(Alpha) You Might Miss It | Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hello everyone! On the side I have been fiddling around with You Might Miss It at a snail's pace, whipping up a loose outline and yada yada yada. Anyway, I finally got around to whipping up a rough-as-guts full first chapter to explore the three main characters a little. As you are my wonderful Patrons, you get to have a gander at some in-progress stuff. As usual, everything is subject to change. For those that need a reminder, YMMI is going to be my take on a little superhero story.

Eddy

Abbreviations are profoundly ridiculous. A pair of heavy eyelids blinked as they processed the thought. The discounted energy drink propping them open had long since run dry, putting Eddy in the unenviable position of deciding between another hit of caffeine or a regular heartbeat. Eddy, full name Edward, fished his phone from the depths of a cargo pants pocket. As the cracked screen flickered into illumination, it displayed the current military time in all its soul-crushing glory. 

02:17

Technically, employees were supposed to leave their mobile phones in the back-of-house lockers. Occasionally, a new manager would attempt to enforce the policy. They were always quick to relent. Working the nightshift came with few perks, but a disconnect from the daytime staff was one of them. So long as the work was done, people left you alone. 

A familiar, repetitive tone blared from the point-of-sale computer. With a quick flourish of practiced, pudgy fingers, Eddy authorized gas pump number nine. He spared a glance to the forecourt where an off-red station wagon was being filled up by some bearded guy wearing a high-visibility vest. 

Hi-Vis vests, another abbreviation, Eddy, full name Edward, thought dryly. 

The reminder pulled his thoughts back to the recently restocked aisles of rudimentary snacks and foodstuffs. It was the instant soup sachets. Tired minds pulled on words with repetition until they lost all meaning, the cognitive death throes of linguistic comprehension.  

Occasionally, teetering on the edge of oblivion can inspire profound thoughts. 

Soups sounds like Supes. 

Usually, it is a recipe for nonsense. 

The Iron Mask had made headlines again, so Eddy had Supes on the brain. After unpacking the newspaper delivery earlier that morning, it was hard not to. The up and coming telekinetic hero was the flavor of the month, and Eddy could see why. Evidently some guy had a spontaneous Awakening and decided to play vigilante while wearing a welding helmet and navy coveralls.

“Fuckin’ chicken noodle supes,” Eddy joked to himself with a chuckle. A flicker from one of the white, fluorescent lights echoed the sentiment in a demonstration of sad serendipity. The automatic doors to the Fill-n-Go hummed as they opened and a pair of dirty boots trudged onto the freshly mopped tiles. 

Yeah… that seems about right, Eddy concluded. As he lifted his head to greet the customer, he was met by the barrel of a pistol and the distinctive sound of someone cocking it. So does that.   

“Give me everything you have in the-” 

Eddy didn’t remember blinking, but it felt like he must have. He’d barely had time to process the situation before everything changed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been held at gunpoint, and it had been on track to follow the usual script. The man’s voice carried the ghosts of a thousand unfiltered cigarettes. Behind the pistol, a pair of bloodshot eyes were wide with adrenaline. A hint of fluorescent fabric identified them as the man who’d been filling up at gas pump number nine. There was something ballsy about filling up the getaway vehicle at the place you intended to rob. 

Eddy had come to pity the people who felt desperate enough to rob a service station that carried less than $100 in the cash float. A large sign by the door advertised the fact in what was evidently a poor attempt at deterrence. Eddy usually just gave them what they wanted and threw in a carton of cigarettes for good measure. Saving his employer the insurance hassles was not worth risking his life over. 

All of those considerations were, ultimately, meaningless. 

In an instant, the gunman vanished. One moment they were there, the next, they simply were not. Eddy did blink, then, if only to try and make sure he wasn’t losing his mind. A quick glance outside revealed the off-red station wagon was still parked by the pump. 

Another blink, another change. Taped to the window was a sheet of paper bearing a message written in black sharpie. 

Your life has been saved by the ‘The Blur’. I wish to talk with you, Eddy. Please meet me outside in the spot where you like to smoke. 

“Oh yeah, like that’s not ominous.”

Beth

Okay, this email is definitely only addressed to Principal Wallace. I have CC’d admin. The attached spreadsheet contains the correct grades. Everything is as it should be. It was the fourth time in just as many minutes that Beth ran through her email checklist. School was out. There weren’t any scheduled staff meetings, so most of the teaching staff had already gone home for the day. 

For Beth, or rather, Ms. Quint, that meant she had the English faculty office all to herself. A line of plush animals stood guard over her desk and kept her company while she worked through a few stacks of short story drafts that needed marking. A tray full of stamps, stickers and colorful pens were her trusted tools of the trade and she applied them liberally, making sure to leave personalized feedback for each student.    

Some students grumbled at her insistence that every other piece of writing they submit be hand-written, citing that ‘highschoolers should just use computers,’ but she remained adamant. Most of them came around, eventually. Most. 

An email alert on her computer informed her that some grades needed to be resubmitted to the system, hence the sudden bout of decision paralysis. It should have been easy to click ‘send’ and not meander around the issue for almost ten minutes. Instead, Beth found herself falling into the usual song and dance. Every. Single. Time. 

You can do this. One. Two. Three. Send!

Her hand remained motionless wrapped around the mouse. 

One. Two. Three. Send! 

An audible click signaled that the email had been sent off into the void. 

A deep sigh of relief escaped Beth’s lips. Fingers interlocked with dark red hair as she leaned back and groaned.

“Now, just to check the outbox to confirm that-”

“Ms. Q?” 

An uncertain voice called out from the doorway, and immediately Beth was back into teacher-mode. The outbox could wait until later. She spun in her chair to greet the newcomer. 

“Hello, Alice. You’re here late today. What can I do for you?” It wasn’t uncommon for students to seek her out after school hours, but that normally happened earlier in the afternoon.  

Alice was one of Beth’s seniors that year, a softly spoken young woman with a fondness for the color black and songs about angst.   

“If it’s too late I can-” 

“Nonsense, you know my door is always open.” With a quick push, Beth sent her wheelie chair scooting across the office so that she could wrangle a chair for her student. “Is this a take a seat kind of chat or something quick?” Teachers weren’t supposed to have favorites, but realistically it was inevitable that it happened. Alice was one of Beth’s. Back in a bygone era, Beth had considered herself somewhat of a goth, too. It was a solidarity thing. 

A bygone era. I’m not even thirty yet. She just felt that way sometimes, by comparison if anything. To her students, she may as well have been fifty.

“I’ll stay standing if that’s okay?” Alice was standing with one arm hanging downwards and her left hand holding her right elbow. Textbook closed-off body language. 

“That’s fine.” Beth spoke with her normal, friendly tone. Suddenly speaking to Alice like she was a frightened baby deer would send the wrong message. Teenagers were funny like that. 

There was a long stretch of silence. Beth just waited patiently while Alice fidgeted in the doorway. 

“You always say we can come to you with anything, right?” 

Beth smiled softly. 

“Of course. I might not always be able to help myself, but you are always allowed to confide in me.” Most of the time she could keep a student’s confidence with a few obvious exceptions. 

Alice still hesitated. It looked like she was going to say something, but she caught herself. 

“I’m sorry, I- I’ve gotta go.” 

“Are you sure? You..” Beth trailed off, because Alice had already left. With a quick bounce, she hopped to her feet and scurried to the doorway to stick her head into the hall. “Alice, you can- huh. Girl must have ran.” There was no sign of Alice, so Beth just shrugged and went back into her office. 

She’ll talk when she’s ready. Beth could only hope it would happen sooner rather than later.  

Charlie 

Charlie was pacing around the apartment, counting out each step in his head in sets of seven while simultaneously maintaining an internal monologue. 

I see the framed ticket stubs on the hallway wall. I smell the burned frozen pizza that I accidentally charred to a crisp. An old girlfriend had once told him some crap about focusing on sensory input to prevent panic. After hours of effort, he’d begun to worry it might have only been useful for lady-crazy instead of whatever he was feeling. 

I feel hungry. I hear-

Keys jingled from behind the front door, immediately demanding his attention. 

“Thank fuck!” 

Charlie watched as his roommate trudged into their living room. Teddy’s originally white jacket was stained with gravy and some kind of orange gunk; probably a puree. Fortunately, the line cook kept several identical jackets neatly organized in his closet. Laundry was a once-a-week problem for him that way. 

In Teddy’s spare hand, a small plastic bag dangled haphazardly, loaded with Chinese takeout from the place down the street. Considering Teddy’s talent in the kitchen, his diet was surprisingly trashy. 

Charlie knew his roommate’s capacity for bullshit plummeted in the hours following the dinner rush, but circumstances dictated he throw caution to the wind. 

“Teddy! We have to talk, bro.” The man in question had taken barely two steps into the apartment. Behind his ear, a cigarette was perched. Chinese food, tobacco and liquor made for a killer post-work treat, or so Teddy insisted. Most of his friends who actually gave more than a single fuck tended to agree that it was killer, but in a totally different way.  

“Clench up and hold on to your shit. I literally just got home.” Teddy kicked his shoes off mid-stride and sent them sailing into the apartment. Even without the shoes, he still stood a good half-head taller than Charlie. 

“No. Just shut the fuck for a second. This is important.” Charlie’s hands were twitching while he spoke, but he kept his elbows pinned to his sides like an erratic t-rex. 

Teddy ignored the outburst and set his bag of Chinese food down on the counter. A pile of unwashed dishes towered out of the sink. When he saw them, he just sighed wearily and pushed his bangs off to one side. He’d long since removed the hairnet the restaurant made him wear to keep his dirty blonde hair at bay. 

“Hello?! Teddy!” Charlie had started scratching at his beard, a dark, wiry thing. “Helloooooo! Earth to-” 

“FUCKING WHAT, CHARLIE?” 

“OH, WE’RE YELLING NOW?!” 

“EVIDENTLY!” 

With every outburst the pair took a step towards each other. Chests were puffed, bloodshot eyes were widened, and within moments they were in each other’s faces. 

“YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT’S UP?” 

“NOT REALLY, BUT I BET YOU’LL-” 

“THIS IS WHAT’S UP MOTHERFUCKER!” Charlie swung his arm around, causing Teddy to tense as if he were expecting a blow. The blow never came. Instead, Charlie held his hand palm up and shuddered, his face adopting a look of intense focus.

“Charlie, what are you-”

SQUELCH. 

A sloshing, slithering, burst of wetness splattered the kitchen as a hand burst out of Charlie’s palm. Then a wrist. Then a forearm. It stopped at the elbow, which remained attached to Charlie’s hand via a puckered mass of flesh.

Charlie was breathing heavily. Teddy slowly raised a hand, his eyes wide with horror as he wiped a globule of clear mucus off the side of his face. 

“Dude... you-” Teddy cut off with a gag. The gunk smelled awful, like bad dairy smeared on an unwashed armpit. 

Charlie was panting while the extra limb sprouting from his palm clenched its fist a few times. He looked positively manic. 

“That’s right, man. I Awakened!”