Overpowering

Chapter 4

"Theo! Hey!" I hear a familiar voice call out to me. Ayda is running towards me with her hands thrown into the air and Eric is silently following her. Her energy is really something, I don't know how she does it.

"Hey Ayda," I respond with a smile. Her positive energy is filling the space around her and I instantly feel more at ease.

"Have you heard?" She practically yells at me. "We're in a training group together!"

"Uh," I say. "A training group?"

"Yes! The big important people has decided to train people from multiple rooms together," Ayda explains with a huge grin. I can't help but smile in response.

"Our group has you, me Eric, Adrian-"

Oh... I had just started to hope that I wouldn't spend too much time with Adrian just yet. I'm still feeling extremely uncomfortable from the other day in the practice room. Shivers run down my body just thinking about it. It makes me more anxious than I would like to be.

"And someone I don't know yet called Emma, Sam, Yuki and..." She hesitates for a short while before her eyes widen. "-Gwen! Her name was Gwen!"

"I'm so excited to get to know them! Do you know any of them?" Ayda asks me and I have to admit that I actually know Emma...

Luckily she doesn't ask me how I know her and I probably wouldn't be able to tell her how either. I still feel really bad about hurting her, even though she said it was okay. I lost control. Completely. My stomach is almost churning at the thought.

"It'll be so much fun!" She squeals as her smile takes up her whole face. She really smiles with her whole body and it makes me more at ease. Maybe it'll be okay. I really hope it's going to be okay.

We sit in the cafeteria and start eating our food, Ayda constantly talking, me listening and smiling and then there's Eric. I don't really know what his deal is. He never really speaks, but he always hang out with Ayda as if they're best friends.

You would think that they're too different to be friends, but their dynamic strangely works. It's like he grounds her in a weird way. Every time her voice becomes too loud or her word clutter becomes too much, he calms her down a bit. It's an unspoken thing.

"Why do you think they're suddenly mixing us up?" I ask. "I've only trained with, uh, Adrian so far."

"I actually don't know," Ayda confesses. "I heard from someone else that they want to make this whole training scenario a more practical thing or something."

"Maybe they just want to make us socialise more," She continues. "Like, create a network or something."

"Yeah, maybe," I mumble quietly. Maybe I'll be able to distance myself for a while because of this. It might not be so bad after all. "So, when does it start?"

"Today!" She responds with a grin. "Do you want to go together?"

I nod with more excitement that expected. I might actually be pumped for this. I might finally learn how to control this... thing. I'm weirdly nervous but excited at the same time. I look over at Eric who has been sitting in silence the whole time.

He has an unreadable expression on his face, eyebrows knitted together in... Worry? Anger? I can't really tell. I really hope I get to know him better during this because no matter how social Ayda is, there is still lingering awkwardness due to his unwillingness to take part in any conversation.

I look over to the entrance of the cafeteria and I see Adrian standing there looking at me. He has probably noticed that I have been avoiding him. I just can't help it. When I first got here, he seemed so nice, but I have come to doubt his intentions.