generals_son (generals_son) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-07-19 16:19:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | christopher kent, jack landors, open |
Who: Chris and OPEN
What: Vampires!
Where: A parking lot beside an old motel downtown
When: Midnight
Rating: No higher than PG-13
The full impact of his situation hadn’t hit him. Being a sixteen year old boy, Chris had shown up and not panicked. Instead, he had taken a look around, turned this way and that, had flown to Kansas and had not landed in Metropolis, and had then decided that something was wrong. Speaking to not one but two people who claimed to be Clark Kent—two people who he believed to be telling the truth— Chris was confused and lost in a city that he had never been familiarized with. The first twenty four hours flew by. They resembled seconds in that way. Chris slept in an apartment belonging to an elderly woman named Hannah, who insisted on calling him honey and asking him if he wanted another glass of lemonade every five minutes.
Hannah had found him standing outside the walkway of her building and having some kind of previously dormant maternal instinct, she’d known that something was wrong and had come up to him. Chris was coltish and baby faced and everything about him screamed easily approachable, not dangerous, talk if you will. She smiled and shook his hand and then insisted that he come in with her. She had cookies and lemonade and God help him, no matter how many times Lois had told him not to accept candy from strangers, he followed behind her like a displaced puppy.
She fed him and clucked around like a mother hen, complaining about how the city was so cruel and unfair and how children should be left out of whatever crackpot agenda it had for itself. Chris took an immediate liking to her and started shooting off question after question. She answered each one with enthusiasm, told him everything she knew about the city and after eleven, told him that he should go to sleep because he was probably tired and she shouldn’t keep him up any longer. He was still excited and full of questions for him, but he complied and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.
The sun broke in through the curtains, signaling him to blink open his eyes and sit up. In his sleep induced state the first thing he thought about was school and how he had a presentation due for third period American History. The light of the morning swept away the fog clouding his drowsy head and the day began, minus the History presentation and arguing with his mom over his choice of clothing while his dad let them go at it until Lois gave up and let him be.
Hannah took him to the park, talked about her son and how he was a doctor, married with two children and living in Texas. She cooked dinner in the kitchen and he explored the apartment building, sat outside on one of the benches lining the sidewalk and tried not to think about his parents and how they would be distressed over his disappearance. Without having to concentrate on the image, he could clearly see Superman’s cape bellowing and Lois with her hand to her chest, telling him to look everywhere and get the answers with his fist if it came to that. Nobody harmed a hair on her boy’s head and got away with it.
It was nearing midnight now and Chris had pried open the window to fly out into the open air. His sneakers were quiet when they scraped against the windowsill and his take off was made as silent as he could manage. Hannah didn’t need to know that there was a kid going out the second story window. That would bring the questions that he wasn’t ready to answer. No longer able to feel a barrier underneath his feet, he kicked at the breeze beneath him and flew upward.
The sounds of an active city rushed passed him. There was no destination in mind and he flew out of the urge to fly rather than the need to be airborne. His vision zoomed in on the scenery below, to view everything with extreme accuracy and clarity. Instead of being caught by something that could be seen, Chris’ attention was captured by a scream and something hard being thrown into something equally as hard, a wall maybe. He had to turn himself around in mid flight to zoom off in the direction of the noise.
It was eight against one. Hardly fair. Chris settled on the jutting edge of what had once been an old motel and purposely took a discarded piece of roof into his hand and hurled it at the ground with all his might, to take the fixation away from the young woman backed up against her parked car.
“I would think about playing somewhere else if I were you guys.” Eyes turned, snarls left fanged mouths and Chris was prepared to fling himself into their circle if and when they went back for the victim.