Just what in the world is Alice doing up on that stage? Jackie wondered.
As if to answer his questions, the Wizard explained, "These boys and girls were just like you. Lost and alone, with no one totally to about their . . . special condition, being able to see things, creatures no one else can. But then, again, like you, they found the Gathering and answered its call. And they were inspired to join me in my mission to create a better world for all of us, for people like us, working tirelessly day in and day out to master everything that I have taught them. They all put in a hundred, TWO HUNDRED percent into their studies. And their hard work paid off, for I have recognized them as the most talented, the most exemplary, the most powerful of all my students. These seven extraordinary youths, ladies and gentlemen, have earned themselves their rightful place by my side. Please, everyone, give a round of applause to my . . . Acolytes!"
Everyone clapped. The Wizard clapped. The Acolytes clapped. Taylor and the other apparently lower-ranked members of the Gathering clapped. And the audience all clapped and cheered. Everyone, that is except for Jackie who was in denial.
There's no way, he thought. There's just no way. There's no way in Hell that Alice, his friend Alice, would join a shady group of kidnappers and work for a guy calling himself, of all things, a wizard.
But try as he might, he could not deny what he was seeing before his very eyes.
Maybe she was brainwashed. Maybe she's being blackmailed. There must be something else going on making her stand up on that stage.
These suppositions running in his head, that he was forcing himself to consider were not enough to convince himself. Because in truth, the answer was right in his face.
It was obvious to him why Alice, why any of these people around him had fallen for the Wizard's words. Every word of his had rung true.
Living in fear of monsters only she could see. Suffering contempt and ridicule by people who didn't understand her. Not fitting in with or belonging anywhere she went. Alice had gone through all of that because of her eyes. Jackie knew because he was there. Always there, but never able to successfully do anything about it, try as he might.
It was no wonder she ran away. At least here, she no longer had to be alone. Because here was someone, lots of someones who were just like her, who could see the things she saw and suffered the way she had suffered. They would understand her better than anyone. Better, even, than Jackie himself.
Aloud, he thought, "I was wrong this whole time. Alice was never in trouble. She didn't need me to come find her or rescue her. She just found the place she could feel like she belonged. Everyone here did."
There was nothing else for him to do here if Alice was with the Gathering of her own volition. All Jackie wanted for his friend was for her to have a happy life. If that is what the Gathering could give her, so be it.
He turned his back to the stage. "I guess all that's left for me is to just leave."
Jackie took a step towards the exit. Then stopped.
"Yeah right!"
He hadn't forgotten that the Gathering had tried to unalive him a couple of days ago, or what Zak told him about plans that Jackie felt, honestly with a little bit of bias, were not good.
"No way I'm leaving her with a bunch of shady, homicidal, monster-controlling maniacs!"
So Jackie stuck around, waiting for the perfect chance to get his friend away from that crazy Wizard who continued his speech.
"I know I said it once already, but I'll say it again: it is amazing how many new faces we have here. With this many people, we don't have to wait for the next phase anymore. We can get started on it right away."
"Next phase, huh?" Jackie muttered under his breath. "Must be about what Zak was talking about before, the big guy's plans."
"Oh!" went the Wizard. "I can see it in your eyes. Some of you are wondering what the heck I'm talking about. What is this about a next phase? Well, let me tell you.
"As I mentioned earlier, I am trying to create a better world for all of us. But in order to do that, we must first do something about the people who have hurt us. I'm talking about the people who've rejected us, who've pushed us down and insulted us just because we are different from them. I say, 'us' and 'we' because I've also been bullied for being different. I was even betrayed by people I thought were my allies, my so-called friends who joined the bullies into bullying me. And who are still, to this day, bullying me. Well, I say no more!
"So I've devised a plan. I call it, the Ritual. With the Ritual, we will get back at those bullies, to make sure they never hurt us again. But what do you think, all of you? Tell me, is it high time they all know what it's like for us?"
There were a few scattered, "Yeah!"
"Tell me, is it high time they get a taste of their own medicine?" The Wizard's volume elevated,
"Yeah!" The number of voices grew.
"Is it high time we have our REVENGE?"
"YEAH!"
"Then let this day be known as the start of a new age! Let us begin the age . . . OF THE WIZARD!"
Once more the audience erupted in cheers. But not everyone was cheering. Among the dozens and dozens of men and women, boys and girls, a small minority wore uneasy looks on their faces. Jackie, chief among them.
But he had no way of knowing at the time that there were others like him in the room who had doubts that this Ritual of the Wizard's was a good thing. That there were others who noticed a lot of bad things in the Wizard's speech. Jackie was too focused on one thing: reaching Alice.
He quietly slipped through gaps between people while keeping his head ducked down low. Alice was closest to the right side of the room from Jackie's perspective, so he headed around that way. But that turned out to be a mistake, a very big one, because as soon as he pushed his head out of the crowd, he found himself face to face with Taylor.
Taylor stared at him, and he stared at Taylor. His back broke out with nervous sweat with his heart beating so hard that he could feel it in his ears.
Calm down, Jackie, he told himself. Calm down. You're in disguise, remember? Got a baseball cap covering your hair and those really shiny mirror-like sunglasses covering your eyes. There's no way she recognizes you. Right?
Wrong. Taylor's eyes were wide with surprise at first. But slowly, those eyes shrunk into a fierce glare. Right then and there, Jackie knew that he was in trouble. He turned to run to Alice, but it was too late.
"SECURITY!"
History repeated itself. Something invisible grabbed Jackie by the back of his shirt and lifted him high into the air. He squirmed and kicked, and swung himself side to side, but nothing he did worked to free him from the monster's grasp. What was freed was the baseball cap which flew off his head and the sunglasses which slipped off his face and landed on the hard surface floor with a clatter.
Everyone was startled by Taylor's cry and turned to see what was going on. So many eyes were on Jackie that it made him feel very self-conscious. He even got a spotlight shining on him.
Sheepishly, he smiled and meekly said to the crowd, "Hi."
Naturally, the people up on stage were also looking at him. When Jackie glanced up, he saw Alice staring back at him. She was surprisingly cool-faced, as if sapped of all emotions. Zak, however, couldn't have looked more shocked to see again the guy he tried to unalive before. His jaw dropped to the floor, leaving his mouth stuck in the shape of a big O.
Jackie thought about calling out to Alice, but decided instead to hold his tongue, fearing he would compromise her safety. He reluctantly tore his gaze away from his friend and held it on the Wizard who had quickly recovered from his own surprise and regained his composure.
"Ahem! Well, well, well. Looks like we got ourselves an uninvited guest."
Keeping up a jovial attitude, the Wizard jumped straight off the stage and sauntered over to Jackie. Out of reverence, everyone shuffled back to give their top leader ample move to room. He also had a spotlight follow him until it merged with the light already on Jackie.
After a look at Jackie's left, and then at Jackie's right, the Wizard took a step back. He kept sharp eyes on Jackie as he lifted the microphone to his mouth.
"Jackie, right?" the Wizard asked.
Jackie numbly nodded.
The Wizard flashed him a grin. "I've heard a lot about you."
Suddenly, his face was an inch from Jackie's, blue eyes locked on brown ones. Jackie could feel and smell the Wizard's breath on his nose. It was, thankfully, refreshingly minty.
"Tell me, Jackie, can you see what I can see?"
Jackie swallowed. "Depends on what you're seeing."
"How about that thing behind, the one holding you by your jacket."
Jackie craned his neck and looked back. "No."
"The thing standing behind my Acolytes?"
"No."
"I see." The Wizard finally pulled away. "I see. I see. I see. So you can't see the monsters. You don't have the same kind of eyes as us. But then that leaves us with a great big question. How did you find us?"
Before Jackie even knew what he was doing, he confessed his activities.
"I looked up pictures of the Gathering online, picked out people who were likely to go to the meeting, figured out where one of them lived and then staked out his house before following him here. I always knew invisible monsters were real and figured there'd be a few guarding the door. I acted like I could see them and tricked them into letting me inside."
There was just one thing the Wizard could say to that. "Wow."
He turned to the crowd. "Can you believe this?"
The Gathering stood motionless and quiet. He didn't wait for any answer.
"I gotta say, I'm impressed. Even though you clearly got no special powers to speak of, like at all, you managed to overcome every magical trick I could pull to hide and protect my family and get yourself smack dab in the middle of our haven. And I heard you even cost me two of my pets."
Murmurs burst and carried on.
"You see, ladies and gentlemen?" said the Wizard, causing the murmuring to stop. "This just proves how far our enemies are willing to go to find us. To hunt us down and hurt us."
Jackie instantly tried to argue back. He wanted to tell them all that the Wizard was wrong, that he wasn't out to hunt anyone down and that he certainly didn't want to hurt anyone. But the moment he tried to open his mouth, to his horror, he found his lips stuck together.
He tried again and again to pry them open, but they would not part to let him speak. And then he saw the Wizard grinning at him and realized that the tricky villain must have done something to him. It probably happened when he got so close and personal to Jackie., likely through those vividly blue eyes of his. Worse still, the Wizard was using Jackie to further rile everyone up into joining his nefarious cause.
Jackie became all the more desperate to speak and get his side of the story to everyone, but it was no use. All his efforts garnered was an even bigger and more malicious smile on the Wizard's face. Meanwhile, the people Jackie tried to defend himself to all glared at him with eyes full of hate. It really hurt.
Although dreading to see the same thing on his friend's face, Jackie turned his gaze to her. He was relieved at first to find no change to her non-expressive face only to feel hurt seconds later by that same coldness when it crossed his mind that perhaps this was how she treated people she perceived as the enemy.
The Wizard, noticing Jackie's gaze on one of his Acolytes, his newest Acolyte, had his biggest smile yet and he strolled back onto the stage. He stopped beside Alice and flashed another smile at Jackie, who was visibly alarmed.
"Tell me, my newest Acolyte, do you know this guy?" The Wizard held the microphone out to Alice, who nodded and answered in a soft, almost whispery voice, "I do."
"And how do you know this guy?" the Wizard asked.
"We were classmates since elementary school. We hung out together a lot."
"So you were friends," said the Wizard. He flashed Jackie another wicked grin, and then asked, "Do you still feel that way now?"
Jackie's stomach clenched. He could tell what the Wizard was trying to do and steeled his heart for the barbs that would pierce it.
But against both his and the Wizard's expectations, Alice answered, "Yes."
The Wizard's smile instantly flipped into a frown and turned with a start. Alice, however, continued to stare ahead unabashed, without showing any feeling at all really.
"WHY," he spat sharply, "did you say, yes?"
"He was always nice to me," Alice said, eyes glued to the crowd. "He never judged me for my eyes and even tried protecting me."
Jackie felt elated.
"Though I never asked for it and frankly found it annoying."
Jackie's elation deflated.
"Still, I do not believe he will ever hurt us or ever want to. I think he would actually do everything he could to try and help us. He is simply too kind."
The crowd started murmuring again, doubts swirling in their minds, and the corners of the Wizard's mouth stretched further down. Jackie, however, couldn't help but feel touched by the things Alice said.
And then Alice turned to look straight into the Wizard's eyes and said, "But that is exactly why he is our enemy."
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