Chương 18: Bone Broth & A Touch Of Gold

Fin got back and looked at June incredulously. June obviously stabbed himself with the way he was holding the scalpel, but he also had no wounds.

"Turns out I do heal; you should take a gander before it dries up." Fin gave June a weird look, then looked through the microscope.

"Well, June, you look healthy... I think? There are little glowy bits moving around though." June started to think for a moment, then he slid the petri dish out and touched the blood with his thumb. It slowly seeped back in through his skin and into his body.

"Well... I could do that, I guess. The gold bits might be my will? or something else."

"Do you have any other toys?" Finn's confusion was momentary.

"We could introduce your blood to a virus or do an X-ray next week. I need to get permission for those first."

"My summer school classes start in a little while, so I think it's best if we end it for today; I'll try to think of some tests." The two exchanged their goodbyes and parted ways. It was still a little dark, but June managed to make his way to the subway station. While he was with his friend, all the noise that his enhanced senses shoved into his mind was muted, but now that he was fully focused on the world around him, he started to see things in new colors and hear things with intricacies he never noticed before.

He could hear the individual functions of cars execute in the seconds they had to drive past him. It was a little like he gained echolocation; he was able to vividly imagine things just from the sounds they let off. It was a lot, but one thing still bothered him: he was still being followed by some of the birds from the trail; even the occasional bug flew by him, which was bothersome.

As he got into the train heading back in the direction of home, a small group of racoons also ran aboard and just looked at him while the trains went on. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'Maybe Fin scared them off earlier; they're getting bolder.' By the time he got to his stop, there was a small armada of birds, raccoons, squirrels, some pets, and even the roaches hidden in some of the seats seemed to come out to look at him. June really didn't like roaches; he had a roach infestation not too long ago, and it sucked. There would be times he would go to get water, and a roach would fall into his glass, or a roach would be floating in the pitcher of milk when he wanted some.

He really didn't like them; most didn't either. He shimmied past the small horde of animals; some followed, others didn't exit in time as the subway carried them away. The station wasn't too far from home, but he took the bus anyways. By the time he got home, he changed into his home clothing. He kept the sunglasses on to hide his eyes, but he probably didn't need them; his mom was blind in one eye and losing vision in the other.

She had plenty of illnesses for her age, and frankly, he was ready for her to keel over at anytime. She had made a bone broth soup; this one was a recipe from her home country that she had learned online. June normally shied away from ethnic foods from his mother's country; the foods from there were always spicy or just made him feel ill from the smell alone. He also just couldn't taste food much. So it usually tasted like spicy nothingness, and June really couldn't handle his spice.

Sometimes he would just not eat; he didn't get hungry often anyways, but today he decided to have some for some reason. His mother sat on the couch and was watching a drama; she hadn't really noticed his eyes or voice yet. The only times she really went outside were for church, or shopping, or to walk the dog. So June sat down on a rocking couch that was ajar to where his mother sat; his dog, of course, ran up and jumped onto the rocking couch, taking up half the chair space.

The food was bland, the room was pretty quiet. June didn't hate his mother, but there were times when she would disappoint him. June usually was ignored by his family; his opinions and experiences meant little to them, and fairly commonly they would do something that he advised against. In fact, he couldn't recall a single moment of his life where they actually listened to him.

They used to tell him that when he became an adult they would at least consider his thoughts, but as a twenty-year-old the day still hasn't come. So he was used to predicting something, saying something, being ignored, and then watching that thing he predicted happening; it was frankly disappointing that these people didn't learn their lessons. Sometimes, it wasn't just his family. He slowly ate the soup; it was bland.

He tried something new and imbued the will of the crude imagery of soup, tasteful soup, into the bone broth soup, and it worked. Using will in the real world was much harder than in the night realm, but still it worked; the soup smelled a bit better and had some taste. He sat for a bit, hoping his mother would address his new look or address his voice. Even if she was blind, she still had some vision; she still had her ears. She was capable enough to walk the dog on her own around the neighborhood. But she didn't.

June finished his meal and got his dog ready silently; he walked his dog in the same route as he did daily for the last six years.

'Is she upset that I went outside without telling her?' She was a helicopter parent, to say the least. Even as a legal adult, he was still treated like a child; he needed permission to go outside, and a decent amount of the time he didn't get it. After his walk, he took a shower, wrote in his journal, and continued re-reading his favorite novel. There was no game session tonight, so he read until 5: 50am and went into his usual slumber.