Adam's eyes immediately focused on Dylan, huddled on his knees in the middle of the shed, clutching his head in pain. A tsunami of guilt crashed down on him and threatened to pull him under. He lost sight of his best friend because of some petty competitive compulsion he indulged, even though Dylan was the root cause of it. Adam let Jesse go and headed straight to Dylan's side when a thin but firm hand stopped him in his tracks.
"Don't touch him." Ian was looking intently at Dylan's crouched form, pale face emotionless, eyes hidden behind his large glasses. In any other situation, Adam would have simply used his significantly larger frame to shrug him off and move along. Still, something about the cold confidence he exuded in that moment made his skin crawl. He instinctively felt that Ian was right, even if his mind and heart were screaming at him to move.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Nikolai try to rush to Dylan's side as well, but he was stopped by the clutches of his sister, probably saying something similar to Ian in Russian. Jesse, now bereft of enemies, also turned round and, seeing the group hesitate, stayed at a distance.
The five of them stood there, watching Dylan soundlessly shake, the air around him taking on an oily, dense feeling, smelling of ozone. It was impossible, but Adam swore he could see the shadows from the abandoned equipment condense around Dylan's feet in a roiling pool. He stared as the dark tendrils reached into his lap, along his waist and suddenly shot up rapidly, straight into his head. Adam lurched forward, only for Ian's immovable hand to hold him back with surprising strength.
Dylan sagged like a rag doll, arms dropping from his head to the floor, silence engulfing the room. He then began to twitch. It was subtle at first, a wiggle of a finger, that escalated into jerky convulsions, as if someone had attached a bunch of strings to his joints and tugged at them haphazardly.
"C'mon, mate. Enough with the theatrics." Jesse huffed in the dead silence. "We stopped fighting, just like you wanted; you can stop now."
Adam couldn't help but look at her with offended astonishment. Did she not sense the vibration permeating this tiny room? Did no one else notice the bright light of midday sun retreating in fear and plunging them into a dark abyss? Ian clearly noticed. So did the Russian girl, by the way she was clutching her brother to her and the grave expression on her face.
He looked back to Dylan, just as his head shot up to the ceiling, a ragged breath escaping his lungs and making everyone else jump. His unique eyes, amber and blue, were gone. They were rolled back into his head, only the whites showing ominously in the darkness. He grinned. Adam felt bone-deep terror settle into his body at the realisation that this was no longer his Dylan.
He opened his mouth and a reverberating voice, akin to tectonic plates grinding against each other in the deep ocean, emerged and enveloped them.
"When the witch binds the pact with a heavy price,
The siren's song coils into a shadowed vice.
The warrior breaks at the final stand,
The priest's faith crumbles, dust through a hand.
The seer's eyes blaze as the world burns,
The gatekeeper opens the door that HE yearns."
At those final words, whatever was speaking through Dylan grinned in religious ecstasy so common on the faces of the saints in various classical paintings. The tension in the air retreated as rapidly as it appeared, and they were left with Dylan, dazed and confused, eyes darting from face to face.
"Erm… why are you all staring at me?" He asked. "Why am I on the floor in the first place?"
He was met with stunned silence. Adam didn't notice when Ian released him from the strange hold he had over his chest, but even when he wanted to rush over and help Dylan to his feet, all of his instincts kept him pinned to the ground. He couldn't get that eerie grin out of his mind and reconcile it with Dylan's familiar face.
"Well, fuck." came an unexpected expletive from the other side of their group, as Nikolai's sister dropped her head into her hands. She ran them through her hair, messing up the previously meticulous braid and met eyes with her brother's questioning gaze.
"It's a prophecy." She elaborated in English, for all to hear.
"Are you sure?" Nikolai asked her.
She nodded, seemingly resigned. "The Tower."
And that apparently was all the explanation he needed. Luckily, Jesse was fast to voice the rest of the room's opinion.
"Care to share with the class whatever epiphany you just achieved? Cause what the FUCK just happened?!"
The girl flipped her braid back and focused on Dylan, still discombobulated in the centre of the room.
"At first I thought it was some case of spiritual possession. The twitching, the eyerolling. Classic signs."
She levelled the group with an exasperated look, ignoring Jesse's "Classic, she says. Are you hearing this?"
"But now I'm not so sure. If it was possession, then the spirit or whatnot released you too quickly. It's only purpose seemed to be the delivery of the prophecy, which is plausible, but unlikely."
"Hey, now. Hold on a minute." Dylan finally scrambled up. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but possession !? I don't remember doing anything to…"
"Here." Ian fumbled with his phone and lifted it to a height visible for all present. On it was a clear recording of the entire fiasco, starting around the time Dylan's head snapped up. Adam wondered when Ian had the time and mental capacity to record it. But… it was Ian after all, so was it really that surprising that he would be unfazed when faced with a supernatural catastrophe?
After watching the video, Dylan's face paled. He looked at Adam, a flash of something that looked like guilt flitting across his eyes. He regained his composure almost immediately and smiled. Adam flinched slightly, but this smile was soft and genuine.
"Gotcha! That was all a performance for the play! I couldn't wrap my head around the whole 'Odysseus goes to Hades to talk to Tiresias' scene. Considering it gave you the heebie-jeebies, I guess it's as good as it's gonna get. Shall we go then?"
Adam half-believed him; if not for his shaking hands, he was desperately trying to keep steady behind his back. This dismissal and outright lying felt oddly familiar, like Dylan had been doing this so much that it was second nature to him.
"Bitch, please!" Jesse crossed her arms over her chest, glaring. "Don't try to gaslight us! You have no idea what just happened, and you are scared shitless, like the rest of us. This shit might work on Adam, but not me."
She ruminated on that a bit and spat out. "Fuck it. I'm out." She headed for the exit to the shed. "This is getting way too weird for me."
"You won't be able to leave," the blond girl said, tired resignation evident in her voice. "None of us will. Not until we figure this out at least."
Jesse harrumphed something undeniably rude under her breath and tried the handle.
After a second of silence, she tried it again, but the metal door would not budge. Adam heard Nikolai's sister take in a sharp breath, an expression of momentary dread flashing on her face, but disappearing just as quickly. Jesse turned and cleared her throat "The door is locked."
She looked over the group, searching for a reasonable explanation, and, after finding none, said, her voice slightly rising in panic.
"But… it doesn't have a lock."
"It's not the physical thing preventing us from leaving. It won't let us leave. Not yet." The previously know-it-all voice of the bossy blonde before them had a quiver of fear in it.
Adam shuddered, imagining the oily feeling of this entity all around him. He wondered how many of his bodily sensations were real and how many were self-delusions.
"Right…" Jesse shuffled awkwardly back to the group. They stood in a circle, Dylan in the centre, waiting for apparently the only person in the room who had any idea what was going on. She nodded at them, ensuring their attention, and continued.
"So… it seems that this prophecy refers to the six of us. And like any prophecy, following the pre-determined paths will bring us doom, but so will ignoring it. There are cosmic forces at work here today, and while this all might seem very odd and unbelievable, you all are going to have to start getting used to weird shit happening. Otherwise, we are all screwed."
Facing no opposition, she moved on. "First, it's obvious that I'm the Witch, and he's the Siren." She pointed at her brother.
"What? Why me?"
She levelled him with a condescending gaze that only a sibling could give. She oddly reminded Adam of Jesse in that way. "Your influence?"
He seemed to recognise that particular reference and nodded sagely.
"Yes. That makes sense."
"Hold on, before you steamroll through, Miss 'Russian Witch', mind elaborating on how the hell you came to that conclusion?" Jesse interrupted, glaring at the blonde girl.
"For your information, my name is Anastasia Vokhvova. But you can call me Nastya." Said the girl with gravitas, as if the usage of her shortened name was a great privilege. She continued. "And I come from a long line of practising witches. Hence the connection."
"What, like Harry Potter?"
Nastya paused, expressionless. "Not exactly. More like the person that you would go to for a tarot reading or to find missing relatives and such."
Seeing the blank look of non-recognition, she added, a little frantically. "You know! A… what are they called here… psychics? Spiritualists? You have those, right?"
She looked from Jesse to Adam to Dylan, hoping for any sort of recognition in their eyes. At last she looked at Nikolai and shook her head, sighing in defeat.
"Yes, like Harry Potter…"
"Yeah, thought so." Jesse met his eyes across their impromptu circle and mouthed 'What the fuck?'
"Second, I am pretty confident that the Warrior is you." She pointed at Jesse, the other hand rubbing her temple. "And that makes you the Priest." The last was directed towards Adam.
"Bold of you to assume, but honestly, that checks out." Jesse shrugged and winked at Adam. "I guess if we are going to play along with this madness, then Adam's one is right on the money as well."
"Now the last two I am not sure about. Seer and Gatekeeper are more vague than the others, so considering you were the source of the prophecy, I guess that makes you the Seer?"
She nodded in the direction of Dylan, who was uncharacteristically quiet.
"Actually…" Ian raised his hand, like he was answering a question in class. "I believe I am the Seer, which makes Dylan the Gatekeeper."
As the puzzled faces turned to him, he adjusted his glasses. "I can see the branches of possible future timelines, but only for about five minutes at a time. It gets too overwhelming otherwise. So…"
No one spoke. Adam internally wondered if he was still asleep in his bed and this entire strange day was simply a vivid dream. Or everyone except for him and Jesse had apparently been dabbling with dark forces all along.
"You… see the fucking FUTURE!?" Jesse voiced their collective shock. "Since when?!"
"Since I was six." He looked at them, as if confused as to why they seemed to focus on the wrong details. "You know, since the accident."
"Accident?" Adam asked quietly as all attention turned to him. He realised that this was the first time he had spoken in some time.
"Yeah, mate." Jesse answered, "You know. The almost car crash with his parents? No one died, but it was a close call. How do you not know this about one of your friends? Oh, wait. There it is again. You're so damn…"
"I only told you." Ian stopped her from going on a tangent again. When she gave him the tell-tale why-the-fuck-not look, he added.
"It never came up."
You could cut the awkward silence in the room with a knife. As if reading his mind, Jesse made eye contact and graced him with a spectacular eyeroll. Typical Ian.
"Right. So getting back to the earth-shattering event that has just happened, if you please?" Nastya cleared her throat and hastily motioned to Dylan. "If Ian here is the Seer, then you are the Gatekeeper. Everything hinges on you, I'm afraid, young man."
"I mean…" Dylan spread his hands in mock surrender. "All I have to do is just not open this door, and we're good, right? Problem solved."
"I doubt it's going to be that simple." Nastya mused as she pulled out her phone and pushed it towards Jesse.
"Alright then. I need some time to research, and the rest of you need to deal with…" she glanced at Adam, "... whatever it is you have going on. So let's meet at our house after school. Bring an overnight bag; it's going to be a long night."
"Erm… yeah, that's gonna be a problem for me." Jesse took the phone and begrudgingly typed in her phone number. "I have curfew at ten."
"Tell me the name of your social worker, and I will sort it out," Nastya announced confidently, like she was ordering take-out and not implying the pressuring of a public servant, as she passed the phone to Ian.
As Ian finished providing his contact details and offered the phone to him, Adam felt lost. This impossible, horrible, unnatural thing had just happened, and everyone else seemed to just accept it and move on. Those weird twins, Ian, and even Jesse, after a lot of swearing. It's as if he was the only one who felt the true wrongness of the unclean thing that was inside Dylan only a few minutes ago. Who was quietly watching them. He had bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in weeks. Their eyes met, and Dylan smiled sheepishly.
"No," Adam said quietly, the unspeakable rage at the dismissive attitude of his friends starting to boil inside him. He pushed Ian's hand away- that liar- and looked up at Nastya.
"No? You don't want to get to the bottom of this?" she asked, stepping up to him. She was barely tall enough to reach his shoulders, but her authoritative presence was not to be trifled with. But Adam had had enough of everyone's shit today.
"No. Do you think you can deal with whatever that thing was?! Who do you think you are? This is way beyond any of us."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Nastya asked, crossing her hands over her chest. "Move on with our lives and ignore this?"
"NO!" Adam felt his voice rising, beyond his control. "We talk to somebody! Get a doctor to check Dylan out! Or even go to the Church! We shouldn't handle it on our own!"
He saw out of the corner of his eye that everyone except Nastya and Dylan backed away from him. The strange high-pitched ringing in his ears grew louder as he heard the equipment in the shed clatter against each other.
"The fuck! Not again!" he distantly heard Jesse swear as his eyes never left the steel grey gaze of the girl before him. Surprisingly, they weren't confrontational, just… sad. Why would she be sad?
"Hey there, bud." The ringing subsided almost instantly as Dylan approached and instinctively touched his arm. After realising what he was doing, he jerked it away self-consciously, and Adam reached out and grabbed it, holding tight.
Clearly surprised at Adam's willingness to touch him after all that had happened, Dylan's eyes softened as he squeezed Adam's hand. They were their usual amber and blue, a little bloodshot, but unmistakably his. "I think we need to take a breather and think, ok? Let's go to Nastya's house, have a nice dinner, talk about what we experienced. And if we feel we can't handle it, then we go to the doctor or the Church or wherever you want, ok?"
As if the words compelled him to obey, Adam felt himself calming, his unreasonable rage embarrassing in hindsight as he nodded reluctantly and took the phone, offered by the non-plussed Ian.
He gave it back to Nastya, still holding Dylan's hand in his. She looked him straight in the eyes and asked.
"So, are we agreed? My house, seven o'clock in the evening."
Everyone else nodded. She stood unmoving. Waiting for him.
Adam steeled himself, burying all his instincts to calm the hell down, and said
"I agree."
Abruptly, they heard the ringing of the school bell in the distance, signalling the finale of the never-ending lunchbreak. The strange time dilation that apparently fit the insane events of today into a forty-five-minute window had ended. In the silence, they heard the non-existent door lock click, and the rusty metal hinge creaked as the noon sunlight flooded the room from the shed exit.