THE NEW GODS | developing

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

THE night was long and the room was dark, and Noelle couldn't sleep.

It had been a long day of losing battles and making discoveries, but she only had one thing on her mind.

She tossed and turned again for the umpteenth time that night, sinking deeper into her single bed. She clutched onto her pink duvet cover in hopes that it would release some kind of pharamone that would dissolve into her skin and help her sleep.

No such luck.

The image of Seth's black eye materialized in her brain again, amidst all the dark space. She found herself wondering again how he'd gotten it.

That wasn't the only reason she was up tonight. There was something different about the atmosphere, something strange, something... dark.

She felt her blood curdle, and goosebumps creep up on her skin as the night breeze engulfed her umber skin. The wind whistled in the air, while the sounds carried on into the room.

She hated how Tara never closed the window on her side of their shared dorm during the night.

It was apparently so she wouldn't overheat while she slept, and although Noelle never really had a problem with it before, it was growing excessively hard to sleep on this specific night.

The wind continued to whistle outside, but this time it was almost as if she could hear it hissing... and hissing... and hissing.

Finally, she relented and sat up on her bed, rubbing her eyes as if there had been even a modicum of sleep in them even though there wasn't.

She wondered if Tara had been struggling to sleep as well, or if she could at least hear the wind outside.

She was answered when a tumultuous snore echoed throughout the room and possibly even the next room.

Tara was asleep.

That made one of them.

She had to admit to herself that since school started up she hadn't really been sleeping that well either way.

She always had nightmares, nightmares that would have her screaming her lungs out and jolting awake with cold sweat streaming down her forehead.

Strangely enough, she'd forget them the moment she awoke. It was a constant losing battle, but it was still better than no sleep at all.

After several moments of deep consideration, she crawled off her bed and headed for the door, sparing a sleeping Tara one last glance before carefully closing it behind herself.

She didn't have to pee, but maybe the walk to the bathroom and back would tire her out enough for her to return to her bed and sleep.

The hallways of Barden West were almost identical to those of Porter Hall. The key difference was that instead of plain portraits of famous past male superheroes who had once been in the school, their walls were littered with images and tapestries of past female heroes. Most of which Noelle herself looked up to with all her heart.

Noelle found herself wondering if perhaps she'd one day have her very own portrait on the walls. She could just see it, her dressed in her custom made purple super-suit, along with her black mask that only covered up a section of her face, it was just around her eyes, really, and she wasn't really sure if it would be enough to conceal her identity from the public, but that was a concern for another day.

She could just see herself striking a pose, and underneath her picture would be a golden plaque with her superhero name sprawled down in New Times Roman; IMITO.

Coming up with a superhero name was one of their year-end tasks as final year students, and they'd all be announced at the final ceremony held at the end of the year for all senior students, however she'd known her name from the moment she realised what her power was.

She glanced down at her bare fingers with a sigh, realizing she'd forgotten to slip on her gloves.

No matter, she thought to herself.

Everybody was asleep so there was absolutely no chance of her accidentally touching another student and harnessing their powers.

Noelle shivered as she turned the corner that lead to the bathroom, and a strange sensation caused her to halt in her march.

She felt a cold draft of wind again, although there were no windows in the hallways.

If she listened closely, she could hear the hissing from before and it was gradually growing louder.

Her heart began to hammer against her chest as she finally reached her destination, only this door was wide open and the lights were on.

The hissing continued, until the sound of whimpers coming from inside the bathroom flooded it out of her ears, alerting her senses to remain on high alert.

She stammered into the bathroom, fear creeping up on her like a thief in the night.

Her eyes widened, and her hands dropped to her sides when she finally saw the cause for all the whimpering she was hearing.

It was Avani Parikh, drenched in buckets of sweat. Her glasses had slipped off of her face, which was gradually growing redder and redder.

Her brown eyes buldged out from her skull as she continued on in whimpering and gasping for air, her stubby fingers were enclosed around an object tightening over her neck.

She was high up in the air, a rope that looked more like a snake continued to tighten around her neck.

When Noelle glanced up, she realised that it was connected to nothing, just floating in the air. Avani continued to pry at the rope, tears streaming down her wide red eyes.

She glanced down and noticed Noelle, her motions becoming more and more erratic, indicating that she was having a harder time breathing than five seconds ago. "HELP ME..." Her tone, which was normally cold and demanding was now feeble. It was only a whisper, her voice was cracking and dying out.

Sabrina didn't hesitate, if there'd been any bit of sleepiness acquired from the long walk to the bathroom, it was all gone now. She reached for Avani, but stopped in her tracks.

If she tried to pull her down, the pressure on Avani's neck would increase sevenfold, she knew this from her Citizen's Rescue class. Instead, she reached for her hand, and when they touched she felt Avani's electric current flow through her body, her blood stream.

Less a split second later, Noelle stepped back and aimed for the piece of the rope that was meant to be connected to the ceiling but was hanging in thin air. The piece that was supposedly hoisting her up.

She fired an electric blast at it, breaking it off. Avani fell to the ground immediately, descending into a fit of coughs as tears continued to stream down her puffy cheeks.

She clutched her reddened neck, while the piece of rope behind her remained deadly still, as if whatever force had overcome it was gone now.

Noelle crouched down to where Avani was sobbing so that she could lend a hand. "I– I don't know what happened..." Avani tried to explain, struggling herself to put the pieces together. "One minute I'm asleep, next minute I'm here... being choked to death by a supposedly inanimate object. I don't even remember getting out of bed."

Noellw didn't know what horrified her  more... the fact that Avani had practically sleepwalked to her impending death, or the fact that somebody was at the school trying to kill her.

She could hear the scuttling of footsteps behind them as a crowd of students began to gather, all dressed in their pajamas and scratching the sleep out of their eyes.

"Wait..." Avani cried, eyes widening in realization. "I just remembered something. In my dream, there was this figure, a dark figure. It was of a man, he looked really familiar."

Noelle furrowed her brows, wondering where Avani was going with this. "He looked... he looked a lot like–" She gasped when she finally remembered, focusing her gaze on Noelle with a frown.

"It was Seth Grayson."