Consequences Be Damned

9 ⇻ a damned reality

The first time I altered reality was with John. We'd been playing a round of rock, paper, scissors and when I went to cut through his "paper", I'd thrust my hand a little too hard right through his chest and he ended up being surrounded by pitch black and my floating scissor hands. 

    When he asked about it, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could, explaining it away like it were a family thing, before I ran straight into Lucifer's room and shoved my hand into his chest. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going when I did that–wasn't even sure if it'd make it through or what the consequences were had they not gone through, but I did it and I blinded the devil in his own seat.

    Suffice to say, that had shocked us both.

    He'd been trying to figure out how this happened, but it was hard to explain to shamans and witches and monks and the other magical and supernatural experts how exactly I got those powers without telling them the truth. That I was a human who was brought back to life.

    It was the most unlawful thing to do, even for Lucifer. So we had very limited options. Very remote options.

    Not that the oracle above the Himalayas was successful in finding answers, but the old geezer was still searching.

    And we were still waiting.

    For the meantime, I had John keep it a secret because I "wasn't supposed to use it on anyone anymore."

    But now...

    After about a minute of shocked silence, I retracted my hand and stepped back to John's side. Shaking out my hands, I felt the coming headache that usually followed these things and quickly gripped onto John's arm, ignoring the other brothers' bewildered gazes and Lucifer's pissed off one.

    He didn't even gradually get angry. In a snap, his horns were fully grown out, his skin as red as molten lava, clothes disappeared with his torso naked and his donkey feet on full display as he towered above all of us.

    "I told you not to do that shit, Summer," he roared in a, well, roaring voice. Unlike the echoes from before, the statement slammed from every corner of the room, passing through each of us in shaky reverberations.

    I held my hands up to my ears, waiting for the shaking to stop before slowly dropping them and holding them up in surrender.

    "Sorry, it was getting too confrontational for me," I muttered.

    "What the fuck was that?" Mark exclaimed, his arms thrown up into the air in bewilderment. "You just stabbed them both in the chest? Do you have some kind of super strength?" He grabbed onto my hands, cupping them and turning them around, searching. "How are you not bloody? Did you feel their guts?"

    I don't think Mark knew what happened, I thought in my head as I tugged my hand out of his grip.

    John took Mark's placing, stepping in front of him. The concern in his gaze had been replaced with eagerness, a grin stretching across his lips as he asked, "What did you have them see?"

    Behind them, Lucifer was still in his demonic form, pacing the expanded room as he grumbled under his breath. Peals of fire huffed out of his nose as large dollops of saliva spewed from the teeth that stuck out of his bottom jaw.

    "I–um–" wasn't sure what to say, really.

    Shutting my eyes, I was suddenly hit by a wave of vertigo, my knees wobbling.

    I heard more than saw everyone crowd over me. A breath of hot steam blew over me and louder cries for Lucifer to shrink back down and help me. I tried to tell them I was okay. That I just needed to rest.