Project X

The Next Step: Dad

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DAD

    About two weeks or so after what we had come to call 'The Incident', things changed again. Since all of us, except for Irwin, had gained our Halos, we were taking more days off training than we previously had. All we could really do now was come up with new moves and combos, working on fighting and physical strength, seeing as becoming metaphysically stronger wasn't really in the cards anymore.

    It was during one of these days off that it happened.

    Blake, Syd, and I had left to wander around the mall. We needed to get out of the bunker. Dom offered to watch the camera to let us back in, and Kai and Vi stayed to provide help and moral support to Irwin, who was still training hard every day. His hand had fully healed from his incident after about a week, and he was determined to 'make up' for the week he couldn't train.

    Those of us who were leaving piled into the van, Blake volunteering to drive since it was technically their car. In, like, the loosest of terms. We left the bunker, waving to Dom as we drove out, waiting for the willow to slide back in place before moving on, and started to make our way out to the dirt road that led to the back road, that led to the other back road, that led to the main road.

    We turned onto the dirt road, listening to music and chatting. I was sitting in the passenger's seat, and I turned around to say something to Syd. I don't even remember what it was, now. All I remember is his eyes suddenly getting wide and him shouting,

    "Watch out!" before Blake jerked the wheel suddenly, running us nose-first into the ditch that ran along one side of the dirt road. I remember feeling my head slam into the window, and only being able to think over and over how lucky it was that Syd had arbitrarily decided to sit in the middle seat, and that the same wouldn't have happened to him, too. Before the car had even fully settled, I was already shouting for him,

    "Syd! Syd, are you okay!" There was a second of silence before I heard him groan out,

    "Owwwww... Yeah, I'm fine." I craned my neck around to look back at him. We were at a crazy angle, and it was clear his seatbelt was the only thing keeping him from falling out of his seat and into the now cracked windshield.

    I turned back to the front, "What the fuck happened?" I asked them both,

    "Th-there was a guy!" Blake stammered out, hands still gripping the wheel in their shock. "He... He just walked right out in front of me." I immediately thought of Phil,

    "A guy? Like, a 'Phil' guy? Or-"

    "No. No, I don't think it was him." They told me, "Pero he... I know he knew I was there, I don't..." Just then, the guy appeared in front of the windshield, smiling creepily and waving. He held up a short, circular glass jar. It looked about as large around as his palm, and was maybe about an inch tall. And it looked about a third full of some liquid that looked like blood mixed with gold mica powder.

    Wait.

    Gold blood? Syd's blood?

    Just as I realized it, he pointed through the windshield. Past Blake. Past me. Right at Syd. He had a round face, littered with beauty marks on the right side. Wavy, dirty blonde hair, and dark brown eyes. He looked like someone had stretched Syd out to Dom's height and bleached all the gold from him. The biggest difference was the bright pink scars that ran across his throat, the front of his exposed shoulders, and the palms of his hands. As if someone had pressed a hot metal rod to those areas. I heard Syd gasp behind me.