Shadow-Man

11

"Have you told Gill how you feel?" Warren asked me as I was working on my agility. This time, it was me trying to do flips and stuff at a trampoline park that was recently opened up in the city.

"Hell no." I responded, just jumping up and down, gearing up for another flip. Warren refused to jump on any of the trampolines, so we just decided that it was best if I stayed near him while jumping, so he could instruct me on what to do.

"Why not?"

"Why are we talking about this? Shouldn't you be like, yelling at me for falling on my ass on that last flip."

"Why would I yell at you? You may not have stuck the landing but you did manage the full flip. Try another one." Warren told me. I did as he said and jumped into the air, hurling the top of my body forward as soon as I could. I managed to do a full flip, and land on my feet. I grinned as Warren clapped lightly.

Warren and I were at the trampoline park from the time that it opened, all the way until it closed that day. By the time we were done, I was sweating buckets, and my legs felt like jelly. I hadn't stopped jumping, or doing flips, until it was announced that the trampoline park was closing, and Warren told me it was time to go. At that point, I had collapsed, breathing heavily, and feeling like I was never going to stand again.

"You really should tell him." Warren told me on the way back to Steven's house. Steven had stayed behind to work in his lab, so it was just Warren and I.

"Why?" I asked, knowing that Warren was talking about Gill.

"Why not? What are you waiting for?"

"It's just, better this way."

"Why?"

"Because, I don't know if he would even want to be with me."

"Well, there's only one way to find out. And if you don't find out, you're going to spend the rest of your life wondering about what could have been." It was a cheesey statement, but it got me thinking. Maybe I should tell Gill how I felt.

***

My agility had improved a lot, and I was soon abe to to various different flips and things on solid ground. I was very proud of myself, and Warren congratulated me on my progress. Warren was starting to become something of a friend to me, or like, a cool uncle or something like that. I wasn't exactly sure.

Since my agility had improved, it was apparently time to move onto the next step of my training. However, we couldn't just build my skills up until they're decent, so everyday, I would beat Warren in a fight, then some flips and glorified summer saults, then we would work on me learning how to use weapons. Steven, much like Gill, thought that it was very important for me to have a weapon. I had told him about my requirements, and what weapons I wasn't ok with using, because I didn't want to kill anyone.

"Well then, I hate to break it to you, but you might have to kill someone one day." Steven told me.

"I won't kill anyone." I argued.

"You might have to."

"Why?"

"I told you, the people out there won't care who you are, and they won't fight fair." Warren told me, not looking very happy.

"They might not, but I will. I'm not going to be some blood thirsty fiend who takes their troubles out on random people on the street. I beat them up, because they deserve it, and some of the people I beat up do deserve for me to kill them, but I don't deserve for me to kill them." I argued, making it clear that I wasn't going to listen to anything else that either Steven or Warren had to say, unless it was them agreeing with me. Steven's lips formed a tight line, and he looked unhappy with me, and like he wanted to say something, but I knew that he wasn't going to. Warren, on the other hand, looked like he was almost trying to hide his smirk behind his fingers, but he wasn't doing very well at it.