Desired Life

Chapter 16: The Angel of Death (Part 3)

I burst into tears. Maia offers her shoulder for me to cry on. I hug her tightly and let myself go. I cry desperately on Maia's shoulder as she pats my back, trying to calm me down. I feel helpless now, knowing that I no longer have my family for support, other than Grindel and Uncle Logan, but they are already in danger and there's not much I can do.

It takes me a few minutes to get hold of myself, and only then do I realize where we are. We are standing inside the same penitentiary where I first came accidentally about a month ago or so.

"What are we doing here?" Annabelle asks.

"What is this place?" Diane asks.

"Holy shit," I whisper.

"Do you know about this place, John?" Maia questions.

"I saw it once, but I know nothing more about it..." I admit.

I walk across the long room that contains the other small rooms. Then, I feel an evil presence somewhere in this building. I turn around and look back at my friends. They don't seem to have noticed anything.

I walk back towards them and say, "We have to go. Something bad is going to happen if we stay any longer..."

And then, I hear scuttling far away and a massive shadow appears far off.

"Hurry! Come," I exclaim.

I take a quick glance inside the room and find that there are eighteen rooms behind this huge room. All of them but one are occupied by one person. Something rings in my head.

Seventeen.

The shadow looms closer and I take a look at my friends.

"We have to go, now!" I say.

They huddle near me, and before the figure has any chance to see us, I teleport us out of the place.

We are back in the Outsider Home now, standing inside my room.

"That was close," I mutter after a sigh of relief.

I throw myself down on my bed and then stare at the ceiling. I feel someone crawling on top of the bed with me, and when I turn, I find Diane beside me. Everyone else is already leaving my room, slightly scared and worried about what happened just now.

"What was that place?" Diane asks me.

"It's a penitentiary not far from here..." I reply.

"Why did we end there?" she questions.

"I'm not sure," I answer simply.

We stay silent for a while.

"Actually..." I mutter. "When I first started showing signs of my powers, that penitentiary was one of the first places where I teleported into by accident. I was still quite ignorant as to what Outsiders were and all these things that I now know that I used to think were myths..."

"You know, John... If all this hadn't happened, I don't know what I would be doing right now," Diane tells me. "I remember that I got angry with you, at first, and I'm terribly sorry for that. But, see, I was scared. Because I realized that I wasn't alone and I didn't know what would happen if I showed myself for who I truly was... And now I realize that I would've made a mistake if I hadn't confessed about my powers to you.

"I'd still be scared and helpless and, in spite of everything that's happened, I can't say that I haven't had fun. Plus, this whole experience has helped me mature. It has shown me my true potential; it has shown me that nothing is free in life. Life isn't all happiness and rainbows. It's also fucking shit storms and tears and pain and death. And there's nothing we can do to help that."