Shadow

King Henry VIII was Gay?

    I always knew I would go to hell.

    I mean, if I were in heaven, my entire body wouldn't ache, right? I would be peacefully floating on a cloud with fat cherubs flying around playing harps. At least, that's what I had imagined heaven being like.

    Also, everything was black. Not white. When I pictured hell, I usually pictured volcanoes spewing lava on the evil souls that were cast down there and the big wrought iron gates opened wide with Satan's throne sitting on top of them.

    I saw neither fat babies with wings nor erupting volcanoes.

    But I did realize the vast darkness I saw was, in fact, the back of my eyelids. I wasn't dead and, unfortunately, I still had to attend Mrs. Yuson's chemistry classes when the school was put back together.

    Opening my eyes was a job in itself. It felt like my eyelids weighed a gazillion pounds. My mouth had that nasty taste in it that I usually woke up to in the mornings, but there was a hint of blood on my taste buds. Gross.

    I finally got my eyelids open and saw the same thing as I had when I last saw the world. White. I furrowed my eyebrows. Maybe I was dead? This is like when Harry Potter died and saw Dumbledore at King's Cross Station. A strange thing to think about after just being brought back from the dead.

    I slowly reached my arms up in front of my face and found that it was a white sheet placed over my body. Like they did at crime scenes to hide the dead victim. I frowned and pulled it off of me. My arms trembled they were so weak. They thought I was dead? Was I dead? How long has it been? The white sheet fell off of my face and I was immediately blinded by the lights in the training room. Not dead. I blinked away the haze and let my pupils adjust to the sudden light. My gaze darted everywhere at once, taking things in one by one. I was alone in the training room. It looked the same as we had left it when we were saving Phantom.

    I sat up and concluded that I was probably the only person left in the sewers.

    Then, everything came crashing back to me.

    Cameron. Riptide. Cole.

    Cole.

    He was dying. I'd saved him. I'd healed him and taken the injury as my own. I scrambled to pull at my black tank top and lifted it. The skin on my abdomen was as smooth as ever, no sign of any cuts or deadly wounds. What happened?

    I swung my legs over the side of the stretcher I was laid across. My cloak was at the foot of the stretcher, along with my black jacket, silver gloves, and my shurikens. I was left in my black tank top, leggings, and my boots. Carefully, I tested my weight on my right foot, then my left foot. Then both feet as I stood up.

    It was eerily silent in the sewers. It sent shivers down my spine, and not just because of Phantom's obsession with the air conditioning. I never asked how he got an air conditioner into Cryptic City's sewers and decided it was probably best not to ever ask.

    I slipped on my jacket and cloak before pulling my gloves over my cold hands. Again, I didn't bother with my mask. I started down the hall towards Phantom's office. If people were anywhere, it would be there. But when I swung the door open, the room was as dark as it had been when I first met him. I shut the door and headed for the medical rooms. Dr. Bhesaj would surely be left down here to help with injured Society members. Before I could reach the heart of the med center, I heard the sounds of quiet sobs. I froze and listened for a moment. It was coming from the short, dead end hallway to my left. I ran towards it and listened in through one of the doors. This one.