Flame Touch

Chapter 16-Sunny

Ok, long story short. We’re in a black Ford that we “borrowed” from some guy wearing the odd outfit of a waffle sweater with a hooded vest with a black lab. It wasn’t a very nice car, but I felt like the guy had to pay for wearing something like that. We’re in New York, get with the program.

Anyway.

Melody insisted that we do some New York shopping since we were flogged by dozens of tiny shops selling who-knows-what in their not-so-concealed black market places inside the walls. I noticed that a lot of the stores weren’t named. That really annoyed me, I mean, the only reason I would want a store is to name it something cool like MosCUTEo, our clothing bites! Or something that pertained to my name, like Sunnyville. Anything but nothing. What are the customers supposed to say to their friends? “Hey I bought this really cool thing from some awesome place named…” See? They’d be lost.

Point proven.

Melody’s hair still looked like seaweed, and after she had gotten out of the water, she was had a little aura of black surrounding her. Somehow, don’t ask me how, I knew she did something bad without knowing it. I had gotten used to being able to see this, but I still think I’d freak out if I was eating Micky D’s and my burger was glowing black. Nooooo Suunnnny! Donnn’t Connssuumeee the calories! They’re baadddd for you!!!

Yup. That would… be weird…

The car we were driving in was pretty old, and the fact that I was driving it was making me a bit nervous. Especially since I didn’t have a driver’s license…and I was kind of under age, but Knox and Melody had no experience whatsoever of driving, Taris didn’t look like he could drive, and I had a feeling Semba had never even seen a car before, so naturally I got picked. Lucky me.

 The car had a separator so that the back couldn’t get to the front. Semba was riding shotgun and Taris was basically sleeping in the backseat whilst Knox and Melody were chatting it up. I tried to keep my eyes on the road (I’ve only driven in practice tests, but it was just a side road so it wasn’t that bad), but my mind wandered, “So, nice tornado back there eh?” Semba nodded, “I know it’s kind of weird that I can make a tornado if I’m from Luminosity, but that’s just me controlling hot air. Weird huh?” he seemed like he was trying not to freak out at the fact that we were going at about sixty on a pedestrian road, “Turn left! Left!” he yelled suddenly and I turned the wheel sharply and almost crashed into a kid with two fish bowls in her hands.

 Knox likes fish.

Especially sushi, “Hey, so why do you think Taris doesn’t like Melody too much?” I asked quietly, quite anticlimactic for me. He looked surprised that I made such an observation. Honestly, I’m not stupid… about these types of things. I might consider myself stupid in the face of a physics test but life is a completely different story. Oh, and he got a really black light whenever he was near Melody. Did that count as cheating?

Semba sighed (on a scale from one to ten? It was quite a sigh. Ranking almost an eight in my book). He let out a breath, “Way back, when Luminosity and Aquatic were at war, Taris had tried to stop the fighting. He went around telling people that the people of Aquatic weren’t bad because of their ideals.” I nodded. A real abolitionist approach, “What were their ideals?” Semba looked out the window for a second. His hair picked up the wind and I had no clue how he wasn’t freezing with his shirt soaked like that. Maybe he was directing warm air to his face, “Drown the world.”

“Excuse me?”

“Flood the world. A cataract from heaven. Make it go kablooey. The feeling that humans had dominion over earth for too long had settled in and they wanted to drown everyone. A very Jonah’s Arc thinking track. They had captured Taris’ colony and the people in it were forced to abide to their every will. The people who he had thought would be negotiable and gentle turned out to be cruel menaces. He was young at the time and had spent a year in captivity when he escaped to my colony which was where I met him. Dirty, hungry, and essentially alone. A year later we won the war and found Taris’ parents and they were returned to his colony. I tried to convince him that not all Aquatics were bad, but he just couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. It happened so long ago, he’s such an old timing grudge holder. Moron.” Semba finished with another sigh (not as good as the first one. I gave it a four), “Turn right here and we’ll be there.” He said again as I tried to absorb his information, “Do you mind not telling Knox or Melody. I think Taris would kill me if I told them.” Semba asked, the tone of his voice made it clear that he was doubtful that Taris could kill him at all. I nodded my head and looked up. We had stopped in front of a nameless shop (Had I mentioned how much I hate those?). Unlike most of the stores in the area, this one actually had (gasp) a door. The other places were mostly open air and had a drop down gate thing.

Semba tried to open the door and I watched him struggle for a while until I finally unlocked it. “Come on sleeping beauty, we’re here.” Semba said to a fast asleep Taris. Knox was poking his face to see if he’d react and I joined in with her, “He’s going to get acne from all this poking.” I said to her as I continued to poke his face. “Meh.” Was the reply that I got. Finally, Melody got sick of our poking and flicked Taris’ forehead and he woke with a start, “Ow fi-Melody! Try to wake me up without giving me a concussion next time ok?” he whined rubbing his forehead.

I blinked a couple times because for a few seconds I saw the white light around Melody and Taris grow.