The Gods Among Us

Chapter 35: What Everyone Wants

A:

"I am not saying I do not appreciate the visit," I start, turning to Alieen, Alfred, and Matt as they stand beside their car, "But what are you three doing here so early in the morning?"

"Right now," Matt starts, "At the moment, I'm wondering what I just saw."

"I cannot answer you," I say. "As I do not have any answer myself."

"I thought you had to worry about only one shadow," Alfred says, his finger moving side to side. "Why was there a second?"

"Again," I say again but only slightly louder. "I cannot answer you as I do not have any answer myself. All I can tell you is that I was attacked by those two late last night and that apparently, our fight lasted until morning."

"That's a long fight," Matt says.

I turn behind and look at the ruins of what was once my gas station home. Even with my power, it will take a while to fix.

"Well, thankfully for me," I say, turning back to the others. "I do not have any plans at the moment."

"You're going to hunt those two down," Alieen says. She turns back toward me after staring at the sky.

I look at the sky myself, precisely at where the two disappear.

"No," I answer. "No, I am not."

"Really," Matt asks. "You're not going after those two. I mean, even after all of this?"

"No," I answer.

"Why not," Alieen asks.

"Yeah," Alfred goes on. "Why not? You told us you wanted answers to who you are, and I'm guessing those two have answers. Why don't you go after them?"

"Because my home is in ruins," I answer. "And before I go chasing shadows, I want to fix my home."

With that said, I turn around and look at my destroyed fence. Focusing on my power, I use my telekinesis the raise the fence, or at least the parts of the fence that can be raised. Now that the sun had risen, I can see the full extent of the damage.

"It is worst than I thought," I tell myself. Besides most of the fences being torn, the gas pumps are ripped from the ground and all over the place. The signpost with the price is also ripped from the ground but unlike the pump, it is not all over the place. It is on the side of the store, along with part of a wall and the roof. The ground is covered in holes and scorch marks.

I drop down to my knee and examine the scorch marks.

"Strange," I think. I think back to last night when I summoned literal walls of fire to trap those two shadows. "I did not know I could do this. How did I do this?"

I rub the blackened scorch marks and soot gets on my fingers. I sniff the soot.

"Strange," I repeat. This does not smell like regular soot. It smells, I cannot explain, but it smells different.

"What are you doing," Matt asks me out of nowhere.

Almost jumping, I calm myself down and turn to Matt.

"Matt," I slowly say.

"Yeah," Matt says. "What's up?"

"Please, unless you want me to use my power, step back."

"Actually," Matt laughs. "That sounds kind of awesome."

I shake my head and stand back up. I do not use my power. Instead, I just walk away from Matt. Matt, however, does what I did. He drops onto his own knee and rubs his fingers against the scorch marks. However, the second he touches the scorch marks, he screams and falls back.