The Unseen

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

After a movie with my mom, I relaxed quietly onto my green bean bag chair up in my room, waiting for an IM from Rashal. She should have been at her house by now, so I was expecting to see her name pop on the screen at any minute. It was always the first thing she did when she got home; check her IM's. It was good when I wanted to talk to her, like now, but it could also get annoying. I mean, I had usually just seen her at school. At least it was somewhat comforting that she even wanted to speak with me outside of school, unlike anybody else.

Mom and I had just watched this really immature chick-flick, which had a lot of stupid jokes and horrible punch lines, but my mom loved it anyway. Yeah, my mom definitely wasn't normal. Shouldn't it have been the teenager who loved the cheesy girly movies, not the mom? I thought the movie was really dumb, but I guess it was a personal opinion.

Arty had curled up on my lap now and was sleeping peacefully, her little chest heaving up and down slowly. Her eyelids kept twitching as she dreamed about something, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth. I played with her little ear while I waited, twirling it around to the point where she woke up and growled at me.

"Geez, sorry. You're as bad as Mr. Edder," I growled back. She, in turn, rested her head down and ignored me, which was probably smart. Come to think of it, it wasn't just my dog. A lot of people ignored me too.

The thought made me smile a little, even though I normally scowled at the subject. They were about as smart as my dog. What an accomplishment, people!

My mind wandered to today's events. I had had visions of this wolf before. I had seen his silvery coat and startling green eyes that seemed to see right through me. I'd had a couple run-ins with him before, but I had hardly thought anything of them. Now, though, what was a wolf like that doing in the middle of the city?

The last two times I had seen it were out of town on a farm. There, it must have been merely stealing for hunger, but the food it was taking was the only hope of survival for the farmer and his family, so I had to stop it. I had felt sorry for it, but I couldn't just let it take the food.

Hunger was hitting the outskirts of town very hard and a depression was bound to happen. At least the city people were safer, like us. Not to be selfish, just to be...secure.

Besides, wasn't I already doing my part in helping? People didn't know who was behind that mask, but I knew I had done more than the average person in the protection of the city. How many people had I kept from being hit by cars or being kidnapped? I asked myself that rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. A lot. Yeah, a lot. What did I get in return from saving people? Nothing.

This time, The Wolf had been in the city. Was it really that desperate? Something seemed off about The Wolf though. Its eyes were alive, and it was like it actually had a conscience. Why else would it just run off when I was standing there ready to fight? Okay, maybe not completely ready.

This wolf appeared to be intelligent, which was not something I was used to seeing in animals. It seemed like it knew my thought process, and knew how I would respond. It seemed able to predict how we would react to something in a way that no normal animal should have been able to. I knew, seeing as how I had lived with Arty for seven years now and she still hadn't figured out, or cared about, anything about us and why we did what we did. All she cared about was getting fed and sleeping.

At first I had thought that was all this wolf cared about too, but now I wasn't so sure. It had seemed genuinely angry and disturbed, as if it was seeking revenge on someone. That kind of emotion was a terrifying sight to see in a wolf's eyes.

It was just too confusing.

My visions coincidentally tended to switch between the wolf and other people. I didn't know if there was a reason or not, but I had figured out that most of the time if I had a vision of a stranger, I could be pretty sure the next would be of the wolf. I was glad to have a little stability to rely on.

The whole situation was so bizarre, I was actually beginning to consider that this wolf had powers like me. I wasn't even sure if 'powers' was the right word, but what else could it be, really? I wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, and as far as I knew, I wasn't from a different planet.  I most certainly hadn't been tested on and given insane abilities that way.

Suddenly a loud beep filled my room. I glanced down at my laptop to see a message from Rashal lighting up my screen. It was a good thing too. With all my crazy thoughts, it would help to have another person talking to me, just to bring me back to sanity. Sometimes I seemed to get lost in my thoughts, which wasn't a good thing because apparently I ended up mumbling my thoughts when that happened.

RRIVER: hey :P so whats up with The Wolf today?

The Wolf was a nickname we sometimes called our strange...'friend.' So original, right? It just seemed fitting. We had tried out others like 'Captain Coat' and 'Silver Sheen', but the first sounded too much like a cereal brand, and the second was like a shampoo. So we stuck with the basic.

KIA-GAL: Idk....i couldnt tell what it was doing. :| i just had a vision of it and knew i should get down there

RRIVER: so you stopped him?????

KIA-GAL: no....he ran away

It took a few minutes to get a reply, and I thought maybe Rashal had fainted. It wouldn't have shocked me. Rashal could faint at really anything, if she willed herself hard enough to. Sure, she was a drama queen, but she made up for my lacking in that department. Whenever I was shocked, the most I did was raise an eyebrow.

Finally, the screen lit up with a message, which was relieving because I was getting pretty concerned that she really had just passed out.

RRIVER: What?!?

KIA-GAL: yeah, it just left. just like that.

Now that I was typing all that, it made absolutely no sense. The Wolf obviously wasn't stupid, and it always knew what it was doing when I had seen it in the past. So why run?

I mean, I couldn't really be that frightening. A fragile, timid girl in boots and a flimsy mask, who hardly knew what she was doing. These powers were still fairly new to me, and I could imagine The Wolf had been a wolf a lot longer than I had been a superhero. Why on earth would it ever have been afraid of me?

After all, it had the sharp teeth and claws. What did I have as a weapon? My speed was definitely good to get away, but how could I possibly attack a wolf with that?

RRIVER: strange. so you still with my idea that it might be similar to your situation?

KIA-GAL: yeah, whatever.

I actually was growing more convinced by now, with all my pondering on the subject. The idea that The Wolf could also have some strange powers didn't seem so far-fetched as it might have a few years ago. It would explain the advanced intelligence.

RRIVER: lol girl, you need more excitement. ;P

KIA-GAL: sarcastic, right?

RRIVER: DUHH!! hey, I gotta go. sorry. =( TTYL

*RRIVER has signed off*

I sighed; she was always the one who had to go somewhere. Although her comment was sarcastic, it actually had some truth. Apart from saving lives and fighting wolves, I did need some more excitement. In my real life.

As Nikkia Lane, I was a boring, dull, average teenager without a sense of her place in this world. As The Unseen, I was actually something, helping people and saving lives.

The only problem was, nobody knew that.