Our Future

“Angels?” Daniel questions in disbelief.

Great now we just need to tell them that Gabriel can read minds and I can see the future. That’s when it came through.

The flashing and blurring. It wasn’t as painful this time, just a minor headache. I stumbled back onto the roof. Gabriel caught my shoulders.

“Is he okay?” Daniel asked.

That’s when I see Joey and Daniel, Jason is holding them at gunpoint. I and Gabriel go from being behind them to in front of them. Jason fires a bullet and somehow Gabriel raises his hand and bends space to stop it. The bullet starts shaking and then falls to the ground. Gabriel glances at me with this look of shock. Then turns his hand away from Jason towards himself to look at it.

“They’re monsters. Why are you defending them? They’re going to kill you,” Jason shouts.

That was the first time anyone ever spoke in my visions.

I came back to reality and you could tell Gabriel had been reading my mind because of the look of shock.

“Are you okay?” Joey repeats Daniel’s question.

How were we going to tell them what we saw?

Gabriel slowly released my shoulders. It was the first time he was speechless but he had a good reason to be.

I wouldn’t believe somebody had powers if I didn’t see it for myself and me and Gabriel had no proof that our powers existed, they weren’t like Jasper’s where you had physical results. Like healing and turning invisible and floating.

Gabriel was able to stop the bullet but he obviously hadn’t learned how to do that otherwise Farren wouldn’t have been able to shoot him.

“It’s a medical thing, don’t worry about,” I say still trying to catch my breath.

“Is there any way to treat it?” Daniel asks concerned.

“No, because we don’t know what it is, and it’s not like there’s a doctor around to diagnose me,” I comment.

“Sorry we can’t help,” Joey apologizes.

“It’s not your problem, it’s mine,” I remind him.

“Is it life-threatening?” Daniel questions.

“I don’t think so. I’ve never had any problems after the seizures,” I answer.

Accept for trying to figure when the vision is going to become a reality.

Now Gabriel is the quiet one. He’s concerned about what we saw. He doesn’t want to be responsible for our new friends getting injured.

Our wings have disappeared by now.

“We need to talk,” Gabriel mumbles but it’s barely legible so I don’t think Joey or Daniel hear him.

“Joey!” someone calls.

“Guess we’ll talk to you later, bye,” he says and departs from us quickly with Daniel.

Once they’re off the roof Gabriel embraces me.

“That was scary. The bullet was coming at me. I thought I was going to get shot again. But I stopped it. How did I do that?” he rambles on.

“I don’t know,” I sigh.

He touches my face gently.

“Jason said we were monsters. How does he find out?” Gabriel asks.

“We didn’t exactly say not to tell anybody to Joey or Daniel,” I comment.

“Yeah, but that’s not exactly something you run off and tell people, is it?” he doubts himself.

“They don’t seem like the type of people to spread rumors,” I remind him.

“I guess,” he whispers quietly still worried.

We decide to climb down from the roof and settle down in one of the storage rooms with boxes of pillows, blankets and other soft things. We create a new box cave at the back of the room where hopefully no one will find it. We fall asleep in each other’s arms.

But the vision comes back to haunt me as I sleep.

After Gabriel looks at his hand Jason fires another bullet. Not prepared it pierces his hand but this time instead of screaming in pain and bleeding red veins appear on his arm. They crawl up toward the wound and begin to repair it.

Jason continues to fire but it’s like Gabriel is immortal or something. The red veins spread everywhere.

“Stop, Jason,” Joey yells.

Daniel is spinning his head in circles between the four of us; finally he disappears from behind us to behind Jason. Daniel tries to wrestle the gun out of Jason’s hands but it ends up going off and hitting Jason in the lung or upper abdomen. Jasper appears and heals Jason before he loses too much blood. Daniel is in shock, he has blood on his hands from Jason’s wound. Joey rushes to his side, concerned. Gabriel is also in shock from the healing veins. He falls to the ground still starring at his hand as if he were scared of it. For some reason I’m standing still well all of this happens. Jasper restrains Jason with this telekinesis so he doesn’t try to shoot us again.

“Let me go, you, monster,” Jason cursed.

Jasper barely seemed fazed by Jason’s comment.

The shotgun shattered then.

Gabriel jumped.

We are all out of breath and surprised by what has just occurred.

Time freezes and that’s finally when I can move. I’m just slowly looking around at first, confused.

“Nathan,” I hear Farren call.

I turn but he’s not there.

“Monster,” I hear my mother call.

“Monster,” they both call.

I cover my ears. I can’t speak but my mind keeps screaming.

“Shut up! Be quiet. I’m not a monster. Gabriel? Can you hear me? Please? Anybody? Please, make them stop.”

“Monster, monster, monster,” the voices torment me.

“Nathan?”

Gabriel sees me and runs toward me.

“Wake me up.”

“Don’t you need to see what happens?”

“I’m done. Make them stop.”

“Who?”

“Farren and my Mom. They’re calling me a monster.”

“Monster, monster,” they whisper again.

They appear but they look like half zombie-ghost people. Suddenly everyone in the dream starts disappearing. First Jason, then Joey and Daniel, then Jasper.

“Gabriel. You have to wake up. I don’t want to see this, please." I plead.

He blinks out of existence.

The... Things, ghosts, zombies, whatever, start advancing towards me.

Finally, I’m shaken awake just before they reach me.

“You okay?” Gabriel asks.

“Yeah,” I say trying to catch my breath. “Were you there for the whole thing?”

“Yeah,” he gulps.

“As if we didn’t have enough on our plate,” I curse.

“Should we test it?” Gabriel asks looking at his hand nervously.

“Are you...” I curse again. “No, you shouldn’t test it.”

“But how am I supposed to do it later?” he questions.

“The same way you stop the bullet. Believe in yourself. The same way Jasper healed Abele. You told him to believe, didn’t you?” I remind him.

“Something like that, I guess,” he comments. “Funny thing, you didn’t believe it back then.”

“Well, it’s called a mistake. Apparently it works so take your own advice,” I reply.

“Are you going to take it? Because I’m pretty sure you stopped time back there,” he hints.

“Yeah, but I think I did that accidently. I don’t think it’s necessary, “I reply.

“We should find Joey and Daniel, make sure they’re okay,” he adds.

“Good idea,” I comment.

Gabriel stands up and holds a hand out to me.

I accept it and he helps me up.

“Ugh,” I grunt.

“What?” he asks concerned.

“My head still hurts,” I reply swaying.

I regain my balance by using Gabriel to steady myself.

He leads me out of the cave and into the bustling hall. It’s busy in the morning here. Do they have regular meal times? We just ate whenever we were hungry back at the other place.

Everyone was rushing in the same direction. I guess breakfast rush hour had begun.

We waited till the halls cleared. We weren’t interested in breakfast, we just wanted to find Joey and Daniel, but they were probably enjoying their morning meal right about now like everybody else.

We waited around outside the warehouse, on the ash fault that had been turned into a basketball court. We’d have to wait till after breakfast when everybody was settled down and out of the way to find them.

Things would have been a lot more hectic if anybody had died.

“Hey, Nathan, Gabriel,” Daniel called as he exited the warehouse. “You guys know it’s breakfast time, right?”

“We’re not hungry. We need to talk to you and Joey,” I reply nervously.

“Why? What’s going on? Did something happen?” he questions worried.

“We’ll explain...but we need to…talk to both of you,” Gabriel tries to reason with him.

“Okay, does this anything to do with the seizure you had yesterday?” he asks.

“Um, kind of, but just please go find Joey we need to talk to him,” I answer nervously looking at the ash fault.

Daniel goes off and comes back twenty minutes later with Joey in toe.

“What’s up?” Joey asks.

“Ready?” Gabriel asks.

I nod nervously.

Gabriel goes to touch Daniel’s forehead but he leans back slightly.

“Trust me, please. This won’t hurt at all, although it might scare you,” Gabriel reasons again.

Daniel glances at Joey nervously.

“What reason would they have to hurt us?” Joey questions.

I could think of one but I ignored it. Daniel apparently had the same thought because he sighed but stepped forward again.

Gabriel touched their foreheads.

“I suggest you close your eyes,” Gabriel adds.

Daniel side glances him like he’s crazy.

I close my eyes and relive the vision.

“Where are we?” Joey asks.

“Inside my vision,” I answer.

I hit play and the vision rolls like a scene in a play.

“What’s going on?” Daniel asks.

“It’s the future,” I whisper quietly.

Daniel watches as Jason fires the bullet at Gabriel and he stops it again. It shakes and falls to the ground. Gabriel looks at his hand and then Jason unloads the bray of bullets on a shocked Gabriel whose red veins heal him in a split second.

Joey and Daniel are speechless.

“Stop, Jason,” the Joey in the vision yells.

The Daniel in the vision goes again from beside Joey to behind Jason. This scares Daniel. Vision Daniel starts to wrestle the gun out of Jason’s hand accidently shooting him. Daniel gulps.

Vision Jasper appears to heal Jason. Vision Daniel is in shock at the blood on his hands. Vision Joey runs to his side and Vision Gabriel falls in shock to ground still starring at his hand. Jasper restrains Jason with telekinesis so he won’t shoot anymore.

“Let me go, you monster,” Jason curses.

Jasper again is unfazed by his comment.

The shotgun shatters and I end the vision there. They don’t need to see my meltdown.

Gabriel disconnects from the heavy mind-reading state and releases Joey and Daniel.

“Is that going to happen?” Daniel asks.

“It’s a possibility but most likely, yes,” I reply.

“How did I...do…that?” Daniel stutters. “Appear behind Jason.”

I look at Gabriel who looks as nervous as we do. Normally the first symptoms of being an angel were growing wings but in Daniel’s case he seemed to develop his powers first. Or at least that was Jasper’s first symptom, ours were our powers, maybe it depended on the person. The last time we had to break the news that somebody was an angel was to Jasper and it wasn’t hard for him to believe because his wings had already appeared by then.

I hoped if anything this didn’t strain Joey and Daniel’s relationship. That was what I was most concerned about right now. So far it was a bad idea, moving. We were basically disassembling this place from the inside.

“Am I...” Daniel stuttered again. “An...angel?”

Joey looked back and forth between us as if expecting an answer. Daniel was older than us if anyone knew if they were an angel it should have been him.

“Most…likely...” Gabriel whispered slowly.

“Does that mean that I will grow wings soon?” Daniel asked nervously.

He probably didn’t want them to randomly appear.

“We don’t really know. We don’t really know much about the wing aspect of it all. It might work differently for everyone, you’re also older then us so I don’t know if that affects it,” I reply quietly.

Daniel sighs. He seems slightly scared and stressed by all of it.

“It’s okay,” Joey whispers to him. “This doesn’t change anything, you know that, right?”

He seems more hopeful after Joey’s statement.

“It’s kind of cool, actually,” Joey continues.

Daniel blushes and smiles slightly.

“We need to find a place accepting of different sexualities and races,” Gabriel thinks quietly.

“Doesn’t mean they’ll be willing to move,” I reply.

Gabriel shrugs, comes closer and puts his arm around my shoulders. First affection we’ve ever shown in public. It makes me nervous still, even if Joey and Daniel are the only people around to see.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Daniel suggests.

“Sure,” Gabriel answers.