Skye Silver & The Soul of Fire Vol.1

Although I was having a nightmare for a day and he was initially part of it. I couldn’t tell him no and ditch him. I could’ve left and walked home but he would’ve found the bus eventually then I’d have to walk home every day to make it seem like I didn’t know. Kitai always said, “Its best not to lie, especially to someone you’ll likely see again.” So I heeded his advice and showed Assail to bus 7.

I knew Kitai rode my bus as well and up till now only he and I sat in a seat together on the bus. So I felt strange even walking to the bus with another person. Had it been anyone else I may have thought harder on a way to ditch them. But your emotions have a certain way of making you feel obligated to be nice to someone that has just defended your honor.

Damned emotions.

We make it to bus 7 and as I expected we were the first ones there. I always tried to make it to the bus first because it filled up fast. If I couldn’t make it in time Kitai would usually save my seat and vice versa.

As predicted the bus began to fill up quickly. Assail sat in the seat across from me. Kitai came running to the bus late but in the nick of time as the bus driver was closing the doors.

“Almost missed us” the bus driver Smiled as Kitai boarded the bus.

“and you would’ve missed me” Kitai joked back.

I waved my hand to signal for Kitai. At first, he cracked a smile as if he was acknowledging that he saw me. However, almost instantaneously afterward his jaws dropped as if he had seen a ghost. His eyebrows narrowed and I could see he was confused. He squinted his eyes in the direction of Assail as if to get a better view as he walked towards where we were sitting.

“But with what?” I tried to figure it out before he even made it to the seat “Why does he look like he just saw the devil himself?”

“Whatever it is,”I thought to myself. “he’s going to have to spill it eventually. I could always tell when something was wrong with him and he was usually pretty open with me.

“yea he’ll tell me,” I said under my breath as Kitai neared the seat.

He sat down and looked at me with a look in his eyes id never seen before. He looked nervous, no scared or maybe shocked and in awe. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem like he was going to be very open about it. As a matter of fact, he was more quiet than usual. After all, the bus ride home is the best part about school. It was always full of chatter with the students conversing about their day and what they were planning to do when they got home.

“Hey, Are you ok?” I asked.

“yea I’m fine” Kitai replied with a shaky low tone.

“Did something happen?” I whispered, so no one in the adjacent seats would hear us and assure Kitai that he could be comfortable with telling me here if it was embarrassing.

“No I’m fine” Kitai replied.

He sounded more confident this time. it seemed like he had been in a trance and just snapped out of it.

“Maybe he fell into deep thought for a minute.” I wondered.

“Oh ok, this is Assail the new Foreign Exchange Student,” I said pointing across to where Assail was sitting.

Kitai’s eyes widened & his Adam’s apple moved up and down like when men swallow saliva. He turned to face Assail to see that Assail was already reaching his hand out for a handshake.

“Hows it going man,” Assail said.

“Not bad, nice to meet you” Kitai replied.

When they shook hands I was sure I felt a wave of energy flow through the bus but no one else seemed to notice. All the conversations continued as they were. Assail and Kitai exchanged a few words as the bus made its way down the street.

Assail’s bus stop arrived first. he gathered his things and stood up slowly so that he wouldn’t hit his head on the bus ceiling. They’re always lower closer to the window where he sat.

“See you in class Skye.” He said as he walked to toward the front of the bus to exit.

Before the bus driver could even close the doors completely Kitai turned to me with an intense nervous look in his eyes. he was nearly shaking and I’m sure if he didn’t wear bandannas there would have been nervous sweat pouring down his face.

“Kitai, what is it that’s bothering you?” I asked.

He hesitated before asking. “Have you ever seen that guy?”

“Who Assail?” I replied confused. “of course not, he’s from Brazil.”

“Did he tell you that?” His tone was clear that he didn’t believe what I said.

“No, the principal did,” I said defensively “Why are you interrogating me about him anyway?”

I felt kind of bad defending the new guy against my best and only friend but he had just helped me in the gym minutes ago and Kitai had never met him. He had no reason to pre-judge so quickly.

“Sorry, I just get a bad vibe from him,” Kitai responded.

“Well, I just spent the last hour and a half with him around the school with no problem so your vibe must be misplaced.”

“Have I ever been wrong about these things?”

“No,” I replied. he was always right when it came to a person having negative intentions.

“Then trust when I tell you something is off about him. Just don’t hang out with that guy.”

“Fine.” I agreed.

We rode in silence for the next few blocks until Kitai’s stop. We lived in the same neighborhood but his stop was the first of the few and mines was the last.

“See you later,” Kitai said as he headed towards the front of the bus.

“See you later too.” He winked at the bus driver.

“Boy bye!” She said in a playful tone whilst giggling.

If I didn’t know any better I would think Kitai only preferred adult women even though he was in high school. He had all the courage in the world to flirt with the adults but none with the students.

Anyway, I thought it strange that Kitai was so aggressive towards Assail. He was always overprotective but this was different. He didn’t want to protect he wanted to control. He wanted me to stay away from Assail completely but that only intrigued me more about him. Kitai Was right about some bad people with bad intentions but he had never gotten this aggressive and serious about it.

As we came to the 3rd to the last spot I noticed someone through the window down the street at my stop. I’ve never seen anyone standing at the high school bus stop before. As the bus drew near my stop I thought “No way!” Were my eyes deceiving me? The clothes were the same but the face was too far to make and by the time I was able to make out a face the person had turned to walk away and I could no longer see their face.

Finally, the bus came to a halt at my stop. The last of the students got off and scattered in different directions. I scoped down the street to see if I could see the man but he was gone.

“Was that Assai…” I said to myself as I began walking down the street. “no its impossible he’d have to be able to run faster than the bus.”

I shrugged it off and proceeded home. When I arrived home I knew there would be nothing better about today than any other crappy day at home with my foster parents. See my foster parents were evil. I found mail in my name one day and decided to open it to see a check from the government for $300. That funded my foster dad’s gambling habits & my foster mom was the devil in Prada. At one point I somehow managed to go 2 days without eating and her telling me “they had no money” the entire time yet on the third day she strolls in with shopping bags from designer stores. They were wicked to the core and only cared about themselves. When I was too young to understand what was going on the government made visits to make sure I was in good hands and they worked together to clean the house and staged it to look like a child’s paradise. That way they could keep the checks rolling in without actually supporting the child. I have no doubts in my mind if the checks didn’t stop at my death they would find a way to kill me.

Between the two of them, My strange skin that doesn’t allow contact, and my joke for a school my life was a full circle of Disappointment and I was in dire need of change. Every time I stepped foot on the porch I had thoughts of running away. Sadly I never built the courage to actually do so.

I walked into the house to see my foster dad sitting in the living room chair asleep with his feet propped up. The tv was still playing and a half-smoked cigarette was in the ashtray near his hand as if he barely made it before he fell unconscious.

I could hear my stepmom in the back room folding laundry she always sang the same songs on a loop when she did it. I never found out who sang those songs but I was sure they were of the Country genre. She hated hip hop and wouldn’t allow me to have music on my phone. She claimed it rotted my brain cells.

I crept upstairs to my room that was more like a closet and closed the door as softly as I could. I wanted to be in my room as long as possible before they noticed I was ever home.

I laid in the twin size bed. “Finally,” I said quietly “Some peace and alone time.”

I sat there for a while decompressing after the long day. When I finally got up I decided to check my book bag for the homework assignment I received in the first period. But as soon as I opened my bag all the thoughts of the Mythology book came rushing back into my head. I took the book out and opened it.

“This is silly,” I said to myself.

But I was still compelled to look into the book. It was old but looked like it didn’t get many check-outs at the library. A good book as old as this from the library would usually have stains, ripped pages, Graffiti, at the least there were signs someone had fallen asleep at some point and drooled in them. But this book was clean and very well kept. There was even a bookmark inside but it was in a language I could not read.

I opened the book and turned to the table of contents. There were only 10 chapters and they were titled with what seemed to be peoples names. The subtitles were definitely planets in our solar system. I had planned on going directly to Loraine Silver and reading her pages first of course but I got nervous and decided to start from the beginning to take my time getting to her.

“Chapter 1 Fugaze - God of Evil and Darkness - Planet Mercury” the book read.

“This is the guy Antonio was talking about at the library. He was right, Why would she want anything to do with this guy.” I thought to myself.

His picture was alone was enough to make a happily barking dog whimper. He had these dark eyes that seemed to grab your soul through the picture. He had cut in his face that resembled what Americans called a buck fifty. Its when someone slices your face open with a blade. He had a bald head with what looked to be a tattoo on top his head but the picture didn’t reveal enough of it to tell. And his teeth… his teeth were sharp similar to that of a shark.

“The firstborn of 8 Fugaze is the Gods of Gods Shakur & Lytes first son” I began reading.

Fugaze once resided on planet Saturn with his parents and 7 siblings until his sudden chain of evil acts. He traveled and terrorized several planets. His visits were often accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations as well as Gods and Demi-Gods. Now banished to the underworld or “Planet Mercury” Fugaze even in the underworld managed to bring more darkness and rise in power to become the leader of the Mercury.

“this guy is creepy,” I said to myself. “Maybe I should just skip to Loraine.”

I flipped through the pages until I finally saw her. It said nothing of her being a god only that she was the mother of the God Fugaze’s only child. I was discouraged when I completed her section to find no information on her child whatsoever. However, there were a few factors that had sparked my interest. I had questions and I knew who I was going to ask.

I closed the book and tossed it on the ground next to my book bag and less 30 seconds later my foster mom comes bursting through the door into my room.

“Dammit,” I thought to myself. “She hears everything”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I live here ma’am,” I replied.

“Don’t get smart with me!” she snapped.

“Sorry ma’am, I didn’t mean to talk back.” I replied

“What was that noise I heard?”

“I dropped my book” pointing to the mythology book.

She picked up the book and glared at the title “Maverick Mythology, is this what they’re teaching you kids in the schools now?”

“No ma’am,” I replied, “Its just a personal book I’m reading.”

“Well, there is no need for you to have personal books until your grades are higher so ill take this for now.”

She didn’t really care about my grades, they were Straight A’s after all. she just wanted to make me miserable in any way she could. I guess she figured if I liked this book she would take it to punish me. She would go to the extremes to inconvenience me at all times.

As she walked out of the room I could feel the fire inside me intensifying again. She could make my blood boil even if I was standing in a freezer. She grabbed the doorknob to close the door when all of a sudden she squealed to the top of her lungs in pain. She looks at her hand and I could see it had been burned. The doorknob was bright red for a moment before returning to its original gray color. I wasn’t sure what happened but I was sure it wasn’t a coincidence. First Chris hair catches fire and now this. Even though the book did not mention who Loraine’s child was I couldn’t help but think about how she looked exactly like me and the fact that she had the same last name as me. Accompanied by some sort of fire manipulation power I was hooked to her and needed more answers.

I made up my mind to go back to the library with hopes of finding the guy that gave me the book. Maybe he could do more research. He worked in the library and obviously read plenty. I made a plan to persuade him to study the subject for me and hopefully he’d one day find out and inform me. It was a long shot but I had nothing to lose. If all else failed at least I could say I learned about something new.

I gathered my things and crept down the stairs. I peeked in the living room to see if my foster dad was still there but he had moved. I made it to the front door and open it when I hear his voice.

“Where are you going?” He said.

“I’m just going for a walk” I responded.

I always lied to them when they asked where I was going. I figured if I told them they would make their way wherever I was to annoy me.

“Well go to the store and get some milk.” He demanded.

“I don’t have any money.”

“Well go find some money on your walk and get some milk.”

I mean mugged him and turned to walk out the door.

At this point, I hoped anyone would be my real parents. I dreamed at night of having my real parents come and take me away from this place to an island where there are no people like this. A kid could do a better job parenting than them.

Anyway, I Started out to the Library unsure if the guy was even there. Nonetheless, anywhere was better than being home. Also, the library is quiet which makes it the best place for an outcast like me to get away from people that talk too much. And it’s normally a peaceful place because no bullies are going to go to the library. They’d find it lame or corny for sure.