CH. 7 - A Promise to the Future
Michael has his head on his desk, back at his room in the night. He looks to be in deep, concerned thought.
‘Why did she look like that?’
He remembers her smile.
‘She seemed almost upset with what I said. Why? We’ve had that same goal for years, since we were 8, right? Did I offend her?’
He begins to close his eyes, starting to fall asleep.
“Jazmine… What are you thinking..?”
He falls asleep but when he opens his eyes, he’s outside on the street. He sits up fast.
“What?.. What’s going on?!”
He gets up and looks around. Then there’s a rumble and smoke clouds from a few streets over. He runs over and sees the big, buff girl from before holding Jade by the neck.
“What’re you doing?! Let her go!”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t be back?”
The other 2 punks are back but they look a bit off. He comes out with a gun to Kevin’s head. Michael tries to move but can’t.
‘My legs! They won’t move!’ “Please just let them go.”
Michael is terrified because his body won’t listen to him. They pause for a moment.
“Why don’t you try and use your special abilities on us? Or could it be that they’re not good enough to stop us? Or is it because you’ll end up killing your friends in the process? Which one is it?”
‘He’s right… My powers aren’t suited for this. Not without hurting them… What do I do!?’ “I’ll do anything you guys ask. I can help you! Please.”
He pauses for a moment and looks away. He looks back at Michael and smirks.
“No.”
“NO!”
Michael screams as the muffled sounds of gunshots ring out. His ears ring as his eyes blur, staring at the sight before him. Kevin and Jade both drop to the ground. Michael stares in horror looking at them. He then looks up to see Jazmine sitting in a chair in front of him, in front of the explosion crater with no one else to be seen, suddenly gone.
“I told you.”
She says. Michael is now sitting in a chair looking confused and terrified. They are both sitting at a table in a large room with windows along the walls and curtains completely covering them. There are no doors and only them at this table in the room.
“I told you, didn’t I? You don’t understand.”
She is smiling at him. Michael is completely in shock, not sure what to do or think. He’s looking at the floor trying to piece it together.
“I have tried, really I have.”
Michael thinks about the shadow person.
“It was you…” He looks at her.
“Well yeah but you left me no choice.”
“You said you didn’t have powers…”
“People can lie Michael. I just happen to be great at it. I honestly wish I didn’t have to though. I hate my powers. I hate people with powers. They’re all nothing but a disease, a curse on humanity. Anyone who pretends to use them for something more than themselves are all liars.”
Michael looks but doesn’t speak.
“Oh! Not you guys! I love you guys, I really do! It’s just… you insist on being a superhero and you’ve convinced the others to do the same. I just… I can’t just let that be, you know?”
She waves her hands in front of her smiling. She tilts her head to the side.
“Why..?”
Jazmine rolls her eyes.
“You know I was only six when I lost them, my family.”
Jazmine, as a small child, and her parents sit at a dinner table, enjoying their meal together.
“We were home at the dining room table when we heard the news. My grandparents were both “superheroes” so hearing about villain attacks was nothing new. But this time was different.”
Her parents stand at the door with two others telling them something Jazmine couldn’t quite hear. Her dad holds his face in his hands, obviously hurt by what he was told. Her mother rubs his back trying to support him.
“Two people in black suits were at our door. They told something to my parents which caused them to break down. Then they left. Next thing I knew I was by my grandmother’s bedside waiting for her to pass away.”
Her grandmother is hooked up to a machine that is helping her sustain life but they can only do so much. She was badly wounded by a villain.
“Jazmine… Take my hand…”
She puts her hand in hers. An energy surges between them and shows Jazmine something in her head. She is thrown back by the force of the transference of the vision. She grabs her head in pain.
“There will come a time in your life that you will need to clean up the mess we have made… And I am so sorry for that… You must prepare yourself…”
Jazmine stands up, looking at her hand in contempt and disbelief. She closes her hand hard and holds it with her other as she begins to cry and shake. Almost resenting her grandmother as she turns and runs away.
“My grandmother showed me something. A glimpse into the future. She foretold that one day a boy will ravage the planet in an unbridled rage until nothing is left. That I was the key to it. And when my parents found out…”
It shows her in the living room of her house looking up to her parents who are arguing about what just happened. Jazmine seems almost unfazed by this happening.
“This is all their fault! They chose this life over us! They didn’t have to go out and play the hero, we were fine the way we were! They left us behind! Abandoned us!” Her mother shouts.
“They did what they thought was right! You cannot blame them for that!”
Her father shouts back. Young Jazmine stands in the doorway peeking at them fighting.
“And now our daughter has to suffer for it?! How is that right?!”
Jazmine looks down, beginning to just shut down at the sight of her parents breaking.
“They left after that. They left each other, they left me. They gave me to a caretaker that I’ve been with ever since. At that moment, the moment everything was taken from me, my family, my life, something clicked and I felt nothing but a passion to try and get back what was taken from me. You have no idea how far I’ll go to get it back.”
“Why haven’t you told us this?” Michael asks, trying to understand.
“Because it didn’t matter. Doesn’t.”
“How does it not?”
She pauses for a moment.
“You.”
Michael looks confused.
“She showed me you. That boy who destroys the world is you.”
Michael gets a stunned look on his face.
“10 months from now, catastrophe will fall and you will be the center of it all.”
Michael, still stunned, is processing this information.
“That’s why you showed me…”
“I didn’t realize it when we became friends those years ago. I don’t want you thinking our friendship is based around that. I truly do care about you, all of you. That is why I am doing this.”
Michael looks up like he wants to say something but can’t. Jazmine sighs.
“I tried to talk to you over and over. Did you not realize how often I tried to convince you to stop? Yet every time you convinced yourself that being a hero was the right way to go. So I decided to take more drastic measures.”
She stands up and spreads her arms motioning to where they are now.
“This world, these worlds, are all fabricated by me. They’re almost… dream like. Every time the message wouldn’t get through I halted them. Changed the world. You made them into something worse.”
Michael looks away.
“Look, we can live a normal life. The four of us together forever. Happy. Without these powers causing us so much trouble.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But I do. I’ve seen it. I seem to be the only one in this world who understands the dangers of these powers, the nonnecessity. Good, bad, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. All powers should just disappear.” She slams her hands on the table. “I have seen what happens to those with powers. I have seen what happens to those without them. Each and every single path leads to the same dead end.”
Michael pauses for a moment, coming up with something to say.
“What about the others? Did you think how this would affect them?”
“Oh, they’re fine. You saw it today didn’t you? They don’t remember a thing. And even if they did, it doesn’t matter. They’ll just think it was some bad dream.”
Jazmine says confidently. Conflicted by the things he’s hearing, coming from the friend he cares deeply about, he lowers his head.
“What do you want me to do?..”
He hangs his head, being stuck in a corner of logic.
“I want you to change. I want you to stop trying to be a hero and just be a normal teenager. Convince the others to do the same. We can all be so happy together if we just… Didn’t.”
She shrugs her shoulders and drops her arms to her sides. Michael looks down for a moment.
“I’m sorry…”
“For what?” She asks, genuinely confused.
“For making you feel like you needed to do all this. For making you feel like I was ignoring you.”
Jazmine makes her way closer to him and crouches down beside him, laying on her crossed arms on the table.
“Michael, I didn’t feel neglected. I just need you to see.” She says softly to her friend.
“I do…”
Michael says in a whisper. Jazmine smiles a bit.
“But I just can’t.”
Jazmine’s smile goes away. She stands and turns away from Michael.
“I can’t just watch this world burn. I can’t sit by and let innocent people die knowing I can do something about it.”
Michael says with a feeling of determination in his chest while desperately trying to reach his friend.
“You know you won’t always be able to save them. You know that, you’ve seen it.” Jazmine says quietly from over her shoulder.
“I know what happened to you was wrong. You shouldn’t have been put in that position, but we are different. We are better. If you just let us we can help-”
“No! No you can’t!”
There is an explosion of energy pouring out of Jazmine in a similar fashion to what Michael did earlier to escape the dreams but hers is pink instead of Michael’s turquoise.
“There are some things even the mighty YOU can’t fix! The only way I can fix MY world is by getting you to see that we’ll never be okay as long as we have these powers!”
As she activates her energy, the table, chairs and Michael get blown back. He slams into the wall behind him hard. After catching his breath, he stands up feeling the immense force come down on him from her. He focuses up and he begins to glow his color, releasing a bit of energy like before.
“Please Jazmine, don’t do this”
“You aren’t giving me much choice! Now that I’ve brought you here, I have to redo the whole thing! But this time we’re not leaving here until you see how wrong you are!”
Michael activates his energy fully now.
“I’m sorry.”
He whispers. They begin to step towards each other.
“I shouldn’t have ever made you feel that this is needed. I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve known.”
“I’ve seen it all. 10 months from now you will break and bring about a catastrophe that will destroy everything we have.”
“I will change that. I won’t let that come to pass.”
“These powers are the root of it all! The reason my grandparents died, the reason my family left me, the reason you’ll die! We can make it all go away! You just need to see it my way!”
She shouts this while beginning to cry. They take one last step before Jazmine lunges at Michael with intent to overpower his soul and put him back under. Michael lunges as well, trying to catch her and help change her mind. As they collide, the energy surrounding them merges and turns completely white until it’s all either of them can see.
Michael hears the words-
‘I never wanted any of this to happen.’
Before he opens his eyes once again to wake up in a grassy field. He sits up and grabs his head in pain due to the extensive use of his energy in such a short time. As he does this, he notices Jazmine sitting up doing the same. He turns his head sharply and looks at her almost unsure what to say.
Trying to seem unaffected by what just happened so she doesn’t feel so bad but also trying to process everything he just learned. She looks back at him the same for a moment before tears begin to well up in her eyes. She begins crying as she gets up and runs away. He stands quickly chasing after her.
“Wait! Jazmine, wait!”
He runs behind her and as he does he thinks to himself.
‘Please. Please don’t go. Everything will be okay. Just please stop and turn around. Don’t run away.’
As he thinks these thoughts he sees her through thickening tunnel vision as she gets farther and farther away. As he tries desperately to catch her and stop her from running away he begins remembering many times in their lives when they were happy together. From when they first met when they were 6 to birthday parties and simply being happy kids.
The harder he tries, the further away she becomes until his vision is too blurry to be able to see anything. He didn’t realize but blood began coming from his nose. He expelled too much energy and is now feeling the repercussions of it. He collapses right onto his stomach about ready to pass out. He reaches out for her.
“Don’t go… Jaz...mine… Please.”
Right before he passes out, he sees her look back at him for just a moment. Then everything goes black. When he begins to wake up again he’s being carried by someone back home. He looks up.
“Dad..?”
“It’s okay Michael. Let’s get you home to rest.”
His dad, Marcus, smiles warmly at him. Michael starts crying and grabs onto his shirt. Marcus looks surprised as Michael puts his head into his dad’s chest.
“I lost… I lost Jazmine… She left...”
Marcus looks sympathetic.
“It’s okay. We’ll talk about it later, let’s just get you home.” Michael cries as they walk away.
Later that night Michael is in the bathroom taking a bath, still thinking about everything that happened. Then his phone buzzes on the counter next to the tub. He reaches over and grabs it. He got a text from Kevin.
“My parents told me what happened. I’m sorry you had to watch her go”
Michael puts his phone down and sighs a bit. He then sinks into the warm water a bit until it is just below his nose.
‘Why?.. Why did you have to leave?..”
On the next day of school, Jade stands at the entrance where they always meet before going in together. She looks like she has been crying. Michael and Kevin approach her. They all just kinda stand together not doing or saying anything, unsure of how to react to the situation. Suddenly, Jade hugs Michael and starts crying. He hugs her back and Kevin hugs them both.
“I know she’s not dead or anything but… Why did she have to go..?”
Kevin nods crying as well.
Later that day, the three of them are called to the Principal’s office and stand before Principal Paulie. The same Paulie from their dreams.
“I got calls from all your parents and they’ve told me how you would be feeling about the situation. It seems you are taking the moving of your friend quite harshly.”
They stand there holding their heads low.
“I understand you three were extremely close with Ms. Vex. So I am going to offer you this: one day off to compose yourselves as well as group counseling if you desire. It may seem like the end of the world to you kids, but it will get better. I promise.”
They nod. As they leave Jade bows and Kevin waves goodbye. Michael is already in the hallway on his way out. As they are walking down the hall they begin to talk.
“Mr. Paulie is really nice.” Kevin says.
“Yeah. We should get him a gift for this.” Jade offers.
“That’s a great idea! What say you, Michael?”
Kevin asks. Michael stops. The others stop as well, confused why he suddenly stopped after not saying anything and walking ahead of them so briskly.
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that. But let’s settle this right here and now.” He turns and smiles at them. “We’ll show her. We’ll prove to Jazmine that superpowers can be useful and a blessing to this world! We’ll show her that superheroes can really be great!”
They look confused for a moment but then smile determined as well.
“That sounds like a real plan to me!” Kevin shouts.
“We’ll earn her trust again and get her back!”
Jade says confidently. Michael nods as he turns around and looks up.
'Just you wait Jazmine. We’ll show you that we will be great superheroes and will save lots of people! We’ll be your hero, I promise!’ “Let’s do our best! For everyone! For her!” He shouts.
“Yeah!”
Kevin and Jade shout back. They raise their fists to the sky. The three of their fists in front of a slightly cloudy sky on a bright warm day. Fists filled with determination. Michael looks up to the sky with eyes filled with passion.
‘Wait for us, Jazmine!’
Artum Infernum will return.