Shattering Crystals

"You - you do?" I ask incredulously. How much does she know? How?

"Yeah... just, I don't want to talk about this here." She looks over her shoulder before she continues speaking. Her voice drops down to a whisper. "Just... follow me to my house and we can talk. But please, don't hurt me!"

It's a strange request but I nod in agreement anyways. Confused agreement, but still agreement. I guess it's natural to be afraid of magic users, though. There’s no telling what they could do, really.

The walk to her house is long and silent. Cody gets hungry (or just bored), grabs the bag of chips from Connor, and struggles to get it open.

"Just open it already!" Lorraine exclaims after a few minutes of this.

"What? Don't like the sound?" Cody says.

"No, I don't, thank you very much."

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know." He starts opening it even more slowly, crinkling the bag.

"Stop!" Lorraine slaps him on the arm and he bursts into laughter, but finally gets the bag open and starts to eat his greasy snack.

"Uhm, just wondering," the unnamed girl says nervously, "but are you two dating?"

"No," Cody says quickly, bits of food spraying from his mouth. Luckily, they don't hit anyone. He swallows. "Why would you think that?"

"Oh, it just seemed like it. Figures, though."

"What's that – " Lorraine starts to speak, but obviously thinks better of it and shuts her mouth. Everyone decides to just ignore this.

Well, we're here," she says, voice wavering. We stop in from of a tan-colored bungalow with a broken window. The girl raps on the door twice with her knuckles. When nobody answers immediately, she walks over to the broken window. "Heather? You there?" The door swings open to reveal a brunette wearing a t-shirt and holey sweatpants. She looks about nineteen.

"Oh, Elise, I thought that you were someone looking for money!"

"Yeah..." Elise says. "That's what I mean." She gestures to me.

"Oh!" Heather exclaims. "Um... come in." If Heather is letting us in... then she must know our secret. And if she knows our secret... Elise is in trouble. But we follow her into the house, puzzled. The place is... a mess.

"Even worse than our house," Cody mutters.

There are empty pizza boxes littered around the room, drink cans everywhere. The couch is stained and so is the carpet. The place as an unpleasant musty smell about it.

"Hold on a minute," Heather says. She disappears into another room and comes back with a roll of cash. "I don't know if that's enough... but it's all I can give you right now."

"Why... would you be giving me money?"

"You - you aren't the people looking for money?" she responds, her eyes widening. "Elise, why did you bring them here? We could get in trouble!"

"I thought they were! I mean, they are a bit young, my age, but still... They were following me and I didn't know what to do."

"Uh, Elise," I say. "I don't know what this is about... but we still really need to talk to you."

"Okay... but please don't report us." she says, biting into her thumb nail. "I'll listen to whatever you have to say."

"Uh... we'd rather talk to you alone."

"Oh," Heather says. "Elise... take them to your room, then..."

"Alright, my room is this way." She leads us down a dusty hallway and into a dimly lit room with nothing but a mattress and a couple of blankets on it. Suddenly I wonder if following her was a good idea. "What do you need to tell me?" she asks. I simply reach out and touch her hand. A shock passes through us and the sparks start up once more.

"You are one of us," I say softly.

"I am... what?" I sigh, the repetition of telling the story getting boring. "Technically... it's Cody's turn to explain."

"But I don't even really know the story," Cody says. "I don't even know who, or what, I used to be."

"Fine... we'll explain. Together."

----

“…are you high?”

It’s funny, because that’s exactly what Cody had asked us a few months ago. I guess it might seem like it, though.

“I thought the same thing,” Cody says. “But no. This is real.”

“It can’t be.”

“You saw the glow,” Lorraine says. “You’re one of us.”

“I don’t know… I don’t want to leave.”

"No offense, but what's so great about all of this?" Lorraine motions to the small room with barely anything in it.

"It's just what I've always known. I'm used to it."

"If you say so..."

"Tell you what," she says, avoiding eye contact and the situation in general. I think everyone is too tired to ask anything else of her. "I can let you guys stay here... but you'll have to sleep on the floor. I'm sure Heather won't care, as long as you're not out for her money. Now let's just go to the living room. Do any of you have money? We can order pizza." We all nod and file slowly out of the room. But Dean taps me on the shoulder before I can leave.

"Dana?" he says, voice low. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"

"Uh, okay," I reply.

"Elise, can we talk in your room?" Dean asks politely. She bites her nail but nods anyway, and quickly leaves.

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask curiously.

"About... us, I guess."

"Huh?"

"Well," he says, running his hand through his hair like he always does, "what are we to each other?"

"We're friends," I say, uncertainly. "What else would we be?"

"Yeah, 'course we are. But you know our past lives... and what we used to be."

"I know... but I really don't wanna think about that now. We're just friends, aren't we?"

"Yeah," he says quickly, "definitely."

I plop down on the mass of blankets. "That can wait until we get back... if we ever do. I'm just being realistic."

"So we're just friends, right? And nothing more." I can see that he’s uncomfortable talking about this. Could that mean something? Why did he bring this up now?

"Yup. Is that okay?" I ask nervously.

"Yeah, it is. Good actually. I just don't want things to be... awkward, I guess."

"It won't be." I smile at him, knowing that I'm telling the truth. He smiles back and leaves the room in a rush. The wind from his hasty exit makes the pages of a journal flutter.

It's Elise's diary, by the looks of it. My fingers itch to grab the book and read it, but I know I would feel guilty. Eventually, they win and I force myself to read only the latest entry.

It's dated for today, and only a single line of messy handwriting.

I don't want to have to do bad things to make myself feel okay anymore.