[3] Grey

His apartment was beyond amazing. There was a view of the city in the far distance that could be seen from a balcony that wasn’t noticeable from the car park’s side of the building. I marvelled at the beauty of it all. My best friend had a sweet crib with comfy furniture and a view to die for. I smirked, but then my expression went dim. I wondered why he would give this up and move to a side street near a tattoo parlour.

He took off into the bathroom, and I jumped like a mischievous child onto the comfy bed and rolled around, messing it up completely.

Ethan walked back out not long after and sat on the couch, disregarding the fact that I’d ruined his perfectly made bed, and he stared at me pointedly, forcing himself not to laugh.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Finding something to do with my time while you not tell me what I'm doing here, or how you even have this place,” I corrected him.

“Okay, so let me explain,” he replied, glancing over at the TV.

I sat up and made myself comfortable, I wasn't planning to move from the bed anytime soon.

He picked up a remote from the couch. He put the TV on and a geography channel popped up with a show about Weathering.

“You know about Weathering, right?” He asked me. “You did it in high school, yea?”

This conversation wasn’t going in the direction I expected. “Yea...um that's the uhh... the breakdown of rock particles over time, right?”

“Right,” Ethan confirmed.

“Okay, so what does this have to do with anything?” I gasped, genuinely confused, “Are you also pursuing some career as a Geologist?”

“Faye,” Ethan whispered... his tone serious... he downright stared at me blankly for about five seconds –probably wondering whether to go for whatever he was about to say or not- and he rolled his eyes and sighed, groaning loudly. “I'm just going to get this over with. It's alright if you never talk to me again, but for the love of God, just don't freak out.”

“Fine,” I replied, shrugging, “I won’t.”

“I’m a Wielder,” he said, lowly.

Where did I hear that word before? I wondered, scrunching my face and looking out the balcony. “That word sounds oddly familiar... I heard it... somewhere...”

“At the doctor’s,” Ethan explained.

I held my breath. I turned abruptly to look up at him, slightly frightened by the confirmation of my weird dream not actually being a dream, and I gripped at the sheets on the bed. “You mean... no wait... you don't mean that that...that...”

“I know you saw the page with the poem, and I know you saw it move,” Ethan confessed.

“That wasn't a hallucination? I wasn't going crazy? I was actually there and that wasn't a dream?” I took a long string of short breaths in and out, unable to process it. “It was a magic trick, right? It had to be a magic trick?”

“Faye...” Ethan said; I didn't look at him. I stared at a spot on the floor and tried to calm down. “That poem that you first saw was proof that you're one of us.”

“Us,” I copied him hysterically, “Us who?”

“The Wielders.”

“I don't even know what the hell a Wielder is, Ethan.”

“Which is why I brought you here,” he told me.

I began to laugh nervously, “Whaaaaat?”

“Faye, for as long as I've known you, you were the type of person who was ambitious. You told me that during school you had this big plan about becoming a scientist and then it all went to waste and you ended up studying the Creative Arts instead. You said you always felt like something was missing from your life... that there was some big part of you that you didn't understand, and you didn't think you ever would. Remember when you used to be all depressed about it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ethan, I work at a tattoo parlour. I think I should still be depressed about it.”

Ethan bit his lip. “Remember when I came to you about the same thing? I told you I despised that job. I told you that it wasn't for me but I didn't know what else to do or where to go.”

“And then I gave you a big hero speech. Yes,” I breathed, irritated, “I remember.”

“You know what you don't remember about that conversation?” Ethan asked me, folding his arms in seriousness and stretching his neck to look back at me from his place on the comfy couch. He switched his focus to look through his balcony for a moment before returning his eyes to me. “This evening, when you were on your shift at the parlour, and I visited you; do you remember what the weather was like?”

I couldn’t recall it.

“There was a storm,” he explained.

I scoffed. “That's impossible. How could a storm suddenly hit-” Suddenly a flashback of a line in the poem at the doctor's returned to me. I eyed Ethan, frantic.“Nooope.”

“Say it,” Ethan said, leaning on the side of the couch. “I know you remember something now.”

The words I read flashed across my mind over and over again until I couldn't do anything but recite it...

“...who can call a hurricane with a word or two..” I breathed.

“Do you understand?” He asked me.

“Why... how... did you ‘call’ a storm?” I thought out loud, shaking my head in disbelief.

“A Seguidore was after you.”

“A who now?”

“Evil little critter with the desire to ‘pound’ you. Not kidding,” Ethan said, raising both his eyebrows, matter-of-factly.

“And you called a storm because...?”

“Because it’s my job to protect people. This specific little devil is attracted to women and he was coming after you, but in order to look good you've got to be on top of the weather. Sorry to say, the weather was fine before I came in for a visit, but I can't just make it rain, I can only induce a full blown storm. It worked... but that’s my flaw.”

“You called a storm so some Segri... Segu- whatever that thing is called- wouldn't try to hurt me?”

I tried to move about the bed but whenever I assumed a comfortable position my stomach began to turn.

“It's also the reason I paid you a visit,” he continued to explain, “So that I knew for sure if anything against my plan happened, I could protect you.”

I let out a bare laugh. “This... is insane... you're... a Wielder...”

“Here, we call ourselves The Guardians,” Ethan said, turning back to the TV screen. “We use ordinary skills, like Geography in my case, combined with magic to protect realms from the monstrosity that is the supreme evil.”

“The Supreme Evil?” I laughed, “That's a thing? Sounds like a bunch of evil nobodies who've come together to try to rule the world.”

“Nice,” Ethan smirked, “You're already getting the hang of this.”

He walked over to the bed and sat beside me, “So yea... I brought you here to keep you safe.”

I rested my head on his shoulder, “What else happened that I can't remember?”

Ethan explained how the storm had come, and just like he thought, the Seguidore showed up, but he wasn’t looking very glamorous with his hair all frizzy and rain pouring down over him. He said the poor ole’ fart looked like he was turning green from the gushing winds.

“You've seen him before, too,” Ethan told me, “Handsome young man walking into the food court opposite the parlour.”

I gasped in realisation, “You mean the one I used to drool over with Macy? You tried to stop him from...that...?”

“Would you have believed any of this if I told you?” Ethan asked.

“Touché,” I whispered.

There was a thought in the back of my mind, however, pressing to be voiced. It was a voice so loud and clear that I could hear it say, ‘I might just have believed you, Ethan. I might have.’

“You mean that whole breakdown over you going nowhere in life was all to stall a paedophile while you called a hurricane?”

He nodded slowly and I laughed, looking around his room. I grabbed two pillows from behind me, resting one of them at the other end of the bed and letting my stomach collapse unto it. I rested my head on the other. “You got any snacks in this place?”

“Plenty,” Ethan said, grinning.

“Okay. Find them, I'm hungry.”

He picked up a bowl of Candy Chews and a container of Cookies and Cream ice cream from the fridge. “There are also chips and dip if you want, but I think this is enough for now.”

I let out a short, high pitched, disbelieving shriek in offence. “Bring the chips and dip.”

“Yea you're right,” Ethan said, turning to go back to the fridge. “How could I forget? You eat like a pig.”

I didn't say anything, I just rolled my eyes. “Hurry up, idiot, I don’t want to be a victim of amnesia forever.”

By the end of our conversation, I had a fairly good understanding of the wielder world and their city in our country –at least as good of an explanation as Ethan could put it. I understood that not only were all the people in that institution and all the occupants of the other apartment spaces around us Wielders –which were also known as Guardians- but so was everyone else in the Wielder city that could be seen from the balcony of Ethan’s room. Ethan explained that the city had been hidden from the eyes of humans. It could only be seen by the Wielders because these people were one step above the humans –maybe an entire staircase.

“A shield,” he told me. “It’s a mental shield.” he observed my expression as I tried desperately to process it all. He complimented me on my ability to take all this new information so well. He said that he really didn’t expect me to be a Guardian. I took offense to this, wondering why it would be such a crazy idea for my best friend to have a nice apartment and a super power that allowed him to call storms.

He looked at me pointedly as I voiced this. “I meant all of this,” he said. “The whole... Wielder world. This type of ‘magic’ that should only exist in books and movies.”

I frowned. “I know. I know. I think maybe all of this hasn't fully hit me. Like I understand that the bullet is coming at me but I don't feel it yet.”

“That’s okay..." he admitted. “But it isn’t like that for everyone... it wasn’t like that for me.”

I sat up, finding myself engulfed by more questions the more answers I got. “How’d you find out?”

He turned towards the TV and forced a bare laugh, saying “Let's save that tale for another time.”

I studied his side profile for a few moments and noticed something I hadn't before. There was a small, claw-shaped scar embedded into the flesh beside his right eye. It was tucked neatly beneath his overlaying brunette hair so much so that it was unnoticeable unless you really looked with the motive of finding it. It wasn't too deep, but it was certainly out there, nonetheless. It was only then that I'd realised I hadn't really admired him before. Not the way I'd looked at that hot guy who turned out to be some Seguidore. Ethan, I'd always seen as a best friend.

Looking at him now, I realised why he was always somehow so reserved; why even though we had our fill of fun, I saw substance in him. I saw something special.

He turned and saw me gazing. “Awwh,” he said, “Don't tell me you're falling in love with me now.”

I scoffed and grinned, shoving him slightly, “Na. I don’t like you at all.”

Not too long after our little chat, I got up from the bed and walked towards the balcony. This weather was simply eerie. The entirety of the outside world was grey; silver clouds hung over the senile sky, and the view over wielder city was blurred by fog. I took a step outside and breathed in the fresh air.

Breeze brushed past my shoulders and neck, and I closed my eyes as I felt the mild breeze and a slight rainfall grace my presence. I wasn't a fan of storms, but if I had to choose any type of weather to behold forever, it would be grey skies, pouring rains, thunder and lightning. If I could, I would choose this over the sun. Grey was my happy place.

I closed my eyes, listening to the whistle of the wind, the crack of thunder in the distance and the feeling of eeriness that first consumed me was gone. I was at peace. I didn't understand the situation at hand, maybe not entirely, but from what I knew, there wasn’t much to be worried about –not yet. I didn't feel startled, weary, or panicky. I knew something was missing from my life. Maybe this was it.