Mirrors and Shadows

Chapter Seventeen

Streaming Test results.

I flunked Chinese but aced English apparently. Overall it was a great result :)

I'm better at English than Chinese. ;) I'm better at writing than grammar and all that stoopid stuff

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The silent tears continue to stream down my face. Jake is dead. Jake is dead...

I bury my head in my arms and weep.

Eventually I pass out and my dreams are filled with the photo the Emergent sent me. Jake. Slumped on a wall. A bullet puncture clear on his head. No way he could have survived from that. No way it was fake. They couldn't have Photoshopped it on there as the forehead is clearly Jake's and not someone else's and that the rims of the puncture and the forehead are seamless, without anything pixelated or out of place.

Jake. He had been my best friend since I first entered the school. The first time I met him is still a vivid memory in my brain. My dreams vividly portray the event.

It was a bright summer day. The dean had consulted my parents a few days before. They didn't agree at first but he begged and pleaded and said it was for the country. Then they had a whispered conversation that I couldn't eavesdrop on. My parents relented after that.

Me, being only twelve at the time, was fascinated by everything and also a little scared about training to fight with real weapons against the bad guys.

One day when I was fighting a fellow student as training. We used darts instead of bullets for safety. My opponent  suddenly snuck up from behind me. I was startled and turned around and in the process sprained my ankle.

I gritted my teeth and tried to suppress the pain, but the opponent's dart nailed me in the forehead and he whooped in joy.

I hobbled to the side of the room. Nobody noticed I was hurt, except for Jake, who was a stranger to me at the time.

He rushed over to me, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I said, a bit embarrassed.

"No you're not," he said. "Look. You've sprained your ankle."

Talk about stating the obvious. My ankle was obviously swollen and sprained. "It's okay. I can take care of it myself."

"You need an ice pack and an elastic band to stop the swelling," he said, ignoring me.

"I know that," I said, a bit annoyed now. "I don't need your help."

"Okay," he said. "I'm not going to tell the teacher or anyone else to embarrass you, but could you please let me help?"

I was a bit touched by his determination and his care. "Okay," I said, a bit reluctantly.

He smiled at me and rushed to the first aid cabinet in the room. The coach noticed.

"What are you doing, Mr. Richards? (A.N. don't laugh at me)" he asked Jake.

"Uh..." Jake said and made a show of limping. "I sprained my ankle."

I stifled a laugh. Jake wasn't good at acting.

The coach looked at him curiously then noticed me sitting on the floor on the left with the real sprained ankle.