From The Ashes We Rise

Chp 35: Alone Together

Ariff's POV

Ever since Ebony and Delta helped me with my lycanthropy, Delta suggested Ebony and I should try to start over. We had to reintroduce ourselves to each other, all that stuff. The intro part felt unnecessary to me because we spent weeks together already.

I made the effort to invite Ebony to my house for study sessions. I tried asking Delta but he declined because he didn't wanna interfere with any other plans I had. So we spent most of our afternoons at my place because Ebony lived in an orphanage.

"What are you doing sia?" I asked Ebony one day, who was busy hanging from my ceiling fan as a bat.

He flew down and changed back. "Hanging... hanging around," he giggled.

I facepalmed. That was the third pun that afternoon and I was getting sick of it; his sense of humour was horrible. Not like my cat puns were any different. I'd love to choke him but Delta would kill me.

The song Coffee's For Closers was playing on my phone as this was all going on. Ebony climbed on my bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling.

"I'm bored," he said.

"No shit. I'm bored too," I snapped, fiddling with one of my guitars.

After a while, Ebony sat up. "I didn't tell you my life story, did I?" He asked, breaking the silence after I stopped the music.

I looked at him.

"You... wanna hear it?" He hesitated, fidgeting with one of his bracelets.

I nodded my head. I didn't give him the chance to introduce himself fully when he first came and didn't know why he even came here.

"Okay. So the story starts like this..." he began.

Ebony explained everything to me, starting from how his powers were triggered. I was envious when he told me that he was a top scorer. I was just an average student with only two or three best subjects. One of my friends, Ray, was closer to his standard. I didn't comment on it though. Ebony continued to tell me that his powers were triggered when he lashed out at his parents for taking away his music privileges, causing a fight between him and his father.

"A bit petty, right?" I interrupted him. He glared at me, making me shut up.

His dad wasn't very accepting of him after that incident. Knowing that Ebony is a mutant was pretty much a hard pill for him to swallow. His dad often ignored him and treated him like an outsider because of his new-found power. Way more different than my family reacting to my power. Maybe because my grandfather is a lycan too.

When he mentioned the bullying he experienced the following days after that discovery, I embraced him, knowing that that was a tough part of someone's life. Though, to be fair, I contributed to it as well, so I felt slightly guilty. I was glad he didn't even try to end it, even when it got serious.

Then came even worse events, from his best friend, Sammi being involved in an accident to his mother having cancer. His life was much more of an emotional rollercoaster than mine and I couldn't help but think about how he managed to get through it all.

Following his mother's death, Ebony said that he was often abused by his father and was almost treated like a slave. As shitty as that may seem to me, Ebony reassured me that he could handle it pretty well.