Square One

Johnny did not have fond memories of High School.

He was often the butt of jokes and pranks by people on the football team, which he wasn’t too bothered about. What bothered him the most was that everyone treated him like he wasn’t there, like he was completely invisible.

He did what he could to keep his grades steady, but it got to the point where he was procrastinating everything, and couldn’t find the energy or motivation to do anything. When he was 15, his grades started to drop, much to the disappointment of his parents. They started to put tighter restrictions on everything he did, no going out on a school night, homework done by 5pm, and certainly no drinking.

Johnny’s reaction, of course, was to rebel. He started getting into the punk scene, playing loud music, changing his attitude and his demeanour, and having a complete style overhaul. He adopted a harder personality, and became a lot more daring and dangerous.

Which was noticed by all the students at school.

People would do double takes when he walked down the corridor, or would stare when he answered back to the teachers. Sometimes he even got cheers and clapping. Teachers also noticed the change, and he soon became a usual at detention evenings, not that he cared much.

The only class in which he would behave was chemistry, to the teachers delight. His teacher, Mr Montgomery, often pushed him to do extra lessons and try and get him to tutor other students who were not doing as well. He sometimes did.

He didn’t know why he was so good at chemistry, he just understood it easily. He assumed his brain was just wired that way. His parents didn’t have a clue where he got it from, seeing as neither of them had particularly excelled in science. They encouraged him to try look at careers in chemistry, or go to college to study it.

But unfortunately, when his life seemed to be on a good streak, the jocks would often try to knock him down a few pegs.

They not only pranked him or made jokes about him, they called him various names, and purposefully went out of their way to trip him up or hurt him or trap him in corners. He assumed it was because of his appearance. He eventually learnt to deal with it, taking a couple of self-defence classes just to be on the safe side. It then just slipped into his daily routine.

But when he turned 16, things got a very weird, very fast.

The bullying intensified, which he kind of expected, seeing as though all the jocks got tall and muscular and he stayed short and somewhat lean. He found that the jocks seemed to get a rise out of kicking the shit out of him after gym class.

At that point he started to get angry, what had he done to deserve this? Nothing. He’d get home and scream and kick things and punch the walls to let off some steam before his parents came home. They didn’t notice anything, of course. He was determined to not be completely broken by it, and worked incredibly hard to keep his grades at a decent standard so that no one would notice.

The bullying reached its peak during the spring term, when they thought it would be funny to hold Johnny under the water.

He dived into the school swimming pool for gym class, and they all rushed over and held him down, he kicked and hit and screamed, he could feel his lungs burning as they filled with water, he remembers his head pounding and waves of hot pain in his chest, then it all went hazy. He certainly remembers waking up on the poolside, with the gym coach pressing hard on his chest to push out water, it wasn’t something you easily forgot.

He was send to the hospital to be kept in overnight, because there was a worry that he would have secondary drowning. The people who did it were suspended for 3 days, which in Johnny’s eyes, wasn’t a harsh enough punishment.

When he went back to school, he was given the option to skip gym for a couple of weeks, but he decided not to, as it would make him look like he was giving up, which he certainly wasn’t going to do. He was more determined than ever to make them look like fools, and make them pay for their unnecessary torture.

Gym was once again swimming practice, when the jock’s jumped in, he stayed on the side for a bit longer. The coach left him to it, thinking it was just nerves from being near the pool after a traumatic event. Johnny was not nervous. He was plotting his revenge.

He stood and stared as they all laughed and messed around in the pool, tightening his fists in anger. He remembered all the times that he had been used as a personal punching bag for the jocks, and all the things they’d said about him. Fury rushed through his body like electricity, and he could feel himself needing to lash out. He gritted his teeth, and dug his nails into his palms.

He could feel himself getting warmer, and he could feel the blood rushing around his body faster. But he was completely oblivious to the steam that was beginning to drift around the surface of the water.

He only began to notice when he heard male voices shouting and screaming. He snapped out of his rage to see that the water in the pool was bubbling and boiling, and the people who were in the pool were getting burnt.

His anger quickly dissipated and was replaced with fear. Fear of what had happened to the people and fear from not knowing how the hell it happened. He took a few steps back as the others in his gym class rushed around, pulling out the people from the pool.

It was chaotic, the gym coach was shouting at students to call 911, and other students were running away from the pool. The room quickly got steamed up, it looked as if a fog had descended in the drab room.

Johnny turned around and quickly ran to the locker room.

--

He didn’t even bother going to his next lesson, he ran straight home as fast as his legs could take him. He slammed the house door shut and locked the door. He fell against the wall and slid down until his was curled up in the corner. His breathing was erratic and his eyes were filled with fear.

He stayed like that for a while longer, calming himself down. He went over what had happened in his head, replaying the scene to look at every detail. Was that me? he thought. That couldn’t have been me, I mean, I was only thinking about them being hurt, how the hell could I have done that?

“Oh my god I’m a wizard.” He whispered to himself.

Johnny then slapped himself, before standing up to go get a drink. He paced around the kitchen, scuffing his sneakers on the linoleum floor. Him mom would kill him for leaving marks, but at this moment in time, he was trying to avoid going into a full blown panic attack.

He knew he hated them, definitely, but he still wouldn’t want them to be hurt. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy. So why the hell had it happened? He had no idea.

He chugged a whole glass of water in one go before trying to reassure himself mentally that no, he was no a wizard, that was a freaky accident which he had nothing to do with. It was just a coincidence that he just so happened to be thinking about how much he would have liked to hurt them at that fractional moment of time. He never would have done anything like that in real life.

He half-heartedly completed his biology exam questions before leaving a note on the kitchen table telling his mom he wasn’t going to be down for dinner because he wasn’t feeling well, then dragged himself up to bed, closing the curtains and shutting the door, curling up on his mattress with his duvet protecting him from the world.

--

School the next day was a weird experience, the sports hall and the end of the school where the boiler unit was had been closed off, so some classes were cancelled. The school had called in a team of plumbers and electricians to try and deduce what the hell had actually happened. Quite a few of the jocks were off school, he’d overheard that 4 of them were in the hospital with some 1st and 2nd degree burns over most of their body. Johnny sped down the corridor keeping his head down the whole time.

His first class of the day was biology, and unfortunately it wasn’t in one of the classrooms which had been closed off. He quickly took a seat at the back, as per usual, avoiding all the others in his class.

The teacher showed them a video, during which they had to make notes, then gave them a couple of work sheets to complete whilst she did some prep for the practical work they had to do. You were supposed to work in pairs, but Johnny wasn’t in the mood to communicate with anyone else, and just stayed sat on his own, avoiding any glances from people wanting to pair up with him.

The practical was simple, really. A study into the types of tissue within a plant’s stem. They had to cut a thin cross section of the stem, and look at it through a telescope, sketch what they saw, and label the diagram.

The teacher, Mrs Lazarus, handed out plant pots each with a little geranium plant in them. Johnny handled his with care, preparing to cut into the stem. He placed the plant pot on the other side of the desk to give himself enough room to write and draw.

He wrote down some observations of the plant to start off with, labelling it with detailed descriptions. His flexed his free hand, trying to ignore that his palms were getting sweaty. He heard a scratching sound, but assumed it was the person sat next to him moving things around. Then something touched his fingertips. He stopped flexing his hand straight away, looking up.

The plant pot, which he definitely remembers putting on the other side of the desk, was touching his hand.

He glanced at where he thought he’d left it, then moved it back, before continuing with his work.

The scratching started again, this time he looked up. The plant pot was slowly moving across the desk, nothing was pushing it, nothing was pulling it, it was moving on its own. His breathing hitched and he stuttered, not forming full words. He quickly folded his arms and the plant pot stopped moving.
Time seemed to slow down slightly, everyone was completely oblivious as to what was happening. He slowly moved one hand back onto the desk, the plant pot started to wobble, making a clattering noise. He folded his arms back as fast as he could.

He screamed internally and stood up, chair squeaking loudly.

Oh my god, I moved the plant pot, I moved the fucking plant pot, I’m a fucking wizard, I’m an actual fucking wizard.

“Is something wrong, Johnathan?” his teacher called, wearing a confused expression. He noticed that quite a few people were giving him weird looks.

“No. I- I’m not actually feeling too good, can I go see the school nurse?” he looked at the teacher desperately, before she nodded, he scrambled to gather his belongings before practically running out of the door.

--

Once he got home, he threw his bag to the floor, before running into the kitchen. He filled a glass of water, spilling it everywhere because of his nerves, before placing it on the centre of the kitchen table.

“Okay, Johnny, if you’re actually a wizard, you should be able to do it again, if not you’ve actually fucking lost it. Right. Okay.” He took a deep breath.

He slapped himself in the face once, before shaking his head, just to make sure he was actually awake. Then, he slowly raised his hands so they were eye level. He stared down at the glass of water, imagining the glass moving.

Nothing happened.

“Aww come on! What do you want from me, huh?” he stamped his foot.

Just as he was looking straight at the glass, is slid across the table and into the wall, shattering the glass and spilling the water all over the wall. He let out a high pitched scream and flinched away.

After a few seconds of stunned silence and blinking, he stepped forward to look at the floor. His mouth was wide open with shock, and his face was blank. He snapped out of it and went to get the brush to sweep up the broken glass.

Once the floor was clear, he filled up another cup, this time a plastic one. He did the exact same thing, imagining that the water in the cup was moving or spilling over. Each time it would either tip over, fly into the wall, or fall over the table edge.

After an hour or so, the floor was completely soaked, so he moved outside. He sat down next to the plant pots that were sat in rows in his back yard. He rested his chin on his hands, staring down at the pots. Some of the soil that was in a brown plant pot flew into his face, some of it going into his eyes. He freaked out a bit, rubbing his eyes and attempting to retreat indoors.

Once the soil was out of his eyes, he had a mini realisation. The fact that all those glasses had knocked over and moved could not have been a coincidence. The fact that the soil flew straight into his face defied the laws of physics.

“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I’m the avatar.”