The following Random Made-up Story series is not finished, but something I wrote to occupy me while making deliveries at my old job. Feel free to comment and critique, just know that they aren't complete and may never be complete. But I do plan on continuing the series at some point.
Thanks and have fun!
Part Four
Back to Joshua
Time didn’t exist.
I seemed to be standing between moments.
I could look around and doing so brought the others into focus.
In my left hand I held Sally’s hand and I seemed to be able to read her every emotion and thought.
It was like her mind was being downloaded into my head. I had to shake my head in order to get the process to stop.
Her fear of the situation, her concern over what was happening to her, her desperate longing that it was real and that she wasn’t about to wake up and cry because it was all a dream.
The download started again causing me to look away to break it.
To my right I was holding hands with Sylvia as well. Wait a minute! She was holding my left hand! Before I could ponder this I felt something else. I was holding someone else. A third left hand had grabbed hold of someone and brought them along to this…moment? This transition seemed to be lasting quite a long time, but as far the others were concerned this was going to be instantaneous.
But where was I taking us? Oh yes, and then we were there! Standing in an nearly empty gated parking lot at our workplace. The light faded and all four of us were standing in the warm afternoon sunlight.
Four? Oh that’s right that other person. Apparently when I reached to snatch the girls and myself away I had been thinking of everyone in the truck.
“Uhm, yeah, what just happened?” Jeff was looking at all of us hoping for an answer. It seems that my new powers also caused my thoughts to grab everyone in the truck whether I knew they were there or not. Just looking at him I knew why he was there and how he had been hiding in the truck unexpectantly joining us in our lightning upgrade.
“Jeff? Oh my god, Jeff! I totally forgot! I’m so sorry!” Sylvia apologized. The memory of the prank they had planned flooded her mind.
“Is okay, I’m good, but how did we get here and why do you all look different?” Jeff glanced at me as both Sylvia and Sally looked at me. Interesting that he actually had no ill feelings for Sylvia about being forgotten.
“Yeah, that would be me. It seems I grabbed us and transported us to here.” I gestured at the parking lot and lost my hold on my thoughts. Suddenly I could hear all three of them and then more. I could feel what they felt and everything they could now do was brought completely into my mind.
“Stop!” I cried and grabbed my head. Staring down at the ground I concentrated on concrete and asphalt. I knew that they were worried but also scared and confused at my outburst. I knew that as easily as I knew the chemical composition of the spot I was staring at.
Sally stepped up to me and put her hand on my back. It startled me despite my watching her mind come to the decision to make that move.
“Josh, are you okay? What can we do?” She was always concerned for others.
I answered her question but not the one she spoke outloud. “All that you can do, and all that you are, I’m sorry, but I somehow have…copied it all into my head. I can show you what your new abilities are and how to use them properly, but…” I had to stop because the idea in my head was going to be very difficult.
“You can train us?” Sylvia was excited about learning more. Jeff nodded as also was eager. Only Sally seemed hesitant.
“Yes, I can train you..” before I could finish the sentence Sally sighed with relief. I looked at her and smiled. “No, Sally, it’s not a dream. This is real and you will never look like…well, your old self again.”
“Really?” She smiled. “That’s good.” She grimaced. “I don’t want to be like that ever again.”
“Me either!” Sylvia agreed.
“Yeah, me too.” Jeff nodded and smiled.
“Shut up, Jeff! You were skinny already and now your buff!” Sylvia playfully snapped at him.
“Yes, he was but now he’s anything he wants to be.” I stepped in. My thoughts were again my own and it seemed that as long as I thought of others as websites I can access but choose not to, then I was able to have a little quiet in my head.
“All of you have been changed on a genetic level. You can and maybe even will, pass on your gifts to your children.” I began.
Sylvia interrupted. “Bummer, I can’t have anymore children.”
“Yeah, what about me? I don’t want to have anymore kids!” Sally added.
I smiled sadly. “Actually, Sylvia, you can now. Your body is in perfect working form, as is Sally’s.” I glance at them both. “In fact because of your new…attributes I’m afraid that even the Pill won’t be able to stop anything.” I sigh. “I could change that, I think, but I’m not going to.”
Sally: “What?”
Sylvia: “Why not?”
Jeff: “Yeah.”
I tapped my head. “Think about it! I didn’t do this to us! It was a bolt of lightning! In my mind it has to be a God-thing! And you want me to change what God did to you? I’m sorry but I don’t want another bolt of lightning to zap me and take this all away! No thank you!” I shake my head. “Sorry, folks, but we’re going to have to learn to live our lives with these new additions.”
“Are we going to form a team? Like in the comics?” Jeff was all smiles.
Sylvia looks at Sally and they both shrug.
Sylvia: “Sure.”
Sally: “Yeah, okay.”
Jeff: “Yes!” Slowly Jeff’s arms stretched out and began to circle us. “Come on, group hug!”
Sylvia reached for Sally who cringed from the touch of Jeff’s arm resting across her shoulders.
With a thought I let the arms constrict through me leaving me outside of the circle.
They all stop moving and look at me.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t.” I bowed my head and then look up slowly.
Sylvia: “Why not?”
Sally: “What’s the matter?”
I inhale deeply and try very hard to not force them to understand my thoughts. “I have these amazing abilities that I’ve always wanted, but now that I have them I realize that I really need to be very careful with them. I need to step away and practice and get used to things before I can be around others. I need to make sure that who and what they are is not because I altered them to be that way.”
Jeff: “What do ya mean?”
Sylvia: “Yeah, I thought that’s what we all were going to do? Practice and learn how to use our powers?”
“Yes, you will, but I know that I can also just force the information into your head and at the same time I can literally force you to do anything I want you to.” Please, please understand! I thought.
Sally: “You can?”
Guess they won’t really understand unless I show them. I turn my whole body to fully face Sally. She suddenly straightened upright and turned to walk towards the nearest parked car. With a glance at Jeff, I cause him to put a little distance between us.
Sylvia: “Where’s he going?”
“Just watch.” I say.
Once Sally reached the nearest car, she quickly and effortlessly grabbed the front fender and picked the mustang up, holding it like a bat. With a twist she turned and threw the car straight at Jeff.
Sylvia: “No, Jeff!”
Jeff just stood there as I planned and the vehicle slammed into him! Jeff and the mustang sailed across the lot and plowed into the wall. Car parts and concrete chips flew out as the vehicle inmbedded itself with Jeff between it and the wall.
I let go of my control of Sally, while at the same time covering her in an emotional aura of calmness and acceptance. I made her see that what I made her do to Jeff was going to be okay.
Sylvia literally flew towards the smashed vehicle and began trying to pull the car out of the wall all the while calling for help and Jeff’s name.
“Here, let me.” I call to her and with a motion I rip the car out and send it sailing through the air to where Sally had grabbed it. As it went it began self-repairs and by the time I set it down it looked like it had never been touched.
Jeff, on the other hand, was truthfully spread across the wall. I had to stop myself from laughing as he looked like a Van Gogh painting was painfully redone by a child using play-doh. Nothing was in the right spot.
Sylvia started to reach for him. “No.” I said. “Let him come back on his own.” The three of us just stared up at Jeff waiting to see what would happen next.
Slowly, Jeff’s body began to merge and slide down the wall onto the ground. At first becoming a puddle and then starting to grow. First a head with eyeballs but no mouth or nose. Then a torso and arms that were way too long. Finally one leg and then another appeared and the entire mass began to harden and coalesce into a perfectly formed Jeff Kimbro.
“Aaahhh!!” he yelled. “Why did you do that?” he glared at Sally.
Sally raised her hands but I answered. “She didn’t. I did. You see, I can not only read your every thought and emotion but I can also control them. So, before I get out of control and unable to stop, I need to spend some time away in order to better understand my limits and how to restrain myself.”
Sally: “So, you’re leaving us?”
I nodded. “Yes, for a bit.” Then I smiled. “But for you barely any time will have passed. It seems I can also travel and/or control time so while I may be gone quite a while in my opinion, for you it may seem like minutes!”
I looked at them all. “But before I go there are a few things I’m going to do to help you out.”
Jeff: “Yeah, like what?” I could tell he didn’t trust me to much right now. But that was understandable.
“First I’m going to give you all your super identity costumes. Then I’m going to download into your head the knowledge of all that you can do. But you are going to have to practice in order to get used to how they work.”
Sylvia: “That’s cool with me. I’m looking forward to this!”
Sally, smiling: “Okay.”
Jeff, cautious: “What else?”
“Then,” I smile, “then I’m going to make sure that your bank accounts never lack for money ever again!” Now they’re all happy. “Also, in order to make sure your new bodies are not a surprise for your families, and if I can figure the best way of doing it, I’m going to try and make it so that anyone who has seen you in the last 6 months knows that you have been working out and losing, or in Jeff’s case, gaining weight.”
Jeff: "Yeah, how did that happen?”
“Jeff, when you were struck by lightning you were inside a cart full of orders for the inmates. But when they found you, you were lying on the floor and not in a cart. The bolt of lightning merged you and the orders and the cart into one giving you enough mass to be able to do the things you are going to be able to do.”
Sally: “Do you know what we can do?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I do. Let me show you.”
End Part Four
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