Rain From Hell || ONC 2024

Chapter Three

{Wayne's POV}

My sister had know-it-all syndrome. I could hear her now, grumbling in my ears about how I shouldn't have been sitting, back against a wall, staring up at the ceiling at a time like that. She'd have wanted action. Likely, something or anything to happen, I'm sure. That's the right way, she would have said, nodding approvingly.

All of that was fine and dandy, but she didn't have to go blabbing in my head about all that nonsense. Girl wasn't here and couldn't get here and was still nagging me about all that, here as in some Godforsaken distance from home. I placed my bet on five hundred miles, and as Google is no longer an aid, I doubt I would get an answer. Gemma would have one, though. She would have told me exactly how she would learn the distance, probably with some wonky idea that has a fifty percent chance of working (Not that I had any plans of ever enlightening her). She would have been telling me about the descent of rural towns into a pit of near anarchy like a balloon I would have gotten her at a carnival when we still had those. She would have explained how nuclear bombs work, how they destroy and have destroyed God's green, lovely, splendiferous earth.

Except, what did a nine-year-old know?

Apparently, a lot, but that's beside the point.

"Okay, would you rather have the ability to fly but only at walking speed or be able to teleport but only to places you've never been before?" The blond-haired gremlin human grinned, a devilish glint in his eyes. "Personally, I'd want teleportation."

Slapping the blond's t-shirt clad back with his palm, my other new acquaintance smiled a little, Hispanic features pronounced. "Yeah, teleportation. It's cool."

Both their brown eyes pinned upon me after his sentence as if to say, speak now or forever hold your peace, Wayne. "Flying. Guys, it's flying. Fricking flying. Besides, I couldn't do teleportation, too much could go wrong there, and I've got no sense of direction," I explained with a laugh. "I would get lost before you could flip a pancake out of a pan."

"That's a long time, then," the beefy-built guy deadpanned, while the blond guy shrugged.

I brought my gaze up to their very un-slumped figures side-by-side in the auditorium seating. "If you've got no hand-eye coordination."

"You speak lies, dude. I can do archery, not pancake making." The blond guy angled his body toward me, allowing me to catch a glimpse of his lanyard, name, participant number, and school district name pinned between the plastic enclosure.

Scott Haymes. 17284. School district of—

Scott turned to his friend. "But you make some mad tacos de carne asada. Haven't seen you make pancakes."

"Because I burn pancakes, idiot. Every. Dang. Time."

"Sure, Ross. As your brother would say, you could if you wanted to."

Ross remained silent, neither a refute to the claim nor a solemn agreement on his tongue. Instead, after however many seconds, my gaze wandered to the auditorium stage, fellow archery competitors creating a skit out of boredom.

Ross said, "What could go wrong with teleportation? Besides having no idea where you are—but that's not too bad."

"That's the worst part," I said. "Like when I was checking in my hotel when I got to Louisville for nationals. It was a literal nightmare. Sure, I had explicit instructions and another group I'd be traveling with. Since, well, no one else from my school made it past states. I had no clue what I was doing."

Ross opened his mouth, but Scott spoke first.

"No sense of adventure? Journey where no one has gone before, stranger?" The exaggerated intonation of Scott's voice made me laugh.