SUPERPOWERS

Draft of a Chapter

"The deepest pain I ever felt was denying my own feelings to make everyone else comfortable." - Nicole Lyons

The route to the Komorebi had become as familiar as the back of her hand. How the opening to the path was disguised by birch trees and shrubs, and behind the mask welcomed tones of muted green and brown of ferns, moss, vine attacked hardwood and a thin wooden planked bridge traversing across the floor; The creek one needed to cross, by leaping between the rocks afloat the sprinting stream, and onwards on the winding bridge leading to the final labyrinth of boulders blanketed by moss until one stood in front of the arch of a new world.

Before the entrance of the area, Jess would walk of course and hide behind a nearby bush which, between the network of branches, displayed a clear view of the area where she could watch Allie rummaging through her treasure chest and organising the contents for her afternoon creativity juicemaker. However, this time after Jess took a seat on her signature fallen log, she noticed that Allie was nowhere to be found.

She carefully stood up, peered over the bush into the Komorebi and scanned the area, but there was still no sign of Allie.

That's weird...

She placed her backpack by the log and tiptoed among the trees, right and left of the boulders and closer to the arch. Allie was non-existent in this part of the forest.

Where the fuck did she go? I  saw her walk through the... I was right behind her...

"Hi Jess!"

Catching her off guard, Jess wheeled around and produced a shriek, clutching her chest as her heart tried to break out through her ribcage.

A few minutes prior to their encounter, Allie had headed off route into the forest to accumulate a few fallen twigs and returned to seeing Jess standing within the perimeters of the Komorebi.

For Jess, In both shame and relief, she was kind of happy that it was only Allie.

"Allie, what the fuck!?" she yelled suddenly when she had grabbed a hold of her run away breath.

"Sorry... I didn't mean to scare you," Allie said, shrugging their shoulders and frowning.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!".

"Well, I was actually going to ask you the same query."

"It's none of your fucking business. I usually take this route home after school, and I just happened to stop by to take a break. That's all."

"Oh ok!". Allie said.

"You've got that look on your face, that clearly shows that you have something to say."

"Um... sorry... Well, I've noticed that you have been following me into the forest for 16 days in a row now, and I researched the location of your house on PeoplePeriscope.com and saw that your abode is actually north of school and not south of school." Jess gave Allie a concerned look. "I've actually really appreciated your company, it has made me feel less afraid of coming here as the autumn takes over, you know. I'm kind of afraid of the dark. I'm not very good at engaging in social contact with new people, but I just wanted to let you know that if you wanted to hangout here with me you could just ask me during Biology Lab, instead of sitting on the fallen oak wood log," Allie said neutrally without any broken pitch in their voice.

Jess stared at her, discombobulation written all over her face. Unable to form a proper sentence, all she could produce was:

"Creepy. H-How? Why? I-I-I..W-Wait... WHAT?!".

"Wait what, what?".

"YOU'VE KNOWN THIS WHOLE TIME?!"

"Oh... um... Kind of..."