Nayantara

Chapter Nine: It Burns Green

There goes another night. Another night without Sam by my side. I'm halfway through the month. At least there is light at the end of it. Sam's sister is in stable condition. She's able to eat and talk without assistance. Sam thinks she'll stay around for two more days before coming back home if all is good. It's a small victory for me. I finally have something to get excited about. I just need to power through the workweek and pray to god nothing stupid comes up.

Shendour and that blonde-haired bitch are silent. Shar'I hasn't attempted to talk with me, thank god. Eddie is doing his thing as Ignimas continues to look for Rayan and that shadow girl. Nemetoria is in the wind as usual. All in all, it's just the lonesome inner mechanism of my mind on a Wednesday night.

"I need to go do something," I say. I look for options around the apartment to give me an idea of what to do. Nothing in the living room jumps out. The TV is off, the room is clean, it's raining outside, and I'm off for tomorrow. Most of my high school friends are either married or in college out of state, so hitting one of them up is pointless. "What to do?" I mumble to myself.

An emergency broadcast alert goes off on my phone. I can hear my neighbors getting the same notification. It says the President is addressing the nation within half an hour. I turn on the TV to my city's local news. The analysts are talking about the flower monsters in Bermuda and the others a month ago. They mention me but they have no clue who I am. They do know I'm a woman with pink eyes. Someone interviewing Eddie comes up. The interviewer asks if he knows the identity of the so-called superwoman.

"No," Eddie says. "They wish to be anonymous."

"They?" The interviewer says and scoffs. "We know it's a woman. Is she a part of Ignimas?"

"No." The interviewer is not buying it. Her tight grin and condescending head tilts say it all.

"Why are you trying to hide her from us?" He doesn't answer her question. "Is she a threat to the people?"

"They are not," he says and pauses, staring into her eyes without blinking. "I've worked with them many times dealing with the plant-like monsters."

"Isn't it a coincidence that she appeared when they began to spring up?" A male reporter says off camera to Eddie's left. "There were also other sightings of a man and woman on Bremuda attacking members of Ignimas. Who are they?"

"All answers will be thoroughly answered during the President's speech and the follow-up by Polaris." Tons of people flood him with answers. He takes a step back, flies in the air, and disappears in a flash of lightning a bolt. The sound of thunder glitches the audio feed. It cuts back to the analyst after losing the signal.

"Well," the analyst says, looking at his partner. "Let's put on the live feed of the White House."

I chuckle at them for not knowing what to say. There is still a lot of waiting time. No one is in the frame. All I see is a long corridor and a wooden podium. The camera stays on that shot for ten minutes before something interesting happens. It goes out of focus. Someone has to whisper to the camera operator to place it in focus.

"This is so boring," I say. I look through my phone to find something to kill time. Eddie's mysterious ally is trending on social media. A lot of people are questioning if he's telling the truth. Some are criticizing Ignimas's failure to diminish collateral damage. I can't bear to read any more of their half-witted comments. Their stupidity and ignorance of what's going on makes me call Eddie. "Ed!"

"Yeah? What's up?" He says.

"Do you see what these idiots are saying on social media?"

"You should get off that for the time being," he says like he finds something funny. He's chuckling. "People are nasty."