O.M.G: Oh My Gravity

We sat in the dining hall for a little longer, gazing out the window at the still ocean, hand in hand. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with a beautiful girl and watching the small waves drift back and forth. Strangely enough, it was so beautiful that I didn’t want to return home. I laughed at the thought and shook my head.

“What is it?” Shadow questioned with a smile. “Is something funny?”

“No,” I replied. “It’s just a thought I had.”

“About?” she prodded, punching my arm lightly.

“About how beautiful this is,” I returned. “Watching the ocean from a high tech building made of plexiglass. Holding your hand and being accepted as leader... I was thinking about how I didn’t want to go home.”

She laughed and hooked her arm in mine.

“Who says you had to go home?” Shadow said with a cheeky smile. “You could stay here forever like me. We could hang out every day and practice magic together every morning after this whole curse thing is over.”

“My parents won’t like it,” I told her. “They’ll get worried...”

“I could come and convince them,” she laughed, batting her eye lashes.

“That would work,” I said slowly, smiling at Shadow. “Only if they were the convincible type... Which they aren’t.”

Shadow looked down in disappointment and I felt bad.

“But,” I said, lifting her chin up. “You can always try.”

She smiled and stared into my eyes. My heart melted and I wondered if it really was love. I swallowed quickly and looked away at the monstrous clock on the wall, feeling nervous.

It was 1:30 pm...

Gosh, I thought, feeling slightly breathless. Time flies when you have fun.

I stood up and helped Shadow out of her seat.

“We have one more training session,” I advised her and smoothed the top of her hair down. It must have gotten ruffled when she’d leant her head on my shoulder.

“Don’t want to be late now,” she smiled. “Do we?”

I shook my head and we walked arm in arm back up to the training hall.

Our footsteps echoed as we stepped out of the elevator and walked through the open doors of the training hall. There were more people gathered in the hall than there was before and every one of them turned to wave as we walked passed. Everyone, except a large group gathered at the back of the room. They’re heads were bowed and their lips moved frantically as they spoke in hushed tones. It looked as if something was wrong... extremely wrong.

I quickened my pace and dragged Shadow along behind me.

Hearing my frantic, advancing footsteps, the group turned around in unison, revealing their all too familiar faces. Their eyebrows were knitted together and the corners of their mouths were pulled down. I turned to Shadow and saw the troubled look she had on her face.

“Is that the-” I began to ask, but was cut off by Shadow’s answer.

“The Special Operations Crew” she whispered in my ear. “They weren’t supposed to come until later... Something must be wrong.”

I scanned the faces in more depth, watching their worried eyes move over us as we made our way closer to them.

Then suddenly, I stopped, my eyes halting on one particular member of the Special Operations Crew. A member whom I decided to befriend and accept as my own brother.

His green eyes stared back into mine and my heart jumped into my throat. I urged it back down to its rightful place, not wanting myself to have second thoughts about accepting Daniel as my lost twin. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.

I strengthened my insides and hesitantly smiled.

“Daniel,” I said, feeling tears springing to my eyes. I tried my hardest to choke them back. “Brother.”

Daniel smiled and nodded, his eyes glassy and full of emotion.

“Alex,” he replied, his voice husky. “I’ve been waiting for three years to finally see you again.”

“That’s a long time,” I whispered, letting my emotions get the better of me. “I can’t believe that I didn’t know I had a twin brother.”

“I know,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. My heart stopped beating for a moment. This was the first time since he was stolen that he had made contact with me. It felt genuine and brotherly. It felt real. I smiled and a tear slid down my face. It was warm just like the moment was.

I pulled him into a hug, wrapping my arms around Daniel, feeling his body shake with laughter and sobs at the same time.

How did I know it was both after such a long time? We’re twins. Come on.

Tears fell down my face, but not in sadness. I was happy. Happy to be here, happy to be with people I love and happy to be me.

“Alex,” came a whisper in my ear followed by a gentle hand on my back. “It’s time.”

Everything seemed to freeze around me. For some unfortunate reason, I knew exactly what that meant. I pulled away from Daniel and looked at all the faces surrounding me. Each wore a troubled or devastated mask. My breathing became shallow and my heart began to race. The happy moment that was just shared between my brother and I seemed to vanish on those two words.

“It’s time.”

I felt sweat trickle down my back and I began to feel queasy. I could hear people calling my name, but it sounded like it was coming from a distance. I wasn’t aware of anything at that moment until I felt soft, cold lips pressing to mine.

Everything sped up again and I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I was scared.

I saw through clear eyes that the person who was kissing me was Shadow which calmed me somewhat. Her eyes were closed and she held me with soft hands. She pulled away and smiled sadly.

“Shadow,” I began to say, but she pressed a finger to my lips and turned to Tory, whom I just realised was in the room with us.

Tory sighed and took a step forward.

“We read everything wrong,” she said, her voice faltering. “We were too late, Alex. The sun’s going to die sooner than we thought...”

I gripped the hands of Shadow and Alex for stability, worrying that if I didn’t hold onto something I would surely fall over.

“How long?” I asked, feeling myself getting angry.

“An hour,” Tory said, looking at the floor with a pained expression on her face.

I looked at her, wondering why she wasn’t rushing to get us all ready or stressing about that fact that we were all going to die.

“We need to do something now,” I yelled, watching her pained expression turn to one of resignation. “NOW, TORY!”

“Alex,” Shadow whispered shaking her head. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“So are you saying we just die?” I asked her, letting go of her hand. “Just like that? I’m sorry, but I can’t let that happen. Not to you. Not to any of you.”

I could feel my temperature rising along with my anger. My teeth were clenched and I felt like hitting something. How could they just let everyone die along with the earth?

Shadow let out a sob and looked up at me with sad eyes. My heart melted and I felt horrible. My insides started to twist, I began to feel dizzy and immediately I regretted letting go of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Please, help me. We have to do something right now.”

I grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Please.”

She closed her eyes, a large crystal tear drop hung on her long lashes. I wiped it away with my thumb and a hint of a smile formed on her lips.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s good enough,” I replied, smiling. Daniel patted me on the back and grinned.

“We’ll all help,” he said excitedly. “I mean we were supposed to help anyway... But even if we aren’t trained that well, we can still try... Maybe a miracle might save us.”

I looked around and was happy and surprised to see that everyone in the training hall seemed genuinely excited to help. They were more determined than I though. Either that or they were just trying to hide their fear.

“Thank you,” I said after a long silence. “I am truly grateful. I know I’ve only been here for two days but you’ve really made me feel like a true leader... even though I haven’t been acting like one.”

I looked at the ground, feeling embarrassed that I had given a speech that was most probably not needed. But then, one by one, each one of the Super Humans began to clap and cheer. My heart filled with warmth once again and my face stretched into a wide grin. Daniel jumped up and down and Shadow slid her hand into mine, smiling up at me.

This is going to work, I told myself, watching everyones’ hopeful faces. I wrapped my arm around Shadow and winked at my brother, taking a deep breath in.

“Now,” I said, exhaling. Everyone quietened down. “We have a planet to save and we have very little time. I want you all getting ready and I need you to meet me back here in 10 minutes. We’ll do a quick run through and then it’s go time. Good luck, Super Humans, we’ll all need it.”

I nodded my head to indicate that I was finished, my dark brown hair bouncing around my face.

In a hurried frenzy, the Super Humans chattered and bustled around, grabbing equipment and rushing off to their rooms to get changed into something a little more heat proof.

As they were hurrying to get ready to save the world and as Tory made her quiet way to her office, I was standing as still as a statue next to Shadow, holding her hand and wishing for a miracle to help us save this Earth. I mean, anything is possible if you believe in it and I believed in miracles... I really hoped the others did as well, otherwise we’d be in big, BIG trouble.