“Hey Nerman!”

I looked up to see Simon approaching me at my lone lunch table.

“Oh hey Simon.” I said with a sarcastic monotone.

He sat down with his own lunch and started digging into a massive hamburger.

“Simon, why are you sitting here?” I asked.

“Well because you seem so lonely all the time, and everyone should have a friend.” He said between mouthfuls.

“Huh.” I couldn’t really argue with that. A thought about it for a moment as I watched chunks of meat and lettuce fall on to the table.

“Have you ever noticed that I don’t want any friends?” I asked curiously.

“Don’t be silly.” He said. “Everyone wants a friend.”

“I’m sorry but that’s not true, case in point.” I sighed.

He laughed aloud at that.

“So what the problem?”” Simon asked.

“Problem? What problem?” I asked, surprised at the entire thing.

“Well lately you’ve been in a better mood, almost approachable sometimes until this morning.” He took another bite. “You looked like shit.”

A gave another dramatic sigh. “Simon, up until last week we never even talked. Why are you trying to be interested in me all of a sudden?”

“Why can’t I?” He shot back good naturedly.

I stared at him deadpan for a few seconds. “Do you really wanna know?”

“Sure.” He said as he chomped down and tore himself a new one.

“Fine. I’ve been pressganged by a man named Murdoch into something called a Kompaniya and I have one day to tell my mom before I’m dragged away and never seen again.” I said.

Simon stared at me before giving a full throated belly laugh, it was hard to do given the amount of food between his mouth and windpipe

“Yeah that sounds pretty bad. Have you tried to contact the authorities?” he asked good naturedly.

I shook my head. “He claimed that he is influential in all branches of the government. Making me think that my voice against his wouldn’t be something you’d consider a fair fight.”

Simon was still chuckling at my previous statement but decided to play along. “You know I could get you a guidance councillor or something if you’re having trouble with school work.”

I shook my head sadly as I stood up. “No need Simon, it’s my last school day.”

Simon nodded good naturedly “Well I wish you luck in escaping the Kompaniya.” He chuckled

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” I said before starting to walk away, leaving a very smiley Simon behind me.

“And it’s Norman by the way!” I shouted back.

Mum walked through the door tired and wet from the rain. Shrugging her shoes and backpack off she trudged in to the living room and plonked down next to me on the couch.

“Hi mum.” I started.

She jumped in surprise at the sound of my voice. Finding me right next to her must have been strange, especially considering I was home even though it wasn’t even noon yet.

“Norman! You scared me there! Make a noise or something next time.” She scowled.

“Sorry, but can we talk?” I asked.

“Sure what’s up?”

“Well I’ve got superpowers.” I said.

She laughed at that. “Sweetie we all do, everyone is good at one thing or another.”

“Yes, yes.” I said, slightly irritated. “But I’ve got real ones. Look.”

With a hop I was standing in front of her, her face still turned to where I was sitting. When she moved to face me her mouth was agape.

I did a couple of jumps around the room before sitting down again. “See? I really do.”

“Y-yeah that’s nice sweetie.” she stammered, looking out at the living room, as if expecting me to jump in front of her any second again.

I waited a couple of seconds for her to formulate what just happened.

“What?” she started.

“Yeah I had a really weird dream and since then I could do stuff like that.” I shrugged.

Silence.

“WHAT!” She shouted.

“I know but you’ve got to calm down, there’s a mob boss that’s going to kidnap me sometime tonight so I need to run away with you.” I said as calmly as possible.

She didn’t reply immediately, in fact, she didn’t reply at all, her face was frozen into an expression of neutrality, showing absolutely zero emotion.

I was worried, I know I’m not good at talking but this was just ridiculous. There was probably a more tactful way to have introduced these things to her, maybe if I had a week I could have slowly revealed more and more but there was no time and I had no patience.

“Mum.” I asked hesitantly. Did I cause some kind of traumatic shock to her system? Did she not even here my second revelation, being so hung up on the first?

Suddenly she spoke. “No.”

I looked uncertainly at her.

“No.” She repeated more firmly. “I don’t believe you.”

I sighed, exasperated. “I broke in to a warehouse which turned out to be where they hid their drug stash and now they want to kill me but their boss won’t allow it since he wants me to work for him instead.”

Silence

“That’s nice sweetie but that not something to joke about.” She said as clarity returned to her eyes. “That was a very impressive magic trick you just did, I didn’t know you practised it in your spare time but the other nonsense you said is just plain silly.”

She got up, ignoring my pleading. “Now I’m going to go upstairs and have a lie down, we’ll talk later if you need some counselling, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of stress in your life.”

I was stunned, not by how blatantly she ignored the issue, but by how she thought I needed counselling, did she think I was insane? What the hell!

Fine, I’ll run away on my own then. I went upstairs, pushing past her roughly in the process, grabbed my backpack, stuffed it full of food, clothes and money and tromped back down. Perhaps I was being a bit stupid but I didn’t care, there was probably a way to seek protection from Murdoch but I didn’t want other people’s help. Even my own fucking mother thought I was crazy! What the fuck! But that was fine, I could go anywhere in the world, with these superpowers-

Thunk

A wave of pain and dizziness washed over me as I fell to the ground, looking down I spied a small green needle protruding from my thigh and my last thought was a sour sense of satisfaction that I was right.