The sun was beating down hard and fast, a good thing for those frolicking in the parks nearby or doing whatever the hell people really do in parks, but not so much for Garry who rubbed his head as he strode into the narrow alleyway. The humid weather only helped to amplify the putrid smell of rotting food, hobo wee and what might’ve been the decaying carcass of a really, really big rat. Garry plugged his nose as he walked through. He weaved carefully through the trash debris on the ground, being careful not to tarnish the brand new trainers his Mum has just recently bought him as an early birthday present. He shuddered as his back brushed against a wall that was covered in green slime and extraneously grimy moss.
Garry recoiled quickly as he heard a quiet whisper from behind him. He was lucky that he had a dark cocoa complexion; otherwise Louise would’ve laughed all the more at his cheeks blushing bright red. “You’re a wanker, you know that,” Garry laughed as he threw a playful punch towards her. She carried on giggling nonetheless, leaning nonchalantly against a part of the wall with the least amount of murk on it. There was a dopey grin on her face as she said, “Maybe, or maybe it’s just too easy to scare you ‘cause you’re such a f*cking pussy.” Louise laughed again and Garry reluctantly joined in. “So,” he started to say, “What brought you here?”
Louise snorted. “I just LOVE the smell of pigeon sh*t so much that I come here, to a derelict alleyway a half mile away from my house, just to get f*cking high off snorting it all in.” She rolled her eyes before she brought her phone out of her pocket and shook it in Garry’s face. “C’mon dipsh*t, I’m here for probably the same reason as you are.”
Now it was Garry’s turn to roll his eyes. When all members of their little triad were present—that was him, Danny and Louise—they could all banter and laugh because they each balanced each other out. Louise was more stoic and serious than her two counterparts (a fact that Danny and Garry exploited much to their own delight and Louise’s chagrin), grounding the playful natures of both Garry and Danny and keeping them in check when they’d gone too far. But without his partner-in-crime to lighten the mood, Louise was just a bit snarky and deprecating. Garry looked down to his own phone and scrolled through it. He shook his head solemnly. “I don’t understand why Danny would call us both over to this dump and tell us there was something urgent we needed to see.”
“No offence, but as someone who’s been on the receiving end of some of the pranks that you boys have done beforehand, do you really think he’s above sending us on this wild goose chase just for a quick laugh?”
“I dunno, maybe. It’s just weird, that’s all.”
Suddenly Garry and Louise simultaneously felt strange sensation in their backs, tingling pinpricks that made all their hairs stand on edge. They both turned around as a great gust of wind kicked up, blowing the leaves on the floor to the sky and levitating the rat corpse a few inches off the ground. And there, striding out from the spontaneous windstorm, was an intimidatingly large being, standing at a tall 6’9” but it might as well have been twelve feet to the teenagers below. It cut an imposing figure, even excluding its height; the majority of the entity’s body was shrouded in a dark cloak of shadows with agonising faces writhing and squirming inside the fabric. Even the parts that were left exposed were horrifying, translucent ivory skin that was stretched so tightly against their skin that one could see the black bile coursing through it’s sickly veins. A deviant grin, toothy and malevolent, poked out from underneath the figure’s cloak.
All of Louise’s confident had been sapped away and she ducked behind a large trash bin next to the wall, cowering beside a drunken homeless man that’d passed out there the night before. Garry meanwhile stepped in front of the figure and made a cross symbol with his two index fingers, a gesture he’d seen in a couple horror movies to ward off evil spirits. It seemed to work for a moment as the Entity stopped in its tracks where it was standing. Then suddenly, in a move that came from absolutely nowhere, Garry and Louise heard the figure start...chuckling? Really it was hard to tell: the figure lacked a tongue and so the laugh came out more as a choke.
“Oh, good God, oh my days! Oh my...! You really put up the bloody cross, haha! Where the hell do you think we are, the bloody bedroom in ’The Exorcist’?! Oh geez, I’m in stitches...” Garry’s body relaxed and he slowly lowered his hands down to his sides. The Entity wiped a fake tear from his eyes before trying to recollect himself. “Ok, ok, whoo. God, that was the best laugh I’ve had in ages. A bloody cross man, geez... Anyways, you probably don’t know about me but I know a lot about you, Mr Bennett. I’ve been watching you for some time now and I believe that you are worthy of...” The Entity trailed off as he watched Louise crawl out from her hiding place.
“Wait, what the hell, you brought a friend?!” The Entity groaned and shrugged his skeletal shoulders, frustrated. “Come on, man, I specifically told you NOT to tell anyone you were coming here! Oh sh*t, now I have to disintegrate her.” The Entity raised his bony hand to Louise’s temple and the brunette froze in fear. Luckily for her, Garry reacted quickly and stepped in front of her. “No way, creepy cloak guy,” he growled. The Entity rolled his eyes (well at least I think he did, I can’t really tell with the hood—come on, I’m just the writer of these stories, I don’t make them!).
“I’m sorry, Garry, but rules are rules: ’no regular mortals are permitted to see a Senior Trait Theft in the flesh, bone or otherwise. Those that do will either face swift disintegration, slow torturous soul burning or be forced to endure an eternity’s worth of ‘90 Day Fiancé’, a fate worse than death. Sorry but there’s no way out of it.”
Louise’s knees were shaking like jelly. She somehow mustered the resolve to squeak out, “Unless?”
“‘Unless?’ Wait, what the f*ck do you mean ‘Unless?’. I think I was get clear cut with the rule, wasn’t I very clear cut with the rule?” Garry nodded nervously. “He was pretty articulate with the rule.”
Louise glared at Garry. She put on her most innocent expression and pleaded, “Please, Mr Cloak Guy, there has to be some way to get out of this, some kinda loophole or technicality that you can use to spare my life! You seem like a...chill guy, I’m sure you don’t want to get your hand s dirty with my blood!”
“Disintegration does take a lot of paperwork...”
Louise grinned. “Exactly! I’m sure a, what did you say, ’Trait Theif’ of your calibre has more important things to do than to go around blasting kids into ashes and whatnot. You deserve better I say.”
“You make a compelling argument, Bespectacled One. Alas, I’m not the one that makes the rules and I’m sure it would take twice as long to look for loopholes than to just disintegrate you on the spot. If only you were not just a ‘regular’ mortal and you could survive like your friend Garry here...” The Entity’s demeanour shifted as an ingenious idea popped into his mind. His toothy grin stretched out father as he conjured up a magical blue orb that radiated and pulsed with strange blue energy. Garry and Louise watched as the Entity split the ball into two and shot both into the two teenagers. Both of them were sent flying back, Louise rolling into a messy ball and Garry careening into a couple of metal trash cans.
“Ow man, what the f*ck!,” Garry groaned but in a strange sense the hit hadn’t even hurt him that much—in fact, he’d felt better than he’d ever felt before. His mind was now filled with a myriad of knowledge about strange new abilities that he now apparently possessed. Headswaps, bodyswaps, lifeswaps and even a couple more crazy powers he could learn with practice we’re now within his grasp.
“W-what did you just do?”
“I, Mr Bennett, just took the power I was going to give solely to you, split it in half and shared the portions between the both of you. Now your friend is no longer a ‘regular’ mortal but a Trait Theft (in Training)! But I’m sorry to this, and I really am sorry, but sharing the power between the two of you has come with a price.”
“A price like what?”
“Well...”
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