On the way to geometry, I figured some things out about the aura-beam by basically shinning the beam on everything that passed. It appeared that everything living, from the gulls to the shrubs, had some of aura. The only things that didn't have auras were either not living or dead, like concrete or the fruit for lunch.
Geometry itself was fun with the X-ray light from the non-broken flashlight, as we were visualizing solids in 3-D space.
My biology teacher didn't let me use the flashlights in class, but the awesome PBS NOVA episode was a good trade. It was on viral DNA, and I was a sucker for genetics.
At lunch, I met up with my Magic the Gathering friends, which consisted of Robert, the apathetic one, Jason, the cook, Mason, the gentleman, Nathan, the nihilistic MTG champion, Luke, the Call of Duty fan, and Nerd, the one with the Nintendo DS.
Our meeting place was next to an elevator, so the first thing we did was use the x-ray light to spy on the girls inside. I showed them the UV, the orange, the desaturated, and the night vision as well, though I wouldn't let them have the goggles.
I saved the best for last. After all the playing around with the LED and the strobe light, I whipped out the lightless aura light. We looked at my cyan aura, Robert's purple aura, and so on. Nathan looked a bit hesitant, but we finally "convinced" him to step in front of the light. Yes, we definitely convinced him. We did not tackle him and point the light at him while he was down.
I think I had an idea what would happen when I shined the soul-searching light at Nathan. I think I knew what the shimmering aura really was. Okay, he did believe in cannibalism despite being vegetarian, but in our band of misfits, those sorts of things were normal. So it was still a shock when the light hit Nathan and nothing appeared. Nothing. No color, no shimmer, no faint outline. Just the same old Nathan that had been avoiding the beam. And I used "that" for a reason.
"How old are you?" I asked. "I mean really." By asking this question, it was clear that I had a slight idea of what was happening. Suddenly, the things Nathan had joked about didn't feel as funny.
"Fifteen," Nathan answered, shrugging.
Nerd frowned. "What's going on–?"
"I mean, really, not just this body," I continued.
"Um, well, a couple… a couple hundred," Nathan replied. "You know it doesn’t really matter how old I really am because we all die eventually–"
"It does matter!" I said, stopping him. "Where's your soul?"
"So we're not talking about the counters?" Luke asked. He was referring to the marbles we used as token cards or creature buffs in MTG. Sometimes, Nathan jokingly referred to them as "souls."
"Yes and no," Nathan replied hesitantly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I shouted.
I grabbed his box of marbles and flashed the soul-light on his little glass "souls." Unlike all the inanimate objects that I'd tried, or Nathan for that matter, the counters glowed faintly, same as they would for people, as if they were souls. Or maybe they were.
"Who are you?" Mason asked.
Nathan started backing away. "I'm the same Nathan who plays Magic with you. Why do you care if I'm a soul collector?"
"What is a soul collect–?" Before I could finish my thought, Nathan grabbed the flashlight from my hands and smashed it just between my eyes. It hurt like hell, and I crumpled to the ground. I vaguely heard shouting and running, but I don't remember much else more, except for one thing.
"You're part of us, now," Nathan shouted. "You can never run away from that!
ns 15.158.61.6da2
