LS: The Beginning (41 page)

“All right, take care,” she said, stylishly hopping back to the living room.

As I stepped outside, I paused to take a deep breath. Indeed the air was fresh. It swirled over my skin, releasing chills down my spine. The sun had little effect on the weather, though it wasn’t so cold.

I strolled towards my new car and examined its exterior before I opened the door. Like a new baby, it was spotless and untouched. I loved as the vibrant blue color of the car and twenty-two inch rims on the tire gleamed in the sunlight. The interior was colored with the colors blue and white to fit my taste. The leather seats were so comfy. The navigator screen, dashboard and every part of the car looked elegant and sophisticated. I loved it.

Arriving at Lisa's house, the black gate of the massive estate was locked. There was no need to sound the horn so she could open the door, because I wasn't sure she would and my gate pass had already been confiscated. I quickly reversed the car and parked it some meters away from the house. I returned to the gate with the envelope in my hand, as my eyes scanned the entire gate, measuring its height. I took a deep breath and jumped over the gate from where I stood, landing inside the estate. It was amazing; my hands didn't even touch the gate. I had jumped very high, considering the height of the gate, but at that moment I didn’t dwell on that because my mind was totally focused on talking to Lisa.

I waited to observe if her parents were present. There was only one beating heart in the house, but it wasn’t hers. I was sure because I would have strongly felt her presence if she was in the vicinity. As I moved towards the front door, I spotted an unfamiliar red rose tree planted beside one of the exotic fruit trees. I rushed towards it and picked a single red rose from it.

I approached the front door and gently pressed the doorbell, hoping Calvin would answer it. The door opened and he stood at the threshold, wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt. It looked as if he was about to leave the house.

“Hey Steph, how are you doing?” he asked, his hands in his jeans pocket.

“I’m alive,” I answered. He thought my answer was hilarious, but was scared of laughing.

“Please, come in,” he said.

The house looked exactly the same as I'd first seen it, although it had a different scent. He took me to the living room, which seemed strange. I was now considered a visitor again.

“Is Lisa around?” I asked.

“No, she went over to Sharon's,” he said, removing his baseball cap. His heartbeat increased drastically as I stood up, moving towards him.
Oh no, what’s he going to do?
Calvin thought. The mere thought of that made me chuckle. I guess because Lisa had broken up with me, I'd suddenly become a monster. People don’t change overnight. Though I was now carefree and nonchalant, I was still me.

“Please, make sure she gets this,” I said, handing him the envelope and the rose.

He gently nodded. “I will.”

It was obvious Lisa was still upset with me: her brother’s responses and thoughts confirmed that. I left the estate without saying another word to Calvin. He'd assured me he would deliver my message, so all I could do now was, wait for her response. I got home earlier than I’d anticipated. Stacey was having her lunch at the dinner table, which was totally unlike her. She preferred watching TV while she ate, either in her room or the living room.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, joining her at the dining table.

She looked up and glanced at me. Her eyes were filled with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said. I tried my best not to read her mind, even though it was tempting. Where did all these come from? I recalled leaving her in a happy mood.

“I’m not upset with you. You’ve done nothing wrong,” I stated, and then blinked my eyes to dry away her tears.

“I'd totally forgotten you could that.”

She smiled for a second and then began sobbing. She was really beating herself up for my misfortune, while indeed I was the one to be blamed. I couldn’t let her keep thinking she was at fault, because she wasn’t.

"Stop being so hard on yourself, it's not your fault," I said.

"Thanks, but I believe I’m the one who invited Julie into this house. I should have known better. Now see what she’s done.”

“Once again, it's not your fault. If there’s a person to blame, it would be me for allowing her to go that far. Cheer up. Lisa will come back to me.” I cleared and washed her empty plates in less than a minute and met her back at the dining table.

We began chatting, and I felt she would love the pictures I drew. Even though I was reluctant to show her at first, perhaps I was seeing a different side of her that day. I raced to my room and returned immediately, laying out all my drawings on the dining table.

“Nice editing,” she commented, nodding her head.

I laughed as my hands separated each paper. “I drew them personally,” I said.

Stacey's eyes popped out from their sockets. Her lips trembled in shock as she took a long, deep breath. “Wow, this is awesome. This is definitely not humanly possible,” she said, staring at the drawings.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“You’re welcome.” She glanced at me. "I never knew you could draw this good. I mean, this is breathtakingly good," she said.

"Thanks."

I left the drawings with her and returned to my room. Whenever she was through with them, she knew where to put them. I wasn't so keen on looking at them anymore, as they reminded me of Lisa and what had happened.

The pain I felt had temporarily stopped – however, sitting alone in my room seemed to reopen those wounds. It returned heavier than before. I sat still, thinking about the good times Lisa and I shared together as tears trickled down my cheeks.

It became dark; the sun had said her final goodbyes and the quarter moon had taken its place. As I stared at the sky through my glass wall, something strange and bad happened. I couldn’t feel Lisa's presence inside me. It seemed as though she had left the planet and probably gone to look for happiness somewhere else. The situation was worse than I'd imagined. It was like the GPS chip in her body had turned off, which could mean only one thing. I refused to linger on that one thing. I picked up my phone and called Ben, hoping she would be safely at home and that my body was playing tricks on me.

“Hello,” said Ben.

I cleared my throat. “Hello, sir,” I said. I couldn't address him by his first name since the closeness had disappeared.

“Who's speaking?” he asked.

“It's Stephen, sir,” I answered.

“Oh! Stephen. How may I help you?” asked Ben.

“I would like to know if Lisa is home,” I said.

“Sorry, she isn't. She's at her friend's place,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. Send my regards to the family,”

“Will do, bye.” He hung up.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t returned from her outing with Sharon and Catherine. My next option was to call Sharon and Catherine and ask if Lisa was still hanging out with them. Again, they didn’t know anything about her whereabouts. I called her cell phone, which Sharon assured me had been on earlier that day. It was switched off. I was frightened of what had happened to her, or where in the world she'd gone to.

I sat in my room, confounded. I had no clue of what was going on and at the same time, I couldn’t do anything about it, especially telling her parents she was missing. No one knew about the situation except me. Sharon was thinking Lisa had returned home, and Ben was thinking Lisa was still at Sharon's. It was only a matter of time before they found out she was missing.

All of a sudden I could sense her, but only for few seconds as her voice cried inside my head, “
Stephen, help me. He's here again.
”

The supernatural tracking device inside her body stopped once more, and she was gone. I'd heard those words before in Julie's room, and it sure wasn't a good sign. Lisa was in danger, and I couldn't contact her parents because they'd in turn call the police, who would begin a search for her. If they met the culprit, they would be unable to help her. I was her only hope.

After few minutes of pacing round my room, I was left to allow my cold heart to lead the way. I went to the field where David had fought with Lisa and I, but she wasn't there. I decided to check the only place where the three of us met each other: the college – and I found her. She lay in the middle of the college basketball court. As I moved closer I noticed her skin was pallid, which confirmed my suspicion. Although there wasn't any sign of blood dripping from her body, Lisa was dead. Her heart had stopped beating.

Before I could reach her to examine her body, her killer walked in. I could feel the anger ranging inside, as I tried to gain control of it my eyes turned crystal blue and my hands. I began hurling icy daggers at him, but like before he stopped them before they could harm him. The icy knives looked him in the face, and fell on the floor.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” David said in a gruff voice.

Instead of retreating, I became furious. I threw tens of daggers at him at once. Again, they stopped right in front of him and reversed direction to face me.

“Let's see if you can take what you dish out,” he said, and then the floating daggers attacked me.

As I tried to melt all the daggers, a huge bench soared in the air and hit me, knocking me off my feet. Slowly standing up, I noticed the blood dripping from a cut on my face. I felt a certain, hot, stingy feeling in my head. My forehead ached tremendously, and I could feel my temperature increasing.

David turned his back to walk away, but I ran toward him in an attempt to punch him. Again, he sent the same chair to bash me out of the way; by now I had several weeping cuts on my body. Icy daggers wouldn’t get close enough to affect him, and I couldn’t get close enough to attack him.
What a waste of supernatural powers!
I thought.

Just then, I remembered a lecture I'd received on water and its states. It would be pretty hard for him to divert water instead of ice. I staggered toward him, stretching my hands forward. It took a great deal to learn how to create water from thin air, but I believed I was up to the task. I stared at him with profound hatred, while he smiled back at me in pity.

My palms hovered over each other, slowly creating a small ball of water in between them. Then I released a stream of water from the ball I'd conjured, which soared in the air and met David as he attempted to run away. It flung him to the air and encased him inside a bigger ball of water. My hands were extremely shaky, head still throbbing with immense ache. I knew I was coming to rescue Lisa but I'd forgotten to carry my diamond ring – silly me. I guess I was more concerned about Lisa's health at that moment. My white shirt was now covered with huge blood stains – my blood – and I could feel my life slowly drifting away as I held David in the air.

Everything I'd done was first conjured mentally. This means I'd commanded the water to attack David and encase him in a circular form. Seeing this, my eyes started in amazement. How can a human being be caged in a ball of water? One would think.

This was it: the only way I could avenge Lisa’s death. I placed my palms together, and the water molecules began changing to ice, starting from the outer surface then working its way inwards towards David as its core. At that moment, I was at the verge of passing out because my abilities were slowly killing me. I repositioned my palms, fully focused on the floating icy, watery ball above me. Gradually, t
, y
he entire ball began freezing, until all that was left was an icy ball floating in midair. David was dead.

I could hardly believe my eyes as I winced, allowing the ball to lose its gravity and smash against the court floor. It made a booming sound; so much that I had to cover my bloody ears. Just then, smoke emerged from the ice flakes – or maybe it was the vapor that emerges from dry ice. I was too dizzy to be bothered. Every atom in my body ached. I'd never felt so much pain. I was both physically and mentally wounded. Also, I'd lost focus on Lisa’s icy body due to the intense fight. I turned to locate her body, but couldn't find her. She was nowhere to be found, leaving me scared but at the same time curious.

All of a sudden, I felt an extreme amount of heat coming from behind. I turned back and saw the most beautiful but dangerous lady: Lisa. She stood still. Her legs were placed together and her hands stretched downwards. I was baffled by her resurrection. It was highly impossible, because I'd seen her lay dead on the floor and the sound of her heartbeat was no more. Certainly, this was the Mount Everest of mysteries.
 

Lisa stood staring at me. Her hair had turned from jet black to blood red and her red eyes glittered brighter than ever. I moved closer to see if she was the same person I knew and if she would recognize me. As I was just a meter or so away, a ring of fire appeared around her. I cringed at the immense heat the ring was emitting.