Only Cracks in the Earth

John 1

John

Hi, I’m John Slowinski, and my life sucks.

Every morning, after walking into the school doors, the hockey team captain immediately slams me into the cold metal lockers. Every cold cruel laugh that follows still rings in my ears. “Watch where you’re going, loser.” He turned his back, “should’ve joined the team when you were told to,” he muttered, walking away.

I shoved my coke bottle glasses up onto my nose and grabbed my faded and ripped backpack from the dusty floor.  President of the math club, physics club and bio and chem association leader, now If only that genius could go into girl charming and not locker polishing every morning.

Ten minutes later I threw myself into an empty chair in my English class. Useless, who needs English when you have science..? The attached desk was cramped, my thighs squished to the bottom of the top and my knees poked out in front of me. All around me, jocks shouted like gorillas and conformed hyenas giggled. I sighed and turned to my right. A silent girl sat still. I had never seen her before. “Two days before it’s over, right? Then we never have to come back to this place again.”

She looked at me with calm blue eyes like that of the ocean before lightning strikes upon it. Her thin nearly white hair shone in the beam of light in which she sat. As our eyes connected, I felt a sort of recognition, maybe I did know this girl, but it didn’t last long. “Yeah, two days.”

That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d never seen her before, but she was so noticeable. At least to me. The more I thought about her, the more it seemed I knew her.

Thirsty and frustrated with too much thinking, I wandered into my kitchen for a drink of water. As I reached for the sink, a burst of liquid shot from my hands, causing me to yell and jump back. Amazed, I stared at my hand again. Water, I thought. Boom. Headshot.

I staggered into the bathroom. Never too late to do research.

I pointed my palms at the floor of the tub. Water, I thought. Immediately, clear liquid shot out of my hands like a gun. Hmm, how about iron. Tiny flecks of red metal started appearing in my hands. I am iron man, I thought.

Oh god. So much science was just proved wrong. And right.

I sat on the side of the tub. A timid knock on the door grabbed my attention, but when I opened it, no one was there. Turning around, I came face to face… well really neck to face with the strange girl from school.

She looked at the tub and laughed. “experimenting?”

I couldn’t answer. “you okay? You did change pretty late.”

I was still in shock. A girl in my house.

She took my hand. “let’s go for a trip, alright?”

I think I nodded.

With one hand, she pressed her slim, pale fingers together and slowly opened them. Like a bubble blown by a child, the smallest yellow light was drawn out between her fingers. Moving apart her fingers, she slowly drew her hand back, and the circle of light was suddenly on its own, growing steadily.

When it touched the ceiling and the floor, she grabbed my whole arm and stepped through the void, into something I had never before imagined.

It was like falling in an elevator and standing behind a jet engine all at the same time, but in that second of being in the light, there was no sound, no sight, and we could not speak.

On the other side, I was obviously no longer in my bathroom. It was outside. There was snow, and the mountain air was so cold it froze my lungs. Up ahead a small log cabin glowed warmly, the girl dragged me toward it and opened the door.

Inside was any other vacation cabin, except for the angry guy staring me down and looking like he was about to kill me.

The girl smiled at me, “John, sit. We have lots to talk about.”