A dose of compassion can ruin your future.
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| Image from http://www.gaiaonline.com/ |
Creeper hovered outside the classroom, checking to make sure
his skirt wasn’t caught in the waistband of his—what were they, anyway? They
weren’t underwear.
Clenching his teeth against the surge of self-loathing his
current employment incited, he assured both of his buns were covered by his
Hermes costume and pulled open the door. Floating into the room, he heard the expected wave of titters roll through the classroom. Heck, if he were a student
in a classroom and some skirt-wearing guy with wings on his feet came floating
in, he’d do more than snicker. God he missed his roots.
Though he tried to suppress his super hearing, it picked up,
“Shiny gold buns. I like.” In his peripheral vision, he saw the speaker had
long pink hair. Yeah, you would like.
“Can I help you?” The teacher’s frown indicated he hadn’t
received a herald-gram in his classroom before.
Boy, you’re in for a treat! Creeper kept his
expression blank. “I have a delivery for Sandra Tohler.”
The hot chick sitting across the aisle from the girl with
pink hair gulped audibly enough for him to know she was his target. The unison
turn of all the heads in the classroom in her direction, confirmed it. He
floated toward her, wishing instead that he could pour on some super speed and
bullet train his way off of this horrible campus. And put on some frickin’
jeans. Hell, get a job as a stocker in a grocery store. Who needed to use
superpowers anyway? Since the balancing of the super heroes and super villains,
he’d felt not only useless, but also pathetic.
He cleared his throat and started to recite the beyond corny
message his boss had assigned him to deliver. When the girl’s head hit her desk
he wanted to put her out of her misery and just leave. He overheard a kid
somewhere near the front of the room whisper to his friend, “Man I would love
to tap that. If this herald-gram works on her, I’ll deliver one of my own.”
Why did they never realize that plant-inspired superpowers
came with super hearing?
All of Creeper’s senses automatically tuned into the miles
of thick roots extending deep into the ground from the forest of pines
surrounding the school. He longed to coax them into action. The memory of a
particularly fun time—back before he graduated from Super Villain Academy—almost
made his bored composure crack into a grin. He’d found an anonymous envelope on
his pillow one morning. Inside were some cash and a note promising a second,
equal installment if he used his roots to keep a particular villainess from
joining in the fight that was certain to erupt in the gymnasium later that day.
Good times.
More whispers from the front of the room. The jerk’s friend
responded with a stupid sounding guffaw and then his high-pitched, grating
voice squeaked, “You know that girl dates the nerd, right? The one who used to
be a villain, but switched to our side before the balancing? She’s
probably into some sick stuff.”
Creeper curled his toes inside his completely lame ankle
boots. He ached to send roots up through the floor to wrap around the cocky
kids at the front of the classroom and squeeze them until they popped. Then
guilt oozed into him and he admonished himself for daydreaming. Root-wars were
the old Creeper. The pre-balancing Creeper.
He reached the point in his oration when he needed to grow a
bouquet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a fistful of seeds. When he
opened his fist he felt the eager life within each and every little capsule.
New growth. The innocence of it thrilled him and slayed him, equally. He sent
warmth and nourishment across his skin until it pooled in his palm. The little
seeds drank greedily. He waved his free hand over the top for affect and, as
the seeds began to sprout, he pretended to coax the seedlings upward with
dramatic flourish, all while maintaining the flow of sustenance into his palm
to encourage growth.
The sweet little lives of each flower filled him with
regret. He fought against the urge to grimace as he bundled the wildflowers
into a bouquet and offered them to the girl. She just stared at them. At first
he wondered if she too felt the accelerated lifeline and was as horrified by it
as he was. But then he recognized her far away expression and realized her horror
was inspired by something else entirely.
He shoved the flowers at her, anxious to get away from them
before they realized that by forcing them to grow, he’d cut their life spans
short. Okay, maybe he was the only one who actually comprehended that. Flowers
don’t think—they just do. They just are. But they’re filled with hope and
brightness and all sorts of positive energy. Until they start to die, which
this bunch would start to do any second now.
Though he wanted to throw the flowers across the room like a
child throws a broken toy, he set them carefully on the desk in front of the
girl. Reaching back into his pocket, he grabbed the card the sender had
requested accompany the flowers and shoved it into the bunch. The girl just
stared at the flowers. Her distracted state of mind pulled at his newly tender
heart, knowing the flowers would die long before she appreciated them. Such a
waste of the purity of their bloom time.
He shook his head and pulled himself from his maudlin
thoughts. He hated this new way of thinking, but with the influx of those
disgusting warm, fuzzy, hero feelings the balancing forced on him, he couldn’t
help himself. He broke his stoic expression to scowl at the jerk at the back of
the room eyeing his legs. The kid just lifted an eyebrow.
Pre-balancing Creeper would have wrapped a root around the
guy’s waist and pounded him against the wall. Post balancing Creeper couldn’t
bring himself to coax the roots to do his bidding anymore because of their
feelings. No, that wasn’t quite right. He had always known plants had a sense
of awareness—almost an independent will that fought against his violent
instructions. He had just never cared before.
***
About the author: Kai Strand writes fiction for kids and teens. Her debut novel, The Weaver, was an EPIC eBook Awards finalist. King of Bad spent eight months on the publisher's Top 5 best sellers list. As a mother of four young adults her characters are well researched and new stories are inspired daily. Kai is a compulsive walker, addicted to pizza and a Mozart fangirl. Visit her website for more information about her work and to find all her virtual haunts; www.kaistrand.com.
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