The Unkillable Girl - [ONC 2024]

13. A hero is needed

A scream echoed down the hallway, quickly followed by another at a slightly different pitch.

Darius turned towards the sound. His ears pricked and alive to the possibilities. It definitely sounded like someone was scared, and maybe in trouble. But what could it be? It was so exciting.

He jumped up out of the chair with a little squeal. "What do you think is happening? It sounds like trouble."

Amelia quickly wiped away the tears on her cheeks with her sleeve before she stood up and shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well let's go investigate," Darius said, excitedly.

"Ummm, yeah. Okay."

Darius eagerly skipped down the hallway, and back towards the entrance. Now he knew that his friend was an actual superhero, he couldn't wait to see her in action.

When he reached the end of the hallway, Darius could see there was some kind of commotion happening in the main waiting area. He couldn't see the whole room, but in the parts he could see, all of the people looked scared. They all seemed to be nervously looking in the direction of the main staircase that led up from the street.

Darius couldn't see what it was that everyone was staring at, so he carefully edged forward and peered around the corner.

There was a youngish looking guy standing in front of the doors holding a knife. He had this kind of wild Starbucks barista vibe. Like he was slightly on edge where he'd drunk far too much coffee and then hadn't had enough sleep. He also had tattoos on his arms, and ones of those pretentious beards. He probably rode here on his bicycle. Or no, probably an electric scooter. Yeah, definitely electric scooter vibes.

"What's going on?" Amelia whispered from behind him.

"I don't know. Looks like some hipster throwback is trying to rob the place or something," said Darius. "Like robbing banks is soooo overrated."

"Is everyone else okay?"

Darius took another quick peek to check. "Yeah, he's just like standing there and twitching at the moment. It's like he's trying to dance but he's forgotten the choreography, ya know? So cringe."

"Do you think we should do something?" Amelia asked.

Darius turned around feeling confused. It was Amelia's voice, but it didn't sound like her. She never usually stopped to ask questions. It was act first, apologise later. He had expected her to leap into action and do something incredible. Instead it was weird and slightly disappointing.

"You're supposed to be the hero, you do something," he said.

"I...ummm... yeah," Amelia said, but didn't start moving.

"What's wrong?" Darius whispered frantically.

"I don't know. I was just thinking about my mother, and I just..."

Darius looked at her and sighed. She had one of those far away thinking kind of expressions on her face. It was most unnatural for her. He was the one that was supposed to be the more thoughtful one of the pair, and she was the more impulsive one. This was boring. When was the exciting part going to start?

"Hey. In here, quick," a voice whispered from nearby.

They both looked around to see who was speaking. A door on the other side of the hallway was opened slightly, and there was a guy on his hands and knees. Quite a cute guy, thought Darius. And wearing what looked like a nurse's outfit. Things were looking up.

"Quick, it's dangerous out there," he whispered again, more urgently.

"Okay, sure," said Darius, and he hurried over.