A Time to Live

Chapter 1 - Tedium

In the aftermath of action movies, you know what they never show? People assimilating back into "real life" and picking up some sense of normalcy. You know why they don't show that? It's boring as hell.

What happened after the party on Endor in Return of the Jedi? Or the day after Indiana Jones finds the artifact and gets the damsel? They go into another adventure because anything else would spiral them into perpetual boredom.

And that's where I am: stuck in a tailspin after looking for a spot to land on. My current vortex is a little burg called Temple Falls located up the West Coast. It bears no resemblance to the metropolis of Lincoln Square, where I'm from. It has roughly a quarter of the population size I'm used to. And there are other pros and cons.

Pro: it's scenic with lots of trees. The air smells as if there's always rain in it. No one is trying to scoop me up to join a government agency and make use of my Leaper powers of time travel and teleportation—or worse, looking for my girlfriend Mo to tap her abilities of telepathy and telekinesis. Where I'm from, people call her kind Eventuals.

The cons are basically everything else. The people here are a friendly combination of weird and polite. It kind of creeps me out. There's nothing to do besides work because I can no longer go to a traditional school. Apparently, dismantling my former principal at an atomic level, even though he was trying to kill me, has its drawbacks. That and destroying the school, and causing a partial city-wide blackout, and the kidnappings...okay, well, I'm seeing more reasons now that I list them.

Mo and I are currently presumed dead, and we need to keep it that way. I am also forbidden—yes, forbidden—to engage in any activity that could get me noticed. All of the things the secret governmental division keeping tabs on people like me could monitor—that is, the fun things—yup, we can't do them. The Program, as it is called, needs to keep looking elsewhere, and I can't ruin that for either Mo or me.

So, I'm like a classic muscle car, all gassed up and ready for the road. It just so happens that my keys have been taken away. It's a damn shame.

One huge plus is Mo lives with me, though not in the same room. We are staying with an old friend of my parents, Eva, and her little daughter, Scarlett. She agreed to give us shelter for as long as we need. Both Eva and my father have told me, "no funny business." The term "funny business" has a rather loose definition in my vocabulary, but in any case, I'm respectful to Eva and adore Scarlett. Mo tries not to be jealous, but that soon-to-be five-year-old is wrapping me around her finger on a daily basis.

My mother and father knew Eva along with her late husband, Red, years before I was even born. A sad turn of events caused Red's fate, and Eva fled the city shortly thereafter, pregnant, with the help of my late mother. My mom's death came after the business at my old school. Mom and Red both met their ends, thanks to the treachery of one person, Raymond Lord.

With that dark episode growing smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror of my life, I have to try and look at the positives. I'm no longer taking uncontrollable, naked leaps into the past. Being a Leaper, I've learned the other tricks of my "genetic disease" as well as falling in love with someone I've learned to share everything I learn. Mo is also a conduit, meaning we can enhance each other's powers when we're close enough and when we touch we transfer memories almost instantly.

Mo and I get homeschooled in order to have a basic high school degree. In the future, we hold the twinkling hope the dust will settle in Lincoln Square and we'll be able to attend college next year. We're completely dreaming, but we need to keep the candle burning bright.