Young Writers Society

1

Dante Asher walked down the hallway of his school alongside his best friend, listening to him rant about a funny glitch he found in a video game. The light was hazy coming through the ancient windows to their left, illuminating dust particles that seemed to be suspended in mid-drift. Their footfalls on the varnished floor echoed grandly through the near-empty hallways. Nathan was wearing a black T-shirt with Venom from Spiderman on the front. Dante had his usual baggy clothes on - loose-fitting cargo pants and a red hoodie that seemed a size too big for him.

"And when the music comes, that music that starts when a dragon appears, the dragon comes over the horizon flyin' backwards! It's so funny, man, the tail looks like its head and its head looks like its comin' outta its ass!"

Nathan's New England accent had faded greatly since he moved to Bogart Heights, Ohio from Massachusetts, but it was still discernable. Dante smiled thinly. "That's pretty odd."

"Heh, yeah, and when it breathes fire," -

Nathan stopped suddenly and Dante walked for another five feet before noticing. He looked back, saw Nathan was looking at something further up the hall and followed his gaze. He saw a kid in a bright orange jacket pressing his forearm into the neck of a child at least two years younger than him, holding him against a row of lockers. Dante recognized the aggressor from one of his classes. Matias Thrum, age thirteen, punk of punks. The victim was Danny Rhinehardt, small for his age and appearing all the more vulnerable because of his thick glasses. The faint smile fell from Dante's face, replaced by a disgusted scowl.

"I heard you got the hots for my sister, scab. Heard you been sendin' her love letters."

The bully turned his head and spat onto the floor.

"Well you better listen up. She's off limits, hear me? A little scab like you ain't layin' a hand on her, and if I ever find out you have, it's game over."

Danny's face was contorted in fear and tears streamed from his eyes. Nathan brushed past Dante.

"Stay here," he said, walking up to the two.

"Don't hurt him too bad, kay?" Nathan made no reponse as he approached the bully, and Dante knew it had been pointless to ask.

"If I ever see you even near my sister, I'm gunna fuck you up" -

Matias turned and saw Nathan standing a foot away from him. He had to look up a bit - Nathan was two inches taller and much heavier than him. There was a knowing smile on Nathan's face as he peered down at Mattias.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

Nathan reached towards the arm that was occupied with terrorizing an eleven year old and grasped Matias' fingers. Despite his resistance, Nathan easily pulled his arm away and slowly turned his own hand, twisting Matias' wrist to an angle that was all wrong. He cried out, his pain evident on his face.

"Let go, you prick! Stop it!"

He tried pushing Nathan away with his free hand, but Nathan was immovable.

"If I ever see you near him again," - Nathan nodded toward Danny - "I'm gonna do worse than twist your wrist. Understand, punk?"

Danny looked on, amazed at his turn of fortune. Matias threw a hard punch at Nathan's face, connecting squarely with his jaw. Danny winced. Nathan's head barely recoiled and his smile grew wider.

"That was a bad idea."

Nathan bent Matias' fingers backward until Dante was sure they'd simply snap. Matias screamed in agony.

"You'll never touch this kid again, right?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Never again, let go!"

Nathan obliged. The moment his hand was released, Matias stepped away and cradled it against belly. "You're fuckin' dead, Petrelli."

Nathan looked down at his wrist and mockingly checked his pulse. Then he looked back up at Matias, still smiling. "Don't think so, chump change. Get outta here."

Matias turned and sulked away. Danny watched him go warily, then turned to Nathan with an idolizing gaze. "Thank you."

"If he ever gives you trouble again, let me know. I'll make him go away for a while."

Danny nodded and hurriedly walked away, books held under his arm. Dante walked up to Nathan, who turned to him, the smile gone from his face.

"Did you have to twist his hand like that? I thought it was going to break."

"I had to teach him a lesson. He won't be bothering anyone for a while, and if he does, he'll answer to me."

Dante admired his best friend in that moment,and wished he had the strength to do what he did. Even for a thirteen year old, Dante was not much larger than Danny, who was eleven. He was slightly but noticeably pale, and always had a distant look about him. Nathan was one of the few that knew it hadn't always been this way. Dante had been outgoing and talkative up until last year, when his father was killed in the line of duty as a peace officer. For months after that, getting a word out of Dante was a mean feat. He was emotionally drained after grieving for his father and felt like a child separated from his parents at an amusement park, only his parents never found him, and he was left to his own devices, a small being in a large and bustling world. He opened back up little by little, but never returned to his former self.

Now, a year later, he still carried a certain sadness with him, a separation from everything around him. Nathan never strayed from his friend, even through the worst of it, when he'd talk for an hour and barely get a sign of recognition. Dante never let him know it directly, but he had been comforted by Nathan's motor-mouth, and it was this incessant yammering while Dante was at his lowest that made him understand that he had a friend for life.

"Let's get to class, man," Nathan said.

"Okay," Dante replied, looking down at his feet, that faint smile returning.

2

Dante sat at a long bench table in the cafeteria. Beside him, as always, was Nathan. A loose conglomeration of aquaitances were seated around him, conversing about a recently released movie.

"Yeah, it was alright, but have you seen the original? It's corny as hell but great," Nathan commented.

"There was an original Evil Dead? How old is it?" asked Tony Tolley.

"Come on, man, you've never even heard of The Evil Dead? Look it up sometime, it's a classic. Dante's seen it, he knows what's up."

Dante looked up from his food and nodded. "It was a good movie."

"If it's too old, I pry won't like it. I don't like old movies."

"Pfft, you just don't appreciate the finer things, like choppin' off your hand and stickin' a chainsaw to the stump."

"That's in the movie?" chimed Brendan Iomi. "That's badass."

"F'in A right," Nathan retorted.

"Hey Nathan, you're going hunting with your dad this weekend, right?" asked Tony. Dante tensed. He and his father had gone hunting countless times in the woods surrounding Bogart Heights, and the mention of it made him grimace and clench his fists. Nathan knew of his discomfort without looking and switched the subject.

"Yeah. Anyway, does anyone here have Call of Duty: Ghosts?"

Dante tuned out, remembering the trips into the woods he'd taken with his dad. He always got a buck, and Dante loved when his dad let him gut the kill, demonstrating where to cut and advising not to slice into the bowels. He longed for another trip, another hunt, and lamented that it would never come.

He closed his eyes, feeling the old grief build. He thought about the man that shot his dad, a meth head who was high as a kite and concealing a pistol when Henry Asher pulled him over for failure to yeild. Dante imagined his dad walking up to the closed window, the junkie rolling it down, jamming the gun into his dad's chest and pulling the trigger, ending his life. Anger flooded over him, overshadowing the grief.

On the table before him, his fork began to bend sideways, almost imperceptibly. The drone of the conversation in the background seemed to be intensifying.

...he didn't... killstreak... fuckin' liar...

Dante opened his eyes and looked around. The discussion had turned into an argument, all participants now shouting. He looked at Tony.

"What did you say?" he asked.

Tony looked at him quizzically. "Didn't say nothin'."

"No, I heard you. Something about a killstreak. You said 'fuckin' liar'."

A shocked look came over Tony's face, which quickly turned to suspicion. Now everyone was looking at the two of them. "I didn't say nothin', Dante, you hear me? Shut it."

"You fuckin' shut it," Nathan snapped.

"Gunna make me, prick?" Nathan shot up, glaring over the table.

"Please stop," Dante said, looking down at his food again. His anger had left him, replaced with confusion. He had heard Tony say that, right?

Nathan and Tony seemed to be cool again, and Nathan sat back down. "Sorry Dante, I just got really angry for some reason."

"Well that escalated quickly," said Tony with a smile, and they all laughed, save for Dante, who simply smiled and picked at his mashed potatos with a fork that was slightly out of shape.

3

Dante and Nathan walked home from school together. They lived in the same apartment building, separated only by two floors. Both liked this arrangement very much. Nathan often brought his Xbox over to Dante's and they would play until Dante's mother said it was time for bed, at which point they would lie down and bullshit for the next hour or two.

"My mom just bought me Army of Two, you want me to come over tonight? Have a little duo-of-destruction time?"

"Definitely," Dante replied happily. Lately it seemed that Dante's moods were contagious: Nathan was more chipper than usual.

"Sweet, I'll be over after dinner -"

A figure stepped out of an alleyway just to their right, clenching a long, straight object. Nathan turned just in time to see the object come down hard on his shoulder.

Nathan barked in surprise and pain, falling to one knee. Dante stepped back. He saw that it was Matias, wielding a long lead pipe.

"Motherfucker! Teach you to twist my fuckin fingers!" Matias raised the pipe over his head, preparing to strike again. Nathan put his arms over his head in preparation for the blow. Fear filled Dante's mind, fear for his friend who was about to have his arms broken.

Matias swung down.

"No!" Dante screamed, feeling helpless and wanting desperately to do something. He did all he could - he willed that Matias stop.

The lead pipe seemed to connect squarely with Nathan's arms, striking so hard that the pipe bent completely backward. But Nathan's arms did not recoil. He looked up at Matias, who's arms fell limply to his side, the pipe falling to the ground with a clatter. A blankness had come over his face, and he seemed confused about what was happening. Nathan wasted no time - he shot up, arm outstretched and landed a thunderous uppercut to Matias' chin. Matias' neck seemed to extend an inch upward before he fell backward, landing hard. Nathan mounted his chest like he was a mechanical bull and rained punches down upon his face. Matias feebly flailed his arms, that blank stare being replaced by a pained grimace.

Dante stood, shocked. The pipe. It had bent. A hollow lead pipe would have had no trouble fracturing Nathan's arms, but it simply warped around them - just as Dante had willed it to do.

How... this happen... the pipe... Dante heard within his mind. It was Matias' voice.

Unreality washed over him and he nearly collapsed, bringing his hands to his face. "What's happening... oh God what is this?"

Nathan heard Dante and paused, his arm upraised, poised to strike. He turned from Matias' bruised and bloody face to look at him. "Huh?"

"Get offa me you fu" - Matias was cut off by another hard punch to the jaw.

"That's enough, Nathan," said Dante, trying to regain his composure. "He's not going to hurt anyone now."

Nathan exhaled heavily, glaring down at Matias, who was looking around wonderingly, trying to get his bearings. "What kind of fucking coward uses a pipe?" Nathan yelled. He imparted a final hard slap across the face before climbing to his feet and stepping away from Matias.

"Come on Dante, let's get out of here before someone shows up. And don't tell anyone. I don't think he will, either."

Dante nodded and half-staggered after his friend, still holding his head in his hands.

4

Dante sat in his bedroom, leaning forward in his brown recliner.

I did that. I bent the pipe. I did it with my mind.

"And people are talking in my head!" Dante exclaimed, covering his ears with his hand.

"What, Dante?" he heard his mother call from the living room.

"Nothing," he called back.

What's happening to me... am I going insane? No, lunatics can't bend things with their mind.

Flustered, Dante rose and exited his room, heading for the living room.

He entered and saw his mother sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other with a Dean Koontz novel in one hand. She looked up at him and smiled. "Everything okay?"

Dante only hesitated for a moment before sitting on the couch beside her. Elizabeth Asher marked her page and set the book aside, concern on her face. "What's wrong hun?"

He wasn't sure about how to tell her, so he simply blurted it out.

"I bent something today that I shouldn't have been able to."

"What do you mean? What was it?"

"A lead pipe. I didn't even touch it, mom, I just imagined it bending and it did." He turned to his mother with a pleading look on his face. Elizabeth's eyes widened, seemingly with understanding.

"I don't know what's happening! I hear people's thoughts in my head like they were speaking out loud!"

"Oh," she said simply. She seemed to resign herself to a decision of some kind, then turned toward Dante.

"Dante, I have to tell you something, and it won't be easy to hear. Are you ready?"

Dante's look of worry intensified. "What is it?"

Elizabeth sighed, looking away. "When you were younger, things moved around you when you got upset. Without anyone touching them. Things would slide, float and fly across rooms. It stopped happening after your father died, and I thought it was gone for good. I guess I was wrong."

Dante was flabbergasted. He slowly leaned back, trying to compute what he was just told. She went on.

"And you often responded to things that your father or I thought. It seemed natural to you. We consulted doctors about it, but we never got any answers. We were told that it was coincidence, or to consult a priest, which we did. He said that you may be possessed by something called a poltergeist, a playful ghost. He wanted to meet you but I refused. No one was going perform an exorcism on my baby. I'm sorry I never told you, but I thought it was over."

Dante was speechless. "I... forgot about it? After dad died? Why?"

"You were so traumatized, you probably couldn't think of much else. I'm sorry, Dante."

Dante looked down, seeming to study the fabric of the couch.

"I'm telekenetic?"

"I don't know what that is."

"It means you can move things with your mind."

"Oh, well then yes, you're quite telefrenetic."

"Telekenetic."

"Yes, that."

Dante simply sat, looking down. Elizabeth placed her hand upon his.

"We'll go to a doctor, Dante. We'll get this sorted out."

Dante looked up at his mother. "I don't want to fix it. I want this."

Elizabeth was surprised. "You were never able to control it, though. Things moved at random, and were often destroyed. Do you want that?"

"No... but I controlled it today. I think I can do it again."

Elizabeth sighed. Her son had always been physically weak, so it shouldn't have surprised her that he'd want this for himself. She wondered what the future would bring for him, and later that night, she prayed as she sometimes did that his pain was at an end.

Her prayer went unheard.