I Am The Absorber

I Am The Absorber Ch 8

Welcome to the latest chapter of IATA. Its about 1200 words so its not too long. I was going to go to the next part in the story but then I decided that this was an appropriate stopping point. If you like it then please vote and comment. Thanks!

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The bony druggie flew back several feet as the full, compact bottle of ice cold water hit him straight on. His head struck the ground and knocked him out, his torso flippingover and over, twisting his legs together. His shirt was now streaked black with gravel and oil, both shoes flying from his feet. The water bottle had skidded back the entire length of the store, stopping when it bounced against the chain link fence behind it.

I stood there for several moments, in shock at the violence I had just done, the man I had just given a concussion or worse. My body trembled as the natural drugs that the body released in stressful situations worked their magic. I had the brief thought that if I was going to run, now was probably the best time to do it.

Instead of running, I closed my eyes and breathed deep, trying to calm myself down. I reasoned that it wasn't my fault; he had been trying to attack me. All I had wanted was a drink of water. But where had that water come from? From inside me? I couldn't tell anyone...

Oops.

I forgot.

The police.

I couldn't let the cops question me. I couldn't let them find out I was a runaway. They would ship me home for sure, where I would be "safe" and "comforted" and "special" just like every single kid who did something wrong. Too bad they didn't know that I was an exception.

I could tell them a lie. I could tell them that my parents abused me. I could tell them anything that made it seem like they were inadequate to take care of me. Then I sighed to myself. Duh.

Two words, Levi. Foster care.

I knew that foster care wasn't all bad but it would defeat the purpose of running away. Also, I didn't want to be a "ward of the state." The whole reason I ran away was to be by myself, not find another family.

I had to run away yet again. Run away from the police, run away from my problems. It was the only choice I had. I made up my mind. Yes, I would run as fast as I could. I would go far from this place and begin my new life, stick to the plan.

I straightened up, tensing my muscles and getting ready to sprint out of there as fast as I could go.

Big mistake.

My brain buzzed like an electric prod was stuck into it and my vision blurred. My knees buckled and I fell down, onto the rough pavement. I saw blackness for a moment and knew that I had passed out.

I woke up in the back of a moving vehicle. Leather pressed against my cheek and the engine hummed quietly. I tried to sit up but the car screeched around a corner and I fell down again. The woman was sitting in the front seat and she turned around to face me.

"Don't worry, we're taking you to a hospital. Just lie down. You'll be alright."

I sat up, alarmed at this statement.

"You can't take me to a hospital! Stop the car!"

"No, you have to get checked out. There might be something wrong." she said in what should have been a soothing tone."

I couldn't get stuck in some hospital room, waiting for my parents to come pick me up. So I did the only thing available to me at that time.

I opened the door and jumped out.

I began rolling, harsh pavement ripping its way through my thin clothes. I could feel every single pebble that embedded itself into my flesh.

The shiny black car they had been driving slammed on its brakes up ahead. Car doors slammed and running feet echoed through my head.

I shook away the clouds that had descended over my vision and stood up. I jogged toward an alleyway, looking behind me to measure how close they were. Yeah, I could definitely outrun them, even in my current condition.

A fence cut through the middle of the alley, keeping people from using it as a shortcut. I increased my pace and jumped onto it like a monkey. The tiny wires cut into my palm but I climbed anyway.

One I was up and over it, I dropped to the other side and looked at the nice couple just entering into the alley. I didn't bother to stick around to thank them. I just ran.

That night I settled down behind a dumpster. It was separated from the wall by a few feet and when I covered one end with cardboard, it made a cozy little sleeping hole. I began expelling the things I was carrying, including my backpack, water bottle and most of the useless items I had decided to bring along with me.

I was staring at my teddy bear, wondering why I had bothered to bring it along, when I heard a tiny clink. I looked down at the ground and noticed a little ball of metal on the ground. It was a bullet.

That's right, one of the men had shot me when I was making my escape out of the truck. It had been expelled with all my other objects. I leaned down to pick it up.

When I touched it, I immediately snatched my fingers back in shock. It was hot enough to burn skin, leaving a tiny red spot on my fingertip.

I thought about the implications of this. The bullet had been heated when it was absorbed, but I had not felt a thing. If it had not been absorbed, it definitely would have cooled down over the past few hours. So what did this mean?

I finally came to a conclusion. In my science class, we had been learning simple physics over the past few months. Things had something called Potential Energy. If you stretched a rubber band, it held Potential Energy. When you let the rubber band go, it used that stored energy up, snapping in a quick motion. When the bullet was fired, it gained heat energy from the explosion that made it fly through the air. As soon as it left the barrel, the heat began escaping the bullet, making it hot. Somehow, when I absorbed the bullet, I had made it pause in releasing its heat energy. It was neither gaining, nor releasing energy. It was in stasis.

My mind moved to other things. Could I absorb something burning? If somebody fired a rocket at me, I was betting I could absorb it and fire it right back at him.

I was so excited at the implications of this that I sank against the wall in wonder. Unfortunately for me, my body decided to remind me of the road rash I had suffered not too long ago.

I hissed, the pain lancing through my side and back. Most of the grits had fallen out right away; the rest had been dug out using my fingernails. Surely some of it remained.

I gingerly laid down, setting my better side against the ground as gently as I could. My arms were pulled inside my sweatshirt for warmth, my teddy bear under my head as a pillow. Not the best of sleeping conditions, but it would have to do. Soon I fell asleep, the stars above my head disappearing one by one, into a cloud of pollution and streetlights.

©2011 mylifeisaverage (Scott)

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