The Aegis of Noah Hart

23-Fallen

"Noah! Come in! Come in! I'm glad you showed up today. I was starting to think our Mr. Hart was avoiding old Sherry."

"Hi Nurse Sherry. Me? Of course not."

 "Ha ha, good. Oh, you know what? Go ahead and step on that scale for me dear."

Noah reluctantly steps onto the white scale in the corner of the nurse's room. Sherry Lawson bounces her leg making her pink scrubs rustle. Noah tries to avoid looking into her eyes as he feels a wave of far come over him. Though he has managed to avoid and find excuse after excuse to skip the mandatory check up for the past few weeks, Noah knows he can't pout this appointment off for much longer.

Man, keep it together Noah! Don't let you flames out.

Reaching for the wall to steady himself as he puts his second foot on the scale, the boy watches in horror as his fingers start to shine a fine white. Just as medical counterpart seems to notice the glow he tooks the appendange behind his back and turns around to face her. The motion keeps her eyes from seeing his glow but nearly causes him to trip.

"Everything, OK?"

"Huh? Oh, just clumsy. Sorry."

The nurse smiles and shakes her brown bowl cut hair as she grabs sits down at a computer monitor to write review his chart. Her eyeborws raise first then she jumps to her feet. Without a word, she comes over to him and adjust the column bit so it makes contact with the top of Noah's head. Noah can feel her eyes widening as they look at the numbers.

"My goodness! Is this right?"

"Something wrong?"

"Well...I looked at the physical you had back in May with your pediatrician and it says you were 6'1'' and weighed 253 pounds, but today you appear to weigh 227 pounds and measure at 6'3'' and three quarters. That's...that's about twenty-five pounds lighter and almost three inches taller!"

"That-WOW! Are you sure?"

Noah waits for her to look back at the monitor on her computer before trying to "stir" or change the density of his muscles and bones. Doing so is relatively easy for him thanks to his time with Plato. He could possibly change his weight just enough to appear unchanged, but there is another problem. Stirring similar to his Aud and Empath abilities causes his skin to glow with bioluminescence. In this case a bright gray. As he breathes into his abdomen, the boy feels his calve muscles condense under his skin causing a slight burning sensation as his feet start to press deeper into is shoes and the scale below his body.

Sherry looks up as he hopes just in time to see the numbers on the digital screen by his head read higher number.

230. 240. 250. Huh? Why did those numbers go up? Wait! What's going on with his face? Is he glowing?

Noah takes a deep breath and shuffles his feet letting his muscles return to their normal density and his weight to drop back down to normal. A confused Sherry shakes her head.

Is he squirming and messing up the scale? Maybe he needs to go to the bathroom or something.

"Noah, did you-are you moving?"

"Sorry! I-I forgot to go to the bathroom before I came here."

Mrs. Lawson studies his face carefully. He makes his best embarrassed face which she quickly accepts especially when she notes that the skin she thought had turned bright white still appears to be a normal beige.

"Uhhh!"

"Something wrong, Noah?"

Noah shakes his head forcefully, his hand clutching his chest. Knowing that the nurse has her eyes on him he starts raking his fingers across his shirt as if satisfying an itch instead of what he really feels, a tightness in his chest.