"You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that, Artemis," I said.
"Okay then. How about your age" Artemis replied.
Starting off simple, I see.
"Easy. I'm fourteen"
"Where do you live"
"Kind of personal," I said "but I live here in Gotham. Not in centrum though"
"Where do you go to school," Kaldur asked.
"I'm taking online classes" I lied.
This continued on for some time. The team was constantly asking questions, and I could tell Wally was a bit embarrassed by them. I barely even got to ask them anything, and I didn't get to talk to Wally as much as I would've liked.
Soon dinnertime was approaching, and I was getting hungry.
"Hey, guys, this has been fun, but I've got to go now" I announced.
Wally pouted.
"Do you have to?" he whined.
"Yes, Wally. I have to go" I laughed.
"Well, I can't really stop you. But we have to meet up again, right?" Wally said.
"Yeah. Of course. And we can still text, or video chat, or something" I assured him.
Then I was crushed in a hug.
"Bye," Wally mumbled.
I awkwardly patted his back.
"Yeah, bye. See you sometime"
Then I left.
~~~
It was about eight a clock when I got home. Mom and dad were cuddling on the couch, watching a movie.
"I'm home" I called.
"Great timing, sweety! I was just about to order pizza. What do you want?" mom asked.
"Just whatever has pineapple and tuna on it" I replied. (pineapple on pizza is life Fight Me)
I took a quick shower before joining my parents on the couch. The pizza hadn't arrived yet.
"What're you watching?" I asked.
"Mary Poppins. The one with Lin-Manuel Miranda" mom replied.
Sweet! Anything with Lin in it is awesome.
A few minutes later the pizza arrived. Mom went to open the door and soon came back with three pizzas.
Our movie night accidentally turned into a movie marathon. Once Mary Poppins ended I really wanted to see 'Into the Spider-verse', which was fantastic by the way. And after that mom insisted we watched 'IT'.
So, yeah. We ended the night with a horror movie.
I went to bed after the movie had ended, as a could barely keep my eyes open. I was asleep the moment my head touched my pillow.
~~~
My footsteps echoed in the dark hallway. Small yellowish lights were evenly placed on the ceiling. The hallway seemed to go on forever, both ends just slowly fading into pitch black.
I couldn't hear a single noise aside from my footsteps.
I kept on walking, but nothing seemed to change. The hallway still looked like a fucking black hole.
For some reason. I felt the urge to reach out and touch one of the lights. It burned.
Suddenly I was falling. The hallway was nowhere to be seen. I was just falling through nothing.
I heard a quiet buzzing in the back of my head. The buzzing got louder and louder. It got so loud that I felt like my head was about to explode.
I screamed.
Then I hit the ground.
The air left my lungs at the impact. I tried to get back the much-needed oxygen but ended up in a coughing fit.
In a slight panic, I tried to sit up, but found, to my horror, that I was unable to move. I couldn't even turn my head.
I just laid there, nearly hyperventilating.
Suddenly three shadows were towering over me. I couldn't see who they were.
"It was your fault" they spoke.
What the hell?
What the fuck were they talking about?
"We would still be alive if you weren't such a fuckup"
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
"Te urâm"
I shot up from my bed in cold sweat. What the hell was that dream? I'd had nightmares before but not like this. Who the hell were those people? They couldn't have been any of my usual kills, because you don't have nightmares about things you don't feel bad about. So it must've been someone I cared about.
And then there was the Romanian thing. I hadn't met anyone who spoke Romanian since...FUCK!
I was having dreams about my biological family again, weren't I? I thought they stopped two years ago, but apparently not.
I really hoped the nightmares wouldn't become frequent again, because now I didn't have the same solution as last time.
I'd suffered from nightmares about the fall almost every night when mom and dad first took me in. When I finally told them about it they hurried to finish my training. When they thought I was ready dad asked me if I wanted to track down the one who killed them.
I didn't hesitate.
It didn't even take a month before I had Tony Zucco kneeling on the floor in his own apartment. I remembered it clearly. I mean, who wouldn't remember their first kill?
Zucco was already half dead after I'd beaten the shit out of him. I still had my mask on, so he didn't even know who I was. My gun was pointed at his forehead. A clean shot.
"Why? Who are you?" he wimpered.
I stayed silent.
I just reached for my mask and took it off, staring right into Zucco's eyes.
Zucco gasped in surprise. He then begged for mercy, telling me he knew I was too good to kill someone.
I cut him off mid-sentence.
"Have a nice trip down"
A gunshot echoed through the apartment and a look of pure shock was forever etched into Zucco's face as his body fell back and hit the floor, a nice little stream of blood already flowing from his forehead.
After that, I searched his entire apartment for anything if value and stole it all.
But of course, that solution wouldn't work now, seeing as Zucco was already dead and I, sadly, couldn't kill him again.
I'd have to talk to dad about it. But that was for later. I looked over at the clock. 6:13 am. Huh. Might as well get up now and get something to eat. Maybe any of my internet "friends" were awake.