Gifted

Part 33: Recognize

I walked along the school hallway after classes were over with my head down. I stopped when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"You can't keep beating yourself up for what happened to Mackenzie, Nora." It was Mr. Matthews. I realized I had been walking aimlessly past his classroom. He stood in the doorway.

"Mr. Matthews. When are you going to learn to leave me alone?" I asked. I kept my voice down, so I wouldn't get in trouble for being disrespectful to a teacher. No one seemed to be around other than the two of us.

"May I speak with you?" he asked. "I only wanted to congratulate you for finally listening to me and choosing not to form a contract with Alice." he said. I sighed, and entered his classroom. He closed the door behind us, and we stood by his desk. He leaned on it while I kept my distance. I still didn't fully trust him.

"If I had listened to you before about the contracts, Mackenzie would still be alive." I admitted.

"That's probably not true. Mackenzie was a demon hunter, and that is a very dangerous path to follow. I'm sure even if you had listened from the very beginning, her fate would have been the same." He said. "Stop blaming yourself for things you cannot control." he smiled at me. I was so confused by his sudden kindness. "I'm just glad that at least you're safe. That is a victory enough for me."

I was silent. He didn't seem like he didn't care about Mackenzie's death, but rather that he was numb to it, like a movie he had seen many times before.

"Mr. Matthews? Have you seen lots of people die because they made contracts with Alice?" I asked. He looked past me with a sad distant expression in his eyes.

"Yes, I have. Many times." he said. "They were all brave and strong, just not strong enough to beat the demons." he said.

"My other friends have noticed that Mackenzie is gone. According to the local news, she's missing. My classmates are assuming that she was kidnapped. They'll never know the truth, will they? That she died saving all of them? Her family is all gone too, so there really is no one left to carry on for her." I said.

"Mackenzie passed in an alternate universe so I'm afraid that her body is lost forever. When the other world disappeared, so did she. All that is left is the memory of her. This world will see her as missing forever since there is no way to recover her corpse." Mr. Matthews explained. "That's how most demon hunters pass. They have thankless jobs with tragic ends. All we can do is remember them when they were still with us, fighting until the very end, and appreciate the sacrifices they had made for our safety." he explained.

"That's awful." I said. "Mackenzie was so selfless. She was completely alone and yet she was in a battle for all of humanity. Now that she's gone, and nobody knows what she did or why she disappeared except for you, me, Jordan and Alice. That's only four people!" I cried. "It's so unfair! She deserved so much more than that!"

"Demon hunters form contracts with Alice in order to enhance their own powers. They don't do it in order to join the war against demons. That just so happens to be the payment method. It's like when you go to a store and buy a candy bar. You are there for the candy bar, not to hand over a dollar to the cash register." Mr. Matthews explained. "It doesn't matter if you are remembered or not, because that is not part of the deal. Getting some sort of medal of honor for paying for your original candy bar would be like getting an extra candy bar. You get what you payed for. It's fair." he said.

"That doesn't seem fair. Especially since we're not actually talking about candy bars here. We're talking about a girl who gave her life to fight demons. And don't act like Mackenzie was only fighting to pay off some debt. You know she wasn't like that. It was much more than that!" I said. I wasn't going to let Mr. Matthews twist Mackenzie's brave passing into some stupid exchange. "And besides, even if the rest of the world forgets about Mackenzie, I will still remember her." I said. Mr. Matthews smiled sadly.

"I'm sure Mackenzie would have been proud to have heard that." he said.

"I won't forget you either, Mr. Matthews!" I said. He looked at me surprised. "Really. I won't forget, because you saved us yesterday. Jordan and I will always remember you, and we would always remember you if the same thing happened to you that happened to Mackenzie!" I said. Mr. Matthews' face fell.

"There is...no way... that you'd ever remember me." he said quietly. A tear fell from his eyes and he quickly wiped it away and turned from me.

"Huh?" I asked. "Mr. Matthews? What's wrong? Are you ok?"

"Yes, sorry." he said. He took a deep breath and stayed turned away from me. I couldn't see his face. I could see more tears dripping from his face. "Get out." he said suddenly.

"What?"

"Get out of my classroom. Leave." He commanded.

"What? Why?"

He didn't respond.

"Mr. Matthews?"

"GET OUT!" He shouted at me.

He whirled around, and I could see tears covering his face. I was so scared that I ran out of his classroom, and I didn't stop running until I was in my car waiting for my siblings.