Rubik

Chapter 4: Gray Mood

     The following day, everyone hung out and stayed out of school to keep stress off of us. We all met up outside of Oliver and Rachel's house, waiting for the two to come out. When they finally did, we all walked out to the city and explored the place, looking around to see what was out at the time.

     "We should check out this new arcade that they opened up nearby," Oliver said as he pointed behind us with his thumb. "With everyone in school right now, it should practically be empty."

     "I'm up for it," I responded, then I looked at everyone else. "What do you guys think?" Oscar nodded and gave a thumbs up, Rachel nodded as well as she skipped alongside us, but Dylan said nothing as he kept his hood over his head, even if the sun was beating down on us. We entered the empty arcade and looked around, everyone going to different types of arcade games. Oliver went to go play this one game that came out a few years before, Space Invaders, and Oscar watched him. They hi-fived every time Oliver passed a level and I found it amusing to watch.

     I walked over to this bulky machine against the wall labeled, "Pac-Man," And I put a quarter inside the small slot. The yellow circle popped up on screen and I began to move him around with the joystick built into the machine. Rachel walked over and watched as I got passed each level with relative ease.

     "This game just came out," She said as she switched her focus between me and the screen. "How are you already good at it?"

     I chuckled as I kept my eyes on the screen and said, "Any game becomes easy if you memorize the patterns and algorithms that go into it. Look at the four ghosts," I told her and she looked at the screen. "The ghosts run three different modes, Chase, Scatter, and Frightened. The Chase and Scatter change a lot and they react on a fixed timer that resets on each new level or whenever you lose a life." I kept moving my character around the screen as I explained to Rachel. "There's four phases after the initial reset. The first phase, they scatter for 7 seconds, then chase you down for 20. The second phase, the pattern repeats. The third phase, they only scatter for 5 seconds, but they chase the same time. And for the fourth phase, they only scatter for 5 seconds, then chase you down until you die or..." I moved my character down the final trail of pellets and the screen began to flash from blue to white. "...you complete the level." I chuckled and the next level started up.

     "Each ghost has it's own individual personality running as well. The red one mainly tries to stay behind you at all times, even during chase times. The pink one tries to ambush you by moving to where it thinks you're going to be rather than where you are. The blue one is more difficult to read since it uses both your position and the red ghost's position to calculate where it should go, typically staying near the red ghost. And the orange ghost has two different patterns it switches from, chasing you down and going back to the bottom left corner. It frequently changes and makes it very difficult to read," I said as I finished the level again. Rachel focused intensely on the game as I explained how the game worked

     I finally lost all my lives and entered my initials in the first place position. Rachel gave a small laugh as I stepped away from the machine.

     "Well that was fun to watch, and a bit hard to understand," She said as she walked beside me. I chuckled as her arm dangled beside me. I slowly reached for it with my own hand, but Dylan called me over. I quickly turned and walked over with Rachel. 

     "Can we leave?" He asked as Oscar and Oliver walked over as well. "This is utterly boring and I'd rather be doing something productive." He walked over to the exit and we all hesitantly followed. As we walked out, we heard several firetrucks drive by, so we all ran over to see what was happening. One of the apartment complexes was engulfed in fire and the firefighters couldn't slow it down. I pulled the cube from my pocket and Oliver pulled me aside.

     "Ray, you think your cube can take this fire out?" He asked me quietly and I shrugged.

     "I could try, but I can't give a guarantee," I answered and he nodded.

     "Alright, I'll get everyone distracted. You just go deal with this." I nodded myself and broke away from the group as Oliver gathered everyone around and away from me. I ran around to the back of the complex and I climbed up the ladder. It felt hot, but it didn't burn in any way, so I kept climbing until I was on the roof. I walked through the roof access and climbed down the stairs as I solved the red side of the cube.

     "Oh let's hope this works," I said to myself as the cube pulsed a red aura. I aimed it at a fire that came from several rooms at once and I watched as the cube began to pull the fire in, almost like it was collecting it, and the fire shrank until it was gone. "Alright that works... But it won't be enough." I snapped my fingers and solved the green side. I floated on a breeze as it ran through the top 4 floors at once, smothering the flames until they died down. I kept going through the floors as I killed the fires that came near.

     I heard someone banging on one of the doors and I looked behind me. I walked over and opened the door to see this woman on the floor, sitting against the wall. I went to help her up, but the ceiling came down and blocked my path to her. I could only see her as she was about to be crushed by falling debris. All of a sudden, I saw Rachel phase in from the shadows and she grabbed the woman, pulling her back through the shadows and disappearing.

     "What the hell???" I asked myself as I rubbed my eyes, looking again. I shook my head and solved the blue side, then looked at the cube. I shot out a wave of water and slipped down it through the remaining floors as the fire was smothered down. The firefighters began to break into the building, so I climbed back up to the top and slid down the ladder before I was caught, making my way back to the group. They all looked at me as they saw me, soaking wet, singed in a few places, and they all wanted to know what I just did.

     I sighed and walked with them to the forest near our neighborhood, and I showed them what I could do with the cube. They all watched in awe as I dropped back to the floor, looking at them all.

     "You've been able to do this the entire time?" Oscar asked and I nodded. He began to laugh and he walked over. "Well, now I don't feel as bad." He pulled out his deck of cards and held up a single card, the card busting into flames and he through it into the water, making a small explosion in the water. I looked at it and laughed as the water dropped back down.

     "That's... That's unbelievable," I said, then I looked at Rachel. "I thought I saw you inside that burning building. Care you explain that one?" I asked her and she blushed a bit. She seemed to fade into the shadows as she felt embarrassed and I blinked. "Rachel... I can't see you." I waved my arm where she used to be and I stared down the empty air. She tapped my shoulder from behind me and I jumped at the sudden change in position.

     "I can step through the shadows and move to any other shadow in my sight," She said as she giggled at me jumping.

     "Yippie for you guys," Dylan said as he turned his body around. "You guys have super powers now." He began to walk home and didn't say anything after as he disappeared from sight.

     "He seems... off," I said as I looked at the others. "Doesn't he seem completely different from how he used to act?" I asked and everyone nodded, causing all of us to worry about him.