asks, worrying me.

"Ok, you're right. Well, should we help them find her?" I ask him.

"No use. The lady here who can track down people with powers couldn't find her. She couldn't sense Marianna at all" Damon tells me.

"So this must be something pretty serious" I say.

"Must be. Anyways, you're late for class. If you hurry, you can probably make it to 4th hour in time" he says.

As Damon walks out the door, I hear an odd sound at the window on the other side of the room. I walk over to the window and examine the glass. The sound slowly fades away as I get closer, but it sounded like tapping. The sound now gone, I yank back the curtains hoping to find the source of the sound, but I find nothing. I peer out the window, looking for anything strange, but I don't see anything, except for the eerie forest about half a mile away. As soon as I realize I'm wasting my time staring outside, I quickly get ready for class and go on my way out the door.

*30 minutes later.*

"What would you do at this point? The robber is pointing a gun right at you" Mr. Dalvo asks.

This class is so boring. Mr Dalvo just goes on and on about being careful. I mean, I know it's important, but why remind us every 2 minutes of class? I raise my hand to answer the question, feeling quite confident with the answer I have in mind. He calls on me and I feel the gaze of all the students on me.

"Well I would jus-" I try to say.

"Wrong. You would do nothing because you will not let it get to that point" he says, interrupting me.

"But what if it does? Aren't you going to teach us how to deal with it?" I ask.

"The fact is that if I believe you are not fit to keep that from happening, you will not leave this school to go on a mission" he says.

"No one can be completely fit to do something correctly 100 percent of the time. You are always gonna need to know what to do just in case" I say.

"Class, do any of you know about Michelle Felton?" Mr. Dalvo asks.

The class stayed quiet as Mr Dalvo sat waiting for an answer.

"Anyone? No, ok. This is her story, and it's a long sad one, so please do be prepared for this. She took this class many years ago. I taught students what to do in the very situation we talk about now at the time. Michelle went out on her first mission to save some hostages. Michelle could make her self invisible, and she was so skilled in hand to hand combat. Anyways, she was hoisted up into one of the windows of the 2 floor house. She made her way down the stairs to the living room, where the hostages were being held at gunpoint. She went with what I told her to do, get the gun away from the enemy, but carefully. She went invisible and got ahold of the gun, but the culprit had crazy reflexes and got it away as soon as he felt a tug on the gun. He began to shoot frantically, eventually hitting Michelle in her arm, making her visible again. The shooter made his way over to her and shot her, twice in the head and again in the stomach. Then he went on to kill both hostages and then off himself. Now, I will NOT let that happen again. You will not be going out there without being able to stop the person with the gun from ever raising it" he says, sending chills down my spine.