Chapter 8: Unknown

There was only one person who greeted me inside, my fathe—I meant my previous father urged me to come further inside. The room was a small white space, there in the middle of the room, there was a giant capsule attached to a computer that showed something like graphs. “Get inside the capsule” he said flatly. I did as he told me, while he adjust the sit inside the capsule and had me put on a ring on my head while typing something in the computer, I tried striking a conversation, “Sir, may I ask what’s your name?”

            The typing stopped and he turned to me, “Charles Dalton” and continued typing. Stoic! Too stoic! Against a child shouldn’t he act more friendly, that serious part of his hasn’t change even now. “All right I’m going to close the capsule, once you’ve been induced with sleeping gas, the examination will start.”

            Eh, what? The exam start as I sleep, what’s with that? No wait, he did say something about a capsule and sleeping drug when he started explaining before, damn, I miss the important details!I was so surprised who he was that I hardly pay any attention.

Once the capsule was fully sealed, there was a sound of gas releasing inside and my consciousness started flowing away.

#

I woke up to find myself in my parent’s room. There was no one there and I headed toward the dining room as usual. “What was I doing? When did I get back?” somehow without thinking much, I did the usual routine I had every day even with questions filled my head. Even though there wasn’t anyone in the house, breakfast was served for five people on the table.

            I pulled out my seat then hesitated when I felt something isn’t right, I looked around the house carefully for something out of the ordinary, then I realize Galbraith’s bowl wasn’t there. I didn’t know why but I felt this is the right track, I went up to the drawer where his bowl was and after taking it out, the surrounding changes.

            The next place I was at was the circus. The place was noisy of cheering people, I was at a huge tent, and hundreds of spectator circled around the stage. There was an elephant dressed in gaudy way and a white lion on top of it. The lion leaped and went through a fiery ring that was hanging in a beautiful arc, and up above there was a trapeze, swinging from side to side like those you see in movies.

            I was entranced by the spectacle, but I wasn’t able to look long enough before shuddering when I saw fire enveloping the ring the loin had jumped through. “What am I supposed to do next?” I asked to myself. I tried looking for something unusual, while the spectators seats were made of concrete, mine was the only one made of wood.

            I tried to look underneath and found a few things: a knife, a small package, a bag of potato chip, and a phone. I was supposed to take only one so I took the package. The moment I took it, the man that was part of the trapeze swings toward me while upside-down, he took my hand and forcibly pull me and join the act.

            The place doesn’t have a sense of reality so I knew all of this weren’t real, but it didn’t stop me from getting confused. I held on to that man’s hand while dangling few feet high away. I was pissed that I was drag here out of my will, so I climbed his body toward the bar and jumped out when we were on the edge. It’s not real anyway so there’s no fear on being reckless.

            When I jumped out, the next place I was sent by the streets, the wall was the only thing keeping me from being swept by the pedestrian that crowded the streets. Most were headed toward subway, I was reluctant whether to go with the flow but in my head, I knew I had to find a man and gave him the package I was holding on to.

            The first thing I thought it was really a pain finding someone in this crowd, so my eye caught a woman who was part of a charity group, encouraging people to sign up a volunteer group. At the edge of the street corner there was a clock showing three minutes before twelve, I also knew if I don’t give it to him by noon, everything will end.

            Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.

             So I came up to her and had her let me borrow her loudspeaker, attached to the package there was a card that had the picture of  as shield with the face of a lion, biting of a snake and a sword cross behind it, it was the proud symbol of my school.

"PLEASE COME AND GET THE PACKAGE FROM PRAETOR, I REPEAT PLEASE COME AND GET THE PACKAGE SENT BY PRAETOR!” the information in my head didn’t specify if I should be discreet so any way of sending it should be fine. A few crowd stop to look at a small girl shouting about a package, yet only one-man came up to me, I knew in a glance this was the man.

             When I intend to give him the package and be done with, when the crowd decide to resume their trip, one man stood still, watching me. His eyes and features were hidden with his hat, but I knew that he was bad. Therefore, I took the hand of the receiver and ran toward the subway. The other man followed just as I thought and was hot on out tail.

            I had him rushed inside the station despite the warning from the guard and kept pulling the receiver. Even with so many crowds, the man kept track on us, I guess a girl pulling an adult does make us stand out.

            That’s why, when I waited for the subway train to pour out waves of people, I shoved the receiver inside and pulled a bystander toward another train. Thankfully, he followed me until we get on the train.

            I was already out of breath and the man walked toward me while looking around for the receiver. Sadly, he wasn’t here, knowing I did something, even when hidden behind his hat, I felt the angry gaze he had at me. He had a murderous aura, but it wasn't enough to intimidate me, thinking that I don't want to back down from him. I stretched out my hand at him, I didn't know whether it would work or not in a place that's not even reality, so without much thought I went full power. 
I imagined the air reverberates from the palm of my hand, wait, I changed my mind, I imagined it swirling clockwise from the palm of my hand, I added some heat to increase the pressure. While I waited for him to get closer, I chanted my new imagine spell.
[Wind, heed my call, churn your spirit, and reveal your might, Air Blast]
Remember when I thought of going full power? Bad idea....
Inside such a small space, the moment I release it, everything turned to chaos. Not just the Chasing Man, all the other passengers were pushed from spell and some even went flying. Me? Well, the stupid thing that happened was, I was pushed back by my own spell and hit my head, afterward everything went blank. 

#

The moment I came to, the capsule began to open itself and I got of it. That was a weird experience, I didn’t remember half of the things I did but I do remember I was aware of my dream. I believe that's what they call lucid dream. I turned toward Mr. Dalton, his mouth was half opened, his glasses was loose, but his eyes looked partly serious and partly confused. “Mr. Dalton” I called out to him and he turned to me after fixing his expression.

            “Is something wrong?” I asked, but he kept silent and instead took out a pen and paper and pull out a small hard drive. He gave the letter and the hard drive to me, asking me to meet up with mother, go to the principle office, and give it to him.

            “Wait, what about the test, did I pass? Did I get some kind of power?”

            Mr. Dalton had an unease look that didn’t know how to answer, no way, I didn’t get any power, seriously? When he looked at me feeling dejected, he told me what the result were.

            “Unknown.”

            “Sorry?”

            “Whether you are normal or an esper is unknown, either there was a miscalculation or you have power that the computer cannot analyze.”

            “…………………………..eh?”

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