Thanks to: Peacexfreedom, Phantomgirl96, its Danni, Ylva and Lilly for the reviews :-) Enjoy!
Asleep Chapter 3
An orientation map scrunched in his fist, Rex approached the door marked No Entry. According to the map, this was the entrance to the Janitor's domain, where no kids were allowed unless they had express permission.
He took off his jacket and lay it down on the floor by the opposite corner so it was just within sight of the door, then he approached this door, wondering what lay beyond it. He knocked hard and ducked back behind the corner, hearing the clump of boots against stone stairs.
The door swung open and a middle-aged, heavyset man with a scowl looked out and around. His eyes narrowed, and then he sniffed as loud as a dog.
What, does he think he can sniff me out? Rex wondered, amused just as the man turned his head towards the corner where Rex was hiding.
Fee fi, fo fum, I smell the blood of an EVO…um…
Hmm, gotta work on that. Fee fi, fo fum, I smell the blood of a crazy one… a bit better, Rex sure felt a bit crazy ever since waking up.
Then the guy looked all around and his eyes fixed down on Rex's bright jacket lying on the floor. He pounced on it.
You gonna grab it in your mouth and shake it like a dog? Rex wondered, hoping not. He liked that jacket. Still, as the janitor went around the corner to check, Rex slipped through the door, down into the basement and pulled shut the door behind him.
A bare bulb lit the room. A wire cage in one corner surrounded boxes of dusty sports equipment, which he went towards, tempted by the number of basketballs in it. It'd take him at least two weeks to go through that many basketballs, it was amazing how easy it was to destroy a basketball with smackhands…
Well, that won't matter if you can't do the smackhands any more…He still unlocked the sports cage and reached in, accidentally dislodging one of the other balls to reveal a rusty, bent javelin.
"Oh yeah..." his eyes widening, he couldn't resist taking it, hefting it in his hands. He went a bit misty-eyed, imagining a build that involved a javelin or two…he'd be able to pin Van Kleiss like a butterfly to whatever wall he liked…
"Okay, just electrocute yourself then you can go beat up Van Kleiss with a javelin," he told himself and swept his eyes over the rest of the room. A workbench took up the other side of the room.
Then there was the wall at the far end with the pretty striped yellow and black stickers and the cute yellow and black depictions of someone being electrocuted.
He advanced towards it, smiling but nervous and laid the javelin on the ground.
Nervous as in, I so hope I am right.
Well, if you're wrong, you're either already in a straitjacket somewhere, dreaming that you can fly or else you're gonna have to start studying for pop quizzes…
He touched the box's handle. It was solid, cold, grey. He crooked the handle and the latch freed. He pulled the door open to reveal a satisfying number of fuses.
He laid his hand against the metal: it was warm, it beat with power. It made him feel like a kid who's just been handed a puppy and told to look after it. The power was his, and expectantly he reached for it, summoning the nanites. For the briefest moment it felt close but then it was like a gap opened up between him and the circuits in front of him. He stared at his hand then tried again. There wasn't even a feeling of closeness this time; it was just his hand on metal that was warm from the electricity it could control.
"This stinks!" he yelled, his temper flaring, and drew his fist back to punch it.
A hand bigger than his own caught his fist and dragged his arm back, then threw him across the floor. Rex skidded with a yelp then rolled to his feet and knelt on one knee, glaring at who'd done that.
It was the janitor, he stood glaring back at Rex. "Are you crazy?" he roared. "That's electricity! You want to fry?"
"Uh, no." Uh, yeah.
"Get out of here!" the janitor roared at Rex.
It was now or never.
"Just one thing," Rex said, then snatched up the javelin and thrust it into the fuse box. The janitor lunged at the other end of the javelin.
"YAH!" Rex screamed.
"Ee!" the janitor screamed as the electricity passed through the javelin's metal and thus through him.
Oh my god, why the heck did I do this? Rex's inner voice screamed, feeling nothing but the electricity rocketing through him. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt! More than that, it was killing him!
Then something surged inside him, surged against the electricity and pushed it back long enough for him to release the javelin. He hit the ground hard. For a second he wasn't breathing, he just stared at the ceiling, every grainy stone inch of it.
Uttering a slow, pained groan, Rex rolled onto his side and rolled his eyes to look at the janitor.
The janitor lay just a bit unconscious, well, he hoped it was just unconsciousness. He might be dead though. Guilt moved through Rex as he forced himself to get up. His body ached fiercely, like every iota of energy had been sucked out of him. When he raised his hand up in front of his face and tried to touch his own forehead, he nearly poked himself in the eye, his hand was shaking so bad.
If I was human though, I'd be dead, Rex thought, knowing it. He knew it'd not even be worth trying to summon smackhands or punkbusters…by the way he was feeling, heck, his biometrics would be practically nonexistent. Sucking in a shaky breath, Rex pushed himself up to his feet, grabbing the workbench for support and staggered towards the phone fixed to the wall.
The janitor lay still on the floor. Unconscious hopefully, not dead, Rex thought, grabbing the nearest rag. He looked at the oil stains on it, wrinkled his nose but dialled 9-1-1 and put the rag over his mouth, not close enough to touch his skin. "Need an ambulance at the high school…uh, janitor's basement," he said hurriedly, his voice satisfactorily muffled by the rag, then ended the call, put the janitor in recovery position and ran.
Hmm, next class is History, he mused. He didn't feel in the mood for it though. Snatching up his discarded jacket from the corridor floor, he put it on as he walked and stuck his hands into his pockets then left the high school, heading into the maze of streets that surrounded it.
Even with the sun high in the noon sky, the streets were quiet. I guess everyone's at work. The roads were cracked at intervals. The shops were plain and all had metal shutters hanging half-down them. He'd not been sure exactly where he was heading until he reached it: the basketball court. He interlaced his fingers with the chain link, glad for its cool touch on his tingling fingers, then sank to the concrete.
Electrocution didn't wake me up from this nightmare, he thought soberly. Jumping off a building seemed a bit more dangerous a way to wake up now.
What if what I thought was normal, was a dream? He wondered, drawing his knees up to his chest. He pictured his bedroom, the house he was living in. would it be so bad to have all this? Holiday as my mom, Six as my dad?
God help him, he wanted it too. He wanted them as parents. His parents.
He rested his cheek against the cool metal of the chain link fence. What about curing EVOs though? In this world, he was in danger of turning into an EVO at any time just like everyone else, his friends, who'd stand up to the EVOs…?
I don't care, a voice whispered inside him. Just give me this normal life…please, just a taste of it…
His brown eyes sharpened. He slowly got up, looked at the city around him. His mouth tightened into a firm line, then he set off with purpose, he walked home, passing the white picket fences with barely a wince at their normalcy.