The Gemini: Emancipation

35 - Empty Room

May 14, 2007

Dropping the yellow ointment tube, Miles bolts out of the bathroom, down the hall and smack into Prince's arms.

"Woah, woah! I said sneak, not fly. We gon have to change Smiles to Speedy."

"Sorry."

Seeing the boy's uneasy expression, "You okay?"

"I um..." trailing off, Miles hasn't any words to fill in. There's plenty he could say but he's empty.

"What happened to your finger?"

He's just realized he's holding onto it. "I got a paper cut making an airplane."

"There's Band-Aids in the bathroom cabinet."

"It's not bleeding anymore, I'm okay."

"They're not just for bleeding, they keep the germs out." Turning Miles around, Prince walks him back to the bathroom. "Germs get in that and it can make your finger fall off."

"There's germs everywhere," he responds flatly to a claim he knows is bogus.

"Right. Why do you think we wash our hands all the time? So they won't fall off."

That straight-faced joke would've made Miles laugh if there wasn't a discontenting matter at hand. The bathroom mirror.

On the way here, he told himself not to look into it. But he can't help it. Stealing a glance, he sees only himself and his father; the one without the green hair.

Picking through the first aid kit, "Did you leave this stuff out?" Prince asks.

"Yeah because you called me." Pointing to the Neosporin, "I was gonna put some of that on it, but I didn't know if it was the right thing."

"Mhm."

Wound cleaned. Bandage wrapped.

"Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think real life can be like comics?

"In what way?"

"You know...like people with superpowers. Do you think maybe sometimes it can happen?"

"Flying and other things like that, no. But everyone has something special somewhere inside of them. Anything that makes a person great is a superpower." Closing the kit away in the cabinet, "We can finish talking in the car," Prince says. "Your mom's superpower is coming home earlier than she's supposed to."

"What's yours?"

"Fooling her every time."

"And mine is keeping a secret."

Impressed with the boy's savvy, Prince grins, "You got it!"

Secrets among other reoccurring things. During the car ride to Paisley, Miles discovers that his newfound visual ability isn't confined only to the bathroom mirror. It works in rearview reflections too. There, his father's double haunted in the same faded manner as before.

And it only got worse.

Gemini followed wherever Miles went, appearing in whatever shiny surface he could. In the kitchen, while he ate his ice-cream, he kept his head down as a precaution. He fully expected to see him in each of the wall's mirror panels. Instead, Miles saw him in the reflection of the spoon he ate with.

Living a superhuman life is something he's always dreamt of, but certainly not like this. Heat vision would've been amazing. Super strength could've been even better. But whatever this is, is too much. Especially handling it on his own. He could tell his dad, but something's urging him not to. The same something that keeps whispering his name.