The silence hung over Michael's head like the blade of a guillotine.

  "Sarah," Michael started. His words felt hollow as his mouth moved to try to explain. He could feel his brain whirring and his heart pounding as the shock of using his new powers hit him, along with the idea that the girls would never look at him the same again. He felt tears in his eyes. "Sarah," he started once more, but didn't know where his words were going to go, so they stopped.

  The room seemed silent except for the heavy breathing from everyone in there. "What did you just do?"

  "I'm... I don't really know." Michael said, "But... I didn't have much choice," he added, his tone weak, and not at all confident or commanding. But the words kept flowing. "I mean, you were in trouble. And there were all those creatures... they're like, well, I don't know, really, but they wanted to kill you and I just... I had to."

  Michael looked around at the battleground; dead creatures, and two terrified, shocked and possibly angry women.

  He was exhausted and in pain. He wanted to be alone and in his bed, before the end of the world.

  The two girls stared dumbfounded; Katie with her arms around herself, and Sarah, baseball bat at her feet, aghast, a single finger pointing towards the scene of Michael's crime. The crime being him killing three bat-things to save her life. And now, his thoughts began to change, as did his words.

  "We need to find Lucy," he said, declaratively. "Katie, do you know where she is? And then we need to go somewhere and stay safe."

  His own injuries would need tending, he thought. He'd been putting off dealing with it. He figured they all had.

  "Michael, I don't..." Katie began, her words broken up as her mind clearly fought with what she was about to say.

  "I said we need to find Lucy." Michael looked at her. His own expression hardened and his heart was pumping so much adrenaline that he just wanted to shout at them to listen to him and do as they were told.

  Michael, as his blood pressure returned to a more manageable level and as his adrenaline and endorphins stopped racing, the aching pain of the stab wounds to his shoulder and leg started to get to him. He wanted to sit down, rest and try to heal. He also wanted to think about the powers he seemed to be displaying and why he was so suddenly important.

  But they still hadn't found Lucy and Michael's concern for her had begun to mount as the other girls weren't telling him where they last saw her or what they were going to do about the missing member of their party. He needed to take charge and be a man about this, or the world really was going to go to shit. He turned to leave the hall, with or without the two.

  "Wait!" He heard Katie call from over his shoulder.

  "What is it?" He said. He looked down at his arm, the blood now completely congealed around his arm and the skin and tissue around the wounds aching. It occurred to him that he was topless apart from the tourniquet for his arm, having given his T-shirt to Sarah earlier. He felt cold.

  The pain and aches made his mood sour and as his mind came out of its fight response and he began to realise the full implications of what was going on, Michael started to worry that Lucy could be anywhere. He remembered that she'd had some sort of emotional episode as the creatures attacked the library, so she'd probably run off and gotten herself killed, which wouldn't surprise Michael in the least. It also wouldn't be his responsibility. "What?" He said, turning back, his face clearly displaying a pained expression that made him feel he looked like the monster the others were treating him like. He could see that the two women had been in discussion. He couldn't make out the hushed voices but now they stopped talking, both of them standing side by side, and they turned towards him. They seemed reluctant to say what they were going to. Katie took the initiative, "Listen... we..." Her eyes seemed to water as she started to talk, which didn't help his own situation, the sight of her looking vulnerable like this. He just wanted to cry and he wanted this to be over. But that wouldn't help, so he told himself. "Katie?" Michael's words were low and sounded pathetic in his own head.

  "We know we have to find her." She said, "But... you've... you're not..." Katie shook her head. She turned back to Sarah. Michael thought they seemed scared and afraid to tell him where their companion had disappeared to. Michael thought about trying to explain to them that he'd been trying to protect them from certain death and he thought they should be thankful he had these abilities. The two girls had probably just had an emotional shock. The world was still ending and it wasn't really Michael's place to question their emotional states. Besides, they didn't have to tell him anything. And Lucy could already be dead.

  "I don't want to die. And we've all seen things we don't really understand," he began. His thoughts started to focus. "I mean, I'm not a bad guy, and you know it," he said, taking a step closer towards them.

  "Michael," Katie said, "Listen to me." Her tone was pleading. He didn't like it. "Before we find Lucy, there's something I need to do." There was reluctance in her voice, and Michael's crankiness manifested as impatience.

  He didn't say anything else but gave Katie an inquisitive stare and then shrugged.

  "Sit down please..." Her voice became more urgent, but she struggled with her words.

  "What?" he replied, though the words sounded weak and tired. His whole body felt weak, the muscles aching, and the pains of the wound were becoming sharper with every passing second. The blackness seemed to be swirling in his vision and his eyes were trying to close.

  Michael felt a pair of hands take hold of his good arm and then, without a struggle or any sort of fight, he let them lead him down to the ground where he sat. "Lay down." He heard Katie's voice and as his body obeyed without hesitation. He didn't care anymore, his mind had stopped caring and his thoughts seemed distant and confused, but not as if there was anything he could do. So he did as Katie had said and lay down. He could see Sarah was also talking and her hands moved around, pointing and gesticulating. They seemed to be having a disagreement but Michael didn't really pay attention, the world and the voices drifting in and out of focus, until he realised just how weak and injured he really was.

  The brunette beauty leaned over Michael and said something that Michael didn't quite hear but then she reached for his face and held his head, looking at him with some compassion and some sorrow.

  Sarah appeared beside Katie and held Michael's shoulders down. Her voice spoke softly. "It's OK. Just lay still and rest," he thought she'd said. Katie moved around so her body was behind his head, then he felt his head being cradled by Katie's hands. They seemed soft, and she held him in such a way that his body relaxed. It seemed like his body had no strength in it, no power left and his eyelids closed.

  "This is going to feel strange!" Katie said.

  His vision faded to black.

  He heard words spoken to him. But he was drifting.

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  Michael felt a sensation like warm water being poured over him. It flowed over his head and around his body, enveloping his entire being in its heat. He was floating.

  The blackness around him started to move and twist like a shroud and as it floated away, light from beyond the black cloud he was in seeped through. As the shroud cleared away, it was like being in a horror movie, where a curtain was drawn back and a secret was revealed.

  The light broke through and Michael felt as though his body was changing.

  As Michael drifted, he thought he could feel some kind of power surging into him through the fingers and hands that held him, through the palms of the hands that touched his body and seemed to push some sort of healing force through his body.

  He tried to open his eyes. He felt his limbs moving and his eyes started to flutter and he thought that he could feel a heavy sensation on his physical body, like he was being tightly hugged, warm, white light flowing into his body and mind.

  He felt entirely rested for a few moments, then felt the touch of lips on his own, warm breath on his mouth.

  As the world around him slowly started to return to focus and as Michael started to realise where he was and what was going on around him, he looked into Katie's eyes and she was smiling down at him.

  His arms felt better, his legs and muscles strong. The blood that had dried on him was still there. But as Michael moved his arm and shoulder and bent his legs, he couldn't help but be amazed by what she had just done for him.

  "Are you..." He began.

  "I'm OK, Michael. Thanks to you. We're all fine."

  "How..."

  "I can't explain," she said, smiling. "But I'll tell you all about it later." Then Katie said, "But now we've got to go find Lucy, and Sarah knows where she is. Come on."

  As the brunette stood up, her blonde counterpart walked to Michael, offered a hand to help him to his feet. "Thank you," Sarah said as he stood up and they shared an intense stare. Michael didn't really understand. He felt better, he felt like his mind was a little more stable and he wasn't about to collapse from blood loss and pain and fatigue, but something about what he had just gone through was so intimate and powerful and wonderful. Michael's brain started to feel overwhelmed again, and as Sarah walked off to one of the exits of the sports centre, he heard a voice. "You coming, magic boy?"

  Michael nodded at her, picked up his sword from the ground and started walking towards them. As he went to leave, Michael realised that Katie wasn't coming, but seemed to have hung back.

  "What is it?" Michael said.

  Katie gave him a small smile. "You left this behind."

  "Oh." He took the sword that Katie held out to him.

  "It's yours," Katie said. Michael took the blade in his free hand. He looked down at it, a strange feeling coming over him. In the last few minutes, or hours, or however long it had been, he'd become a killer. A hero. A weird freak who swung swords and did black magic.

  "Let's find Lucy," said the brunette. "You ready for that?" Her hand found its way into Michael's, her touch light and pleasant.

  He felt like his mind and his body and everything about him had just changed, but that they'd also become stronger, more resilient to what had been thrown at him and he'd overcome the problems and become better for them. Michael squeezed Katie's fingers before letting them go, his other hand around the grip of his new weapon, then looked to where Sarah stood, impatient, tapping her bat against the door.

  They made their way down the hallway and around the building. As they went, Michael took in a few details, looking for any signs of either monsters or Lucy. His body was alert for danger and he knew, having just been in a battle with a number of those bat-things that there were bound to be more. As he glanced at Sarah, who had her bat over her shoulder, ready to use at any point. But as Michael followed her down the corridor and they rounded a corner, Sarah stopped and said, "We should go to the locker room. She might have hid in there."

  They kept on going. "I just hope that she hasn't gotten into any more trouble." Sarah looked worried, which wasn't something he was used to seeing, and her hands played nervously with the end of the bat. Michael knew they were probably thinking the same thing; Lucy could already be dead. The idea that someone else had already died filled Michael's thoughts and his mood began to change from hopefulness that she was OK and that they could save her and that everything was going to work out to one where they might be the last ones alive in the entire city, if not the entire world, and they'd be doomed to a short existence as food for whatever else lived in the city, like the bats and whatever other monstrosities were still out there that they had yet to see. And that, to him, would be a far worse fate than death, if he was honest, to have survived the apocalypse only to be slowly picked off by things from another dimension that nobody could explain.

  Sarah turned down a side passage and as she led Michael down towards the sports locker room where the school stored its gym equipment and spare kits and the students could store their belongings. It occurred to him that perhaps that was where Lucy might be, since that's where the three girls had trapped him originally.

  But he thought with the way the locker room had only one entrance and exit, it might be a death trap. He tried not to let the negative thoughts capture him any more than they had already. He turned to Katie and asked one thing that was on his mind though.

  "Katie," he said, softly, "Lucy has the ability to turn into that big red demoness thing. She has a huge strength, but she ran away from the danger instead of changing?" Michael knew it was probably not the time and place for the discussion but his curiosity got the better of him and as Katie and him followed behind Sarah down towards the locker rooms where Lucy was possibly trapped.

  He looked around at the hallway, which was darker now than when they'd passed by earlier in the day, the sunlight of earlier had waned. But he also knew that he needed to focus, so as they turned down into a long, unlit corridor that led to the locker rooms, he had to keep his eyes and ears open for any possible ambush or other trouble. His body had regained some strength but the events of earlier had sapped a lot of his mental and physical energy and he wasn't sure what else he might need to deal with, and he was still coming to grips with what he'd just seen. But they'd made it down to the doorway that led into the locker room and Sarah, as they approached the closed door, knocked and then braced herself as though ready to strike.

  Katie responded, "You probably haven't realised this yet, but our abilities, all of us, they come with a cost. That's what Lucy's afraid of." Seeing Michael step forward, he heard her conclude by saying, "We'll explain everything later."

  Michael moved to catch up with Sarah, and instead of letting her go through the door first, Michael decided to go in first. He put his hand on Sarah's shoulder, and she jumped. She rolled her eyes at him, but made no move to stop him as he slipped past her.

  He brandished his sword, and entered blade ready and as Sarah and Katie hung back, he slowly opened the door, hoping to hear some sign that Lucy was there. His heart was pumping a little bit and as he listened, he didn't really know what he was hoping to hear.

  He listened, hoping for a sound, for a voice. A sign. But he couldn't really make out much. So he decided to try something a little bit riskier.

  Michael, hoping his voice carried but not loudly enough to alert anyone else, decided to try his luck, shouting "Lucy," loudly. But it wasn't loud enough for the sound to reverberate through the entire school, or anything.

  After a couple of seconds he was greeted with the voice of a girl.

  "Who's there?"

  "It's Michael!" he called. He was just a little bit louder than he had been previously, "And Katie and Sarah are with me! Is that you, Lucy? Is everything okay?"

  "Michael?" He heard Lucy call back from the darkness. As she said it, Michael realised that she sounded different somehow. He couldn't put his finger on why, but when he felt Sarah at his shoulder, he put his now-healed arm out to stop her from moving forward any further. He shot the blonde a look that tried to convey, "Something's odd," and then stepped forward into the flickering, florescent light of the girls' locker room.

  Lucy's voice hadn't sounded scared at all, more curious as to who Michael's voice might be, which struck him as odd considering the redhead had been an emotional wreck the last time he saw her and also ran away leaving the other girls behind since then.

  His hands held the blade and his muscles were tight and alert and his ears pricked to the slightest sounds, the slightest movements. He listened, trying to figure out where the sound of her voice had been coming from. "Michael..." He heard again. The voice came from somewhere behind the rows of lockers. He felt himself start to sweat a little, not knowing exactly what it was he was walking into. He glanced back, and Sarah was poised to rush in. He felt the other girls watching from behind and hoped they were alert.

  Then as he slowly rounded the corner that the lockers created, he had to stop his jaw from hitting the floor in shock.

  His brain tried to quickly calculate what must have happened as he looked over at the two dead bat monsters. He figured they had tried to trap the redheaded beauty in her hiding place, which judging from the state of them, had been a big mistake.

  Then his eyes were drawn upwards, and he took in the amazing sight of Lucy. Or, he should say, Lucy in demoness form.

  "Michael?" she asked, curiously.

  She looked at him with hungry eyes.