The awakener (bxb)✔

TA 1

Chapter 1

The heavens had erupted; rain was falling effortlessly at an angle because of the wind. It did not look all bad, no; there was no thunder or lightning. I could hear the raindrops falling on the corrugated iron. Aqua Town was getting soaked every second. The small town was relatively known to the world, situated at the uppermost part of a state famous for strange stories and sightings.

It was sparsely populated. Everyone seemed to leave when they could afford to. The ones that stayed were the brave ones or as my best friend said, "the ones that didn't believe in superstitious bullshit".

People would say the town had this eerie thing about it, you know; like someone was watching from somewhere, patiently waiting for something. The stories circulated before I was born. I never really entertained the stories and as I grew older, they seemed to die down. They died down, they never went away though.

When I turned 18, the world didn't change. I did. Maybe I had always been that way or it sprung out of nowhere. All I know is, it felt as though things had snuck into place, like the moon and the stars had aligned. The moment had arrived.

*

I looked at my semi-soaked clothes and then at the rain outside. I had narrowly escaped from being totally soaked. I took off the items one by one, replacing them with dry ones. Leaving the clothes on the floor, I lay on my shabby bed and looked at the window while rain landed on it and trickled down. I could see the house next to ours, with its discolored paint and shabby window frames. It looked better than ours, considering I could see the cracks that had formed years ago on the wall that held the window-frame. Mom had said she would get someone to fix it, but there were electricity bills to be paid, groceries to be bought. I bet she even forgot and I had stopped pestering her about it, it was not like the wall would fall...I hoped not.

"Riley! Riley! This child will be the end of me!" my mom shouted, her voice thunderous.

I tossed just in time. The door opened and she stared at me. Her face was red, indicating her anger. Her breath came in rasps. If she burst and her insides littered the place, I wouldn't be surprised. I merely stared at her back. That look did not scare me at all. I had seen it before a couple of times. Points for guessing I wasn't one to do as told.

"Riley, why don't you answer me when I call your name?" she asked, picking up my jeans from the floor and throwing them right at me.

Remember when I said I changed? Now, don't be alarmed. I could do things that no normal 18 year old could do. I could do things I dare not mention to people.

When my mom threw my jeans at me, I mentally made a shield around me so that the jeans just bounced off it and fell to the floor. Mom groaned. The lines on her face were clearly showing. She looked around 90 years old, but she was only 74.

A mom just groaning when her son creates a wall out of nothing? That doesn't sound right. Something is off, right? There are three options here. One, my mother knew about my "powers" even before I got them. Two, she's just one of those accepting and loving people. Three, she's crazy and nothing freaks her out.

There was option four hidden in plain sight. Let's pretend it didn't exist for the time being. To me, it didn't exist.

To be fair to my mother and he reaction, it wasn't the first time I had shown her what I could materialize out of thin air. Let's rewind back to two months ago.

"Mom, I have something to show you".

"It better be an A", she said turning her back towards the pile of dishes I had made trying to bake myself a birthday cake.