WIZARDS VS ALIENS:
STEPS OFF THE STOOP
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
Disclaimer: Wizards vs Aliens is trademarked by BBC.
Dear Benny
I told myself it wouldn't happen. I wouldn't allow it to happen.
My dad told me I could never be that.
My grandfather said I could never be that.
It wasn't in our nature to consider ourselves that
But it was happening. It had happened once, it had happened again
It's like a trip to a fresh faced dentist you had never met before, looking to have a cavity taken care of, a filling put in, or a wisdom tooth taken out, also for the first time, and you were by no means prepared the first time for the latter to take place, so you chicken out and schedule the more routine operations around the tooth , hoping and praying for the day you gather strength for the inevitable moment the strange and the new.
You've been told everything could go wrong. They do this so you don't sue them afterwards for neglect or incompetence. They tell you that you may experience dizziness from the anesthetic they give you, they tell you what is left behind may require stitching. They put the fear of God into you
And then, normally, once it's done, you feel like God afterwards.
That's the ordinary price of admission.
This is an altogether different story.
It's my story.
The story of Wizards against Aliens.
It hasn't been an easy year. But then, neither was the last.
I lost people then. I lost people this year.
Lexi, and Benny Jr, both still out there, given life by my hand
The first instance of me working miracles with the power I was welding. That terrified me the most.
The first few precious steps off the stoop.
I thought back to a cartoon I used to watch, a story of a boy terrified to leave the steps of his apartment. He was foreboding, intimidating, from afar, he carved an aura of invincibility around his presence, until you teased him about taking a few steps off the stoop.
When he couldn't answer your challenge, he was mocked and insulted. His presence diminished, his aura was shattered, and he was left feeling so much less a man
That's what the overbearing power of the salute was to me. The steps off of the stoop.
The real world scared the kid on the stoop in the cartoon, taking the salute marked the first real instance of the unreal world, the world I had long been acquainted with, scaring me.
I'm going off topic here…but I can't quite shake something as sudden as this, you understand don't you? Of course you do.
You're another loss I've suffered this year. I thought I knew how the unreal world worked before I gained such overbearing power…and then I realized how unfair the real world was when you took that opportunity to travel to America. I didn't know what to feel at the time Benny, I just knew how angry I was. Not at you, but at fate, and time, and…and…and he who I feel I shouldn't fill the shoes of. Who all Wizards are told we can't fill the shoes of.
I thought Katie would be the answer, she showed such strength, but it was fleeting, and I was forced to spare her the hurt.
Then I lost granddad so suddenly after I got in touch with him.
Then I gained a new friend, a girl with a bit of a lip and one who thinks more on her feet than with her head. Has a knack for gabbing a bit much, I had to muzzle her with a spell. Didn't mind. Felt perfectly natural to expose my powers to another. Kept thinking to myself 'gotta fill that void' somehow.
That's how dangerous it's becoming Benny. I'm playing with people's lives, actively recruiting them into a war that only the grace of luck prevents anyone drafted from freaking out too much about it. Katie held her own, but it was fleeting. Now the new girl, she has spark, but how long can she handle me and the new sensations coursing through me?
Because I've taken those precious few steps off the stoop Benny.
I am a warrior Wizard now.
I have so much in me, and it no longer terrified by it. I embrace it.
I have knowledge, I have power
And if knowledge is power…then…a..God…
…No, I can't think of myself like that. Such thoughts are reserved only for those who interpret me as one thing or another.
I will be judged by those who see me as more than what they see in my output.
I only hope you keep an open mind over the coming months and years , for as long as we're apart Benny.
I never judged you for your lifestyle.
I hope you can permit me the same courtesy.
Your friend
TOM CLARKE
-Warrior.