We Are

As I was driving home from work, I saw a couple of hitchhikers, and decided to pick them up.

“I’m only going 20 miles farther, so I can’t take you past that point.” I told them, and they responded that, “We’re on our way to the jail, because there’s a warrant out for us.”

“Ah, so that means it’s about 5 miles closer than where I’m headed, which means that I can just drop you off there.”

We drove in silence the entire way there, and they thanked me when I dropped them off, and I said, “You’re welcome.” and drove the rest of the way home.

When I entered into my house, my parents were going on about how those two arsonists had finally been caught, and I then noticed that the two pictures that were on the tv were of the same two people who I’d just given a ride to.

They’d seemed like such nice people. Why would they commit arson?

Then, I saw that it was written next to their pictures that they were pleading innocent.

“I dunno if they did it,” I commented to my parents, “’cause it says that they’re pleading innocent.”

“Ha!” My Dad chuckled, “The kind of people who’d burn down a tree house are also the kind of people who’d lie about burning down a tree house!”

My Mom was less certain, though, and asked, “But wouldn’t someone who didn’t burn down a tree house also be a person who’d say that they didn’t burn down a tree house?”

“Fine!” my Dad conceded, “I guess the trial will determine things beyond a reasonable doubt, assuming that they don’t change their plea to guilty before that can happen.”

“Did anyone get hurt in the fire?” I asked, to which my Mom responded, “No. But the damage was thousands of dollars worth, and now that poor family might always be looking over their shoulder and wondering if their property is suddenly going to catch fire!”

A few days later, I discovered that a judge had determined that the prosecutors hadn’t had a substantive enough legal case against the two people who I’d given a ride to, which meant that they’d been released from jail.

I asked Dad what he thought now, and he said, “Eh. Good enough for me, I guess.” to which my Mom added, “This is why it’s so important not to jump to conclusions about things. Only a certain percentage of accusations are based, and it ain’t 100% of them!”

I still didn’t tell my parents that I’d given the two of them a ride, though, because I just wasn’t sure how they’d feel about the fact that I’d even picked up hitchhikers.

Weren’t they always going on about how doing good deeds was important, though?

Hmmm… I supposed that I’d change my mind and tell them about how I’d picked up the hitchhikers.

When I told them, my Mom worriedly said, “That’s an easy way to get hurt! Many hitchhikers are fine folks, but you never know when you might happen to give a ride to someone who might be dangerous!”

She looked to my Dad for support, and he said, “Look, kid; we’re glad that you want to do good deeds, but you aren’t even 18 yet. Can you please promise to at least hold off on picking up any more hitchhikers until you turn 18?”

That date was only about 3 months away, and so I agreed that I wouldn’t pick up any more hitchhikers while I was still 17.

Little did I know that that was a promise that I was going to break.

I know, I know. Couldn’t I have just waited 3 months?

Well, I really had been planning on it, but when my girlfriend and I had been driving home from the movies one night we’d spotted an elderly lady who’d been walking pretty slowly in the pouring rain.

“I feel bad for her…” Khin told me, “Can we offer her a ride?”

I didn’t want to break my promise to my parents, but I also agreed with Khin, and I ended up deciding to pull over and pick the lady up as Khin had suggested.

When the lady entered the car, she told us where she was headed, and I said that we could drop her off there because it was on our way anyway.

The lady then became very serious and seemed to be having some internal struggle of some sort.

When whatever had been bothering her seemed to have stopped being a problem, she told us, “I have to hand the power over to you two now. You seem like decent enough folks who won’t use it for evil. There’s no choice… I can’t handle it anymore, and the torch has to be passed to someone. I’m sorry…”

The lady was saying that she was sorry, but it was I who felt sorry for her. She seemed kindly enough, but also seemed to think that we were living in some fictional story land.

When we dropped her off, she thanked us, and she warned us that, “Now that the power has transferred from me to you, your lives are going to change quite a bit. I’m sorry again, but I wouldn’t have been physically able to keep it much longer, and if it were to fall into the wrong hands then all could be lost.”

We assured her that she need not worry, and told her that we hoped that she’d have a good night.

Unfortunately (regardless of how how her night went after that point in time), our night didn’t exactly go in a way that I would call good.

We continued driving towards Khin’s house so that I could drop her off, and suddenly we were both shocked and startled to hear a voice behind us!

“So, Arelis finally passed the torch, eh? Good thing too. She really did wait much longer than she should have to retire. My name is Shoma, and I’ll try to be of help to you whenever you need it.”

“How exactly did you get into Diago’s car, dude???” Khin furiously questioned, to which Shoma responded, “Oh no… Did Arelis tell you nothing? Please tell me that she at least informed you that she was passing the power on to you. It would’ve been really irresponsible for her to not even let you know what she’d done.”

“She said something like that,” I conceded, “but it sounded like she was just confused. Now, ya wanna answer Khin’s question?”

“I used the power to get into the car. You two won’t be able to do that sort of thing for a while. It’ll take some practice and training for you to even be able to use the power in a controlled way at all. That’s where I and others like me will come in. You two are what, like 17 or so? Get an apartment together as soon as you’re allowed to, and then you can have private lives and be able to interact with others who have the power without us having to work around other people who you live with.

Ah well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m needed elsewhere! I and/or others will try to be of as much assistance to you as we can; and, trust me, newbies like you usually need all of the assistance that they can get!”

And, with that, I heard Khin gasp and say, “Holy $#!+! You’re not gonna believe it, but our uninvited passenger just disappeared into thin air…”

“Maybe we just imagined him?” I asked, confusedly, and Khin responded that, “Honestly, that seems about as likely as him having actually just disappeared like that…”

Not knowing what else to do, I continued driving and had soon dropped Khin off at her house.

Before we parted ways, we agreed that we’d let each other know if anything else strange happened.

It wasn’t long before something strange happened, because the next day at school I saw some @$$hole threatening to beat some dude up if he didn’t give him some cash. I was in the bathroom when this went down.

I didn’t know either of their names, but I recognized them both, and I told the attacker to knock it off.

He said, “Make me!” and so I went over to demonstrate that I wasn’t kidding around.

Suddenly, he pulled a <?!/@ knife! out of his pocket, and plunged it into my side!

Well… he tried to plunge it into my side. What actually happened was that the knife broke and he looked very silly.

The knife shouldn’t have broken, though, because all I had on was a shirt over my skin. I should’ve been bleeding all over!

The guy who’d been being attacked earlier took this whole thing as an opportunity to escape from the bathroom, and said, “Thanks!” to me as he left.

“Good job, loser!, you let that idiot get away!” my opponent fumed, before giving me a shove and storming out of the bathroom.

I quickly examined my skin where the knife had hit it, and there wasn’t even a scratch.

I pinched myself there, and it sent off the usual pain response, which meant that my skin wasn’t actually invulnerable.

Then, I grabbed the end of the knife that’d snapped off of the rest of it, and I tested it to see if it was actually sharp.

It was!… For, I now had a tiny bit of blood coming from the part of my body where I’d lightly tested it out.

Hmmm… I didn’t know if this had anything to do with the disappearing Shoma or the torch-passing Arelis, but this seemed like the sort of event that fell into the “anything else strange” category that Khin and I had agreed to keep each other posted on, and so I decided that I’d let her know what’d happened once I got the chance.

I told Khin about what’d happened during lunch, and showed her where my shirt had torn but my skin had remained unhurt by the knife, but was sure to add that my testing had shown that I still could get hurt.

“Shouldn’t we report that dude?” she asked, to which I answered, “Would anyone believe what happened? He’d probably just say that I stole his knife from him and broke it.”

“I guess you’re right. So… I wonder when Shoma or Arelis or someone will visit us again. Do you remember where we dropped Arelis off at?”

“Nope. Not exactly. It was late, and I wasn’t trying to remember exactly what address we dropped her off at, which means that it’s not something that I can recall. You seem pretty surprisingly unsurprised by my knife incident.”

“Remember, I’m the one who saw Shoma disappear, and so this just makes it more likely that my eyes weren’t deceiving me.”

“So, are we gonna do the whole get-an-apartment-when-we-turn-18 thing that Shoma suggested?” I asked, to which Khin replied, “My parents say that it’s better not to live with someone unless you’re married to them, and I’m not ready to marry you yet even if you wanted to.”

“Fair enough. We should probably let Shoma or whoever know that if/when we see them ne-“

Suddenly, a female and male who were unfamiliar to us joined us at our table and began to speak.

“Don’t ask for our names. You don’t need them. We just need you to transfer the power to us. Right now. Then this whole thing can be over.” the girl said.

“Bite me, &!+<#.” Khin responded, to which I quickly added, “We don’t even know how to do that.”

“It’s easy.” the boy said, “All that you have to do is hold your breath for 20 seconds and think of us the entire time. Those who’re more advanced than you could do it quicker and in different ways, but you two can probably only do it like that. We don’t have all day, though, so please hurry up.”

I was about ready to just hold my breath and give it a try when Khin responded, “Not a chance @!<&head. Get lost!”

I shrugged, and said, “The girlfriend has spoken.” to which the two of them looked angrily at us, and the girl said, “We’ll be seeing you again soon, and we won’t be so pleasant and polite next time…”