Jakob was glad to get up extra early that morning and scarf down a bowl of Rice Krispies so he could hop in his car - well, the car his parents let him drive - and head to the high school before Mom and Dad woke. They had promised him there would be a long talk after the incident at dinner last night, but luckily they had apparently forgotten that he'd need to be on the four-hour bus ride with his grad class to the science centre in another town.
Mom had been hysterical, probably terrified, she'd shrieked and sobbed. But it was Dad's stone silence, downcast eyes and impenetrable expression that discomforted Jakob most.
Jakob really wished right now that he had cleared the internet browser history.
Being confronted about the x-rated contents was bad.
Those contents being explicitly homosexual in nature was worse.
The burning in Jakob's eyes and the floating metal silverware that hung in the air and then zinged off in all directions nearly putting out everyone's eyes and lodging in the walls and kitchen cupboard doors? That was a game-changer.
As Jakob sat on the rocking, bouncing schoolbus, he wished the field trip would never end. Maybe he'd just stay in Rosebud and get an apartment and never go home.
He could see how it would go. He would stay out with a friend as long as he could but eventually he'd have to go home, and when he did his mother would be sitting in the living room in a chair she hadn't moved from in hours, but then she'd start talking about other things in that small voice she used when she was trying to get Jakob to initiate the topic she wanted to talk about. She'd ask him how the ride through the countryside was, if the science centre was nice, she might say she'd gone with her grad class to Rosebud when she was seventeen too. But they'd run out of reason to beat around the bush and Jakob would walk away and shut himself in his room, and he'd imagine that she was still sitting there but that she would start to cry when he left. Then his father would come home and Jakob would be called to dinner and they'd sit there in an awkward silence that forced Jakob to feel a shame he knew he didn't deserve and then Mom would meekly say they all needed to talk and Dad would shout and then he and Jakob would yell at each other and Mom would blubber and it would be out of control but then maybe he could just fucking kill them with some flying cutlery...
"Well?" Emmy's big blue eyes stared at Jakob, and he blinked.
"Hm? Oh, uhh…is it bigger than a breadbox?"
"Nope," replied his best friend.
"Can you eat it?"
"Yeah."
"Was it ever alive?"
"Not exactly."
Jakob sighed and gave his brunette head a quick shake to clear it of his runaway ruminations. "Is it bread?"
"Yep," Emmy smiled at him as the bus went over a large bump and her blonde curls flopped about. "It was kind of alive once because it was like wheat and yeast and whatever. Ok, you go."
Jakob actually felt ever so slightly better having guessed correctly. He knew it was stupid, but he liked to win at anything, however trivial. He thought for a minute, looking around for inspiration. There was a girl with a bright headband. No, too obvious. There was Craig, the popular jock who still had braces. He was flashing them over the back of his seat to some girl, flirting. Yeah, braces. Emmy wouldn't guess that. He looked at her. But there was something else - something she wouldn't have guessed that he was dying to tell someone.
"Hey, Em?"
She looked at him expectantly, sucking her cheeks in and doing a weird fish face to make him laugh, and he did smile in spite of himself.
"I, uh. I'm -"
Suddenly there was a loud, metallic screech and the bus heaved violently. Students gasped and shrieked and the bus started spinning - not just spinning out of control but revolving, hurtling forward at an increasing rate. Now people began to scream - Emmy and Jakob were thrown against their seats, then Jakob's face smashed against the seat in front, which was soft but his nose erupted in pain and he could feel it beginning to pour with blood as his vision blurred with stars and tears. Then everything lurched and the world turned upside-down - he caught a flash of Emmy being thrown from the seat, and then there was black.
He wasn't out long, he knew, because when Jakob blinked to his senses his blood-smeared face was warm and his shirt stained freshly red. His head pounded, his vision was hazy and he couldn't hear more than a ringing. The floor beneath him was cool metal - he crawled along it. No, the floor…the floor was the ceiling. The bus was upside-down. Unconscious or moaning students were strewn about the interior in varying states of catastrophe. He'd been thrown near the driver's seat - the driver was gone - out of the windshield he saw nothing but empty air. Where was the ground?
And then they were falling. The pit of Jakob's stomach dropped out and the air whistled as he could feel the bus plummet, and there was the ground, and it was coming.
Someone screamed aloud, and the tearing from Jakob's gut through his throat told him it was himself. His headache grew deafening and his eyes grew hot and they were all going to die and something took over Jakob, welling up behind his eyes and coursing through his arms from somewhere deep in his chest. He didn't know what he was doing, was extending his arms and spreading his fingers and burning inside and screaming while the bus plunged them all to their violent deaths.
And then the bus touched the ground. Touched. Didn't crash into, didn't explode, didn't kill the seventy-odd teenagers on board. It touched down, and was quiet.
Jakob threw up.
There was a loud creak, and the bus door was wrenched from its hinges. Standing framed in the crude hole was a bulky, hairy, blue beast.
Jakob screamed again and scuttled back on his haunches.
"Ah, yes. I do apologize, my appearance can be startling, but please, be calm. We're here to help." The thing started to climb into the bus.
Jakob yelped and scurried down the corridor, climbed over unconscious classmates, found a broken window and squeezed out of it as the beast made a swipe for his ankle and missed.
Jakob tumbled out onto the dirt, clamored to his feet and broke out running. He sprinted like it was one of his track meets and didn't look back - that is, until a white-haired woman flew over his head. He gaped and craned his neck around only to see that he was being pursued by a man…a man with claws. A man with metal claws. Who was gaining on him.
"Oh JESUS WHAT THE FUCK!" Jakob cried, whirling around to face the charging man, who was only a few metres away. Jakob threw out his hand and felt the weird energy flow out of his fingertips; his pursuer froze, rose a few inches off the ground, claw-handed arms stretched out to his sides.
The man barked. "Kid! Don't do anything…jus' don't do anything!"
"Who are you?" Jakob begged, tears running freely down his cheeks now.
"Name's Logan, pleasure's all mine!" the clawed man shouted back. His voice was gruff and throaty. "Lissen, me an' my friends just saved all your butts from a whole heap o' trouble! Lemme down."
"Oh, God, who are you?" Jakob repeated, sobbing. "I did it. I did it! It was me."
The white-haired flying woman zipped back over from out of the sky, hovering between Jakob and the man he held suspended. "Jakob," she spoke softly, but with authority. "I know you are frightened. Please let us help you and your friends. Once we take you from here, we will explain everything. But we must go, this place is not safe."
"How do you know my name?"
"Let this man go," she pressed carefully. "There are more of us, and they are tending to the others on the bus. Let Logan help you away from here -" she slowly lowered to the ground, and took a step forward, opening her arms with her palms up, "and you have my word that all will be made clear."
Jakob bit his lip until it hurt. The clawed man grunted and wriggled. Jakob was terrified, but something in this woman's voice was honest, and soothed him."I...what about my friends...what about Emmy?"
"I assure you, we are seeing to it."
"I want to see for myself!" Jakob's emotional roller coaster seemed to be affecting his control over the man called Logan, who yelped.
"Watch it! This ain't exactly comfy. Make ya a deal. You put me down, and I'll personally get somebody to find...uh, an emmy for you."
Jakob shook his head and moved his mouth, but nothing came out. He slowly willed his hold on Logan to ebb.
As soon as he was on solid ground, the man started marching toward Jakob.
The woman looked over her shoulder and snapped, "Logan. Claws."
"Oops," Logan grunted, and the spikes on each hand retracted, and were gone with a snikt.
The woman rose up into the air again, and flew toward the overturned bus, where Jakob could see some of his classmates staggering out, helped by all manner of unusual figures.
Jakob, now silent and staring in dazed shock, felt the man's strong hand clap him on the shoulder.
"This way, kiddo. You like bikes?"
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So that's chapter 1, a quick intro to Jakob Novak - seems like he could have used more development here. I hope to bring him closer to readers in the following chapters, or maybe I'll have to go write some more for this bit. But in the meantime, please review!