The Unveiling - Modern Magic: Book 1

Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - Waiting for the other shoe

Never has an exam week been as stressful for me as this one. Of course this had very little to do with the actual exams, and more to do with the constant news feeds hyper-analyzing every frame of video of the battle from the previous Sunday. Ok, it had some to do with the exams. I hadn't studied as much as I had wanted to. When I got back to my apartment, and true to her word, Diana was there, I was completely burned out. I had enough energy to fill her in on the basics of what had happened. She already guessed some of it, having caught some of the news on her phone while she waited. We had fallen asleep on the couch, giving me a very sore neck in the morning.

That soreness was easily brushed aside when I found Diana's note that simply said, "I have to get ready for exams. I love you." You know the saying 'Every dark cloud has a silver lining'? That thing is spot on. Even though this dark cloud was probably darker than most, the silver lining was breath-taking, and I couldn't help smiling if I had wanted to. I slowly got up, stretched all my sore muscles from the awkward sleeping position as well as the strain from all the magic I threw around less than 24 hours before. It was time to face the day.

My exams went pretty smoothly, as predicted. There were a few challenges that I wasn't ready for, but my grades were good enough that less than stellar scores on my finals wouldn't change my GPA by a large degree. As I mentioned, every minute between exams brought scenes of students, faculty, and staff staring at their phones, tablets, or the many public viewing flat screens around campus. I dutifully spent time staring at the screens as well, wanting to feign the same level of interest.

As far as I could gather, there appeared to be 3 videos that made their way to news level. One of these was so shaky from either the cameraman's inexperience, fear, or excitement, that it might as well have been a J.J. Abrams movie with how little it actually showed anything important. The other two were considerably better when it came to camera control, but even then they didn't show all that much.

I heard more than a few whispered conversations voicing doubts about the videos. I did everything I could to not jump for joy or heavily try and reinforce their opinions each time. One group mentioned how it all looked like a 'Behind the scenes' video for a movie, but a really bad one. Looking at the video from that perspective, I could see what they meant. No one was flying around on wires, the explosions that were visible were small and controlled, and there was little to no blood splatter. One good thing I saw from all the video we went through: I never saw anything of Tim, my mom, or myself. That was a bit of a burden lifted from my shoulders. Maybe my manipulation of the camera battery protected that much, even if I couldn't change the course of these events entirely.

On the opposite side of that coin, some things brought up by the news anchors were quickly disturbing me greatly. Law Enforcement Officers had been dispatched to the scene of the fight. Several bodies had been taken in for autopsy; the number of bodies differed across each news network and each hour that went by. I never heard the anchors talk about anyone being arrested for the event, but that information could be currently withheld by the police.

Despite the overwhelming coverage by local news, national news seemed less interested. One of the videos caught on the scene was from CNN, and they were probably the most interested of the national networks. The rest were covering the information a little, but bouncing to national interests more and more as the week went by. I really hoped that people who doubted the authenticity of the videos were among the majority in the area and the country.

I had no interest in placing a giant digital target on my head by researching world news headlines on the events of Easter outside Boston, Massachusetts. Because of this, I had no idea what the world-wide reaction was to these videos. I could only hope that if our own country's news programs were slowly moving away from the topic, a similar progression could be applied to international networks. By the end of the week, the 'experts' brought onto the news programs were mostly discussing aspects of the videos that made them unlikely to be real or from terror groups.