Gifted

Part 57: Two Friends

They made their way down the street. There were barely any people out tonight. The city was unusually quiet.

"Are you alright?" Casper asked after they were far away from Jordan's building. Jordan was silent. "That was pretty scary." he added. He was being so nice. He was acting the way he did before he became a hunter, just a sweet kind boy in Jordan's class. "At least now we know what's going on, I mean after Alice explained it to us."

"Don't you dare try to defend her." Jordan said. They both stopped walking when they reached the park. Jordan remembered hunting a demon with Mackenzie in that very same park, a demon that cooked people. It was there that Mackenzie had told her and me the truth about her parents. Casper sat on one of the swings and Jordan sat on one right next to him. He gently rocked back and forth on it. Jordan remained still.

"I'm not defending her, I swear. I think it's terrible what she did to you." he said sympathetically. Jordan was silent. Casper fell still as well.

"Why did you bring me here? What do you want?" Jordan asked him. Jordan watched as Casper's face transformed from compassionate to tortured in a blink of an eye. He gasped as tears fell from his eyes. Jordan rushed over to him and knelt beside him, holding one of his hand in both of hers.

"Both of my parents are dead!" he sobbed. "It was an al basti, a type of demon. I tried to save them... but I couldn't! I wasn't strong enough!" he explained between tears.

"What happened? What's an al basti?" Jordan asked bewildered. Casper took in a deep breath before going into detail.

"It was all my fault. Al basti is a type of demon that targets guilty souls. They usually live in the mountains, but I guess this one preferred city life. It looks like a half horse-half human with big black bat wings. The human half is a woman with long black hair and red eyes. The horse half is a black mare. My father kept having dreams. I would here him late at night, making almost... sexual noises and when my mother questioned him in the morning, he swore he just had the same weird dream with a horse in it, but didn't go into specifics. My mother was getting increasingly worried about him. This lasted for a few weeks. Then, my father began to wake up with an intense fever after each dream. He told me that this had happened to him before when he was a teenager. He used to live in the country on a farm that had horses. During the time that this had happened, he would go to the stable to find that all of his horses were sweating and exhausted as if they had been running all night, even thought the stable had been locked the whole time. The dreams stopped after a month and the horses had returned to normal. The fevers had seized so my father thought nothing of it. But that was then. Now, the fevers never stopped. Not until..." Casper choked and Jordan squeezed his hand. Casper took another deep breath and continued. "Not until last night when my mother found out that my father was having an affair. She saw another woman's text messages to him while he was in the shower. When she confronted him, they got into a huge fight. I was down the hall in my own room, listening to the whole thing. Then, my father stopped shouting. I heard my mother scream and then there was silence. I rushed into their room to see what was going on. That's when I saw the al basti, looming over their dead bodies and feasting on the corpse of my father. It didn't get to my mother's corpse. I destroyed it with my powers. But even though I killed it, I couldn't bring my parents back. I suspected that he was cheating on my mom, but I had no proof! It's all my fault!" he cried.

"Casper, I'm so sorry." was all that Jordan could say. "I had no idea that happened to you. But, you shouldn't blame yourself. You fought bravely even after it was too late. That is something to be proud of, not regret. You've used your powers to do great things, courageous things."

"You don't understand!" Casper countered.

"Yes I do!" Jordan assured him. "Because I am a hunter just like you. I have lost people to the demons. Mackenzie was both of our friend! Remember? We are all in the same group at school! If anyone can understand what you're going through, it's me! And I think you know that, or else you wouldn't have dragged me out here in the first place!"

"You're right." Casper said with a sad smile. In that moment, the rivalry that had separated the two friends dissolved like sugar in water. They both had reverted back to their old friendship, only it seemed so much stronger now. They had a bond that most humans wouldn't understand. Their experiences bound them together. Jordan embraced him, and a calm fell over the park as the sadness seized, melting into a blind hope.