A Writer's Notebook

Coincidence

Writing prompt on Pinterest spiked my interest, and since my roommate is home for Easter...

Coincidence

Dear Diary,   
     My roommate and I are close friends; we lucked out when the housing committee stuck us in our dorm together.  She is my best friend at college, and we text all the time.  She is always studying; I am always trying to study, but then get distracted too easily.  So, I find some news on Snapchat and text her about it.  She usually responds pretty quickly.  This time, she had left the dorm for a student ambassador's overnight trip.  I know nothing of the student ambassadors, so I took her word for it.
     While she was away, I texted her a flurry of times, describing an event taking place in a school.  A standoff was taking place in a New York school.  A gunman had taken fifteen kids hostage and was threatening officers with pulling a pin on a grenade with the kids.  As I watched via the news and texted my roommate, there was a crazy burst of light from inside the building.  The nation sat in shock for five minutes as we feared the grenade had been detonated.  Then, out of the window, first one, then two, then fifteen children broke out into a run towards officers and their freedom.  The helicopter view of the news showed a figure running out the back door at the same time officers escorted the gunman out of the front.  He had been blinded.  In the weeks following, he was ruled insane because of his ramblings of a person who spouted light from their hand.  The media was ecstatic and had half of the country believing in superheroes before the month was over.  Me being...well...me, I was skeptical and wanting to believe at the same time.  So, I decided to ignore the incident and focus on school, as I should have done in the first place.
     The following months hosts about five more incidents of criminals being stopped in the act and temporarily, or permanently blinded by a person's hand.  Police and investigators had to start believing there was someone out there who could do the things these criminals were spouting.  I tried not to pay attention, but soon I found that my roommate's stories on where she had been were not lining up with what her friends were saying.  I gave none of this away to her friends.  I had no reason to.  If she wanted to hide something (*cough* whether she was a superhero *cough*) or not, it was hers to decide.
     Then, came the one where in the midst of a robbery, the person with the light could not blind the robber.  Witnesses in the bank caught their first glimpse of her in a dark hoodie and jeans before the robber escaped and she ducked out of a side door.  The police, missing the robber, tried to stop her, but an inexplicable darkness fell on the street and she disappeared as the police tried to adjust their eyesight.
     That night, my roommate packed up her clothes and left campus saying that her family had called her home after the death of her grandfather.
Aaaand, that's where we are.
     She hasn't come back to campus yet.  The superhuman hasn't been around.  I haven't said anything to anyone...What the heck am I getting myself into?