Beta Read - For a Friend (Feedback wanted) Post 2

Chapter 3: School’s Out 

Khalil Anthony stared at the Scantron sheet sitting on his desk. Multiple choice questions were supposed to be easy, he thought. But these were kicking his ass. As he filled in the answer for each one, the clock in the corner kept ticking away the time as if to mock him. The teacher, Mrs. Ives, kept walking up and down the aisles to make sure nobody was cheating on the exam. He caught a whiff of her perfume as she passed by and his face scrunched. It was overpowering and cloying, as if somebody had cracked an air freshener over her head.

When he was finally finished with the multiple choices, he set the Scantron down, covered it, then started on the essay questions. There were five of them and they were a bitch. He had to reread each question several times and even asked Mrs. Ives to clarify one of them. He had to hold his breath while she explained it to him so he wouldn't suffocate on her scent. Why did she put on so much perfume? Damn!

He kept hearing people finish and turn in their tests. It was driving him crazy. It was the last exam on the last day of school. He resisted the urge to make shit up and write it down just to get it over with. The push to the finish line was a grueling one and his head was pounding. But finally…finally he wrote the last sentence, dotted his eyes and gave a sigh of relief.

"Thank God…" he said, perhaps a little louder than he intended. "That shit sucked, man."

A few of his classmates snickered.

"Mr. Anthony, keep it down and watch your language." Mrs. Ives said.

"Sorry Ma'am."

"Are you finished?" she asked.

"Yes Ma'am."

"Then bring it up."

Feeling a taste of freedom, Khalil grabbed his exam and handed it in. . He wasn't too worried about failing. He studied hard and so he expected to get a B at the very least. He was just glad it was finally over.

"You have a good Summer, Mr. Anthony," Mrs. Ives said. "Enjoy your break."

"You too Mrs. Ives."

Khalil grabbed his binder and headed out into the hallway. He looked at the clock. School still had thirty more minutes left until Summer break officially began, so he made his way to the cafeteria to hang out. He spotted his best friend Daniel and made his way over to the table. He was sitting with Jeff and Mason.

"Yo, Khalil, you done with exams man?" Daniel said.

"Hell yeah I am," Khalil said.

"How do you think you did?"

Khalil threw his binder on the table. "I think I aced that shit man."

"Who'd you have?" Mason asked.

"Ives."

"Man, I had her earlier," Jeff said. "She was giving me a headache. Shit, I could smell her across the room."

"I know right?" Khalil said, "Dude, I don't think she even wears perfume. I think she just opens a Febreze and puts it on."

"No shit man, like…ugh!" Jeff said. "Dude, I thought I was going to pass out."

"She hot as hell though, man," Khalil said.

"Yes sir," Daniel said, speaking all proper-like. "She is one very attractive lady. She makes me want to be a gentleman."

Khalil scoffed. "Bro, you ain't no gentleman, whatchu talking about?"

"I ain't never said I was a gentleman. I said she makes me want to be one. Like when she goes to her car, I want to carry her stuff for her."

"Man, you're simping hard," Jeff said.

"I won't deny it. I would simp for her any day."

When the bell rang, Khalil said goodbye to Mason and Jeff, then headed out to his car with Daniel.

Khalil tossed his backpack on the front seat and started the car. Daniel did not have a ride since his car was in the shop, so Khalil had been giving him a ride to school and back for the past two weeks.

"Hey, are you going to that new waterpark this weekend?" Daniel asked, looking at his phone. Daniel's family was moving the week after next. This was his last week. Some of his classmates were having a sendoff party.

"Splash Island? Heck yeah I'm going." Khalil waited for a traffic light to turn red, then he veered left. 

He tried to sound cheerful, but he was feeling rather melancholy. Daniel was like a brother to him. That's how close their friendship had become. When Khalil's family moved in over a decade ago, it was an instant bromance.

"Cassie's going to be there," he said. His voice was hesitant, almost like the words he was speaking weren't even his. "Like…man. Can you imagine seeing her in a bathing suit?"

"Slow down there, boy!" Daniel said. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"Get my mind out of the gutter? I didn't even say anything bad. I just want to see her in a swim suit because she is gorgeous."

"If you like her so much, ask her out!"

For a few moments, Khalil didn't say anything. "She's way beyond my league. Besides, I'm pretty sure she's already got a boyfriend."

"What? Who?" Daniel sounded surprised. Why should he be? Cassie was unbelievably hot.

"I don't know. Some guy from another school. I ain't too broke up about it."

He pulled into their neighborhood, made a few turns and arrived at their home. Khalil looked at Daniel's house. The garden decorations had been thrown into the trash and the potted plants had been taken off the porch and dumped into the bushes. Though Daniel and his family wouldn't be leaving until next week, the house was already being stripped clean.

"Hey man," Daniel said after getting out. "I'll see you later."

"For sure," Khalil said.

He waited for Daniel to leave, then he grabbed his backpack, climbed up onto the porch and opened the door.

"Khalil, is that you?" his mother called when he stepped inside.

"Yeah Mom, it's me." Khalil threw his backpack onto the living room couch. A moment later, his mother appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a bandanna on her head.

"You better not be leaving that bookbag on the couch again," she said, brushing a few braids out of her face.

"Oh, sorry." Khalil picked his bookbag up and hung it up in the coat closet.

"So how were the exams?"

"Good."

"Good? Is that all? How do you think you did?"

Khalil flopped onto the couch and leaned his head back. He'd spent several sleepless nights cramming for the tests, so he was ready to go to sleep.

"I don't know. I think I did well. But man…they were rough," he said.

He heard the door to the garage open, followed by his father's voice.

"Ah…shit! Shit! Son of a bitch!"

"What is it, Caleb?"

"Just as I thought," Khalil's father came into the living room, wiping his hands off with a paper towel. There were smears of oil on them. "The alternator's fried."

Khalil's father was a large, imposing figure. A pair of rectangular spectacles rested on an almost equally rectangular face which itself was framed by cropped hair and a small goatee.

"Oh jeez…you can't replace it?"

"Hell no I can't replace it, Loretta," Caleb said. He wiped the sweat off his face and threw the paper towel into the trash can. "It's in the middle of the damn engine. I'd have to take the damn thing apart and I'll need a lift in order to do that! I'm going to give Carl a call."

As Caleb continued to bitch and moan about the car, Khalil heard a school bus pull up. Seconds later, the front door opened and his younger sister, Alexus, came into the room gabbing on her cell phone. She ignored them all and went straight up the stairs to her room.

"–Hey man, I appreciate it," Caleb could be heard saying from the kitchen. He was on the phone. "Yeah, it's in a really bad spot. I can't get to it at all. The engine will have to be removed. So yeah, just come by whenever you can. I'm going to be here all day and all day tomorrow. Uh huh…yeah. Yeah. Ok. Ok, thank you brother, I'll catch ya later."

Caleb hung up and let out a huge sigh. He came over and settled down in the rocking chair in the living room. Puddles of sweat darkened his Chicago Bulls jersey, which itself was stained with smudges of oil.

"How'd you do?" he asked.

"I think I did well," Khalil said.

"Well, good. You got a week of freedom. After that? You're going to get yourself a job."

At this, Khalil groaned.

"Hey, I don't want to hear none of that," Caleb said. "You're sixteen years old, it's time you got yourself a job."

"Dad, I just got home, I'm tired." Khalil wasn't ready to have this conversation.

"And?" Caleb's eyes bored into Khalil like daggers.

"I was studying all week. I'm exhausted."

"If you're exhausted, then find a bed. This is the living room, not your bedroom."

Why does he always have to be such a hardass? Khalil thought as he got up.

"Hey," Caleb said sternly. "I'm serious. You got a week off, then I want to see you applying. I don't want to see you on your games, I don't want to see you watching TV, and the only thing I want to see you doing on your phone is applying. Dairy Queen's hiring, 7-Eleven's hiring, and that new Chinese place that's opening down the street is also hiring. There's lots of opportunities. If you need me or your mother to help, we can do that. But I'm not going to have you slouching on the couch doing nothing all summer. You need to start earning a wage."

"Can I have two weeks?" Khalil pleaded.

"No."

"A week and a half?"

His father gave him a look that pierced the soul. But he relented. "A week and a half is all you're getting. Then I want to see you apply yourself. Got it?"

"Yes sir."

Caleb patted him on the back as he walked on by. He heard the TV turn on and the news started playing.

"–in other news, there has been a new development in what many thought would be a cold missing person's case involving a college student who disappeared back in 2015…"

Khalil headed downstairs to his bedroom in the basement, flopped on the bed and closed his eyes to take a nap. He was awoken later when he heard dishes being set on the table upstairs, which meant his mother would soon call him up for dinner. So he got up, exited his room and headed up the stairs. Sure enough, just before he reached the top, the door opened.

"Khalil, it's dinnerti–oh," Loretta said. "Come on sleepyhead, I made us some gumbo."

"All right!" Khalil said, suddenly more enthusiastic. He could smell the gumbo filling the air and it made his mouth water. There was a big steaming pot of it sitting in the middle of the table waiting for them. Khalil, his mother, his father, his little sister and little brother Ashton sat around and dug in.

"Mom, can I borrow some money?" Khalil asked.

"For what?" Loretta asked.

"Borrow some money?" Caleb repeated. "What's this about borrowing money?"

"Daniel and some of my friends are having a party at Splash Island next weekend. It's for Daniel."

Loretta was about to answer, but Caleb raised a hand and cut her off. "There ain't no borrowing money," he said. "Not any more. You gotta earn it. How much is it?"

"I want to go to Splash Island!" Ashton said. "Mom, I want to go!"

"So do I," Alexus added. Caleb held up his hand to shush them.

"Hold on…" Khalil took out his phone and looked up the admission prices. "Fifty bucks."

Caleb, mouth full of gumbo, leaned back in his chair. He swallowed, picked up a napkin and wiped his face.

"Power wash the front sidewalk," he said. "Then the driveway, and the patio in the back. I'll give you fifty bucks for that. Extra if you do all the siding."

"Yes sir," Khalil said.

"Get everything. Get around the posts, under the furniture, everything. I don't want to see any spots."

"Alright."

When they were finished eating, Khalil was about to head back down to his room when his mother stopped him and made him take out the trash. He grabbed the bag, took it out to the garage and chucked it to the trash can. As he was closing the lid, he heard a strange noise behind him so he turned around and froze.

Hovering in the air about five feet off the ground was a flickering fissure of white light. It shimmered and wavered as it grew, making a strange buffeting noise. He watched in shock as it grew brighter and brighter until suddenly, it flashed. This all happened in about three seconds. The light was gone and in its place, a helmet of some sort, made of stone, floated. It looked like the kind of headwear one would see in Roman centurions wore. Veins of blue crystal ran all throughout. As he gawked at the impossible sight, a beam of light, orange and warm shined forth, causing him to flinch. It was shining on him.

When it disappeared, a line of blue light sizzled across the helmet from left to right, dissolving the stone, changing its shape and substance. An object was being revealed beneath the rock, as if some invisible laser was blasting it away to reveal its hidden contents. And that object was…a visor. There was no mistaking that's what it was. It looked like a VR headset, only it was slimmer than any of those available on the market and it was made completely out of polished metal. It looked like somebody poured some mercury into a mold and froze it.

When the transformation was complete, the object hovered for a few more seconds before gently descending to the ground where it came to rest with a "clack!". Khalil did not react at first. His expression remained blank as he continued to stare at the object. But he stepped forward, nudged it with his foot, then bent down to pick it up. It was lighter than it looked, lighter than aluminum. He turned it around in his hand, seeing his distorted reflection in its curves. Then he took it inside and straight down to his room. 

Chapter 4: Alien Tech or Something Else? 

Daniel: Hey you wanna hop on Fortnite?

Daniel: ???

Daniel: You there?

Khalil's phone kept lighting up with text messages from Daniel. He had his phone in his hand and his finger hovering over the text pad to type out a response, but he just kept staring at the metallic visor which he had set on top of the Xbox. His mind was racing, trying to think of an explanation behind its sudden appearance. Aliens? Some secret government technology?

Khalil: yeah i'm here. tired af though. Bout to fall asleep.

Daniel: alright ttyl

He put the phone down, got up, walked over to the visor and picked it up. There were no buttons, no lenses that he could see and no interfaces. The surface was completely smooth and free of any blemishes. It looked fake with how clean it was, like it was produced in CGI or modeled in Blender. But it was real. He was holding it.

He carried it over to his bed and laid down. His reflection distorted and danced in its contours as he turned it around in his hands. Even the temple arms extending from the visor were made of the same glossy metal and they looked like they'd snap off with the slightest pressure. He tried to bend one, but it was completely rigid. It refused to give. He looked inside the visor…nothing. After fiddling with it for a bit, he raised it to his head and was about to try it on when he stopped himself.

Hold on, he thought. This thing just popped up out of nowhere. Should I really be putting this on my face?

Upstairs, the television boomed. His family was watching a movie and the subwoofers vibrated the floor. An explosion just happened onscreen from the sound of it. But downstairs, Khalil just stared at the object in his hands. The reasonable thing would have been to tell somebody about it. That would have been the logical course of action. Instead, he put it over his eyes.

A couple of things happened within the next couple of seconds. When the visor made contact with his face, the temple arms came to life and wrapped around his head, extending well beyond their size, morphing like the T-1000 from Terminator 2. Khalil thrashed and tried to pull it off, but its grip was tight. The second thing that happened was that his vision went dark. He felt a wave of nausea sweep over him as something poured through his mind.

A word appeared in his mind, garbled and alien. It showed up in his vision too, appearing against the darkness, a mish-mash of symbols and glyphs. As he thrashed around and tried to pull the visor off his head, the word coalesced into letters of the alphabet, changing into something more familiar. Letters fell into place as did punctuation. When it was finished, it read the following:

Calibrating…calibrating…calibrating….

Please relax. Calibration is in process. The Helmet of the Avatar is reading you. You will not be harmed.

The message kept repeating again and again, vibrating through Khalil's head. A cold sweat poured down his cheeks. Slowly, but surely, the nausea began to pass. The visor underwent another metamorphosis. It lost its opacity and became transparent.

Khalil could still feel the thing on his face, but he saw straight through it as if the headpiece turned into glass. The words in his mind now floated in front of him, superimposed on reality like a hologram. A new message appeared, rising upward from the floor.

State your name.

Khalil just kept panting and heaving. His chest pounded and he struggled for breath. This thing, whatever it was, it was asking for his name? It was insane. But the words blinked insistently. Upstairs, characters on the television were getting into a heated argument. Gunfire ensued and music rumbled through the ceiling.

State your name, the three words continued to say.

"K-Khalil," Khalil said, his voice was shaking. The words shattered into dust. This thing was listening to him. What the hell? New words arose from the ground, scrolling upwards where they hovered in place.

Champion Khalil. A nation of cruel tyrants dominates a once proud, noble people. Their atrocities are unspeakable and their lore, unmatched. In desperation, the resistance has performed a forbidden ritual to summon a hero. They sent two artifacts into the realms between realms in search of champions. One of those artifacts, the garment you are wearing, found you. You were chosen by its lore.

"What the hell…" Khalil muttered.

A choice lies ahead. Refuse this role and the artifact will find another. Accept the call, and your consciousness will be transferred to an avatar of metallurgy and lore, a powerful construct capable of rending armies. You will remain in your world and you will be present in your world. But you will also be present in their world. You will feel what the avatar feels. You will see what it sees, hear what it hears. It will become a second body. The helmet you wear upon your head will be the bridge between realms. You can leave this avatar whenever you choose. You can rejoin it whenever you choose. Your life here is still your own. Do you accept? Or do you refuse? This relic will remain bonded to you until this question is answered.

His head reeled. He could not think. A bridge between realms? An avatar of metallurgy and lore? He felt the headpiece relax and instead of answering the question, he pulled it off his head and threw it across the room. The words disappeared. After spending a few moments calming himself down, he grabbed a towel and wrapped the headpiece in it. He didn't want to touch it. He took it upstairs and without speaking to anybody, he chucked it into the trash can. He spent the rest of the night trying and failing to get to sleep. He was freaked out.

Khalil spent the next day pretending nothing out of the ordinary happened. He avoided looking into the trash can. Heck, he avoided going into the garage. His father rolled the garbage cans out onto the street that morning, shortly before the garbage truck came by to pick it up.

Am I overreacting? Khalil thought. Then he shook his head.

"Nope," he said, remembering how the thing grabbed his head. "Nope, just…nope."

"What are you saying 'nope' for?" his sister asked. She was chilling on the couch reading one of her mangas.

"Nothing," Khalil said.

He slipped on his durag, went outside and spent most of the day power washing the sidewalks, patios, and siding. But no matter how hard he worked, the words kept appearing in his mind. Do you accept? Or do you refuse? What did it mean when it said it was a bridge between realms? It had to be some form of augmented reality, right?

Dirt and chaff blasted against his legs as he power washed the sidewalk and siding. When he was finished, he had his father come out and inspect the work. Caleb's jaw dropped.

"Oh my god…" he said, checking under every piece of furniture. He was in a far better mood today than he was yesterday. "Oh my god…" he kept saying in an exaggerated tone. "You cleaned the hell out of everything. Oh my god…" He nodded his head in satisfaction. "All right, a deal's a deal." He opened his wallet and riffled through some twenties until he counted out a hundred dollars in cash and handed them to Khalil.

"Sweet…" Khalil said, putting them in his pocket.

"Whoa…" A voice said from behind. Khalil turned and saw Daniel standing in the driveway. "Man that looks brand new!"

"You got dirt all over your legs," Caleb said to his son. "Dinner's almost ready." He turned to Daniel. "Danny, you eaten yet?"

"No sir, Mr. Anthony. Well, I had some ramen noodles but that's it."

"Ramen noodles?" Caleb asked. "Aw man, are your parents starving you? Well you're welcome to join us and get some real food. I've got a brisket smoking out back and we got lots of it to go around."

It was an offer Daniel could not turn down. Khalil's stomach was already rumbling at the smell of it. He went inside, took a quick shower and they all ate dinner. Loretta kept asking questions about Daniel's new home, if they've seen pictures of it yet. Khalil tried to remain present, but his mind kept drifting back to that strange headpiece.

"Hey, you all right?" Daniel asked after cleanup.

"Yeah man, I'm fine. Just tired, is all."

Afterwards, they went outside to shoot a few hoops, then Daniel headed home for the night. Khalil thought about telling him what happened, but he didn't even know how. When he went down to his room, he was dismayed to find the headpiece on his bed.

That was impossible! He had thrown it into the garbage can. He had watched the garbage truck pick it up and take it away! Yet here it was, resting on his covers. He picked it up, put it on his head and saw that the same prompt as before floated in the air before him. He took it back upstairs and threw it into the trash can for a second time.

But when he went back downstairs, it had reappeared on his bed. He tried this several more times only to have the same result. The headpiece always reappeared on his bed. He even set up his cell phone to record it. A flash of light would appear just above his covers and drop the headpiece.

Curious, but wary, he put the headpiece on. The choice still floated in front of him.

Do you accept? Or do you refuse?

Khalil stared at them. And without thinking, he gave the answer out loud. "I…accept?"

The question flashed briefly, then disappeared.