Medusa

Dark Rooms, Broken Bones, and Hearing Loss

I always sat in the front of the class. I'm not one of those goody-two-shoes, loves learning type. But all the teachers made me sit front and center, as if that would help.

I groaned loudly as I walked into English to find a tale, pale woman with long blonde hair pulled up into a messy bun in the back of her head. She was pretty, but she wasn't Mr. Cates. A substitute, fantastic...

I plopped down in my usual seat in-between two nerdy kids, I think their names are like Adrianna and Charlotte or something. As usual, we didn't pay any attention to each other except a little nod as the other approached their desk.

"Alright class, my name is-" The substitute began then turned around to write her name on the board, Mrs. Templeton. "I'm going to take attendance then Mr. Cates asked me to go over some papers with you," she said and shuffled around to get the list of names, I sat up straight and paid extra attention, picking out every name that came out of her mouth, making sure it wasn't anywhere close to mine until I heard her say "Adriel Hardy?"

"Here!" I said loudly then slumped back down into my desk and prepared for another boring class period.

I hadn't been paying attention to the lesson, as usual, when a hand waved in front of my face. I redirected my eyes to Mrs. Templeton's who was waving her hand in front of my face. I saw her lips move but the noise was drowned out by the sound of the students laughing. "sorry, what?" I asked.

"Are you mentally ill, dear?" I heard her ask, I scrunched up my face wondering where the hell that question came from.

"She's got Ototoxicity," someone yelled from the back of the class.

"What?" Mrs. Templeton asked.

"I have hearing loss, I can't always hear you." I cleared up. My classmates know that, they also know that technically it's ototoxicity meaning I got my hearing loss from medicine. They like to think I got my hearing loss from alcohol, good for them for doing their research, but that's not what happened.

"Don't you have hearing aids?" She asked and I tucked my red hair behind my ear to show off the hearing aid I was in fact wearing. "Do they need to be fixed?"

"No, they work fine." I said to tired to care if she understood what was wrong with me or not.

"I want you to go to the nurse, what's your name?" Mrs. Templeton asked, grabbing hall passes from her desk.

"Adriel Hardy."

"AY-dree-ehl? Isn't that a boys name?" She asked and my classmates giggled, this happens nearly every time we have a substitute, they are confused by my hearing loss and my name.

"I suppose it could be," I responded and she handed me the slip.

"Do you need someone to go with you?" she asked and hands shot up at the opportunity to miss class.

"I have hearing loss, I'm not blind," I said and walked out the door. Honestly, some people are just real idiotic.

I decided not to go to the nurses office and instead wander around school. She can't do anything, my hearing aids work as well as they can. They don't make everything crystal clear perfection, just make every noise louder so I can hear it. Which is actually very annoying when you are in a room full of people talking, so I have some issues with my hearing. So what? It's not my fault.

"Hey Adri!" a boy only a year older than me with his thick blonde hair grown out to his shoulders and working on growing a beard which made him seem like he was way out of high school shouted at me from the other side of the hall.

"Hey Wheatley, skipping class again?" I asked as Wheatley changed his direction to walk with me.

"So are you," Wheatley said, unlike Mrs. Templeton, he understands my hearing loss and makes sure he always faces me as he talks and often times uses his hands to exaggerate what he is saying in his own fake sign language. I don't mind the fake sign language, I don't know the real sign language anyways.

"Sub in English, sent me to the nurses office to get my hearing aids 'fixed'." I showed him the slip.

"What is that? Like the 20th time this month?"

"Something like that."

"Did you hear anything from Rivers yet?" Wheatley asked, checking the hallway for anyone listening in.

"Not yet, I suppose you haven't either?" Wheatley shook his head. "I swear to God if those dickheads get themselves killed this time..." I shook my head.

I work for an secret government agency called Shadows. Our job is to basically keep the bad things from happening and if they do happen we stop them and keep it under wraps so the people don't go crazy. You'd be surprised at how many times the world nearly ended, it's enough to make you go insane.

The bell rang and Wheatley and I gave each other mini salutes before running back to our classes to grab our bags and get the hell out of here.

"Hey, pick it up!" Rivers, a 34 year old woman with messy black hair yelled at Wheatley and I, rolling the window of the black van down to expose her bloody face. A couple kids screamed and Wheatley and I booked it, barely even stepping foot into the car before Rivers stepped on the gas.

Jones pull us the rest of the way in and shut the door before we sped off. "How'd it go?" Wheatley asked but the bloody faces and way Rivers weaved her way through on coming traffic told the story, we're in a car chase.

I looked back at the traffic and found three black cars weaving through the traffic at rapid speed. "Isn't this supposed to be the other way around?" I questioned but didn't wait for an answer before I grabbed a pistol from beneath the seats, shoved it in the waistband of my pants and crawling out the window.

Rivers slowed down so I could jump on to the next car. I ignored the screams of the people inside the vehicle and slid off that car onto the one behind me. As that driver freaked out and began to slow down, he leveled with on of the vans and I took the shot, killing the driver.

The man in shotgun grabbed the wheel with one hand and shot at me with the other, but I was already on the next car and jumping on the back of his van. He caught on and started to swerve, hitting the cars around him in an attempt to knock me off, or crush me.

I punched the back window, breaking it enough to slide in and shoot the shotgun. With no driver the car began to swerve, I elbowed another window and jumped out onto another car just before that van fell over the side of the bridge.

The other two vans started shooting at me, I jumped from car to car at rapid speed, hoping that they weren't shooting the cars I was jumping on to. I climbed up on to the top of the closer van. The people inside began shooting up at me and the other van shot levelled with that van and began shooting as well.

I attempted to get off the top of the car and to the back but slipped and just barely caught myself on another car. "Holy shit!" I muttered but kept my low stance of the car and shot the wheels of the closer van. They lost control and cars quickly moved out of the way as it tipped over the edge as well.

I jumped to the next car and used my entire body to break through the window of the final car. I shot the man in the back seat at the same time that shotgun shot me in the shoulder. I gritted my teeth and suppressed any noises of pain, grabbing the gun of the dead man and pointing one at the driver and the other at shotgun.

Shotgun raised his mask so I could see his smirk, and hear him say "Hello Adriel."

His voice brought back memories, memories of dark rooms, broken bones, and losing my hearing. Memories I wasn't prepared to handle and froze. But in the slowed time, I caught him raising his gun and I jumped out of the car just as the gun went off. He hit me in the leg and I missed the car, falling to the road. Cars were forced to stop as they saw a 15 year old red head rolling on the street, went I finally came to a stop, I forced myself to ignore the pain and sat up to shoot the van, but it was already gone. Instead the van of my teammates came to a screeching stop in front of me and Wheatley and Jones jumped out.

"You good?" Jones mouthed but I couldn't hear him, I tore my hearing aids out of my ears to find them both smashed. Wheatley moved two of his fingers like they were walking and I shook my head, so he picked me up bridal style instead and I groaned, or I think I groaned. He set me in shotgun and I saw Rivers mouth move but I had no clue to what she said.

"I can't hear you," I said raising my broken hearing aids and pointing to my ears and shaking my head in case the words came out wrong.

She nodded and we ignored all the terrified people on the bridge for the moment and rushed back to base as the pain started to kick in.